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A day in Africa
Travels through Mozambique.
We had arrived in the village in the early morning. The farmers start work at dawn, before the sun rises high and the heat becomes unbearable. We had visited their fields, taken photos and had interviews, then returned to the local office of the cooperative, a simple brick building in a field of cashew trees. We had eaten with the workers in the co-op and we were sitting in the shade, thinking about heading back to Maputo, about 70km away, to rest for the afternoon, when one of the locals approached.
“There is an event in a village this afternoon – it is across the river, we will go by jeep. Do you want to come?” We were tired, dusty and knew that this meant it would be a late night return to Maputo. It sounded interesting however, so we agreed to go. The local coordinator explained further – the association/village we were to visit had received a number of oxen (to be used in ploughing the land), and this was the official handover ceremony – a big day for the village.
We set off in two pick-ups along the main road. Before long we turned off the main road onto dirt tracks which wound through the flood plain of the nearby river, around mango trees and further into the wild. There were few people in sight, and the land was green and fertile. The locals explained that it would be very wet here when the rains came, and there were no flood controls on the river, so the water made the area inaccessible.
We knew this river was big. Was there a bridge? A basic ferry – barge? We eventually parked the jeeps and clambered out. The group made its way through thick reeds towards the river banks. There, the situation became clear. In front of us was a huge river, with brown, quick flowing water. On the river bank were two leaking rowing boats and a grinning teenager. Here was the way across.
We took it in turns as one of the boats was in better condition than the other. In the end it was relatively easy. The young guy; his name was Saul, had spent all his life by this, the River Incomati, and he knew it well. He rowed with powerful strokes, guiding us confidently to the other bank. I asked him if he ever swam in the river – “Of course” he replied “I can swim across!”
We arrived quickly in the village on the other side, moving along paths through the bush. We gathered under the shade of a tree in the centre of the cluster of small huts and were offered chairs; a privilege which we at first refused and then accepted out of respect for their offer.
When all the “mamas” and “papas” (the men and women of the village) were assembled under the tree, the meeting began. The speaker of the village thanked us for coming and welcomed us to the village. The member of the local farming organisation explained how the oxen would be distributed. They would be the responsibility of ten families for two years, who would then give the calves of the animals to another ten families and so on. It was a system to spread the new wealth among all the families in the community.
We all went together to the pen where the cattle had been enclosed. Each family received their oxen, with whoops and shouts of delight. Before we knew it we were back under the trees, and the official papers came out to confirm the new acquisitions. During this process, a magical thing happened – the women, who were sitting all together, began to sing.
In rhythmic, pulsating cappella, they sang and danced, throwing their hands into the air in delight, and stamping their feet to the rhythm. They were singing about their association, about how happy they were to be together, to have received these gifts. The voices were rising into the evening sun and just there, witnessing this intimate moment of pure music, all of the dark, sad and violent images of Africa which saturate our media, which make us think that this is still the dark continent, began to fall away. Here was something pure, and much more human and real than the manufactured world which surrounds us today.
This is Africa: real, warm, deeply human and close to the earth. Perhaps it is time that we stopped looking at Africa as somewhere that needs help, that we need to aid with charity and money and “develop” in our image. There may be much more that we have forgotten – a sense of community, of belonging, of living in the rhythm of the world around us. We are the ones that could learn from Africa, and not the other way around.
This project was funded by the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund.
By: Fergal Anderson & Emanuela Russo
