Portugal Then
and Now
The letters page of our local newspaper is full of moans again. I guess
it is to be expected. Someone goes to complain that his electric bill
is incorrect. It takes him a whole day of queueing to see someone.
There is a queue to see a lady at the front, who then gives you a
different queue ticket to see someone else, and the queues reach into
the street. It's the sort of thing you expect in a third world country,
and the way round it is to pay one of the peasants to sit in the queue
for you. The problem with Portugal is that no-one wants to earn any
money doing that.
The electricity supply is not good. It usually goes down about twice a
week. It's down at the moment, so I am reduced to working off the
electricity supply from my car battery. So my office has moved to one
of cars sitting in the garden, but of course I have no internet
connection, and as I get my water from a well, there is no water supply
either. It's just as well I'm not a tea and coffee addict.
Nothing has changed. Portugal has always been like this, and I honestly
believe it always will be. There are several go-ahead folks in the
country. There are a lot of really nice people around, but the problem
is they are out-numbered.
I first came to Portugal in the early sixties. I friend of mine was
having a house built in the Algarve. He reckoned it would take him two
days from Lisbon to get to his plot. I stopped in Lisbon. At breakfast
time the town looked as if it was in the depths of siesta time. Mid
morning was the same. I tried several hotels, and every one seemed to
have no-one on duty. At least no-one answered my bell ringing or
shouting. The banks were mostly closed. I eventually found one that was
open and tried to change some money. After a forty-five minute wait
when nothing happened, and there were no other customers, I demanded my
sterling back and left. When I asked what was the problem I got the
Portuguese national reply, a shrug of the shoulders. At lunch time I
tried to get something to eat. The restaurants were filthy beyond
belief, so I went without.
Most of the time it looked as if the town had been deserted, and I
decided to leave. I still have the currency rates from the bank. You
may be interested to know there were 63 escudos to the £. Forty
years later the rate was 315 to the £. I think that says it all.
The real problem is that Portugal does not sit comfortably in the
twenty-first century EU dominated Europe. There is no reason why it
should. It is different, and we aren't going to change it. I once
thought change was possible, I dont any more, and I think Portugal will
slide inexorably back into the middle ages.
The country has never been able to compete with the outside world. It
prefers to sleep and dream, and do remember, many folks came here
precisely because that appeals to them. Those Portuguese who want to
join the rat-race world hate how Portugal drags it's collective feet as
much as some of us do, but the rest dont want to know.
The only sensible way to resolve things is for Portugal to go back to
the escudo, and every time the country goes broke (about every four or
five years) devalue the currency, which is how they've managed to get
along for the last hundred years or so.
john clare
john