The state of soporific exhaustion which overcomes one here is perhaps the result of the goodness of the environment. There are no unpleasant stimuli which force the system to respond or defend: the temperature, lovely at 9, never seems to rise beyond what is wonderfully comfortable; nor fall at night; there is no traffic noise during the day, and no karaoke noise at night; there are no mosquitoes; in the street there are no crowds; in shops no one seems to care to sell a thing. All systems slip into idle. One yawns. It is time for siesta.
At first glance all Portuguese seem to live in this lazy, slow-motion state, like flies in ointment. Asked whether they feel soporific, they would probably ask to be explained what that means; explained, they would probably nod and say that in Portuguese it is called Saudade.
In Morocco, the climate explains religion; in Portugal, poetry.
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