Text: Marcella Bisetto*
Today marks 10 months since I left my country. Counted in days, 305 days have passed since the last time I closed the door of my apartment in São Paulo, where I lived for so many years. I can still remember every detail of my old house, and the many situations I experienced there.
At first glance, it may seem simple to pack your bags and go to the airport to try a new life in another country, but only those who have the experience of leaving their homeland to live in a new place, especially if that new place is thousands of kilometers away, and perhaps, on another continent, can understand the magnitude of feelings and emotions that the decision to immigrate entails.
It is extremely difficult to say goodbye to your family, even if you will meet them again. You will come back to see them or they will visit you. This, of course, in a scenario where this financial possibility exists. Perhaps for most immigrants, this is not the reality.
In my case, in addition to parents, sister and loyal friends, I had to leave my eldest daughter in Brazil. At 17 years old, my daughter would be in her final year of high school in 2025, so, in practical terms, it would be ideal for her to complete her studies in Brazil, and then come to live with me in Portugal.
However, at 17 years old, your son already knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want, and I was forced to respect the decision of Babi, my firstborn, to remain in Brazil, not only because she had completed her school studies, but because she, in fact, did not and does not want to change countries. Just like that. And I have to respect it. In fact, this was a year in which I learned, “the hard way”, to respect her choices.
Another goodbye that ripped my heart and soul away was leaving my four dogs. For various reasons I couldn’t take them. Fortunately, I managed to place them in the care of two extremely dear people who I trust completely. Still, the pain remains so deep that even after 10 months, I can’t see photos or videos of them, either from the past or the present.
When I was about to leave, they recommended the film “Carlota Joaquina, Princess of Brazil”, by Carla Camurati. Already entering the vibe Portuguese, I decided to watch it. What particularly caught my attention was the scene in which, upon saying goodbye to Brazil and returning to Portugal, Carlota Joaquina hits the deck with her shoe, as if to clean it, and exclaims: “I don’t even want dust from this land!”.
At the time, I found the scene quite funny, and I repeated the phrase several times… I felt a little like that about Brazil at that moment in my life.
I currently live in Montijo, south of Lisbon. For those who have always lived in the city of São Paulo, a thriving, crowded, noisy and violent megalopolis, I am loving living in a smaller, quieter, safer place, where I can be anywhere I want to go in a 5-minute drive: school, market, gym, city center…
It’s that kind of little town that has the bandstand in the main square and the church. I am enchanted, and I enjoy the peace and tranquility that life offers me at this point in my life.
Despite missing your loved ones, there is a unique enchantment about living in Europe: you breathe history. Even more so if we are talking about Portugal, whose history is intertwined with that of Brazil. We chose Portugal for my husband’s professional reasons, and because my 9-year-old daughter’s adaptation would be much easier without the language barrier.
In this regard, it is curious, and even funny, to note that we often do not understand what the Portuguese say. I usually have to ask them to repeat themselves. I’ve made progress, but starting and maintaining a conversation without asking them to repeat a word is still difficult.
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The cultural life here is quite rich, and I have read many books with the “Portuguese of Portugal”, which helps to understand some peculiarities of the language. Here they widely and routinely use the second person singular and its impeccable verbal agreement: “Are you awake?”, or “Are you hungry?”.
We don’t use gerunds around here either: you’re never reading, cooking or doing anything… you’re reading, cooking or doing something. You answer your cell phone (it’s not a cell phone), and you don’t say “hello”, you say “I’m here”. Nor does it say “half”, but “six”. And it’s not a goal, it’s a goal!
If someone asks if you were hurt, pay attention, because hurting, in Portugal, also means physically hurting. “Hurt” is practically not used in everyday life. For most Portuguese people, it seems very “Brazilian”.
“What book is Marcella reading?” This is another construction I’ve gotten used to: hearing my name in a question directed at me, as if the person were referring to a third person.
As I am passionate about studying other languages, I am enjoying, or rather, “I am enjoying” Portuguese from Portugal.
And in case you want to know, your first friends here will be Brazilians. It’s inevitable. The blood calls. We created our friendship circles among compatriots. Brazilians are easy to relate to, and it is vital to build, at the beginning, a support network with people from your culture, but little by little your ties with the Portuguese will become closer, until you also have native friends.
Although we are talking about another time, another context, another reality, and another destination country, I look at my immigrant trajectory and realize that I ended up repeating the path traced by my Italian ancestors, who in 1896 arrived at the Port of Santos, aboard the ship Colombo, and thanks to whom I was able to obtain Italian citizenship and live legally in Europe. On the other hand, I, in 2025, arrived by plane in Lisbon, with lots of suitcases, nostalgia and hope.
I hope one day to be remembered by my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who will tell their children my story as an immigrant. Something I had never imagined, but life guides us along paths that we often don’t even dream of traveling, and here I am, miles away from my homeland.
And may Carlota Joaquina forgive me, but I no longer enjoy the scene of her farewell on deck. Despite the violence, the political and economic situation, and so many ills, I honor my homeland, “my tropical country, blessed by God, and beautiful by nature”, as Jorge Bem Jor immortalized. And I also honor this sunny and beautiful land that is Portugal, which I chose to start over.
*Marcella Bisetto is a lawyer, digital artist and Brazilian writer based in Portugal since January 2025. Her arts have been exhibited in Brazil and Europe, she was a columnist for the newspaper El Pucará and a radio presenter (Argentina), she wrote several articles about motherhood for Revista Crescer, having also contributed articles to Revista Bica (both in Portugal). He published his first book in 2019, and is writing his second book.