Pico 🖤🇵🇹

Pico is known as the 'black island' because of the beautiful volcanic black lava rocks. You can see these rocks being used to build homes and vineyard walls. Aside from the view of the mountain, there is no sand, you can jump into the ocean for a swim, right from the rock bed that lines the shore. My dad and his family originated from Pico Island in the Azores. The only family we have there is my dad's sister, Maria and her husband, Tony. I miss my Tia (Aunt) and Tio (Uncle) very much, more now than ever, because we were so close to seeing them again this year. Father's Day was when they were scheduled to fly into Toronto, where we would pick them up and spend two whole weeks in our home town of Cambridge Ontario, surrounded by family and friends. COVID-19 destroyed that plan, as it did so many other plans 😔.

We visited Pico for the first time in 2016. It had been more than 15 years since I had seen Tia and Tio. It warms my heart to think of the moment I ran down their winding driveway and my Tio yelled out 'Melissa?!' 🥰

I had asked my dad for their address; my plan was to enter it into the GPS in our rental car. That didn’t work. When I tried calling my dad from my cell phone, roaming charges did apply, his advice was for me to ask someone on the street 🤦🏽‍♀️. I had no other choice but to take that advice. Kevin, my in-laws and I, started driving the streets of Sao Roque and when we would see someone, we would stop and I would get out of the car and ask that person, in my broken Portuguese, if they knew my Tia Maria.

SIDE NOTE: every Portuguese woman born before 1980 was named Maria, which in turn, meant that everyone I asked knew A Tia Maria but not MY Tia Maria.

The first gentleman I asked said we had to head towards the futebol (soccer) stadium. I was following along with the conversation quite nicely and then he said, “when you get there, ask someone on the street” 🤦🏽‍♀️. We got near the stadium and I found a young man outside on a patio; I had hoped he knew some English, but that would have been too good to be true. The young man said he knew my Tia Maria, he said I should go up one street, hang a left and look for a house with a Portugal flag, a Canadian flag and an American flag outside the home. I was so happy that I didn't even question the American flag part, maybe Tia was just showing love to all of North America 🤷🏽‍♀️. We could not find this house, but we found a home with a woman who was using a garden hose to cool down her daughter in the front yard. I didn't want to interrupt her afternoon, but the sun was setting and I was desperate. I asked her if she knew my Tia Maria, she said she was new to the area but her husband was born and raised on the island, she offered to call him at work. Before I could stop her, she left to go into the house to use the phone, while her daughter sat there, near the running hose, staring at us 😳. When the woman returned she said she was sorry, her husband did not recognize the description. I was deflated, what a ridiculous way to find someone, no matter how small a village is. We drove down the road a bit more and we saw a home with an older man sitting outside. He seemed nice enough so I tried asking him, he yelled something into the house that sounded like he was calling for a daughter or his wife but he had no teeth so I wasn’t 100% sure. When no one answered him, I just stood there...waiting. I realized, after an uncomfortable 5 minutes, nothing else was going to be said or done. I thanked him and backed away from his home. Instead of getting back into the car, I started walking up the street, calling out 'Tia Maria!' My husband and in-laws thought I had lost my mind. I reached a house with a bunch of colorful windmills in the front/side yard. They were the small handheld ones you'd get at a dollar store or a fair; they were framing a walkway. I honestly didn't think anyone was home so I kept calling out for Tia Maria and a little old lady came out of her house. She wasn't wearing a bra and her shorts were bunched up at her crotch. I apologized for the noise and I told her that I was looking for my Tia Maria. This lady says with a straight face, “I know her, she is my best friend”. The lady asked me to come inside and her husband would give me directions. I told my family to wait in the car and to come after me if I was longer than 5 minutes. She walked me into her kitchen where an over weight older man was watching a program on a mini-TV sitting on the counter. The lady explained who I was and the man seemed angry when she had asked him to tell me how to get to Tia's house. He told her no and then told her to get him his legs. I knew my Portuguese was bad but I was confident that I heard him correctly, even though I could clearly see his legs attached to his body. The woman left the room and returned with arm canes that assist the man when he walks. He said there was no need for directions because he was going to take me to Tia's house. The lady said she was coming too but she had to get dressed. I walked outside after the man, as he got into his tiny pick-up truck and I got into the front seat of the rental car. I told my family, “this kind couple is going to take us to Tia's house”. When the lady walked out of her house, she looked like she was going to get into the white truck with her husband but instead, she walks over to our 4-seater rental car, opens the back door and squeezed into the back seat, pushing my mother-in-law into the middle. Her explanation was, if we get lost while following her husband than she can get us there. The more time passed in the car with a stranger, as friendly as she was, the more insane it became. The lady talked about her son who was working and living in Canada, with her hand gently placed on my mother-in-law’s leg. My father-in-law and my husband began placing bets on what would happen next. When we saw the sign that said we were leaving Sao Roque, I started laughing hysterically 🤣 I was convinced that the couple with the windmills was taking us to our burial site; that I was the lead character in a made-for-TV-movie about the dangers of tourists being picked up (willingly) by strangers 😱. That’s when the white mini-truck stopped on a hill and the driver honked his horn. The lady said we had arrived, she pointed to a house down a steep slope and that's when I saw my Tio Tony!!

My Tia was ecstatic to see me, and meet my husband and my in-laws. Tia didn't understand how I could have been so lost or why my dad couldn't get me to her front door. We all laugh over this story, its funny because its true. We saved the GPS location to the rental car's navigation system under the name 'Tia Maria'. If you ever rent a car on Pico Island, look for Tia Maria's house, she's expecting you 😋