Perhaps there is no more beautiful form for anything than what we feel and relive through memory. In São Tomé and Príncipe, each person, community, or detail of the landscape allows us to notice how much we are part of a fragile humanity, inserted in a nature superior to any of us.

It is nature that prevails with what it believes it has to offer: cocoa, bananas, coffee, and fish from the most beautiful ocean. We walk slowly, "leve leve," "light and light," on a path of fine sand, almost lulled to sleep in a sea that demands truth and transparency.

On this road, and at each brief stop, there is a request from young people for the truth about what the On this journey, and at each brief stop, there is a plea from young people for the truth about what the future holds.

We believe that education can enable us to make the most of the opportunities available in the places where we grew up, whether they were provided to us or pursued through our own freedom.

No garden, school, or landscape is the same. In vulnerable contexts or extreme poverty, not all seeds can be planted, and it will always be a challenge to ensure they bear fruit in the face of the uncertain winds of everyday life.

However, the way we water, care for, and nurture them ensures that a path will always have something new to offer.

And in a tiny light, in time and on the journey, in the ever-stronger sun, in another world of longing, where it would be possible to feel that precise joy of each morning, that smell of coffee and the sea, through that window, which I know is still open, there in front, leading to an endless path, to the most beautiful avenue. From the sunrise at the Brussels airport to each light, or even heavier, piece of luggage, to the departures, to the sea, to each arrival in Lisbon and the embrace of friends, and even the ephemeral yet infinitely beautiful moment: the sunset at Mucumbuli.

Today, I thank each landscape where I learned that it is possible to walk like this: "Light, Light." I also thank the books, but more than anything, I thank the sea for teaching me to make peace with time, with people, and with things.

For teaching me to embrace silence, to take care of it, and to always be grateful. All of my still-so-little maturity I undoubtedly owe to the sea and to literature.

And I know that there is never an ending because eternity already exists here. And I believe that another time will come, a time of listening to jazz and reading Sophia, of feeling at home and being at home in countless houses, of experiencing homesickness. Perhaps it will be the time to let go of fears and embrace without hesitation.

I know that another time will come—a time of writing freely, without strict schedules, and without living with anxiety—a time to gaze at landscapes in silence, without the need to describe them or overthink simply, a time.

A time to laugh like children, without walls, without prejudices, to set off with the certainty of arriving in peace, and to once again gaze endlessly at the White road.

My hands hold the stars,
I hold my soul, so it won't break
The melody that goes from flower to flower,
I tear the sea from the sea and put it in me
And the beating of my heart sustains the rhythm of things.

(Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen)