We had to work growing tea, but we didn't know what it tasted like.
I come from Zambezia Province and am a peasant from that Province. My name
is JOAQUIM AMERICO PAULO MAQUIVAL. I come from Milange and I am 25 years
old.  All my family are peasants. We cultivate millet, cassava, beans,
sugar cane, etc.
We also had to work on the government land, at least it isn't government
land, it belongs to a company but it was the government which made us work
on it*  It was the land of the Socjedade do cha Oriental de Kilange. fhe
government came and arrested us in our villages and sent us to the company;
that is, the company paid money to the administration or the government and
then the government arrested us and gave us to the company*
I began working for the company when I was 12;  they paid me 15 escudos a
month (53 cents U.S.).  I worked from 6 in tho morning until 12 noon when we
stopped for two hours, then again from 2 until 6 in the evening.  The whole
family worked for the company, my brothers, my father - my father is still
there - my father earned and still earns 150*0 escudos a month (5»3 dollars)^
he worked from morning to evening. He has to pay 195 escudos (7»0 dollars)
yearly tax to the government.  We didn't want to work for the company, but
if we refused, the government sent police to the villages and they arrested
those who refused and if they ran away, the police sent out photographs of
them and a hunt was started.0 When they caught them they beat them and put
them in prison and when they came out of prison, they had to go and work for
the company, but without pay;  they said, that as they had run away they didn't
need the money*
Thus, in our own fields only our poor mothers were left who could not do
much. All we had to eat was the little that our mothers were able to grow.
We had neither sugar nor tea.
We had to work growing tea, but we didn't know what it tasted like. Tea
didn't come into our homes.
The Portuguese wage earners earned well. At the end of a month they would
buy a new car perhaps, while we couldn't even buy tea and at the end of the
year we didn't have, enough to buy a bicycle*
Later, when I was 15, I went to a mission school and I managed to get my
certificate. It was a Catholic Mission. We had to i.ork there;  we had to
work in the priest's fields.  The government gave the missions money for
our education but we didn't know and we worked in the fields because they
said it was necessary to pay the missions*
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