The turning of the cogs

Change is afoot in Mozambique. There is building going on and a sense of new found money. Not everywhere, but it seems to be seeping down.
When we drove up to Macaneta last weekend, the rate of building was evident. Little houses and businesses have sprung up around Maracuene to such an extent that we almost couldn't see the bank that has always marked our turnoff. People are building. Not only that, but the road down to the ferry has been tarred and there is work happening on the main road of the Peninsula too. Change/progress is happening fast.
And nowhere more so than in Maputo where the enormous government buildings, complete with a rather hideous facade, a brilliant view over the bay and their own little red pagoda-roof entrance (more of that in a minute) are nearing completion. The new wing of the airport is done and dusted (was there a pagoda there too?) Apparantly the building material for the new bridge across the bay has arrived in town and the road system is experiencing an overhaul. (All rather excellent, considering the dodgy state of the roads.) And yup - you guessed it: all done with Chinese money and lots of Chinese labour at agreement rates with the Mozambican Government that no-one is very sure of. Oh well!
The Marginal is being overhauled too - and not a moment too soon. the potholes have made the road a crash course (pardon the pun) in evasive tactics and it clearly cannot cope with the volumes of traffic brought about by the growing expat population and the growing wealth of the Mozambican middle class. The little red markers have been up for about 10 months, but over the last 2 months or so we have seen real progress in land being bulldozed and tons of sand being dumped on the Marginal edge. How, exactly, the road is going to be uniformally widened remains a bit of a mystery as there are properties (including our own complex) which are rather closer to the existing Marginal than others. The obvious element of the sea precludes it being widened too much the other way. But, as my friend remarked `we have to trust the Chinese'.
And the Chinese seem to be building a pier roughly opposite the gate to our complex. (I thought it was a breakwater, but it looks flat on the top - does that make it a pier?). The idea of a pier is rather disconcerting as, if you have read earlier blogs you will know, the Maputonians are very keen on getting wedding photos taken on the existing pier. At between 5 to 8 weddings on a Saturday, that means A LOT of potential celebratory traffic outside our gate. Joy.
The immediate distraction is the actual building of the breakwater/pier. Presumably, the building can only go on when the tide is low, so in the middle of the night,rocks are loudly dumped and then thwacked into place with the bucket of a front end loader. All a bit disconcerting.
But, the pier/breakwater appears to be progressing well and erm, you gotta trust the Chinese....

There is a man with a spade who you will see on the Marginal as you head towards the Costa de Sol. He makes his beer money by dodging death to fill the huge crater potholes with sand. I suspect he doesn't trust the Chinese at all.