An unforgettable story (reader discretion advised)...

For our Chiyao language classes, we have been telling stories and recording them and then listening to them and translating them. I tell a simple story about my life or my childhood and then my language helper, Beatriz, tells one about her life. It has been very interesting. Well the other day we went to her house and her mom told us a story about her life during the Portuguese/Mozambique war, when they were fighting for independence. We recorded her story in Chiyao and then with the help of Beatriz translated it into Portuguese and now into English for you all to read. It is an incredibly tragic story that depicts life here during the time of war and all that the people faced during this time. This is her and her story:



During the time of the colonial war against the Portuguese, I had my first child, a boy. We ran away into the forest because of the war. When we lived in the forest, we built homes out of grass. The sides of the house, the roof, everything was made of grass. During the second year of the war, some lions appeared where we were living. Goats and other animals slept outside the houses and us people would sleep inside the houses. When one lion appeared, he hit my house where I and my child were sleeping. I tried to scream, but no one heard me. At this place, there were many people, but no one could hear me. That lion ripped my house and came inside until he was able to take my child. I left the house to call help, "come here and see, a lion came and took my son." When people came and saw me, they found me wounded badly and my whole body covered in blood. After, the people began to scream, and many more people appeared. When they arrived they didn't find the lion. He took my son and ate him. There in the forest, where we lived, was only his head. The people found the head and they brought it back to me to bury. The lion returned a second time to take the mother of the child (me), but he found the place full of people screaming, and he ran away. This happened during the time of the war. During this year, we left for Malawi because we were afraid of the war of guns and the war of lions. There in Malawi, I gave birth to 5 more children. I then returned to Mozambique and had 7 more children. After this, I lost my husband. This is when I began to live with my children.

Here are some of the scars from the lion that attacked her. She also has many scars on her legs that she showed us, but we didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of.

This is me, Beatriz, and her mom. I look like a giant compared to them. They are both so small. Beatriz is 5th or 6th in line of the children and her mom gave birth to 14 children in all.