Sunday, November 26, 2006

Well… this will be a record of my year-long stay in Mozambique. I’ve been in Maputo for just over a week now and am finding my feet, learning the ropes etc. It’s generally really hot - sometimes humid and overcast - with the odd downpour.

There are 14 other VSO volunteers who arrived around the same time. It’s a nice group, people from a variety of countries: UK, Spain, Canada, Uganda, Kenya and the Philippines. We’re gelling well, amusing ourselves and each other with the daily trials of life. Usually banal things seem quite eventful here!

Maputo overall is quite attractive. Well, the city proper anyway. It’s a lot more developed than I’d expected and smaller. It’s largely low-rise, with wide, busy roads. There’s a lot of villa-esque architecture covered in flaking pastel paint - kind of like the ice-cream colour dilapidation of Havana, but without the vintage quality. Those are generally the nicer areas though – there are other bits with big shabby brown tower blocks and empty crumbling structures. I haven’t been into the suburbs yet but we drove through one part on the way from the airport that was row after row of corrugated iron shacks. Most buildings are modern but everything’s poorly maintained, despite ongoing (noisy!) construction. Pavements undulate and crack over pipes and roots. But, one of the best things is how green it is! Trees line the sides of every road; all different kinds including loads of fruit trees (laden with mangos at the moment - have to cover your head pronto when one drops) and gorgeous bright blossom everywhere. Plus it’s by the sea which gives it a slight beachy vibe and openness, and seafood.

Street sellers are all over the city - many permanently stationed on the roadsides, others wandering around. Wares consist largely of fruit – mangos (for those too lazy to shimmy up and collect them) and oranges laid out on cloth; bananas, along with tomatoes, potatoes and onions on wagons and collections of biscuits, sweets and mobile top-up cards in little stalls. Teenage boys wander round with miscellaneous goods of striking variety – adaptors, dolls, sculptures, shoes… They are very persistent, especially in (bright neon luminous) light of our whiteness. The batique sellers in particular are incessant! A few around where we live are starting to leave us alone after numerous abortive sales attempts, but it’s quite an onslaught.

These types of mini-enterprises are largely how people make a living in Maputo as there’s not much industry to provide employment. They are apparently facilitated by readily available microcredit. So Maputo is pretty well catered for in terms of goods and services. Though quality and choice are limited, seems you can get most things here. This is a bit of a surprise actually as Mozambique is statistically one of the world’s poorest nations. From what we’re told though, the capital (disregarding the slummy bits) isn’t remotely representative of Mozambique. Eighty per cent of the population lives rurally and relies on agriculture. Life in these parts operates pretty much on a subsistence/trading basis. There are regional hubs of commerce in the provinces though – I’ll be based in one and doing field trips to farms and villages, so should be a bit different!

Despite Maputo’s proximity to the South African border there don’t seem to be many white people around. There’s the odd Portuguese ex-pat, they gather in certain cafes, but think most of the SAs head to the beaches further along the coast rather than the city. There’s definitely some ex-pat money floating about though, so they’re probably all holed up in marbly compounds.

The temporary accommodation for VSOers here in the capital seems to have been a bit pot luck. Tara (Canadian girl) and I have been lucky. The apartment we’re staying in is big , nice, central, very secure and has hot running water. We’re staying there with a Dutch girl, Katerina, who has been here 2 years and has everything from herbs to tupperware! Other volunteers’ accommodation ranges from no forks to no cooker to no water… I must say the blokes have had the roughest deal with none of the above. They don’t cook anyway though. Instead they prefer to sustain themselves on the unofficial national dish of chicken (frango!) and chips. Can’t really understand why chicken in particularly is so ubiquitous, but it’s on all menus and sometimes the only thing on offer. Service is leisurely too, so they keep being late for language lessons after lunch.

Portuguese is going at break-neck speed, but I’m enjoying it. I can now make very simple sentences: ‘Manuela is a teacher’, ‘that is my chair’ etc. Progress indeed!

Books have become a prized commodity. We’re trying to snaffle out English language book shops (no luck as yet) and are trading them in the meantime. I packed a fair few (case was overweight but better books than curlers or something eh) so I’m revelling doubly in my book-rich security and benevolence!

Oh one really quirky thing here is the names of the roads. They all seem to be of political inspiration with loads named after notorious leaders. We have Avenue Mao Tse Tung intersecting with Kim Il Sung, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engles, Nkrumah, Nyerere... There are also several dates e.g. I live just off Avenue 24 de Julio. All christened in revolutionary fervour I think.

There’s a definite food theme emerging. Tomatoes, onions, green peppers, aubergine, potato and the odd squash. And cucumber. That’s pretty much what’s on sale. Recipes please... So far we’ve managed roasted vegetables, curried vegetables, vegetable omelette twice (you can get eggs too, and we hedonistically had ham in the first one). Katerina made a fabulous quiche one evening, but with cheese collected on a trip to South Africa (can get it here but muito dinheiro*) and pre-prepared pastry, don’t know if that’s a sustainable option for when I go to the province – aka - backwater.

Wondering what to do about Christmas at the moment. It’s quite funny timing as we’ll finish our training here in the capital a couple of weeks before Christmas and don’t fancy being alone in our new towns during the festive season! We’re thinking of going away, maybe to SA or somewhere within Mozambique for a week or something. Depends on my work situation, what start date they give me, so I’ll make enquiries. Anyone at a loss for Christmas is welcome to join me for a very random, hot one over here though!

Anyway, time to sail off to the land that was Nod, now Larium Wonderland. More anon. Post comments please, interaction!

*hey, just throwing it in, mixing it up, you know…

1 Comments:

Blogger Moom said...

Liz - these are such amazingly vivid and perceptive accounts of all the stuff I really wanted to know about: I could see the scenes, taste the tastes, hear the music and smell the smells (!!) When I 'Skype' you, all I can think of to say are goofy things like "I miss you/I love you/Are you wearing your vest?/Have you applied 100% DEET to the inside of your little toe today?" and so on. Tres Moom, n'est-ce pas?
Keep these wonderful accounts coming! Mayhap they will be published one day. (Do you need an agent? I can offer Mates Rates ... )
Loads of love,
Moom

6:05 pm  

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