Ilha de Moçambique : everything & nothing and a lot of creativity

After a one hour flight from Dar we arrived in Pemba (North of Mozambique). The country has the same time than France but it is much more in East than France…That’s why it’s the country with the earliest sunset in the world (4.40 pm in winter)!!!

Pemba town doesn’t look like the cities we visited in Kenya and Tanzania: Pemba is much more “traditional”: Houses are made with wood and stones and the roof is usually made with palm tree leaves. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony, so the official language is Portuguese! (Of course there are a lot of several dialects in the country. In the North it’s Makuwa language and in this dialect a white person is called “Akugna”)

Pemba is a coastal town where the most important activity is fishing. Everywhere in Town we also find a lot of Palm trees, it is very nice for walking.

Mozambique is one of the first destination for South Africans who do business there or just have holidays. But unfortunately once again, it is almost always “white” people who run lucrative businesses… History really impacts this continent!!

After 2 days in Pemba we took a bus to Ilha de Moçambique, a 3 km long and 0,5km wide island linked with the mainland by a 3,5km bridge. The island has completely a different style from what we saw until now. It is extremely influenced by the Portuguese occupation and the northern town (Stone Town) looks like a Mediterranean City: Small streets, colourful houses and an architecture with a mix of Portuguese, Arabic and Indian styles. The island was used as a hub for the slave market and it was also the capital of Mozambique until it changed to Maputo.

The island is protected by 3 fortresses : One in the North, the biggest one, one in the South, which is not directly on the island but on a rock few meters from the coast and one in the East which is now a church. The island was attacked several times, and also by the Dutch but they had to give up because they didn’t have fresh water at all. Nowadays water is still coming from the mainland and there is also a reserve in the northern fortress. Constructions have started to bring water through pipelines under the bridge.

The southern town was built after the colonisation and is called “Makuti” which means “Roof with palm tree leaves” because the houses are traditional.

A story showing the credulity of people happened in 2008. A man came into the island and said to everybody that the coming month he will fly. After one month, on the D-Day more than 400 people came to see the flying man. Of course he didn’t fly… People were so upset that they put the man in prison!!! We could believe this happened in the Middle-Age but it was in 2008!!!

We were shocked by the attitude of the kids on the island: as they are used to see tourists they try each time to get some money. And the easiest way they find is to ask to be taken in pictures. They loudly say “Photo!! Photo!!” and take some model positions!!! Of course we never took any pictures of them and please, if somewhere someone ask you to take a picture in exchange of money don’t accept… it’s almost prostitution!!!!!

Of course, some of them are still “just” kids and we had a great time with them at the pre-school of the island. This “Kinder garden” welcomes more than hundred kids between 2 and 5 years old. This project is supported by a Portuguese association and started 3 years ago. We were very impressed by their materials to play and learn: as the association doesn’t have a lot of money they recycle everything to built games. It’s so fantastic!!! They use empty plastic bottles, caps, paper…   For example they have a bowling game made with empty plastic bottles fulfilled with sand and a ball made with old fabric!!!! To learn the shapes they use 3 empty bottles as box and 3 types of caps : the plastic caps for water bottles, the metal caps for glass bottles and the coffee caps. They have to put the caps in the good box! They also have small tables made with plastic bottles and a lot of creative ideas!!! Sooooo nice !

When we came into the room, they first were shy because we don’t speak the same language but after few minutes they played with us. At this age they don’t have lessons, they only play and learn shapes, colours and the life in society… They also really like singing and dancing!!!

But the education system in Mozambique is very poor: we discussed with Vanessa in the guesthouse who was a mathematics teacher previously and she told us that a large majority of the children goes to school (which is good) but at 7-8 years old they still don’t know how to write or read their name!!! There are several reasons for this weak school system: first the teachers don’t get paid a lot so they are not motivated at all to do a great job and second it is also because of the colonialism, or better said because of the end of the colonialism: when the Mozambican army pushed the Portuguese and fight for her independency, all Portuguese people have to leave the country. But they were all in key positions such as teachers. From one day to another all teachers were gone and that’s why the best students had to become teachers without any specific studies… It will take a long time until things change in a positive way!!!!