Global Poverty Monitor

Olga approached a group of year 10 students, and they agreed to speak with us. We all filed into a classroom and they sat down, while we stood at the front. I was amazed at the behaviour of these students – they were voluntarily in the classroom with no teacher, being asked to speak with a group of white (and in their eyes, rich) students, most of which were their same age. But there was not a single problem, comment or anything, except when a girl wolf whistled when Joseph started to speak. Most of them spoke a small amount of English, some more than others. We were asked to introduce ourselves, but most could not understand and so Olga, with the help of a few students who spoke English very well, translated for us.

We talked about our ages and also what we are studying or what grade we are in at school, and some talked about sports or music that they liked. Whenever someone said something that the Mozambican students agreed with, they let us know. It was a very friendly, relaxed environment, and (except for the translations) I don’t think it would have been any different even if Olga hadn’t been there. When asked if they like their school, they all cheered, and when asked who out of them wanted to go to university, they all raised their hands and said that they wanted to be doctors, architects, computer scientists.