Mozambican Heroes

Picture from the National Holiday (3rd of February) that celebrates the Mozambican Heroes
Nampula

After more than a half year in Mozambique I will claim that it would not be totally out of the way to categorize Mozambicans as a friendly and open people, always good for a laugh and with a pretty outspoken joy of living. Often, foreigners might find that this ‘joy of living’ sometimes overrules the joy of working a bit too much. I have actually heard many Mozambican agreeing on that as well and I have read academic papers nominating the ‘laziness’ in African culture as one of the fundamental explanations to the underdeveloped economy of the region. Now, I will not be the one to label Mozambican or Africa culture with laziness, but I must admit that it sometimes can be difficult not to get touched by the thought that there might be something true about it.

With thoughts like that in mind – a sign like this becomes appealing to an ironic sense of humor – “Viva the Mozambican heroes”: what heroes? The ones who know best how to direct donor money in to own pocket?, the ones who knows the best how to become good friends with the president and secure oneself a good life? Who and where are the heroes in Mozambique? And if they really exist isn’t it then about time that they showed up and got this country running so it at least one day could start hoping for independency from international donors’ projects, money and ‘technical assistance’?

I honestly don’t know if such Mozambican heroes exist – I don’t even have a clue if such heroes exist at all. What I do know is that, in my eyes, Mozambique is full of heroes – cause reality for the mayor part of Mozambique’s population is that they have to be heroes everyday. Not necessarily because they want to, but more to survive. They simply have no choice. So my Mozambican heroes are the maids that get up at 04h30 in the morning to be at work in the centre of Maputo at 08h00 and don’t complain, the farmers that keep on working their ‘machambas’ (small field) regardless of lack of profit and still have enough food to invite to a stranger who would drop by, and the thousands of people who practically annually gets affected by floods and droughts and persistently stays where they live cause that’s their home. They are my Mozambican heroes.

I don’t know how exactly to related this to the previously mentioned culture of laziness. I haven’t yet figured out how this contradiction can be explained. Maybe it is just a label we, from the efficient Western world, would like to put on Africans because we don’t understand how they, with the life they are living and with all the preoccupations they should have, still can seem so easygoing, still always can be good for a talk and laugh and still can maintain a positive vision of life and an apparently everlasting ‘joie de vivre’. What is sure is that a person like that in Denmark, or maybe even in Europe, would be classified as no less than a hero and would get at least a two side article in the most known magazines for not to talk about the admiration from the readers.

Mozambique gives something to think about.

Viva os heroies moçambicanos!

Viva le joie de vivre!

Beklager meget, men er for doven til at oversætte denne lange tekst – måske er jeg blevet for påvirket af den Mozambiquiske kultur…. Nok ved at være på tide at jeg vender snuden hjemad før det går helt galt med mig …. :)