Mozambican Singer Wins Prize For Strong Songs on Taboo Topics

Feliciano dos Santos, who sings about issues from HIV to waste management, won a Goldman Environmental Prize. (By Steve Fisher Photography)

Growing up, dos Santos was taunted by classmates and shunned by his brothers. "Kids used to laugh at me and call me names," he said. "I felt bad as a little boy. Discrimination can start inside your family."

His father, a carpenter, was killed in an accidental shooting while he was out trailing game. His hunting companions told the family that his last words were, "Who is to take care of my son Feliciano?" Dos Santos was just 8 years old.

He taught himself to walk by dragging his right leg with his hand. When he was 11, he crafted a brace, without ever having seen one, out of cardboard boxes and rope. He was soon able to walk more steadily and could catch up with both friends and hecklers.

Later, he traded bread for guitar lessons from a friend who'd picked up a tune or two traveling outside their township of Lichinga, in northern Mozambique. He mastered the rest by tuning into radio stations that blared Tanzanian, Kenyan and traditional songs.

To earn money, dos Santos painted posters of singers such as Bob Marley and movie actors such as Bruce Lee. When he was 16, he spent his savings on a bus ticket to the capital, Maputo, and asked a cousin to help him deal with his infirmity. Doctors at a hospital there told him he could be fitted with a special brace.

"My brothers still went to parties without me because I could not dance. So I decided to do something different so everyone would believe in me," he said. "Playing the guitar was cool, and I realized it gave me the power to be with others. Many disabled people in Africa find their way to music. When I sing and play, I can fly, I can go anywhere. I don't need a car or a plane."

When he was in his 20s, dos Santos began singing in his home town.

During the war years, he wrote a song, "Mozambique," urging people not to flee the country but to stay and rebuild. The national radio station recorded the song, which soon became a hit.

He also composed other songs, about the birth of his daughter Giselle, now 19, motherhood and love. "People really liked it," he said. "Without hope for their lives, this was something new." Dos Santos and his wife, who accompanied him to Washington, have four children.

He has performed in Japan, Portugal, France and Britain. "Now I am the head of my family," he said. "I take care of all of them. I am a Christian, and Jesus tells you to turn the other cheek and forgive."

In 1998, he participated in a UNICEF project to improve latrines and provide slabs for them that were easy to clean. It dawned on him then that his talents could influence people to change.

"The idea came to me. After the slabs, we started talking about hygiene with songs like 'Wash Your Hands,' " he said. Dos Santos formed his own foundation and named his band Massukos, after a sweet, fleshy wild fruit. Hikers lost in the bush pick the juicy delight to eat. "People need this music so when their spirit is hungry they will come to it," he explained.

He tours the country with his guitar, talking farmers out of burning their land and into using more innovative techniques to improve crop yields. His organization promotes ecological sanitation to prevent soil contamination, runs projects for patients with HIV, distributes condoms and provides farmers with seeds to boost food production.

His home province of Niassa experienced chronic outbreaks of cholera in the past but has had no cases in seven years. One suburb of Maputo that the foundation took on in 2003 reported 800 cholera cases in 2004. The number dropped to 46 cases last year.

But Mozambique still has "so many big issues," dos Santos said, adding that after meeting with environmentalists and scholars in the United States, "I realized I still have a lot to do in this life."