Sights and Sounds of 24 de Julho

Seen Recently Out and About in Maputo:

A car painted bright yellow, outfitted with rooftop loudspeakers, driving down Avenida 24 de Julho at 20 km/hr blaring out the following message for all to hear: "Participate in the National Census. You count! Census equals citizenship."

It seems the Government has pulled out all the stops to ensure that the upcoming census will be a success. I participated in the Pilot census last year where they were training their enumerators, field-testing the survey forms, and familiarizing the public with the whole process. I found some of the questions to be quite intriguing, the highlights I remember being:

• "How many hoes are owned by your household?"
• "Do you own a tractor?"
• "Do you own a bicycle?"
• "What is the language you speak at home with your family?"
• "Do you own a computer?"
• "How many times did you access the internet in the past year?"

I was happy to participate in the Pilot census, and look forward to the real thing later this year. I also look forward to accessing the results, as reliable, recent statistics about Mozambique are sorely lacking.

As we sat eating shwarmas at the sidewalk cafe where we saw the Census Mobile drive by, Rico and I played a little game I like to call The Fascinating World of Ambulatory Sales.

Walking salesmen are ubiquitous in Mozambique's cities as they are, I imagine, throughout the rest of Africa. Men usually have these jobs (women, it seems, tend to stick with selling fruits and vegetables at corner stands), which consist basically of holding out an assortment of items and literally walking all over the city trying to rustle up interested consumers. You may see men holding out 5 pairs of used shoes, or perhaps a package of clothes hangers, or a display board full of costume jewelry. The point is, these salesmen are everwhere, and the assortment of their goods is nothing short of fascinating.

In the 15 minutes or so that Rico and I concentrated on the salesmen walking past the Lebanese cafe, we observed the following goods for sale:

• used clothing
• used women's high heels
• extension cords and plug adaptors
• nail polish and other cheap-looking makeup
• hair extensions
• batiks
• a giant rug, rolled up and balanced on a guy's head, easily extending 5 feet in either direction
• carved wooden masks
• clothes hangers
• plastic buckets
• straw brooms
• batteries
• cell phones and cell phone accessories
• cigarettes and lighters
• toy cars
• stacks of pirated DVDs
• a Mont Blanc pen (surely authentic)
• a digital camera (result of an assault on a tourist, most likely)
• a gold bracelet (probably same as above)
• fresh brown eggs, stacked in a pyramid inside a plastic basin
• fried sweet biscuits
• pre-paid cell phone cards

15 minutes, people! I think you get the picture. Basically, if you sit long enough in a Maputo sidewalk cafe, all of the knick-knacks you could possibly desire will eventually pass in front of you, being hawked enthusiastically by a walking vendor.

A word to the wise: Don't make eye contact with said vendor unless you a) plan on purchasing whatever he is selling, or b) enjoy the fine art of convincing someone you really, really, really don't want to buy anything, no matter how "Good price, Boss!" it may be.