To Occident of the Paradise (16). Besides my father it was the only that he worked. In the total we were ten souls. I gave up the studies.

I began to study electronic for correspondence. My father paid the monthly fees. He already went very advanced and he needed to build a detector of fires. The photoelectric cell was very costly and it happened what feared: my father no longer he had enough financial means to pay the monthly fees and more the materials of the practical experiences. The course finished.

With personal effort I got job as electrician apprentice… starting from the zero to learn a profession. They sent me for the Ministry of the Justice, in the Terreiro do Paço, that was in reconstruction. My function consisted of go look for tubes of plastic, rolls of copper thread, to give the universal pliers, the cut pliers, finally, to attend in everything that the official electrician needed.

When it arrived the lunchtime prepared the improvised table. He put the plates, silverwares, it peeled potatoes, he prepared the cod and he lit the bonfire for the one that the poor food was called. Several months here I worked, and with the study of the manuals of the components that they were to be mounted I developed quickly in my new profession.

I passed great sacrifice when they sent me to work in the electric installation of a great bread-making in Arrentela, on the other side of river Tejo. He got up at five in the morning, and with rain and cold of splitting went on foot to the rotunda of the Clock to pick the first bus to Sodré's Wharf. Then it embarked in the motorboat and near to the other margin the bus that transported me was hit even Arrentela, near of Seixal.

The comic of the subject is that we paid the transports of our pocket, and when it arrived the day of the expirations, the boss rewarded us the worn-out money in the passages as transport subsidy. In the reality it was not any subsidy, there was not none spend. It was an investment that we did to the company, a bulky loan because we were a very considerable number of workers, and with that the company obtained a considerable profit.

For the time already elapsed obtained electrician assistant's professional wallet, what was permitted to accomplish several works under my responsibility. I took advantage the earnings and I enrolled at the Industrial School Marquis of Dovecote, in Belém, at night. For some months there I studied, but the effort was very intense, the very long distance, the time to study was very scarce, and after all the money didn't also arrive to pay so many expenses, because my family also depended on me. Besides my father it was the only that he worked. In the total we were ten souls. I gave up the studies.

Image: The Jungle, by Ferreira de Castro

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