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19.11.2011 Opinion

Showing God's Love

By Daily Guide
Porto, also known as OportoPorto, also known as Oporto
19.11.2011 LISTEN

It is evident that the African continent would once again become the economic savior of the developed countries.

Portugal's Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho visited oil-rich Angola this week to attract investment to his country, which is caught up in the eurozone debt crisis. (Portugal's Prime Minister lived in Angola as a child).

I informed my readers in my last article about a meeting held by some young African business guys in Matadi in Congo D.R to take advantage of the crises in Europe and North America, but the leaders of the those developed countries are stepping up their game and if care is not taken, some corrupt officials on the continent would deposit looted government funds in these foreign banks in the name of investment.

When I was a university student at Seville in Spain, I had the opportunity of visiting Porto, the second city of Portugal with some colleagues where I met a former Portuguese Soldier, António de Almeida Santos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Almeida_Santos who fought against freedom fighters of Portuguese Guinea, now Guinea Bissau. He told us that someday Europe would go back to Africa to beg for food and money and I thought he was joking.

Later in his house, we ate some Francesinha  (a Portuguese sandwich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich originally from Porto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto , made with bread, wet-cured ham http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham , linguiça http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingui%C3%A7a , fresh sausage like chipolata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipolata , steak or roast meat and covered with molten cheese and hot thick tomato http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato sauce served with French fries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal ). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_fries

I asked him to explain his statement and as a result he told me a strange story.

Before he narrated his story, he took me to another part of the house where I saw 'something' which made me cry. ( Let me confess that with the type of Juju I was using at that time especially as fisherman, it was very hard to get some sort of sympathy or human feeling from me, but something snapped within me in that house in the City of Porto).

I saw an African lady with her body partially burnt especially the head with her right eye protruding. She had a 'permanent smile' on her face because the burnt skin had exposed her front teeth.

She was in a very modern kitchen with her two children (boy and girl) born to António de Almeida Santos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Almeida_Santos .

António http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Almeida_Santos said as a young Portuguese soldier, he was sent to fight the freedom fighters in Guinea Bissau. One day they were ambushed by the fighters who later fled towards the forest near a village. The rebels inflicted heavy casualty on them so they retaliated by bombarding the village.

'After the deed was done, I was the last soldier to leave the scene and at that moment, I saw a young girl coming out of one of the huts with her body on fire and screaming. I looked at her and later joined my colleagues in our vehicle,' he said.

Antonio thought the cry and the blazing body of the girl was just part of the war against the rebels, but in the night he dreamt about the girl who screamed in the background.

He saw a man telling him to go back to the village.

'I had the same dream for two days, so on the third day, I managed to get an army jeep to travel to the village and how I managed to get that girl to an army field hospital and later flying her to Portugal was a miracle from God,' António de Almeida Santos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant%C3%B3nio_de_Almeida_Santos said.

He added that despite her condition, he fell in love with her and after undergoing some plastic surgery he married her.

He said a certain priest later told him God would bless him for saving the girl.

Indeed, he is now the Chief Executive Director of a multinational company with branches in Brazil and Malaysia.

By Amos Amaglo
 
 
 
 
 
 

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