Easter in Maputo

        Over Easter weekend we took the last vacation of our PC service, and our last trip out of the country until final departure.  (We are not allowed to take vacation during our last 3 months.)  We went to Maputo, capital of neighboring Mozambique, traveling 1 1/2 hours first by khumbi and then a lucky hitch-hike to the border, then 1 1/2 hours by chapa  (their khumbis, equally crowded and hot) to the bustling, sprawling, crowded city known until independence in 1974 as Lourenҫo Marques.   Fueled by offshore oil,  Mozambique had the highest GDP growth rate in the world in 2014, although its people would be quick to say the country's wealth  is not shared - inequality is an issue for our time.   A civil war from 1977 until 1992, partly fueled by neighboring Zimbabwe before that country's independence in 1980 and then by the dying South African apartheid  regime's efforts to install friendly regimes in its neighbors, tore Mozambique apart, sending refugees across the border, including up to 20,000 to neighboring Swaziland, prompting construction of the UN-sponsored refugee camp near us.  (That camp is now down to around 320, most now from Central Africa; its funding now comes through Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity, although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees participates in "governance" of the camp.)  Civil wars are bad for game animals, and the few tourists passing through MOZ go to nearby Kruger in South Africa and occasionally even Swaziland, to see wildlife, but the MOZ coastline with endless white sand beaches on the Indian Ocean and snorkeling are a big draw.

       Most PCVs in SZ get to MOZ, especially over New Years, but they generally by-pass Maputo on their way to the splendid beaches 6 hours drive north, replete with the required complement of bars and other amenities for young people.   Although I like beaches well enough, 6 hours for nothing but beach and bars is a little much, so we stayed in Maputo for 3 nights, doing some shopping, sightseeing, and luxuriating in hot showers (I took 3 one day), ensuite flush potties, and unusual food that we didn't have to prepare ourselves.

        Our guide books to MOZ, the PC, and comments from friends, had all warned us of rampant crime in MOZ, with a small frail elderly white couple presenting an especially inviting target.  The father of one of our students was shot over Christmas, and a PC couple were held up at gunpoint at a beach resort over New Years by a man wearing a police uniform.  We left at home everything we could not easily replace, traveling very light.  We were, however, never  threatened in the least, and found the people uniformly helpful, pleasant and welcoming.  Portuguese is their official language, but we could fake it a little with our few words of Spanish; many of the people we encountered had a little English, and one of the dialects in southern MOZ is similar to siSwati, so we mostly managed to communicate.

         Maputo is a southern African city by a harbor, but similarities to Cape Town end there. Maputo is hard for a tourist to navigate, with rubble- and rubbish-choked sidewalks crowded with parked cars, few street signs, little visual appeal, and limited tourist amenities.   The mix of southern African, Portuguese, and Indian cooking, especially with sea-food, had great potential, and we did some fine eating, but there were also disappointments, attributable partly to language difficulties: twice I ended up with canned tuna when I thought I had ordered fresh fish!

              Our tiny boutique hotel was clean, pretty and well-located, between Karl Marx and  Vladimir Lenin Avenues, on Patrice Lumumbo Avenue.[i]   Here we are in the beautiful garden with Chiara, from Turin, Italy, who worked as a UN project manager in Lusaka, Zambia, with whom we had dinner one night.

She told us of the tough deals imposed on host countries by Chinese (Peoples Republic of China; e.g., mainland) companies extracting minerals, and the resentment of host countries

                The weather was nearly perfect, with mostly sunny days and gentle sea breezes.  We found the best fabric store in town on the 2nd pass, with help from 2 friendly Portuguese ladies,

and we caught some craft fairs.   

            One day we ended up in a vast, crowded, dark market, where we were so out-of-place I heard a woman mutter the Mozambiҫan derivative of umlungu, siSwati for "white people"[ii],  as we walked past; she had a good laugh when I responded in my fractured siSwati.

That would have been a good place to purchase a wide variety of herbal remedies and animal body parts, but we passed.  There were no taxis or tuk-tuks in sight when we exited and somehow we ended up going in the opposite direction than we wanted on the crowded chapa we thought would get us back into the center of the city, but other passengers showed us where to get off to get a tuk-tuk back to familiar turf.

     Here is the view of the Indian Ocean from the nicest hotel we saw, where we did not stay.

     We returned home with mixed feelings, happy to be where we know the language and customs and feel safe and oriented; when we got off the khumbi at our stop, nearly everyone there knew and greeted us, by name and enthusiastically.   But we were sad to leave behind the shower, cleanliness and quiet (of our lovely little hotel), varied food, cotton sheets and towels . . . .

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[i]           After Portugal changed governments in 1974 and the new regime abruptly withdrew from MOZ, taking all professionals and skilled workers back to Portugal, Russia stepped in to help the new government; hence the street names, which feature nearly every failed European political philosopher,  as well as many from the plentiful selection of African despots.  The Russians' heavy-handed ineptitude and rapacity were deeply resented and they were  unregretted when they, too, pulled out abruptly in 1991, with the collapse .of the Soviet Union.

[ii]         It has been much debated among PCVs whether a black volunteer, or one of Asian or Hispanic heritage can be umlungu,  but the Swazis definitively settled that in favor of inclusivity; Americans, of whatever ethnicity, are the color of money, so all PCVs are umlugu.