Reading opened the doors of the world for me and took me to places and people. The few books that inhabited my mother's house and the large collections that filled the shelves of the Community Library of Memba functioned like the cockpit of an airplane that took me to the destinations of my curiosity.
The atlases, encyclopedias, and anthologies made me familiar with the corners of an Egypt, a Greece, a Rome, a Zimbabwe, or a Congo. I sailed through the waters of the Nile, Zambezi, and Euphrates and felt the mazes of a walk in the Amazon, Australia, or Gorongosa.
I conversed with friends who lived in distant places and times, listened to their ideas, they presented me with their scientific discoveries, and let me keep their stories, songs, and poems.
It was the books that defined my destiny, turning me into a wanderer who pilgrimages through the world in an imaginary way in search of answers to complex questions without ever convincing themselves that there is wisdom to heal all the world's wounds.
Reading became my therapy against boredom, the remedy against anger, and my punching bag in moments of anguish.
When all seems lost, reading is that beat of Kanda Bongo Man's music that we dance to desperately in December 1999 when we thought the world was going to end.Reading postpones the end of the world.
Jessemusse Cacinda
Coimbra, 23-04-2024
