Querino Writes

My guard for two years came from the countryside where he farmed and herded goats since he was a boy. He wasn’t interested in school. His dad was happy that he was home to farm. Why should he study? Now he’s married with a wife and son of a year. He lives in town to make a living and go to school. Adult literacy is free for everyone who lives near enough to a class. He’s been in the Portuguese class for two years. When he came to Tete he didn’t speak much Portuguese, but that didn’t stop him from starting literacy classes. He struggled through the years with naming letters and learning vowels. Last June when Mikael’s mom was here, Querino showed her his books and what he could do. As a Special Education teacher, she was amazed at his difficulty at putting two letters together to make a simple syllable. After over a year in Literacy class!

Querino’s brother Ilidio works on the Nyungwe Bible translation with us. He’s the big brother in the family. At 28 years old, he is the only one of his brothers and sisters who finished school. In his village there was school until the 5^th grade which he completed at 11 or 12 years old. Now he’s in his 4^th year in a bachelor’s program with a scholarship through our mission. He says he always liked to study. As a poor kid in the village he sometimes had to attend school wearing only a loin-cloth like a baby. He never gave up. He always did well and the teachers saw the promise of a good student despite his outward appearance.

This week I was working with Ilidio and the team. Ilidio had lunch with us a couple of times as we got caught up with him after his months away at Bible College. I asked about Querino’s progress and he said that finally his brother was getting somewhere. They’d been staying together over the holidays and he’d taken time to help Querino with reading. During this conversation, Ilidio’s cell phone beeped. There was a text from the village:

bo no ti ma no ti ri be u cu ma na reo

Boa noite, Mano. Tiribe kugumana lero.

Good evening, Bro! We didn’t meet today.

On Querino’s day off he was texting Ilidio from the village to say that he wasn’t coming home at night. The text had been delayed because of bad connections, but arrived just as we were talking about Querino! “He can text?!?” I exclaimed in surprise. “Yes, he’s just starting. Look at it. Needs some work, but he’s got the idea!”

They say in literacy training that you only learn to read once. It doesn’t matter how many languages you eventually learn to read… there is just ONE time when you make the connection, that FIRST time you understand that sounds of letters come together to make meaning. You learn to read once.

I guess after two long years of unsuccessful schooling, Querino has caught onto the secret of connecting symbols for sounds with meaning. He can read. AND because of cell phones he’s motivated to write… a text as simple as a greeting to his brother shows his progress. I also find it interesting that these first attempts are in a mixture of Portuguese and Nyungwe. Basically he’s taken the standard Portuguese greeting and spoken it in Nyungwe. He’s writing in syllables, which is how most literacy in Mozambique is done. He will get used to joining syllables to make words and keeping words separate. But, this disjointed string of syllables is a real breakthrough for a man at the threshold of literacy.

Congratulations, Querino! Adachita basa, Mano!