A waiter puts bowls of prawns on a table in an old family restaurant where the owners and customers speak Portuguese on the outskirts of Johannesburg: South Africa is home to one of the largest Portuguese communities on the continent.
Gloria da Cunha, 54, has succeeded her father and uncle as the helm of Parreirinha Restaurant. Both left Portugal for South Africa in the late 1960s.
The establishment, with walls covered in banknotes from different countries and where thousands of ties hang from the ceiling, has been delighting the Portuguese community “for at least three generations”, the president is aware at the same time as she tells AFP.
About 200,000 Portuguese and about 500,000 South Africans of Portuguese descent reside in the country, bordering Mozambique and close to Angola, two former Portuguese colonies, according to figures released by the South African government.
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza chose South Africa this year for his traditional state visit abroad during the national holiday week. On Tuesday, he was received by his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Portuguese “arrived in drops from the end of the nineteenth century until the fifties,” historian Clive Glaser, a historian at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, told AFP.
The first immigrants, for many who came illegally, were Madeira Islanders “who jumped on a boat to come and try their luck,” continues the specialist. He notes that the workforce often did not speak English and that the South African government at the time “wasn’t eager to welcome”.
consecutive waves
A second wave of skilled workers followed, the wave of Ms. Daconia’s parents, and then the wave of “colonial refugees” who fled Mozambique and Angola around their independence in 1975.
Portuguese speakers are “today the third group of white South Africans after the Afrikaners and the English,” notes Mr. Glaser, emphasizing that the Madeira, the Portuguese, and those from Mozambique and Angola had long distinguished themselves before they were further assimilated.
But “the society is very conservative,” asserts Manny Feririnha, 68, president of the Portuguese Forum South Africa, during a cultural festival in Johannesburg.
Between two bites of my Sintra pillow, a specialty made of puff pastry and almonds, or paste de nata, a typical cream pie now ubiquitous in South Africa, frequent power cuts and fueled conversations recorded crime.
So much so that some festival-goers interviewed by AFP are now considering leaving the continent’s leading industrial power to return to Portugal.
According to Gloria da Cunha, who runs the restaurant with her brother and sister, the gloomy climate is affecting business. It has also seen many families move in recent years.
The area where Portuguese immigrants historically congregated, south of the economic capital, has deteriorated over the years. Security too. And customers are more reluctant to venture here.
“It’s sad. I grew up here, this building has a story and memories,” she said with a pinch.
“The Portuguese community is on the decline in South Africa,” notes Mr Glaser, emphasizing that the repatriation movement began as soon as Portugal joined the European Union in 1986.
Born in South Africa, Manny Ferreirinha swears he will never leave. He is at home at the southern tip of Africa.
