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Mozambique

Listen to: Harvest Song


In July 1997, we travelled to South Africa and Northern Mozambique to find out why white Afrikan farmers were leaving their homes in South Africa to set up farms in remote Niassa province, Mozambique.

Many of these farmers were disillusioned with the changes occurring in South Africa while the wilds of Mozambique represented a virgin paradise.


Mozambicans, on the other hand, were sceptical of these new "Voortrekkers". While desperate for their money and farming expertise, the locals were fearful that the Afrikaners may be creating another apartheid state - this time in northern Mozambique.

The track was recorded at a local festival on the outskirts of Lichinga, the capital of Niassa province. Local farmers were celebrating the end of a successful harvest. As a trio of leaders chant and sing together the crowd stomps its feet in rhythm; the men dancing and the women and children whooping and trilling.