Cows say "Mooooo"

07 June 2012—

                While it’s important for me to paint a picture of life here that is accurate in regards to the level of poverty that the people of Mozambique experience, I worry that I do not say enough about the positive side of the strides they’ve been able to make over the last few years to improve their current situation.

                While World Hope International is obviously involved in well drilling in several African nations, they also have other projects which benefit the communities where they work.  While some of their ventures prove to be more successful than others, due to both cultural and monetary constraints, their cattle program, which began in 2006, has grown exponentially over the last six years.  This program, which helps communities expand their wealth through cattle breeding, started with 3 projects that benefitted 15 families and is now supporting 78 projects for approximately 375 families.  In essence, World Hope donates 10 cows to one village and they are split between 5 families.  Each family gets two heifers and 1/5 of a bull with the agreement that they have four years to increase their herd by sharing the bull for breeding.  At the end of four years, after having increased their cattle numbers, the original families donate two cows to the next project with includes another 5 families.  These new families are selected by the original committee and will be trained to care for the health needs of their new cattle, which continues the cycle for the next four years.

Historically, Mozambique used to have a large cattle farming population; however, after their independence from Portugal in the mid 70’s and their subsequent civil war which ended in the mid 90’s, most of the country’s cows were wiped out for food by the warring factions.  Additionally, prior to the war, Mozambique was actually considered an extremely strong economic force in this part of Africa, with the closest sea port to Johannesburg being in Maputo.  Because of this, South Africa lent covert support in weapons and training to the northern Mozambican rebels on the condition that they would destroy the country’s infrastructure while trying to overthrow the new independent government. 

Today, the success of their quest to damage Mozambique’s economic power is evident in the poverty throughout their land.  With this in mind, while it is hard to comprehend the levels of need that the people in this country face, it is also important to remember that they have only been functioning as an independent nation for less than two decades.  Animals other than goats, pigs, chickens and wild dogs are rarely seen away from the national parks, and since the Gorongosa preserve was used by the rebel army as their headquarters during the war, game reintroduction is still under way since virtually all of the elephants, lions, zebra, cheetah, rhino and other typical African animals were used as food. 

                Therefore, if we try not to view this nation in a vacuum and attempt to understand its recent history, we can see how something as simple as World Hope’s cattle project could bring hope to many communities.

                The leaders in the village we spoke to were in the 1^st year of their second project, meaning the first 10 cows had already been bred and another 10 were turned over to 5 new families.  So far, their stock appeared to be flourishing and their cattle looked extremely well cared for.  Several of the men and three of the women from the program were kind enough to sit down with us and answer our questions, and it was wonderful to hear the pride in their voices when they spoke about how much progress they had made thus far. 

                Interestingly enough, the topic of education came up again when they stated that money they receive from selling their cattle once they’ve expanded their herd often goes to put children in the community through school.  What I found encouraging and amazing about their statement was that they did not say anything about putting the children in their family to school, but children in the village as a whole.  I may be wrong, but that is not something we would necessarily find too often in the U.S., so it definitely shed some light on the cultural differences and strengths that exist within this society.

                With this, I began thinking about the way we tend to view people in third world counties and it made me take a long look at myself as well.  Similar to the way we view our homeless community in the United States, I think that we are all guilty of assuming that those who live in extreme poverty are in some way not only lazy, but completely to blame for the conditions under which they labor.  We may not even realize that we hold those beliefs in our heart because we often refuse to voice them; however, the truth is that there is nothing lazy about the people here.  The amount of love that they demonstrate for one another and the back-breaking labor that they stand strong under every day is inspiring to watch.  Their ingenuity and use of land and resources is something most of us would never be able to comprehend because the conditions under which they live would never sustain most of us for more than a few weeks. 

                Watching them, I can’t help but think, “We have so much to learn.”