Individual Goals

There are many goals I hope to accomplish during my stay in Mozambique and the most important being a life changing experience. I made a promise to myself that I would write in a journal every day I am there. And in that journal I promised to always tell the exact truth about how Mozambique makes me feel. Am I sad? Joyous? Lost? Bewildered? Touched? And to tell you the truth I hope I endure all these emotions.

As for my group project goals I am in the culture group. Since culture is such a broad topic we decided to focus on religion. We thought that religion is such an important part of a culture and it ultimately determines the way people think. We will be looking into the indigenous animist religions in the northern regions as well as Catholic services in the south. We hope to interview with priests, natural healers, witch doctors and elders from every community that are old enough to have lived through liberation from the Portuguese as well as the Civil War. We will also be looking at traditional song and dance that are associated with the religions that we will be studying.

For my individual project I was going to focus on traditional music but have decided to try and do an artistic video journal. As a filmmaker I have been working with experimental video and kind of want to base my individual project along those lines. Something fast paced, raw and real. I want the video to speak Mozambique. I want to embrace the landscape and the people that inhabit it.

I can't even begin to explain the excitement I have in my heart. The thrill I have to travel to this country I have only been reading about in books. Bon Voyage! See you in two weeks!