There are islands where the landscape is beautiful. And then there are islands where the landscape remembers.
On Terceira, the black basalt cliffs still carry the memory of volcanoes, the Atlantic speaks in a language older than maps, and every winding road seems to lead not merely to another destination, but to another story. Here, tradition is not preserved behind glass. It is lived. It is cultivated in fertile fields, kneaded into bread, stirred into copper pots, sung in village squares, and shaped by patient hands into clay that has carried the everyday lives of generations.
It is precisely this living heritage that four Fresno State students had the extraordinary privilege to discover during their month-long internship in the Azores. Organized through the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at California State University, Fresno, the program was designed not simply as an academic placement, but as an immersive educational experience in which every encounter became another lesson and every conversation another page in an unwritten textbook.
While the students’ primary internship focused on agriculture, sustainability, and rural development, the true richness of the program extended well beyond laboratories, farms, and classrooms. Thanks to the extraordinary generosity, meticulous organization, and tireless volunteer dedication of Liliana Borba, together with her husband António and their son André, the students experienced the Azores not simply as visitors, but as welcomed participants in the daily life of the islands.
Every excursion became an opportunity to understand that agriculture cannot be separated from history, nor history from culture, nor culture from the people who preserve it. From innovative farms and organic producers to cooperatives, family-owned businesses, educational institutions, traditional restaurants, and artisan workshops, the students encountered the many threads that together weave the social and cultural fabric of Terceira.
Among the most unforgettable of these experiences was their visit to Olaria de São Bento, in Angra do Heroísmo, where they discovered that clay, too, can become a language of memory.
There they met master potter Ricardo Simas, one of the very few artisans in the Azores dedicated to preserving the island’s traditional pottery. His story is itself an inheritance. As a young boy, he spent countless hours beside his uncle, Mestre Álvaro Freitas, believing he was simply playing while, unknowingly, absorbing a craft that had been handed down through generations. Those childhood moments quietly became an apprenticeship.
At the age of nineteen, Ricardo made the courageous decision to dedicate his life to the family tradition. Since 1994, he has carried forward not only the responsibility of the workshop but also the cultural legacy entrusted to him. Over the years, as modern life transformed household habits and many traditional clay utensils disappeared from everyday use, he adapted with remarkable vision. While continuing to produce the iconic clay pots essential for preparing Terceira’s beloved Alcatra, he also introduced elegant glazed ceramics designed to appeal to younger generations, ensuring that tradition continues to evolve without ever losing its soul.
One of the most extraordinary moments of the visit was standing before the ancient outdoor kiln, believed to be more than six hundred years old. It is a rare monument to continuity, where the same fire that once baked vessels for generations of island families continues to breathe life into new creations today. Few places allow visitors to witness such an unbroken dialogue between past and present.
With warmth and generosity, Ricardo guided the students through each stage of the pottery-making process, explaining how local clay is gathered, prepared, shaped, dried, fired, and transformed into enduring works of craftsmanship. His workshop became a classroom unlike any other, demonstrating that heritage survives because people choose, day after day, to dedicate their lives to preserving it.
For the Fresno State students, whose studies focus largely on agriculture and natural resources, the visit offered a profound lesson. Sustainability is not measured only by healthy soils and thriving ecosystems. It also depends upon safeguarding the knowledge, skills, and traditions that define communities and give meaning to the places where people live.
This philosophy has defined the entire internship experience. The program recognizes that true education occurs not only through academic instruction, but through encounters with people whose lives embody the values being studied. Every host, every family, every producer, every artisan became a teacher, offering insights that no textbook could fully capture.
Such experiences have only been possible because of the extraordinary volunteer commitment of Liliana Borba and her family, whose remarkable generosity transformed an already exceptional internship into a deeply human experience. Their careful planning created opportunities for students not simply to observe the Azores, but to understand them from within.
For anyone fortunate enough to visit Terceira Island, Olaria de São Bento should be considered an essential destination. It is far more than a pottery workshop or a charming artisan shop. It is one of the island’s living cultural treasures—a place where six centuries of craftsmanship continue to breathe through the hands of one dedicated artisan, and where every piece of clay tells a story shaped by fire, patience, memory, and love.
Long after the students return to California, they will remember the farms they visited, the fields they walked, the meals they shared, and the remarkable people who welcomed them. But they will also remember the quiet rhythm of a potter’s wheel turning beneath the hands of Ricardo Simas, reminding them that some of the most enduring lessons are not written in books, but molded patiently from the earth itself.
