A trip back in time

Reading Ines’ comment, about talking with her mother, I felt that it was my chance to grab and talk about my own experience, discussing about sexual behavior with both my grand-mother and my mother. Imagine that it happened some….25 years ago.

It was early 80’s, a rather progressive period on terms of sexual behavior. We were talking about my cousins getting engaged (the official step before marriage). For my grandmother it was natural that the new couple would live together from now on and would have sexual life. It was a very common attitude for the couple to get married when the woman was pregnant. And this was not something new! It was happening in Crete quite a long time ago.
But for my mother, who was not Cretan, that was kind of provocative, according to her beliefs. She was a generation younger than my grandmother but having not the Cretan culture, she was opposing to pre-marriage sexual intercourses. Wasn’t it strange?

My grandmother gave me an explanation of why Cretans have had this, let’s say “custom”. Going back in time, in the years where Crete was under the occupation of Turks, when a couple was getting married, the first night after the marriage, when it was supposed to be the first time of the couple to have a sexual intercourse, the Turk Chief of the area demanded that he would have the woman first. If she would refuse she was brutally punished with the cutting of her breast. How could Cretan people then survive this tragic fact they were facing? How would they be sure that the baby born was a Greek and not a Turk? They changed their sexual behavior and getting engaged was like getting married. The marriage was taking place when the woman was already pregnant. The same behavior was kept through the years even when the “danger” did no longer exist.

Without knowing the past, somebody would assume at that time that Cretans had an immoral attitude, since they had sexual intercourses before marriage, compared to others. But before judging, it’s better to try to find why. Every human behavior has its explanation.

Our new Partner - Secondary School of Camarate (Loures)

The Secondary school of Camarate is located in the suburbs of Lisbon and it has almost 550 students. Last year it became a TEIP school. That means it was considered a priority school due to some problems of its community, namely the social and economic conditions of the students and their families and, consequently their lack of studying habits, some disciplinary problems and low school results.


It’s a multicultural school with a considerable community of students that come from Africa, Pakistan, Ukraine, India and Brazil. Our Headmaster is also Bulgarian. Many languages are spoken in Camarate, unfortunately Portuguese and English aren’t very well spoken!

A lot of work is being done, however good results take some time to come up as well as changing students mentalities about the importance of studying.

It’s a nice school, with updated technological devices. It has 44 rooms very well equipped, labs, a library and some clubs (music and dancing, Capoeira, bike and theatre club).

This year we had some interesting activities that brought all the community to our school. We had a well known contest “Camarate School Idols” and a kind of “Oscar awards of Camarate.”

The end of this school year finished with a great party where students could sing and receive an Oscar for their performance during the year. It was a nice experience that motivated all the students to give their best to receive the award.

About me

My name is Mabel, I was born in a beautiful city called Covilhã, near Serra da Estrela, the highest mountain in Portugal. I’ve been teaching English for 16 years near Lisbon and I love the light of this city.

I love reading, painting and going for a walk with friends.

This Trip in Space and Time started long ago and unfortunately I only caught the train last September 2010.

Mabel (English teacher)