Maputo weekend

The Marginal is what it says on the label: the last margin between city and sea. And it pulses like an artery.
Turning out of our complex gate into the fast flow of the Marginal is a mission. Mozambiquan drivers are driven by the urge to get somewhere NOW and not by chivalry. Drivers will actually speed up if they think you might creep into a gap. Most exits out of our complex to the right on a weekend are accomplished by DB. I would rather turn left with the flow of traffic and brave the dirt road (which is currently something of a shifting desert with piles of loose sand) before I cross the manic stream of weekend drivers.
But DB is made of sterner stuff and works on the principle that the average Maputo driver doesn't really want to drive into you, even if his aggression would suggest otherwise. So off we go, down the Marginal on a weekend. As I said: it pulses. To the left are the clothing traders. Bright capulanas, improbable trousers, ruched sundresses blow from lines strung between two poles. Maid's uniforms, complete with frilly aprons hang from trees on home made hangers (a stick on a string). Fishermen, silver and red fish bunched on a line, scan the cars, looking for tourists who will buy at better prices than the market.
And the micro-shebeens (women with cooler boxes full of beer) line both sides of the street. On a Friday and Saturday night, the cars pull up on the pavement at the beach edge and a full-on street party ensues. Patrons of the local nightclub, Coconuts are often seen wandering down the Marginal in search of a road-side beer at 9 on a Sunday morning.
Oh yes, in Maputo, the people love to party!
Which is why going out on a weekend can be a rowdy affair. Yesterday we had a late lunch at Mira Mar, an establishment right on the beach. To say that it was heaving is a bit of an understatement, but we found ourselves a table on the sand. Only to discover that we were flanked by two birthday parties, each louder than the other. Singing `happy birthday' in Mozambique is a joyous and extended affair, followed by lots of whooping, clapping, drinking and laughter. It is loud.
Which is fine. Unless, of course you wish to have some sort of conversation. But all very atmospheric.
Not so atmospheric was the large-ish young man sitting dead centre of my line of vision. He had made every effort to dress the part: stylish rolled up jeans, vest top, shades. He launched into the `happy birthdays' (parabens!) with much gusto and much gesticulating and much jumping up and down and kissing of the birthday girl. Trouble was, his pants sank lower and lower and with each new outburst of joy, more butt-crack was revealed.
Gives a whole new meaning to `marginal'.

Eeesh!

`Eeesh!' is an expression of astonishment particular to South Africa, but widely understood in Mozambique.
This last week, I participated in a beach clean-up of the section of the beach closest to our house. Twenty of us, armed with gloves and rolls and rolls of black bins bags descended on the beach and began to clean. I expected muck, but the sheer scale of the job was gob-smacking. In one section of around 2 x 5 metres, almost 100 plastic bottles were collected! Many of those were water bottles, but many, many little plastic gin bottles too. Eeesh!
Don't get me wrong - leave the cities and Mozambiquan beaches are gorgeous, BUT the range of rubbish on a Maputo beach is just phenomenal. Lots of the above-mentioned plastic bottles, lots of the little black plastic bags that the little plastic bottles of gin come in, lots of styrofoam bits that apparantly come off the fishing boats (I believe that syrofoam is used to aid bouyancy) and then lots of the eeugh! items too. Into this last category fall nappies, sanitary products and condom wrappers. Yuck - eesh!
But we also picked up an astonishing range of clothes. The local beaches are used for Zionist gatherings, and people quite often strip off before a baptism or a cleansing. There is also a lot of recreational swimming that goes on - and it would seem that some people simply forget where they put their clothes. We found skirts, belts, underwear, a pair of jeans and numerous half-pairs of shoes. And no, they weren't left by people swimming at the time - all items were covered in sand and had to be partly excavated. Eeesh!
We did two hours of beach clean-up, which doesn't sound like much, but is intermindable in 37 degree heat. We swept approximately 177 metres of beach and collected 39 bags of waste.
We felt quite proud. Eeesh!
In leaving the beach, we had to cross the Marginal. We'd barely got to the other side when there was much hooting and a silver people carrier pulled up. We thought we'd attracted the attention of the local press and there was much excitement. Bizarrely, however, a bunch of people wearing Nivea T-shirts leapt out and began scrambling around in boxes. We were all presented with a free sample of Nivea Man deodorant - and then they went away. It was ever-so-slightly surreal.
Only in Mozambique.
Eeesh!

Hot, hot, hot

Heat is over-rated.
Really.
I know that the UK seems to be enduring an intermindable winter, but the summers here in Mozambique are truly awful. Hot, sweaty, cloying. And seemingly endless.
Its not the burning heat of the Middle East, which dries you to a husk the minute you step out, but a heavy, humid, suffocating heat. The air hangs close to you and breathing in is like sucking in steam. In short - horrid.
No clothes are cool enough and my sample of UK workwear has fared rather miserably. Nothing like 100% polyester to send rivers of sweat streaming from every frantic pore. Oh yes, nothing like Eu de Sweat on a hot day...(now, just for fun, add that image to any given amount of bodies in the room. Hmmm)
Of course we have aircon. And what a blessing it is! Especially when it works. The problem is this: Maputo and power-outages are rather good friends. Not quite as good friends as my sister tells me Johannesburg is, but fairly well aquainted. No power, no aircon.
In our lovely company owned complex, we have a very loud generator which has rescued us a multitude of times. However, it seems that a rather important transformer blew up some time late last week, plunging Maputo into a total power-free zone. Our poor old genny has been running 24 hours a day and has, I think literally, blown a gasket. We now sit on a knife's edge, hoping state power remains restored until our faithful back-up is fixed. So far, so good.
Think I'll go to bed while there is still some hope of staying cool....

Foreigner Frustrations

There are certain frustrations to living in Mozambique which go beyond the lack of icing sugar on the shelves. Small things that might seem very small to the outside eye, but which cause tremendous frustration. Take internet applications and purchases. VERY frustrating. And not just because absolutely no one delivers here. (Amazon is, literally, an exotic dream from where I am....sigh.)
There are small oddities in the Mozambiquan set-up which are, in the true sense of the phrase, at odds with many other places. Try purchasing tickets online. Airline websites require telephone numbers with country codes and area codes. We just have a code. Followed by a number. Try entering that in the little electronic boxes!
 Error: Please enter your area code.
`I don't have a blinkin' area code!' (bash, bash. Much use of expletives)
Computer remains unmoved: Error: Please enter your area code.
So I have played fast and loose with my contact details, shifting numbers around to provide the desired area code. I have to assume no one will try to contact me from inside the country....
Tonight, I have tried to join an airline loyalty programme (hey, if you're going to spend all that money on travelling anywhere -ANYWHERE. Mozambique seems to be on the super expensive scale of travel- you may as well try to score some air miles).
The registration site not only requires telephone codes (got that one sorted: check), but also postal codes. Ho humm. Need I say it?
Yup. I can provide an area, but Mozambique seems to be bereft of postal codes.
Not only that, but the site wants a home address.
Well, I can give a home address, but there really wouldn't be any point. Nothing gets delivered to a street address. Come to think of it, nothing much gets delivered. And I don't have a post code.
I can give you a company address. Something might be delivered there in a month or two. (Again, I am not kidding).
Come to think of it, this may well be some sort of cyber snobbery. The little boxes are designed to fit in with the Western World. If you don't have an area code, post code or erm, postal delivery, you cannot join.
Does seem just a tad ridiculous when I could send an e-mail from the middle of some desert. (I could do that, couldn't I?)
Uggh!
And talking of ridiculous: there was a crab walking up the walk-way at work today. To my credit, I didn't skip a beat. Although I did say something loud to the tune of `yikes!'

Trashed

Yesterday was Heroes Day here in Mozambique. A reminder that in the not too distant past, this land was torn by conflict. Having been reborn as an essentially Marxist country after independence in 1975, religious holidays here don't bear the same weight as in the UK (the only sign that Easter happens is the appearance of some token melting eggs in the supermarkets.) National holidays do - and Heroes Day is a biggie! The partying along the road between the city and the sea, the Marginal (emphasis on the `al' as in the Portuguese pronunciation) was intense, with very loud fireworks at around 10. Shortly followed by amazing lightning and an intense thunderstorm. During which, I should imagine, most of the partygoers headed for shelter. I was at the time, tucked up and trying to sleep after the dog's panic attack at the first firework boom.Must have been a good party 'though - because the Marginal is well and truly trashed.
I kid you not.
Beer bottles, plastic bottles, plastic bags and all sort of other debris are literally lining the street. The beach is covered in rubbish (and no small number of condoms, if DB's report from his dog-walking effort are to be believed!)
It's a curious thing, this endless stream of litter. There are a couple of token dustbins about, but they don't appear to be full. My conclusion is that this is an emerging country, caught between having very little and the grip of rapidly expanding consumerism. Suddenly a lot of stuff is disposable - so it is disposed of - wherever. There seems no awareness that it might affect the people or their country. To be fair to the average man in the street, the infrastructure that should provide clean-ups (and clean-up education) isn't solid either.

And there is such irony in it. Maputo is beautiful. But it is so often so covered in trash that it is hard to see the essence of the place. The sandy beaches, the beautiful old buildings, the colourful can-do of the Mozambiquans - all these things should be pulling tourists into Maputo. But nobody wants to holiday with piles of litter. (This picture was taken some weeks ago. The edges of the Marginal were quite clean at the time :))
Am I being a whingey expat? Probably.
....but I do think I have a point...