DISCOVERY GOES TO PORTUGAL

[Music] portugal is a country with half of its border facing spain and the other half facing the sea the atlantic ocean these men and these women are living very nearly the same lives their ancestors did hundreds of years ago these are the fishermen of cecimbre and we'll meet them today as discovery goes to portugal [Music] discovery 70 the award-winning program for young people with virginia gibson and bill owen so hi and welcome to discovery this is one of the seven hills on which lisbon portugal like rome was built from here you get a good look at the city in a sense the life of lisbon is hidden in the valleys among the seven city hills you can be down in the city in the great formal square which faces the river taiju and still not really be aware of the density of life which surrounds you this square is officially called the plaza of commerce but no one ever really called it that the portuguese have always called it the plaza of jose the first and the english travelers a century ago gave it its most famous name black horse square the horse was cast in bronze and was never really black but so it seemed to the english and the name stuck the king jose the first was never very military but this is the way he or his clever minister the marquis de palma wanted to have him remembered hamburg fell into disfavor after jose the first died eventually he was recognized for what he was an intelligent and gifted man who is responsible for a lot of the look of lisbon while the rest of southern europe including parts of portugal was building elaborate and fancy rococo churches and palaces lisbon was constructing simple and classic buildings like these the style came to be known as humbolin the architecture of lisbon holds a key to its past it isn't in one unified style because it was built and rebuilt over as many as 2 000 years the reason is a series of earthquakes which for a time visited the city every 200 years this is the oldest house in lisbon it is la casa dos piccos a house of points once it's stood in a closed-in alleyway but time and earthquakes have opened the city till it now stands in a broad street called the street of the cod fishers [Music] these two houses rocked so violently that the roof still leaned together 200 years later how did they stand when so much of the city fell it's partially fate and the portuguese are great believers in the role fate plays in their lives this porter is the alfama one of the oldest parts of lisbon once the area where jews and arabs lived in the alfama it's difficult ever to be far from the sound of human voices [Music] to foreign [Music] foreign [Music] the words in the portuguese language which begin with a-l are clearly from arabic and reveal the moorish influences which have shaped this city and these people nowhere is it more evident than here in the alfama the closest thing lisbon has to a cosby or arab quarter though now everyone lives here together very much together [Music] foreign [Music] one of the words which came from arabic is a key word in the way the city and the whole country look a key to the way they're decorated that word is the word for these brightly colored tiles which you see everywhere they are azaleas and in them you can find stories of saints and sinners of daily life and eventual death you can even find the whole part of town represented in ceramic tiles then go and find it in the houses and the bright stairways of the all farmer or of the biro alto the high quarter or of the muraria you can find the women who sell fish in the streets these are the varinas the fishmongers who wander the streets of lisbon selling sardines and carapals the little horse mackerel which are the staple of the average portuguese diet what's good wherever you go in portugal late in the morning you'll see housewives having brought their fish from the varinas cooking sardines and cara powell outside their houses on little charcoal cook stoves they do it outside partly because they want to rid the house of the smell of fish and partly because that's where life is that's where their friends are the fish that roast over the open fires of the alfama are brought from the sea to little coastal villages like this this is say zebra across the river taiju and across the peninsula from lisbon here about 10 000 people live and nearly all of them are dependent on the fishing industry for their livelihood in one way or another [Music] the men of cecimbra are at sea are preparing to go to sea or resting after having returned from the sea they live the lives their fathers lived and their grandfathers and their grandfathers there are motors on the fishing boats now but remarkably little else has changed outside the logia a kind of storeroom on shore corresponding to a fishing boat out at sea we find the crew of the dosa de baeia the goddess of the bay abell olival owns the boat among the eight crew members are a father and son jose alberto azevedo is 18. his father adrian acevedo has been a fisherman for 50 years abell jose and adrian will soon take to the sea but this time we'll go along and we'll do that in just a minute the dilsa dubai is medium-sized as the fishing boats of say zebra go there are few that are larger and can carry as many as 25 people some that require working crew of 11. but there are also some with as few as three or four or even two men but this way's nine-man crew is supplemented by two others who work back in the logia and with whom a bell olival and the others can communicate by radio over the years the fishermen of cezimbra have had to go farther and farther out to sea to do their work some of them now go off for two and three days as far as the algar the portuguese province at the extreme south tip of the iberian peninsula [Music] fishing here is a little like farming there's a sowing of the sea and then there's a harvest the bait fish are the seeds and the crop at the end of the day are the peshes spotted which constitute most of the catch in the waters off say zebra these fish when caught float on the surface of the water [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh yeah [Music] from time to time the harvest yields up something unexpected this time a large octopus [Applause] [Music] now with a full catch the bills of deba will head for home [Music] [Applause] [Music] away from the now empty row boats that are used to ferry the men out to their fishing boats and with other larger boats working in the distance the life of say zebra goes on up here high above the heights of the town and the surrounding farms there's the ruin of an old castle the costell de cesimbra up until the 16th century the people lived not down there but up here within the walls of the [Music] castle they came here at night to live and sleep because that way they were safe from the pirates arab and spanish and english and others who made life here so difficult in those days only the dead sleep up here now but it's still the best place from which to see the village of say zebra as it lies almost pouring into the sea from the valley between two long low mountains [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] um [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] the beach is relatively calm now but in a few minutes it'll explode into a kind of sandy bazaar which twice a day is an integral part of the life of the village of cecembra today's catch will be sold but not in any way we can recognize with boxes and burrows and men counting backwards and we'll see all of it in just a minute the fish of zazimra's crop are sold right here on the sands of the village beaches they're sold at a lotta or auction to which brokers from lisbon and other centers of population come to buy the freshest fish at the best possible prices most of the fish are auctioned off in boxes of 30 or sometimes 20 or in the case of the peche espada lots of 30 with the 30th fish laid across the last four to indicate the end of a lot the auctioneer starts off with a high bid and works backward to one of the brokers not wanting to lose the lot jumps in and accepts a price [Music] [Applause] my come on [Music] [Music] before the lota is completely finished there are signs around the village of cecimbre that the working day has come to a close for the fishermen wet clothes hang on clotheslines and empty boots stand outside doorways which have been open all day but now are closed as the fishermen try to get a few hours sleep before they have to go to sea again silence is at a premium in villages like this one the fish auction the lota happens twice a day in say zebra in the early evening and at dawn since they fish for the most part by day jose alberto and his father live a more or less normal routine sleeping when it's dark getting up before it's light again and going out once more to the sea jose alberto and adriana azavedo are following a life their ancestors followed in this village in nearly the same way the lines are nylon now and there are motors where there once were only ores but it's still not an easy life the fishermen of say zebra hold on to it because this is what they know and like it's partially faith that will help bring a full catch tomorrow when the dills of dabaea again will take to the sea [Music] the fish of cecimbra are bought for use in a portugal which fishermen like jose alberto and adrian know little of and for the most part have never even seen though it's a mere 50 minutes away a large part of the catch is destined for use on the tables of kashkesh and esteril the year-round resorts just up the coast from lisbon even here in lisbon where people have lived for 2 000 years they probably have little realization how dependent they are in the working lives of men such as jose alberto and adrian men who fish from the villages of the ultra bonda or the other side as the peninsula is known to everybody here these are people whose small nation once navigated the world and who owe more to their sea frontier than they do to the mountains and the rest of europe they're people whose favorite emotion is so dark yearning and whose belief in fate is so strong that they've made the very word fado fate their own immortal song form they're joyous and melancholy and like their great city their beloved lishboa full of wonders and endless surprises we'll be back in just a minute [Music] we hope you've enjoyed our visit to portugal a nation only as big as west virginia but which managed in her time to explore the ocean world through the adventures and courage of her navigators if you'd like to find out more about portugal its history and its people ask a librarian for any of these books manuela lives in portugal by camilla jessel the portuguese explorers by walter buer and this book the portugal story by john dos pasos a famous american of portuguese ancestry be sure to be with us next week for another exciting program as discovery continues to discover the world bye bye this has been a jules power production in association with abc news