It wasn’t until later that we met the author and driver behind those decorations. Helena Fernandes, born in Sobral Fernando, a woman with catching strength and irreverence, matched only by the strength of the Ocreza tearing through the landscape at the southern end of the village.

Helena was born and lived there until she was 10. In that village stuck between two rivers, close to the Portas de Almourão, a geological event similar to the Portas de Rodão and with a view to the mouth of the Cobrão, the village on the north bank of the river, in the municipality of Vila-Velha de Ródão. The river is a staple of the stories of the people of Sobral Fernando. When Helena talked about playing on the banks, the glint in her eyes transported us back to a time wheh children would go to the river alone to swim and catch fish. “the older kids would say: in order to swim faster you need to swallow fish alive! We’d cup our hands and swallow those tiny river fish in one gulp.”

 The family wanted to fight against the legacy of the hardship of filedwork, so the little girl of 10 moved to her uncle and aunt’s place in Lisbon, in order to study and become a teacher. Helena is sparese about the tumbles and falls, but it’s easy to imagine the impact of her fiery spirit with the hurdles of the capital city. She got her degree at the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon and taught arts. An artist, mother of three girls and proudly independant, Helena goes back to Sobral Fernando in 2009, aware that it’s the way you travel that allows you to enjoy the trip.

In Sobral she runs to local housing establishments, turns the old hayloft of Ti Diamantino into her home and workshop, here she creates tapestries inspired by Beira Baixa, she does oil, acrylic and charcoal paintings and does pottery. In love with this little “slice of heaven”, her actions went beyond the walls of her home and down the road, onto the small squares and to the most popular meeting point in the village: the community oven. People say one thing leads to another and Helena’s will spread to the whole village. The value of the landscape reflects the will of its people and it’s amazing to realize that one person’s desire to improve their space led other to look around and come together to jointly care for their village. This may be the true sense of community, something that is so particular here in Sobral and so hard to put down in words.

In Cunqueiros the creek winds its way between the old homesteads made of shale and in the summer, the sight of the creek and the lemon trees is a soothing refreshment for the soul. The younger ones tell of playing around the wells, the older ones recall the cut lumber going down the river to the sawmill and other still remember the old shale bridge and the canal where women washed clothes. Nowadays, the city folk have a hard time imagining the feeling of hands in cold water, the texture of soaked fabric against the fingers, the bent bodies, the wrinkled skin… it’s an image kept in old black and white films.

The houses are very old and we’d be forgiven for expecting them to be run-down, but this is not the way of Cunqueiros. Every time we visit we see this may well be the birthplace of the concepts of resistance and resilience. Eduardo Brejo is living proof of that. His story shows it and reflects the history of a region marked by the exploitation of the pine forest.

Eduardo was born in the village in 1957. He never saw the sawmill running, but he still recalls his childhood when “everyone extracted resin from the pine trees”. At age 12 he went into the business to help his father. He’d work all summer long. In Eduardo’s words “resin was hard work, but it paid… it paid the rent.”. people would lease the pine trees from people who emigrated abroad. Business was booming, not just in Proença-a-Nova, but also in the neighbouring municipalities. The pine forest generated wealth and it thrived. To extract resin, trees would have to be wider than 20cm in diameter and for that to happen the forest had to be clean and maintained. Eduardo recalls the state inspectors ensuring the land was properly exploited.

In the 80s things changed again. Resin was no longer steady money and people started selling pine wood. In 1982 he started working for Sotima in Proença-a-Nova. A wood shavings factory that employed local people and was the driver of the local economy. The pine forest moulded by resin extraction, soon turned into a sprawling forest that brought wealth to the region because, in order to produce wood shavings pine trees needn’t be big, as all wood was used.

Sotima shut down in 2002 and Eduardo emigrated to France, where he worked in a tree nursery. He went back to Cunqueiros in 2018 and devoted humself to olive trees and other fruit frees until, discouraged by the latest bushfire of 2020, he turned his back on the forest. However, Eduardo Brejo still lives there, by the river, just by one of the prettiest accesses to the old irrigation channels. Tough as nails, he smiles as he says “I grew up around here. We know these channels, these people. This is where we feel happy.”.

The river, whether protagonist or a side character, was in almost every story. It was easy to ravel back in time with José Dias to tougher times, where he joined the “little mice” and went to Alentejo to work the fields. We took a trip on the barge with him and hear the people on the other bank of the river asking the people of Sobral to tend to their cattle while the river was high.

Towards the end, going back to the olive grove, with a belly full tasty stories that José Dias told us the one we could not forget. His voice was vibrant and there was a glint in his eyes and all of a sudden it was night time and back to his younger days. Close to the river, small lights inexplicably hopped around amidst the rocks and up the hills, the Medos.

He told us of a little girl by the river who tried to grab one of those lights to her mother’s horror. From the other bank her father shouted at her not to touch them, that they wouldn’t hurt them and so it was. The lights went up the mountain until they were out of sight. The Medos are part of the memories of the older villagers. José himself has a story about the Medos when he was a child, at night on the way to the mill with his father.

The more sceptical among you will try to explain this with hard facts about the isolated river and the depth of the valley, where the sound of water, wind or animals carried and could be fodder for young and suggestible minds. Others will say that in the absence of electricity or tv people devoted their time playing pranks on others.

But looking into José Dias’ assured eyes there can be no doubt: “you don’t believe the medos!? Ah! But I saw them!”.