Armed Forces Day

September 25 marks the anniversary of the start of the armed struggle
against the Portuguese back during the colonial era. Now it's a
national holiday here in Mozambique, with all the prerequisite
speeches and protocol. However, this time around the culture of not
planning and trying to pull everything together haphazardly at the
last minute produced its largest fiasco so far. We tried to escape the
hectic ceremonies with a weekend trip to Malawi, but canceled it
because of holiday confusion. We got caught in limbo since the 25th
fell on a Saturday, and no one knew if we would have class on Friday
or not. Our principal was listening to the radio that morning waiting
to hear the Ministry of Education decision, but was called to a
meeting before he could relay the official word. As it turns out we
did have classes, but about 2/3 of the teachers and 1/2 of the
students had already decided to take the day off. Saturday, the day of
the actual holiday, Janet stayed home with a low fever so Luc went to
the local monument alone. Even though he was an hour late (aka right
on time) the crowd was paltry. After the mayor's official declaration
nothing happened, so people left. He was furious no one had organized
the songs and dances and public theater everyone expects at there
occasions. Not even the drummers or traditional Nyau dancers showed
up. It was just Luc, a few kids, an old drunk veteran, and the mayor.
As volunteers, we were invited to a big feast at 6pm. Again, Luc
showed up an hour late, thinking that would be closer to the actual
starting time - we didn't eat until 10:30 at night. Wandering the
streets while waiting for the food, he got a taste of the full
decadence of the holiday. Hundreds of our students, with homemade corn
beer in hand, were drunk, dancing in the streets, and getting rowdy.
Luckily our favorite students seemed to be sober and well-behaved,
denouncing the over-the-top mayhem. But the overall debauchery was a
disheartening site for educators/development workers like us.