He attended Liceu Camões and Mocidade Portuguesa, where he practiced rowing and camping. Rowing and canoeing training took place at Doca de Santo Amaro, in the middle of the Tietê River. For the school camps, the Army lent tents, trailers, water tanks, tankers, stoves, bed stretchers, everything necessary for the boys to learn and practice what could be in the future.
It would become the future of Francisco’s brother. The colonial war and a mobilization to Angola that was felt by the family in 1964. In those months five thousand soldiers were mobilized and his brother would not return. His parents despaired at the possibility of their youngest going, they prevented him from attending the Military Academy and Francisco was lucky enough to only join the Artillery.
Difficult and tragic days. Which Francisco wrote down in a diary that he kept with a padlock. Since the age of 14, he has been writing down everything, a lifelong habit, 70 diaries written from the first page to the last, a life in record. There are holidays in Tabuaço, where his parents lived when the “barragistas” increased the population and movement in the village. The water was turned on from 6:00 am to 8:00 am and then from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. The boys played ball in the street, and when they saw the GNR, they ran away helplessly. On the agenda is his marriage to Maria Adelaide, in September 1971, and the birth of his only daughter. And also that day when his uncle caught him by surprise.
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