Is there anything better than home cooking? As soon as she landed in Padua, in northern Italy, Ayanda Duarte feared for the happiness of her stomach. Now, after more than 3 years living in the land of pasta, pizza and ice cream, the young woman tells Xonguila how the experience has been.
It was out of a desire to leave her comfort zone that, at 25, Ayanda Duarte reread a WhatsApp message. Amid many emojis, she found an application for a master's degree in Environmental Engineering and realised it would be the best tool for giving her career a new direction. “The desire to leave Mozambique arose from the need to have new experiences and to upgrade professionally. I knew that my work would be valued much more in Mozambique if I had a master's degree from outside Africa,” she tells us, through the same social network.
If food brings us comfort, it was this idea that left Ayanda most uncomfortable, as she believed that the Italians' lifestyle was less healthy than the Mozambican one. After realising that her new neighbours did not live on “pasta” alone, she had to adapt to the low temperatures. A native of Maputo, the engineer says that this constant adaptation was part of a learning process: “I learned so much, and so deeply! I would like to have the chance to share at least 10% of what I learned,” she tells us. Her enthusiasm is such that the young woman is considering opening a YouTube account to share some of this knowledge.
While she works towards realising her ideas, Ayanda Duarte organises the projects she would like to implement in Mozambique: “I would like to create a fund or services for restructuring landfill sites. It was my favourite area during my studies. I found it very interesting and I could see that our country needs serious intervention in the waste management sector. We live in a ‘silent’ environmental calamity,” she comments.
With a mixture of serenity and courage, the young woman takes the opportunity to appreciate the architectural charms of Rome, but always with a focus on her culture: “I cannot live without xima and a good chicken curry. I always do my basic shopping at African markets. On the cultural side, I always tell everyone I know how we live. I always try to share a little of Mozambique and show what a super-educated people we are,” writes the engineer, in a playful way, we guess. If in Rome, be a Roman; outside Mozambique, be a Mozambican.
