Layered stories

African women often sing what they are unlikely to say. Oselina Marindzi's work song is the first of our four touchstone songs. Marindzi posed questions that were on the minds of many poor women in Southern Mozambique in the late colonial era: ‘Oh, where should I go? Oh, how can I get there? My husband is suffering, Oh woe is me! My husband fled from here a long time ago Oh, woe is me!’ Amélia Chiconela, Luis Guila Muhale, and Rosa Joaquim Tembe helped shape answers to some of Oselina's questions. They were among the small group of women and men who joined entrepreneur Jiva Jamal Tharani in the early 1950s and built Mozambique's cashew shelling industry in the capital city; the place the Portuguese called Lourenço Marques, but most people in the region called Xilunguine, the place of the whites or of the strangers.

At an astonishing pace, Tharani and his workforce transformed cashew shelling from a cumbersome street corner enterprise employing scores of women, to a mechanized industry employing thousands in the Chamanculo neighbourhood factory. The official name of Tharani's factory was Cajú Industrial de Moçambique but throughout Southern Mozambique the factory and industry were simply known as Cajú or Tarana. Men and women built the cashew shelling industry, but women comprised the majority labour force in an era when female factory labour was unusual. Tarana quickly gained a reputation as the factory for women.

Amélia Chiconela was one of the thousands of women throughout Southern Mozambique whose suffering drove her to travel to Xilunguine. As she explained: ‘I didn't know where Xilunguine was. I got on the train and said I want to go to Xilunguine. I paid 15 escudos. I got off at Micoquene, near the slaughterhouse and followed the flow of people to the Ximpamanine market. There I found people from Xinavane. A man let me go live with him. In the house where he lived someone worked at Cajú, so I got a job at Cajú. I did not know what money was. I just got used to this.’ Despite having very little idea what might come of it. Chiconela made a way for herself. She learned about money and got used to waged labour in town. Eventually news of experiences like hers spread, and many other women came to view Tarana as a beacon of hope.