Share António's story
If I hadn’t
saved money,
I wouldn’t
survive now
If I hadn’t
saved money,
I wouldn’t
survive now
António Agostinho prides himself on being one of those people who knows how to do everything. Any DIY, any repair. He is a calm man, a husband of twenty years and father to two boys. He is he proud of what he has, of what he’s achieved. Eighteen years ago, he bought the house where he lives, in the village of Sobreiro, in Mafra – a very old house, all made out of wood. The doors are still low, like in old houses, and the structure means you can’t make them any taller. Even today, António goes around touching up the last little bits, here and there.
I paid my taxes my whole life. When I was 13 or 14 years old I started learning the repairs trade in the school holidays, with a brother-in-law who was an assistant in a repair shop.
Now I am nearly 59 and to get them to give me anything...
When I became unemployed, they told me straight away:
I wasn’t entitled to
unemployment benefit, because I used to work for myself. I was the boss, but I also paid my contributions, I paid my insurance, I paid everything.
Anyone who has, involuntarily, ceased to have a paid work contract and is registered at an employment centre can receive the unemployment benefit from Social Security.
It pays 65% of the mean salary received in the year prior to entering unemployment, and can vary from €435.76 to €1089.40, for employees. There are specific rules for self-employed workers, one-man business owners, and directors and managers.
Source Source
Now I get the Income Support Allowance:
€190, because I have a son who is under 18 and studying, and my wife doesn’t earn the minimum wage with her cleaning.
This is a Social Security benefit provided to citizens registered at the job centre who are considered to be living in conditions of extreme poverty. The calculation of these amounts varies according to the household. Source
If we put it all together, not even
€380
come into this house a month.
This is an income calculation which the National Statistics Institute of Portugal uses to decide whether someone is poor: €6014 per year in 2018, the equivalent of €501.16 per month. Source
I’m from Gracieira, parish of
A-dos-Negros, in the municipality of Óbidos, but I moved to Caldas da Rainha when I was four.
I was a boy like any other:
I was rebellious, getting up to mischief... We used to play football, marbles, and spinning tops, we used to scrump fruit, and join in the street parties around Santo António.
I completed fourth year (9-10 years) as an adult, I had a tutor who took me to the exam in Leiria, and there they gave me the diploma. There were seven of us, and I couldn’t live off my parents.
I was a courier for pharmacies, I would pick up the medication from the warehouses, and then I worked at a petrol station, already making my contributions to Social Security - or so I thought. A while ago, I came to the conclusion that those three years didn’t get counted for my pension. We trust people... They’re the boss, a person in authority, and we think everything’s above board.
The size of the pension is calculated based on the contributions made to Social Security throughout a person’s working life. In the case of employees, the employee pays 11% from their salary and the employer pays 23.75%. The employer is responsible for paying Social Security contributions. Source
After that I did some work in two factories - one iron one, the other steel - well-known in the region, and I ended up on building sites.
That was what was most readily available, at the time, for boys like me. That was in my early twenties.
I spent a number of holidays in Mafra, with a sister who was the housekeeper for a well-to-do family.
I liked the air, the people, the parties - where I was from you had to pay to get into any dance; here you didn’t, you paid what you wanted.
I started as a labourer in a company, Cabazadas, but, I quickly realised that it wasn’t for me. We were making a three-by-three metre hole in an old house... I was scared. It so happened, soon after I left, that there was a big accident and the house fell down. People got stuck inside. So lucky that I...
I don’t know if it was a premonition, whatever it was...
After that, a friend told me that they needed guys in the ceramic factories. I didn’t have anything else:
I went there to ask for work. It’s easy to learn by watching others.
After that, a friend told me that they needed guys in the ceramic factories. I didn’t have anything else: I went there to ask for work. It’s easy to learn by watching others. For five years I worked the ovens, resting one day out of seven, until another factory made me an offer to go and work with them. I worked at the Cerâmica dos Leitões for 12 years.
I didn’t get married to Fernanda straight away, we were together for five years to see if it was really going to work.
We were always bickering, but we decided to tie the knot anyway.
Then I went back to construction.
Then I went back to construction.
I worked for various people I knew here in the area: painting, pipes, electrics. But some companies would disappear before paying everything. We would do the work, they would give us a down payment at the beginning, another percentage in the middle and the payment at the end would never materialise.
For them, it was just take, take, take; when the time came to pay, all the money was gone. Even the tools, which we thought about stealing, were borrowed. One company ended up owing me four months' work.
I worked for nothing a lot during those years. Until I started to open my eyes.
I came to the conclusion that I had to be my own boss and I started to work in renovations. I had to handle everything, do the quotes and, at one time, I had people working for me. It was more responsibility, yes. The boss comes home and has to keep working.
But I liked it.
Until I had to lay people off, I could no longer afford to keep them on.
Labour became a lot cheaper, because you’d pay two Brazilians the same as you’d pay one Portuguese guy.
Then, from 2008 onwards, everything stopped.
Many payments never arrived.
I don’t like making a house from scratch. I like renovating; changing something here, something there.
Everything you see in this house, I renovated it.
Eighteen years ago, when we decided to buy a house, it wasn’t easy to get loans from the bank, so we moved here and started work on it.
I don’t like making a house from scratch. I like renovating; changing something here, something there.
Everything you see in this house, I renovated it.
Eighteen years ago, when we decided to buy a house, it wasn’t easy to get loans from the bank, so we moved here and started work on it.
It’s still not completely finished. No hurry.
It’s still not completely finished. No hurry. I don’t like sitting still. I’m like a bird: I like to hop around from one place to another. Until this happened to me, I’d never really been scared.
António describes the body as if it were the structure of a building.
Suddenly, everything moved out of place. My body suffered a short circuit and it burst.
Suddenly, everything moved out of place. My body suffered a short circuit and it burst. It affected my ears, left side and, mainly, my brain. I suffered a minor stroke, in 2012, and everything shrivelled.
My reasoning isn’t what it used to be. I get tired reading. Speed, concentration... this all stopped for me, I have to do one thing at a time. It was too much stress, high blood pressure, the nervous system with so many things going on...
I never used to take my blood pressure...
I like to eat my food with plenty of salt and I had to stop that. I only drink decaf now.
Sometimes, I still get pins and needles and tightness in my chest. Sometimes I can hear my heartbeat - tum-tum, tum-tum – it makes me think, “Is it going to happen again?”
The doctors don’t give me any guarantees. They are trying me on various treatments to stop it getting much worse, but they don’t expect me to get better. My GP told me that it was either a high-risk surgery, which could leave me without even being able to walk, or stay as I am.
I have asked to go to the brain doctor, but I haven’t been yet.
I thought that I might be able to get active again, to be a bit of what I once was.
But no. Every time I take a step forward, I take two back.
But no. Every time I take a step forward, I take two back.
I don’t have much hope for the future.
I stopped doing jobs. I can’t. I can’t do anything.
I don't have much hope for the future.
I stopped doing jobs. I can’t.
I can’t do anything.
We have been tightening our belts, tightening, tightening everywhere we can. I sell scrap, from taking apart TVs, fridges, washing machines -, but what I earn doesn’t cover our daily outgoings.
We have been tightening our belts, tightening, tightening everywhere we can. I sell scrap, from taking apart TVs, fridges, washing machines -, but what I earn doesn’t cover our daily outgoings.
The other day, I did the maths with my wife: at one point we sold used iron for 20, 18, 17 cents a kilo - that would cover a few things. Now, a kilo sells at a maximum of ten. What can you do with that?
I can’t go to a café, go to certain places, because everything is expensive, and we already don’t have enough for what we have to buy to eat.
A while ago I had to go to a private consultation and that cost €60...
* To pay for the consultation, António would have to sell 600kg of used iron, 8 times his body weight.
If it wasn’t for the money I had saved, I wouldn’t be able to survive now. Now we don’t save, just manage the debts.
Now we don’t save, just manage the debts.
This year was a bit better: my 15-year-old’s books were free and they cut the price of food at school.
I also have the right to a
discount
on the electricity and with the water company, because I am unemployed.
Anyone receiving unemployment benefit and income support is entitled to a discount on their monthly water, gas and electricity bills. Source | Source
I don’t pay for hospital appointments, but my appointments are in one place and Fernanda’s are somewhere else, and that all costs money. Now the worst has happened: my car broke down; the electrics have gone and it’ll be complicated to sort out. I don’t know how that’ll turn out...
Now the worst has happened: my car broke down; the electrics have gone and it’ll be complicated to sort out. I don’t know how that’ll turn out...
António and Fernanda were on their way to an appointment in Lisbon, where we were waiting for them, when the car broke down and they were left stranded. The consultation was rescheduled to a few months later. As for the car, he’s still trying, using his knack, to see if he can fix it.
I’m not temporarily signed off for medical reasons because the GP won’t do it.
I’m not temporarily signed off for medical reasons because the GP won’t do it.
– I don’t know why, I don’t understand at all. I just know I can’t get out of this mess. When I go to the doctor in Lisbon, I’ll talk to him about retirement due to ill health. But until they find out exactly what it is that I have, there’s nothing to be done. The ball’s in their court, in the doctors’ court.
– I don’t know why, I don’t understand at all. I just know I can’t get out of this mess. When I go to the doctor in Lisbon, I’ll talk to him about retirement due to ill health. But until they find out exactly what it is that I have, there’s nothing to be done. The ball’s in their court, in the doctors’ court.
I just know I can’t get out of this mess.
When I go to the doctor in Lisbon, I’ll talk to him about retirement due to ill health.
But until they find out exactly what it is that I have, there’s nothing to be done.
The ball’s in their court, in the doctors’ court.
Meanwhile, I keep getting letters to go to work interviews. I go there and the company stamps a piece of paper to say that I went; if I don’t turn up they tell the Job Centre.
But for some it isn’t worth going: they are construction companies and I can’t be up on scaffolding, at heights. I also can’t be driving every day to Rio de Mouro or to Loures.
In the situation I’m in, I can’t take on these commitments, because I know I’ll fail. I forget things.
One time, they wanted me to dig ditches in the road for water pipes, but I get confused underground.
I didn’t used to be like that, now I get into a panic.
A real panic.
And this is a problem: by refusing so many things, I run the risk that they will cut off my income. When it stops, that’s it. I’ll leave the house, I’ll leave everything and I’ll go and live under a bridge - that’s what I feel like saying to them.
When it stops, that’s it.
I’ll leave the house, I’ll leave everything and I’ll go and live under a bridge - that’s what I feel like saying to them.
If people in the Government survived on what we get, they’d see things differently. There are people out there, at home, doing nothing, earning more. Why are they better than me?
The only time in our conversation in which António swears and his voice raises is when he talks about immigrants and the Roma people. He lumps them together, in a group that he sees as having more rights than he does.
I’m at a certain age now when I think, “I’m going to be around for another half a dozen years, why should I wear myself out?”
Before, I expected to get on in life, to manage to do more things;
now I don’t. I lost that momentum.
I don’t know what tomorrow
will bring.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
I do a few jobs here at home and, sometimes, I go with my wife to the cleaning jobs, I help her where I can. I keep myself busy taking things apart - I like to see how they work. When I used to work with my brother-in-law, I would fix radios, cassette players... Today, everything has changed so much that what I learned isn’t of any use.
You get left behind.
I’m also not really a church-going person. I’m just next door and to say I’ve been in five times would be an exaggeration. I don’t know why. I was brought up within a religion, I always prayed, I went to Sunday school and today, I believe, but I like to pray where I like to pray. When I go to Fátima (famous pilgrimage site in Portugal) a peace comes over me... I don’t even know how to explain it.
Sometimes I like to be in a little corner, relaxing. Sometimes I don’t, I like to chat, to be around people.
I am a radio amateur and, after all these years, I remembered and started all that up again. You can use it to speak to any part of the world, through the radio or in Morse code. Here in Mafra and Lisbon, people get together a lot to talk about fishing, to teach the newbies how to use the radio... I also make contact with people in France, Spain and Germany, with strangers, who I only know through the station or the markers.
I spend a bit of time doing that to keep me occupied. When you’re chatting, you can lose the notion of time.
Today, we have to do things to survive, we can’t just do everything we want. Before, we had everything: agriculture, fish, good quality fruit. Then they paid people to get rid of the vines, the olive trees, to not produce. And what do we have now? We bring in all the material for shoe factories from abroad. Joining the European Union was the worst thing that’s happened to our country.
Life was better before. When we had the escudo (Portuguese currency before the euro), we could earn our wage and save a bit too, today you can’t.
The people in power are useless. They are always bickering among themselves, while Europe rules over us.
I see the Government give in to employers more and more. This doesn’t protect workers, because they’re only interested in profit.
I always put in a blank vote. I go so they know that I went.
And I’ll say now, as I used to say then: my word is worth more than everything else. I am a serious, trustworthy person.
I am a serious, trustworthy person.
I have the keys for various people in Lisbon, people who have holiday homes in Ericeira. Even today they call me, “Mr Agostinho...”
I have the keys for various people in Lisbon, people who have holiday homes in Ericeira. Even today they call me, “Mr Agostinho...” I still sort them out with a few things; they call me the fixer. If everyone were like me, this world, this country would be different.
I still sort them out with a few things; they call me the fixer.
If everyone were like me, this world, this country would be different.
At the end of a morning chatting and other attempts to meet, António asked us not to come back. He is tired.
The car, the illnesses, the problems... Some questions were left unasked: why do António and Fernanda have the Portuguese flag painted on the entrance to the house and another painted on the caravan that they park against the church? Where did his love of taking things apart come from? What does he discover inside? How does he think they could treat his health differently? Why does he feel ignored? At the end of a morning chatting and other attempts to meet, António asked us not to come back. He is tired. But António didn’t want to talk anymore. “I just want peace."
But António didn’t want to talk anymore. “I just want peace."