Linda's Weapons and Battles: The Female Energy in Action

By Celina Habib

Linda first shared her biography the year her granddaughter was born. This new life made her reflect about the battles she had fought and the weapons she had used. Were they the proper ones? A result of culture? Was anyone hurt? While pondering, she also wanted to inspire other women sharing her adventures.
A simple shack in the outback of Brazil was her birthplace. Linda grew up as a happy and hyperactive child and started working when she was seven years old to help the family’s survival. However, with ten children who survived, the family was forced to give some of the girls away to other homes as young maids. Linda was sent to a city when she was 13, spending her adolescence submitted to juvenile work exploitation and punishments that could have ruined her self-esteem if it were not for her resilience and dreams which she kept secret. Since then, she used her weapons to win the battles she had to face with the power of her feminine energy. Her adventures included a dangerous immigration to Australia and the pursuit of a challenging career in which she succeeds, becomes the famous “Brazilian Bombshell”, helps her family financially and can find the love of her life with a beautiful family.

Linda compartilhou pela primeira vez sua biografia no ano do nascimento da sua neta. Esta nova vida permitiu-lhe refletir sobre as batalhas que lutou e as armas que empregou. Elas foram adequadas? Resultaram da cultura? Alguém foi ferido? Enquanto ponderava ela também desejava inspirar outras mulheres compartilhando suas aventuras.
Um simples barraco no nordeste árido do Brasil foi seu local de nascimento. Linda cresceu como uma criança feliz e hiperativa e começou a trabalhar aos sete anos de idade para ajudar a sobrevivência dos familiares. No entanto, com dez filhos que sobreviveram, a família foi forçada a ceder algumas filhas como pequenas criadas. Linda foi enviada para uma cidade quando tinha 13 anos vivendo uma adolescência submetida a exploração do trabalho juvenil e castigos que poderiam ter arruinado sua autoestima se não fosse pela sua resiliência e sonhos que ela guardava em segredo. Desde então ela usou suas armas para ganhar batalhas que ela teve que enfrentar com o poder da sua energia feminina. Suas aventuras incluem uma imigração arriscada para a Australia e a adoção de uma carreira desafiadora na qual ela é bem-sucedida, torna-se a famosa “Granada Brasileira”, ajuda financeiramente toda sua família e encontra o amor da sua vida com uma bela família.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669889885

Celina Habib

Brazilian born Celina Habib now lives between Australia and Brazil. Her parents inspired her to study, know the world and work hard. She pursued a career in business management, teaching and as an entrepreneur when a few women were active in the area. At the same time, she started a family with a loving husband and three sons. Writing has been her hobby since her adolescence and aging is giving her the chance to write even more. Despite her credentials the one most cherished is a certificate given by her youngest grandson on 19/06/2022 which mentions “The best Celina in the world.” A brasileira Celina Habib agora vive entre a Australia e o Brasil. Seus pais a inspiraram a estudar, conhecer o mundo e trabalhar intensamente. Ela seguiu uma carreira em gestão empresarial, ensino e empreendedorismo quando poucas mulheres eram ativas na área. Ao mesmo tempo ela começou uma família com um marido amoroso e três filhos. Escrever tem sido o seu hobby desde a adolescência e a idade a tem permitido escrever ainda mais. Apesar de todas as suas credenciais aquela mais apreciada é um certificado que seu neto mais novo lhe deu em 19/06/2022 que menciona “A melhor Celina do mundo.”

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Celina Habib. 849774

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval

system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 02 8310 8187 ([phone] from outside Australia)

www.xlibris.com.au

ISBN: 978-1-6698-8986-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6698-8987-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6698-8988-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023902362

Rev. date: 03/17/2023

For John

and Osvaldo,

They awakened my feminine energyHe

With Gratitude to Linda

And to all the people who collaborated with her story

And whose privacy is maintained

With Gratitude to

Dr. Moacir Oliveira, for his insights on the feminine energy

Margaret Haworth for her contributions to the English version

Carolina Cunha, for the illustrations that transported us to Linda’s childhood

Helen Mills, for her contributions to the final draft

Contents

AN INVITATION TO READ

BOOK I: Linda Tells Her Story

1. Starting a Conversation

2. My Childhood in the Outback

3. Living in Australia

4. Shaping My Character

5. Domination and Juvenile Work Exploitation

6. Early Motherhood and Desired Motherhood

7. Rio de Janeiro as The Mecca of Fame

8. Ups and Downs While Fulfilling my Dreams

9. Choosing a Career

10. A Most Expected Love

11. A Successful Career

12. Transforming Lives?

12.1 The Life of My Parents

12.2 The Beginning of My First Sister’s Independence

12.3 Protecting Carol’s Reputation and Her Desire to Be a Mother

12.4 Finding Helen

12.5 Investing with My Brother Octavian and His Wife Deborah

12.6 Opportunities for a Nephew and Nieces

12.7 A Support Point, Always

13. My Life, God and Synchronicity

14. Mrs. Flor and Her Two Husbands

15. What about the future?

BOOK II: Many Storytellers Appear

The Author Undertakes a Survey

The Mother Tells a Little About Herself and The Daughter

The Daughter Perceives the Mother As Quirky

How the First de Facto Husband Perceives Linda

Living with the Siblings

How The Best Friend has Fun with Linda

How Helen Perceives Linda

Are Friends Unanimous?

A Former Employer Testimony

A Little Of Jay’s Story and His Testimony

Francisca Short History and Sweetness

The Son’s Statement

TO CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION

AN INVITATION TO READ

When we think of powerful women, maybe we imagine queens, princesses, stateswomen, billionaires, actresses, singers, or famous models. In short, we have in mind the image of those women who are in history or in the media. We never think of our neighbor, that person we met at a simple women’s gathering or at the supermarket. Among these women, who are not in history, in the media or in our imagination, are some whose history reveals a great power of resilience. This power and feminine energy inevitably determine the course of their lives by way of weapons and battles, self-esteem, focus and determination, transformation and influence.

Imagine a woman who at birth did not deserve her father’s gaze for several days, simply by rejecting her gender, at a time when only male children were valued and welcomed, in a rural society where boys were put to work at an early age. Imagine the poverty level of this girl, try to picture the shack where she was born, counting only on a beaten floor¹ where she slept on cardboard, together with other children. That is where this woman spent her childhood, with her brothers and cousins. Despite the material poverty this girl could live happily with nature, enjoying the piece of land where her father built a shack to house the family. Despite being deprived of material comfort, this shelter was surrounded by fruit trees, the waters of the streams and animals. For the girl, the references of urban material comfort did not exist at that time. Imagine an overactive girl who could not read or write at school, but was attracted to the music of a bar, scorning the quiet place her mother chose during church Mass. Imagine that their parents, with many children, were forced to send their children to different relatives’ homes so that they would be fed and perhaps have an education.

This is the beginning of Linda’s life, who became known in Western Australia’s adult entertainment industry as The Brazilian Bombshell. Why write about her? First because she told me her life is worth a romance book. Or maybe a movie, a soap opera. Secondly, because she wanted to document her life for her children, including a newborn granddaughter in 2021 and, who knows, perhaps inspire some women. In Linda’s mind were those women who lived depressed and surrounded by problems, despite having all material comforts since birth without taking advantage of those conditions. And mainly because Linda impressed me. Something in her energy caught my attention. I met her at a Christmas lunch of a group called SINER’s (Sunset International Neighbors). The sin in the name amused me, especially because the group is composed of women who are currently over 50, with septuagenarians being predominant. Linda was the youngest of the group when I met her. Very beautiful, perfect body, dressed in a careless way for someone at a party. (Here’s my prejudiced notion of how a woman should dress for a social meeting). She was with her mother-in-law, who soon after died.

Months later the SINER’s lunch was held at her house and I had the opportunity to see a picture of Linda with her husband. Beautiful young couple: she, the Brazilian brunette, topless and looking relaxed; he the blonde Australian surfer with long hair, looking like an actor, both lovers of the Indian Ocean and the aridity of the outback of the country in the photo background. Surely both would have stories worthy of a book. However, he prefers his privacy, just praising his wife, feeling gratified with her success, and providing her with fun.

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Linda and Will in the outback

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, defines the subjectivity of beauty; what is attractive to some people may not attract others. Shakespeare wrote of beauty in Love’s Labour Lost: Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye…Maybe that is why people think the first sentence in this paragraph is his; instead, it should be credited to Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in her novel Molly Bawn, published in 1878.²

Let’s agree that beauty is subjective. However, how can we consider it when there are many who see the beauty in works, such as in Renoir’s paintings or Michelangelo’s statue of David? Beauty must be considered an aesthetic value.

From Plato through Aquinas to Kant and beyond beauty has traditionally been considered the paradigmatic aesthetic quality. […] When we look at that which is beautiful, the object gives rise to a certain kind of pleasure within us. T h u s aesthetic value is characterized in terms of that which affords us pleasure. KIERAN, M. ³

At that lunch Linda received the guests very well, again dressed unpretentiously, and wearing slippers, that ideal footwear for the sleeping outfit. But she welcomed all of us with great joy into her beautiful home, determining a task for each guest in the preparation of the collective lunch, as the perfect host. At the end of lunch and kitchen cleaning, Linda invited me to view her home and her backyard where she raises laying hens and a noisy duck. At the time I began to ask her questions about her life, confirming the fullness of adventures lived.

Linda told me about her life in weekly meetings over a few months during which I discovered the unfolding of histories and stories of a large family, coming from a poor region of Brazil and its migration within the country in search of better living conditions. She also allowed me to interview people who enriched her history and stories, such as her mother, siblings, children, nephews and nieces, spouses, some close friends, and a former employer. She decided to use the first person in the narrative. I felt it was her way of showing better resourcefulness and a first step towards her interest in literature, because she was finally starting to read in Portuguese and improving her English. Simplicity is part of her beauty.

What’s so powerful about Linda? I invite you, especially the female reader, to get involved with her life history and discover her female transformative power and how Linda knew how to use her attributes as weapons to win battles.

BOOK I

Linda Tells

Her Story

1. Starting a Conversation

Once upon a time someone who knew a little of the twists and turns of my life asked me what had caused the most impact in my history. So much!!!!! At that time, I could remember only two completely different events that made an impact in my life.

The first was a dream I later identified as a premonition. The weird thing is it wasn’t my dream! My boyfriend woke up rubbing his eyes, as always, and told me he had dreamed of me in the company of a tall, skinny gringo, blue eyes, blonde hair, becoming bald. At that time, I was preparing to travel to Australia. I had the help of a man who wasn’t gringo, tall or blonde, and I’d never mentioned anything about him to my boyfriend. So, he knew nothing about my plans, but I knew I wasn’t included in his plans for a life together. Then, I felt my boyfriend was trying to make up for our five years of relationship by paying for courses that could guarantee me a better profession in the future and not feel guilty for leaving me. Years later I would find in Australia the man who matched that description and who would be my daughter’s father.

Next, I remembered a date when important facts happened repeatedly: the first of August. On that date, in 1995 I arrived in Australia; in 1996 I met my husband and in 2021, because of the corona virus pandemic, I was finally able to meet my first and only granddaughter.

I believe the arrival of my granddaughter has spurred me to record my memories. I always wanted to show my daughter where I came from and how I achieved my current life and everything I did for my extended family. I created opportunities for her to know my origins in Brazil. I’m sure living with my relatives in the poverty of the Northeast of my country gave her humility and contributed to her development. But there is much more I wish to tell her and my son, tell my granddaughter and leave for posterity. Finally, my history may have some meaning for women who want to strengthen their self-esteem, to know the power of their inner strength to build their destiny and, above all, to put their feminine energy into action.

I’ve always dreamed of stardom, Hollywood fame. As a child, dancing to the loudspeaker in a bar near the church, I dreamed of being an international dancer. In the dream, fame made me important to the family, because I was a woman in a society that favored men. And that fame allowed me to help my family even more than the boys with their manual labor. For some reason I can’t explain I’ve always thought about helping my family.

I like the idea of writing a book. Not for vanity, but for the opportunity to express myself better, review my life and connect with other women.

Will my life be the theme of a movie or a soap opera? Who knows if a producer will be interested in my history, stories, and unfolding? Isn’t that what may happen in a soap opera or a series?

2. My Childhood in the Outback

I was born in 1968 in the outback of Piauí, perhaps the poorest state in Brazil. The municipality of Batalha is on the map but identifying the location of my birth in cartography is not easy; a location called Saco, on the side of a road a few kilometers from the city. My father had a little house in the city, but got land borrowed in this place, with space to make a shack and, on the other side of the road, a small piece of land to plant a few crops.

I remember our house covered in sapê⁴, mud bricks without painting, displaying the brown color of the clay and straw; the house had an entrance door and a back door, a window and two bedrooms where we slept on the beaten clay floor using cardboard in place of a mattress. Only the very young children had the right to sleep in a hammock, like my parents. (I must say that sleeping on a hard floor was good for me because I never had any back pain.)

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On the bright side was the land space, which belonged to a landowner who used to provide a piece of land to every farmer who was interested in living nearby, planting and getting involved in the exploration of carnaúba⁵ wax. Our shack was close to other relatives’ homes and had many fruit trees nearby such as cashew, banana trees and papaya. As the fruits were easy to find, they were not as valued as beans, rice, meat and farinha⁶ bought at the fair, which my parents could not always afford. Meat then was a luxury. There was lard, which seasoned every bean pot. Yes, it seasoned only to give taste and only gradually was it savored. Fresh meat was very rare and only in cuts with bones. We raised chickens to have eggs; eventually we would kill one for a feast. In most days we would have coffee with farinha for breakfast and another single meal. To make enough food for the family it was important to have in each preparation additional water, brought from the well and stored in the clay pots.

At last, the family was able to feed on the basics extracted from the earth and the generosity of close family members. The cultivars in the region were mostly pumpkin, corn, cassava, maxixe⁷, watermelon, but everything depended on rain in a land with scarce water and high temperatures. The rainy season was called winter. We had years in a row of weak winters, with little to harvest on the farms. Easter was the time for the neighbors to exchange the harvest surplus. To this day I love cassava! (I’ll prepare cassava with butter to discuss this book with some friends.)

I enjoyed climbing trees and hanging upside down. Whenever that happened in the days of Br-o-Bró⁸, my older brother was ashamed of me because, if I was dressed at all, I would be practically naked. He used to shout:

"- Armaria, mermā⁹. Don’t embarrass me!!!!!"

I didn’t even care about his complaints! We were all used to wearing no clothes, but Fabio, who was already a growing boy, cared about my behavior as a nutty boy. My art had nothing to do with the expected behavior of a girl who wanted to show off. Our shack was on the edge of the road where passers-by could see me. That was the fun of it!

Today I’m sure those exercises I did climbing trees without fear of falling down or getting hurt allowed me to develop flexibility and muscle to perform my work as a pole dancer.

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I was the fourth child. My three older siblings were boys. When I was born my father spent a few days not wanting to see me. The girls had no value at that time. Only the boys who, even when small, were manpower to work in farming. Years later I became my father’s favorite daughter. Much later, my aunts told me in secret that, after my birth, he would see me sleeping in the hammock when no one was around, maybe trying to change his mind about having a daughter.

I attended very little school. I was hyperactive, agitated and never stopped, my body asking me to move. Some teachers refused to take the class I was enrolled in. Only once did a teacher accept the challenge and made me promise that I would behave well. During the first month of classes I made a huge effort to be quiet. One way to pass the time was to ask permission to go to the toilet. Once I asked to leave the room and the teacher denied permission.

Whaaat!!!!! Listen girl, don’t be silly. You have gone out many times and takes AGES come back.

Ironically, I really needed... I couldn’t take it anymore; I peed on the floor. Seeing that the teacher kicked me out of the classroom. I simply expressed my victory shouting:

"Didn’t I say I was going out? Borimbora¹⁰!"

How was I supposed to learn in constant conflict with the teachers? Neither were they prepared to understand me nor my parents. Thus, I attended school with minimum learning, but ensuring school meals, when available, and its leftovers that I took regularly to share at home.

As it happened every year, a photographer took pictures of each student in the classroom, neatly dressed in the school uniform and sitting behind the desk. The photos were sent to the students’ parents to choose the best ones and pay the photographer. I never got one of those pictures because my parents couldn’t afford it. I have only the memories of that time, now documented by Carolina in her illustrations.

My parents had 15 children, five of whom died due to lack of adequate food or health care. An aunt, my father’s sister, had 29 children! Many people used to bully me about the exaggerated number of children in my family. However, the children thought babies were just gifts for them to play with. My mother told me that when