Mozambique, Poorest Paradise

by Andrea Granahan

His pants must have been part polyester because that was the only part that was left. The cotton of the fabric blend of his shorts had long since worn totally away so they were virtually transparent. Judging by his clothes, he was the poorest person I had ever seen. He was about thirteen.

"Probably a war orphan," our guide told me when I returned to camp after my excursion into the town of Maxixi. "Or maybe one of the child war veterans."

But Mozambique is a joyful place despite its appalling poverty. After almost thirty years -- an entire generation -- the long war is over.

The subsistence economy is made difficult by a landmine problem. Some two million landmines still litter the countryside despite an international effort to clean up the mess. It's an unforgettable sight to see a field in which the only area cultivated is the crater a landmine left when it blew up. The pitiful corn stalks rise out of all the landmine scars. At least the people know it's safe to plant there.

The poverty is not due to the way the Mozambiquans run their country; it has been imposed on them by centuries of oppression. In ancient times Arabs plundered the area for slaves before the Portuguese took over about 400 years ago. The Portuguese ran a particularly cruel colonial government even in modern times.

Under the last Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar, who ran the colony from 1932 to 1968, there were no schools for Mozambique children and no health care provided for anyone but the Portuguese themselves and the foreigners they lured there with their gambling casinos and resorts. All Mozambique males over the age of 15 were required to work on government cash crop farms for six months of the year without pay. If they tried to escape to work on their own farms to feed their families, they were shackled. These policies combined with the natural problems of drought and cyclones that plague the area, led to frequent famines among the Mozambiquans.

The war for independence began after a government massacre in 1960 left six hundred peaceful protestors dead after they objected to the taxation labor that was starving them. Frelimo, a revolutionary movement was born.

Mozambique's struggle did not end when in 1975 independence was declared. The Portuguese -- the only literate population, thanks to the lack of schools -- abandoned the country overnight. Rhodesia and the South African Apartheid government were not happy about having an independent black nation next door, and they promptly armed, funded and trained terrorist groups called Renamo that began the long civil war that has decimated the country. Almost a million were killed and 1.3 million as impoverished refugees. While investigations were not conclusive, it is widely believed the Apartheid government was responsible for the downing of the plane that assassinated Mozambique's first black president, Samora Machel. (His widow recently married Nelson Mandela and the couple plan to build a summer home on the coast in Mozambique.)

The war brought horrors beyond belief from starvation to children kidnapped by terrorists who forced them to commit atrocities against their own people. Repatriating these children is a major problem in several places in Africa, including Mozambique.

Because the Mozambique revolutionary government was openly Marxist the U.S. got involved, according to South African sources, helping to pay for the landmines that still cause such devastation. When the Iron Curtain rusted away and the Aparthied government fell, Frelimo abandoned Marxism and held elections. Mozambique could finally begin to enjoy its independence.

This history helps explain the Mozambique love for AK-47s, the automatic weapons that are still everywhere. An AK-47 crossed with the mattock, a short-handled hoe used by all Africans to cultivate their crops, is the national symbol. It appears on the money, all government buildings including schools, and on the national flag. In the center of the capital there are dramatic sculptures made of welded AK-47s. Even an old pacifist like myself learned to respect the weapon of choice once I learned what it meant to Mozambique; the people literally could not grow their own food without having armed themselves.

A large market place in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. This is not a tourist market and the locals, still wary of terrorism, do not like their photos taken

The central market is thronged with maimed and ill beggars. On the sidewalk outside we saw a young woman who lay dying or already dead, apparently of AIDS judging by her emaciation and skin lesions. Her face lay directly on the concrete, she had been too weak to even pillow her head with her arms.

Away from the small downtown center there appears to be no organized refuse collection. Every corner is a garbage dump. Of course by the time anything is discarded in Mozambique, it is definitely refuse. Anything, even a piece of strong twine that has potential use is used. No food is discarded. Still piles of garbage grow.

Mozambique has not even been able to afford to print new money for years. The currency notes are ragged, dirty and often falling apart. Many bills have been taped and retaped or glued back together. Bills literally fall apart in your hands.

The wildlife is another victim of the war. Mozambique boasts hundreds of square miles of magnificent bush habitat, but it is full of landmines and empty of life. Game is barely existent in most places. Elephants that made it through the minefields to escape into South Africa showed up with an average of four bullets in their hides. Most didn't make it. If an animal survived the shooting, it didn't always survive the famines. Sometimes the opposite situation happened. Many people fleeing the violence and starvation attempted to cross the border into South Africa through Kruger Park, the huge animal reserve, but few if any made it through that route past the lions and other large predators.

A mural in Inhambane depicts the local women harvesting and preparing food. Cassava and corn are the staples. Most public art is off limits to photographers but the artistic Mozambiquans have begun creating curios for the small trickle of tourists just discovering the country

At the border we were all warned to not wear hats or sunglasses inside the buildings. That's because there are photographs of the president hanging on the walls and such behavior is considered disrespectful. Mozambique's pride in its independence is still new and thin-skinned.

In spite of the war, the independent government made a valiant effort to provide for its people what the Portuguese had made no pretense of providing. Every town of any size has a maternity hospital. Sometimes the hospitals have no doors or windows, usually they do not have enough medicines or supplies. Doctors are not always on duty but will show up whenever they can. At least now there is a hope of some care, and the women and children flock to them.

In the towns there are schools, and education is free up to the sixth grade level. Further education is available for those who can pay the school fees. The schools are a source of great pride and the children wear their black and white uniforms with the elan of a marine in full dress on parade.

But Mozambique does not have enough teachers trained yet to serve its population. Overcoming 400 years of imposed illiteracy is not easy; many of the children, especially in the rural areas, still do not go to school.

One of the most touching sights in Mozambique is seeing what we began to call "tree schools." A village that gets the services of a teacher may not have a building to house a school. The teacher using a slate holds class in the shade of a tree. The children faithfully copy their lessons with their fingers in the sand. The only time they see pencil and paper in at the end of the school year when they take exams. They had better have memorized their lessons in the sand because they have no notes to study.

Having heard that school supplies were appreciated I had brought a bunch of colored pencils and crayons with me. When I asked our guide if we could stop so I could give them to the children he asked me not to. "The teacher most likely will confiscate them as soon as we leave and sell them" -- probably for money to pay school fees for one of his own children to get teacher's training.

Sabao the baker demonstrates how he fires the oven made of scrap metal to bake bread for people en route to a campground at the beach. The crude oven and his skill is the key to his family's prosperity

The government claims that over 60 percent of its population now has some literacy. If so, that is amazing progress. Education is paramount in Mozambique. Everyone wants to send at least one child in the family on to high school. They struggle hard to earn a little cash to do it.

We met Sabao the baker outside his hut on the road to a campground that recently opened. He had constructed an oven out of an oil drum and a couple sheets of battered metal. That and investing in a small screened box and some flour had been enough to start his business. We bought every bun he had laboriously made then cooked over coconut husks in his makeshift oven. He was prospering by Mozambique standards.

He was supporting a large family including his daughter and her son. Bun by bun, Sabao is earning what it takes to someday put his grandson through high school.

People carve figurines, make batiks, weave straw toys everywhere around the few tourist facilities. Those are the prosperous areas. But it isn't easy because tourism in Mozambique is not easy. There is so little infrastructure. Water is not reliable, you must be self sufficient health wise, hotels are few and far between, and generally run down. The best way to enjoy Mozambique for now is camping at developed campgrounds which South Africans and Europeans are opening.

One positive legacy the Portuguese left behind is Iberian architecture. The bones of what existed are still there -- cities with broad treed avenues and graceful buildings -- despite neglect and outright attack. It's clear it wouldn't take much to turn the coastal region into a vacation paradise.

One man, an American, right-wing millionaire James Blanchard, saw the potential as soon as the war ended. In a move that reminded many of the movie Jurassic Park, he leased almost a million acres of southern Mozambique in order to eventually establish a combination wild animal conservation park, theme park, and gambling casino. He set up a company in 1995 to begin operations but Blanchard recently died. So far the company has continued in its efforts to re-establish game in Mozambique. In order to continue to hold its lease it must put $10,000 monthly into local social works. Currently the company is constructing camping sites, training patrol personnel and building fences in preparation for the arrival of the first wave of animals it has purchased, 100 zebras and impalas, 20 buffaloes, 10 giraffes and hippopotamus. It is a modest beginning for an area once rich in game.

Conservationists all over Africa are working towards the goal of expanding the borders of Kruger Park into Mozambique, and even into Zimbabwe and Swaziland to realize a dream of an international game reserve. Mozambique's new peace has given a burst of energy to those efforts. Mozambique understands the tourist value of such an effort and is cooperating with international groups.

Ironically, while restoring the game is a major issue Mozambique has also just lifted its ban on hunting elephants. There are an estimated 15,000 elephants in the country and unfortunately some of them survive by raiding desperately needed croplands. Strict controls are supposedly being put in place on the hunts, but many conservationists are concerned they will be abused. The government will also begin to sell the ivory seized from poachers when an international ivory ban is lifted next year.

White South Africans, many of whom continued to use Mozambique for coastal vacations despite the war, are now seeking in invest in developing the area. The government is eager for ready cash but wary of exploitation. Even some Portuguese are returning. Most of them seem to be young, those who perhaps have fond childhood memories of a paradisical place but were too young to realize what their paradise cost the Mozambiquans until they became adults.

Some are seeking to invest in the country's future. Manufacturing and mining are making a comeback. The labor force is certainly ready and willing, it just takes some brave investors to take on a country that has been so ravaged. And while the people and the investors may be ready sometimes there are problems with the government despite its relative stability.

As if war wasn't bad enough, Mozambique periodically gets slammed by cyclones. The fishing fleet at Inhambane was decimated by a cyclone this spring. The fisherman are trying desperately to patch it together

Mozambique has fundamental problems to solve. The major road from South Africa to Maputo is a bone-jarring shamble. A recent cyclone knocked out the only road to Zimbabwe and many bridges. It takes weeks or even months to rebuild or repair anything in Mozambique, so many rural areas were left stranded and even starving. The South Africa government airdropped supplies to a desperate area where it had been two weeks since people had been slammed with the storm and not been able to get supplies. The cyclone also moved around some land mines, a few of which blew up when they hit bridges. The potential for mines makes repair work tricky.

Demining is still a major problem. A number of nations have contributed to the effort including the U.S. Feeding themselves is still the major challenge for most Mozambiquans. International aid efforts, many from Scandanavia, are aimed at helping them do that. Access to the land is critical.

One big change has only just occurred. The government has had to spend more in interest payments on its loans, $169 million, annually than it has had to spend on health and education, $120 million. As of June 30 this year, Mozambique was granted relief from about two thirds of its staggering $5.3 billion national debt under the HPIC (Highly Indebted Poor Country) initiative. This will release over $50 million a year back into the country. It will still take the earnings of Mozambique's entire manufacturing industry to pay the current interest payments of $73 million annually, but it does mean that by the year 2001 Mozambique will finally be spending as much on health as it does on interest payments.

The little hospitals that are to serve the women and children may finally get more medicines and more doctors to serve in them. They may even get doors and windows. The clientele is certainly there already. The women take time from their staggering work load to carry their children to the medical centers for care. The women of Mozambique often carry the family's entire water supply on their heads for miles each day, and then carry the fuel with which to heat it and do their cooking as well as do the lion's share of field work. The women are a force that the Mozambique government has yet to tap if it could only provide the infrastructure, such as a water supply, to free the women from their monumental labors.

So there is hope for the world's poorest country. A lot of hope, and it can be seen in the faces of the Mozambique people. A friendly wave or smile instantly brings out their joy at being able to live in peace at last and know they now hold the reins of their own country, poor as it is, in their hands.