It's now five years since the peace agreement was signed ending Mozambique's 16 year civil war. All over the country reconstruction work is going on, and in the north more than a million former refugees have returned to their home villages after years in exile. On a recent trip to northern Mozambique the BBC's Sue Branford was reminded that work in fields such as reconstruction and health education is very much a two-way process.

Olga, a young African woman, couldn't contain her excitement when we stopped in our minibus to pick her up in her village in the north of Mozambique. "There were two of them, huge lions, standing in the middle of the road," she said. "I didn't see them until I cycled around the bend in the road. And there they were, right in front of me. I jumped off my bike and scrambled up the nearest tree. It was an hour and a half before another vehicle drove by and rescued me."

After 16 years of civil war, Mozambique is being rebuilt. And, though she has had little formal training, Olga is playing an important part in the reconstruction. Working as what is known as an "animator", Olga travels from village to village in the province of Niassa in the sparsely populated north-west of the country. With help from the local water authorities and the British charity, WaterAid, these villages are digging themselves wells, which will become their first source ever of abundant, clean water. And Olga, who is handy with a spanner, is teaching the villagers how to carry out basic repairs to their new wells.

There is no public transport of any kind in this part of Mozambique, and Olga used to have to walk from village to village, or cadge lifts from the occasional lorry or pick-up that drove past. A few weeks ago, however, as she proudly explained to me, she was given a bike, even if it's one that has no brakes or lights. Dressed in the traditional African wrap-around dress, or capulana as it's known in Mozambique, she's still finding it a bit difficult to ride the bike. But, she tells me, it's made her much more mobile. It's also attracted a lot of comment in a region where women are expected to adhere to their traditional role of looking after the children, cooking and fetching water and firewood.

Olga takes it all in her stride. Indeed, she seems to enjoy the attention. She has a great sense of fun and she's a popular figure in all the villages she visits. Children come running towards her from all sides as she produces her posters. She uses them to teach the villagers basic hygiene, such as washing your hands after going to the toilet, and somehow she turns it all into a game.

The region Olga is working in is bustling with activity. Since the peace agreement was signed in 1992, thousands of Mozambicans, in exile in Tanzania or Malawi, have been flooding back. There's much laughter and song, as they rebuild their wattle-and-daub houses with grass or reed roofs, and harvest the crops.

Now the villagers want wells, so they can have clean, plentiful water, which will reduce disease, and schools for their children. But modern ideas have not permeated every level of life in the African villages. We watched women singing and dancing around a sick woman. They were treating her with the old medicine that is geared to ridding the ill person's body of evil spirits. Olga was scornful. "They should be sending her to hospital for blood tests," she said. "This traditional hocus-pocus doesn't work."

But Olga wasn't always so confident in her modern views. Several times we drove past a sacred grove, said to be haunted by the spirit of a dead queen. Everyone in the minibus, including Olga, fell silent as we drove past, with the men removing their caps as a sign of respect. I noticed that even Ian, the level-headed British engineer from WaterAid, was respecting the ritual. He looked sheepish when I quizzed him. "Well, once as we went past, I kept my cap on, rather as an act of bravado," he said. "As soon as I got back to the office, my computer and printer short-circuited. Everyone told me that I'd asked for it, by insulting the queen."

So, it seems, cultural interaction is a two-way process. Olga, brought up in an African village, acquires modern ideas on hygiene, sanitation, and the role of women. And people like me from the industrialised world, almost against our will, get drawn into African spiritual beliefs.
 

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