Sometimes I felt like climbing to the top of Serra da Estrela – which is the highest point in mainland Portugal and, therefore, if the Earth were flat, it should serve to see the rest of the country – and ask, shouting: who think Portugal is a normal country that puts its finger in the air!
I wouldn't put my finger in the air and I doubt many people would.
It's just that a country that spends millions and millions on “requalifying” secondary schools cannot be normal, often destroying the school that already existed, but then not completing the works, because in the meantime the money has run out...
It cannot be normal for a country that builds luxury schools, with large glazed surfaces that are hot in summer and icy in winter, forcing you to spend a lot of money on air conditioning and heating…but a country where, after construction, schools do not have money for increased energy consumption, they are not even able to open the windows to, at least in summer, air the rooms and corridors.
It cannot be normal for a country that spends so much money on a set of chosen schools, but then forgets about so many others, in an advanced state of degradation.
It cannot be normal for a country that spends hundreds of millions of euros building a motorway in Serra do Marão – there is talk of 800 million euros already spent – but then the money runs out and the work that has already been done remains unfinished, the rot, waiting for you don't know what.
It cannot be normal for a country that spends millions on variants and roundabouts on the EN125, to “requalify” it, but then, when the intervention is almost, almost ready, it abandons these works and leaves them to deteriorate and complicate the people's lives.
It cannot be normal for a country that, after having had one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, an international case study, quickly lets these rates increase because it bets on destroying what has been done for decades in the National Service of health.
I could go on out there, remembering the examples that show us that this country cannot be normal...
Ah, this country is really not normal, readers will be thinking now. But don't forget that “this country” is not an abstract entity that exists outside of everything and everyone. The country is us. Therefore, we are not normal! Or are we?
This is the text of the radio chronicle that I subscribe to every Thursday at Rádio Universitária do Algarve (RUA) and that can be listened to podcast here.
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