Summer has arrived like a succubus. By nine this morning, the plants in the garden hung limp, the water sucked from them by gusts of hot air pretending to be wind. Aaah - Summer. Not for Mozambique the summer of lazy days and languid evenings. Here summer comes in the form of a stew, hot and clinging. It tries to smother you.
Attempts to escape are futile. The summer invades the Mozambican conciousness and the roads are packed. An outing to try to get some photos printed turns into a two-hour-long marathon on roads jammed to standstill. People do stupid things. A little Toyota Vitz slams on breaks in front of our Surf, risking a bullbar through the rear window. The driver drops off her passenger and has a farewell conversation in the street, oblivious to DB's sweating and hooting.
The Marginal crawls, cars dying at random spots, unable to cope with the heat. Incredibly, a bride in her bright white is out at the end of the pier, her dress whipped by the hot wind. I note that her attendents haven't summoned up the energy to join her, but some are knee deep in the sea.
We give up and go home and I turn on the sprinkler for my shrivelled garden.
The heat seems to have driven the insects mad. A cluster of dragonflies hangs around the windows and two large hornets, like fighter pilots dodging the enemy, cling to the underside of the leaves of a shady shrub.
The spinkler brings out the birds, the squabbling house sparrows, some bulbuls and an unusual scarlet chested sunbird which sits on nearby bush and ruffles his feathers before swooping back and forth through the spray.
Bizarrely, a confused largish brown bat flies above my head, over the BBQ and through the verandah. it has to make a second sweep before I realise that it is a bat and not a figment of my imagination.
The small child uses the hosepipe to fill up a plastic bath on the lawn. She adds random plants and plastic fish before tipping herself in. DB brings me a gin and tonic.
Summer wraps around me like a scarf. I add ice to my drink and encourage DB to pick up a beer. The fan fights its pathetic fight and I wonder when the rain will come.
Oh yes. Summer is here. I don't know whether to weep or drink. Drinking seems like the less energetic option.
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Sunday, 6 October 2013
October Sunday in Maputo
We go for brunch at Cafe Acacia on the hill. Service is slow and the food is just ok, but the location is wonderful. The cafe sits on the hill above Maputo Bay. Tables are arranged on a terrace and we watch huge empty cargo ships navigate the channel into the harbour. The sea is calm and turquoise. Maputo looks idyllic - down to palm trees that line the road on the end of the bay. There is a rustic climbing frame type construction for children and safe paths for our youngest to cycle on. The morning is hot, but there's a breeze on top of the hill. Our waiter is friendly and speaks passable English - which is good since my Portuguese aquisition seems to have halted and DB's never really started.
We drive back home , down from the hilltop towards the sea. There is a sleepiness about Maputo on this last day of a long weekend. Cars meander languidly over junctions after the lights have changed against them. Everyone seems too sleepy to hoot. The weekend beggars are out at the main intersections; limbless men in wheelchairs, old women bent crooked with age and the blind, hands on the shoulders of small boys who spend their time between traffic light changes absently playing with odd bits of junk.
The tide is impossibly low and it looks like we could walk out for miles. Fishing boats wallow in puddles and cockle pickers are tiny stick figures out on the sand. The sky is a flawless blue and the beginnings of a wind scarcely ruffle the bright white-clad bride and her party who are down the very end of the pier - and still far away from the water. Some of her bridesmaids, shiny in satin purple, stand on the edge of the walkway and wave.
The informal shebeens are out with their cooler boxes of beers and their coca-cola umbrellas. A solitary white tourist, complete with mirrored sunglasses walks between the locals, attracting no attention whatsoever. The Marginal is picking up.
Our youngest talks endlessly, pausing to comment that she is sweating. DB puts the aircon on.
Its a nice time of year in Maputo.
We drive back home , down from the hilltop towards the sea. There is a sleepiness about Maputo on this last day of a long weekend. Cars meander languidly over junctions after the lights have changed against them. Everyone seems too sleepy to hoot. The weekend beggars are out at the main intersections; limbless men in wheelchairs, old women bent crooked with age and the blind, hands on the shoulders of small boys who spend their time between traffic light changes absently playing with odd bits of junk.
The tide is impossibly low and it looks like we could walk out for miles. Fishing boats wallow in puddles and cockle pickers are tiny stick figures out on the sand. The sky is a flawless blue and the beginnings of a wind scarcely ruffle the bright white-clad bride and her party who are down the very end of the pier - and still far away from the water. Some of her bridesmaids, shiny in satin purple, stand on the edge of the walkway and wave.
The informal shebeens are out with their cooler boxes of beers and their coca-cola umbrellas. A solitary white tourist, complete with mirrored sunglasses walks between the locals, attracting no attention whatsoever. The Marginal is picking up.
Our youngest talks endlessly, pausing to comment that she is sweating. DB puts the aircon on.
Its a nice time of year in Maputo.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
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.
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.
Sunday, 15 September 2013
Progress
A long break after a long holiday in the UK and a lengthy adjustment to being back in Mozambique. Toto, we're not in Essex any more.
I arrived back to brown water, temperatures of 36 degrees and the shops in the same sorry state as when I left. In fact, last week our local Shoprite was closed for 2 days as inspectors combed the shelves after complaints that out-of-date food was being sold - or better yet - used in the shop's ready meals. Oh yes, to say coming back has been a bit rough, is a teeny-weeny bit of an understatement.
But of course there are positives: work continues across Maputo, with some significant developments on the roads into town, where large quantities of waste from informal settlements have been cleaned up and the steep verges covered in what appears to be shale - a vast aesthetic improvement to what was there before, although we have yet to see what the rainy season does to it. (Oh me of little faith...)
The work on the marginal continues unabated, with much rock-crushing in the early hours of the morning. We are very pleased to note that the `pier' outside our complex appears to be just one of several breakwaters. (A huge relief, given the amount of attention a pier gets out here from the wedding trade every Saturday).Following on the removal of the trees on the beach across the road, the weathered pines outside our complex have been torn down. All that remains of their existence are several small and jagged protrusions in the sand - like the browning teeth of a slain dragon. They were what marked the entrance to our complex for me and I have driven past on more than one occassion.
Our immediate beachfront seems bizarrely improved by all the work. The breakwaters are reshaping the way the sand lies and as the beach road is bolstered, the beach itself appears to look better. It may have something to do with the fact that the rancid stormwater drain is now in a pipe and the disgusting effluent runs further out to sea - but then maybe that's just me being pessimistic. On the surface it's looking good.
The road itself is, of course, absolute chaos, but the signs are good that in a year or two or three, it'll be very nice indeed. It will definitely change the face of the Marginal. Already the informal barracas that lined the street on the way to Costa do Sol have been bulldozed to make way for the road. It is a little sad to see them gone the way of the pine trees....local flavour lost to the promise of something glitzy and new. Which should make someone like me a happy bunny; but somehow doesn't....
All is not lost! Power outages are back with a vengeance. In such force, in fact, that they have succeeded in blowing up our telly (well, not our's - Mozal's). There was a pop and a great smell of burning. All of which made DB a very happy man, because he had an excuse to go out and buy a whopper of a flat screen. (Well equipped with a surge protector!)
Hmmmm - the mixed blessings of progress.
I arrived back to brown water, temperatures of 36 degrees and the shops in the same sorry state as when I left. In fact, last week our local Shoprite was closed for 2 days as inspectors combed the shelves after complaints that out-of-date food was being sold - or better yet - used in the shop's ready meals. Oh yes, to say coming back has been a bit rough, is a teeny-weeny bit of an understatement.
But of course there are positives: work continues across Maputo, with some significant developments on the roads into town, where large quantities of waste from informal settlements have been cleaned up and the steep verges covered in what appears to be shale - a vast aesthetic improvement to what was there before, although we have yet to see what the rainy season does to it. (Oh me of little faith...)
The work on the marginal continues unabated, with much rock-crushing in the early hours of the morning. We are very pleased to note that the `pier' outside our complex appears to be just one of several breakwaters. (A huge relief, given the amount of attention a pier gets out here from the wedding trade every Saturday).Following on the removal of the trees on the beach across the road, the weathered pines outside our complex have been torn down. All that remains of their existence are several small and jagged protrusions in the sand - like the browning teeth of a slain dragon. They were what marked the entrance to our complex for me and I have driven past on more than one occassion.
Our immediate beachfront seems bizarrely improved by all the work. The breakwaters are reshaping the way the sand lies and as the beach road is bolstered, the beach itself appears to look better. It may have something to do with the fact that the rancid stormwater drain is now in a pipe and the disgusting effluent runs further out to sea - but then maybe that's just me being pessimistic. On the surface it's looking good.
The road itself is, of course, absolute chaos, but the signs are good that in a year or two or three, it'll be very nice indeed. It will definitely change the face of the Marginal. Already the informal barracas that lined the street on the way to Costa do Sol have been bulldozed to make way for the road. It is a little sad to see them gone the way of the pine trees....local flavour lost to the promise of something glitzy and new. Which should make someone like me a happy bunny; but somehow doesn't....
All is not lost! Power outages are back with a vengeance. In such force, in fact, that they have succeeded in blowing up our telly (well, not our's - Mozal's). There was a pop and a great smell of burning. All of which made DB a very happy man, because he had an excuse to go out and buy a whopper of a flat screen. (Well equipped with a surge protector!)
Hmmmm - the mixed blessings of progress.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
A Burden of Responsibility
Another beautiful day in Maputo. Its supposed to be mid-winter, but the sky was cloudless all day long and it was balmy T-shirt weather. It really should be paradise. But I don't know. It seems to me that there is more to paradise than a pretty view.
On our way to find a bank this morning (dodging the obligatory Saturday wedding traffic), a beggar , a young man with a wasted, crooked hand knocked on the window. He looked like a burn victim.
In the supermarket, a young boy asked for 5 mts - he was short for the cost of the bread he and his little brother were buying.
Of course, we made ourselves feel better by giving to both.
A friend of mine recently remarked that her lot is different from the lot of the overseas expat. She is South African and she said `the Europeans and Americans know they can go home and just leave this behind them - the Africans know it won't change.' I really didn't know how to deal with the comment - just as I don't know how to deal with the poverty which laps at the edges of our comfortable expat lives. I don't know where personal responsibility starts and ends. So we all drank more sangria and changed the subject.
But of course the subject doesn't go away. Here we are, living and working in a country not our own. DB works hard, but earns relatively well and we benefit from a lifestyle not available to the vast majority of Mozambicans. We have a lot, in a land where many have so little. And so we become responsible for people. The children without money for bread, the beggars on the corners and especially the people we employ.
We have three employees: a gardener, an empregada (maid and child carer) and a driver. Our gardener only works with us once a week, but as employers, we have become largely responsible for our empregada and our driver, and therefore for their families too. It is a weight of conscience.
There are supposed to be elections in November, but Renamo (the losers after the civil war) are sabre-rattling up in the North. It is difficult to access the news here because the main language is Portuguese, but, according to my empregada, Renamo have been frightening people up in Tete. She tells me that she doesn't think elections will go ahead and that she is worried about what Renamo will do.
She remembers the war when she was a child living across the bay in Catembe. She remembers the fear and running from her home in the night. She tells me she had an aunt who was captured by Renamo and forced to walk to Pont d'Oura to a work camp. The aunt managed to escape across the border to Swaziland, but was gone for a year, too frightened to cross back into Mozambique. My empregada tells me that Renamo would make parents shoot their small children so that they wouldn't slow down the march to the work camps. She asked me if I have ever had `to run' (for my life).
`What will happen?' my empregada asked. `What will happen if there is trouble? Will all the contractors from overseas go home? Will there be no more jobs?'
What would happen? I suppose we'd run home as fast as we could and the people who have been part of our lives would be left behind.
There is a weight to being an expat worker. You become responsible for people and a country other than your own. It is an uncomfortable weight.
On our way to find a bank this morning (dodging the obligatory Saturday wedding traffic), a beggar , a young man with a wasted, crooked hand knocked on the window. He looked like a burn victim.
In the supermarket, a young boy asked for 5 mts - he was short for the cost of the bread he and his little brother were buying.
Of course, we made ourselves feel better by giving to both.
A friend of mine recently remarked that her lot is different from the lot of the overseas expat. She is South African and she said `the Europeans and Americans know they can go home and just leave this behind them - the Africans know it won't change.' I really didn't know how to deal with the comment - just as I don't know how to deal with the poverty which laps at the edges of our comfortable expat lives. I don't know where personal responsibility starts and ends. So we all drank more sangria and changed the subject.
But of course the subject doesn't go away. Here we are, living and working in a country not our own. DB works hard, but earns relatively well and we benefit from a lifestyle not available to the vast majority of Mozambicans. We have a lot, in a land where many have so little. And so we become responsible for people. The children without money for bread, the beggars on the corners and especially the people we employ.
We have three employees: a gardener, an empregada (maid and child carer) and a driver. Our gardener only works with us once a week, but as employers, we have become largely responsible for our empregada and our driver, and therefore for their families too. It is a weight of conscience.
There are supposed to be elections in November, but Renamo (the losers after the civil war) are sabre-rattling up in the North. It is difficult to access the news here because the main language is Portuguese, but, according to my empregada, Renamo have been frightening people up in Tete. She tells me that she doesn't think elections will go ahead and that she is worried about what Renamo will do.
She remembers the war when she was a child living across the bay in Catembe. She remembers the fear and running from her home in the night. She tells me she had an aunt who was captured by Renamo and forced to walk to Pont d'Oura to a work camp. The aunt managed to escape across the border to Swaziland, but was gone for a year, too frightened to cross back into Mozambique. My empregada tells me that Renamo would make parents shoot their small children so that they wouldn't slow down the march to the work camps. She asked me if I have ever had `to run' (for my life).
`What will happen?' my empregada asked. `What will happen if there is trouble? Will all the contractors from overseas go home? Will there be no more jobs?'
What would happen? I suppose we'd run home as fast as we could and the people who have been part of our lives would be left behind.
There is a weight to being an expat worker. You become responsible for people and a country other than your own. It is an uncomfortable weight.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
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.
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....
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Driver's guide
Herewith my Guide to Driving in Maputo:
- Adjust your speed to fit the amount of potholes in the road
- If the potholes are severe on your side of the road - drive on the other side. Show your annoyance at any oncoming traffic that expresses surprise and/or anger at your decision.
- If the potholes are severe on both sides of the road, drive on the edge of the road. Note, you may drive slowly on the edge of the road if there is a child there. Otherwise, regular hooting is required. (Pedestrians have legs, don't they?)
- Drive as fast as possible between potholes. Swerve wildly as necessary.
- Chapas (mini-bus taxis) have the right stop dead in front of you to off-load passengers. Any accidents will be your fault as you should have expected this behaviour.
- A chapa has the right to overtake at speed and then pull in in front of you to load/offload passengers. (Well, they ARE in a hurry).
- Do not, under any circumstances leave a gap between yourself and the car ahead - you wouldn't want another driver to take advantage
- When approaching a drive-way or intersection where a car is waiting to turn, remember to speed up
- If waiting in a drive-way or intersection in a queue, remember to hoot loudly regardless of whether the driver in the front has the opportunity to move or not.
- Occasionally you might establish your superiority as a driver by speeding down the inside of the turning lane and turning on the inside of the car at the front of the queue who is waiting to turn
- When approaching a bend or a narrowing of the road, be sure to speed up - you don't want any oncoming traffic to get there first
- If there is a large oncoming vehicle which clearly needs extra space to pass, be sure to wedge the nose of your vehicle into the centre of the road. The truck driver should have known better. You may lean out of the window and gesticulate wildly.
- There is no apparant need to belt your children into the car. Six free range children on the backseat proves your competence as a driver. Even better, have one small child climb between the front and the back while you are driving.
- Feel free to stop at any point to chastise said children.
- Above all, drive assertively. Maputo roads have no space for wimps
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)