David had once told me that there was no sky as totally black as the African sky, where the stars hung so low that one could almost reach out to pluc… - Farida Karodia

All along the path into the village we encountered rebel militiamen – barefooted, wearing ragged uniforms, carrying rifles and bandoliers. They were obviously locals recruited from surrounding villages. This was rebel territory, and men like these, who seemed to flit in and out of the bush like shadows, dispersing at will, were the very foundation of the revolution. It was this shadowy existence that allowed them to survive incursions by the military. The women were no different: they milled around us, full of curiosity, babies in one arm and a rifle on the other.
Their needs were simple. They were men and women who had spent their lives surviving in the forest and who knew that environment better than anyone else. They needed very little to flourish there, and could subsist on berries and whatever small creatures the forest floor offered. Because families like these endured incessant harassment and even bombardment from military forces, they were able to cope with extreme hardship. They owned nothing, except what they could roll into a small bundle and carry with them.

The deserters and dissenters expelled from the party formed RENAMO, a rebel group committed to snatching power from FRELIMO. Supported by South Africa and Rhodesia, who did not want a socialist government on their doorsteps, RENAMO conducted a campaign of terror, destabalisation and plunder, murdered hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans. It was a tragedy and travesty of the worst kind. It was a conflict that surpassed the brutality of the war in Vietnam: RENAMO, it was said, outdid the Cambodian Khmer Rouge in cruelty, perpetrating some of the most inhumane acts against their own people, with the full knowledge, support and encouragement of Mozambique’s white-ruled neighbours.

My education had equipped me to suffer in silence, a form of passive endurance. Even though I know nothing about being brave, I soon realised that self-denial was like self-immolation. It was a state of stasis that relieved one of the responsibility to change things.