I thought again about the contradiction Mozambique was. On the one hand there were people like Dona Maria, compassionate and caring, and on the other… - Farida Karodia

One could only hope that this country, which had always been poor – not through a lack of resources, but because Portugal had decided that this was to be the country’s fate- would finally develop to its full potential.

I just hope that it would not go the way of other independent black nations, which had allowed their resources to plundered by large foreign multinational companies and leaders hungry for wealth and power.

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.