Fifteen years later and the airport is still exactly the same. The same empty room with wooden boxes in it where you have to go through immigration, the same conveyer belt running in an S between the pillars, the same old X-ray machine where your luggage has to be checked.
Fifteen years later and the airport is still exactly the same. The same empty room with wooden boxes in it where you have to go through immigration, the same conveyer belt running in an S between the pillars, the same old X-ray machine where your luggage has to be checked.
Outside, the smell of sun-baked earth overwhelms me. The air is hot and dry, even though it is winter. So hot and so dry that it feels as if a film of dust has permanently settled on my skin.
As my taxi drives into the city, I look through the window and lose myself in time: the sprawl of the shanty towns, the shops open at night, the yellow lights imbuing the skin with a golden colour.
Later that week I return to walk along the small sandy path of the shanty town. Behind barriers of dry wood, women wash clothes in large tin tubs while their men sculpt, paint and create jewellery.
One of the most popular craft forms is batik (batique in Portuguese), a piece of fabric with a local scene painted on it.
Some of these products will be sold at the market on Saturday or distributed all over town by informal traders and some will travel all the way to Europe through the Fair Trade organisation.
Somewhere in Spain, France or Italy someone will hang a batique from Mozambique on their living room wall. They will have absolutely no idea where it is or what is going on in the country where it comes from but they’re proud to call it Fair Trade.
Another form of ‘craft’ is made by the children. They blow up a condom, tie a knot and wrap loose pieces of cloth around it to create a more or less round shape.
Place four rusty tin cans on an open piece of ground and you have a soccer field. But now it’s dark, and the contrast of black and yellow shadows calls for endless sweaty nights of drinking and dancing, listening to marrabenta songs.
After a few days the city and I have become re-acquainted. Every city has its own dynamic, its own rhythm.
Maputo is made up of many changing rhythms: in the residential areas people walk fast while in the city centre the informal traders spread out their wares along the pavements so that most people just amble by.
Here your body can cool down and you are borne along by the undulating flow of people. You don’t even have the impression of walking; your feet move along effortlessly in the flux.
At the corner of Salvador Allende and 24 de Julho is Mimmos, one of Maputo’s most popular cafes. Around 5pm it fills up with friends and colleagues discussing the issues of the day over a beer.
This is where Rosa asked me to meet her. I had already visited her the day before at the Centro de Formação Photográfica, a school for Mozambican photojournalists where the primary goal is to preserve the rich collection of photographs in the country, many dating back to colonial times.
In a back room, shelves are filled with thousands of CDs on which are stored digital photos in colour but if you look further you will find old boxes full of mostly black and white photos organised by theme: bicycles, Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo 1,2 and 3, Samora Machel, Inhaca…
After two hours of staring intensely research at these treasures, I asked Rosa if I could buy some. She hands me a price list but it’s bit expensive for me.
She sees this in my face and says, “if you don’t want a receipt I can make you a price. Which one do you want? If you give me 1 000 meticais (around R300) it’s fine.”
She takes the money and crushes it into a ball between her fingers. I wonder if those bank notes will ever see the inside of the centre’s cash box.
But does it really matter? She said she will bring the pictures to me the next day at Mimmos. “Be there at 4.30pm,” she said, smiling.
The next day she is there. Delicately she hands over a large envelope, waits for me to check if it’s the right pictures and then says goodbye.
I try to make her sit down and have a drink with me. I want to know her story, what she is made of, but she escapes. So we say goodbye again after exchanging emails knowing that there will be no other time.
The pictures I have chosen are mostly of former president Samora Machel. In one of them I am struck by the sadness in his face.
It is clear that there is deep emotion emanating from this portrait, whether you like the man or not. Fanice, one of the waitresses, is the first to notice what I am looking at.
She must have quickly spread the word to the other waiters; as one by one they approach me slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of the picture.
When one of them brings me a beer, he takes his time to put it on the table and slowly opens it, his eyes captivated by the sad face of the President.
I push the picture towards him, encouraging him to take a closer look at it while I take the others out of the envelope. Suddenly from all directions, the waiters and waitresses converge at my table.
The pictures pass lovingly from hand to hand; it is no more a restaurant but a gathering of old friends. They all have mixed expressions on their faces: their eyes betraying the sadness of their loss amid smiles breaking through with the joy of just looking at him. Of course they all have a comment to make: “He had feelings for the people,” Fanice says.
“We had everything with him!” one shouts. “I miss him,” a woman whispers under her breath. She uses that wonderful word that only Portuguese speaking people can understand- saudade.
Something that is like a memory that evokes joy and sadness. With Machel’s death, Mozambique didn’t lose hope, it lost the ability to dream. I suddenly feel the need to visit another dreamer.
I walk up 24 de Julho, then turn left into Avenida dos Martires da Machava, where Carlos Cardoso died. In 2000 he drove along the avenue and was shot five times.
Cardoso was a journalist who wasn’t afraid to write, he had to be silenced so that the organised crime of the time could prosper unhindered.
“If we had to look at it in a positive way,” says Fernando Lima, a colleague and friend of Cardoso, “today no one will kill a journalist [in Mozambique]without thinking more than twice.”
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I wandered around for ten days, passing through the arteries of Salvador Allende, 24 de julho, Mao tse Tung, 25 Setembro, a Marginal, and along the veins of the side streets.
Some buildings were modernised, two shopping centres had sprung up as well as new hotels and many flourishing backpackers. Since the peace agreement in 1992, tourism has spread its gaudy wings.
But at night reality returns as white South Africans and Europeans get drunk at their guesthouses talking of their “African experience”.
The streets of Maputo wake up: long queues at the chapa stop (public transport), girls in high heels and miniskirts stand against the walls of the Feira Popular (a district in downtown Maputo), drug dealers skulk in corners, informal traders sell alchohol and, of course, the corrupt police are on patrol.
“You come here!” shouts one of three police officers with an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. “Show me your ID!” The voice is authoritarian but its only aim is to scare me.
So I pretend I’m lost and ask if they can show me where Rua do Arte is -a poular night spot. “You speak Portuguese?” one of them asks without hiding his surprise.
“Yes I grew up here.” I answer. As he hands back the photocopy of my passport he realises that they have to change their strategy. “We’ll walk with you,” he announces.
I don’t know whether to feel safe or not, walking surrounded by three men armed with assault rifles in the middle of Maputo around midnight?
I don’t know, but by keeping the conversation flowing the tension dissapates a little. As we walk they tell me how they are here to protect me.
Their names are Carlos and Dioniso (the third one doesn’t speak) and Maputo is a dangerous place for foreigners.
They complain about their wages, the fact that they have to work at night when they could be out having a drink. When we arrive at my destination the farewell is laboured.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I ask. Their faces light up with pleasure. “Yes but not here!” they add, quickly. We keep walking.
At the corner a boy, aged 15 at most, is seated on a cooler bag. “You pay, he will bring it to us later,” Carlos says.
The boy takes the money and Carlos, Dioniso and their colleague say goodbye and are swallowed up by the park on the other side of the street, where they will wait for the boy to bring them their beers.
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Its 5am, I haven’t slept in a long time but I try to stay awake as the sun is nearly coming out. The airport is empty. It is time to go. I take one last look at the airport building, on top is a banner with the English words “Maputo, The best prawns, the best beaches”. Is that it?
