Westernized
The first time I saw Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, I couldn’t understand the reach of its message as I do today. So I ask: “Do we have to read the same books? Do we have to dress with the same labels? Do we have to live in the same houses? Do we have to watch the same TV series? Do we have to do the same over and over again, until someone shows us that the impossible is possible?” I finished recently José Saramago’s “A Caverna”, a book showing that even in the worst moments of despair there is a way out.
Westernizing Africa was it a good choice? I don’t think so. The Africa I knew when I was a child wasn’t perfect by any standards. There was unfairness and cruelty, but it was a beautiful place. Today’s Africa is also unfair, cruel and most of its magical beauty is gone.
It is important to stress here that I am not questioning independence (precious independence), what I am questioning are the imposed ways of self-determination coming from the outside.
As far as I am concerned, I think it would be possible to bring medicine, knowledge, water… to people, without concentrating them like cattle around metropolis.
Fear
One day, when I feel tired of writing about the sea, I could very well start a blog about fear. Why don’t do it now? Because I prefer to write about something that gives me pleasure and shows better our present reality, than bring back ghosts of the past or worries about the future.
My parents taught us to behave as if the man in front of us was a robber and the man behind an assassin. Even with all their care, they failed to avoid some terrible misfortunes. On the contrary, my own family escaped unhurt by the worst times in Mozambique. Sometimes I failed to protect my daughter, but the fates were kind with her. She is happy and strong. At least she is sure of her choices, while me, the overprotected one, I am still a child lost in this world.I don’t know how many fear tales I could pull together, but I am sure that there would be many. For a start, if you walk around this town you will soon discover the “architecture of fear” that has been developed over the past years.
In countries like this, where poverty and riches exist in such extremes, it is not a surprise that crime is on the agenda. I cannot criticize the fear architecture myself, because violence gave birth to it. The worst violence of all is against your own family. I am giving here two examples for you to see what I mean. One day my youngest boy went outside for a bicycle ride with a friend arrived from the USA. They were both nine years kids. A few minutes later, they appeared in silence and a bit shaken. What could have happened? It was like trying to take out the cork inside a wine bottle. Finally they told me that, as soon as they went outside, a big guy pointed a pistol to their heads and told them to give him the NBS caps they were using. It is a terrible thing to see a son at risk because of a basketball cap!
The other day my daughter wrote about an episode of our past that I was trying to hide in some closet. When my husband had to travel, I stayed at home alone with the children. One day, we were upstairs when we could clearly hear the insistent noise of someone trying to break into our home.
The boys were very little and my daughter was only twelve. She looked at us and took the pistol from my trembling hands. Knowing that I would never pull the trigger, she went downstairs decided to do it herself. When she arrived at the back door, the man or men saw her from the window, got scared and run away. I think they knew they would find us alone, and were trying their luck. How can we forget moments like this?
Violence is a sick form of expression from someone hurt inside and without moral background to act in any other way. In the Mozambican micro cosmos, it is possible to find all sorts of violence but one thing is for sure: if economical and social conditions don’t improve, violence will get worst and worst, and the fear architecture will grow from the ground like unwanted weeds.
Salvador
I can’t say how long I have known Salvador. He started to appear in my neighbourhood when he was around six years old. His poor family sent him to a school situated in the “rich” area of the town. Clever boy that he was, he soon discovered that he could study in the morning and spend the afternoon begging for his empty belly and the needs of his family.
He learned the art of street wisdom and the ways to please potential donors. He fell for our family as we fell for him. At first I didn’t see Salvador, amongst so many others like him, but one day he shouted very laudly:
“Andy’s mum!” and our relationship started at that precise moment.
In the years to come he would never call me Seabell, because in African tradition if you have a child you became socially too important to have only your own name. You are much more than a name, you are already someone capable of giving birth. Your status increases a lot!
He knows everything about us: the days we go out, the usual hours to go to a certain place and how we feel in different occasions. Very respectful, he learned to be polite as a chevalier. He opens my door and helps in any he can. If we don’t give him a coin, he blinks his eye to show complicity: “Next time!” or “Today you don’t have to, it has been a good day for me!”
Long ago I felt compelled to bring him under my protective wing, but it was impossible because he has a family that he also loves and protects. I saw Salvador growing in the streets and learning more there than in the schools. I remember phases of his growth: times when he looked sleek and times when he became very fat because he was spending a lot of the moedas (coins) he received buying cakes at a local patisserie.
Today he is a grown man. From time to time, I ask my husband in a kind of shock:
“Have you seen Salvador lately?”
Depending on the answer, I start to see images of him: Salvador in a South African mine, selling his lungs to feed his family; Salvador with street girls, learning love the hardest way and possibly getting a deadly disease; Salvador selling or consuming drugs.
If we don’t see him for more than a week, we ask the dozens of other children just like him for his whereabouts:
“Where is Salvador? Is he all right?”
Usually the answer reassures me, but I know deep inside that one day I will hear the words that are painfully written in my mind. I also know that on that day a part of me will dive into the deepest pool of sorrow.
Nobody can teach certain simple things, like the need to protect children. That has to be felt and changed from the inside. Organizations and other institutions can do a lot. Yet, it’s the families and society in general that must find ways to improve the present and future of Mozambican children.
Photos by Miquidade.
