Habitat World Online

Mozambique: Bringing light — and life — to a Habitat house
She stands in the shadow, neither in darkness nor light. The afternoon sun pours through the open doorway and illuminates the floor beside her.

Three weeks ago, a candle’s flame cast shadows on the fresh cement foundation. Friends, neighbors and builders crammed in the round thatch-roofed hut to sing and pray. They dedicated the home with a dripping white candle because, in Mozambican custom, light represents life. If there is no light in a house, the neighbors will wonder what is wrong.

Assarta Raule Mondlane’s new house sits just beside her old one, on a well-swept dirt yard landscaped with rows of small rocks. Assarta, 31, is as meticulous with her new home as she was with the old, the one with the borrowed roof, the red dirt floor and the reed walls insulated with cardboard to block the wind. On these walls, three weeks ago, hung Assarta’s high-heeled shoes. Next to them hung small black tennis shoes that belong to Aderto, Assarta’s 3-year-old nephew.

The heels now rest on the finished floor of Assarta’s new home. Four nights a week, Assarta slips on her heels, ties Aderto’s sneakers and walks with him to the nearby Assembly of God Church. Thursdays, Aderto plays while she sings. But Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Aderto squeezes his eyes closed like the adults in prayer.

Assarta’s schedule is as orderly as her home. As long as the wind isn’t too strong, she sweeps her dirt yard as soon as she wakes, even before she washes her face and brushes her teeth. At 7 a.m., she takes one pill. She’ll take another one at 7 p.m.

On Jan. 24, 2005, she was tested for HIV. She was alone when she learned that she was positive. More than one year later, she started taking anti-retroviral drugs. She looks healthier now but still visits her doctor every other month, riding for about an hour in an ambulance with nine other HIV-positive patients to the military hospital in the capital city of Maputo.

Most days, she is busy trying to earn money for food. Four or five days a week, she buys lettuce or kale from the local farm and sells it in the market. She divides the large and small heads and sells them for 5 and 10 meticals each (the equivalent of 20 and 40 U.S. cents).

She hopes to have a husband and a daughter one day. After 11 years of marriage and a divorce in 2001, Assarta currently has neither. In 2005, the same year she learned she was HIV positive, Assarta took in her brother Samuel’s infant son, Aderto, when his mother left for Swaziland.

Samuel contributes when he can, but only has intermittent work. He helped build Assarta’s old house and her uncle Julio loaned her the roof. Soon she’ll return it and convert the old house to a kitchen.

She’s already moved the essentials to the new house: her black heels, a cup of toothbrushes and her medical records.

By Catherine Pearson