Published Story
Tales from another time
The foreigners at the time when they came had good hearts and approach. She is a person who has needs and they helped people. They have to come. They have to come as they always did the same way they built their house...
Amina Momade
Retired, +70, possibly 80 years old
Excerpted · August 2017
Note: Translated from Macua language to Portuguese by Hafiz Jamu.
About her former life on the Island.
Amina Momade: Her life boils down to the fact that she made candy – of cocoa, sugar, and other things - She used to cut it and take that candy to Mister Feliz [can be Felix], a white, nonlocal gentleman and dealt with it. She would deliver this candy for 10 escudos [name of the currency before 1975] and carry 1 escudo to this lord as profit. And she lived on it. There were also priests here, Father Lopes, who lived on the Island for 50 years. This priest Lopes helped her in some economic activities of her and other people. They all lived harmoniously.
Interviewer: Do you think the Island of Mozambique has changed over time? If so, how?
A. M.: For her, ways of life have changed because people who had the knowledge have all died. Now some young people are not aware. So there was a lot of change. The way of life has changed, and the culture has changed. There is no longer respect and closeness. The people who spread the good culture have all disappeared. The young people who remain do not know how to go down with social activity.
What do you think about the coming of foreigners to the Island? The UNESCO World Heritage nomination helped boost tourism or the coming of foreign investigators and investors..?
A. M.: The foreigners at the time when they came had good hearts and approach. She is a person who has needs and they helped people. They have to come. They have to come as they always did the same way they built their houses and these houses stayed. That area of the city of stone, no longer has the brightness it had. There are no people who know how to treat that area.
Do you feel connected to some area/monument/other on the Island of Mozambique?
A. M.: She always lived in this neighbourhood. There were people she knew, who were friends. Now she does not go outside where she lives because she is used to dealing with the usual people. Some have died, and others are elsewhere. There is nobody she knows. Now, she stays here. Does not go outside.
Is there any story or anything you would like to share?
A. M.: Events that it reflects come from the inheritance process. If the people sit down and say that this asset stays with the guy, it stays with him. Older people decide that this asset is for themselves. But then when the person leaves, we get upset that that thing was for that person and we get angry that it stays that way. And this happens a lot here.
At this moment there is nothing good on the Island. The atmosphere is not good. In the old days we lived better. There were (???) Indians, (???) [can’t translate], there were goldsmiths to make earrings… That is all over. It changed because we only stayed between us macuas. Because a macua ruler came. And the macua sense is a hostile government, unaware.