It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's So Your Character is from Egypt ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!
Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.
(None of the Images are Mine)
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What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?
I find the culture of Mozambique the most unique, everyone is, most of the times, very happy and cheerful. And it’s all about good food and dancing (which I love).
My country has one of the most amazing beaches, and you can find all types of beaches, calm ones, aggressive ones, populated ones, deserted ones, everything! Every special/important day calls for a celebration, people love to parade on the important days and then have family time right after. Our holidays are Independence Day, Easter, Heroes Day, just the basic holidays.
Tell me about your country's environment. What are some of your favorite places?
I live in the capital, Maputo, here everything is more evolved, with buildings, condos and so on. But if you go a bit outside the city, you can see that most of the people don’t live in good conditions, they actually live in poorly made houses. I love to go places near the beach, it is really calming for me. Best beaches that I've seen by far are the ones in Vilankulos, clear and calm water. Loved it.
The food is amazing, I really love it specially Mathapa and Xima. Most of the food is made out of Cassava, which is easy to find, cheap and rich in nutrients. I've attached the picture of mathapa, so you can have a better idea of what it looks like. And other food that is really good is seafood, Mozambique is known for its fresh seafood, like prawns, crabs, calamari, lobster and so on, and the most popular way of cooking it is grilling.
Because it is a Portuguese speaking country, the speech patterns are mostly in Portuguese. And there is a word MANINGUE which means a lot and yeah in different contexts. Anyone who has visited the country knows the phrase ‘maningue nice’.
Describe briefly a regular day in your country.
My regular day is somewhat normal, as it would be in any country, I wake up around 6.30, get ready and go to work, I work for a public institution so my work hours are 7.30am to 3.30pm, after that I go to the gym, then home, make dinner for me and my family, do some blog work and off to sleep.
How does your country compare to others, especially the States since my audience is primarily American? Environmentally? Politically? Culturally?
Well, for first it’s quite warm here, the summers are really hot and the winters not so cold. The beaches are amazing!!!!! People are very culturally aware, they still like to live and have big families and lots of kids, but in the cities, you can see that the people are now adopting the western and European lifestyles. I don’t like to touch political subjects but I can say that there is still a lot of corruption going on here.
Briefly describe three of your country’s historical events that you feel are important.
1) The colonization by the Portuguese government.
2) Country’s independence.
(Cannot think of more)
What are some stereotypes about your country that irk you? What media portrays your country badly be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
Well, it really gets me going when they describe Mozambique as a super undeveloped country, we are still a third world country but in some parts we are pretty much up to date with current trends/technology.
What media portrays your country well be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
Mozambique is not talked about as much, and the media outlets that actually do portray do not represent the country in the best way, they focus on issues like poverty, corruption and other bad things. These issues are a part of the country, but they don’t represent the whole country, there is a lot more than that to the country.
Who are your top three favorite fictional characters native to your country in books, movies, or shows?
As I mentioned before, there is little almost nothing out there that actually represents my country. But bits of Mozambique have been shown in the movie Jonny English.
Thank you, Dicxita, for this very informative post! Come back next week for a post all about Israel!
Are you interested in participating in this project? Check out the tips archive to see which countries have been filled and if you're from a different country, shoot me an email at howellvictoriagrace(a)gmail(dot)com. I'm especially looking for Cuba, Venezuela, Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Iraq.
Do you have any characters from Mozambique? Did this inspire you to write a Mozamabiquan character or set a book in Mozambique? Are from this or been to this country and you have further input? Feel free to share! Do you have any questions for Dicxita? Be sure to thank her!
You may also like:
So Your Character is From Egypt ... Featuring Nada @ Early Bookish BirdsSo Your Character is From Switzerland ... Featuring Elena Dratva
So Your Character is From Spain ... Featuring Ana @ The Misstery & Paula @ Flaw Decay
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