Scent of Lisbon *cheira a Lisboa

#diversityinpractice #socialcohesion #diversecities #valuediversity #travelinyourowncity

As I was walking down one of my (many!) favourite streets in Lisbon after my afternoon meeting today, M. exhibited her perplexed look and asked me why I liked it so much. I suddenly stopped and started signalling the row of shops on the opposite side of street: a 1970’s book editing company, an evangelical church, a tuk-tuk garage, a vitamin supplements and enzyme (bottles) shop, a home carers agency, and so on.  Oh, and had I mentioned the ‘Bangla Hostel’ we had just walked past?! “Variety in very local businesses”, I swiftly assert, as if it were the most obvious consideration on earth.

 Lisbon is made of many things – from the colourful photo-worthy buildings, my beloved tiles, cobblestone streets (which regularly spark doubts about accessibility for pushchairs, wheelchairs and anyone who, like my dad, has back problems), to a huge number of cafés and hairdressers/barbers, leafy residential streets and the infamous ‘scent’* Amalia Rodrigues sang about. But since I’ve been living in Lisbon, what most fascinates me is #Contrast, whereby senior residents and youth share the same local squares, old and new housing and tourism and residential pockets all co-exist, alongside expensive restaurants and 60cents coffee places that haven’t been refurbished since last century. One minute you are in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Avenida Almirante Reis, where busses and bikes and second-hand fridges and Turkish lamps crowd your visual horizons, and the next minute you’re on a quiet and darker street walking through a row of trees protecting you from the rain and from loud noises, and the older men playing cards in the corner throw you into a parallel village reality.

Yet, what’s most intriguing is how some Lisboners jump in their cars and still only interact within the same social and professional circles they’ve known for a lifetime, whilst others actually take in the diversity of its growing population, breathing in a newfound feeling only everchanging Capital Cities convey, acknowledging inhabitants from such varied roots whilst smelling the pakoras round the corner, grabbing an açaí from their neighbourhood, sharing lombarda cabbage from their terra** with their next door neighbour at the shop downstairs, or chit chatting with the Asian background parents outside their own child's nursery school.  

*”cheira a Lisboa”

**the Portuguese use the word 'land' when referring to the more rural conurbations they grew up as children. Those who grew up in a bigger city think of themselves as someone who doesn't have a 'terra'...someone with no land. Isn't it curious.