Mozambique - 08 May 08 to 07 June 08

Mozambique, Moçambique. From October 2000 until January 2003, I lived here as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the town of Chokwe. So many memories and life-changing experiences happened, my anticipation for returning was running very high.

I had difficulty getting in touch with the people I knew in Maputo, the capital, my first stop, so I stayed one night in a backpackers' with the tourists. This felt very depressing to me but also it was interesting to see another side of the city.

In the backpackers where I stayed there was a collection of old FRELIMO posters from the Mozambican revolution that were quite cool.

After getting my feet under me, adjusting to the new Mozambican money that had dropped at least 3 zeros (no more 25 million meticais notes), and borrowing a phone, I was able to get in touch with Justin, the brother of my good friend Kingston who was a teacher with me in Chokwe. Justin and Kingston are brothers who emigrated to Mozambique from Zimbabwe because of the economic crisis in Zim.

While waiting for Justin to arrive at a restaurant downtown, I purchased my favorite Mozambican snack: Tinziva (below). Each of the little balls you see is a brittle, hard shell and when you crush the shell, you get the sweet-tart fruit inside, which is coated in a sort of dry powder.

Justin came and got me along with another Zimbabwean friend of his. After an interesting discussion of the Zim crisis over lunch, we hopped a ride in the back of this truck along with a bunch of construction waste and made our way toward Matola, Maputo's twin city where Justin lives.

Justin is an English teacher at a Maputo high school and the next day he took me to his workplace to hang out. Watching the guys play ball was a nostalgic moment for me, as I used to play regularly with the team at my high school in Chokwe when I was a volunteer.

There was a club at the school dedicated to traditional music and dance. They were just warming up and this student was the Timbila player. The timbila is the Mozambican marimba or xylophone and is played by a tribe called the Maxope people (pron. Mashope). The center of timbila culture is Zavala and they have a huge festival of traditional music there every year that is attended by people from all over Southern Africa.

Fire-tuning the drums in preparation for rehearsal.

The club rehearsed in a classroom at the school. Here are the drummers.

Dancers crossing the floor.

Justin's school from the front.

Justin and his son hanging out in the street out front of their house at night.

Walking around downtown Maputo, not too much had changed. The city did feel much cleaner, but also less alive. I noticed a huge difference from West Africa: whereas in West Africa there were people selling things on every corner participating in the informal market, here all commerce was confined to official shops or markets with officially designated boundaries. Within the boundaries the markets still felt quite African (beautifully chaotic and organic--my personal impression), but street food was nearly absent. After subsisting on street food for my entire trip so far, I was feeling disappointed in what Maputo had to offer.

A view from the Marginal out over the Indian Ocean.

A detail from an old Portuguese colonial structure downtown. The Algarve is a famous beach region in Portugal.

Back in Matola, these boys were trying to make money by filling in potholes in the road and then demanding money from passing cars.

More nostalgia. These were my favorite Scottish shortbread cookies during Peace Corps service. They are imported from South Africa, along with most of the commercial brands available in Mozambique.

After a few phone calls and some digging, I was able to reconnect with my good friend Malati. While in Chokwe, I had been a part of a traditional music and dance troupe called Kwezi and Malati, myself and another guy called Leonildo were the drummers. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find Leonildo but I heard he was a professional drummer in South Africa.

Malati was living in Matola and he invited me to a rehearsal of his friends' band. They were playing Marrabenta, which is the signature music of the southern part of Mozambique. It evolved in the 50's in Maputo from a fusion of Mozambican and Portuguese influences. I got to sit in and was loving playing the home-made drumset.

Justin with his wife and kids--wonderful hosts.

After Maputo, my next stop was Macia, which is a crossroads town on the national highway. South is Maputo, north is Xai-Xai, the capital of Gaza province, south-east is Bilene, the southernmost resort on a stretch of coastal lagoons that runs all the way up to Inhambane, and north-west is the inland town of Chokwe, where I spent my 2 years in the Peace Corps. While I was there I became good friends with one of the dancers in Kwezi, the music and dance troupe we had, and he asked to name his son after me. My friend's name is Diamantino and I haven't been able to find him since I left in 2003, but I keep in close touch with the family of his son, also named Tober. As he is the "little Tober," we often call him "Toberinho".

In Macia was a billboard talking about sweet potatoes and how healthy they are for you. I had a bright-orange t-shirt that was also from this campaign that has been one of my favorites for years.

That night, Gilda, Toberinho's mom, invited me to go to her church, which was nothing more than an open stretch of sand with 4 caniço walls and tree branches and the sky for a ceiling. It was a magical feeling to be singing in xiXangana with all of her fellow church-goers under the stars.

Caniço (pron. ka-nee-su) is the Mozambican name for the reeds that are used in virtually all building construction close to the coast. Further inland, most structures are made from mud bricks.

Toberinho playing with some friends.

Toberinho, Me, Gilda, her husband Francisco, and Toberinho's sister Mima.

Walking around Macia.

I bought Toberinho a toy transformer plane which he had a great time with. As he is my namesake, we are called Xara. I am his xara and he is my xara (pron. sha-ra).

This big tree in Macia is right outside where my old friend Michael used to live. He was an English teacher in Macia while I was in Chokwe.

I took Toberinho up to Chokwe for the weekend while he was out of school. His aunt, Mana Palmira, lives there. Mana is a term of respect like "Older Sister". She is the eldest sister of Gilda, Toberinho's mom.

Here Mana Palmira is fixing up a little shop in her yard so she can sell some tomatoes and other things to people in the neighborhood. Originally she lived up the river from Chokwe but during the civil war came to Chokwe and settled there. Most of the people in her neighborhood were refugees.

Here is the family of my friend Orlando. He is a Mozambican guy from Chokwe who married the previous Peace Corps volunteer before me, named Aimee. They live in Massachusetts now. While I was a volunteer I used to go over to their house for dinner and also bought all my vegetables from Orlando's mom, Maria, who works in the market.

I had to take Toberinho back to Macia for school. Here he is in his uniform ready to go.

Back in Chokwe, I visited all the old places I remembered. Here is a shot from the Escola Agrária (Agrarian School) where my Peace Corps roommate Blake taught English. The mural symbolizing the Mozambican struggle for freedom seems quite iconic to me.

Front of the school.

Orlando's mom Mariaat the market (on the left).

The entrance to the Kanissanga Discoteca, above the hotel. When I was there this place would open up once a month so people could dance all night, but nowadays it is shuttered. When I arrived in Chokwe, it was in the aftermath of a huge flood which was a major disaster that provoked a huge international response. While the flood was devastating, the abundance of Western aid agencies provided a temporary stimulus to the economy that has since dried up. The other discoteca in town, "Discoteca Dancing", was also out of business and many of the local businesses were struggling. Everybody told me that times were slow.

Mainstreet in Chokwe.

Here is the "cova", or "xikelene" of Segundo Bairo (the big low-spot in the 2nd neighborhood). This natural landform is a big landmark and also where people go to play soccer or practice any kind of recreation. It is adjacent to Mana Palmira's house.

The marking with date on the side of this house shows the highpoint of the water from the massive floods of 2000. I arrived in October of that year.

Finally I made it to my old school, Escola Secundária de Chokwe. I ran into some old professors, had dinner at their house, toured around the school, and reconnected with a place where I spent 2 years struggling and growing trying to teach Biology in Portuguese to 50-70 kids at a time. Here is one of my old classrooms, looking just the way it did when I was a teacher.

Half of the classrooms are in total disarray, like this one, and the other half in the main portion of the school were rehabilitated after the floods and are in much better condition.

The central courtyard at my old schoool.

The desenho (drawing) teacher Txetxema painted this placard naming the school on one of my last days of class. It's still there.

Here is my old house from my Peace Corps days. It is certainly in better shape now. When I lived there, the outside had not been repainted and the high-water mark from the floods was still visible. I lived in the right-hand half and a family of 9 lived in the other half (like a duplex).

The Peace Corps volunteers in Chokwe no longer live in this house; now it is a Mozambican teacher at the school. I knocked on the door and she graciously let me in to see the inside.

During my second year of service, another volunteer named Blake joined me and we lived together for one year. We paid to have the sidewalk outside our house fixed and inscribed our names in the concrete. It was cool to see after 5 years.

Some of my neighbors from when I lived in the house. They were little kids that used to play in my yard; now they are teenagers. Rachide and his brothers and sister.

My other neighbors, the next house over, were very close friends and helped all the Peace Corps volunteers that have lived in the house. The young woman, Violeta, to my left, used to be a strapping little girl running around playing and now she's taller than me. The older two siblings, Dinho and his sister Júrcia, are now off in college. Their mom, Cecilia (to my right), was seeming a little older and tired but happy that she has 3 wonderful children all doing well (Violeta is about to graduate and go to college as well) but mourning the loss of her husband Andre, who died a couple of years after I left.

Me and my other neighbor Lurdes. Lurdes used to spend most of the day braiding hair. Women always had the most elaborate braids, including extensions of various colors.

Back at Mana Palmira's house, her daughter Betinha was practicing her math homework by writing on the window in chalk.

Out past the Agrarian School lies the Limpopo River. There is a small town on the other side called Guijá. When I used to live here, Guijá was only reachable by a small ferry crossing the river and had a very remote, country feel to it. I used to go there when I wanted to get away from it all. Since that time, a brand new bridge has been built connecting the two towns.

Looking up the Limpopo River.

This is the old ferry landing for the boat to Guijá. I'll never forget that old tree with the massive root system exposed.

Despite all the time that has passed, there are still remnants of the civil war present in Guijá. Many buildings were damaged by mortarfire from RENAMO.

The market in Guijá.

Back at Mana Palmira's house again. My mother came and visited me toward the end of my service in the Peace Corps, and we did a little ceremony where we gave the name Tober to the family. As part of the gift, we planted a fruit tree in their yard as well. The tree is now much bigger, growing healthy and strong.

Mana Palmira with her daughter Betinha and son Armando and their neighbor.

Me and the crew at Mana Palmira's.

Sunset on the road to the Ag School.

Another day I went back to the river with Senhor Matavele, who was the vice principal when I was a teacher. He's now the Pedagogical Director. It was great to see him. The news said that the dam upstream let out a bunch of water so we went down to the river to see how much it had risen.

A house and yard in Chokwe. Something about this picture captures the essence of the town for me.

A big wedding over by Mana Palmira's house. Singing and dancing and eating all day and into the night.

My camera battery charger plugged in to the outlet at Mana Palmira's house. I liked something about the juxtaposition of a power outlet mudded right into the wall of a mud house.

The stadium on the outskirts of town past my old house. I used to come hear all the time to work out. They play many soccer games here and a couple times a year there will be a big concert here as well. Matavele and I looking down from the roof.

Finally I met the new Peace Corps volunteers in Chokwe. They were both teachers at the Ag School and were living out by there. I can't remember their names, but the one on the left was dating Dilson, the little brother of my friend Orlando who married the Peace Corps volunteer in Chokwe before me. They were both good people and seemed to be having a positive experience in Mozambique. I, for some reason, look like a British rock star in this picture.

My good friend Claudio. We used to hang out all the time and have philosophical conversations. His family is from Inhambane and they are 3rd generation mulatos, from mixed Portuguese and Mozambican descent. His mom was one of my favorite people, a very insightful and intelligent woman who I loved to talk to. She unfortunately had passed on a couple of years prior.

Claudio is an accomplished guitarist, and we used to play music all the time as well.

A crew of some of the old friends: Fafetine, Amandio, Dinho, and some others.

Me and Junior, Claudio's little brother.

Mana Palmira had to go to Inhambane to help out with her husband Rui's niece who was going to give birth soon. I decided to travel with her then continue on up to the central city of Beira.

Here everyone is seeing us off.

In Inhambane, live seems more laid-back and easier. It's beautiful there, right on the coast and all the houses are made of caniço or palm fronds.

A big baobab.

We went over to where Palmira's niece was staying and a man there climbed a palm tree to cut down some green coconuts for everyone.

The house where we were staying. They seemed to have everything in real good shape, including the rain catchment system you can see here.

The little boy at the house where we were staying was fascinated by my ngoni.

Walking around the neighborhood.

Down at the beach, I learned about an interesting phenomenon. There are many fresh-water springs in the sand and one can dig holes around the springs which then fill up with the fresh water. Many women were using these springs to do their laundry.

Mana Palmira at the beach in Maxixe.

Maxixe beach in the late afternoon.

After a couple of nice days with the family in Maxixe, it was time to head up to Beira. Titos, my good friend and co-founder of our music and dance group Kwezi, was living there and I wanted to visit him and check out the central part of Mozambique. I'd been to Beira once before on a long trip all the way to the northern provinces, but hadn't spent much time.

Looking out the window of the bus as we crossed the Save river, marking the boundary between the provinces of Inhambane and Sofala.

A short break after we crossed the river.

Me with my main man Titos. As soon as I arrived, we started getting into all sorts of plans. He works at a big hotel that was putting on a concert with a local band that had just one a contest in Maputo and gotten to tour internationally. The band was called "Infite" (meaning "Sorcerer") and Titos hooked me up to perform with them.

Infite had 2 frontmen; one of them, Cadbury, became my friend quickly.

Me and Cadbury chillin.

The hotel's discoteca at night.

Infite performance. The singers came onstage doing traditional dance moves.

I played a couple of songs with them on ngoni. We wrote both songs two days before the performance at a practice session based on 2 of the simple ngoni parts I'd learned while I was in Mali.

I played the rest of the show on djembe along with their normal djembe player.

I had some free time to walk around Beira. Here is the market.

I saw many walls like this one made of stones. Very different from the building techniques further south.

Something about this unfinished building site captured my imagination.

Some kids at the beach wanted me to take their picture.

I liked the side of this building. You can see a partially obscured ad for Manica, one of the national breweries.

In the central square, I stumbled upon a big celebration for O Dia Nacional da Criança (National Children's Day).

Some of the guys from Infite invited me to another performance opening for a Mozambican pop star.

And now, the legendary DJ Ardilles. Most pop stars in Mozambique perform in this way, which they call "Playback" (just the singer with a mike performing to canned music).

A street in Beira.

Me with my bro Julian (center) and one of the guys from Infite. Dig the shirt.

On my last night in town, I finally tracked down Dinho, my neighbor from Chokwe who used to play in my yard and run errands for me. He was now a freshman in college. It was great to see him.

On my way back down south, I stopped in Macia again to visit Toberinho's family. Gilda and Toberinho in their house.

Gilda's husband Francisco took Toberinho and I for a walk. He grew up in Macia and had lived there his whole life. We went out of town down through some fields above the marsh. He told us a story that during the civil war, when the RENAMO rebels used to come into town to terrorize the people, everyone would go out to the marsh below and hide there half-submerged in the water for up to 3 days.

An old pump-house above an abandoned well.

We went past the marsh out to some fields where the family had a little land that they cultivated.

The next day, the whole family went out to Bilene to spend some time at the beach. Here we are riding in a chapa (pron. shapa). These little mini-vans are the workhorses of transport all over Southern Africa and can be found in every country that I have visited, always with a different name, but always crammed full with people sitting and standing, as well as possessions and (often) livestock, radio blaring, barreling down the road. It's a good time.

Mana Palmira, Gilda, and my friend Lucia at Bilene.

The sand at Bilene is a beautiful white color. In the foreground is the semi-fresh water lagoon. The sea lies beyond the hills at the far side. Toberinho was having so much fun racing around.

Gilda and Francisco.

The whole crew.

Mima.

Gilda and Mima.

Tober and Toberinho.

After saying goodbye to Toberinho's family, I trekked back to Maputo and stayed one last time with Justin before my visa ran out and I had to leave Mozambique.

While I was back in Maputo, I tried to collect some of my favorite Mozambican literature and books on the Xangana language. Here is the street in front of the bookstore.

The old Portuguese fort downtown by the waterfront is an interesting place to go.

Lucia aims a cannon.

A sign of progress? This shiny new shopping mall was the new pride of downtown. South African and capitalist influence was the biggest change I noticed in Maputo from 5 years earlier.

The food court at the mall.

My favorite huge old tree at the Maputo Botanical Gardens.

The iconic entrance to the Mercado Central in downtown Maputo.

On one of my last nights in town, I went out with Justin and his wife and Lucia to my favorite dinner spot: the seafood market. All the catches of the day are on display and after bargaining for your fresh seafood, you take it to one of a number of little "barracas" (bars) that encircle the market and they cook up your seafood for you, serving it with rice, french fries and beer. It's the best.

Chillin at the seafood market.

The largest market in Maputo is on the western edge of town and it's called Xiphamanini. It is a beautiful expression of chaos and I love to wander around in there.

Xiphamanini is famous for having a large magic section. This is where you go to get ingredients for the spell that the Curandeiro is going to cast for you. Here is a picture of some monkey hands.

More of the magic section.

We saw my friend Julian again who I'd met in Beira. He was working at a youth center and we went by to check it out.

Redman lives again!!!!

After a tearful goodbye to Mozambique, it was time to head back to South Africa and start figuring out a plan to get home. I had seen most of the people I wanted to see, including Aloshia, but missed my great friend Marcilio. He was in South Africa while I was in Mozambique and the day I left, I later found out, he came back into Mozambique so we missed seeing each other completely. He had to leave South Africa suddenly because there was a huge flare-up of anti-immigrant xenophobia and many people were killed in riots. Being a Mozambican living in South Africa, he was intimidated into leaving along with thousands of others. My next blog post will talk about this a little and show my final few days in South Africa.