Inspired by Alina's Blog

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.
"...their Mozambican workers in 1979, leading to an immense loss in..."
From "Mozambique: The Bradt Travel Guide". Talking about the oil crisis that caused South Africa to lay off most of its Mozambican mine workers, and the resulting foreign exchange crisis experienced here.

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
I've come across a can of 2M beer (one of Mozambique's national brands), a colorful cotton pillow from Zimbabwe, and a lovely wicker couch made by local craftsmen.

3.What is the last thing you watched on TV?
We don't have a TV, so I really have no idea. The last memorable thing I watched was an episode of 24 when Rico and I were in Rio.

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
I'd have to say 12:53.

5.Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
I swear I'm not making this up. It's 12:55!

6.With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Traffic outside our flat - mostly chapas, the ubiquitous vans used for collective transport here in Mozambique. I can also hear occasional pieces of conversation from my neighbors as they walk through the stairwell.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Yesterday afternoon. Rico and I went to the grocery store, bought 2 cartridges for the printer, and stopped by a lovely Lebanese café to buy a bag of fresh pita bread (US $2.25 for 10 enormous pieces of bread).

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Articles on venture capital in emerging markets.

9. What are you wearing?
Old comfortable jeans, a soft t-shirt, and Havaianas. I don't plan to leave the house today, so I'm dressed in lounge clothes.

10. Did you dream last night?
Yes, that I was in Namibia swimming in the ocean. The tide came in and I had to swim under huge waves to get back to shore. The beach was full of beautiful pieces of polished glass and smooth stones.

11. When did you last laugh?
Probably last night right before going to bed.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Sadly, not much. I've put up a cross from New Mexico full of silver milagros with a picture of Frida Kahlo in the middle, but it not in a permanent spot on the wall. I just took advantage of an existing nail to break up the monotony of stark white walls.

13. Seen anything weird lately?
Each of the last 2 days Rico and I have gone walking around the city, we've encountered drunk men passed out on the sidewalk of a really busy street.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
A good distraction from the work I should be doing (i.e. updates on the timber project)

15. What is the last film you saw?
"Derailed" with Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen. I watched it on South African Airways on our way to Brasil last month. It featured several scenes that creeped me out like few movies I've ever seen.

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Lots of plane tickets. Shoes. A 4x4 vehicle. A new laptop. Studio space for me to teach Nia classes. Antique furniture and crystal chandeliers for the Casa Rosa. An IRA. Pedicures and manicures for life. A personal acupuncturist. The Villa across the street...

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.
I am afraid of many things: parallel parking, snakes, lightning, crossing the street in countries where they drive on the left, going alone to unfamiliar places...

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Make everyone live in a country other than their own for at least a year.

19. Do you like to dance?
LOVE to dance.

20. George Bush.
Oh, shame.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Sofia, Isabella, Alexandra, Alexa, Katia, Katarina...

22.Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Alexander and Marino are the only ones I really like.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Ha!

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
With my blessing, please come in. But I don't really think there are pearly gates...

25. 4 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
Those who are inspired.

The Next Step

A brilliant idea occurred to me yesterday. I am going to apply for a Fulbright Grant for research in Mozambique. Several friends of mine have been awarded Fulbright grants for lecturing and research in Korea, Brazil, and Chile. The idea that I might also apply just never crossed my mind...

Until now.

The deadline is August 1st, and I already have an idea of what I'd like to propose as a research project. I will be applying in the Business Administration category, and would like to focus on the role that venture capital and other forms of investment can play in sustainable development of the private sector in Mozambique.

I will begin to prepare the application material next week. Wish me luck!

Mornings Like Mom

For some time now, I have realized and accepted that I am becoming more and more like my mother. We now work in the same field and have similar professional talents. We have the same general set of values regarding how people should treat each other and what the best ways are to resolve conflict. We are both into conscious awareness, meditation, reading and writing about self discovery, and Jungian analysis. We even look more and more alike as the years go by, especially now that I've let my hair go naturally wavy and wear my glasses more frequently.

I've noticed that I also have in me some of the tendencies that my mom exhibited when I was a child, but has now successfully managed to deal with in a healthy way. Several traits became especially apparent in Chimoio, like the obsessive organizing of my closet and clothes, the tendency to be bossy when under stress, and the creation of unattainably high standards, both for myself and for my friends, housemates and family.

While we were in Brasil last month, my mom made a prediction to Ricardo as we were discussing this subject:

"Just wait," she said, "at some point in your lives Ali will start waking up at 4am because it is the only time she'll have to herself."

Given my relationship with mornings, I've never thought this a likely scenario. But wouldn't you know it - even in this I have to admit I'm becoming more like my mom, who has woken up at or before 4am ever since I was born (apparently when I was younger, I was a huge fan of the pre-dawn hours). Now that Rico and I are in Maputo, something has changed about the way my body and mind deal with waking up early. It is now a pleasure, and I look forward to a couple hours alone each day to have a cup of tea, do some meditation and stretches, update my blog, and enjoy the stillness.

Granted, I'm now waking up between 6:30 and 7:30 - a far cry from 4am, but definitely a move in that direction considering I used to wake up in Chimoio between 9 and 10am every day. At this rate, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 4am wake-up call starts even before I have a child...

NIA White Belt Intensive

As you all know, I attended the Nia White Belt Intensive in Cape Town at the end of February. I am now a certified Nia teacher, although I'm far from feeling ready to teach. I do plan to teach within the year, however, but I still need to do a lot of practicing! I think Nia would be a wonderful thing for me to bring to Mozambique, and I know that having it as part of my daily life would do wonders for how I feel, both inside and out.

On the last day we had a graduation ceremony. We all sat in a circle and were recognized by our fellow participants. As each person received her training certificate, the rest of us took a few minutes to describe that person. So for example when it was my turn to receive my certificate, everyone in the group said what their impressions of me were. The list was really incredible, and it was such a nice exercise to do as a closing activity.

There were 14 of us that went through the intensive, with participants from South Africa, Israel, the UK, Switzerland, and the US/Mozambique (me). The woman with her arms crossed in the middle of the picture is Kathy, our trainer, who is originally from the US and brought Nia to South Africa 4 years ago.

In the middle of the circle, we created a sort of Nia altar. Each person in the training brought a special object from home to share with the group. Everyone was so creative and throughtful with their offerings. One girl brought a teapot and went through the motions of serving each of us a hot cup of tea to warm our souls. Another person brought photos of her family because they are the most important thing in her life and she wanted to share the feeling she gets when she thinks of her family. Other people shared flowers and special pieces of jewelry.

My favorite offering was from a girl from the UK, Miranda. She'd gone to a rocks and minerals shop in Cape Town the day she arrived for the Nia training. At this shop, she told us, she'd spent over an hour searching through bins and bins of polished rocks to find the perfect ones for her to take home as souveniers. However, Miranda decided the night before our graduation ceremony that she wanted to give a stone to each person in the Nia intensive. As we sat in our circle, she presented each of us with a beautiful rock, and explained how the color and shape of the rock represented aspects of our personalities and our dance. Miranda's choices were amazing - there was a polished stone perfect for each woman in the group.

My stone is opaque gray-blue and triangle shaped. All over one side of the stone are black splotches. Miranda said she chose the stone for me because blue is my color, because I wear a triangle necklace around my neck, and because I have dark patches in my life that I am working through, underneath which lies a beautiful person.

My offering to the group was my triangle necklace that I got when I was 16 in Brasília. It has an engraving of 2 people sitting back-to-back on a palm tree. I love the necklace so much that I got the design tattooed on my back last year in Austin.

Here is a picture of our Nia altar (we got our offerings back at the end of the graduation ceremony.)

And here I am looking as if I'm in a trance. Really, Miranda is telling me how much she thinks we are alike, and that she hopes I wasn't offended by the rock she gave me (I wasn't).

And here we all are immediately after finishing the intensive. I don't think I have ever felt so at peace in my entire life.

I don't think I even need to say how much I encourage anybody interested to try out a Nia class, and to attend a White Belt intensive. You can be at any athletic level and don't have to have any experience in dance or anything else (even to participate in the intensive), just a desire to connect with your body and find the joy of movement.

English Classes

Good morning. I am up relatively early (for my standards, at least) and am preparing to give my english class. I purposefully scheduled my class for 9:30am monday through friday so that I would be forced to keep some sort of consistent schedule. I've found that unless I have an outside committment, it is extremely hard for me to wake up at the same time every day, take a shower, and be ready for work by a reasonable hour. Now that I teach in the mornings, I wake up between 7am and 7:30am, have a nice cup of tea or coffee, and enjoy some time to myself as I get ready for the day.

I am strangely enjoying my english classes. I used to despise teaching back in Brasil, but this time around it's somehow different. My student is a Mozambican woman, about pre-intermediate level, who wants to improve all aspects of her english - speaking, writing, reading, and grammar. She has chosen to do intensive classes with me, and we meet for an hour on monday, wednesday, and friday and an hour and a half on tuesday and thursday. It's definitely intensive, but it's also a lot of fun (gasp!) even for me. I make up my own lesson plans, supplement them with content from the internet, and teach away as if it were my life calling. It is nearly effortless for me, something very strange to recognize since my memory of past english classes is that they were torturous.

So today we will talk about food, and the difference between "countable" and "uncountable" nouns in english. Us native speakers seldom stop to consider why it is we say, for example:

some salt
a carrot
some milk
a biscuit

Also, us native speakers often struggle to explain clearly the difference between:

some chocolate
a chocolate

Both are correct, each has a different meaning. We know it intuitively, but are hard-pressed to explain.

One of the things I enjoy about teaching english is that it forces me to think about my own language. I learn all sorts of new grammatical rules, and start to analyze why it is I say the things I do.

Have a good day!

See How Hot My Hair Looks?

Here I am with Rico at the reception of his best friend's wedding. Rico was one of the best men (in Brasil they have, like, 10 maids of honor and 10 best men up on the altar with the bride and groom) and I was a happy spectator, excited about the chance to wear a fancy dress. Notice the soft ringlets in my hair? Yep, all natural no-comb required goodness.

The night before we left Rio we had an impromptu going away dinner at a very unique restaurant. The menu is half japanese food and half mexican food, and there is an all-you-can-eat special where you can order sushi, sashimi, tacos, and nachos until you can't handle any more wasabi or chili. In the photo with me is my friend Tatiana.

Here is another photo from the japanese-mexican dinner. Rico is sitting behind me followed by Cândida (his sister-in-law), Rodrigo (his brother), David (a friend from Belgium), and Gustavo (a friend from college at Ibmec). Good times.

A Few Bathroom Observations

• We currently have the following reading material available in the bathroom: A document about the African Development Bank called "Private Sector Development" and the "NIA White Belt Training Manual." Previous selections back in Chimoio included the South African edition of FHM magazine with Jenny McCarthy on the cover wrapped up in a garden hose, and a book that takes a critical look at capitalism called "The Roaring Nineties." Our interests are diverse, to say the least.

• I've discoverd that if I leave my dental floss on the shelf next to the toilet I am 99% more likely to floss my teeth on a daily basis.

• I often shower wearing my Havaianas flip-flops. This habit started back in Brasil when I'd have to use communal or just generally unsanitary showers. The habit continued in Chimoio because I was convinced that one of my housemates was the type of person that would pee in the shower. Now that Ricardo and I are in our own flat in Maputo, obviously the shower is clean and pee-free, but I still use my Havaianas about half the time. Why? I discovered to my dismay that my flip-flops smell really, really bad if I don't give them a good scrub at least once a week. Since I can't get new Havaianas here, the solution is to keep them as clean and chulé-free as possible, thus the regular trips to the shower.

• I have lost all shame when it comes to bodily functions, especially around Ricardo. Any imaginable sound, smell, or by-product a body is capable of making is no big deal. And let me tell you - life without being grossed out or embarrased by the normal things our bodies do is absolutely liberating!

• Our bathroom is infested with dozens of little cockroaches. Actually the entire flat is full of the damn things, but we have deduced that at least one of the nests is inside the hinges of the doors to the linen closet in the bathroom. Every night they come out in droves, searching for anything tasty to feast on. In one of the grossest sights I've ever seen, I got up to use the bathroom one night and found Ricardo's hairbrush literally crawling with about 15 cockroaches. I grabbed a can of Doom and proceeded to spray away until the hairbrush was covered in poison and the roaches were twitching their last twitches. Then I opened up the medicine cabinet and, to my horror, saw 4 or 5 little beasties crawling on my comb. It seems that cockroaches are especially attracted to dandruff, or whatever it is that gets left on the bristles of a hairbrush or comb. They also apparently like weed, as I found a group hanging out on the handmade cannabis glycerin soap I bought in Cape Town. Needless to say, we now keep our toiletries sealed up as much as possible to avoid this kind of nasty surprise.

• For unrelated reasons, I have stopped combing my hair. Not that the idea of cockroaches on my comb isn't revolting, but there is a higher power at work here. I've discovered - and Ricardo and several friends have confirmed - that my baby-fine hair looks a million times better if I twist it into locks and let it air dry. No comb necessary, just a few shakes of the head, some twirling of the fingers, and a good scrunch or two and I'm ready to go. It's unbelivably practical, and my hair gets these lovely soft waves and lots of volume. I may be in Africa, but I obviously still know what's important in life - that your hair looks good!! Hahahaha...

Never Mind

My photo is too large. Will have to edit and try again later. Ricardo has been wanting to use the internet for the last hour and I can no longer tell him, "Just 5 more minutes!" with a straight face.

Classic.

Since we now have HIGH SPEED INTERNET at home, I've decided to get my act together and update my blog profile, include new links on my page, and finally post a photo. Since the photo has to be published on the internet for it to appear on my profile, I thought I might as well share it with you all.

This was taken in Austin just before Christmas 2004 when my friend Jamie and I went to see the huge tree made of lights they put up every year at Zilker Park. The strands of lights are all connected to the top of a moontower (yes, like in the movie Dazed and Confused), where they form the top of the Christmas tree. You can get "inside" the tree by standing near the moontower. Then the thing to do is look up at all the lights and spin around like mad. The lights turn into a big colored spiral, and when you finally stop you get super dizzy. Most people even fall down when they stop. Jamie took this photo of me just as I stopped spinning. I'm happy to report there was no fall afterwards, just a huge smile that is Classic Ali.

Wholesome Cooking

Since we moved into the new flat I've been cooking up a storm. I love to cook, and it is a pleasure to do so with a semi-decent gas stove and ample marble couter space at my disposal. The kitchen still isn't very well equipped but with one knife, a few mixing bowls, a frying pan, two pots, a cake mould, and a cutting board I've been able to do wonders.

Here is what I've cooked - all from scratch, mind you - since we got back from Brasil last week.

• Spaghetti with a mixed vegetable sauce of tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, garlic, spring onions and italian parsley. This was our first meal in the flat. Ricardo and I both reflected about how nice it is not to have to eat in a restaurant.

• Whole roasted chicken stuffed with a mix of onion, garlic, lemon, and orange. I seasoned the chicken with an organic spice mix I bought in Cape Town that has coriander, mustard, sweet chili, ginger, garlic, and pepper.

• Chicken salad using the leftover bits of the roast bird. I added bell peppers, peas, onion, mayonnaise, and lemon juice to make a nice, tangy lunch the next day.

• Tri-color bowtie pasta with a homemade tomato sauce. I spiced things up with some fresh peri-peri chilis I bought from the woman on the corner who sells vegetables. I used 1/4 of a chili in the sauce - the peppers are small to begin with, no more than an inch long - and it was so powerful Ricardo almost gave up on the pasta. I loved it, though. Good old skewed New Mexican taste buds...

• Grilled chicken breasts with a lemon, mango, tomato and chili glaze. Lovely and tropical. I made some spiced rice to go along with the chicken, as well as a tomato and cucumber salad.

• Beef fillets with caramelized onions, tomato rice, and a fresh salad.

• Butter-flavored pound cake with a semi-sweet chocolate ribbon. I invented this recipe to use up some very expensive chocolates we had in the house. My mom gave me and Ricardo a sampler box of Scheffen Berger chocolates as a gift when we were in Brasil together. There were 5 different kinds of chocolate, each made with a varying concentration of cacao. The chocolates ranged from 41% (milk) to 80% (extra dark). Rico and I decided that we couldn't really handle the darker chocolates, so I decided to use them in a dessert. The result was a crowning glory of a cake, a perfect balance between the sweet pound cake and the bittersweet chocolate fudgey layer in the middle.

• Brazilian-style rice and black beans with a fried egg on top and a salad on the side.

• Mashed potatoes with butter, milk and fresh herbs. They came out nice and fluffy, thanks to a trick I learned from the side of the baking powder tin I bought last week. Add 1/2 teaspoon baking powder to the potatoes right before you mash them, and the result is lovely, light texture that you just can't get without putting a hand blender to the whole thing.

• Beef stew with potatoes, carrots, peas and onions in a chicken stock. We ate the stew poured over the mashed potatoes that were left over from the day before. Ricardo recently learned the phrase "comfort food" and wanted to know if this dish qualified. I told him it practically defined the idea of comfort food: slow-cooked, homestyle, creamy, hot and delicious!

• Repeat of the butter pound cake with the chocolate fudge ribbon. Ricardo liked the cake so much we sacrificed some of the lower percentage chocolates from the Scheffen Berger box to be able to make it again. I gave 4 pieces to the maid for her to take home for her kids, and she made me promise to teach her the recipe.

• Yesterday for lunch I made pasta arrabiata, where I accidentally went a little wild with the peri-peri. Poor Ricardo, I felt sorry for him as he gulped down glass after glass of water.

• Today I was inspired and finally made gnocchi for lunch, along with a tomato-carrot sauce. I hadn't made gnocchi for a good 10 years, but they came out just as delicious as the time I made them back in Albuquerque. I saved half the dough to make freshly boiled gnocchi again tomorrow, but with a different sauce. I'm considering a cheese or cream-based sauce if we can find the ingredients. If not, I'll go with my all time favorite - gnocchi al burro.

Increasingly, I am convinced that cooking is therapy for me. There's just something about preparing all the ingredients, chopping everything and organizing the raw ingredients into neat piles on the cutting board, lining up the spices and oils I'll use as I cook, and cleaning up as I go along that is soooooo satisfying. Not to mention the lovely feeling when the end result is a delicious, healthy meal.

I think cooking is along the same lines of color-coordinating my closet and folding my clothes into neat stacks, organized by season and style. I cook like one of those cooking show hosts on TV. Everything is pretty and orderly and clean - my kitchen, my closet... I suppose we all compensate somewhere when the other parts of life aren't so controllable.

Tilework, Trash, and English Lessons

Close-up of the beautiful Portuguese tile work on the walls of the Vila Algarve. This beautiful old home is totally abandoned. I yearn every time I look at it out the window for a huge chunk of change to fall into my lap so that I could buy up the building and rehabilitate it to its former glory. This stuff belongs in a museum...

View of the Vila from our caged-in varanda. If you think these iron bars are impressive, you should see what protects our front door...

More tilework. Apparently the Vila Algarve is owned by the Mozambican Association of Lawyers or something like that. They have done absolutely nothing with the building for over 5 years I am told. Now it just sits and tempts me from across the street, while piles and piles of trash accumulate in front of what used to be a grand entrance.

There is a huge trash collection problem in Maputo, and the trash heap across the street sometimes gets so large that it occupies half the block and is composed of chest-high mounds of rubbish. When the sanitation people finally get around to collecting the trash, it takes a bulldozer and a flatbed truck to do the job. No kidding. A full-on Caterpillar bulldozer. The come around to scoop up all the trash, dump it in the truck bed, and then haul it off to God knows where. The bulldozer is horribly loud and awkward. It groans and squeals in a way that all the WD-40 in the world couldn't ease. The best part? Trash collection Maputo-style takes place between 10:30 and 11:30pm, a lovely way to be jarred out of an otherwise decent night's sleep.

Speaking of sleep, it's about that time. I have to wake up early to give an ENGLISH CLASS tomorrow morning. Yes, you heard right. I am once again an English teacher... Very mixed feelings about this development, but it's definitely necessary right now. Nothing like a move into a bare apartment to bust your budget wide open...

The View of Vila Algarve

Not a bad sight to have in front of the varanda and out the office window.

Don't Blindly Trust the Bank

The saga of finding a new flat and the countdown to moving day continues...

The last weekend in February, Rico and I went by the flat to sign the rent contract and pay our $1350 pre-payment. We decided to pay part of the amount in cash and part by check to avoid walking around the streets of Maputo with our pockets loaded. Prior to the day of the payment, Ricardo went to the bank and asked for his current account statement. “Perfect,” we thought, “there is enough in the account to pay $1000 to Dona Flávia and still have a couple hundred leftover.”

So Rico made out a check, I handed over the cash, and we signed the contract. The apartment was ours! Dona Flávia assured us that she’d be out of the flat by the 2nd, that she was going to move to a new place over the weekend. Despite the fact that there was absolutely no sign of Dona Flávia making any preparations for the move, we took her word in good faith. Crazy things happen all the time here in Africa – cleaning out a jam-packed apartment in 2 days, space-print velour couches and all, wouldn’t be such a stretch…

So Rico and I left to enjoy our weekend and make plans for our upcoming move. We decided to go window shopping at Game, the South African department store north of the city, to check out prices on stoves and refrigerators (houses do not come furnished with kitchen appliances here in Mozambique). We were browsing around the store when Rico’s cell phone rang. It was Dona Flávia. In the overly formal way Mozambicans announce a problem, she let us know there had been a constrangimento, a constraint. It took me a while to learn this linguistic quirk, but now that I know constrangimento means shit’s hit the fan, I seem to hear it all the time. Anyhow, the constraint in our situation was that Rico’s check had bounced. What??? We knew there were sufficient funds in the account – we’d just gotten a bank statement before writing the check. Ricardo apologized profusely to Dona Flávia and we immediately called the bank manager to see what was going on. The manager, who is an acquaintance of ours back in Chimoio, checked Rico’s balance even though it was a weekend. To our dismay, he confirmed that the account balance was zero!! Panic!!!

Ricardo and I hopped in a taxi and headed home to check the statement we’d received from the teller the previous week. Already our minds were busy creating theories to explain the missing money. Maybe someone from the bank embezzled it? Maybe someone at Agrolink got access to the account number and withdrew funds without authorization? Maybe Dona Flávia made a mistake… We got home and searched frantically through the stack of papers and receipts on the kitchen table for the bank statement. We finally found it. Just as we’d thought, the statement confirmed a balance of more than enough to cover the rent check. Ricardo and I stared at the statement, thoroughly confused. Suddenly Rico started cursing, “Filho da puta imbecil! Caralho, merda!” What a stupid son-of-a-bitch! He pointed to an ink stamp in the corner of the bank statement. It read “01/01/05 – 26/02/05.” January to February of 2005. The teller had managed to get the statement from the wrong year!!

We called Dona Flávia and explained that the bank had made a mistake, and that we’d personally bring her the money the next day. Thankfully Rico and I were able to pool enough in cash to make the rent payment. Even so, we were more than embarrassed about the situation and aware that our slip-up could make us lose the flat.

When we arrived the next morning to deliver the cash, Dona Flávia answered the door and let us know that her husband, who we’d not met yet, would deal with us in the living room. Dona Flávia’s husband got right to the point. “Irresponsible young expats are a dime a dozen here in Maputo. People who are just not serious about commitment, who are not trustworthy renters.” He also added that since Dona Flávia wasn’t able to cash the check, they weren’t able to make the 3-month deposit on their new home and the landlord had rented it to another family. They would have to search for a new home, and until they found a new flat we wouldn’t be able to move in. Ricardo and I apologized up one side and down the other…

More to come soon...

A Profound Moment by Ali

Since I am still working on the rest of the story about our move to the new flat, here is an excerpt from an e-mail to my good friend Mark. He recently moved to LA to pursue a career as an actor and a model, and we have great conversations about "what is home?", how do you know when you have found the right career or right place to live, the right relationship, etc. Here is part of an e-mail that I wrote to him last week - in addition to some philosophical musings, it gives an idea of what the Nia intensive was like...

Dear Mark,

I, too, am a searcher. I haven't stayed in the same spot for more than a year and a half since I was 15. All this moving around has taken me to 2 places in Brasil, Austin, ABQ twice, and now 2 places in Mozambique. I feel a compelling need to keep moving forward, to have new experiences and meet new people, all with the idea that out of it all I will gain some life lesson essential to my time here on earth.

What I've learned from it all is the following:

- the huge revelations and life lessons never come at the time or place where you expect them to.

- the boring, sedentary times can actually be those revelations in disguise, and you only realize it later.

- every part of the journey serves a purpose. You are where you need to be now, and you will end up where you need to be when it's time.

- at some point it becomes obvious that it is time to stop searching, at least in terms of moving around to new places or changing careers. How do you know when you've found what you're looking for? Your body will tell you. Not your mind, your body. I know this sounds strange, but I'll try to explain what I mean in a litte bit.

- being happy and feeling satisfied with life will happen, but it's not at all the way you imagine it should feel like, and it is still rife with ups and downs and depressed periods. The difference is that you feel an overwhelming sense of calm and grounded-ness that rides you through the uncertain parts of life and always leads you back where you need to be. I always found that to be missing when I was in an intense " searching" phase. I would just search and search and at the end of the day feel very unsettled. Excited by life and in love with the people around me, but unsettled.

I can tell you I've been through fabulous times and also some very terrible ones. Many people have criticized the way I've lived my life, but I don't regret anything. But recently, I've received a loud and clear message that it's time for me to stop. I need to put down some roots, have some stability in my life, stay in one spot for a while.

Several things pointed me to this conclusion at the same time. The first was having lived for 9 months in Chimoio sharing a house with 5 other people. It was one of the hardest things I've done, for several different reasons. It undoubtedly brought out the worst in me. I wanted to run out of that situation after about month 2, but I made myself sit still and ride it out. I learned a lot. At the end of nearly a year, I decided that it was time to move on. Not because I was running away, but because a very wise voice inside me said I'd gotten all I needed out of the situation and it was okay to recognize that I was in a bad place for me.

The second thing was the Nia intensive training that I did in Cape Town. Nia is basically a way of finding health and healing through movement. It combines dance arts, martial arts, and healing arts to help each person find exactly what his/her body needs. Nia is very much about getting in touch with the body, doing what your body naturally tells you it needs. When the body is healed, the mind will also be healed. It involves a lot of philosophy about mind-body connectivity. So at the training, we did an intensive week of Nia and at the end all the participants became certified to be Nia teachers.

I love Nia, but the intensive was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I found myself very, very resistant in the first few days. I even plotted how I could make an excuse to leave the training after day 2. But again I made myself sit through the uncomfortableness of the situation. I got physically ill on day 3, and then it was like I'd crossed over to another place. I became acceptant of the process and made it through the rest of the training. I learned how to get in touch with my feelings, feel how they affect my body, and move my body the way I am called to move to help heal the feelings. It has been life-changing.

I know it may sound like a lot of hoo-haw, but it reminds me a lot of what you said about accessing your feelings to become a good actor. In Nia, you have to access your feelings and let them move your body to truly get the most out of dance. You only become a good Nia teacher when you access those parts of yourself.

I learned that I have been living my life completely in my mind. I have a fabulous life in my mind - I write, I think, I read - and I am recognized because of my mind - my work - and I let my mind make my life decisions - mostly rational and "thought out". But the mind can many times lead you astray, and a life lived wholly through the mind is an unbalanced one. I am learning how to live through my body again, and the body will never guide you wrong.

Let me give you an example:

Our Nia teacher told a story about a friend who was agonizing over whether or not to marry her boyfriend. This woman asked all her friends for advice, made lists of the pro's and con's of marrying this man, went to a psychologist, discussed it with her family, etc. And she still couldn't make a decision as to what was right for her life. So when she finally asked our Nia teacher what she should do, the teacher said to sit in a quiet place for 30 minutes and think about her boyfriend. Then, she said for the friend to notice what she felt in her body. So the next day, the friend came back and said that she'd sat for 30 minutes and thought about the man she was considering marrying. The teacher asked what she felt in her body, and her friend said that she felt her throat closing up, like she was being strangled. That was the unmistakeable message from her body that marrying this man was not the right thing to do.

So all through the rest of the Nia training, I tried to reconnect with my body and stop analyzing everything. I just danced and moved and meditated, doing everything my body wanted. All of a sudden, I became overwhelmed with a feeling that I needed to grow roots. I wanted to stay in the same place, be grounded. I felt this both in my dance, as well as in a larger way in my life. Interestingly, when we would do evaluations and feedback for each other as part of the training, everyone commented that my energy was not grounded, that it seemed as if I was dancing on air. Quite literally, the physical manifestation of what I need in my life right now.

I want to settle down, stop moving around, and grow my roots. Ricardo and I moved away from Chimoio in January and finally found an apartment in Maputo, the capital, at the beginning of March. We are now living together in an environment that I feel is good for me, where I can concentrate on my life and work and be a happy person at the same time. When I think about settling down, everything in my body feels joy. That's how I know this is the right thing...

Literally.

One door closes and another one opens.

Not five minutes after discovering that the microfinance proposal was not approved, I got an e-mail from a person that found a reference to Agrolink on my blog. I responded giving him some information about the company and our areas of focus, and immediately got another e-mail back. From a random internet encounter now comes the following opportunity:

Dear Alexandra,

Super! Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. In a nutshell, the Government of Mozambique is looking at preparing a draft Compact for an operation with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). I was in Mozambique last month and ran across a reference to Agrolink while looking at rural/MSME access to financial service issues (including BDS), especially in the North. The XXX is a major MCC interlocutor.

I will pass on to my colleagues your coordinates.

I don't know if you are familiar with the Millenium Challenge Corporation, but it could be the meal ticket we've all been waiting for in terms of our operations here in Mozambique...

Yippee!!! I just went from -10 to +100 on the emotional scale in record time.

This Just In...

Remember the big microfinance proposal I put together back in October for a local credit union, asking the European Community for US 1 million to support a new rural credit programme?

Well, we didn't get it. It was a worldwide call for proposals, and the funding was limited. Of course part of me is tempted to play the "beat myself up" game because I know the proposal submission wasn't perfect. But I'm going to try my best to avoid that beast tonight. I know all to well it brings absolutely no good and won't change a thing.

Such is this business. You win some, you lose some...

Let the Negotiations Begin

Continued from last time...

Despite the tacky furnishings and plethora of teenagers in the flat when we visited, Rico and I were able to recognize that behind it all lay a fabulous opportunity. Three bedrooms, lots of natural light, wooden floors, and the perfect location. We squeezed each other’s hands in silent approval, then sat down to negotiate with Dona Flávia.

An interesting thing happens here when it comes to rent prices. Mozambique has been at the top of the international aid list basically since the civil war ended in 1992, and as a result there is a large expat workforce here with the cooperation agencies. When arranging housing for the expat employees, the main concern of these organizations is to find a secure, well-kept, convenient house or apartment. Price is literally not an issue as long as it falls within the agency’s budget for rent, an amount usually based on American or European standards for housing. As a result, landlords here are able to name their price and be certain that somewhere there will be an NGO or cooperation agency willing to pay, no questions asked. This phenomenon has created a rent market where a 3-bedroom flat, depending on the neighbourhood, can range from US$ 500 to US$ 2,000 per month. Hello, this is Africa! Apartments in New Mexico aren’t even that expensive.

The worst part about the inflated housing market is that if you are a white foreigner, many Mozambican landlords will assume that you are coming to the table with an NGO budget behind you, and this makes it next to impossible to knock the price down. But if anyone can negotiate, it’s Ricardo (seriously, he has an uncanny natural talent for this kind of thing), and after a good discussion with Dona Flávia we were able to bring her down from the original asking price of US$ 500 per month to US$ 450 per month – nothing short of a miracle given that this flat is awesome and the neighbourhood is very nice. We signed a 2-year contract, and even got Dona Flávia to agree to discount our rent for the improvements we make in the flat. For example, if we spend US$ 200 to replace the cracked sink in the bathroom with a lovely new one, we’d only pay US$ 400 in rent for the next 4 months. We even convinced her to buy back the appliances we’ve purchased (oven, refrigerator, etc.) as long as we leave them in the flat when we vacate, something we intended to do anyway.

While Ricardo was able to negotiate us a great deal on the rent contract, all the manipulating and pleading in the world wouldn’t have been enough to get Dona Flávia, her kids, and her stuff out of the flat by the date we were supposed to move in, originally set to be March 2nd. Dona Flávia was confident she could find a new apartment to live in by the end of February, giving us all a couple days to move furniture, purchase appliances, and scrape together the money for the standard pre-payment of 3 month’s rent at the start of a new contract...

Obviously you know that our move was delayed by a good 10 days. But the details? Oh, good friends, you'll just have to wait! Ricardo and I are flying to Brasil tomorrow with an overnight stop in Johannesburg, so it may be a couple of days.

The Flat, Part One

I've realized that if I wait until I've written about everything I want to, you all won't get an update until the end of April or so! So I'll post in chunks, in accordance with what I am able to write each day or week, and leave you hanging until the next entry because my storytelling is not at at all linear or even in manageable chapters!

Here is what I managed to write last night...

Today Ricardo and I finally moved into our new flat, only 12 days after the original date the landlady was supposed to hand over the keys. Although supremely frustrating at times, this flat was well worth the wait…and what a wait it was!

Ricardo found this apartment while I was at the Nia intensive in Cape Town. It was the first and only flat we looked at, and the one that we ended up renting – such luck is practically unheard of here in Maputo – but something inside me just knew it would work out this way. To paraphrase one of my favourite authors, Paulo Coelho, “When you wish for something with all your heart, the whole universe conspires for things to work out.”

I can’t think of anything I want more at this moment than to put down roots with Ricardo in Maputo. Being a 21st Century Nomad is certainly fun and full of adventures, but it’s a lifestyle that can leave a girl lonely and disconnected in the long run. Many things lately – from my community living time in Chimoio to the Nia intensive last month – have led me to the conclusion that settling down is just what I need right now. Mind, body, and spirit are all shouting out for me to stay in one place and enjoy a slower, more stable life.

So to that end, Rico and I set up an appointment to visit this flat as soon as I got back from Cape Town at the end of February. The apartment is located downtown in a pretty upscale neighbourhood called Polana and is 4 blocks from the ocean and near several restaurants and shops. The building itself is pretty drab and in dire need of some paint and a couple of structural repairs, but it is quite sturdy (it survived the earthquake!) and has 24-hour security guards in the front, so I can’t complain. Most buildings in Maputo look as if they took several direct hits during the country’s civil war, so it’s pretty standard that a nice apartment would have a horrid exterior. The building is also directly across the street from one of the coolest architectural sites in Maputo, an abandoned old Portuguese mansion called Vila Algarve that is covered in blue and white tile murals, so that adds a lot of character to the place.

Our flat is on the 3rd floor (technically the 4th – people here count the ground floor as level zero) and there is no elevator, so we get a really good workout huffing it up the stairs, but that’s good because both Rico and I are pretty out of shape at the moment.

The first time we visited the flat it was total chaos. The place was being inhabited by our landlord Dona Flávia and her, like, 15 school-aged children. There was barely room to walk around the flat because it was so full of gaudy furniture and kids running around. The worst part was the living room – Dona Flávia had, in good upper-middle-class Mozambican taste, furnished the room with a horrid set of black sofas imported from South Africa that had a pattern that looked as if the cosmos had suddenly gotten ill and spewed planets and nebulae on the dark velour. This sofa set dominated the whole room, but every spare space was filled with clutter. My favourite, in addition to the seating choice of course, was a huge fake-wood clock with plastic roses glued at each hour mark and gold lettering across the front that proudly announced, “High Class Quartz Clock.” Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Despite the tacky furnishings and plethora of teenagers in the flat when we visited, Rico and I were able to recognize that behind it all lay a fabulous opportunity. Three bedrooms, lots of natural light, wooden floors, and the perfect location. We squeezed each other’s hands in silent approval, then sat down to negotiate with Dona Flávia. She originally wanted US$ 500 per month for the flat, but we were able to bring her down to US$ 450...

Oh, the suspense!! I'm sure it's just killing you!!!

Surprise, Surprise

Guess what? We're still not moved into our new flat. Supposedly it will happen tonight, but then again that's what the landlady said yesterday, and last week, and at the beginning of the month. I'm just trying to be patient, understand that we'll move when we move, and remember that we'll get to discount these late days from our June rent so this isn't a financial problem either.

It's just so frustrating. I'm really looking forward to moving into our flat, and each day that the landlady dilly-dallies around is another day that Rico and I are living out of suitcases, eating all our meals in restaurants, and not having a proper work space. I'm finding it very hard to sit down and concentrate, be it on business stuff or on catching up on the blog.

I feel pressure to write - and I really do want to write about the experiences I've had in the last month - but right now I'm just a bit overwhelmed with the whole moving thing (or lack thereof).

The challenge, I suppose, is to sit still with all this anxiousness and pressure. Me fretting about won't make the landlady haul her junk out of the flat any faster, and it will only spend my energy. Wringing my hands over everything I've meant to write and haven't had a chance will not make my words come any easier.

My solution for everything at this point is to chill. Good writing and a good flat will come to those who wait...

We've Officially Got a Flat!

It's amazing!!! The flat is ours!!!

Ricardo and I just went over to the flat and had a meeting with the landlady. We signed all the final papers and payed a deposit of 3 month's rent, and she's agreed to move all her stuff out by Wednesday. I am having serious nesting urges, and can't wait to move in.

Today the weather is very windy, rainy, and cold. Yesterday it was easily over 90F. I haven't really figured out the climate here in Maputo yet. It reminds me of the schizophrenic weather in southern Brasil...

Well, Rico and I just had lunch and are off to run a couple of business errands and then go to GAME, this big South African department store just north of the city, to start shopping for our home!!!!! I feel like such a sap, but I am really excited about buying appliances and picking out towel sets.

Tonight I'm hoping to have some quiet time, what with the nasty weather and all, to finally sit down and write properly. Last night I was set on having a good write, but we got a big surprise that ended up delaying my plans and expulsing us from the flat we're currently staying in. For now, I'll just let you know that it has to do with a sewer (technically, I think it's a cess pool). You can let your imagination run wild from there until I conjure up a description to do the whole smelly event justice.

Until then, keep well!

Quick Update

Okay...once again we're at the internet café and I have a million e-mails to respond to and some research about bananas I want to do. Time is short, but I am still glowing and zen-like from my Nia training so it is all good.

So for a quick update:

- Ricardo and I have found a great flat and will be moving in tomorrow! It is a 3-bedroom with wooden floors and a small varanda. One room will be our bedroom, the other will be our office, and the last one will be a Nia room / guest room!!! I'm envisioning decking the whole thing out with mirrors so that I can dance the night away and watch how silly I look in the process. We signed a 2-year rent contract, so we're definitely moving down the "put down some roots" path, which makes me very happy. Next step: buy an oven, a washing machine, living room furniture, a work desk, some chairs, and A NEW MATTRESS!!! Yes, the glorious day is near. Behold the goodness of South African department stores that stock semi-decent mattresses.

- Work is going well. Ricardo and I cranked out a proposal for the EU in 3 days!! It was for additional support for the smallholder farmers in the Espungabera area that will be supplying the tea for our factory. It was definitely tough to put the whole thing together in such short time (I usually like to have a month or two), but it was good because it made me let go of perfection. Some parts of the EU proposal were not excellent, but it was okay. I just prioritized and moved on to write more important sections. All in all, a very good excercise for someone addicted to perfection.

- Speaking of work, we should have word from the EU this week about whether or not the microfinance proposal I put together has been accepted. If so, that's another million dollars chalked up to our fundraising efforts!

- Random things:

It's really hot in Maputo. Like 110 degrees F hot, and really humid. I sweat all day...

Ricardo and I went to the only gym in town last night for a trial workout. The gym is in the top floor of a really shi-shi hotel, with a view of the indian ocean as you run on the treadmill. I think we are going to join after we get back from Brasil.

I hand washed half of my clothes in a bucket this morning, then hung them up on curtain rods in the flat we are currently staying in. I can't wait to have a washing machine again.

We leave for Brasil in 2 weeks. My mom is going to meet us in São Paulo, then we will all go to Rio together. Big events during the trip: my mom meeting Rico's family, and being in Rico's best friend's wedding. Good times!

Okay...that's about it. I promise I am going to get my act together and write about this Nia training I keep referring to. It was life-changing, and I'm dying to share!!!

Tras la Tempestad, la Calma

I am back in Maputo and genuinely happier, calmer, and more grounded than I've been in a long time. The Nia training was fabulous and not only did I dance a lot, I gained many lessons that can be applied in life as well as in physical movement. More to come about that over the course of the week...

Ricardo and I are still in our client's flat, but have found a wonderful 3 bedroom apartment that we hope to close a contract on sometime next week. I am looking forward to putting down some roots, painting our walls cool beach-inspired colors, buying furniture, and even potentially getting a cat!

Right now, though, I am having a string of busy, busy days and am not able to write about my personal life as much as I'd like. Rico and I have to finish a proposal by tuesday night that will hopefully get us money for our outgrower scheme in the tea project. It's all somewhat last-minute, which I don't love, but I am calm about the whole thing and not letting the pressure of work stress me out. Seriously. It's a great feeling to know you have a lot of work to do, but not let it overrun your life. I am very happy about that.

Hope you are all well...

love,
Ali

Earthquake in Mozambique

Participating in the Nia Intensive in Cape Town this past week has been a very special experience for me, and I have not wanted to access e-mail or the internet. It just felt right to distance myself a bit and do some serious reflecting on my life without trying to analyze everything through writing.

However, I wanted to blog today just to let everyone know that Ricardo, BL, Patricia, Gemelli, and all of our other friends and loved ones in Mozambique are safe after this morning's earthquake.

Ricardo called me on the cell phone around 12:30am, just after the quake had ended. He was in our client's flat in Maputo where we are currently staying, and said that the desk and shelves shook and shook for about a minute. He had no idea what was happening until BL called from Chimoio and said there had been an earthquake, and that everything had shaken in our old house as well.

I couldn't sleep after that phone call. Early this morning I woke up and checked the internet for news, and couldn't believe my eyes. The earthquake was a magnitude 7.5 and was centered at Espungabera, which is the little town where we are carrying out our tea project! Apparently there were at least 5 aftershocks, and the quake was felt throughout the country and into parts of South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. The news report said people went running out of their homes into the streets all throughout Mozambique, and there are still no reports on casualties or injuries.

Thankfully, we are all safe and there is no need for you all to worry.

Love to you all.

Ali

Maputo and More

Ali arrived in Maputo, unpacked, then boarded a plane for Cape Town to begin NIA training. She will have sporadic access to the Internet which is why she asked me to write and tell you all where she is. She sends her love and looks forward to reading your comments.

Katherine (Ali's Mom)

Movin' On Out!

Today is the big day. Ricardo and I are finally moving to Maputo!!!!! What started out as a month-long business trip has become the catalyst for us to get the hell out of dodge. We are going to start looking for an apartment first thing Monday morning. Hopefully we will find something in a good neighborhood and within our price range without too much of a delay.

This is a very different move from anything I've ever experienced. I think instead of "moving", it's more accurate to say we are changing our "home base". We will still come back here to Chimoio with some frequency for our responsibilities with Agrolink and our tea company, MozTea. I'm guessing that for every 6 weeks we spend in Maputo, we will spend 1 in Chimoio. I think it is the ideal balance, and will allow me to keep my sanity and enjoy my living environment, but not cut all ties with the work we have going here.

Yesterday I packed two suitcases with the essentials - work stuff, clothes, incense, 2 kinds of tea, Splenda, creams and perfumes, and *only* 7 pairs of shoes. Part of me was reluctant to pack everything up because I still don't believe that this move will really happen...everything in Africa goes wrong when you plan it out, you can't trust that anything will run smoothly. I have hopes that we will find an apartment and have an easy move to Maputo, but I'll have to see it all work out to believe it...

For as much complaining as I've done in the last week, I realized this weekend that I am actually going to miss several things about Chimoio. I will miss some parts of the chaos of sharing a home with 3, 4, or 5 people depending on the month. I will miss cooking for everyone, and sitting around all together to watch a DVD and shoot the shit. I will miss Zeca and our dogs, and the lovely climate here (Manica is the most mountainous province in Mozambique). I'm actually sort of sad that we are not going to spend as much time here anymore. And then I fall back into reality. I'm relieved and happy and excited to be moving on...

Our plane leaves at 2pm, then we will stay at a client's flat in Maputo until we find our own place. I won't have daily internet access, but hopefully will manage to check e-mail and blog 3 or 4 times a week...

So this is it...WISH US LUCK!!!

Sneeze it all Out

Today is a new day, and I feel much better. Not so much better that I've abandoned my plan to hightail it to Maputo to find an apartment with Rico, but I am calmer. Less moody and irritable.

Last night, right after my little breakdown, I got hit with one of the worst allergy attacks since coming to Mozambique. Usually the allergies come on in the morning, but this time they hit at nearly 11pm. I took a Benadryl hoping it would knock me out right away, but I was sneezing so much that even the drowsy medicine took nearly 3 hours to do its thing. At one point I sneezed literally 37 times in a row...All this in the crater mattress with Rico trying to sleep beside me.

We still don't have a new mattress, and likely won't buy one here in Chimoio because we're going to spend at least the next month on the road. Somehow, though I feel rested this morning, like I sneezed out all of the rage I was feeling last night.

I have a theory that my allergies are actually brought on by stress. I found a website once that referred to "emotional allergies." It's all very strange... I'd never had a single bout of allergy before moving to Austin, TX in 2003. Coincidentally, the move was in the middle of what was hands-down one of the worst situations I've ever dealt with in my entire life. I cried every day for 3 months straight, then every other day for the next 3. In the midst of all this emotion, my allergy attacks started. Since Austin is the "Allergy Capital of the World" I chalked it up to oak pollen, seemingly the worst culprit in central Texas, and went on dealing with my life. After the first year, my emotional situation resolved (a.k.a. the relationship ended) and, mysteriously, that next spring I didn't have a single allergy attack.

Then, when I moved to Chimoio 9 months ago the allergies started again. I am fine for 5 days, then all of a sudden I get an attack. At first I thought I was allergic to some pollen here, or the dust in our house, but if that were the case one would expect me to sneeze and wheeze every single day, which is not the case. Furthermore, I get allergy attacks no matter where I am lately: Maputo, Rio de Janeiro, California... It's the same random, once weekly bout independent of the environment I'm in.

So, in the coming month I'll be able to test out my theory and see if my allergies improve as my stress level diminishes. Check out my schedule for the next few weeks:

Week 1 - Maputo with Rico, working on a banana proposal. We leave Chimoio day after tomorrow, thank God.

Week 2 - I'm going to Cape Town for a week-long Nia training so I can become a certified teacher. Nia is a dance form that connects mind and body and promotes both physical and emotional balance. Just what I need right now. I'm hoping to be able to give classes in Maputo where there is a meditation/yoga/tai chi center.

Week 3 - Maputo again. Ricardo and I will be fundraising for the timber project we just finished, and I will start writing a new proposal for a mango project.

Week 4 - Johannesburg with Rico to meet with a group of MBA students from the University of Texas that are doing a marketing plan for the Fairtrade certified products that our tea company, MozTea, will produce.

Week 5 - Rio de Janeiro! Rico and I are going back to Brasil for about 10 days to be in his best friend's wedding. My mom is flying in from the US to hang out with us, and to meet all of Rico's family. I can't wait!!

Week 6 - Maputo. According to my ideal scenario, we would already have an apartment and would stay in the capital for good...

Seeing it all on paper makes me realize that my situation is going to improve drastically starting Sunday. I can make it till the weekend without falling apart, right? Right??? Yeah.

Thank you all for your kind words and positive vibrations.

Thursday Night Rant

I think something in the universe must have aligned yesterday and today that has made all of my frustrations and resentments for Chimoio come to surface. I just had a major breakdown with Rico and cried till snot ran down my face. The whole crisis ended up with me blubbering, "I can't stand it here anymore!" and crying on the bed for an hour.

I am seeing red. I hate this place and I am sick of the people I live with. Chimoio is depressing. The people here are depressing and boring and petty. In 9 months I have honestly not met a single local person I'd want to consider being friends with. The person here I have the best relationship with is our night guard Zeca, who barely speaks Portuguese and answers everything with an animated but blindly subservient, "Sim patrão, sim patrão, obrigado, obrigado." Yes, Boss. Thank you. You ask Zeca to unload a truck-full of bricks and he says thank you. Zeca is charismatic and charming, but I hate the relationship we all have with him. The sad part is that try as we might to change things, it's of no use. Zeca will always do whatever we tell him to and thank us in the process. We will always be the latest incarnation of the colonial assholes that ran this place for 500 years before they were chased out in 1975.

My housemates are driving me insane. I want them to shut up and go away. I can't stand to look at them or hear them speak. I'm at this level right now. It's all quite immature.

Rico, as always, is unbelievably patient. I'm aware of what a bitch I must be to be around right now, and it makes me feel even worse. I feel like I have no control over this rage and frustration I feel. I try and think about being non-judgemental, breathing, letting go of things that don't matter, trying to determine if the problem is my environment or if it's me.

Some days I have no doubt it's the environment. Nobody can stand Chimoio. We all deal with this hellhole in our own special ways. One of my housemates drinks and takes pills to zone out of life. Another is a workaholic and won't shut her mouth. She talks and talks and talks and carries both sides of the conversation out loud by herself. Another housemate gets angry and does things like slam doors, or he overeats to smother his anger. I think Rico deals by being unnecessarily patient, borderline ignoring the situation until he explodes. I become compulsively organized with my things. My closet is full of perfectly folded clothes, organized by color and style. My creams are all organized by tube size. My books are in alphabetical order. My computer files and directories make perfect organized sense. These are the things I can control in my life at the moment. The problem is that I get stressed and try and make my housemates be neat and clean as well. Obviously being bossy and compuslive only makes the discomfort I feel that much worse.

Other days...well, other days I have no doubt the problem is me. Today is one of them.

I want to go to Maputo this Sunday and never come back to Chimoio.

Clarification

Thanks for your comments. In response...

I think that my work will be a million times more effective in Maputo, the capital where everything happens in this country, as opposed to Chimoio, a small, backwater town where not much happens beyond agricultural projects and NGO handouts.

I did not come here to work directly with communities and smallholder farmers. I did not come here to teach or train staff. While I am good at providing knowledge to people in a way that is meaningful to them, it is not the best use of my talents. Writing proposals and business plans, however, is.

Chimoio is simply not an efficient home base to carry out the kind of work Ricardo and I do together. He takes care of the commercial relationships and negotiations with clients; I then write business plans and proposals and together we present everything to potential funding organizations.

We can work from Chimoio, but it's not the right environment for me. I don't feel like I'm abandoning the work I set out to accomplish, or that I've found my limitations with regard to what I can do professionaly. Rather, I am abandoning what is, for me, an unhealthy and unbearable environment: community living with people that don't respect the natural give-and-take of living together, a small town full of small-minded people, and a set of factors in general that bring out my very worst (while obviously providing growth opportunities as well).

It's been well worth it. I've learned a lot. But I'm just not happy living in Chimoio in a household where I feel powerless. I don't think the problem is Africa. I venture to say I'd be just as unhappy living in a small town in Iowa in a shared house with people that don't hold the same values as I do regarding how a community should function. It is suffocating, and I am tired.

I like living alone, or with a partner or friend with common values.
I like urban environments.
I like communities full of culture, diversity, and smart, open-minded people.
I like having a life of my own - friends, activities, restaurants, bars.
I like being in an environment that doesn't aggressively bring out my worst.

And Then There Were Four...

What at it’s peak was a communal crash pad for 4 brasilian guys, a girl from Portugal, a pregnant Mozambican, and moi, is now being slowly reduced to what looks like, from the outside at least, a normal household. Over the past few months, the baby was born and she and her mother moved to an apartment down the street, and one of the brasilian guys completed his volunteer assignment and went home. We found out today that our housemate Gemelli got an IT job in Tete, the province just to the north of us here in Manica, and will be moving there on Sunday to start a 1-year contract. So that leaves four of us…

Ricardo and I have been talking for some time now about the possibility of moving to Maputo and working from there. For business reasons alone, it makes sense. Agrolink’s main business is doing fundraising for projects, for which we have to establish good relationships with the donor community, banks, investment funds, and other people that influence how money is distributed in Mozambique. All of these people and entities are in Maputo, the capital. Right now we are constantly on the road between Chimoio and Maputo to meet with clients and find potential funding sources for our projects, and it is tiring and expensive.

Beyond the business reasons, living in Chimoio – for me at least – is simply not sustainable for much longer. Living in a small, underdeveloped town with no people other than my housemates that I can relate to makes me feel horribly desperate. Desperate for friends, for intelligent conversation outside work, for museums, live music, shops, and the kind of environment where I look around and recognize my values and interests in the people and places that surround me.

Here I walk out of the house and am stared at by people on the street in a way that makes me sick with Western guilt. I feel foreign here in the most ample sense of the word. I have not connected with Chimoio, nor with any Chimoioans since I arrived here nearly 9 months ago. I’ve found it horribly complicated to establish relationships with people here in Mozambique, even though everyone is friendly and open on the surface. The problems here are so deeply rooted in history, so complex and painful to confront, that they end up influencing all interactions in a way that makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Instead, I have retreated into this isolated world of work and communal living where a whole new set of problems come up. Learning to live with other people has proved to be excruciatingly difficult for me, drawing all the worst aspects of my personality to the surface. I feel completely powerless in this environment, and my way of coping isn’t always the most pleasant to say the least. But for all my compulsively organized and bossy moments, I can definitely say I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself and what it takes to live and work in peace with other people. Chimoio has been an overwhelming experience, mostly positive in the end, but I am soooooooooo ready to leave it behind.

So with the exit of several housemates and business picking up, Ricardo and I are starting to form a concrete plan for moving to Maputo. It no longer makes sense, both financially and emotionally, for us to stay in Chimoio much longer. We are going to Maputo on Friday to present the final timber proposal to potential investors, and are going to take advantage of our time in the capital to start apartment-hunting. Ideally, we would move to Maputo in April but the timeline is still a bit uncertain…

Ah, on a somewhat unrelated note, we finished the timber proposal this morning at 2:30am. The Executive Summary kicks ass.

Blah.

We're in the final stretch of the timber proposal. Deadline is in approximately 1 hour to send the narrative and financial models to our client. The only thing left between me and a nice, cold glass of juice is the stupid Executive Summary. I hate Executive Summaries. I have especially little motivation to write this one, as I have serious "issues" with the timber client and I am really, really tired after a not so fabulous day.

To start, I moved from the mattress crater back down to the floor with Rico last night without much success in sleeping. Then my dad, bless his heart, made his first international call in - oh, I don't know - 45 years and managed to wake me up at 3:15am. Dad, it was wonderful to talk to you, but please remember the next time you call that there is a 9-hour time difference between New Mexico and Mozambique!!!

So I work up in a horrible mood with a backache...And then I had to run for the toilet. We ate pizza yesterday from one of the two restaurants in Chimoio, and it didn't go so well for the old digestive system. Everyone in the house got the runs. I got hit particularly bad, and have spent the rest of the day drinking juice and orange Fanta and having everything go right on through my bowels in a matter of minutes.

Also, I realized today that I haven't been out of the house in 7 WHOLE DAYS.

I am stir-crazy and tired and ill in the gut...not a good combination. Now, on to that Executive Summary!

Ah, by the way - I don't drink gin and tonic copiously every day. I re-read my post and felt pangs of guilt as I imagined my relatives reading this and thinking that Africa has turned me into an alkie.

Oh, the Horror!

A short list of things that I didn’t used to eat/use/consume before moving to Africa and now do so copiously, on a weekly if not daily basis.

Gin and Tonic – Back when my high school boyfriend had the habit of hiding bottles of gin in his laundry hamper and taking swigs straight from the bottle, I couldn’t even smell the juniper-infused liquor without wanting to vomit. Now, in the land of poorly stocked restaurants and Malaria, gin and tonic is my new favourite, a drink for all occasions.

Canned Vienna Sausages – Sometimes cocktail, sometimes full-sized wieners. Sometimes cooked, sometimes taken right out of the can and placed inside a roll with ketchup, brine and all.

Canned Tuna with Mayonnaise – I hate mayonnaise. I hate canned tuna. I eat them mixed together with onions to make a gourmet filling for sandwiches at least weekly.

Vegetables that Appear to be Slightly Rotten – Before I’d throw away the whole tomato or onion or whatever that was sporting mold or a mushy bruise on the outside. Now I cut away the nasty parts and – voilá – a perfectly good vegetable is salvaged. I’d say that my criteria in general for when something is spoiled or expired or is unfit for human consumption has changed dramatically.

Sodas – In a land where there is chronic malnutrition and poverty, there isn’t much of a market for diet sodas. I am now a regular guzzler of Coke, Fanta, and Lemon Twist (the local version of Sprite, much like Squirt which I miss dearly from my childhood in the US).

Bar Soap as Shampoo – Okay, I have only done this 4 or 5 times since moving to Chimoio, usually when we travel and our hosts fail to provide us with guest toiletries. But for someone with fine hair that tangles like there’s no tomorrow, this is quite the low point.

Insect Repellent with DEET – My mom tells a story about how she and her husband went fishing in the Amazon and the DEET repellent they used ate the paint off the fishing rods. Part of my nightly ritual is to slather my legs, arms, and torso in oily repellent. Scary…

Do-It-Yourself Wax Strips – Suffice to say the last time I went to a salon in Mozambique to get waxed, the woman managed to pull off a layer of my skin.

Dial-Up Internet – Oh, how I took my high speed connection for granted. I used to think paying for a wireless connection was absurd. Now I gladly pay $150 per month to use a shitty dial-up connection that 85% of the time won’t open pages that have photos or images.

Pirated B-Grade Films on DVD – These are everywhere. Guys walk around on the streets with big stacks of DVDs that come with 5 feature films per disc. We’re talking quality films by actors like Steven Segal, Wesley Snipes, and The Rock. My initial guess was that the DVDs were manufactured in China but after an enlightening conversation with a street vendor, we discovered that they are, in fact, made in Colombia. Like the vegetables, my criteria for what classifies as a good movie has plummeted big time.

Lizard, Lizard in the Yard

So the superstitions continue...

On the heels of the goat story, my housemates and I were enjoying a bit of late afternoon sun in our dirt lot of a backyard when one of our Rhodesian Ridebacks, Capitu, suddenly started snarling at what looked like a fat twig on the ground. As we approached to check out what on earth was wrong with the dog, she suddenly yiped and pulled her paw back, limping slightly as she retreated away from what we now recognized as a very strange lizard.

This thing was sinister - perfect gray-green camoflauge, back arched, mouth fully open to reveal an almost hot orange lining, hissing and assuming what looked to me like a full-on attack position. The lizard was maybe 5 inches long at the most, but all of us kept a respectful distance. Like snakes and spiders, the lizard struck at some primeval part of our brain that instinctively makes us feel fear and retreat.

I suppose that same primitive part of the brain was behind BL's reaction to pick up a huge rock and hurl it at the lizard. As soon as I realized he was intent on smashing the little beast, I freaked out. I pleaded with him to find a better solution, that the lizard was harmless, there was no need to kill it... For as much as the lizard freaked me out, I certainly didn't want to witness it being smashed by a rock. We finally came to a consensus: Rico got a piece of paper, rolled it up a bit, and managed to scoop up the lizard and relocate it on the neighbor's side of the fence.

Later, curious about the lizard, I spent about an hour searching on the internet until I found a match. Apparently, it was a Flap-Necked Chameleon, an animal regarded by many Africans as having supernatural powers and you'd be hard pressed to find a rural Mozambican willing to relocate the chameleon, much less think about smashing it with a rock.

I choose to interpret it as a good omen that the chameleon appeared in the first place, and an ever better sign that we spared its life...

In other news, our cable TV was cut off yesterday. Why? Oh, come on. You know why...

THE BILL WASN'T PAID!

Unlike electricity and water and a phone line, having TV isn't something I particularly care about, so I'm not going to step in and pay the damn bill. Rico and I usually play the responsible roles of mom and dad in our little community and pay the bills on time, insist on a mimimal level of order in the house, and keep everything and everyone in line. Not this time! I'm curious to see for how long my housemates' laziness is stronger than the desire to watch the models on Fashion TV or the latest episode of PowerPuff Girls (BL and Gemelli have especially strange tastes when it comes to entertainment).

Personally, this is the one late bill that doesn't bother me in the least. I like my life in Chimoio much better when there is no TV to distract me. I spend less time sitting on the fake leather couches watching trash, procrastinate less, go to sleep earlier, and dedicate my time to much more productive activities like art projects and reading.

That said, I'm off to have some cereal and knit a few rows in the latest scarf I'm making. Tchau!

The Goat with the Coin Necklace

Rico and I were supposed to go to Beira yesterday to get the mattress and office furniture but, as so often happens in Africa, things did not go as planned. The Land Cruiser we were going to borrow for the trip was in even worse shape than the last time we drove it, and Rico didn't want to take the chance. Apparently the suspension or the shocks or something along those lines was totally broken (I don't understand much about how cars work, although I can check my oil level, put water in the radiator, and add windshield wiper fluid).

So we stayed in Chimoio for yet another monotonous day of VH1, internet, sweaty fake leather couches, and work on a proposal that has me pretty burned out. Last night I slept alone in the mattress crater, while Ricardo took over my side of the floor bed with the added cushioning from the yoga mat. We both slept reasonably well, but I was so looking forward to a new mattress. We likely won't make it to Beira until next week, though, because we have to finalize the timber proposal and turn in the narrative and financial model to the client by Monday.

Yesterday was actually declared a holiday in Chimoio because the President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, payed a visit to our fair town. Unfortunately, we didn't get to observe the holiday...

Anyhow, our brasilian friend Leo who teaches occasionally at the Chimoio Agricultural Institute just down the road told us a hilarious story related to President Guebuza's visit. Apparently, the students and teachers at the Agricultural Institute have been plagued with a pretty serious run of bad luck. The rain was late, crops dried and then became water-logged when it finally did rain buckets two weeks ago, families have been stricken with Malaria, business has been slow, and grades were apparently pretty poor all around. So everyone decided that Chimoio is under some sort of curse that was causing all the recent bad luck.

To remedy the situation, the Agricultural Institute called in a healer who told them what had to be done. First, he called for a goat. The healer then instructed each person suffering from the curse to get a coin and transfer all their misfortune inside the metal. Then, all the bad luck coins were strung together into a necklace of sorts and placed around the goat's neck in such a fashion that it would never fall off. The healer then directed that the goat be set free inside the Institute. He then gave a final word of advice: if anyone tried to take the necklace of coins from the goat, all of the back luck and curses affecting Chimoio would be transferred to this person.

Rural Mozambicans tend to be a pretty supersticious lot, so not only is everyone at the Agricultural Institute afraid to take the goat's coin necklace, they are all afraid to even *touch* the goat. I suppose this wouldn't be a problem, but the goat has taken a liking to the campus and has stubbornly stuck around for the past 2 weeks. Worse than a cursed goat hanging around, President Guebuza's tour of Chimoio yesterday was supposed to include the Agricultural Institute.

Leo told us that everyone was getting pretty desperate: they were too afraid to touch to goat or even shoo it away, but even more afraid of the shame that they would pass should the President see an old billy running around the classrooms and helping himself to the plants in the experimental farm on the campus. What a predicament! I can't wait to find out what happened the next time Leo comes over for a visit.

Okay, time to shower and get to work... Hope you all have a great day.

Maputo by a South African

Found this online today and thought it was a great article on Maputo.

Revisiting MozambiqueMonday, 08 September @ 20:14:02 Topic: Wits News

"I’ve done it again. Once more I have singularly failed to get past Maputo. Every time I take the trip to Mozambique I promise myself that this time, this time I will press on and reach the fabled beaches of the North: Maxixe, Xai-xai, Inhambane… And then somehow I never do. Maputo, ardent steaming crumbled city by the sea, it seems that I can never leave you behind.

Maputo is six hundred kilometres to the north of Durban, and you could say that it is Durban’s torrid cousin. You can pick out the family resemblances: the broad suburban boulevards, the roadside march of flame trees, the all-pervading mugginess. But Durban is an Anglo-Saxon creation. And if Durban is English Africa, then Maputo is Africa translated into Portuguese. And if you sit at a street-side café just before siesta time, sipping a bitter coffee and idly listening to dealmaking going down at the table alongside, it’s clear which translation is the more beautiful.

Sitting at Chicken Piri-piri with my cousin Guinivere: we slouch on stainless-steel tubular chairs and chat, keeping an eye on the passing scene. Service has improved immeasurably since the last time I was here, four years ago. The waiters seem to be the same aging crew, dressed in the same colonial black-and-white, but a two-hour meal-time has been slimmed down to a snappy forty minutes.

The road island in front of us is crammed with curio vendors, selling everything from the indispensable batiks to lovingly hand-carved pieces of ivory, fresh from under-policed game reserves.

As ever, the citizens of Maputo are impeccably turned out. The passing businessmen are dressed in the Latin manner, with broad-collared shirts in shades of bright pastel, open at the neck. The more casual ones pass by with their shirts untucked. A gaggle of schoolgirls flounce past in non-regulation footgear, hair artfully kinked, ties worn in a Y down the front of their snow-white shirts. A self-assured young buck decked out in camo gear and a revolutionary bandanna struts up and down along the road island, yelling out comments and wisecracks.

One of the most delightful legacies of Portuguese rule are the mulatta women. As an acquaintance once said to me while we sipped beer and watched the passing parade: "I pity the white girls in Maputo. They don’t really stand a chance." They pale in comparison.
Black, white and latte, the women sail past in bright-hued African robes, or sashay along in skirts and high heels. The country is as poor as a church-mouse, but the most hard-up city-dweller dresses like it’s a vocation.

High heels especially are a vocation in a city like this: these chic senhoritas are gold medallists of urban perambulation. Their feet deftly side-step the potholes and the yawning cracks in the pavement, artfully skirting the treacherous patches of rubble. Decades ago the Portuguese planted handsome trees down the length of these boulevards, but over the years of the civil war their great vital roots rose up, pulverising cement, pushing aside concrete slabs. The debris lies there still: no-one has attended to it yet.

Reconstruction is slow. Throughout the war, Frelimo ring-fenced the capital and held it. Much of the rest of the country went to hell, a cruel inferno of landmines and limb-chopping massacre. Maputo was spared; Maputo was left to follow a gentler curve of decay.

On the first afternoon, before lunch, we go for a stroll down the Avenida Friedrich Engels. The name is austere; the avenue is not. It borders the sea, and the houses that line it are the haunts of the influential and the well-to-do. Walls are high and freshly painted, armed guards dot the driveways, the cars are big and glossy. Past the first-world embassies drive the wives on their way to pick up the kids from karate lessons at the international school. This is where the rich and renowned retreat after a day overseeing the nation’s affairs.

But no-one has seen to the park. It lies across the way, wedged between Friedrich Engels and the sea, a narrow bumpy plain of yellowing grass, unevenly thrusting its blades at the neglected trees.

You could grow dizzy, standing on that road, turning your head from left to right. On the one hand, sure-footed power immures itself in moneyed mansions. On the other, yellow untended ground surges past venerable trees, gathers strength at the brink, and plunges precipitously down to the sea.

We cross the road and plough in, picking past grounded flurries of newspaper and plastic. The park is almost unpeopled: a couple sit on a circular bench that barely contains the trunk of a tree. A stroller makes his way down a path; two middle-aged men converse in the shade. At one end of the park a stairway leads down to nowhere. The grass rustles about our shins as we walk; if it were any longer we’d be on the look-out for snakes. Nobody has seen to the park.

Perhaps in time all of the parks will be attended to. The parks and people and the streets and the buildings and the roots of the trees: so I believe. Socialism may be dead, but the spirit lives on here. In the best of worlds the government will turn the tools of Big Capital toward pressing social ends. And that is a part of this city’s charm: the sense that in time it will all be paved over, made over into something bright and new. So I walk the streets in a state of premonitory nostalgia, knowing that one day all of these scenes will be gone.

The city is a wreck but blazing life surges and streams over its dilapidated surfaces. The short skirts and the high heels assuredly pick their way over the decrepit pavements. Near the presidential palace, stunning green-and-blue peacocks hop nimbly over tectonic cracks in the sidewalk. Gilded teenagers josh back and forth as they swagger down shabby broken streets on their way home from the finest schools in the land.

There are more paradoxes than these. Unemployment is high, but people walk with a sense of purpose. The state is corrupt, but things get done. Twenty years of civil war, and the people are the friendliest in the region. The army base in the north-west of town is the most dependable dealer of drugs. Crime is low, even though a decade ago Kalashnikovs were as cheap as lives. (The government solved the AK-47 problem by outlawing the private ownership of weapons. Radical notion.) In fact, your biggest danger in Maputo these days is the police.

On the morning of the second day I had my run-in with third-world cops. Travel tip: never cross the road in Maputo without your passport. In my particular case the problem was compounded because I’d lost my room key moments before. It’s one thing to escape immediate arrest and blag your way back to your front gate, but it’s quite another to stand there and feign really bad Portuguese for fully half an hour while you fend off irritable constabular grabs at your arm and the staff run about looking for the spare key, discovering it doesn’t work, and then taking a hammer and chisel to the door in order to get at the passport in the back pocket of your jeans.

After all of that my English cousin was pretty shaken, and I wasn’t feeling too hot myself. Breakfast was in order.

After a very late night, it’s pleasant to start the day at a pavement café. Prices are a little lower than in South Africa, and the coffee is strong and good. You pick from a range of pastries and toasted bread. At the moment the métical is trading at 3,000 to the rand, and most places drop the last three zeros when they present you with the bill, leaving pleasingly denominated amounts: coffee, 15,-.

It’s just after ten, and the joint is surprisingly busy; suited businessmen cluster at adjacent tables. Breakfast on their way to a late start to the day, perhaps, or would it be a mid-morning snack? Street vendors swoop and swarm; they are unblinkingly ignored by the indifferent patrons. Maputo has a refreshingly forthright approach to the street-vendor problem. Some places have guard-rails between the tables and the street; the bigger ones hire baton-wielding guards. It’s a fairly amicable stand-off: if diners see something they want they just raise a finger.

Newspaper vendors pace back and forth, parading their wares. The headlines scream a story that a South African general plotted with President Chissano to kill Samora Machel, but the serious papers aren’t touching it.

I speak Portanhol, which is espaňol masquerading as Portuguese: Spanish channeled through the nasal passages, you might say. I lean over and ask the businessmen what they make of the tale. "I don’t believe it." They are unanimous. "No, no, not him. He wouldn’t do that."
Pause. "One of the other high-ups, maybe..."

It’s not surprising that the bogeyman in this tale is South African. We are despised, after all, by our Mozambican neighbours. It’s the truth: we are not loved. And it’s not hard to see why. For if Mozambique is our Mexico, then we are their U.S. of A. Black or white, we come across the border in our big air-conditioned cars, throwing our rands and dollars about, buying up the land, closing extortionate deals, speaking loudly in English and expecting to be understood.

We built a spanking new road to Maputo not long ago, so we could truck goods down to the harbour. That highway looks like we annexed a fifteen-metre-wide strip of Mozambican land, tarred it, and lined it with yellow SOS phones all the way down to the sea. But it is seen as a channel of deliverance too, and it has attracted a sort of official cargo cult. "Mantenha a EN4 limpia", say signs along the route: "Keep the N4 clean." And, sure enough, you see women labouring away at the roadside, gathering the litter and sweeping up with handheld brooms.

After years of giving in to easy digs at expat Americans, it’s unpleasant to find yourself on the receiving end of such mingled awe and disdain. Now I know how decent Americans must feel when they travel. Even in the short time I was there the incidents stacked up.

At a trendy bar I spoke to a young Mozambican, and the first thing he said was, "Oh no! South Africa! And I’ve just been saying such terrible things about your country!"

And at the Caixa nightclub, I danced with a girl and bought her a drink. Leaning back with her elbows on the bar, she asked me where I was from. "Africa do Sul," I said. She took it quite well. It’s not like she flinched. But she sort of paused, and then nodded with a curious air of resolve. As if saying to herself, "Well, I’m dancing with a South African. Okay. Okay."

And then when I was hassling with the cops something very interesting happened. The watchman pleaded with them in Portuguese, "Please, he’s just a visitor here. He’s on holiday. He can’t know all the laws of the land."

The temperature rose immediately. One of the skinny young cops spoke heatedly, his voice sharpening and hardening. It was a little fast for me to follow, but it went something like this: "Listen, do you know what they do in South Africa? There they find you with no passport and they don’t wait. They don’t argue. They throw you in a van and they lock you up and then they ship you back home."

Perhaps one can be too hasty in bad-mouthing third-world cops…

On the second afternoon we go to visit the art museum. I generally make a stop there whenever I’m in Maputo, but still it takes us an age to find it, fighting through rush-hour traffic and one-way streets, over potholes and rubble and dust, past Muslim-capped war cripples propelling antique three-wheeler chairs through rivers of cars. Some of the streets are labelled London-style, with blue plaques on the sides of the houses. Others have the names on poles. The streets in Maputo are a monument to everlasting Socialism: Go down Avenida Mao Tse-Tung, and take a left into Karl Marx. If you reach Vladimir Lénine you’ve gone too far…

Our map is abysmal. After we cross a major intersection that has a four-way signpost in the middle with no lettering on it at all, we decide to park and go by foot. Even then, we nearly walk right past the nondescript building with the discreet white lettering on its glass doors: Museo Nacional das Artes.

For once, a country’s National Art Museum lives up to its name: this one has no foreign art in it at all. I don’t suppose Mozambique can afford it. A polished-wood banister leads you upstairs. At the top of the steps, at your back, a great canvas by Malangatana erases the wall. It is easy to play up the Latinity of Mozambique, but Malangatana’s style is something else: a patchy colonial education has let him take up European tools for African ends. The painting is a cacophonous concord of colours: tortured reds, ochres, jungle greens. Malangantana is a sort of indigenous Hieronymous Bosch, and the painting is crammed with haunted figures, faces betraying bewilderment, madness, sorrow, fear. They are jammed up against evil bird-men, disembodied mouths, ownerless eyes, all curving chimerically into each other in a crowded promiscuity of pain. Here on the top of the stairs Maputo’s genial surface drops away, and you look down a pit twenty years deep, a pit of war and shame.

The exhibition hall itself is tiny, a single salon-sized room, and we are the only visitors. We wander among canvases and sculptures. The Makonde of northern Mozambique were surrealists who took no lessons from Dali or Tanguy. Consider this work in dark wood by Celestino Tomás: a monstrous man-beast - Goofy with fangs – lasciviously eats his own foot, all the while reposing unselfconsciously on the head and limbs of a grumpy megacephalic, the latter resignedly performing a sort of obscene yoga in order to keep him hoisted in the air.

We stay for less than an hour. I always make a point of coming back here, but the museum never changes much: it’s a minute enclave of whitewashed order amid the tender chaos of rebirth that storms on outside. The first time I came here, the bathroom was without running water. But at the basins the staff had thoughtfully laid out: a jug, a cloth, a piece of soap, and a towel.

On my last night in Maputo, somewhere past midnight, I find myself deep in beer-sodden conversation with a blond-haired Californian communist. The language is broken Portuguese. The place is a rutted rubbled side-street outside a nightclub. The crowd seems to prefer outside to inside – there’s more room on the dancefloor than out here in the road. The atmosphere is archly Latino –signage in Spanish: muy caliente, very hot; the DJ pushing out a steady stream of Macarena followed by TBD followed by Ritchie Valens followed by Ricky Martin. Nothing I don’t recognise: it’s like any Western nightclub, except that it’s better-lit, and any tune without a sway to its beat is stopped at the door.

Jason is an anthropologist in Africa. He’s telling me that socialism will prevail. It’s all too ridiculous. An American Communist: the last of his tribe. Somewhat to my surprise, I find myself fighting the other corner.

I tell him that Socialism is dead. By now we’ve switched to caipirinhas. And English, thank God. I share with him my vision of a post-socialist Mozambique, harnessing Big Capital in the service of old ideals. Jason snorts. "Frelimo has sold out," he informs me. He leans in. "Listen," he confides, "capitalism has failed." I confess I am a little startled. Haven’t heard that one in a while. Seeing my scepticism, he takes a step back. "Look around you," he cries, sweeping his arm theatrically to take in the fragmented street, the neon shop windows with nothing on display. "See what foreign investment has wrought," gesturing grandly at the cracked and crumbling facades. He spreads both arms wide, his face aglow with mock beneficence. "Savour the fruits of liberalisation, my brother!"

I should remind him of the civil war. And twenty years of Mozambican socialism. I should tell him that what this place reminds me of most is Eastern Germany in 1992. I should, I really should, but I’m laughing too hard for the words to get out.

Losing an argument is a great way to make a new friend. A shot of tequila, and he invites me over to meet his buddies. Three feisty mulatto youths, decked out in shades of khaki (red star at the breast) and peaked guerrilla caps. The makings of a revolutionary cell, I muse. The leader, the loyalist and the intellectual. The leader has long braided hair; the thinker is thin and intense with black horn-rims. I’m loving it. True to form, the intellectual weighs in with his latest grand idea, voice brimming with quiet intensity. They’ve come up with a brilliant big-name beer ad, he says. This is no mere rhetoric: they’ve conceptualised it and shot it, and now they want to market it. Do I know anyone in advertising?

I don’t need to write an article on Maputo. Maputo writes itself. - Michael Prytz"

This article comes from journalism.co.zahttp://www.journalism.co.za/