LiWoMoz

Visit to Mozambique

Edgar Fröse — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 21:01:04 +0000

Visit to Mozambique

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School visit

Some members of the organization from Germany flew to Mozambique to take a look at the situation of the schools on site.One of the first challenges they encountered was that many children didn’t go to school at all. Filipe and Philip were able to speak to the teachers and students and encourage them to pray with them and distribute school supplies to the children.

How time flies

Living in Germany for the last past years, Filipe has forgotten what struggles children in Mozambique face in order to go to school. While visiting school in Mozambique, he noticed that some children came to school barefoot, not only that some don’t even have pencils, sharpeners, nor exercise books to work with. The next day Filipe went back to school to pass out school supplies such as exercise books and pencils to the children.

Physical work

In Germany and most western countries it is not customary for students to be obligated to help with renovation work on the school building or school grounds. Philip has watched how the Mozambican school children have to do maintenance work on their school and having to make repairs such as fixing up the school´s fence.

Conversation

During Filipe´s stay in Mozambique there were several gatherings in which the connection between the Bible and education were discussed in a lively and energetic exchange. Here, for example, with some of the leaders of the local Christian community.

School supplies

Many children born in Mozambique like Filipe never owned a school bag in which to put their school supplies in. We had the opportunity to receive free cloth bags from a church in Germany. With the help of volunteers from the church, we were able to print Bible verses in Portuguese on those cloth bags. Then we filled the bags with school supplies and handed them out to the school children.

Relief/ Aid

This young man walks 30 km to look after his sick grandmother. With God’s help we were able to buy a bicycle for him. In addition, we were also able to provide poor families and old people with food and blankets. We would like to thank our friends in Germany who have helped us a lot with their prayers and gifts.

My time in school

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 21:24:55 +0000

My name is Filipe Muatocuene, born September 1989 in Quelimane of the Province Zambézia in Mozambique, Africa. I´m from a very modest family. My father earns a living by working in the fields and also by serving as a pastor at the evangelical church of Mozambique (Igreja Evangelica de Cristo). My mother also worked in the fields with my father so that I would never miss a meal. She died when I was 14 years old.

I would like to tell you about my life while I was still in school.

This period of my life can be broken down into three parts. As my father had been serving as a pastor he was sent to minister in different districts. Meaning that I had to transfer from school to school:

first in Mocuba (grades: 1 to 3), then in Ile (grades 4 to 10) and lastly in Gurue, which I had to transfer to because Ile didn’t offer grades 11 and 12.

Thinking back on my time during school I mostly remember the things I experienced and the things I had to endure, more than my actual studies.
It is not my intention to demonstrate a typical student´s life in Mozambique, but to share my own personal journey.
With that in mind I would first like to share 3 pleasant memories with you.

One of my first and vivid memories of school takes place in elementary school in Ile: At the end of every school day, we sang together: “School is over! We are going home now!” (in Portuguese: „A nossa aula já acabou, agora vamos para casa. “)
Then in chorus we called out to our teacher: “Thank you Mr./Mrs. Teacher, see you tomorrow!” („Adeus Sr/a Professor/a, até amanha demanha! “).
Every Mozambican knows exactly what I´m talking about!

The second precious memory was the day we made our own lemon juice in class.
I’ll never forget that!

The third memory was the time at the end of every school year. All of the parents gathered at school waiting in suspense for the results of their children´s exams and waiting to hear if their child would be able to graduate to the next grade.
These were major moments for me. The joy of receiving a positive result and being able to pass on to the next grade but also the tears when learning that I had flunked and would be repeating the school year.

As mentioned earlier I also often remember negative aspects of school I had to endure. Things like having to go to school with torn shirts and pants on, having to walk to school bare foot or if I got lucky with 2 completely different shoes on- the infamous “Saturday and Sunday” combo („Sábado e Domingo“). But it didn’t matter to any of us if the shoes didn’t match up, anything was better than walking bare foot under the often-scorching sun making the dirt roads so hot burning our feet.

Grades 1 through 7 had the same fixed daily routine: Upon our arrival our first task was to clean and sweep the classroom. The brooms were made out of twigs we found or we brought brooms from home. After everything was tidy it was our duty to line up in the schoolyard waiting for the principal to examine if we had washed ourselves and if we had brushed our hair.

Then we were divided in to two groups the “clean” ones and the “dirty” ones, possibly receiving punishments for being dirty.
Afterwards we all sang the national anthem.
Then class by class we were called to go to our classrooms in an orderly row.

We were also obligated to go to school on Saturdays. But not to learn in class, instead we had to take part in “activities” such as building pit latrines for our school or helping our teachers build their homes.
There were many different things throughout the year to attend to.

If anyone broke any of the school´s rules made by the teachers or principal they were beaten, punished with hits to the hands or bare back.
Whoever came late to school or forgot their homework the penalty was 10 hits to their hands. For this we were required to bring rods from home these same rods were later used for lessons at the chalkboard.
Some teachers even made us look for little rocks on which we had to kneel on while holding up our arms. If our arms grew weak and dropped, we received additional beatings. The worst part was that these punishments were conducted in front of the entire class which made us feel deeply ashamed.

After a while we got used to these harsh circumstances. But in the beginning these experiences were so awful that no one dared to speak in class, unless we were forced to.

The times we hadn´t done our homework we felt like we had to lie or make up excuses like a sickness. And because we didn´t have anyone to help us with our homework we stayed having imaginary stomach aches. Sometimes we would tell our parents that we were going to school when in fact we would get away to the river to swim or using the wet rocks as slides.

When speaking of classrooms, you mustn´t picture a typical classroom common in most western countries but imagine an empty room with random rocks and bricks on which we sat. With our notebooks on our laps there we sat and wrote.

Between grades 8 to 12 the conditions at school significantly changed, as the physical punishments stopped.
Instead, psychological punishments were implemented. Teachers would often insult us or throw us out of class. Sometimes our legal guardians were summoned to school. But we would always prefer an uncle to accompany us so that we wouldn´t receive additional beatings at home from father.

These are the school days I remember.
When my father visited me here in Germany, I asked him about my school days. But his response was that his school days were even worse and in comparison, my generation hadn´t suffered at all not even a little.

My school days started 20 years after the colonial power Portugal had left Mozambique (Mozambique became independent in 1975). Following came a 16-year long civil war. From which our parents and teachers are certainly still traumatized by. Surely our teachers had been so hard on us because they themselves had to suffer so much.
If you would ask me today if I still hold a grudge towards my teachers my answer would be that I do not. There is one simple reason for that: They didn´t know what the best upbringing would be for us, they thought their way was the best option.
But by the Grace of God, we are here to reevaluate and rectify my country´s method of schooling.

Ile-Errego Town

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 11:20:51 +0000

“A town is where energy is” – this old proverb makes Ile a small town in the district Zambézia in northern Mozambique. The red earth, its mountainside and many small mud huts as well as some shops, a market and even some two storey buildings form the view of Ile.