February 3 is a national holiday here celebrating those that died in the various national struggles for independence. It commemorates the date of the death of Eduardo Mondlane, a national hero and the first leader of the independence movement. Instead of going to school, everyone instead went to our town’s ‘Praza dos Heroes’ or Hero Plaza, which is a cement sculpture in the shape of a large white star. The original star sculpture is huge and is in the middle of a roundabout in the capital, Maputo. It houses a crypt within that contains the bodies of Mondlane, as well as the first president Samora Machel, a famous poet, Jose Cardineiro, and other national heroes. Every city and town in Mozambique has a smaller version of this sculpture and it is used for ceremonies on days like this. Because it was raining heavily, the 8am ceremony didn’t take place until closer to 10am when the rain let up. A district representative came and gave a political speech and a wreath of flowers was placed on the sculpture. After lunch, the teachers organized an exhibition soccer game between the teachers and the border police. Luc was recruited to play defense, and Janet happily cheered him on from the sidelines. When we saw the haphazard, pot-bellied, middle-aged group of teachers assemble before the game, we thought we were done for. But we ended up with a few real star forwards and ended up beating the border police 5 to 3. It was a very merry event since it was sort of joke game, and the students loved watching their teachers run around and get sweaty!
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