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Travelogues

Africa makes a different impression on everyone. Not even two persons can tell the same way what they have seen. Through our diary you can see how this magnifique country influenced the tourists with its unique culture and beautiful landscapes. The humanitarian tourists will share their experiences, their thoughts and feeilings just like the colleagues of the Foundation for Africa who have been working here since longer period.

Éva’s first report from Maputo, the capital of the former Portuguese colony Mozambique, on her first experience in Africa

2010. April 28.

Arrival – Maputo
28.4.2010.

Who does not fall in love with the airport at the first sight… that has to land again. As if nothing has changed since the 70s: one, not too long run-way, square-shaped building with a terminal of around 70 sq. meters, interior reminding of the cafés at home in the socialist era. Ferihegy 1 (Hungarian airport) could look like this after closing, before renovation. Now, I am really curious of the airport in Chimoio:)

Barraca, chima, favela

On the first day Simon and I went to have lunch in a barraca on one of the local markets. Barraca is… hard to find the most appropriate word; they would look like the fifth-sixth class container restos at Lake Balaton, if there were one of the kind, but I believe that the State Health and Hygiene Authority would not license it any way (although most of the barracas even have a TV.) Against the look of the room used as the kitchen, it is fully safe – I am alive:) –, and it is cheap and delicious. A typical local food is the chima: quite similar to polenta, though much more tasteless (though I think it is quite ok), and it is served normally as a side-dish. What one can also get always-everywhere is the grilled chicken with piri-piri, a rival of the Hungarian strong paprika. The price depends on where you eat it, in the barracas, with chima and some vegetables it costs usually 50 meticais (around 1,2 euros). Here in the barracas, the other dishes (e.g. boat, beef, liver with rice or chips) do not cost more than 60-70 meticais, either. The chima – just as many other dishes – is usually eaten by hand, and since in the barracas there is of course no toilette, „the waiter” usually brings a bin to wash your hand:)

After lunch, we bought some badija on the market, another local typicality. It has got various types, fundamentally it is a mixture of potato and onion, fried in oil, with an interesting-strange spicing. But it exists also for instance in coconut flavour.

In ordinary restaurants the prices are of course higher. In a small, cheaper restaurant (in Hungary it would be third-fourth class) the grilled chicken example above is around 100-125 meticais (2,3-2,8 euros). A milk coffee is usually 50-60 meticais (1,2-1,4 euros), the oldest national beer, Laurenta (that also won a prize on a Belgian beer fair…) is 30-50 meticais (0,7-1,1 euros). In the countryside – as I heard – everything costs 2/3 or half of this. In fact, in Maputo the prices are quite European. An ordinary Mozambican earns around 12-13 thousand meticais (around 270-280 euros) and 74 % of the total population lives on less than 2 dollars a day (52 % on less than 1 dollars).

Like in most of the capitals in the developing world, the contrasts are huge. The villas, built in the 20s, 30s, showing still the traces of the colonial heritage alternate with the typical socialist high apartment houses, some of them in quite a good shape, or as being used as a public building, already renovated. Yet, it is also not uncommon to see a building still in ruins since the end of the civil war in the very middle of the main avenue. Leaving the city, you meet what you see in every documentaries and travel programmes: small huts made from wood, mud and metal, one on the top of the other, no window, door, without water, electricity and sanitation. Waste and dust on the „road”, scrap metal car serving as a garden set, standing water and bare-foot little children. Though in the inner city the majority of the roads and streets are in some way asphalted, they are still broken by huge stones, meter-long holes, breaks where the red soil appears. Waste, fruit peel, pieces of glass, old phone cards are trashed on the pavement. The streets are all flooded by vendors offering not only the local, carved trendy handicraft souvenirs, but everything that they can, standing, sitting or lying on the ground, as it comes, cashewnut, mobile phone, banana, shoes, chicken still alive. Recharge cards is available on every corner from the kids hanging around.

The weather is very pleasant in this time of the year, in winter, in the mornings it is 18-20 Celsius degrees, during the day it sneaks up to 28-32 (I have not yet seen a thermometer, so I am only relying on my own “thermoperception”…), and in the evenings it cools down to a maximum of 16-20 degrees. The wet season (summer, from Nov. to April) is much warmer and humid than this. However, Chimoio, citing the locals, is „h’mm, well, cold…, have you brought a coat?”. In July and August the temperature is said to sink down to 0-6 degrees during the night.

Catembe
1. 5. 2010.

On Saturday we went to Catembe, situated on one of the other sides of the Maputo bay, by boat. By boat (whose name is quite suggestively barquinho) it is meant actually a small boat with wooden banks, swinging up and down during the ride, and that allows 46 people to board at good weather, but only 23 at bad one. This, I believe, says something…

In Catembe itself there is not much to see, old fishing boats that have seen better times are lining up on the shore, the water is warm, not too clean either, but through the bay you see far away off to the ocean…:) On the upper part of the shore women cook fish, crab, chicken (I told:) in small taverns. At one of the places we ordered an entire fish for the three of us for in total 300 meticais (6-7 euros), with chips and vegetables. It was (promised) to be ready in 45 minutes. So we went down to the beach, and went back– giving it a sure chance – in around one and a quarter an hour. The woman told us that the fish needed some 25-30 minutes more. Since the fish was still hanging outside on the wall of the tavern, we understood that she had not even started it. We returned again in another one and half an hour, and well, it just got ready:)
Well, as the African saying, that becomes soon a common place, puts it: „The Europeans have watch, and we have time…” Good that we were not that hungry:)

Chapa and Costa de Sol
3. 5. 2010.

On Sunday Julia and I went to Costa de Sol that lies north to Maputo, for an around half-an-hour chapa-ride.

Chapa = public transport, as there is no public transport here. The majority of the chapas is a Toyota microbus, 5 % of them are in a pretty good shape, the rest are rather not. Stops are there where you want to get on as well as where you cry „stop”, in case off. Plus, where you see a group of people crowding on the side of the road, that can also serve as a point of departure. Yet, it might be better to wave them, because we could only squeeze ourselves into the fourth one at the regular stop.
In general, so many people can get on, that fits, and so many fits, that many can still get on. Originally, I think, they would sit 13-16 travellers. On the way to Costa de Sol I was approx. the 40th, but to tell you the truth, I had not counted it as some boarded after me, too. One ride is actually always 5 meticais, independently of where and how long you are travelling (I have just counted it, 10 eurocents!). It is not the driver that collects the money, but a guy standing at the door, and payment is always to be done when you leave. Which guy actually coordinates that too, where and how each traveller should squeeze her/himself further deep into the vehicle, all this from the outside of the car, hanging half outwards. Most of the chapas have music, too, always different but usually some top-hits from the 80s. Though, last time it was a band from Angola:)

Anyway, the „tight travelling” paid off very much: long wide sand shore, local women cooking-selling chicken and fish under the palm trees, small crabs running up and down in the sand, sea and calmness.

Here (in Mozambique), by the way, driving is on the left.

Ok, then give…

The price that something cost is pretty much flexible. For instance, in Maputo there is fundamentally two tariffs for the taxi in the night. From the middle of the inner city to the end it is 100 meticais (2,2 euros), from a bit further it is 150 (3,2 euros). Saturday night we went to the concert of a Senegalese band and since we were only two, girls and newcomers, we rather took a taxi this time there and back, too. For the way there we paid 120 meticais, but for the way back the driver (another one) wanted to charge us 150. He kept saying determined that this was the normal price and this was for how much then he would take us. So I told him, same way determined that the normal price is 120, just like before, if not else, then we go and take another taxi. Of course, he took us with no protest:)

But this is how it works here everywhere (though in other countries, too), on the market, at street vendors, in bazaars and taverns. You can and you have to negotiate, otherwise you may pay even twice or three times more than the real price…
Today on the way home a vendor kid came to me and tried to sell „the most beautiful and punctual Swatch watch of the world”. He came all along with me trying to convince, the price started from 350, after 300 meters we were at 200 meticais, and when I told him for the fourth time that I really did not have a penny on me (I did not, indeed), I could only pay with my hair maximum, he finally gave it up, but: he made me repeat his name three times so that I could surely find him the following day at the same place…
At the same time, there are vendors, too, who just walk to you, you wave „no, thanks”, and they go further without words.

Olá amiga!

Just as the contrasts the city hides, that diverse is the behaviour of the people – at least those I have encountered so far. This is something that is not easy yet to judge in a fair and correct way, so I just write some examples now.

On the street, some of the pedestrians (and vendors) do not even take a look at you, some others just stare, while many others immediately smile and say „Olá amiga, tudo bem?” (Hey, my friend, everything is ok?) A European young white girl is always interesting. On my way to the Baixa („lower downtown”) a 40-something man joined me after the first 20 meters and started to ask, where I was from, what I was doing here and where I was heading to. He nicely gave me directions, but I also had to put down his number and promise that I would call him so that he could show me the city, what’s more we could even meet up in Chimoio. In the supermarket, I only asked whether they had needle and thread, and the shop assistant guy – after this 15 sec long conversation – quickly informed me how much he liked me and how kind he thought I was. The university student at the ATM was enthusiastically showing me his student card and asked where I studied, whether I had husband and had children, too. He even waited while I finished and since apparently he was intending to walk with me, I had to stop by a carpet shop. Well, to me, who is just that much liberal, as conservative, this is a bit unusal yet:) (May they have other intention in the background or not.)

Mulungu

On the way back from Costa de Sol we took a chapa. This time we were only around 23-30 (instead of 13-16). I was sitting in the rear, in the last row right next to the window with some 4-5 year old small boys on my left, some of them in the lap of another. They were really cute and obviously, they got quite embarrassed that a white girl keeps smiling at them. Reaching the town, one of the streets was blocked by a jeep and while we were waiting, a 30-something man walked up to the chapa, hit twice on my shoulder through the window and shouted „mulungo” that means „white man” in the local shangana language. It was not that pleasant, and seeing this, the boy sitting right next to me stretched his arm and closed the window in order quasi „to protect” me… so another nice example.

Thematic preparation plus HIV/AIDS

The introduction/preparation is quite interesting and the programme is well organised by having only two, 1,5-hour sessions each day, so that it is not really tiring even in the heat and against the bunch of information.

Just to point out one, I found the most interesting one maybe that on the work of DED in HIV/AIDS. According to the latest data, 14 % of the total population (20 million) of Mozambique is infected by HIV – 9,2 % out of this is under 15. Every day 440 new infections take place.

14 % means that every 7th – 8th person is infected. If you think it over, in your family one person would be surely HIV-infected if you have one brother or sister, and both parents and all the 4 grandparents still live.

The exact number of the HIV-infected people is probably higher than 14 %, since only pregnant women who see their doctor can be automatically tested. Those, who do not go to a doctor, giving birth to the baby at home for instance (which is not at all rare), and the men are very hard to reach and test, especially in the countryside.

The life expectancy here is, just to note, 47 years…

Maputo vs. Mozambique

So much from Maputo:) Maputo is in fact totally different from Mozambique – and Mozambique is totally different from Maputo.
We leave tomorrow (Saturday) at 6 am. for Chimoio, by car (1400 km). The trip lasts for 2 days, we will arrive on Sunday night. On Sat. we stay overnight in Vilanculo, a small town situated on the coast where the Indian Ocean and the Canal of Mozambique meets. In Chimoio, my coordinator will hold a small intro to the two partner organisations and to the project and workplace. Then I finally start working.

The project is carried out within the framework of the Junior Expert Programme (NFP – Nachwuchsförderungsprogramm) of German Development Service (DED – Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst). The coordination and background support for my participation were provided by the Hungarian Volunteer Sending Foundation (HVSF – www.hvsf.hu).

Gallery Take a look on the pictures taken of our different projects.