In the previous diary I forgot to mention that to reach Palma from Pemba you have to fly for an hour, but there’s also another hour and a half by road: the airport is at Mocìmboa in Praia, about eighty kilometres from Palma.
But we have invited all the other actors for dinner and there’ll be a party! I have a new cell phone for Adelino (Cuba) in my suitcase, and the article that appeared in the “Corriere della Sera (La Lettura)” about Ana Bela.

It’s extremely hot. And it’s raining.

What I really mean is that you can’t understand if you’re wet because of sweat or the rain. When it isn’t raining, the sun beats down, like a hammer.

Not the best conditions for an outdoor stage performance.  I can’t test the scenery, because the rain can ruin the design, we can only try the performance in the small room in one of the hotel rooms, so spaces, distances, movements are all sacrificed.

Then we have the actors. Safina, after a day of rehearsal, has a temperature. Adelino Cuba is getting over his bout of malaria, Adelino Mr. Kedo is probably catching it, Agostinho is thinking about his university accounts exam that he will be doing next week, Arlete has to memorise her lines in Swahili, a language she doesn’t know because she’s from Maputo, and she might have an ear infection. Ana Bela doesn’t seem to have anything, she’s fine!!!

Work goes well in the morning, the rehearsal is always good, but in the afternoon, rhythm and concentration drop greatly and at around 4 pm we’re all finished.

The good news is that we’re present.

The presentation is there, the actors remember it, the props are there, and the costumes too. And it’s clear, I repeat it to the point of exhaustion, that “we’re a comical sketch”. We make people laugh, we inform through enjoyment. And to make the audience enjoy itself, the actors have to enjoy themselves in turn. We try the performance in Swahili, I don’t understand the words but I know the movements, moments, scenes, positions of the actors. I can understand the performance without understanding the words, I begin to savour the magic of the theatre!

Felix, who is the actor/director with the most sector experience from among all of us, helps the others move around the stage and be in the right position at the right moment.

I look after the short scenes: the two incorrect injections, the drip tube that curls up. And the part when the health messages are read.

All fine until the wind tears one of the backdrops. And my heart with it!

For a moment I wanted to be somewhere else.

Then a tailor from Palme stitched it up again and strengthened it. We went to the market and we bought two pairs of jeans to act as reinforcements. “What size?”, “Doesn’t matter, we have to cut them up.”

The Palma tailor who mended the backdrop is the hero of the day. Unquestionable. This is why I paid for a repair – two days of work – that cost almost as much as his month’s wage without bargaining. I said that if he did a good job I would pay him the full amount, he did an excellent job and I kept my word.

Tomorrow the first performance will be held in the village of Mute, about forty kilometres from Palma, where we are.

The photos below show the dress rehearsal that was presented at the Palma Residence the evening before the opening night. There were some authorities from Palma, and also clients from the hotel. We acted in Portuguese.