The Soccer War

MARRIAGE AND FREEDOM

What follows is the complete and exact text of a letter sent to me by Millinga Millinga, an activist in the Frente de Libertaçao de Moçambique, the Mozambique Liberation Front. Millinga Millinga is a close friend: influential, serious, a figure at political rallies and diplomatic receptions.

L. Millinga Millinga

P.O. Box 20197

Dar es Salaam

Tanganyika

Dear Friend,

PERSONAL MATTER

At this critical moment in my life, compelled by an immense and unsolvable DILEMMA, I feel no shame in revealing deeply concealed problems that I have incurred in the preparation of my future, nor do I feel any shame in revealing them to you especially, a friend whose kindness and assistance have never been wanting on occasions of this kind in the past.

As you know, I am one of the Freedom Fighters who has devoted all his time to the struggle and receives no compensation. But in view of the fact that a human being cannot escape from his natural needs, I have for two years been plunged in heavenly love for Miss Veronica Njige (district secretary of TANU, the Tanganyika African National Union) of the Morogoro district, whom I have promised to marry. However, as I have been so deeply engaged in the struggle, and, moreover, given the particular circumstances in which FREEDOM FIGHTERS live, I have been unable to fill our treasure chest with funds sufficient for the preparation of a festive wedding. In addition, the parents of the Lady of my Heart are demanding fifty pounds as a dowry, plus, in lieu of cows and goats, another twenty-five pounds as a gift for the cousins. After calculating precisely all the necessary expenditures incurred from the preparations and the wedding day ceremony, the total sum of money required to meet my aims amounts to not less than 200 pounds, including the items mentioned above.

In the opinion of my Beloved the date for the wedding has been delayed too many times already and so she has taken to writing to me three times a week, demanding that a wedding be held before November 1962. In these letters there is nothing more than one simple and clear statement: ‘FREEDOM AND MARRIAGE BEFORE NOVEMBER 1962.’ Despite my relentless declarations on the theme of my present financial situation, with which she has no sympathy whatsoever, the Lady of my Heart insists resolutely on a wedding IMMEDIATELY because, a Freedom Fighter herself, she states categorically that she would prefer to suffer with me in our own home than remain in her parents’ care. To a certain extent, I feel sorry for her. She is a grown woman, ready for marriage, and is always telling me, passionately, that she has, at present, strong desires, unprecedented desires, to become a wife without delay, and, acceding to her many requests, I have been compelled to agree that by 3 October I will pay her parents and relatives the seventy-five pounds and that the wedding will take place on 1 November 1962.

Dear friend, I would like you to turn over in your mind the true meaning of the sentence: ‘LOVE IS THE MISTRESS OF THE WISEST MEN AND THE MOTHER OF EVERYTHING.’ If you think about this sentence in relation to the matters presented here, you will certainly adopt an attitude sympathetic to my present situation. Under these conditions I have nothing more to say, except to ask you to give me as much financial help as you can afford. I should stress here that this support is to be treated as private aid to me, MILLINGA, and not as aid to the Mozambique Liberation Party or to me in the role of its General Secretary. For this same reason, all payments should be addressed to my private post office box: Millinga Millinga, P.O. Box 20197, Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika. Payments sent in connection with the matter presented above will be confirmed by myself personally or by my cousin W. L. Mbunga, whom I have appointed to the post of Personal Secretary in Charge of Fundraising for my Wedding. His signature is to be found below.

In hopes of hearing from you before the deadline,

With fraternal greetings,

[Two illegible signatures]

I gave Millinga as much as I could afford, but it was obvious that some of the embassies must have given Millinga as much as he needed for the wedding took place (Millinga had mimeographed his letter and sent out many copies). I met both of them several days ago at a reception at the Soviet Embassy. Millinga, small, delicately built, permanently unshaven, stood silent and musing beside a stout, big-busted, gloomy girl, the Lady of his Heart.