On the way to work

I was fiddling around with the moviemaker software on my laptop this afternoon and put this together. These are pictures I took on my way to and from work in the field over the past few months. The song that accompanies the video is by Brenda Fassie, a popular South African (Zulu) singer here in Mozambique and in South Africa. The song is Vulindlela.


The first time I visited Mozambique was in 2004, just after Brenda Fassie's death. Her songs were played almost non-stop on the radio for almost a week. My friend Jotamo liked playing them on the landrover's tape deck as we trundled across the coastal savanna of Matutuine District going from village to village to do interviews. Now I associate her music, and this song in particular, with the landscape here. It plays in my head as we bump along the sandy roads.

Interestingly, the name Vulindlela is also the name of a rural, coastal region in KwaZulu-Natal located just south of Durban. It is just a little too far south to be part of Maputaland though.

School in Madladlane

Children in Madladlane attend a primary school located by the community's meeting tree. There are two sessions per day so that all the children that are able have a chance to attend. None of the students wear uniforms, but each family must pay a fee at the beginning of the year. The money covers the teacher's salary and some of the classroom materials. The school has two teachers. Both are really good with the children - that's what the community tells me. :)

And the kids really seem to like them and follow their instruction. Children learn Portuguese, math, reading, and writing. I am unsure about formal science or social studies lessons. However, children learn much about the environment and how to draw subsistence from their surroundings from their grandparents, parents, and older siblings.

Children play in the schoolyard before school. They also have recess periods throughout the school day. Soccer (futebol), jumping rope, hopscotch, leap frog (see below), foot races, and giggling are very popular. The children line up each morning by height and sing before school starts. One of the older girls helps out the teacher - I watched her break up fights, keep children in line, organize games and activities, and help younger children learn. In this picture, she is leading the class in the Mozambican national anthem. Her assistance frees up the teacher's time to focus on teaching and lesson preparation.

All of the children are taught in one room. Half of the roof is open to provide light. However, this means that school gets canceled on rainy days. The teacher said that school is also canceled on windy days too because sand blows through the spaces on the reed walls and also blows all the papers around. In the past, during the rainy season, school was held at the reserve in a cement walled building. However, with roaming elephants, flooding rivers, unstable bridges, and the extra 2 kilometer distance parents felt it was too dangerous for little children to walk to the reserve main camp. Children walk to school on their own as parents are busy in the fields and around the homestead. There are currently plans to build a new school out of cement blocks. This structure would allow children to attend school all year regardless of weather. Gala has had this type of school for a couple of years now.

People recognize the value of education. In 2004, I discovered it cost $4 month/child for tuition, room, and board at a school in Ponto do Ouro. The woman I spoke to in Gala said that her family scraped this together every month because she wanted to give her son (her other 2 children were still infants) a choice of possibilities when he got older. Literacy opens up many doors.

Older children, if the family has money, must go to Bela Vista to attend secondary school. Bela Vista is the district capital and is over 25 km away. Students board at the school, so families pay both tuition and room/board. A number of children would be capable of continuing, but their families cannot afford it. Some older children are shipped off to relatives in South Africa to attend secondary school if the family has connections.

I officially visited the school my last day in Madladlane on my last trip. The children invited me. When I first arrived in Madladlane, they often would run away from me as I approached yelling "Mulungo! Mulungo!" This is the Rhonga word for white person or branca. After visiting most of their homes and probably being the hot topic of discussion for a couple of months, I am less an object of fear and more like someone just interesting enough to watch. At any rate, I was taking a GPS point at the reserve guard post across the dirt road from the school. I looked up and was surrounded by little children. All getting close, but still far enough that they could run if they wanted. It was a little startling since they were all supposed to be in school - across the road on the other side of the fence.

I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the GPS point. That was what they wanted to see. Immediately they started asking me to take their pictures. I said that I would but only if I could take a picture of them in school. They rushed back to the school. One little girl waited for me (she's the one with the crazy braids in the front row above). I apologized to the teachers for interrupting class, but they said that if the children wanted to use their recess to get a picture taken that was their decision. And that it would be a neat thing to look back on in the future. The children took their seats and the pictures you see are the result.

This was my last shot at the school that day. People rarely smile for photos. Not that they don't smile or laugh, but that photos are so rare one needs to look serious. I like this one a lot because it is so spontaneous.

I hope that Mr. Hansen's second grade class at Fowler Drive Elementary School (Athens, GA) likes the photos. If they have any questions about the school, please write and I will share your letters with the children here.

E Mulungo

After a long process of setting up meetings and having them canceled, making arrangements for going to the field, buying equipment and supplies, etc. I finally started my interviews and mapping.


Sergio Julane (geography) and Angelo Francisco (ecology/botany) (L to R in photo), 2 undergrads at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, came out to Madladlane with me for a week of meeting with traditional leaders, community mapping, and interviews. Madladlane, is a small farming community, located along the banks of the Rio Futi, adjacent to the Reserva Especial de Maputo. We stayed at REM and walked across a footbridge everyday to meet and talk with community residents.

Community residents were surprised to see a branca (white woman) walking from home to home, field to field, and certainly from the reserve to the community. E mulungo is what the very smallest children shouted when they saw me, adults were far more circumspect. A mulungo is a foreigner, particularly a white person. I usually shouted it back, in a silly voice, causing all sorts of giggling from both children and adults. After all, I am now the official village idiot.

These little girls were giggling just a moment before the picture was taken. Their mom got 2 of the 3 sisters to change into their best dresses for the picture.

These are just a few of the images from my past week in the field.

Sunrise

Elephant feet or patas. They come from 2 older elephants that were harassing the community and had to be killed. The guards at the reserve had tried herding the animals back behind the fence several times, but the elephants kept escaping to eat crops and attack residents.

One of 2 main roads in Madladlane. The other is a hard dirt road that will probably be paved in the next few years.

Local primary school

A pretty barboleta (butterfly) that decided to hitchhike a ride on my arm. The IUCN is working with the local community to get ecotourists to visit to check out the high diversity of birds, butterflies, and plants.

Terminalia sericea, also known as Conono locally, is used for construction and charcoal production. It is a typical wooded savanna tree species.

Abandoned store in Salamanga, a nearby town.

Mamana Amelia was one of several women farmers I interviewed this past week. She got a kick out of me pronouncing local names for plants and learning a little isiZulu from her during our interview - probably because the new words involved clicking and hlth sounds. I also probably made some funny faces trying to twist my tongue around the new words.

Sr. Olesene, me, Sr. Daniel Mathe, Sergio Julane. Sr. Olesene is a reserve guard and farmer, and acted as our translator this past week. Sr. Mathe is a traditional leader in Madladlane and provided a great summary of the history of the community.