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

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!