Lessons

Not a single tampon in the whole store. Not one.
Saying that, I could have bought a newly arrived plastic playhouse for an exorbitant amount of money, but I didn't want one. No - gone to the store for tampons and none in sight. Hmmmm.
Of course, there are other shops in maputo and I am sure that somewhere out there, I would have found what I was looking for. But at 4:30 in the afternoon, with the traffic on the Marginal gearing up to its rush hour hysteria, I really couldn't be bothered.
I now apologise in advance to my solitary male reader : this, as you might have realised, is going to be a bit feminine in tone.
I bemoan the lack of tampons for a very good reason: the reason being that women in the developed world see sanitary products as a basic human right. Out here, factors of supply are actually superceded by factors of poverty. Sanitary products cost money.
Which leads me to my next point: while the politics and poverty of Africa can beat you down, there are people in Africa who simply amaze you.
I am speaking about a South African woman called Sue Barnes. I chanced on an article on her in the South African magazine, Fair Lady.  After her daughter brought home a note asking for donations of sanitary towels, Sue discovered that literally millions of poor schoolgirls aged between 10 and 19 were forced to miss school during their periods, because they are unable to afford sanitary products. Many of them try using all sorts of  home-made solutions, at the risk of infection and acute embarrassment. Many give up and take a week off school every month. It doesn't take a genius to realise that missing that amount of school prevents them from ever reaching their potential.
Sue decided to do something about it.  She decided to design a washable sanitary towel - and she did. Together with knickers that are designed to securely hold the pad.
She packages the knickers and pads in a pack which should last the girls several years (allowing for growth of course!)
And the reason why I tell you this?
Africa is tough. Its no place for people like me who expect to find tampons on the shelf. Its a place for people like Sue Barnes who looks a problem in the eye and gives it a good solid thwack.
I am awed by her gumption.
And Africa is full of such people. They aren't spoilt enough to expect to find it on the shelf, or indulged enough to find it on the internet. They make it up. Fix it. Design it. Make something new.
When I first arrived in Mozambique, my shoes took a hammering. Too much sand and traipsing about  in the dodgy sea water close to our house. Sandals fell apart with regular monotony. I threw them out. My Empregada rescued them, made a plan with a bit of wire or string. Wore them for another few months.
`They're broken!' I would cry.
`No,' she would say, characteristically flattening the `o'. `Shoes are expensive.'
While there's no doubt that living in Europe is far easier than living in Africa, we of the Old World need to rethink our approach. Africa can teach us a lot if we stop to look.