Mozambican Heroes Day

February third commemorates the death of Eduardo Mondlane, one of the Republic of Mozambique’s founding fathers. When we first arrived in country, Janet often got called Janet Mondlane, which we found odd until we discovered Eduardo happened to have an American wife named Janet who still owns a house in Namaacha where we were living during Peace Corps training. Mondlane died in Tanzania, assassinated by a parcel bomb possibly orchestrated by the Portuguese secret police, six years before independence. However, his role in uniting various nationalistic factions into FRELIMO, the party which eventually negotiated independence from Portugal and continues to rule the nation to this day, earned him a permanent day of honor on the national calendar. The holiday has expanded to also honor Mozambique’s first president, Samora Machel, and all Mozambican veterans of the struggle for independence from the nearly five centuries of foreign rule which ended in 1975. Mozambican Heroes Day is basically like Presidents Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day all rolled into one. The mortal remains of Mondlane and Machel, as well as some of Mozambique’s other most revered heroes are kept in a giant star-shaped mausoleum in a traffic roundabout near the international airport in the capital city. Luc tried to snap a photo of the monument last time he flew there and nearly had his camera confiscated by a couple of over-zealous national guards possibly fishing for a bribe, so there is no picture to accompany this blog. Every city and town in the country has a prominently situated replica of this memorial. Ours is looking a little shabby these days with bricks lying exposed where the plaster has cracked and chipped away; the local authorities always promise to have it refurbished by next holiday. This year we missed the ceremonious laying of the flower wreath and the speech making held at the star. Since every celebration we attended last year started at least an hour late, that’s when we arrived, only to find all the townspeople, with the occasional old war veteran in fancy dress uniform, trickling out in the opposite direction. Apparently this time they decided to start early and we missed the whole thing, although we have a good idea of what transpired since Mozambican holidays always strictly adhere to the same formula. The soccer team crowds had been anticipating from the big coal mining company down in the district capital Moatize failed to materialize for the evening soccer match, so we ended up having a mellow holiday weekend. Back in America everyone was partying for Super Bowl Sunday, but that means absolutely nothing here since no one has ever seen a football or even heard of this almost exclusively North American sporting institution. Some of our buddies were getting together at a 24-hour gas station on the national highway near the ocean where a satellite dish was going to capture the big game live. But it was too much travel and too crazy for our teaching schedule with the game airing at 4am Monday morning, so we just caught the results on the BBC Sports World wrap-up when we woke up at 7am.