‘Estrela Vermelha’, Ilha de Moçambique

It is afternoon in one of the densely populated bairros in Mozambique Island. A group of women gather on the veranda of a small red house in one of the sandy streets, not far from the sea. It is early April, the air is still warm, but not unbearably hot. There seems to be no fixed time for the meeting; some women pass by, others come and go, some settle down in the shade of the veranda. One woman is braiding another's hair. After a while, ten or twelve women have assembled. They move inside, and rehearsals can begin. Inside there is one big room with benches along two walls and no other furniture. The women sit down on the floor learning the words and the music of a new song for their performance on April 7 for the celebration of the Mozambican Women's Day. This year the words of the song have been written by the group's ‘poet’ who is one of the group's four male drum beaters. The words are written in a cheap exercise book, the kind children use in school. The characters are Arabic but the language is Emakhuwa. Some of the women have never gone to school, but most have attended the Islamic madrasa (the Quranic school) and thus they are more familiar with Arabic than with Latin letters. They rehearse the words along with the music, one verse after the other.