Video & Audio: Portuguese pop star in Apartheid SA: Beautiful Maria

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When I was a kid in Rhodesia, Maria was one of the most popular white Pop Stars of southern Africa. She lived in South Africa, but had been born in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

We had a lot of contact with the Portuguese people and there were always Portuguese children in the schools I attended. Like all Europeans, they mixed in with the rest of us whites without any problems.

Currently there is quite a large Portuguese community in South Africa who have previous histories of either fleeing from Angola or Mozambique to South Africa.

When I was a kid, Portuguese people fled to Rhodesia with only the shirts on their backs. My parents’ best friends for quite a time was a Portuguese couple who later left Rhodesia and lived in Malawi.