Six months before Cape Verde became independent, she met Manuel Figueira in Mindelo.
Already in Portugal and also in Mindelo, she worked for ten years as a teacher in drawing, painting and weaving.
In addition, she also wrote illustrated children's works, for which she was honored with a UNESCO Prize.
She also wrote a book titled "Saaraci, o ultimo Gafanhoto do deserto" ("Saaraci, the Last Grasshopper in the Desert") written in 1998 in Lisbon and was awarded the Children's Literature Prize by the Gulbenkian Foundation.
[1] Since 1989, several of her artwork were displayed in Cape Verde, Brussels, Lisbon, Seville, Paris, Boston and Washington DC.