In my last blog entry I promised to write more about my trip to Zambezia, and although some time has passed, here comes the second part - now about the primary school in Murrovoro.
In the province of Zambezia IBIS" education program targets several primary schools under the "Happy Schools" project,and Escola Primaria Completa de Murrovoro is one of these happy schools.
Murrovoro is in Alto Molocue district, a 45-minute drive from the town of Alto Molocue, which is a long distance when you don't have any means of transportation except for your own two (bare) feet - something that most inhabitants of Murrovoro don't. So even though you can get there fairly easily by car,Murrovoro is very, very far away.
It can be an interesting mental exercise to try to understand what it measn to live in such a remote area,starting in terms of material possessions and of experience: We visited Murrovoro School with a small group of volunteers from a company that finances the school's Happy School activities, and they had prepared different activities for the children. In these situations you come to realise the value that a simple piece of paper for folding origami can have for a child, or even a grown-up, who owns practically nothing. And not only material possessions, but also concepts and knowledge that you take for granted become evident. For example, as some of the volunteers discussed, does it even make sense to talk about the food culture in your country to children who have probably etaen the same food every day of their life? And the bigget question - is it alright to do so to children who are actually also hungry most of the time and are very malnourished?
The families of Murrovoro are very poor - as are most people in Mozambique, especiellay in rural areas - and all the families we visited live of farming (beans, manioc/cassava, tobacco), but at a very small scae, mostly just enough to meet their own needs and maybe with a small surplus for sale.
The vulnerability of life in a place like Murrovoro is immense, for example as drought or floods can ruin you crops or your house. This was the case of one family we visited, who were sleeping outside on the ground under a thatched roof. This was their only option while they were collecting enough bricks to build a new house after it had been destroyed by heavy rains. I should mention that Murrovoro is in the highland, so the climate is not always as warm as at the coast. We happened to be there suring some rainy and chilly days, and the reality of this hard life becomes clearer when you see children shivering and with no shoes or enough clothing.
Another vulnerability is the access to health care, as it is very difficultr to reach a health centre (as mentioned, the nearest town is far away and people have no means of transportation. Even if you do reach a town or small city, however, there is no guarantee that there will be access to the medicine you need, not even paracetamol, or other medical supplies (including running water).
It is not easy to define which needs are more urgent for this kind of communities, and it is difficult to say exactly where schools and education fit in - it might not be the first priority for creating livelihoods here and now, but maybe on the long run it is the way for this. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how a school can serve as a place for gathering in a community that is dispersed over a large area (some of the children walk up to 8 km back and forth every day to go to school), not only for the children but also for the parents and grandparents who are actively involved in ensuring the quality of the school through their engagement in the school board - which in some cases means coming to the school every day and making sure that the classes are running as they are supposed to.
Dona Elena is a grandmother of Murrovoro and a member of the school board
Of course, I could say something about how the school is a "happy" place, but I will let this video, recorded on a chilly afternoon, where we were waiting for the rain to stop so we could continue our activities, speak for itself!
Singing in the Murrovoro rain
And I will leave you with a few pictures to give you an idea about life at Murrovoro School:
