Voices of Guinea-Bissau - An Oral History Project

VOICES OF GUINEA-BISSAU - AN ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

"MORANÇAS - TRADITIONAL HABITATS OF GUINEA-BISSAU" THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY AND SCIENCE

VOICES OF GUINEA-BISSAU PURPOSE "Voices of Guinea-Bissau" is an initiative launched by the Diversity and Inclusion Project at the National Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC) in Lisbon, Portugal. The project aims to create a space that both includes and highlights the voices of individuals who are connected to the exhibition Moranรงas: Traditional habitats of Guinea-Bissau. Incorporating the narratives of people who have first-hand experiences of living in Guinea-Bissau creates a link between the exhibition, which showcases images taken in 1959, and the present. These stories provide invaluable knowledge that matter and live on through generational oral histories. This project serves to enhance and contextualize the images represented in this exhibition. That is, these are not stagnant moments in time, rather, they are the traditions of a people that are consistently evolving, changing, and adapting to an increasingly globalized world.

This project formed out of a recent call to decolonize museum spaces. "Voices of Guinea-Bissau" aims to incorporate the narratives of individuals who are connected to the exhibition through shared experience, whether personal or ancestral.a If you have any comments, questions, or concerns please feel free to reach out. The practice of decolonizing museum spaces is an evolving process of learning that must involve the community.

In recognition of this, we invite you to remain critical and empathetic in your path to learning.

HOW DOES IT WORK? PROCESS The National Museum of Natural History and Science entered into a collaboration with the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) to carry out the project. We worked with a group of 16 immigrant women from Guinea-Bissau. Upon visiting the exhibition, many of the women were drawn to images they felt were most relevant to their lived experiences. From there, five women volunteered to continue working on the project. Based on availability and time, we conducted two group interviews. The women were shown the images they had marked as most relevant and encouraged to talk about their connection to them. After which, we worked together to choose quotes from the transcript to include alongside the images in the exhibition.

In this booklet, you will find the head shots and biographies of the narrators, the images from the exhibition they chose, and the quotes they thought best exemplified their experience. We wanted to include their pictures and biographies to emphasize the idea that they are living, working women, now living in Lisbon, Portugal.

As you walk through the exhibition and see the images, we encourage you to take a moment and reflect on the following questions: How can we use the past as a tool to understand the present?

How can an exhibition like this one aid or deter you in the process of understanding a reality outside your own?

What role do we play as observers of these images?

How does it feel to see an image with a quote vs. an image without a quote?

PARTICIPANTS NARRATORS

EPIFÂNIA JOÃO NABILIBA

HELENA PEREIRA DAS NEVES BIAGUÊ

I'm Epifânia João Nabiliba, I'm 31 years old and I'm single. I have a four-year-old daughter, I'm here in Portugal in the Queluz neighborhood. I am training to work in School Canteens at JRS. I studied up to the 11th grade in Bissau and worked as a cashier at a company called Ponto Fresco. I came to Portugal for medical treatment. I've been here for three months. I hope everything goes well with me and my daughter so that I can return to my land, Guinea-Bissau. Thank you JRS for the opportunity you give us.

I'm Helena Pereira das Neves Biaguê, I'm 46 years old and I was born in Guinea-Bissau. My mother was also born in Guinea-Bissau and my father too. I have two younger brothers. I have five children, three girls and two boys, who are in Guinea with my husband. I am a teacher, graduated in mathematics, and placed in public and private school. I have been in Portugal for 10 months for medical reasons.

I'm Maria Amélia Carvalho D`Alvarenga, Guinean. I was born in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau in 1985. I arrived in Portugal on March 29, 2019. I'm an accounting technician. I worked at the Madrugada clinic in Bissau from 2011 to 2019, as a receptionist and in 2016 as an accountant. I have a seven-year-old son, Alym, and we have lived together with his father for nine years.

Because of my health I came to treat anemia that has lasted for more than two years.

MARIA AMÉLIA CARVALHO D`ALVARENGA

PARTICIPANTS NARRATORS

NITA JULIO CABRI

TERESA Cร

My name is Nita Julia Cabri, I was born on March 25, 1975 in Guinea-Bissau. I'm Guinean. I have three children, two girls and a 13-year-old boy. They live in Senegal (Ziguizar). I'm single, I've been here in Portugal because of my health, for six months now. I am undergoing training in the care of the elderly to be able to have a diploma and to get a job in Portugal. Now I am doing an internship at a home and, after receiving my diploma, I will look for a job and continue my life here in Portugal.

I'm Teresa Cรก, born on April 4, 1971, Guinean. I have lived in Portugal for 26 years. I came with my bosses to work as a domestic maid. I was once married and now I am a widow. I am no longer working as a maid. I am renting my house and I am taking the caregiver course at JRS to be able to work in homes or hospitals. I have also taken the Hotel Management course as a barmaid in my native land, Guinea-Bissau. In Portugal, I have also taken a Marketing course - sales technique, but I never practiced the profession. Now I am almost finished with the caregiver course and I am already in the internship in a home in the Graรงa area. And I have no children, for now.

INTERVIEWER

ELISABETH RIOS-BROOKS

My name is Elisabeth Rios-Brooks, I am a senior at the University of Florida studying Anthropology and African Studies. I am an experienced researcher and cultural anthropologist with a passion to serve underrepresented communities. As an oral historian, I aim to shed light on the experiences of marginalized individuals by sharing stories that matter, harm, and heal our society. My work aims to spark conversation related to social justice, liberation, and decolonial processes as to provide an alternative perspective in the pursuit of a more just and equal society.

SELECTED IMAGES

These pots [stay] in the healer's house, the seer's.

They usually have these pots, they can be seen immediately and it is known that in this house they always perform a ceremony. They'll pay the promise and then those pans will stay there.

These pans are pans where promises are made.

They stay on the roof because people leave these pots there [after the ceremony is successful].

TERESA

My grandmother has this pan next to the bed. They say it's her husband's pot. She cooks and puts food in it. She adds [food], then puts water and cane [brandy] and wine. Then she kneels down like this, and talks to her husband: "This is for you." And then she eats.

EPIFANIA I was sick for a long time until I lost my faith, then I went to the healer. Because I am also a Catholic, I like to go to church. I also have a priest who likes to pray for me.

MARIA AMÉLIA

SELECTED IMAGES

Before they started to put the cloths [on the dead man for the funeral ceremony] they have to break the bones in order to give more movement. They have to break everything and then start to put the cloths on.

Wrap the whole body ... wrap one leg, then another leg, [with] more than 10 cloth[s] ... on the whole body. The body is heavy ... [it takes] more than 10 people to take it to the tomb.

EPIFĂ‚NIA

When a person organizes this toca-choro [funeral ceremony], then that person's soul is already calm, goes to heaven. I did everything. My father is a Protestant, when he died I did nothing. That funeral was held at the church. We made the food, bought juice and gave it to us.

NITA

It is like Europeans who carry bouquets of flowers, we carry cloths.

TERESA

SELECTED IMAGES

First, we have to talk about the tree that gives the canoe. We call it polon in Creole. This tree is mainly made by sculptors ... It is already X years old, you can cut down that tree to make polon. Not everyone knows how to make the canoe, there are certain people already chosen to do it. It's art.

TERESA

[During the war] my mother put what she was carrying in there and she clung on the outside of the canoe until she crossed the river because she knows how to swim. The canoe was full, so in order not to stay and go with us, she grabbed the canoe there and started swimming, swimming, swimming until we crossed the river.

NITA SATCHEL PAIGE

The first time I traveled here [in the canoe] was in the war. The war we had there on July 7, 1997.

We went to another island, we left here. I was sick, I threw up ... [I was a refugee] for more than three months ... we were hungry. Sometimes, we ate once a day. Sometimes I didn't even have to eat ... we only ate plain rice, sometimes faroba, a long yellow thing ... there is a seed inside, we just put water and honey because there was nowhere to buy sugar. There is no market there… This is how we had to eat.

MARIA AMÉLIA

I was at Safim. I didn't actually go that far. Just to get there we have to go on foot. Those areas we traveled, I cannot explain ... they put me on someone's back until I arrived ... I walked, walked, walked, there was a time when I couldn't anymore because here [the inside of the thigh] was all cooked ... Here all the skin came out. My uncle had to put me on his back in order to help me ...

We arrived at a river to cross and I couldn't.

Many people left the children there, they were tired. Others died on the way, just walking. There was no water, there was nothing ...

EPIFÂNIA

SELECTED IMAGES

This is the photograph of our mothers, cousins, sisters and everything. It is the way that women have to deal with fish. It is women who go fishing.

And these women also know how to swim perfectly.

Here they know the area where the fish are and know the area where there are crabs, shrimp and cacres.

TERESA My sister built houses by the river. She always stayed there every day looking for fish ... So, she stays there with the knife removing the scales. Take everything out and make a tank there that is cut in half ... and put the fire under and start smoking that fish until it is dry and then take it to the market and sell it.

NITA SATCHEL PAIGE

SELECTED IMAGES

That day at the Museum [National Museum of Natural History and Science] I was even touched because I remembered the things I went through as a child, younger. I also grazed the cows. How I saw the kids on top of the cow. I made it. I was one of those people. Because I am from the village‌ We did this in order to take them to the pasture‌ [you have to sit] on top, like a horse.

SATCHEL PAIGE

HELENA

Those children are six, seven and eight years old in the pasture. They stay here on top of the cows. They are pastors ... I used to do that. And there I fought with my friends, controlled the cows, played and immediately learned to fight.

NITA SATCHEL PAIGE

SELECTED IMAGES

This image is showing that they are fighting.

Fighting is like a sport that they usually do in the countryside. It's a game. Each one shows his talent, his capacity, his experience ... the strength he has in this area.

Like my mother when she was a girl, when she was young, she was a giant woman, tall, very strong, my mother has this story. My grandmother always said: “Look, your mother used to fight well.� I was weaker, but I always tried to do it.

NITA

It's wrestling. In other countries they also do it. It's like karate, boxing, going to compete with other countries. It's a sport.

TERESA SATCHEL PAIGE

I AM PROUD TO BE GUINEAN. DESPITE ALL THINGS AND ALL DIFFICULTIES ...

IT IS MY LAND.

EPIFÂNIA

Designed, researched, and translated by: Elisabeth Rios-Brooks