EMAKHUWA - part I

Imagine a couple and their two children walking for the highway in the rural area. The man walks about 2 meters ahead with a radio of pile in the hands. Behind him, his wife, with 1 son about 18 months “tied” to his body for a cloth piece, a can of water with about 20 liters in the head, a bag with several belongings “hung” in the left and other arm in the right arm. To the side, more 3 children, all still small.

The man, without doing any effort--- the woman, 2 meters behind, carrying the whole weight.

It is the fascinating people AMAKHUWA.

Geographically, Makhuwas (or Macuas) they live in an extensive earth piece that understands the whole north of Mozambique, it leaves of Tanzania, of Zimbabwe, of Zambia and part of the Island of Madagascar.

Historical registrations of the presence of the emakhuwas exist in the areas center and south of Mozambique, but, now, they do not have numeric expression.
They are a people of rich culture, culture that was passing unharmed, in some aspects, for the Portuguese colonialism.
Many Makhuwas went to the cities, they studied and, even, some occupy key positions in the state administration.
However, most absolute of the people it is illiterate, lives in absolute poverty, practices their ancestral rituals and just speaks his native language.

WITH THE MAKHUWAS THAT WE ARE TO WORK.


I met a woman 26 year-old Makhuwa with his son in the lap--- “in the lap” it is way of to speak, time that the emakhuwas carries their babies to the backs or ahead of the chest, tied by the capulana.
Until there everything normal. I asked him, through the interpreter that accompanies me, besides her age, how many children she had. She answered: “I had 8, 4 are alive”--- in spite of only having 26 years and being a beautiful woman, it was still normal.
Surprised and skeptic was when she affirmed to be 3 grandmothers....
Quite so, 3 grandchildren are to the 26 years. That is normal among the people Makhuwa, because for them, the woman when menstruating is capable to marry and to procreate.

The one that, for us, it is an absurd thing, it is normal for the people emakhuwa. In addition, that woman, inside of the traditions of people, as we will see ahead, she asked me if I did not want “to marry” with her. When speaking that it was married with a Brazilian and that had children in Brazil, she did not understand very well, I am sure.

AFTER ALL, FOR HER, TO BE MARRIED DOESN'T MEAN NOT TO BE AVAILABLE

She asked me, then, I had some daughter woman. I told that yes: 3 big and 1 small of 4 years----her then “it attacked” again: she asked me if did not want to marry his son of 13 months with my 4 year-old daughter...
Here is our heroine Makhuwa and her baby of 13 months

DIFFICULTLY WE WILL FIND ONE GIRL MAKHUWA WITH 11 OR 12 YEARS THAT IS NOT STILL MOTHER...

One of the traverse objectives of our work is arrested in this fact.

19% of the Mozambicans have HIV/AIDS and among the makhuwas, in spite of not having given reliable, that percentile one should be larger .

Of course the beginning of the sexual practice very early and the almost inexistence of matrimonial fidelity accentuates this fact.

Becomes necessary to delay the beginning of the sexual practice among the youths, but that finds resistance firm among the oldest. The high number of children increases the poverty.

Should enroll a fact cruel, however real here: the natural selection, so well described by Darwin, takes charge of avoiding an overpopulation--- they die thousands of children, young and old of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other typical diseases. Most of those deaths are at least counted, as well as the birth was not counted. The use of the masculine preservative (condom), in spite of the campaigns of the government Mozambican, it was not adopted by the makhuwas, for the same cultural reasons. The poverty exalts and the education lack increases that effect. It is fact those 8 to 9 months after the crops, the number of childbirths among the youths increases a lot, what is explained by the presence in the drivers' communities and workers of other places, usually of the towns of larger load.

They also exist the tribal rituals of the youths' circumcision.

The boys meet in the forests, out of the village with Mwene. This uses the same knife, clear, for “to do the service” in all--- imagines that the same knife is used for you vary other obligations of Mwene...

Since then them, they are capable to procreate...

Among the girls, the ritual seems to be still cruelled, because second report of a Brazilian nun that has to participate in one of those rituals, they are forced to lie down in a “bed” of nails and to simulate the movements of the sexual action, until that they get accomplish them without difficulties.


The girl’s makhuwas also use the practice of prorogating the “lips” of the vagina, through the placement of a paste done starting from herbs and of a process of it, stretch out-stretches out diary during months or, until, years.

The objective, as it seems, it should be the increase of the attraction power.

In the reality, the woman makhuwa is born and it is workout from child for the sex.

It is common to “flirts” of women “married” with other men and the betrayal, as we will say further on, it is institutionalized practically.

The capulana, as I referred before, it is a type of “it cuts of fabric” always very color, with about 2 to 3 meters in length and 1,5 meter of width. It is the women's only garment--- they roll up the capulana in the body, giving 2 or 3 turns and they tie in the tips.

Some more women “modern”, they already use a blouse, as the one of the picture below, but the smashing majority of the makhuwas just uses the capulana.

A fact being considered is that the makhuwas, so much for the poverty it exalts, with the consequent inexistence of any comfort type, as light, water, etc, but also for their secular habits, used to take a bath.

This fact does with that it is, ace times, difficult to talk with an makhuwa for more of some minutes in closed atmospheres. The odor is unbearable. Much more unbearable when it is women, for you reason own of the feminine anatomy.

That extremely unpleasant odor seems to be a sexual attraction the more...