“Maputo airport seething with very excited children..at first I thought this must be a school trip – but most of them weren’t wearing shoes..
Turns out – lucky us! – we’ve arrived on Mozambique’s National Children’s Day, so the whole of downtown Maputo is full of beaming and beautiful children, out on a spree, with or without parents. Schoolchildren in uniform, cool teenagers, little girls dressed up to the nines in satin dresses..
Looking at the scene, it’s hard to imagine this as a country that, 15 years ago, was just ending one of the mos vicious civil wars in Africa, with a quarter of the population displaced. Yet the peace has held. Over the next few days, colleagues from the Centre Resolution Conflicts and I are meeting a whole variety of people who have been active in building the peace, to find out why they think Mozambique overcame the 50% odds of war starting up again, and see what lessons there may be for DRC.”
