RAQUEL
She’s got a Licence 2 Kale.
You’ve been to many places and done many things; please walk us through your early years.
Raquel. I’m half Indian on my Mum’s side and half African, black Mozambican on my Dad’s. My parents were refugees from Mozambique. Their love affair was kind of forbidden. They don’t allow marriage outside of your Indian caste; it’s an absolute no-no. At this time, there was a civil war going on; a lot of the Indian population was attacked. So, they went to Portugal with my older Sister, where they were accepted as refugees, and they went on to own restaurants. I was born in Portugal; my Sister was born in Mozambique just before the civil war started. My parents later divorced when I was still very young.
My Mum went on to be a teacher after the divorce, and I was always conscious of being a good student. But I would start revolutions in the canteen because I thought we should have milk rather than water. I was part of the human rights club and the dance club. I was all over the place and very active in school. I couldn’t stay still or be passionate about one thing.
One day at the dinner table, my Sister saw an advert in a newspaper for an audition for a film. She told me I should apply for this; I was 16. For fun, I applied and got called up for the audition. There were thousands of people there; I thought there was no chance. I did my audition, which was reading a few lines from a sheet of paper with an older guy. They didn’t give us many details; they just said to read this. Surprisingly, they called me again, and the group was getting smaller. Eventually, they offered me the lead role.
So, I was 16 when I was cast as Bruna in my first feature film in Portugal, From Here to Joy, by Jeanne Waltz. It was intense; I grew up with very little anything on a council estate with my extended family. Suddenly, money was coming in. Drivers were coming to pick me up, and there was great food in insane restaurants. I had a wardrobe, and a makeup person assigned to me. I was living a lavish life for about a month and a half.
Then the film went to production, which took a while, and I finished secondary school. I failed in English and didn’t think my English was that bad. I decided to try French and take a gap year in Paris, where my Aunt lived.
It was incredible, one of the best years of my life. But it started terribly; my Auntie’s partner at the time didn’t behave well with me, and nobody believed me. They kicked me out of the house, and suddenly, I was homeless in Paris, not knowing what to do. I knew how to say bonjour and s’il vous plaît. I slept for a few days in a photo booth in Gare du Nord; I’ve never been as scared in my whole life.
Before they kicked me out of the house, I had been going to classes at Alliance Française for a few lessons to learn French. They had adverts for nannies up on the wall, so I called a few numbers and went for a few interviews. I went to the home of a movie writer and a makeup artist. Their house was beautiful, with a studio in their garden. They had four wonderful kids who seemed to like me enough. I got a place to stay for free and some money. So that’s how I spent time in Paris.
I joined a hip-hop group for a bit. I’m telling you, I was all over the place. They did a documentary about us; we were a mix of kids. A street artist, one was Jewish, one was Vietnamese, and two of us were Portuguese. I would sing the chorus in English. My English could have been better, but my singing was OK. I never sang the right words, but none of the others spoke English well, so I got away with it. I just hustled.
I returned to Portugal for two weeks to see my family and for the film’s premiere. We had a week of promotion, going from TV show to TV show. The premier was amazing: at Cinema São Jorge on Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon, close to the Ritz. With the red carpet, all my family and friends came from the ghetto. There were the dressed-up people, intellectual cinema types of Lisbon, and ghetto kids from the cast. After those two weeks, I went straight back to Paris to finish my assignment as a Nanny.
I took a 19-hour scary train ride from Paris to Lisbon when I returned home. I didn’t sleep and got a friend to meet me at the station. We went straight out to this skate park to hang out. I vaguely recognised a girl there, and she came over. She worked on that film I did; she was the Casting Director and was looking for people for this Spanish film. She asked if I was available to come and audition tomorrow. I told her, of course, I speak Spanish, but I didn’t. The next day, I showed up to this audition, and all these famous Portuguese actors were there. It’s an open audition so that everybody can see your audition. And everybody knows how to speak Spanish. We were called up alphabetically, so I’m close to last and getting more nervous.
When I was about 12 me, and my friends watched a porn film. And it was Spanish. I remember a few words from that film. So, my name gets called, and there is a circle of people with a chair in the middle for me and a guy pointing a camera at my face. Because I didn’t get the text to read in time, they told me to say whatever I wanted to the camera in Spanish. I think for a while, then I look at the camera and say, ‘Oh Si, Raul, Mi da con tu raquetta, manipula mi joystick; tu taco es muy grande!’*. Everyone goes silent, and then the cameraman starts laughing. The director looked at me and said you don’t speak Spanish, do you? I said sorry, I don’t. He said that was brilliant and gave me a role in the film. That was wild, like a Spanish version of the film American Pie. They did cut my lines out of the film in the edit!
By this time, I decided that I wanted to act. I must be good at it because people were calling me back. I missed the deadlines for theatre school that year, so I enrolled at university on a degree to satisfy my Mother. I got into modern languages and literature with a variant of Anglo-American Studies. Honestly, I did not go to any lessons; I spent the first semester just partying every day and quit in time to interview for the theatre school.
I got in, which allowed me to act and direct but with an educational side. That is when I fell in love with theatre. I love directing because it’s fun to act, but with directing, you play like God. I did a bit more work in cinema, but short films mainly.
When I finished my degree, my teachers told me to save some money for next year in September 2011. And they would put me on the Masters Degree at the University in Rio. So, I saved up by working as a drama teacher in the day and a night manager in a Hostel in central Lisbon. Plus, there were occasional acting and cleaning gigs to make extra money.
I found my voice at university about what mattered to me, about race and political issues. I started to become aware of my surroundings, and I wanted to do theatre that mattered. I wanted to go out there and tell people about the things I saw that were wrong.
You can’t change minds when you are forcing people to agree. But through art and theatre, you can.
Then I met Kevin.
*Oh yes, Raul, my hand with your racket, manipulate my joystick; your cue is too big.
That sounds like an excellent script for a movie. So, who is this Kevin? He sounds like he’ll be an essential character.
Raquel. We met when I was 25 in the Hostel where I worked. At first, I thought he was the stereotype of a British man on holiday in the Algarve. The night I met Kevin, I had an audition to go to the next day. Kevin was hanging around by the reception area, chatting and flirting. I tried to get security to send him back to his room. He kept following me around. I said look; I have this audition tomorrow in the north of the country. He said I’ll come with you. He wears me down. You need to be at the bus station tomorrow at 8 a.m.
At 8 a.m., it’s raining heavily; Kevin doesn’t turn up. I wait, and I call, but he’s still in bed. So, I missed the audition, and that film won a Palme d’Or.
To apologise, he takes me for a romantic meal. When the cheque came, I foolishly said let’s split the bill, and he said OK. What an apology! So that was our first date. I lost my key; I obviously couldn’t stay at Kevin’s place because his room was in the Hostel where I worked. We were both skint and stayed in the most awful hotel I’ve ever seen.
We talked all night. He told me all about his daughters. I fell in love with him when he spoke about his love for his daughters because I didn’t grow up with a Dad. But Kevin was leaving Portugal the next day.
Kevin said, let’s try the long-distance thing, so I came to England in November, and then he came to Portugal in December to meet my Mum. On Christmas day, I was back in England, and he proposed. He had written a letter to my Mum asking permission to marry me, which I didn’t know about. We got married a year later. And we’ve been together for 13 years now.
“I’ve been called the N word more times than I can count in this country. Over the last 13 years, I have been attacked for something that I cannot change. And I would not want to change. I love the colour of my skin and my ancestry.”
So, from Portugal to England?
Raquel. Yes, I moved to England in 2011. Finding work as an actress was hard, especially in London, where everybody has a degree in acting. So many people are trying to get the part, and those actors are diverse and from every corner of the world. I tried looking for work and found London to be an unsocial, unfriendly place. London is one of the most exciting cities with so much to do, places to visit, and free Museums, and I always felt lonely there.
We had a house in Wellingborough, so I thought, let’s try living in another town. I stopped looking for acting jobs and thought, let’s try teaching. My Portuguese qualifications didn’t mean a thing in the UK. I took an administrative position at a housing association. I did a few jobs while waiting for my Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) to start in education.
I enjoyed working with kids. I started learning more, specialising in special educational needs, and taking courses. My QTS came, and I was offered a job in London as a teacher for Pupil Referral Unit (PRU), which catered mainly for children with emotional behaviour disorder. Which I was interested in.
I struggle with systems that have to be followed because of the curriculum. The UK system is alright, but you can’t try to improve the system in place, and it shouldn’t be one size fits all. I was unhappy not being allowed to make improvements. By the end of the lockdowns, I was head of primary for special educational needs at a school in Folkestone. I decided to make a change and focus on something that was mine.
So, how did the idea for License 2 Kale develop?
Raquel. I wanted to create a business where I could be the kind of boss I’d hoped for. Somewhere, I can make a change without imposing it on others. I wanted to feel like what I was doing mattered.
I have suffered from rheumatoid arthritis from the time I arrived in the UK. I always knew I’d have it eventually because my Mum, Nan and Sister have it. When I was diagnosed, I was put on heavy medication, very much used for cancer treatment. I felt so ill and thought, I can’t live like this. My Doctor said if I didn’t take this medication by the age of 35, I’d be in a wheelchair. I thought no way, there needs to be a way around this.
I started using whole foods, brown rice, brown pasta, organic vegetables, etc. I stopped eating processed food. I became vegan at that time. I must be cautious with the vegan diet, with my arthritis and my protein intake. Juicing became an essential part of that diet, a way to get all the nutrition I needed. Getting a good meal while rushing around with my busy school schedule was tricky.
Then I heard about this guy called Wim Hof, who is also known as The Iceman. He is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete. So, I started spending time in cold water, and now we’ve moved down to the Southeast and are right next to the sea; it is the perfect opportunity for some cold-water swimming. I started to notice a lot of changes in my body. Once I started juicing, smoothies, and whole foods, I wasn’t waking up with stiffness in my joints. Then, I decided to stop my medication in 2020 during the lockdown, and I have been pain-free ever since.
I quit my teaching job and thought about opening a food van at first, but one day, I was walking in Hastings and saw a little shop for rent. I mentioned it to Kevin, and he said let’s go for it. We thought about a handful of names; I love a pun. Kevin said you have your history with acting; let’s make it something meaningful for you based on a film title. And we went with Licence 2 Kale (L2K); every product also has a pun film name. It used to be the most fun part of business, and now it’s a pain in the arse.
We opened on the 3rd of July 2021 on Trinity Triangle in Hastings. The mission was clear: to be a fair employer that cares about their employees. I hired a company to take care of the HR side of things. We offered counselling to all the employees in case they were struggling with their mental health. Because I have struggled with depression for years, and none of my employers said, here is a helping hand.
We support women through the business and are vocal for our community. Talking about trans rights and LGBTQIA+ rights, there’s space to discuss race. So, when I was looking for employees, Gabriela joined the team. She’s a proud trans woman and a powerhouse Spanish firecracker, so we got on immediately. She has been my absolute rock, a great manager who works hard.
My mission is to improve people’s health, body and mind. Then we got the opportunity to open in Rye. It’s in a space larger than our Hastings shop. We get a steady flow of tourists, and I’d love to meet more locals.
For food, we have these fantastic toasty sandwiches from the women at Plant the Seed whom we initially met at the Hastings Market. They have their place on Kings Road in St Leonards, so it’s a collaboration; they sell my juices there.
We have opportunities in Rye and are trying to figure out what works well and what doesn’t. Hastings is beautifully weird, loud, and colourful, and Rye is a lot safer in a traditional English way. I don’t mean either negatively; for Licence 2 Kale, we need to tailor our business to each town. So, in Rye, we have the body part figured out with the juices, soups and smoothies, so we are also looking for opportunities for your mind. We already had mother and baby yoga and boxing lessons. We had an art auction with The Refugee Body Project, which I am passionate about because my parents were refugees. I am in the process of talking to key people from the community and engaging them with L2K. We want to create a space where we can all talk and explore physical and mental health, but also a place to explore the meaning of community.
