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Letters to the editor Posted 18 March 2010
We have lived in the Algarve for about a year now and we are really enjoying the country and its lovely people. Portugal is really a place where you can take the big step to find a new home and give up your old one.
This place is perfect in many ways, but there is one very important aspect that alerts me hugely and it would be very sad if it would reverse my decision "Portugal for ever":
The safety of my family.
Firstly it is the traffic: I have seen more than five car accidents happen (in 1 year!), and we were involved in one ourselves, provoked by reckless driving of a young Portuguese and another drunk Russian driver, I have never seen so many drunk or drugged drivers before as I have seen here so far. We have been called aside for police and GNR routine controls, but they were only interested in the number plate and looking for possible tax fraud. The traffic situation in Portugal cannot be waved away, it is utterly dangerous and life threatening.
Secondly let me please line up the violent acts that happened in our close circle of friends - it is very different if you read about crime and violence in a newspaper or if these things really happen in your absolute surrounding - because al these cases in Portugal have brought it really near, making us feel unsafe now. Not to forget that we have lived in big cities and capitals of Germany, England and South Africa, where the papers are full of bad stories - but not that close to one's own surrounding.
Firstly, my neighbour and her daughter got attacked by a drugged person in Faro, who wanted to steal the 55 year old's handbag and shoved her into the road, leaving her bleeding all over her face.
Secondly, a friend's car got broken into on Faro island.
Then a German student friend got mugged with a knife in Faro.
Which then got topped by an Italian friend who got robbed at gunpoint by some young supposedly Portuguese men in Faro.
A visiting very calm friend from Germany left a club in Faro's "crime street" to find himself being beaten up by five people and kicked to the floor. He arrived at home in a taxi shaking, bloody all over his legs, arms and face with a broken nose, still wondering why these people have done this to him at all.
With these occurrences just happening within three months, it is safe to say for me that it is absolutely unsafe to walk in Faro at night! That is for sure. Portuguese friends from Faro confirmed that they do not go out much anymore at night because of that. When I tell my stories, they just shrug their shoulders and add some more stories from their own experience, of their friends being mugged or beaten up for no reason.
A South African student friend went into "bar" for the first and last time in Albufeira, sat over a beer, chatting with a friend. Suddenly he got sworn at by the English barman to leave the bar. My friend thought the barman was speaking to someone else, until he started hitting and kicking him until my friend was out of the bar. Until now he does not know if it was a racist attack, a confusion with someone else or why the man behaved like this.
A personal email to the bar has not been replied to. My friend went to the police who would not take his statement because he could not speak Portuguese. This practice has been confirmed by other people living here - the police does not take your statement if you do not give it in Portuguese - so prepare to be very alone and helpless after you got attacked somehow if you do not speak the language.
Which is absolutely not understandable for a tourism country! But even after help and pressure from the international student's office in Faro it lead only to a letter that the legal action was suspended (although there were witnesses!).
In the other cases no one went to the police to report. Also our Portuguese friends tell us that they do not report these occurrences to the police because they are sure that the police would not help. So for the group preparing the crime statistics I would like to give my estimation that about 80% of violence and crime will be unreported.
"In a case of a raping I would be absolutely left alone", our Portuguese language teacher said. Portuguese people tell me of the old days under Salazar where the GNR was very brutal against the criminals and there was very little crime in Portugal. Nowadays criminals, drug addicts and aggressive youngsters have a lot of incentives to behave freely as they like because the underpaid police is toothless, not willing to help, the legal steps are very slow and punishments low - so it is very unlikely that a violent act will be reported, dealt with and punished, an invitation to continue and push the borders even further.
Together with the good connection to Spain over the river and the united Europe which make logistics easy for criminals and a lot of unemployment it is a very explosive mixture that will choke the stream of foreigners coming for holidays and to live here. All that is not my opinion but it was told to me by Portuguese people around me.
For me as an Expat there are clear signals sent our here: Criminals, violent youngsters and reckless drivers, you still have a golden future in Portugal.
Victims, sorry, there is nothing we can do. Foreigners, you are very welcome in Portugal, please do not mind the threats to your health and safety.
By the way, the attacked students were in the Erasmus exchange program, which functions as the a reference of the Portuguese educational system and Portugal as a country.
They and their fellow students will take these experiences home - together with their experiences, that everyone received the same broadband antibiotic in the Private Hospital as a treatment for:
a) flu
b) a broken nose from surfing
c) haemorrhoides
d) praemenstrual syndrome.
They all had to wait until they were in their home countries to receive a proper diagnose and treatment.
In my opinion the following should be done:
There should be much, much clearer signals that everything is being done to
- prevent criminal acts, violence and drunk and reckless driving (I would not mind to be stopped weekly by the police to blow into the alcotest if it only gets the drunk drivers off the road),
- deal with these offences quickly, thoroughly and effectively,
- that there is an absolute "zero tolerance" towards these offences and the punishments will come 100% and they will be severe.
It would be further of good use if this would be communicated in the media.
My personal wish would also be that there would be short television commercials before prime time communicating this and also teaching the people about violence, safe road driving (keeping distances between cars, no drugs and alcohol, speeding, when not to overtake, driving with lights etc.), domestic violence, preventing and dealing with consumer debt and of course about animal abuse.
If commercial companies penetrate television viewers with their message which yogurt to buy and where to take another loan for consumption, why cannot the government use this vehicle to teach the people how to behave to achieve a safer and happier Portugal?
Regards
Name withheld on request, Almancil
Letters to the editor Posted 15 March 2010
Just a little comment on the excellent article by Janet Johnstone on the carob - she rightly mentions that carob seeds were used to measure precious stones - but they measured gold and silver as well. Their weight actually varies like other seeds, but since it was easy to see smaller or larger seeds, they were considered reliable for measurement. We still measure these precious items in 'carats' - coming from the arabic 'quirat' - the ancient word for the carob fruit. The average seed weighs 196mg, but after metrication in 1907, one carat now equals 200mg.If you want to grow your own carob - they germinate very easily, but how do you get your carob seeds out of the very hard pod? Just give the pods to rabbits - they eat the pods and leave the seeds! The best sowing time is in October at the start of the rainy season. David Rees
Received by email
Email sent from Peter Rees who just landed in Santa Domingo.
Posted 15 March 2010
Just landed in Santa Domingo - back to Paris/Amsterdam tomorrow night flight. Get to sleep in a BED tonight. Some security problems in the last couple of days, but Red Cross symbol here is so well respected, we don`t get problems with Red cross vehicles. Red Cross just distributed to its 500,000th beneficiary with relief assistance.
Over 300,000 getting 5 litres water a day - the water supply to Leogan
and Port au
Prince has remained broken since major floods in
2008, so a huge trucking operation
to hundreds of water distribution points. 44,000 child vaccinations, and still over
1,000 hospital cases a day to our two hospitals we flew in.
Biggest problem is housing for hundreds of thousands living in the street or in tents.
I went to help with a relief distribution with the Haitian Red Cross in Jacmal. Despite
handing out valuable goods, over 60 of the Red Cross volunteers still live under
tarpaulins on the street, as does the regional Red Cross pres
ident, but still a great
spirit and enormous resilience of the a
ffected population.
Meantime new food and housing problems in the north west and huge population movements away from Port au Prince puts pressure on other regions. Planning cash grants to try to get the supply side of the economy working again. Road to Jacmal closed the other day after another landslide, something we can expect much more of when the rain season starts in May. Catastrophic deforestation across the country makes landslides a constant problem, and reduces soil absorption thus promoting floods.
Peter
Email sent from Peter Rees of the Red Cross writing from his makeshift camp in Port au Prince.
Posted 5 Marc 2010
No such thing as a quiet night as the base camp is near the US managed airport with choppers buzzing around like mosquitos and now some commercial aircraft landing. All looks and feels very much like MASH!
Have many photos, but can`t download from Camera until back at base camp, hoping someone there has correct cable. Even if they do, I then have to fight for a table and electric socket. Everything covered in dust and very crowded. Had a super-fast evacuation from the main cement two story building (the main office at the otherwise tented base camp) with an aftershock couple of days ago.Am currently in the south in Jacmal, tomorrow I divide the team into two for for further planning trips to Meogoane and Leogan.
Yesterday I joined Haiti Red Cross distribution of tents, mossie nets, hygiene kits, kitchen sets, tarps etc for 210 families in Jacmal. Haiti Red Cross volunteers quite wonderful in organising distributions with the community - most of the volunteers themselves living in the street under plastic sheets and have nothing themselves - but never a complaint. We are planning to provide them with a proper base camp to improve their conditions. The RC Branch President is also living on the street under plastic, but still active with distributions every day - two tents and office on the way for her for short term while we plan rented accom then rebuilding of Jacmal RC branch office in the future. Space, space, space - just no space anywhere to move people while rubble removal starts or space for transitional shelter.Back to MASH tomorrow if the road to Port au Prince is still open. Some places half the cliff side road slipped a metre down - will vanish for sure when seasonal rains begin. Multiple mud/land slides cleaned up, but will continue to be a problem. Massive deforestation accross Haiti a real problem. 20 tonne lorry carrying cement overturned in front of us, leaving just enough room to squeeze our 4x4 past. Road could have been closed a couple of days just from this. Another cliff corner lorry and bus bus stuck on corner. Had to create new track inside the corner and serious bit of 4x4 driving! All part of the adventure!
Peter Rees
Posted 10 Feb 2010
Ourique.Dear Sir,I have just had an unaurthorised withdrawal from mu UK credit card for $4.91 by a company called DIGIQUALITY.BIZ. I have of course cancelled my cards straight away.I did order 2 items from the USA just before Christmas.Could you warn your readers to be on their guard.I have Googled Digiquality, and find that many, mainly in the States have been caught out with this scam. I will be paying C.O.D. for anythimg from there in future.Sincerely,David Saunders.
Posted 4 Feb 2010
S'mee again. Just to say how much this issue of Get Real really rocks!
The travel deals are out of this world - but where would we see Spandau Ballet?
The article on snakes is extremely interesting - up to now meeting some of that breed has not been on our radar.
Contemplating (as we are) a move from the UK to Portugal and wondering what we should bring with us is no longer a problem now that we have seen your advertising. What would be the point of 'bringing coals to Newcastle'?
Finally Matthew Krystman's economic survey is succinct and right on the ball - it's the best one-pager anyone could find anywhere on what's going on in that area.
So with our thanks to you and your team and with kind regards from my wife name withheld
Email from Y M Silves
Posted 21 Jan 2010
We always read your weekly paper and have only just found out that you now give news out online. Thank you once again for all the info you give usby email
Email from Graham Richards requesting we highlight the article in the Daily Telegraph on 15 Jan 2010 regarding the Equitable Life victims.
To read click here
Posted 16 Jan 2010
Dear Mrs Editor
Having watched, over the past nine years, the deterioration of the EN
264 road between Algoz and Messines, we felt that the time was well overdue for action as residents, as there seemed to be little or no action on the part of the Silves Camara.
Working on the assumption that nothing focuses a politician's mind like dissent, in numbers, our New Year's Resolution was to bring to the forefront the atrocious state of this road, and the dangers it poses to vehicles and travelers. The way that we have approached this is threefold. Our first line of attack is via two internet websites. The flagship site is a blog where our observations and the responses from the public are recorded and displayed. This blog is at http://boulevardisabelsoares.blogspot.com. The second website sets out briefly our appeal to Mrs Isabel Soares in her position as President of the Silves Camara. This is online at http://www.en264.info.
The second approach toward resolving this motoring nightmare is through a poster campaign which urges people to display in their homes, cars and shops, a poster drawing attention to our quest.
The third string in our bow is an online petition. The reason for the websites and the posters is to get people to sign the online petition.
The petition requests that Mrs Soares makes the proper repair and/or resurfacing of this road her number one priority in 2010.
Any assistance you can provide in bringing our campaign to the attention of the wider public will be appreciated. While many of your readers may not be familiar with this road, they will likely all be familiar with other shoddily maintained roads, and the damage they can cause. Our appeal to them is for support. If this road is allowed to remain in it's current state, what message does this send to other Camaras?
Regards
Jim Beck
6 Jan 2010 by email
Dear Ed
A good move to an online news service but, as the newspaper industry declines and big titles scrabble around trying to make money out of their online versions, I think you have leapfrogged ahead and embraced the new era.
Technology like e-book readers is still too expensive for a mass market and the newspapers companies are not well enough funded to give them away. Your website however has lots on it and my wife enjoys her daily Word Game as I struggle with the Suduku. We bought our house through your pages so you will always have a special place in our lives.
Thanks for staying real, get real
Don Price
Lagos
3 Dec 09 by email