Page 1 of 4

 

This section was written by my daughter Ana Rita when she was 15 and as part of her work in Negotiated Studies in Year 10. She conducted several "interviews" with me and put together her impressions of what can be a summary of my life. The text has not been edited and was left the way she wrote it in Year 10.
PROLOGUE

In the next few pages I will tell some passages of the life of my father Fernando Manuel Leal Costa as he told me. I called it “Nhamalanda, The life Story”.

Nhamalanda was the name given to Fernando by the rebels which he fought in the Guerrilla war. In the Ganguela language spoken in the South of Angola it means “The One That Sees Over The Elephant Grass” referring to his height.

 

Nhamalanda

On the 7th of January, 1949 Isabel Costa gave birth to a son called Fernando Manuel Leal Costa. He was born in the family home which was situated in Silva Porto, Angola, West Africa.

The Costa Family lived in Lobito, but Fernando was born in Silva Porto because that is where the rest of the family lived.

Fernando completed his first year of primary school at home because he was too young to go to school. At the age of seven he finally started school. Primary school in Angola consisted of four years, with exams every year. Fernando was always an above average student but not very well behaved.

 

The Costa Family

When he was a child he was very naughty, always picking on his sister Mariazinha who was one year older than him. Her porcelain dolls never enjoyed peace and tranquillity. In Lobito there was a large tidal swamp which he spent many hours fishing and hunting sea birds with a sling shot. He received many smacks for what he would call “accidents”! For example broken windows and street lights and he even gave his sister a black eye by convincing her to play William Tell. His sister was lead to believe that with a sling he could hit a water pipe (which was situated above her head) and miss her, but this did not work as planned; she was rewarded with a black eye and Fernando got 4 lashes with a hippopotamus skin whip.

 

In the Compćo, Lobito Fernando use to build rafts out of balsa wood and go fishing in it. Because the sea was always so rough the rafts did not last for very long and the kids were always building and re-building them.

When Fernando finished primary school, his father was transferred to Silva Porto where he and his family lived for about one year. From Silva Porto they moved to Nova Lisboa. There he attended high school.

It was at high school that Fernando became interested in Basketball, Roller Hockey, Volleyball and Handball. In basketball and handball he became a national coach and referee. Due to his ability in handball he was appointed provincial coach, where he traveled and ran training clinics in all the schools in the province.

When he was 20 he was selected to represent Angola in the national team and was voted 2nd best player in Angola. At this time Fernando was studying Electrical Mechanical Engineering.

The family had increased with the birth of his younger brother Pedro and his parents found it difficult to meet with the expenses of educating the kids so Fernando's father decided to leave his job as a clerk with Benguela railway.

 

Clube Desportivo do Ferrovia in Nova Lisboa

They bought a farm in Mavinga, in the far south-east of Angola. It was a very wild and inhospitable area which they called The Land At The End Of The Earth.

When Fernando's parents moved to Mavinga he stayed in Nova Lisboa and boarded with his sister and her husband while he continued his engineering studies. One day he was invited to go to a tournament in the city of Cela. Fernando was going to be the referee of the tournament. But this was not the only thing Fernando was going to do. This is where Fernando was going to meet the girl of his dreams, who is now known as my Mum. Fernando and Filomena (mum) started dating each other and after 4 years he finally had the courage to propose to her.

In his 3rd year Fernando was asked to teach Applied Electricity which he did for 2 years. When he finished he completed his thesis on Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and then went on a six month hunting expedition. There he hunted elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceros, lions, leopards and various types of antelopes such as zebras, gnus and sables.

For the first time Fernando had to fight the guerrilla forces of Unita when they attacked an Uncles farm in Rivungo on the border with Zambia. After spending 6 months hunting he had to join the Portuguese army which was compulsory for all males at the age of 21, but Fernando didn't go until he was 22 because of his studies.

Go to the Top....