Mozambique has offered me opportunities that I would hardly have found anywhere else in the world. They are experiences so intense, so human, that they are not easily lost in the infinite recesses of memory.
Some of these memories are not, at first glance, particularly striking from a visual point of view. But memory has curious paths. Sometimes it is just a sound or a distant voice that opens a door in time. That is when I return to the school in Mussapa, right there on the edge of Chimanimani National Park.
More than the melody, it is the weight of the words that hangs in the air. There is in them a truth so raw and so profound that, for anyone listening attentively, it is hard to remain indifferent.
I can hear again
those boys – and above all the
girls – singing:
What is the greatest challenge in education?
It is keeping the girl in school. Onwards!
Onwards with the reading fields.
Down with early marriage.
Photograph and text by:
Mariano Silva
