Fernanda de Jesus Correia

Fernanda worked in fish canning from age 14 until the factory closed when she was 52. Her hands still remember the cold, the scales, the repetitive motion. Her husband Manuel was a fisherman; he died of lung cancer 12 years ago, likely from decades of smoking and sea air.

Now she lives alone in the small house they built together, surviving on a pension of €380/month—the minimum social pension because her work was often informal, undeclared, as most women's work was in those days. Her daughter in Lisbon sends €100/month when she can. Her daughter in France visits once a year, sends money at Christmas.

The Algarve around her has transformed. The town that was fishing and canning is now tourism and foreigners. Her neighbors on both sides are British retirees who don't speak Portuguese. She doesn't begrudge them—they're polite enough—but she feels like a stranger in her own town.

Her knees hurt. Her heart medication is expensive. The health center is understaffed. But she won't leave this house, where her children were born, where Manuel's memory lives in every room.