A Day in the Life of Felicidade, a 16-year-old girl

Girl’s story: Felicidade Helena Nhaca
Hello! I would like to tell you how I live in my
village of Catembe in Mozambique. My whole
name is Felicidade Helena Nhaca. I’m 16 years
old and I’m the oldest in the family. I have two
younger sisters, Cremilda, 9 and Florencine who is
only 4. That’s her on the picture with my grandma,
Delfina. Our grandmother is my hero. You see,
she took us in when my parents died of AIDS
related illnesses two years ago. There are a lot of
orphans around where I live and many of these
children are now raised by the grandparents. I call
my grandma by her first name because that’s what
she wants. I think it’s a hoot! I love her very
much. She has taught me about courage and about never giving up. My grandpa is away most
of the time because he works in a gold mine in South Africa. He comes home maybe once or
twice a year.
Our house doesn’t look like much; it’s very simple and small. It’s made with sticks of wood
and a tin roof held in place with rocks and branches. We hope it’s going to be temporary. We
had a bigger house but it was destroyed last year when we were hit by cyclone Favio. Did you
hear about it? Luckily no one in the family got hurt.
Grandma, I mean, Delfina, wants me to go back to school one day but for now I need to
help her at home and with the kids. There is also the work we do for money but I’ll tell you about
that later. I went up to grade 3 and then I had to quit because my mom needed me. I have been
back to school though because 2 years ago, I was invited to volunteer with the children for a
couple of hours a week. I do community theatre with the kids, thanks to money we received
from UNICEF. We put skits together and involve the students. Last year we were raising
awareness about AIDS. This year we put together a hilarious play about cholera and diarrhea. I
know, I know, you might be wondering what is hilarious about that! In fact it’s pretty awful
because lots of children in my country get sick or die because of these afflictions. The play
looks at prevention and teaches about proper sanitation and things like regular hand washing.
What’s hilarious is that it’s called “The Runs”! There are a lot of jokes in the play about having
the runs and people laugh so much they have tears in their eyes! They laugh but at the same
time, they learn about hygiene and that could save their lives.
It’s a very nice change for me to work with the kids at school and very rewarding. Most of
the hours during the day are spent working side by side with Delfina who is always teaching me
something. She’s a very determined woman and she always looks on the positive side of things.
When I’m down, she finds the right words to make me smile again.
When I get up in the morning around 6 o’clock, I walk to the village pump to get water for
the family. Then grandma and I start cooking for the day. We usually eat two meals. We eat
things like cassava, rice and potatoes. On lucky days we prepare fish and clams, after all we
live right by the beach and Catembe is a fishing community. Most of the time we buy fish from

fishers and we then sell them at the market. We also pick clams but again it’s mainly to sell. We
have a nice garden but it is a lot of work. We grow vegetables and we also look after 2 goats
that I have to milk every day. We had 5 chickens but they all disappeared when we were hit by
the cyclone. I also look after my sisters. I need to be more patient with Florencine because she
cries a lot! I like being with Cremilda, especially that now she can help a lot more with the
garden.
In my free time, I hang around with my girlfriends. One of them, Anita, lives in a bigger
house and they even have a radio. Every Saturday, we’re glued to it, listening to Radio
Mozambique. They have an hour long show produced by kids for kids. It’s very inspiring. After
the show, we hang around at the beach, throw water at each other and giggle a lot.
Now I need to tell you something else about Delfina. She belongs to a grandmothers’
support group and about two months ago she came back all excited. They were told at the
meeting that they might be able to get micro financing to start a small business. Some
organizations from Europe were going to provide the funds. So guess what? Shortly after the
meeting, grandma sat down with me and told me about her idea: doing seaweed farming! She
said we could grow it in special enclosures and sell it to markets in bigger towns. When I asked
her what she knew about seaweed farming, she said that somebody from a European NGO
(Non Profit Organization) would come to Catembe and teach us about it. She had already talked
to a man who owns a truck in the village to see if he would like to be hired to transport the
seaweed to those markets. Of course he said yes right away because he doesn’t have a lot of
work. With the help of a local teacher, we wrote down a proposal. Just a week ago, we got
word that it had been approved! We were so happy that we started shouting and dancing.
Florencine got so scared that she started howling. With all the noise we were making, our poor
neighbours must have thought we had gone crazy!
So life looks more promising for us. I still want to go back to school but for the next while,
my grandma will certainly need a lot of help with the new business. If we make enough money
then going back to school will be easier for me. And who knows, we might also be able to
replace our little temporary shelter with something bigger and sturdier!