About life and death

My grandma died today. She was 2 months short of being 100 years old.

For the past 6 months I've been living in a country where that longevity is inconceivable. In Mozambique, life expectancy hovers around 40 years old. That would be me. In Mozambique, only 3% of the population makes it past 65 years old. That's my parents. In Mozambique, almost half the population is under 15 years old. In the countries I come from, the age structure for the population looks like an inverted pyramid: there are many more older people than younger ones, and the population is growing older. Not in Mozambique.

Three generations

Let me translate this into images. In Uruguay, it means getting into a bus and be surrounded by a sea of white and grey heads. Mozambique, on the other hand, looks more like the swarm of hundreds of bouncing, laughing, dancing 6- and 7-year-olds at the primary school near our apartment. Those differences in the demographics of a country's population have huge consequences in everyday life, the choices one makes, the problems a society faces.

During the past 6 months I found myself often in the (for me) unusual situation of being the oldest and most experienced in the room. I also found myself turning around to look with tenderness at the rare white-haired, wrinkled person I passed by on the streets. I wanted to go, hug them, and say: "Good for you! You made it!" They would truly deserve it: surviving to an advance age is not easy here. According to UNICEF Moçambique, for a child to make it pass their 5th birthday, they'll have to overcome from "birth complications to pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria, to a lack of clean water and sanitation, to nutrition problems." I wouldn't have made it.

Yet, despite how difficult it is to reach old age, old people don't seem to be valued. Too often, an old person in Mozambique is a marginalized person, someone who can become a victim accused of witchcraft. I'm guessing that has something to do with scarce resources that makes older people be seen as a burden, or a freak of nature - but I'm still wrapping my head around that one.

And then, there's the crazy number of children and young people. That means that the country is vibrating with new energy, pure promise and potential. The buzz is contagious, but it also means you have to provide education and jobs for all these kids or face a potential time bomb in the not-so-distant future. According to the CIA World Factbook "[c]ountries with young populations (high percentage under age 15) need to invest more in schools ... The age structure can also be used to help predict potential political issues. For example, the rapid growth of a young adult population unable to find employment can lead to unrest." When you pair that with the adult population dying of AIDS at an alarming rate, leaving so many orphaned children behind, well...

I had studied and written about these issues before, but living around that reality, you learn what those numbers and statistics mean at an individual level. You learn that funerals are such a common social occasion. That you might from one day to another become responsible for raising 3 or 4 other children from a relative who just passed away. In that context, planning doesn't make that much sense at all. Anything you try to accomplish needs to be filtered through the lenses of what a Mozambican life span is, because, if you expect to die at 40 your priorities are likely to be very different than if you expect to live up to a 100.

And the fourth generation - spanning 98 years.

Embracing reading / Actividades pro-lectura

En una entrada anterior mencioné el problema del analfabetismo y la falta de material de lectura en Mozambique. No es fácil cambiar las cosas de un día para otro, pero muchos están tratando. Además de la organización Livro Aberto, que se enfoca en los más chiquititos, otros activistas mozambicanos se han estado moviendo para resolver el tema de la lectura y el acceso a libros.

Una iniciativa que se llevó a cabo el fin de semana pasado fue la Primera Muestra de Literatura Infantil organizado por el Movimiento Literario Kuphaluxa. Conocí a uno de ellos durante el taller de escritores y me contó de los esfuerzos de un grupo de poetas y escritores locales por generar una cultura de la lectura ya desde pequeños.

Este fin de semana próximo otro evento organizado por Lúcia Fumo se enfoca en facilitar el acceso a libros. Es la Primera Feria de Intercambio de Libros Usados. ¿Los datos?

Quando? 

Domingo 28 Outubro a partir das 11h 

Onde? 

Feima - Feira de Artesanato de Maputo

Parque dos Continuadores

O que? 

Intercambio de livros usados. 

Traz um ou mais livros para fazer a troca!

Mais alguma coisa? 

Oficina de Pintura de capas de livro em Cartão

Oficina de Leitura

Declamação de poesia

Conversa com escritores e autores

Como não podia faltar: musica e dança

Ainda mais perguntas? 

Liga    82 525 4090 
Escreve   lucfumo@gmail.com  

Tens livros para doar?

São bemvindos! 

Arranja com os organizadores 

no número / email aqui acima.

Mosaico Moz (3): murales y relieves

Mural en el costado del Museo de Historia Natural

No solo de mosaicos vive el maputense (¿maputeano? ¿maputino?). También se tropieza uno con murales por las calles de Maputo - que por alguna razón me hacen acordar a Diego Rivera.

Más particular de Moçambique, ya que no recuerdo haber visto cosas similares en otras partes, son los murales de relieve en cemento. En edificios privados y públicos, bancos, escuelas alguna pared siempre aparece con ese tipo de arte decorativo. 

Mural a la entrada de un edificio sobre la calle Lumumba

Was it really necessary? Yikes!

En pequeños negocios y hoteles también aparecen cosas por el estilo... por lo menos en intención si no en ejecución. Los resultados, a veces, de dudoso gusto - por decirlo de alguna manera. ¿No me creen? Case in point, nautical theme in the resort we stayed in Bilene.

Paseo a la biblioteca y club de inglés

No sorprende que en un país con alrededor de 50% de analfabetismo (hasta hace no tanto rondaba el 95%) y un acceso a internet que alcanza apenas un 4-5% de la población, el tema  libros y lectura deje mucho que desear. Hay pocos libros y son caros. En lenguas nativas, para niños chicos, o escrito por mozambicanos no hay casi nada. La lectura no es un hábito popular y a cualquier nivel se nota las carencias en lectura, escritura y comprensión de lo escrito.
 

Es un poco la historia del huevo y la gallina: no hay libros porque no hay lectores y no hay lectores porque no hay libros. Considerando el tema de forma más amplia, se ve enseguida que las carencias va más allá de los libros: la producción, diseminación y acceso a la información es una barrera a todo nivel.

Cuando los dos aspectos se combinan, lleva a que las pocas bibliotecas y servicios culturales que sí existen (en general gracias a centros culturales de varios países) y que están a disposición de los mozambicanos estén sub-utilizados porque la mayoría no se entera de su existencia. Como saben los que me conocen, cosa que me da fiebre es el desperdicio. Ergo, tenía que hacer algo.


Para empezar invité a mi querido grupo de Bonga Mbilo a una visita guiada al Centro Cultural Ameriano de Maputo y la biblioteca Marthin Luther King, ya que había tenido tan buena experiencia con ellos (con el taller de escritores y el panel de Fulbright). Allí, además de biblioteca y sala de computación, tienen un club de inglés, de debate, clases de informática, muestra y discusión de películas, talleres—todo gratis (se puede ver el calendario de eventos acá). ¿Cómo no aprovechar?

Asistimos a una de las clases de conversación que se dan cuatro veces por semana de nivel básico a avanzado. El día que fuimos la conversación era sobre géneros literarios de ficción y no ficción.

Observación #1: La mayoría de las veces relacionaban los géneros literarios a los géneros de películas. Una novela policial era una película de acción con polícias y ladrones. Definitivamente una cultura de lo audiovisual.

Observación #2: De los más o menos 30 participantes, sólo 2 eran mujeres. Sin comentario.

Observación #3: Además de tener la posibilidad de interactuar y oír a un hablante nativo, aprenden sobre diversos temas y otras culturas. Y por lo que ví ese día, a veces resulta en discusiones muy interesantes. Como cuando llegaron al género “Gay and Lesbian”. Hubiera estado para grabarlo...

Después de la clase subimos a la biblioteca, paraisito cómodo y acogedor, con libros de referencia, atlas, mapas, novelas, textos de estudio, revistas, diarios, DVDs. La mayoría en inglés, pero también algunos en portugués. Sacaron todos la tarjeta de la biblioteca en unos pocos minutos y después de escoger algunos libros marchamos—tras prometerme que volverían a las clases y a usar la biblioteca.


En muchas aspectos Mozambique me recuerda al Uruguay de hace 20 y tantos años. En los tiempos despuecito del fin de la dictadura, cuando en la Biblioteca Nacional no había ningún libro posterior a 1970, si le habré sacado el jugo yo a la Biblioteca Artigas-Washington de la Alianza Cultural Uruguay-Estados Unidos, a la biblioteca del Goethe Institut y varias otras. Y no hay razón para que habiendo posibilidades similares acá, los jóvenes no le puedan sacar el jugo simplemente porque no se enteran.

Full Circle Fulbright

Fifteen years ago I was at the Centro Cultural Artigas-Washington in Montevideo being interviewed for a Fulbright Scholarship. Today, I’m at the Centro Cultural of the U.S. Embassy in Maputo interviewing Mozambican applicants to the Fulbright Scholarship. Coming full circle.

As a former Fulbright Scholarship recipient, I was invited to be part of the panel, together with U.S. and Mozambican staff and other parties. I thought it was a nice wrapping up to these last 15 years that started with that scholarship to do a master’s degree in the United States, followed by a Ph.D., and which finally took me to working in Mozambique. So, obviously, I accepted.

The process itself entailed quite a bit of work: going through all the lengthy application forms (brought back memories!), rating and evaluating, followed by 3 full days of interviews and more discussing, rating and evaluating.

About 20 applicants had made it to this final stage, about half of them women. Most of the applicants were going for an M.A., a couple of them for a Ph.D. Disciplines? Health, agriculture, urban planning, engineering, teaching, finances, a really wide spectrum. In all other aspects they also varied enormously, which was nice to see.

We all enjoyed meeting such motivated young women and men, some definitely amazing in their will and perseverance to study under extremely difficult circumstances. Listening to their “why” they wanted to continue studying, a theme soon became common: they had done their undergraduate studies and gone to work. Then, while working in the government, or NGOs, or companies, they had identified problems that needed to be solved but nobody knew how to. They wanted to continue studying to learn how to solve those problems—everything a new country needs to sort out in order to grow.

As the only one who had gone to the U.S. with the Fulbright Scholarship, I was able to answer some of their questions and doubts about “being there” as a foreigner. It was easy to picture who would have no problems pursuing a graduate degree while living in a completely different culture and who would struggle. But everyone in the panel brought their own unique perspective to the evaluation, considering some points over others and not always agreeing on what was more important. That diversity in the panel was just what was needed to provide a more equitable evaluation of the applicants.

I don’t know who ended up being selected for the final cut, nor how many. From those chosen in Mozambique, only a few were going to be selected to finally go to the U.S. to study. I know is not as many as they would deserve it, or that at least I would have liked to send. I’m very curious though to find out who made it, and more so, what will they be doing 15 years from now. And I hope the ones who didn’t make it this time, keep on trying. Mozambique would be better for it.

Writers, journalists, editors, poets, and translators

Sometimes paradise comes under the most unexpected guises. For example, a workshop with a panel of American writers, poets, journalists, editors, and translators.

Invited by the Cultural Center of the U.S. Embassy in Maputo, a group of five writers from the University of Iowa presented a series of workshops talking about what they do, why they do it, how they do it.

The audience, mostly young journalist students from Mozambique, were hungry for information and seemed eager to know more about the craft, the process, the career, the challenges. The writers were fun, honest, approachable and down to earth. Not to mention engaging and interesting. The flow of the conversation, though carried in two languages, was kept at a good pace by a very skilled interpreter and some of the participants who were bilingual. What else
can one ask?

Mozambican poets and writers also had the chance to present their work. The following day, there was more time for discussions during the presentation at the Associação dos Escritores Moçambicanos (Mozambican Writers Association). I felt fortunate to be able to fully understand the nuances of both languages and had a great time observing the coming together of these very different cultures.

You can play 'Where is Waldo' and try to find me in this photo.

Plus, in a weird way, I felt at home. It was only during these presentations that I realized how much had I been missing my readings, my writing groups, my “real” work, books, meetings with colleagues, my libraries (Oh, VPL, if you only knew how much you mean to me!). Next obvious step, was to raid the bookcases of my friends here. Picky-ness out of the window due to lack of choice, I've been reading some *interesting* stuff.


But at least I won’t read-starve.

Recipes for disaster: our oil and plastic dependency

What happens when you go on an oil diet? I'm not referring to the olive or coconut variety, but the other one, the one you have to drill to find.

A guy decided to try the drilled-oil diet and film the experience. He "invited" his family (wife and two cute boys) to join in the fun. They did, a bit reluctantly, but ended up enjoying some of the changes more than the dad himself.

Getting rid of all plastics in modern life and trying to do without oil takes some planning and lots of behavioral changes. Specially if you're in Finland and you have to walk to the bus stop and then wait for the bus for a long time in below zero temperatures. The movie definitely reminded me of some of our initial struggles when we started to cut down on consumption.

I got to see the film during the 7 Dockanema -documentary festival in Maputo- this past September. In Portuguese it is titled "Receitas para o desastre" and it's a fun mix of English, Finnish and Portuguese subtitles. Couldn't help but think that for the majority of Mozambicans it would be quite a stretch to relate to the concerns of that suburban middle class European family. Yet, as development rolls over Mozambique (or at least Maputo) like a bulldozer, it'll become soon a concern here too.

More about the film here.

Or read it directly from the words of director John Webster here.

Check the trailer:

Or see the whole film in Vimeo here.

Now, what are you going to do? Do without the plastic bags at the supermarket? Buy un-packaged? Stick to the same computer / phone / whatever-plastic-encased gadget  for a few years longer than the sellers would like? Get rid of the car or switch to an alternative-powered vehicle? Take the long, slow route over a flight? Help clean a park or a beach (or two)? Check some other examples of what can be done, here and here.

Tell us what action (big or small) are you taking to stop using, or reusing, or recycling or in any other way curve your consumption of plastics and oil. We would love to hear about them, plus we're always up to adopt other changes in our lives. We might actually enjoy them.