Dear Editor,
I am a Norwegian. We have a house in the Algarve – we love it. We like to go down to Portugal and live among Portuguese people, learn the language and discover their culture and country.
We like the sun, food and wine. The good life. We see and meet a lot of English people, they are mostly nice people, but I am more and more surprised.
The English do not learn the language – not a word – it is a shame. The English live amongst English – do not meet the Portuguese.
The English have taken the charity system with them – an old English social system.
The English jump, walk, run, golf, arrange concerts etc – give some euros to poor children and bombeiros. THEN they go for dinner, eat and drink, dance and golf.
For me this is hypocritical. Can’t you just give the money to an organisation? And when you are hungry go for a meal?
But of course then you would not get a picture in an English newspaper.
When I read about all these charity things, for me it seems that you have escaped from a modern English country and taken the old fashioned system with you to Portugal and developed it in a wrong way down there.
My English is not very good, but compared to the Englishmen’s knowledge of the Portuguese language, I am a genius.
If you print this in the Algarve Resident, I would be glad but that will also be a surprise.
Turid Bolso Saether, Norway and Montes de Alvor, Portugal
