The idea for this page came to me as I started looking through my photos and realizing how many of them were of Mozambicans in the middle of doing their everyday activities (weeding the fields, making bread, transporting people around, carrying their harvests to the market, selling their products, etc). That said, I find something particularly beautiful about people who have dedicated their lives to one specific activity, taking their task seriously, working hard, and doing their job well. Some of the most telling photos, I believe, are the ones that can match the impassioned expression of the individual with his/her story and with this page I’ve tried my best to hand pick a few photos to do just that.
Please keep coming back to visit this page and seeing the updates over time as I add new faces and stories. I promise I’ll continue my efforts in hopes that someday you too will fall in love with the hard working people of Mozambique as I already have…
Wiado Ibrahim, 39 - BakerWhether the daily schedule is full or not, my watch’s alarm goes off at 7am on the dot. While that may sound early, or at least normal, for some of you back at home, that’s incredibly late for many of Nauela’s residents who are up before the sun at 4am sweeping their dirt patios and pumping water. And even though my drooping eyelids are always pleading for a few more minutes of shuteye, I usually feel too guilty to stay in bed any later than that. Although I have never gotten completely used to this daily program, there’s always a carrot dangling in front of me that keeps me from snoozing for too long. You see, at almost precisely that same morning hour, most days Wiado leaves his house for the market carrying in tow a basket full of precious goodies worth their weight in gold: freshly made bread.
And it’s never a good feeling to start the day by just missing the baker as he rides away (cute rhyme, right?!)
After over a year of conditioning, my body seems to have adapted, programming itself to jerk awake just before the alarm goes off in order to ensure that I don’t miss out on my window of opportunity. Rushing through the house and swinging my front door wide open, I often peer out across the street to see if there are any signs hinting that my neighbor has been busy this morning making bread: smoke rising through the kitchen’s thatch roof, a large bread basket outside waiting to be filled, his kids anxiously darting back and forth across the yard awaiting their share of the morning’s haul – one glorious pãozinho not five minutes removed from the clay oven.
If there are any of these signs or not though, on most days I’ll likely make the two second journey across the road to see if Wiado is baking his locally-famous bread (arguably the best in town due to its generous portion size and slight tinge of sweetness, as well as it not being too dense or under/over-baked). Unfortunately for me, there have been a lot of things that have kept him from making bread these days (i.e., tending to his machamba and repairing the area water pumps) and I’ve either had to simply go without or make the three kilometer trek to the market in order to buy some subpar substitutes from another vender.
It just isn’t the same though.
When you buy the bread in the market it is at least several hours, if not a full day, old. And anyone who has grown used to eating fresh bread knows there’s just no comparison - the weight and substance of bread combined with extreme fluffiness and warmth… if you crack it open and slather the inside with peanut butter and honey, the combination tastes better than any pretender ever could.
Today I’m lucky and triumphantly return home with 10 fresh fist-sized pãozinhos, most of which I devour instantly.
***
Born just outside of Quelimane in the administrative post of Maquivale in 1972, Wiado enjoyed a relatively peaceful childhood alongside his five younger brothers. He attended school until finishing 7th grade and was a familiar face at the local mosque’s Qur’an studies (he can both read and speak basic Arabic). All that changed, however, when Wiado was forcefully enlisted into the army to help supplement FRELIMO’s depleted ground forces in their war against RENAMO. Having just turned 16, it was determined that Wiado was old enough, i.e. strong enough to hold a gun steady, to enter the heat of battle. His younger brothers meanwhile, still too small, were spared and left behind with their parents.
Almost immediately, Wiado was sent up to the Nauela region where he would be stationed for four long years. Although there was regular crossfire, the FRELIMO military strategy in the area was largely defensive. Wiado’s division made camp on top of Mount Nauela (a glorified hill really) and created a protected village at its base for as many local residents as possible.
Food, clothing, and water were precious commodities in the makeshift village, but it was far better than living outside its imaginary walls. “They [the people in the bush] lived like dogs, always running away from something with no clothes on and nothing to eat” reflects Wiado’s wife. Indeed, with the help of the FRELIMO army, the protected villagers ate regularly and had at least some ragged clothes to wear. Even when supporting forces were slow to provide the garrison with their food rations (coming from Gurue or Molócuè), the area soldiers would band together and go out into the night to steal food from the fields of nearby RENAMO farmers - a practice that has deepened hatred between the sides to this day.
It was in this war-stricken scenario that Wiado, a young lonely soldier, fell in love with and married his current wife. Kept in close proximity throughout the war, the couple never spent more than a few hours apart after having first met in base camp. That said, they lived completely different lives during those first few years. While Wiado thrived off adrenaline, busily marauding around shooting off various weapons (e.g., bazookas, AK 47s, etc. ), his wife and the other civilians simply had to endure the long, drawn out waiting game that the war had become. Periodically, the FRELIMO stronghold would receive national updates about the war from radio broadcasts that would provide some hope. Ultimately, however, all anyone was trying to do was survive the present day and all its hurdles.
Upon the fall of the Soviet Union (one of the main financial backers of FRELIMO), FRELIMO was quickly forced to the negotiation table, putting an end to the war with RENAMO (heavily financed by South Africa and the U.S.) in exchange for the promise of democratic elections. Even after the war officially ended though, people were hesitant to be at ease. After all, roaming bands of gunsmen were still prevalent throughout the countryside. Soon, however, various peace keeping entities partnered with the UN began appearing in the area to help with the process of disarmament. The foreigners offered good money to buy up various weapons and the small militias, short on ammo and desperate for cash, quickly handed them over.
In the months that followed, Wiado traveled back home to Quelimane to let his parents know he was still alive and well. This visit was brief though because he needed to quickly return to Nauela to start building a post-war life around his new family. For several years, Wiado’s budding family lived just down the road in Eiope where they tended to their machamba. During this same time period, Wiado sought out extra income by frequenting Nampula City in order to buy capulanas and sell them at Nauela’s marketplace. When the family eventually decided to move closer to town though, Wiado looked into another profession: bread making.
Approaching an elderly woman who had made bread during the civil war for the soldiers, Wiado asked if she would be willing to teach him the business’s ins and outs. At once the lady obliged because she had long since grown tired of the all the hard labor the bread making process required and was looking for someone to pass the baton to. Truth be told, in order to make bread in a rural setting without electricity, the actual preparation of the dough is the least of one’s worries.
First you must spend several days or weeks constructing a brick oven. No easy task… it’s like building a mud house, but smaller. Once that is finally completed, the day before making a batch of bread, you need to go buy and lug a sack of flour (~45 lbs) back to your house (Wiado routinely bikes 20 miles (!) to find flour at a reasonable rate). Then, right before evening time, you can’t forget to go out into the bush to collect a huge stack of firewood to heat up the oven the next morning.
Having not prepared any bread yet, you can finally rest easy… but not for long!
The next “morning,” around 2am, you wake up to start a fire in order to heat up your newly built clay oven. While the wood burns inside the oven, you can busy yourself preparing the dough. Next, as the wood’s embers begin to cool, you remove and set them aside, all the while cleaning the oven’s bottom surface where the dough will soon be placed. Although the embers have been taken out, the clay oven retains so much heat that it is easily able to cook 200+ pieces of bread.
With careful management of one’s time, and a little bit of luck, you can make it to the market and start selling around 7am, the time when demand for bread is the greatest. You wake up at the obscene hour mentioned above because if you don’t get your bread out early enough, you will likely spend all day trying to sell it in a slow market. If you are able to sell it all early however, that will enable you to relax a little before going out and searching for more firewood for the next day’s haul (a sack of flour will last you two or three days of bread making).
Even after all this work, the profit margin in the stingy market is very thin and seemingly hardly worth the effort. Depending on market variables, a sack’s worth of flour will produce a profit of about 300 mets (only $10!), but requires several days of work. Yet somehow bread making is one of the most reliable sources of income in all of Nauela. This is mostly due to the fact that people in Mozambique have practically become addicted to bread, or pãozinho, a tradition brought in by the Portuguese.
When Wiado first started as a baker in the years immediately after the civil war he was the only one for a long time in the area who made bread. Now after having five kids (two girls and three boys), he has to support a large family and the market is flooded with new start-up entrepreneurs. Along the way, due to his hard work ethic and reliability (as a Muslim he doesn’t drink alcohol), Wiado was appointed to be local water pump mechanic (a semi-skilled job that can earn him upwards of 200 mets a day). Now, between bread, his fields, and water pumps, he never gets a break… but that’s just how he likes it. Not only is he making some good money, but he’s also supporting the community around him.
***
Today, Wiado’s parents are still alive and well living in Quelimane. His younger brothers, however, are now spread throughout central Mozambique (Tete, Chimoio, and Zambezia provinces). Luckily, he was the only one in his immediate family who was ever enlisted into the army and had to fight.
That said, it’s still hard for me to imagine that this fun-loving man was once a soldier shooting and killing his “enemies.” I put quotation marks back there because most people didn’t choose sides but were forcefully coerced into fighting for one side or the other. Nowadays, however, these feelings have been validated by numerous transgressions by both sides during the war. Even today, when people go to their respective political rallies here in Mozambique (which are numerous and well attended), they are simply reverting back to their sides of the battlefield. Most people can’t tell you much about FRELIMO and RENAMO’s political philosophy except that they are communists (RENAMO’s outdated response even today) or that they are terrorists (FRELIMO referring to RENAMO’s destructive war tactics).
Sadly, both opinions are simply antiquated propaganda of the war time era. Although they might be off base and not well expressed, ultimately the comments reflect a sharp societal divide, a huge scar that has not yet fully healed. Although it’s hard to think that sometime in the near future Mozambicans will be able to put this war behind them and move forward, I have hope seeing people like Wiado making incredibly positive strides in the community.
Arlindo Alpin Paulino, 25 – Carvão maker
Not even to the morning’s final destination, yet I’m exhilaratingly exhausted. My tattered jeans are weighed down by the amassing dew being collected from passing corn leaves while my exposed forearms are shredded by the overgrown sawgrass. To me, our path seems uncertain: a sharp left here, a random cut there. But, no worries, my guide is an expert and has made this journey many times before. It’s only 6am and I’ve already biked 30 minutes up and down narrow mountain trails, cut through thriving machambas, and rumbled along on overgrown “paths” eagerly following the footsteps of Arlindo, one of the many area carvão makers.
Now I’m soaking wet, pants rolled up past my knees, sandals in one hand, a 5-liter jug of water in the other, as I slowly ford the murky Mucipine River. It’s a precarious balancing act for me as I feel my way across the muddy riverbed. Sizing up my companion’s situation though, I definitely have it easier. Sure enough, next to me ready to show me up, there’s Arlindo with his 3 year-old baby girl capulana-ed across his back, shoes in hand while also lugging a sack full of axes and food for the morning’s activities.
We cross the river safely. “Now we’re really in the middle of nowhere…” I think. No houses to be seen in any direction, only a rarely used path urging us ahead. Once we put our sandals back on, there’s only few more minutes of hiking, before, all of a sudden, Arlindo stops and points at some trees, indicating that this is where we’re going to be working today. Looking at the plot of sparse trees, I immediately have some grand idea that we’ll be cutting down acres today, but that’s before I see how hard the hand labor is… with dull axes nonetheless!
Arlindo is an oddball of sorts in the area. Unlike most local residents, he was actually born a good distance southwest of Nauela in the district of Namarroi back in 1986. With the early death of his father, however, he left home at the age of 6 and moved to Gurue to live with his uncle, a successful honey farmer. Eventually, Arlindo migrated with other family members over to the Alto Molócuè area and soon after, having completed only 7th grade, had to stop going to school because he could no longer finance his studies without the help of a father/uncle. Lacking anyone insisting otherwise, Arlindo reasoned to drop out and start planting rice fields in the fertile valleys just outside of the city. Although the rice grew plentifully and provided an immediate income, Arlindo’s dreams of one day becoming a primary school teacher or medical technician were thrown to the wayside and left behind before really even having a chance to take shape.
Looking to settle down, Arlindo met and married his wife, Esmerelda - a Nauela native, two years later in Alto Molócuè. Soon thereafter, however, she became very ill with a mysterious disease causing pains in her stomach and back and leaving her extremities inflamed. With minimal access to Western medical treatment, her condition persisted for 3 years as the newly married couple sought out curandeiros, or traditional healers. After finally being attended to at the hospital in Molócuè though, she eventually recovered. Almost at the same time Arlindo became “sick”, but with a so-called traditional illness. According to him, he had been doing relatively well financially (farming success allowed him to open a make-shift movie theater – AKA a closed hut with a tv, dvd player, and speakers )and thus people were allegedly going around wishing bad things upon him which in turn made him act “muluku”, or crazy. To remedy the problem, he regularly saw a curandeiro over a 2 month period… leaving with a “healed-spirit” but destroyed finances (traditional healers can be rather pricey!).
***
Rather than deterring people from seeing traditional healers, the pricey-ness of these treatments actually make people feel as if they are investing in their health when going and spending all that money (compared to the national health care system which is largely free). In fact, just recently their baby boy was sick and the first place they took him was the traditional healer. Only after a weekend of the illness persisting did they take him to the hospital. It’s not a matter of convenience, either. The traditional healer they use is actually located past the hospital. The parent’s opinion is that the child has malaria. But what is “malaria” really? It’s confusing because most people say “malaria” here if it’s what we’d describe as flu-like symptoms. Thus there’s a common misunderstanding that the hospital should give anti-malaria meds to a patient with any kind of fever.
Observing Arlindo’s daily surroundings - fire, wood, and ash – all have been incorporated into his preferred traditional medical treatment of common illnesses. It’s no wonder he’s so hesitant to go to a place that is going to tell him to take a white pill that seems so foreign and different to everything good that he experiences on his healthy days. While out in the forest chopping wood with me, Arlindo seeks out a special kind of tree whose root’s bitter juices are mixed with water and ash to avoid manchas, or marks, on one’s skin. He prepares a batch for me, I try it, and he beams as my entire face puckers at the extreme sharp taste – “That’s how you know it works” he says and resumes his chopping.
***
After their illnesses, Arlindo and Esmerelda found themselves poor and without hardly any food to sell or eat. Desperate, Arlindo sought out and learned a new profession from some of the older community members in Molócuè: how to make carvão – partially burnt wood that is preferred for cooking due to its quick-catching nature and the lack of smoke it produces while burning. Although the work is physically taxing and requires long days, Arlindo discovered that the stream of money that comes in is good and relatively secure.
When they elected to move from Alto Molócuè to Nauela 2 years ago to be closer to his wife’s family, they entered into a similar situation as before – moving during the middle of a growing season and being granted a plot without forgiving, fertile land. Without hesitation, Arlindo restarted his carvão business to be his family’s primary source of income. Although he once had had lofty dreams to continue studying and start a real profession, he now just hopes to earn enough money to be able to get some better land (in Molócuè or Nauela) and continue to support his family as a farmer/carvão maker.
Arlindo and Esmerelda have been blessed with two kids, a girl that’s 3 years old and a boy that’s 1 ½ years old. Unfortunately though, he and his wife are both orphans of one parent (Arlindo lost his dad and Esmarelda lost her mom when they were still kids). This is especially devastating because the grandmother on the mother’s side is supposed to help out a lot with the grandchild rearing in Nauela’s matrilineal culture. Arlindo’s mom is still alive and well in Namarroi but the area’s tradition is to stay near to where the wife’s family is. So here they are, doing everything they can to raise their two kids largely unaided… which is quite a feat anywhere, but especially so in rural Mozambique.
Pointing at a large clearing to our left, Arlindo proudly informs me that in only 2 months work he was able to make 6000 meticais (~ 30 mets a day = $1 dollar a day) by cutting down, burning, and selling off the produced carvão. It’s crazy to think about that math – I mean, I remember always hearing those NGO commercials saying “For just a dollar a day you can help feed and clothe a child in Africa…” Well that’s sort of true… except that’s for an ENTIRE family! To be fair though, Arlindo’s cash earnings versus expenses don’t reflect the fact that his family largely eats and drinks without paying (they get water from a neighborhood well and eat what they grow in their field). In reality, (although some is spent on things like cooking oil, salt, sugar, and alcohol) most of the cash-money actually is stored away as savings for non-daily expenses (like buying a new bicycle, a tin roof for the house, traveling, buying new property, etc).
After just one day of working alongside Arlindo, I’ve started associating his income with the amount of work that is required to get it. When reflecting on a recent purchase it’s like “Wow! Are those crackers I bought in Quelimane really worth 2 days of hard labor?” Definitely not! But then again, life is very different for me 1) my work is not “hard labor” and 2) I’m getting a salary (~7000/month or ~$6 dollars a day) so no matter what I do, save get fired, I’ll get that money. Very different mentality!
In order to make good carvão, you have to cut down certain types of tree. If you use the wrong type (i.e. - mango trees), they simply won’t burn as well. After cutting down the trees, you need to further chop them up into meter-long logs, to facilitate later stacking, and then let dry for 2-3 days. Once you’ve waited for the logs to dry a little, you pile them up, cover them with cut grass and then sand, all the while leaving a small hole to place a fire inside. Once the fire is lit and going strong, cover the hole, and let the logs char for 3 days or so, checking periodically to make sure that too much smoke isn’t coming out (if a lot of smoke is coming out, then that means the wood has not stopped in the carvão phase but is instead completely burning to ash). As the logs and grass are charring, the sand will fall down and put out the fire before completely burning the log. As stated before, these partially burnt logs (carvão) are nice and convenient because they are quick to light and don’t give off a lot of smoke when used.
Environmental conservationists say this practice contributes to the area’s deforestation, but in Arlindo’s case, he is SLOWLY cutting down trees (with a dull axe!) that will one day serve as the crop field of a neighbor (who has given him permission). It works out for both parties because Arlindo is able to make carvão to sell and the farmer gains a cleared portion of his field. Personally (granted I might be biased now after having worked alongside Arlingo), I think the bigger worry for environmentalists should be the foreign companies, mainly Chinese in Zambezia, who come into Mozambique and remove large quantities of unprocessed, fully-grown trees in an instant with chainsaws.
Granted, the burning process does take a lot out of the soil where the fire pit is located...
Other farmers don’t take advantage of making carvão while clearing their fields for two reasons 1) it is highly labor intensive and not worth the effort when you have lots of land with good soil – for those lucky ones it’s better to simply put your time and energy into getting the most out of the available land rather than investing it in clearing less desirable land and 2) many area people don’t know how to make carvão and don’t use much of it in their house. Indeed, even relatively wealthy families like Wiado’s only use freshly cut logs to cook food and make bread. The main consumers of carvão are actually people in bigger cities who are driving through the area or Nauela’s high-rollers (i.e. – government employees, teachers, hospital technicians, and me).
Getting ready to held out to work, child in tow...
1 tree up, 1 tree comin' down...
The hard collisions did a number on my joints, but Arlindo is unfazed.
A real hard working man...
Measuring out the cuts with his estimating stick...
The tree trunk should be cut into ~1 meter long pieces to facilitate later stacking...
Collecting slightly burnt logs to place on bottom of the pile and quickly catch fire...
Assembling the burn pile...
Nothing is easy about this job, even gotta work to haul the grass to cover the wood...
Placing freshly cut grass on top of the logs...
Covering the grass with soil...
Starting the fire...
Once it is completely covered, you gotta make sure too much smoke isn't coming out of the burning pile...
Carvão - The finished product all bundled up and ready to sell
Me looking like a pretty sexy, wanna-be carvão maker!
Ali “Zambia” Momadi, 54 – Curandeiro/ Bike Repairman/GuardEntering what is left of a colonial-era store in Nauela’s marketplace and noting the scratched and faded light-green paint that gives way to patches of exposed brick behind, you catch a glimpse of the past. Indeed, when closing your eyes, you can easily imagine what it must have been like just a short 40 years ago: clean and fully-stocked stores with open kitchens daily serving up hot plates, a well-maintained road with private cars frequenting the nearby Catholic mission or the tea barons in Gurue, and sanitary public bathrooms with running water conveniently located in the business-owners’ lush courtyards to serve passing travelers. To sweeten the deal, commodities were plentiful in the fertile agricultural area during most of the year and luxury items regularly flowed in from Nampula via Nacala, Ilha de Moçambique, and Angoche. Life must have been good…
All these comforts and more would have been available in Nauela 40 years ago to foreigners like you and me… just not to the native residents themselves. And thus, rightfully so, it didn’t last.
Flash back to the present and you start to notice new marks amongst the old: boarded up rooms and a new tin roof for an improvised food storage area, amassed soot where indoor fires are regularly made, and torn clothes strung out across the patio to dry - an impoverished existence in the midst of historical luxury.
This is the reality of Ali, the hired guard of a ruined store in Nauela, who moonlights as a bike repairman (the original reason I’ve come to see him) and, as I’m soon about to find out, a curandeiro, or traditional healer.
With a pointed stick and spinning animal horn in hand, Ali asks me to sit down and chat before starting to work on my bike. Smiling and laughing the whole time, with his browed forehead pushing up on the Kufi cap sitting on top of his head he tells me his story:
Some of the old stores in Nauela's marketplace
Born in the small port town of Angoche, Nampula in 1957 to the son of a prominent Mosque leader, Ali was 1 of 15 (!) children (5 brothers and 10 sisters). Due to the small nature of the town, the young Ali played and grew close with all the area kids his age, including the child of the local Portuguese administrator at the time. When the administrator decided to move to Zambia in 1961, he asked Ali’s father if he could take the 4-year-old Ali with them to keep his child company, to which Ali’s father conditionally agreed. Thus it was decided for him: almost all of Ali’s memorable childhood would be spent in a foreign land with a family that was not his own.
The years passed by quickly though, with Ali playing with and taking care of the Portuguese family’s children. He made the most of this time, learning various skilled tasks around the farm that would later prove quite useful. In 1973, at the age of 16, Ali’s father finally called for him to return home and the Portuguese man obliged, personally escorting him all the way back to Angoche. Only 4 months after having been reunited with his family though, Ali had had enough and took off for Nampula City.
One day soon after, Ali found himself wandering the streets of Nampula when a local shop owner sized him up and offered him a job driving a tractor on his farm in Mohiua, Nauela. Shrugging his shoulders and figuring “Why not?” he accepted the offer. In short, work and life at the time in Mohiua was calm. Even during the War for Independence that soon followed, things there stayed relatively peaceful and unchanged. As a matter of fact, the local population seemed completely oblivious to what revolutionary actions were underway in other parts of the country. Even after the War for Independence was over and the Portuguese owner had fled the country, Ali continued to work as a tractor driver for 10 more years as the owner managed the business from abroad.
Thinking back on these years as a tractor driver, vivid details about the work or the day’s activities don’t come to mind easily. In Ali’s memory, it all just seems to blur together. Something that does stand out, however, was a particular visit by the Portuguese business owner to check on the farm’s operations. Aware they were being watched, everyone was out to do their best that day. Barking out orders, the owner refused to communicate directly with the field workers like Ali. Instead, he issued commands through the appointed field captain. This went on for a while, the owner shouting and staring down the laborers while the workers stole interested glances back at him. As Ali took a moment to admire the odd foreigner, he was astonished by the fact that the Portuguese man had so much arm hair (most Mozambicans have almost none) that he couldn’t read his watch without brushing it aside… “Sort of like yours!” Ali ends as he reaches out and admires my bushy forearms… Great :-/
During these years in Mohiua, Ali met and later married a young woman named Maria who would, over the years, bear him 6 children. After saving up some money, Ali proudly brought her to Angoche in 1983 to meet his relatives and see if she’d be interested in moving there. She loved it! Coming back to Mohiua to inform her family that they intended to move to Angoche, the civil war broke out, however, and any plans they had of moving would have to wait.
That day never came.
The civil war was particularly unkind to Ali and his family. As it was for everyone else in the area, food, water, clothes, and other necessities were hard to come by. Then, one fateful day, Maria went out to gather firewood as she always did, but after several hours of waiting for her return Ali discovered that she had been attacked and killed by roaming RENAMO soldiers.
Desperately needing someone to help take care of his 6 children, Ali quickly remarried. But even the best wife he could find at the time was a poor substitute - a known local drunkard. His second marriage didn’t last long though, not even through the civil war, because after having drunk excessively one night she fell ill and passed away within a few days.
As fate would have it, Ali’s family would have to make it through these tough times with only one parent.
During these intense years near the end of the war, Ali and his children were too scared to plant crops and, instead, relied entirely on his income from being a curandeiro to the area population. Although his practice didn’t pick up until much later in life, he reportedly received his “powers” at a very young age from his grandfather who had also been a curandeiro. According to Ali, after his grandfather’s death when Ali was 2-3 years old, he became very ill. During this time, Ali experienced dreams where his grandfather would appear and explain the different medicinal properties of various roots. Ali defends his late start as a curandeiro stating that it would have been impossible to start any earlier since he had spent most of his childhood living with that Portuguese family in their house that was painted all white and thus warded off the evil spirits that give him power.
“The devil isn’t accustomed to entering a house painted white” Ali calmly explained.
Expanding this idea about keeping unwanted things out of one’s house, Ali actually tried to protect his family during the war by making a circle around his house with a special kind of root so no one would bother them. And apparently something worked because RENAMO soldiers reportedly passed on all sides of his house but never once actually approached them.
Adjusting to life after the war was rough. All of Ali’s skills surrounding the use of machinery meant next to nothing with no working farm equipment to be found in the area. Instead, Ali resorted to becoming a subsistence farmer and tried his best to provide for his family while still working on the side as a curandeiro. He eventually remarried again and started regularly attending the Friday worship at a reconstructed mosque in Malema, Nampula province (a 2 hour bike ride each way).
To facilitate his Friday worship time, Ali left his wife and children (now 8 in total) behind farming in Mohiua and moved to Nauela in 2003 when its mosque was completed. Being so close to the new mosque, he’s actually able to go there every day to pray and thus has built up quite a relationship with fellow area Muslims. Three years ago, upon the strong recommendation of Nunes, the mosque leader and only current store owner in Nauela, Ali secured a job as a live-in guard for a recently bought colonial-era store. The new owner currently lives in Moloque, but bought the property and just hasn’t had the time or money to fully rehabilitate it yet. Until the time of rehabilitation comes, Ali’s relatively task-free job is secure and allows him to continue being a bike repairman and curandeiro.
Boldly, I ask Ali what people at the mosque think about him being a practicing curandeiro, especially since he keeps referring to it as being the power of “diablo”, the devil. He insists though that everyone at the mosque knows and, although they’ve never come to be seen by him, they’ve never rebuked him for it.
Focusing in on the actual work, Ali informs me that each curandeiro has his/her own specialty – i.e. predicting the future, casting spells, telling you about the unknown, producing natural medicines, etc. Ali allegedly knows how to treat various illnesses with medicinal plants and can use a spinning animal horn filled with money and special roots to respond to questions you need answers to.
Ali’s going rate depends on what exactly you want him to do. The standard is 10 mets for a yes/no question (i.e. – Is my soon-to-be-born child a male?). Supposedly the horn will rotate clockwise if the statement is false and counterclockwise if the statement is true. If you want to know the answers to open-ended questions, however, the price is double (i.e.- Who robbed my house?). In this case, the spinning horn supposedly talks to Ali and he communicates its message to the client (this practice seems pretty dangerous to me!). On the other hand, the medications he dolls out can range from 20 to 50 mets ($1-2 USD) depending on the severity of the illness. A 20 met medicine can supposedly cure things like fevers and headaches while a 50 met medicine can allegedly cure things like a lack of appetite, aching body, hernia, etc.
Although a lot of curandeiros or traditional healers are promoting unstudied or counterintuitive methods of healing, people continue to seek out their treatment today. Historically, there hasn’t been much access to Western medicine in the area and so generations of people have gone to these self-proclaimed healers as their only hope for improvement. Even today at small hospitals and health posts in rural Mozambique, health technicians frequently run out of medicine and can only limitedly help patients (just as it’s tough for a patient in the States to accept that a doctor can’t do much to remedy his/her common cold, it’s tough, perhaps even more so, here since there’s very little understanding of the Germ Theory). This further encourages people to continue to seek out traditional healers who are hard-pressed to identify any illnesses their elixirs supposedly can’t cure.
Farmer – To say the very least, Nauela is a hot spot in northern Zambezia for agriculture. Corn, millet, sugar cane and a variety of beans (especially pinto beans) are all commonly grown here. While farming in the States is usually done on a large scale with tractors and other machinery, farming in Mozambique is done almost exclusively on small family plots with only a homemade garden hoe.Although almost everything else in Mozambican society is, field labor is unique in that it is not divided by gender lines. Men, women, and children work side by side in the fields to help pull their own weight. Although farmers will sell some of their crops, for the average family there is a direct connection between what is being harvested in the field and what is being served at the dinner table. For people who intend on selling their products, there are hours, even full days throughout the week spent anxiously waiting at the slow moving market to sell undistinguishable products amongst a sea of other venders.
That all said, most “farmers” are not people who live in the rural countryside with pigs, horse, and cows in a large cottage. No, indeed, if you ask almost anyone, rural or urban, poor or well off, most will declare that they have a machamba that they attend to. Farming is a topic that almost everyone has some experience with and is full of beliefs and traditions (good and bad) that have been passed down through the generations.
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Pastor Vicente Alberto, 59Waiting on a long, wooden bench set out on the church office’s front veranda, I hear the familiar echo of Pastor Vicente heavily striking the worn keys of his antiquated typewriter. The methodical sound, combined with the pleasant smell of eucalyptus leaves wafting in the air, lulls me into a trance. I’m still profusely sweating from the hour-long bike ride to Mihecane, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying the moment. Staring out at the local primary school students happily playing soccer on their haphazard, dirt field while occasionally greeting passing farmers who are hauling this year’s crops from the surrounding mountains to sell in Nauela, I can’t help but feel that these are the moments that I came to the Peace Corps for.
Eventually, I’m pulled away from my reflections by a soft, yet commanding voice calling me into the dim room where Pastor Vicente, the head of the local União Baptista church, is. After letting my eyes adjust to the contrast in lighting, I now see him sitting comfortably, in typical fashion, with hot tea set out in front of him and a smile stretching across his face. Although the room is filled with many individuals, including other area pastors, Vicente has an air about him that immediately draws all of one’s attention.
Looking around the room at his humbled colleagues, it’s not hard to see that this operation, for better or for worse and like so many others in Mozambique, is a one man show.
It wasn’t always like this though. Vicente has only been the head local pastor for a little over a decade. Before that, Mihecane had a longstanding missionary presence dating all the way back to the turn of the 20th century, but with the advent of Mozambique’s struggle for independence, civil war, and rehabilitation efforts since, the previous hierarchy has been tossed out the window and those who immediately filled the power vacuum are largely still hanging on to that position today.
Sitting down over freshly made tea, the hot water fogging my glasses, I try to delve into the details surrounding the church’s carpentry project designed to help local OVCs. But today, Vicente is not in a work mood. Growing up in an incredibly tumultuous time in his country’s history, he has already done his fair share of development projects and right now he just wants to enjoy his tea and chat…
 | The local União Baptista church headquarters in Mihecane with it's eucalyptus trees swaying to the side |
Born in 1951 to a polygamous father, Vicente Alberto grew up living out of his mother’s house on the banks of the Malapa River working as a farmer. Poor and black in a wealthy Portuguese-dominated society, Vicente’s only opportunity to receive a formal education in his early years came from the nearby protestant mission’s Sunday school which he attended regularly. Thus, at a very early age, the bond between future pastor and church was forged strong.
In order to better understand Pastor Vicente’s place in history with the area church, one must first step back in time to the beginnings of the União Baptista Church in Mihecane, Nauela. All the way back in 1913, Scottish missionaries initially founded the protestant mission in Mihecane dedicated to evangelizing to all of northern Mozambique (now the provinces of Zambezia, Nampula, Niassa, and Cabo Delgado… a HUGE region with literally millions of people in it). Over the next several decades the name of the mission changed several times and eventually settled on African Evangelical Fellowship. In addition to the church, the mission opened a school that went from 1st to 3rd grade, had a Sunday school bible study, and an orphanage. During these early years, many missionaries from Great Britain and Malawi came and went. The school grew and had peculiarities such as a piano, bells, and other musical instruments. During the First World War, the mission was actually attacked by some roaming Germans, killing one of the missionaries, but the mission’s presence in the area continued on through all obstacles and thrived.
It wasn’t until 1959, when Vicente was 8 years old, that the protestant mission in Mihecane was forced close by the Portuguese government because of a series of unfortunate events:
It all started when a new foreign evangelist named Cornelio arrived from Great Britain and started visiting the surrounding villages claiming God had given him supernatural powers. He started associating with many of the area curandeiros, speaking in tongues while praying, and even tried his hand at miraculous healing. Eventually, Cornelio wanted to prove his abilities and reasoned to throw a baby into a fire claiming he’d be able to save the child through the power of God. When he failed to resuscitate the child, however, he and the mission got in a lot of trouble with the local government.
Around this same time, a Mozambican named Ernesto who was working as a tax collector in Alto Molócuè robbed a large sum of money from the Portuguese government and, while fleeing the country, tried to hide with a friend in Mihecane. His friend didn’t feel comfortable taking him in to his house though and, instead, presented him to the head pastor of the mission at the time, Henry Gordon Legg, to turn him into the local authorities. Legg refused, knowing that if they took the man to authorities the fugitive would be killed and the man’s blood would be on his hands. Soon afterwards, the robber fled safely to Malawi and the friend immediately informed the area government about what had transpired with the pastor.
As one can imagine, the Portuguese government, already upset by the recent burning, was infuriated with Legg for not turning the robber in and consequently decided to close the mission (including the church, school, and orphanage… everything). Going a step farther, they also prohibited the local congregation from using the buildings as a punishment. Legg was eventually sent back to England, but, before he departed, he left the entire mission in the hands of a Mozambican named Martino Campos. Under the direction of Campos, the church’s headquarters migrated from Mihecane to the neighboring village of Eleve.
From 1959 to 1961, Vicente stayed at home because there wasn’t another school within walking distance for the young boy. However, in 1962, being a little older and having grown substantially, Vicente began making the daily trek to attend school at Nauela’s Catholic mission. During this time, in addition to going to school, he routinely helped out around the house of Pastor Campos; And while he might not have realized it at the time, seeds were then being sewn into his mind guiding him towards his future profession.
Although it took a while, on July 11th, 1968, at the age of 17, Vicente finally finished 4th grade - which was the highest grade a non-assimilated Mozambican was permitted to complete under Portuguese rule.
It’s important to note that during colonial times a Mozambican man could actually buy an assimilation card, a paper ID, stating that he considered his nationality to be Portuguese rather than Mozambican (this caused quite the controversy when the FRELIMO army later came through to push out the Portuguese during their War for Independence). The card cost 120 escudos, a lot of money at the time for a poor, rural Mozambican, but offered several advantages to its holder. An assimilated Mozambican, for example, was well known in the community and could attend all of the local Portuguese parties as well as go to school with all the Portuguese students. Once done with 4th grade, an assimilated Mozambican could even continue studying in Alto Molócuè or Nampula if he had enough money - Vicente’s family didn’t. Instead, Vicente bought a card with his hard earned money to take advantage of one thing: the parties!
One Portuguese party that still stands out in Vicente’s mind was a celebration surrounding the birthday of the Chefe do Posto during Vicente’s teen years. In the weeks leading up the event, invitations were sent out to all the assimilated Mozambicans instructing them to arrive in the village center at a certain time and date. During these years, there were between 30-40 Portuguese in the area and all of them promptly showed up at the said time and date with their family’s large contribution to the potluck-style dinner: chicken, potatoes, corn, wine, champagne, etc – the party was on!
After an hour or so, the food was still being divvied out, but wine bottles were empty and several Portuguese men were already drunk. And that’s when things got ugly! Yelling across the room at one another, a white store owner finally crossed the line when accusing a white farmer of being so uncivilized that he regularly eats field mice (something poor, rural Mozambicans did). Next thing Vicente knew, an all out war had erupted in the dining area. Vicente and his friends froze and watched in amazement as the white men took slugs at one another. They quickly recovered, however, and hurried back home with their mouths full of new, juicy stories, but little food having actually made it to their bellies.
When Vicente completed 4th grade in 1968, it was obvious that his family wouldn’t have enough money to enable him to continue studying in Molócuè. So, instead, he started working as a “Hey! Boy…” (a do-whatever-he’s-told helper) for a man named Gaspar - one of the six Portuguese store owners in Nauela.
It was at about that time that the church headquarters led by Campos really started to take hold in Eleve. After a difficult, slow transition the church finally began constructing a new sanctuary in Eleve in 1969. After two years of hard labor, the church in Eleve was finally inaugurated on November 11th, 1971 and quickly began to thrive. As the headquarters for all of northern Mozambique’s protestant churches, Eleve benefitted greatly, receiving financial support from all its congregations spread throughout the four-province region. Thus they were able to quickly construct several more buildings in the church’s immediate vicinity, including a seminary with attached dormitories, a church office, a head pastor’s residence, a guest house, a primary school, and a small health post.
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Amidst all this construction, Henry Gordan Legg returned to Maputo and pushed for the joining of several protestant denominations to form Igreja União Baptista de Moçambique. Although many followed his lead, including Campos, several church leaders broke off at this point and separately founded their own churches (this division would later cause a huge struggle over land rights to the mission’s original property in Mihecane). Around the same time, the Portuguese government actually lifted the ban on the protestant mission’s use of Mihecane, but Martino Campos, having already started constructing so much in Eleve, reasoned to wait for things to settle down for a while before making the move.
From 1972-73 Vicente lived and worked in Eleve as teacher at the church-affiliated primary school. Outside his official teaching schedule, Vicente became an appointed church evangelist to try and reach out to the local children. For a brief moment, things in Eleve were going well and comfortable for all!
The brewing War for Independence in the North didn’t impact Nauela till 1973 when the assimilated Mozambicans, including Vicente, were forced to enlist into the Portuguese army. In an instant, the newly recruited soldiers were uprooted from their calm, rural lifestyles and sent off to be trained for war at the fort on Ilha de Moçambique.
After basic training, Vicente found himself stationed in the province of Manica as a heavy arms specialist shooting canons and mortars. During his down time, Vicente became a hack-electrician, wiring barracks and houses for the Portuguese army in Chimoio, a trade that would pay him much dividend during his life. Even while looking out at the enemy, it never occurred to Vicente that he was actually fighting against a force, FRELIMO, that would soon free and govern the country he grew up in. As the Portuguese forces finally retreated, however, FRELIMO stumbled upon Vicente with his Portuguese assimilation card on hand. Noting his Portuguese citizenship, the freedom fighters dared him to flee to Portugal with the rest of them. Vicente obviously couldn’t, so, instead, he trashed the card and pledged his allegiance to the new Mozambican government.
On September 7th, 1974 the fighting for Mozambique’s independence ended successfully having kicked out the Portuguese colonial government. By the start of the next year, Vicente had arrived back in Eleve and resumed his role as teacher and evangelist at the local primary school. Within weeks of moving back home, on January 17th, 1975, Vicente Alberto married the woman he had long since been committed to, Arlinda Enriques, and before the end of the year, on December 15th, 1975, their first child of 10 (!) was born.
On June 25th, 1975 Mozambique’s government signed the Lusaka Accords (??) with Portugal officially acknowledging its hard-fought independence. Although there had been a change of government, life in Nauela remained startlingly similar for several years to come. Even while most of the area’s white residents had fled, a stubborn handful remained. It wasn’t until 1977, when the communist government moved to nationalize everything: land, schools, religious institutions, hospitals, businesses, etc, that things were really turned upside down.
In a day’s time, Mozambican soldiers invaded Eleve, ransacking it far worse than the War for Independence ever did. It was a free-for-all with soldiers removing the town’s generator, maize mill, farming equipment, etc, and, going a step further, seizing the dormitories for the students, the school, the health post, all the improved housing, and all church buildings except the sanctuary, which the communist government mockingly allowed the church to keep.
In the face of this tragedy, many people, including Vicente and his growing family, dispersed from Eleve. Looking for stability and a future, they moved to the city of Gurue where Vicente found work as an electrician for the Mitilile tea farm. Even as the civil war began and raged outside the city limits, in the heavily protected oasis that was Gurue, Vicente flourished while working his way up the ranks over a 15 year span, eventually becoming the head electrician for the company’s five tea plants.
Not all people were so fortunate, however. Around 1985-86, the civil war between RENAMO and FRELIMO picked up in the Nauela area. RENAMO, heavily financed by regional and world capitalist powers (i.e. – the U.S. and South Africa) trying to rid the world of communism, led an attack aimed at destroying infrastructure and disrupting everyday life. Schools, hospitals, farms, and roads were obliterated while mines and troops were scattered throughout the country to paralyze the people.
Although their presence was felt before then, in 1986 RENAMO finally attacked the agriculture center of Nauela attempting to cripple one of the key food suppliers in the country’s northern region. The outnumbered FRELIMO forces fled the area, leaving behind many civilians, including Vicente’s parents, who were caught and forced to march with RENAMO to the rural post of Molumbo where they were left, scared and disoriented in the bush.
This was the beginning of a series of attacks and counterattacks in the Nauela area by RENAMO and FRELIMO. The losing side would typically run away from the battle in order to look for more supplies and troops (Renamo would normally go looking in Nampula, FRELIMO, on the other hand, Gurue). Then they’d come back and attack again. At one point, FRELIMO told area residents to come build makeshift houses around the base of Mount Nauela so they could better protect them. However, pretty soon after witnessing the back and forth nature of the battles, civilians in the area went into hiding out in the surrounding forest. People would do their best to avoid death – moving about carefully during the day, making clothes from tree bark, only cooking indoors at night – without doing too well for oneself (i.e. – if RENAMO caught you with salt you were assumed to be associating with FRELIMO and thus killed).
Not an uncommon occurrence at the time, one of Vicente’s sisters who had fled into the bush was doing her best to bear the cold one winter night, bundling up in that infamous, heavy, abrasive tree-bark cloth, when something tragic happened. Earlier in the evening, she had made a fire inside her mud hut, in order to not give away her location to RENAMO soldiers, and had fallen asleep huddling close by the fire to benefit from its warmth. She woke up in a state of panic hours later, her baby crying and an intense sensation of pain coming from her lower body: the tree-bark cloth was on fire! In fact, the dry material must have made for excellent kindling as it was already engulfed in flames. Heaving the cloth aside as quickly as possible, it had already severely burned a large section of her upper thigh and, to make matters worse, she knew she wouldn’t be able to seek medical attention on her own.
 | Lydia Duarte donning a replica of the tree bark clothes commonly used during the civil war. Lydia is about to be appointed as one of the local “regulos”, community leaders. A rare feat in rural Mozambique for a woman. |
Luckily, she was able to send a compassionate neighbor to Gurue to find Vicente and beg him to help transport her on a stretcher to Gurue (~60kms) in order to be treated by a doctor. Due to Vicente’s demanding work schedule as a company electrician he wasn’t able to personally make the trip (although he desperately wanted to), but sent four family members who were able to safely get her to Gurue in 3 days time (1 day there and 2 back), walking mostly at night since they were afraid of being caught and murdered by RENAMO troops. When Vicente’s sister finally arrived in Gurue, she was attended to by 2 surgeons from Doctors Without Borders who were working there temporarily to help with the war relief effort. In the short time it had taken to seek medical attention, the wound had begun to rot and the doctors debated whether or not to amputate the leg. In the end, they thoroughly cleaned the wound and let it slowly heal. Vicente’s sister is still alive today, albeit she has a limp, thanks to the courageous rescue efforts and the aid of the foreign doctors.
The story above isn’t the only area’s heroic act in these years during Mozambique’s civil war however. No, in fact, there are many more. At the time, there were actually still two foreign businessmen left in Nauela (1 Portuguese and 1 from Goa). Hearing about them, RENAMO soldiers wanted their blood. Before they could get a hold of them, however, Pastor Campos drove them in the church’s Landrover to Gurue in order to escape. When interrogated about the foreigners’ whereabouts, locals informed RENAMO forces what Campos has done. Instead of killing him for his rebellious acts, the soldiers reasoned to punish Campos by burning the car and made him stand at attention the whole day, from 9am-3pm. He came away from the encounter with inflamed legs and an aching ego, but ultimately suffered more when they later demanded he, along with a group of area pastors, march from Nauela to RENAMO’s base near Morrumbala by foot – the one-way journey took 30 days back then!
During the return, the aging Campos couldn’t go on and was left behind on the trail. Luckily, a nephew got word of his poor circumstance and carried him on his bike the rest of the way back home to Eleve. Campos didn’t fair the worst of all though, yet another pastor actually died during the return and was hastily buried in an unmarked grave on the banks of the Lua River. Even after his return, Campos wasn’t free from persecution. That same year he was deported to the Gurue area and later Quelimane. Soon after his arrival in Quelimane, he became very ill and died there in 1987. Eventually, however, his body was transported back north and was properly buried in a place of honor in Molócuè.
Within the safe confines of Gurue, Vicente received word of his parent’s involuntary relocation to Molumbo. Thus, in 1990 accompanied by allied soldiers, Vicente journeyed through the active warzone to seek out his parents or word of their fate. After arriving and asking around, he was actually able to locate them and safely move them back to Gurue to be with him and his family. At about this same time, the new local head Pastor Elias Guimarãnes traveled from Gurue to Maputo for a nationwide church conference where he was instructed to return as soon as possible to the original mission plot in Mihecane, instead of staying in Eleve since their buildings there were now in ruins.
Almost as soon as the civil war peace agreements were signed, construction started back up in Mihecane in March, 1992 under the supervision of Pastor Elias Guimarãnes. Looking for another church man from the area that he could trust as an auxiliary, Guimarãnes offered the new position of church secretary to Vicente (he had continued his work as an evangelist in Gurue for the church during the war). With the Gurue tea factories now failing, having been hard-pressed throughout the war, Vicente thought it an opportune time to officially join up with the church and finally head back home with Guimarãnes.
Slowly, Vicente gained more and more responsibilities in the church and eventually went back to biblical school (he had also attended biblical school in Eleve from 1971-73) with the idea of one day becoming a pastor. Under the supervision of Mihecane’s first post-independence missionaries, an English couple named Steven and Joanne Whitley who arrived in 1995, Vicente attended classes twice a week and completed a correspondence course. After a year or so of study, Vicente officially became a pastor in 1996 and when Elias Guimarãnes announced that he would soon step down as head pastor due to his declining health, there was little doubt as to who would be his successor. Indeed, in 1998 Vicente Alberto was voted to be head pastor of the local União Baptista Church, Costa Custodio to be the pastor treasurer, and Samuel Selvestre to be the pastor secretary.
 | The current group of church leaders, Pastors Selvestre, Vicente, and Basilio (replaced Custodio) from left to right. |
In addition to the Whitleys, there was suddenly an influx of post-war foreign aid in the area, including a Canadian couple, Dr. Mark Nelham and his wife Joanne, sent from Doctors Without Borders/Red Cross, Meli Wisbon (or Melanie Wishbone?), an American nurse who had previously been working in Zambia, and a shipping container full of donated clothes. Although Mark and his wife would usually only visit for brief periods (they had a house in Quelimane), the Whitleys and Melanie lived in Mihecane for several years. Melanie eventually left Mihecane as the health situation stabilized in their years following the war, but the Whitleys would have likely stayed many years longer if not for the fact that all the missionaries with the União Baptista church were kicked out of the country in 2001 by host-country-national church leaders.
The sudden expulsion of all the missionaries associated with the União Baptista church in Mozambique was pushed forward by João Vivente Ichaua, the national leader of the church at the time. In 2001, during a routine nationwide meeting in Alto Molócuè, the head leader vented to the mixed gathering of Mozambicans and foreign missionaries, claiming he had no way of making future plans for the church because he was being held completely unaware of the church’s finances. Inspired, he was roughly quoted as having said “Give us 10 years without any foreigners leading this church and see if we’re not better off.” You see, at that time, most, if not all, international financial support was funneled through the foreign missionaries before being presented to the church. If nothing else, this caused a bad perception because Mozambicans would see missionaries traveling around the country in their nice cars, building large houses for themselves, and then not giving money for every whim of the church.
The Whitleys' house in Mihecane.
The house in Mihecane where the nurse Melanie lived.
When the dust settled, all (about 30 in total) missionaries had been kicked out of the country by the church’s national direction so that Mozambicans could take control of the money and their church. Although this decision pleased the Maputo office, many grassroot level churches, including Mihecane, were both stunned and deeply disheartened by the move that ripped their loved and very dedicated companions away from them.
This sudden vacuum in leadership caused the local congregation to lean that much harder on Vicente. During his years as pastor he has had to handle conflicts between area churches over land - who owned what, fight adult illiteracy, mentor other potential pastors in biblical school, grow the church congregation, handle various development projects, not to mention care for and raise his family. He’s now been working with the church for 18 years, 13 of which as a pastor, and is getting excited about the idea of finally retiring. He’s tired and wants to rest. Who can blame him? He’s done an incredible job. The only real thing left for him to do is help transition the church over to the next leader. I’m sure he’ll be up for it.
Velosa Vasco Freitas, 53 – TeacherWhile observing village life in Mozambique, one easily notices that most women are socialized from a very young age to be relatively timid and reserved, especially so around their male counterparts. Thus, it shouldn’t be surprising to discover that there are not many leaders in the whole administrative post of Nauela who are females. In fact, the large majority that are present here are not of local talent, but rather young, bright-eyed teachers that have been recently imported from urban centers across the province. Velosa is an exception. To say that she stands out only because of her accomplishments in regards to her gender and origins, however, would be false.
All the while remaining culturally respectful to the opposite sex, Velosa holds quite a presence wherever and with whoever she may be. Although she is not an official community leader (a position normally reserved for elders who are no longer working), her accolades are no less remarkable. Now going on 35 years of teaching at the primary school level, Velosa has been at her profession as long as Mozambique has been an independent state (how many people in the world can say that?!). That relatively uninterrupted work schedule includes years spanning the civil war where she continued to teach even in the thick of battle. Thriving in the years since the peace agreements, having been skillfully molded by her life experiences, Velosa now stands as a beacon of hope and an example for all of Nauela and Mozambique.
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Like so many Mozambicans during colonial times, Velosa came from a poor, yet plentiful lineage. Born in 1958, just a stone’s throw from her current residence in Nauela, Velosa was her mother’s third child of eight (two brothers and six sisters). Both of her brothers passed away at a relatively young age and none of her sisters had interest in doing anything other than what their ancestors had already been doing for as long as anyone could remember – living off the land as a subsistence farmer.
While her sisters and other peers hop-scotched back and forth, in and out of school, Velosa was academically determined from a young age. Unlike so many of her female counterparts growing up, Velosa had almost no interest in getting married young. Indeed she had much bigger plans: a dream of one day becoming a teacher (back during colonial times, only a select few educated Mozambicans were allowed to become teachers).
Working to attain that goal, Velosa attended school at the catholic mission just outside of Nauela until 1973. At 15 years old, an age by which most local women had long since been married, Velosa had the privilege of being able to say that she had completed 4th grade - the maximum level of education available in Nauela at the time. Had she had the money, she would have liked to continue studying in Molócuè, Quelimane, or Nampula until 10th grade or beyond, but that just wasn’t financially feasible for her money-strapped family. At this point, with no jobs open, a looming war in sight, and no more educational opportunities to be had, things stalled for the anxious Velosa.
In the years that followed, many of the affluent assimilated Mozambicans who were Velosa’s classmates at the Catholic mission were sent off to fight for the Portuguese army to combat the growing disruptive force FRELIMO. Some of these men returned home after the war (known as the War for Independence after FRELIMO dethroned the Portuguese colonial government), but several notables weren’t immediately heard from again, leaving doubt as to their fate.
After Mozambique’s independence in 1975, an opportunity arose when a cousin of Velosa’s became the newly appointed local government secretary. Knowing that they’d be looking for many more teachers to accommodate for the sudden influx of Mozambican students, the secretary asked Velosa if she would be able to start teaching adult literacy classes just down the road in Eiope. She quickly accepted. After giving several literacy courses over a year’s time, the young Velosa was eventually invited to join others in taking an official teaching exam that would be held the following week at her old stomping grounds, the Catholic mission. Studying intently for the entire week, Velosa passed the exam with ease. Velosa could now be integrated into the budding public education system, fulfilling her childhood dream at only 18 years old. In total, fifty-plus individuals took and passed the teaching exam that day, only 8 of them were females though.
Things were looking up for Velosa. Mozambique was now an independent state which allowed her many new freedoms and consequently she was finally realizing her dream of becoming a teacher. Almost at this exact same time, her family received an unsolicited letter from Francisco Janeiro asking for their daughter’s hand in marriage. Unheard of since he had been sent away to fight for the Portuguese against FRELIMO, Janeiro was the son of a wealthy farmer (he had several field laborers who actually did the work) in Nauela and also one of Velosa’s classmates back at the Catholic mission.
Turns out, Janeiro had moved to Beira after fighting in Tete province for the Portuguese, but was now interested in marrying a woman from back home. As Janeiro wrote the card that would ultimately guide his life’s destiny, he tried hard to remember any specific names of girls he had found alluring back in his younger days at school.
As fate would have it, the name that jumped out above the rest happened to be: Velosa Vasco Frietas.
Surprised, yet interested in the marriage proposal now after having finished school, Velosa wrote cards back and forth with Janeiro for some time before he came and officially visited her in Nauela. After a few more years of getting to know one another via correspondence and sporadic visits, Janeiro and Velosa were officially married in Nauela on October 2nd, 1978.
Velosa, Janeiro, and some neighbors posing with me for a photo
Throughout the courtship, starting in February 1976, Velosa began teaching kids, 1st through 3rd grade, on a yearly rotation between the area’s various primary schools. She started in Eiope (where she had been teaching the literacy classes), next moved to the catholic mission, then on to Maloa, and finally back to Eiope. Even though she had a job, her life at this time was not glamorous or posh. In fact, she never even had a permanent residence at these schools. Instead, she would live in makeshift housing or with relatives while she moved from place to place. It’s important to note that Velosa didn’t teach at the big school in Nauela during this time though because the wife of one of the white Portuguese merchants was still teaching there even after the Portuguese government had long since been disposed of (many Portuguese didn’t leave the area until the communist government nationalized everything in 1977-78).
After their wedding, Velosa temporarily left Nauela and travelled to Sofala province where Janeiro still lived and worked as an agronomic chief for a large farm called Mafambici (spelling?). Only 6 months later, however, a very pregnant Velosa was forced to make the trek back home alone - after all, it’s against local tradition for a woman to give birth to her first child away from her home. In 1979, their first of four children, Augustinho (now working as a primary school teacher in Morrumbala) was born. After giving birth, Velosa stayed put in Nauela for 6 months, allowing herself and the child to grow strong and healthy before making the trip back to Sofala (a full two day trip because one night had to be spent awaiting transport following the boat crossing on the Zambezia river - this was before civil war wreaked havoc on the country’s roads and transportation) in order to show the healthy baby boy to the father.
Practically no sooner had Velosa and the infant made it safely to Sofala, than they turned around and came back to Nauela. Despite their marriage, Velosa and Janeiro knew that they were lucky to both have reliable jobs and neither could afford give that up… even with the terrible inconvenience of constantly having to travel back and forth between provinces. Thus it was decided: the couple would spend the next several years leading up to the civil war separated, visiting one another only sporadically for two weeks or so at a time but still managing to have three kids nonetheless.
Around 1986, as the civil war really started getting serious in northern Zambezia, Janeiro cautiously made his way back to Nauela. Not long after having made it home however, RENAMO entered and sent cards out to the various leaders in the area requesting their presence the following afternoon. Janeiro was one of many who received the dreaded invitation, but fearing the worst, he left his wife and three kids with her parents that same evening and fled, walking from Nauela to Molócuè - a distance stretching over some 30 miles.
Arriving in Molócuè the next morning, Janeiro had to think fast. He sought out the help of an affluent Portuguese family who were good friends of his father and, upon hearing Janeiro’s predicament, the wealthy merchant gave Janeiro eight sacks of corn to transport and sell in Nampula City. With the money he raised from this rapid commodity transaction, Janeiro was able to buy a plane ticket back to Beira, but unable to inform his family directly about his plan.
Janeiro spent most of the next seven years within the confines of the relatively secure city of Beira. His wife and family, on the other hand, weren’t as lucky. Like so many others in Nauela, they were stuck. Upon RENAMO’s arrival into the community, the troops forcefully recruited Velosa and others to join their ranks – giving them a rather unappealing alternative: join the other side and we’ll kill you. Velosa was an asset as a teacher and thus was instructed to continue to give lessons. Even as the war raged around them, Velosa continued to teach classes inside makeshift grass and mud huts. To help sustain Velosa and her family, students brought whatever they could scrounge up: corn, beans, and field mice. Deprived of even the most basic learning tools, the students and teachers used twigs to write notes on available banana leaves. At some points, RENAMO soldiers brought writing pads that were no doubt stolen from who knows where. Sometimes Velosa and others would come across teachers and students who had been massacred and left to rot in the bush because they supposedly hadn’t been teaching things the soldiers liked. It was all incredibly unnerving, but especially so for Velosa.
When the war finally came to an end in 1992, Janeiro cautiously began his journey back to Nauela. Though he repeated received assurances from war-torn refugees that his family was still alive, there was always doubt because the news was typically several months old. From Beira, Janeiro first stopped in Quelimane and spent nearly a month asking around to see if anyone had any up-to-date information regarding his family. Although the news was inconclusive, he got bits and pieces hinting that most of the fighting in the Molócuè area had stopped, albeit there were still some roaming bands of fighters.
He decided to risk it.
After several days more of travel, his caravan pulled into Alto Molócuè where he spent an entire week before making the final leg of his journey. Eventually he was able to find a friend who believed Janeiro’s family was still alive and was willing to accompany him out into the bush to look for them. Arriving in Nauela, they had no trouble locating all of his family minus his middle child who had grown sick and died during the war.
Even after undergoing this tragedy, Janeiro was reluctant to permanently move back to Nauela and Velosa was unwilling to move away. In the years that followed, Velosa gave birth to one more child, Dulce, as things began to return to normal. The country had their first democratic elections in 1994 and the new government called for the former public service employees to enter back into the work force the following year. Soon after this, Janeiro finally agreed to move back to Nauela permanently as a community judge to help settle civil disputes. When Janeiro relocated to Nauela, Velosa and the children packed up and joined him at their current housing plot closer to the village’s administrative post.
Velosa presenting her daughter Dulce with a gift at the girl's Mwale ceremony.
Both employed and successful, Velosa and Janiero didn’t rest on their laurels. Velosa completed a year-long continuing education course in Mugema held weekly on Saturdays to refresh her mind and increase her pay level. Janeiro, meanwhile, went back to school in 2005 starting at 6th grade and is currently on track to finish 10th grade this year. As of 2011, Nauela’s secondary school only offered up to 10th grade, but if they were ever start an 11th or 12th grade Janeiro says he would continue on studying. Likewise, Velosa says that if Nauela were to ever get electricity, she would teach during the day and do night school… but for now that will all have to wait on the back burner.
Even though she is successful and highly esteemed doesn't mean she's exempted from the daily chores.
***
To give some more perspective on the education situation in Nauela, one must understand the educators’ mindset: disgruntled. Currently, Mozambique’s public education system practically demands that new teachers be sent to fill spots in the least desirable locations. Mozambique’s talent is highly magnetized toward the cities and thus rural placements, such as Nauela, are considered by many to be at the bottom of the barrel. Newcomers are oftentimes counting the days, weeks, months, or years till they escape. To complicate matters though, unless you successfully bribe a high ranking government official, a new teacher will be stuck at their first teaching post for at least five years before being able to even request a transfer. In spite of all this though, Velosa is one of the few home grown talents who is still around.
Largely because of the recent stretch of the destructive civil war, Mozambique’s rural teaching force is not a normally distributed curve of experienced and inexperienced teachers. There are the few who started teaching before the civil war and those who started some time after (i.e. – a decade or so later). Most are the latter. Thus, compounded with the transfer rules, even some of the most long standing teachers in Nauela have been here for only 5-10 years – this severely cripples within-staff mentoring. That said, of those who started before the civil war and who still remain active in the work force, none are as willing to help or support other teachers as Velosa.
Sisa, one of the new and upcoming female teachers in Nauela, is intimately mentored by Velosa since she lives next door in a small house owned by Velosa and Janeiro
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