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 Fernando spent 4 years in the Portuguese army where he attained the rank of Lieutenant. He had to spend 2 years in the front line where he received a bravery award.

After being discharged from the army Fernando got a job in Lobito as an Electrical Engineer with a power generation company Hidro Eléctrica do Alto Catumbela.

A few months after arriving in Lobito, Mum gave birth to my sister Erica Paula. A civil war was then ravaging the country and Erica was born in the middle of it. The day Mum started with her labor pains they were asleep in the corridor. The house was full of windows and was being shot at, and therefore the corridor seemed to be the safest place to sleep. The hospital was situated at the other side of the city and the battle front was situated between their house and the hospital. The public hospital next to them was hit by a mortar shell so they did not consider it safe for Mum to go in there. Luckily they were able to take advantage of a break in fighting and managed to sneak by car to the private hospital as they had first intended.

Nhamalanda - Cuando Cubango 1970

Fernando left Mum at the hospital and had to go back to work to re-establish the power to the city. The city was in confusion with numerous wounded people bought into the hospital and therefore Erica was not born in peace and quiet.

For 5 years Fernando, Mum and Erica lived in Lobito. The country was at war and Fernando was responsible for a company that generated electricity and distributed it to the center of Angola. He had to cover 700 km of overhead lines power stations and sub stations.

Fernando would leave on a Monday morning and all week would repair damages caused by the war, train personnel and manage the company's finance. Then after a hectic week he would return home on a Saturday morning.

On the way home Fernando would have to dodge ambushes from the Guerrilla's, landmines and all sorts of problems related to the war.

To give you an example of the sort of things people had to endure in Angola during those times I will tell you one incident faced by my family.

One day Fernando, Mum and Erica were traveling from Lobito to Nova Lisboa where Fernando was going to repair a generator. They traveled in a convoy accompanied by several lines men and other personnel including the wife of one of the men who traveled in front of them in a land rover. The rebels ambushed the convoy that Mum and Fernando were traveling with when a rocket was fired from no where killing the woman in the other car. Fernando swerved to miss the Land Rover that was already burning and drove like mad to the nearest village where he waited for the survivors of the Land Rover.

After repairing the generator they had to continue their trip to Nova Lisboa along the same road that they had previously traveled on and to their surprise they found a letter that was left by the rebels in the middle of the road. The letter contained an apology from the rebels saying that they were sorry and had mistook Fernando and his Co-workers for someone else.

Incidents like that were quite common and after five years Fernando started questioning the wisdom of living in a country such as this one.

When Mum became pregnant for the second time they decided to find a safer place to live. From Angola they defected to Portugal where two months later I was born, Ana Rita. When they arrived in Portugal, Fernando was offered a job with Macau Electricity Company in Far East Asia.

When I was old enough to travel we all left for Macau. The Costa family lived in Macau for two years and traveled extensively through southern China and Hong Kong.

Nhamalanda and João Flora (Jota) at work

It was while living in Macau that Fernando first set his eyes on coming to Australia but the process of immigration was difficult so instead he accepted a job in the Republic of Nauru.

Nauru is a small Island located in the Central Pacific just fifty miles south of the equator and it was here where our family settled for the next five years.

Fernando worked on a phosphate mine in Nauru as a Services Superintendent responsible for the power stations, the engineering department and all mechanical and electrical workshops. The island Nauru started as a volcano. When the volcano stopped erupting millions of coral polyps built their complex structures which form today the Republic of Nauru. This process took millions of years and still continues today.

Prehistoric seabirds left their droppings between the coral reef which turned into phosphate that today fertilises Australia and New Zealand fields and provide Nauru with its source of income.

In Nauru Fernando become interested in underwater photography, and after taking many rolls of film decided to open an exposition displaying different types of corals, shells and underwater photos.

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