ProtagonistDavid Macou

David Macou was born in 1959 in Chidenguele Gaza, Mozambique. He was among the first group of contract workers sent to the GDR in 1979. Macou was trained as a welder in the VEB Welzow brown coal plant in the Lusatian region. From 1986, he was given the role of group leader of the Mozambican workers. He refused to work solely in this role, as he wished to work as a welder back in Mozambique too, and wanted to obtain the best possible qualification in the field.

David Macou lived through the xenophobic attacks by Neo-Nazis and GDR citizens on the Mozambican workers’ accommodation in Hoyerswerda in May 1990 and in September 1991. He was a member of the last group sent back to Mozambique in November 1991 from Hoyerswerda. Workers who returned were expecting to be paid their transferred wages in Mozambique. When it became apparent that the government was not going to pay the workers the money owed, Macou organized a protest along with other former workers. The workers who returned from the GDR, known in Mozambique as “madgermanes”, have been holding weekly demonstrations to demand payments of their wages since 1993. Today, Macou gets by doing odd jobs. He never found work as a welder in Mozambique.