Shiselweni Primary School, Hhohho district
My first shoot was at a primary school in the far north of the country. We drove for more than two hours to get there, climbing up into the mountains past the capital, through pine forests and finally along a dirt road that took us through the high pastures near the South African border. The landscape was beautiful... rolling green hills crisscrossed with ribbons of red dirt road. Everywhere little homesteads with their corrals made of twisted sticks, tiny maize fields and little round huts with thatched roofs. They look so charming from a distance, it’s hard to imagine the horrors I hear about at work and read about in the newspaper happening in them.
The school we visited, like most of those in the rural areas, has a high number of “OVCs” – orphans and vulnerable children. So SWAGAA’s education team had been planning to get out there for a while, but hadn’t because of the distance.
The children were already out of class when we arrived, milling about in the yard with plastic plates waiting to get fed. The government gives some schools food money to make sure that orphans get at least one meal a day. This school, like many others, opted to feed all the children rather than discriminate against those who did have living parents. And they did so, on a limited budget.
We sat in the car for a while waiting for one of the head teachers to tell us where to go, but I decided to get out and get a few shots of the children playing in the yard before the SWAGAA sessions began. I got out and set up my camera, and as I did so a semi-circle of gaping children formed around me. They stared at the strange, gawky white woman with her little camera as she babbled and smiled nervously at them. I tried to say hello, ask them their names, but only got the faintest whispers in reply. Fair enough, I was weird and maybe even a little scary. And at any rate I had a job to do. Children staring at a camera doesn’t make for very good footage, so I moved my camera to try to get some shots of a group of boys tearing around the yard. But the children moved too and before I even got a chance to roll the semi-circle had re-formed around me. I moved a second time, and once again they followed me. Eventually they all ran off. It seems that the food had arrived, and I managed to get some shots of the kids lining up for lunch, eating and running around.
After lunch the kids were divided into two groups, big ones and small ones, and led off to two classrooms for the SWAGAA educational sessions. They teach the kids how to identify abuse and where to report it. And also, as SWAGAA educator Busi tells me, not to blame themselves if they are victimized.
The kids gathered in large classrooms lit only by the sunlight flooding in from the windows. Busi talked to them for about 45 minutes, and managed to keep their attention the entire time in spite of a lack of props or any other kind of resources. She also managed to keep it light, in spite of the seriousness of the topic, so the kids were laughing a lot.
I also went into the classroom where Acorn was talking to the little ones. He taught them a little chant where they rubbed themselves in inappropriate places, saying: “this is a baaaad touch, this is a baaaad touch.” They thought it was hilarious. At least they aren’t likely to forget it.
Self-Help Group, Mpembekati , Manzini district
The women had been warned that I’d be coming, but that didn’t make them any less curious about me. They looked me over, whispered to each other, and asked why I was still not married. But they also gave me the biggest, warmest smiles, so I felt quite comfortable shooting them.
These ladies were members of the Mpembekati Self Help Group, and they live in the hills just outside of Manzini. Self Help Groups are yet another one of SWAGAA’s many programs, and this one aims to empower women economically. SWAGAA recognizes several forms of abuse, among them “economic abuse.” That may sound a bit exaggerated until you consider just how crippled a woman can be when her husband is the breadwinner and she has no access to cash. In the worst-case scenario a woman might be stuck with an abusive man because she doesn’t even have the little money she’d need to take a bus to a safe place. And even when women are working, some husbands will take away the women’s earnings and make her ask to have some of it back for school fees, groceries, etc.
The women in these groups save a few emalangeni every week and pool it to provide micro-loans to group members. They also meet weekly to discuss their problems, to decide who’s to get the next loan, and sometimes for workshops with SWAGAA staff or guest speakers from other organizations.
The meeting I attended began with a prayer followed by some singing. Gospel, of course, in siSwati – a joyful tune that translates into something like, “You are my rock, let me climb into you.” These ladies are born to groove, and soon enough some of them were dancing back and forth across the room, the gogos (grannies) rockin’ out the hardest.
Then they began the meeting, going around from woman to woman to talk about their problems and other issues. Dazie, who heads up the Self Help Groups, listened carefully and kept the meeting flowing. She has 38 of these groups scattered all across the country, and will often go to two or three meetings in a day.
After that they pulled out their purses and account books and put their weekly savings into the pool. Then came the fun part – most of the women had brought vegetables from their gardens to sell to each other, so there was a busy half-hour of commerce before the meeting broke up.
Male Involvement Workshop and March, Nhlangano
The male involvement program is SWAGAA’s newest and, in my opinion, most innovative program. The goal of it is to sensitize men to the problems of gender-based violence, and its links to gender inequality and the HIV epidemic. It began last year, headed up by Bheki Vilane, who spent a few months in Canada visiting organizations that counselled male abusers and doing other research into male violence and programs that address it. But in spite of his research he pretty much made up the program here in Swaziland as he went along. Other countries have programs with goals that overlap with this one’s – such as the “Men as Partners” program in South Africa, which addresses gender inequality – but this program is otherwise quite unique.
Bheki calls a meeting in a community to talk about the program and more generally about what SWAGAA does. At the end of the meeting they select one man who will go to a SWAGAA male involvement workshop with men from other communities later in the year. In order to get the men to come out to these meetings, though, Bheki had to get the chiefs on board. (In Swaziland there are regional councils headed by hereditary chiefs in many of the rural areas.) Not an easy task. He tells me he was chased away by a few chiefs before he convinced them that SWAGAA only wants to help communities build healthy families.
I went to one of these meetings in the drought-stricken Lebombo region, and was surprised to see that about 30 men, young and old, came out, and almost as many women. About 6 of the men said they wanted to attend the upcoming workshop, so they had to take a vote to decide who would go.
In early December I went down to Nhlangano to shoot one of the workshops. The workshop itself was not terribly interesting as I couldn’t understand what they were saying. But one of the speakers was a local World Vision representative who works around HIV/AIDS issues. One thing that I’ve noticed here in Swaziland is that all the non-profit organizations work really well together, both in referring clients to one another and in pooling their energy and resources.
The last day of the workshop the men got together with some of the community members to have a march through town. They carried a SWAGAA banner and placards that read “where are the real men?” and sang and danced all the way. A group of majorettes lead the way, prancing in their little blue, white and red uniforms. Nhlangano residents, out doing their Sunday shopping, looked perplexed.
The march stopped at a square in front of the main shopping plaza, where Bheki and the mayor made speeches. Then a white banner was placed on the wall and the men were invited to make a pledge to never raise their hands in violence. They sealed the pledge by dipping their hands in yellow and orange paint and placing them on the banner. It was a powerful symbol, and all the men from the workshop participated. Bheki also opened it up to men from the community, but only a few stepped up.
TASC field work, Ekudzeni
Last week I made another trip out into the Swazi hinterlands, this time with a nurse and two counsellors from The AIDS Information and Support Centre (TASC), another NGO based here in Manzini. TASC is another a partner organization to Canadian Crossroads International, so they wanted me to get some footage of TASC staff at work.
Like SWAGAA, TASC has a variety of programs, but its main focus is on HIV testing and counselling. I got to tag along with the outreach group on their monthly excursion to a town called Ekudzeni. Our first stop was at a gogo centre next to the chief’s house. Gogo centres have been popping up all over the country over the last few years in response to the AIDS epidemic. They serve as a sort of community centre, run by volunteers (usually grandmothers, thus the name “gogo centre”) where orphaned children can go to get one meal a day. Some basic schooling is also provided for kids too young to go to public school. The centres get some support, usually in the form of food donations, from various NGOs and government agencies.
The gogo centre in Ekudzeni is also the regional VCT (voluntary counselling and testing – have I mentioned that NGOs love acronyms?) centre, and it’s also where TASC holds meetings with its peer educators. These are volunteers who are trained to give out basic HIV and AIDS information, and to encourage members of their community to come out for testing. This group was a collection of charmingly frumpy middle-aged women in red and white aprons and funny hats, and one young man in his twenties. I shot the meeting, then one by one they went to the nurse to get an HIV test. Because a lot of the maize in the area was being harvested that week, nobody else had come out for testing.
I shot one of the tests, framing out the woman’s face so she couldn’t be identified. She left the room and the nurse and I watched the single line slowly appear on the test strip. Negative. Phew. So I continued shooting as she got her post-test counselling. But it suddenly occurred to me what a difficult job the nurses and counsellors have. Imagine having to tell people every day that they’re HIV positive.
We left behind a mountain of condoms – both male and female – and a few jugs of bleach at the centre.
After that we went on a few home visits. During the home visits the outreach team makes its rounds to various homesteads where people are or have been sick to check up on them. They do not necessarily have to be HIV positive to qualify for these visits… anyone referred to TASC by the peer educators is eligible. They also visit homes where grandmothers are raising orphans. That part of the program gets funding from the Stephen Lewis foundation.
At the first house we visited I met an ancient woman and her equally ancient husband. The old woman gave me permission to shoot, and I did so as TASC staff checked her blood pressure and questioned her about her health. Then they did the same with her husband. A small boy climbed up on the old woman’s knee and whispered in her ear making her laugh. A grandchild, or a great-grandchild? Chickens clucked at our feet while a young woman tended to some cooking that smoldered over an open fire.
At the next home we visited a woman and her husband who are raising their young grandson who’s mentally and physically disabled. The boy could neither walk nor talk. TASC staff weighed him so that they could get him some more medication when they get back to town. Since his grandparents don’t have a car he rarely gets to see the doctor.
I couldn’t help but wonder what will happen to the child when his grandmother dies.
Being on those homesteads was a bit of a comfort for me. Working at SWAGAA I have only heard horror stories from the countryside, and have come to think of the rural homesteads as virtual prisons for women and children. But seeing the love and respect between family members in those houses showed me what a homestead should be… A small family farm where several generations of family members live peacefully together.
Lihlombe Lekukhalaela shoot, Mankayane (Rounds 1 & 2)
This country has tens of thousands of orphans, a result, of course, of the AIDS epidemic. A few years ago UNICEF started a program called Lihlombe Lekukalaela (“a shoulder to cry on”) that trains volunteers from each community to make sure the orphans are getting the basics of food, shelter, clothing and access to education. A lot of NGOs and government agencies provide these things specifically to orphans, but it doesn’t always reach them. So the volunteers refer the kids to the appropriate organizations or agencies. They also talk to the children about abuse, since orphans are often the most vulnerable. Here’s how Doreen, one of the SWAGAA staff members who trains the volunteers, explained it to me:
“They don’t report these matters, they fear to report. Even if... when someone comes and says, ‘I’m your uncle, I will give you bread now, I will give you food.’ They always think that person is right, even if he is abusing them. They say, ‘He is right, because we are needy. If he gives us bread, at the end of the day we should give him what we can give him.’ You find them being abused in that way.”
During the first shoot we met one of the volunteers, Richard, who took us to meet some of the orphans he was working with. As I walked down to the homestead I felt a bit like I was walking into a World Vision ad. Half a dozen kids of every size, from infant up to teenaged, came out wearing ill-fitting clothes. Then their mother came out. Mother? Yep, these orphans were “single orphans”, not “double orphans”, as they are described by the NGOs. I had just assumed we’d be meeting double orphans, since in Canada we don’t refer to a child as an orphan unless he or she is parentless. The family, however, wasn’t doing very well. The mother didn’t have a regular job, but grew maize and gardened. Hardly enough to sustain 5 kids.
I interviewed Richard, then tried to ask the oldest girl a few questions. She was so shy she couldn’t even look at the camera. After that I got some shots of the kids skipping, then I put down the camera and joined them. Thandi, the staff member who’d set up the shoot, screamed with laughter as I bounced awkwardly up and down.
After reviewing the footage, I asked Thandi to set up another shoot. I just didn’t have what I needed from the first one. Richard had been almost monosyllabic in the interview, and I still didn’t have the voice of a child in the video, which I’d been hoping to get from one of the orphans. So we went off to Mankayane again a few weeks later.
The next time I met another volunteer called Sibongile, a gregarious mother and grocer’s wife. She took us to a homestead where 6 children had been living alone for several years. After their parents died in a car accident 11 years ago an uncle took over caring for them, but then he fell sick and died as well. The oldest was in his mid-teens at the time. Now he’s 18, a high school dropout who went to work on a chicken farm to maintain the family.
I interviewed the youngest boy, Sebenele… shy but with a quiet confidence about him. He says he wants to be a teacher when he’s old enough. I also interviewed Sibongile, who says she checks in on 30 different homesteads where orphans live. She could point to several other orphans homes from where we stood on the side of a hill.
Again, I wasn’t completely satisfied with the shoot, although I’ll have to use one or another since it’s too late to get anything else. But I can’t understand why, in a country with hundreds of child-lead households, I couldn’t seem to find one? This is not to say Sebenele and his brothers weren’t having a tough time, but I’ve read about households being run by children as young as 8 or 9. Would certainly make for more compelling footage.
But it feels strange, too, measuring up people’s hardships to try to decide which makes the saddest, and therefore “the best” story.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Bride-price negotiations (no, not mine)
The red bull took a long time to die, in spite of the spear with the broken shaft embedded in his side. It walked around the corral in a daze, as if in disbelief that the end was coming. Only when a young man tried to pull the spear out did it react by bucking and dancing away, while the children chanted “Let it live! Let it live!”
On the third attempt to retrieve the weapon, the bull lunged at the fence of the corral, sending the women and children who had been watching scattering. I joined the mad scramble, looking back only when I was at a safe distance. The men were holding up the fence and pushing the bull back. The spearsman darted in and grabbed what was left of his weapon, wrenching it out.
The bull fell shortly after. Its throat was slit open, and the business of butchering began.
I was witnessing a lobola negotiation ceremony, where the family of the bride and groom-to-be get together to sort out the bride price and formalize the engagement. It took place at a homestead, a small family farm, in the countryside in Swaziland’s southeast. The practice of lobola has endured throughout Swaziland, in spite of the strong western and Christian influences in the country. Even the young, urban professionals are not immune, and the couple at this ceremony had met when they were in university together. I was tagging along with a Canadian friend who was invited by the groom-to-be, Toulani, her work colleague at a micro-finance institution.
The negotiations were already underway in a large, circular hut when we arrived, so we crept in and joined the groom’s family on the floor. His sister Sbonsiwe came over and explained, in whispers, what was going on. It seems there was a disagreement about the cost of cattle. The bride price is traditionally paid in cattle, usually around 15 -20 animals in total, but in this case half the price would be paid in cash. The disagreement was over the price of the individual cows... the groom’s family said each one was worth 1000 Emalangeni where they came from, while the bride’s family said it was 2000 in their region. They soon came to a compromise of 1500 per cow.
The man heading up the negotiations on the groom’s side placed a huge wad of cash on the floor, and the bride’s uncles took it and counted it. They smiled their approval, and the groom’s face showed relief after a long period of tension. Then joking began. “What about the white girls?” asked one man. “Are they married?” When the answer, no, came back, the younger man claimed Marise for himself. His toothless companion said I’d do for him. Fortunately for us, our future husbands left shortly after with the other men to go inspect the cattle.
With only the women left, a young girl from the groom’s family set out to give the old women from the bride’s family gifts of blankets and headscarves. She draped a new blanket over each woman’s shoulders, and tied a scarf over each woman’s head. Each woman had already been wearing a headscarf – the sign of a married woman – and a shawl, yet they still seemed immune to the 30 degree heat in spite of their multiple layers.
Next they pulled a dress over the bride’s head – the simple cotton print dress worn by rural mamas – and tied a scarf over her bare head. She cried as her friends fussed over her and giggled at her new matronly appearance. The old women got up and shuffled out of the hut.
Now it was time for the bride’s friends and cousins to show their joy in the successful negotiations by dancing. Nobody was willing to start, until finally the bride’s best friend got up and stood in the centre of the room.
She danced alone, accompanied only by the clapping and singing of the other girls. They sang about hangovers, pregnancy and the dangers of HIV, while the dancer kicked one leg at a time high into the air, bringing it back down to the ground with a flat-footed slap. The skill seemed to be in how high the dancer could kick her leg in the time allotted by the song.
The girls took turns taking the stage, dancing alone or in pairs. One flexible girl of about 11 out-danced all of them. She mocked the young men who had crept into the hut by doing a dance about having too much to drink, and kicked her legs so high I thought she’d kick herself. Her friend got up and did a moving dance about a young girl who is realizing that something is growing in her belly. Even Katie, the Canadian girl who’d brought Marise and I along, had her turn. Her work colleagues pushed her onto the floor and she good-naturedly complied with a little dance, ending with an attempt at a high kick, much to everyone’s amusement.
After the dancing we joined the rest of the party at the corral to watch the slaughter of two cows. The cows would be eaten the following day, when the engagement ceremonies continued. The first cow to be slaughtered, a small black and white one, took even longer than the bull to die. I will spare you the gruesome details of that killing-gone-awry.
I asked one of Katie’s colleagues why they used spears to kill the cow, seeing as it didn’t seem to be either the most efficient or humane way to do it, and she replied, “How else would they kill it?” Good point. A cow is a large animal, and the quick slit of the throat used on goats is rather more difficult on a large beast with horns. The men doing the killing showed their respect for the animals, though, by sitting until the animal fell.
When the two cows were motionless on the ground, the fun began. First the skin had to be peeled back, while obliging young women held the cow’s legs out of the way. Then all the bits inside were extracted and taken inside in plastic tubs, then the legs hacked off with an axe and hung on the fence to, um.... I don’t know. Dry? Finally, they carried the body of the cows into the kitchen, singing and laughing all the way. There even seemed to be a bit of a tug-of-war game going on at one point with one of the cows. How, I don’t know... You’d think a mutilated corpse would be much too slippery for such games.
After that it was time to start drinking, or time to go home. We opted for home. It was a long drive back along a pot-holed highway in a truck with malfunctioning headlights. Only the high-beams worked, so when we passed other cars either we were blinded or they were. But we made it at last, and I tumbled in to bed where visions of severed limbs danced in my head...
On the third attempt to retrieve the weapon, the bull lunged at the fence of the corral, sending the women and children who had been watching scattering. I joined the mad scramble, looking back only when I was at a safe distance. The men were holding up the fence and pushing the bull back. The spearsman darted in and grabbed what was left of his weapon, wrenching it out.
The bull fell shortly after. Its throat was slit open, and the business of butchering began.
I was witnessing a lobola negotiation ceremony, where the family of the bride and groom-to-be get together to sort out the bride price and formalize the engagement. It took place at a homestead, a small family farm, in the countryside in Swaziland’s southeast. The practice of lobola has endured throughout Swaziland, in spite of the strong western and Christian influences in the country. Even the young, urban professionals are not immune, and the couple at this ceremony had met when they were in university together. I was tagging along with a Canadian friend who was invited by the groom-to-be, Toulani, her work colleague at a micro-finance institution.
The negotiations were already underway in a large, circular hut when we arrived, so we crept in and joined the groom’s family on the floor. His sister Sbonsiwe came over and explained, in whispers, what was going on. It seems there was a disagreement about the cost of cattle. The bride price is traditionally paid in cattle, usually around 15 -20 animals in total, but in this case half the price would be paid in cash. The disagreement was over the price of the individual cows... the groom’s family said each one was worth 1000 Emalangeni where they came from, while the bride’s family said it was 2000 in their region. They soon came to a compromise of 1500 per cow.
The man heading up the negotiations on the groom’s side placed a huge wad of cash on the floor, and the bride’s uncles took it and counted it. They smiled their approval, and the groom’s face showed relief after a long period of tension. Then joking began. “What about the white girls?” asked one man. “Are they married?” When the answer, no, came back, the younger man claimed Marise for himself. His toothless companion said I’d do for him. Fortunately for us, our future husbands left shortly after with the other men to go inspect the cattle.
With only the women left, a young girl from the groom’s family set out to give the old women from the bride’s family gifts of blankets and headscarves. She draped a new blanket over each woman’s shoulders, and tied a scarf over each woman’s head. Each woman had already been wearing a headscarf – the sign of a married woman – and a shawl, yet they still seemed immune to the 30 degree heat in spite of their multiple layers.
Next they pulled a dress over the bride’s head – the simple cotton print dress worn by rural mamas – and tied a scarf over her bare head. She cried as her friends fussed over her and giggled at her new matronly appearance. The old women got up and shuffled out of the hut.
Now it was time for the bride’s friends and cousins to show their joy in the successful negotiations by dancing. Nobody was willing to start, until finally the bride’s best friend got up and stood in the centre of the room.
She danced alone, accompanied only by the clapping and singing of the other girls. They sang about hangovers, pregnancy and the dangers of HIV, while the dancer kicked one leg at a time high into the air, bringing it back down to the ground with a flat-footed slap. The skill seemed to be in how high the dancer could kick her leg in the time allotted by the song.
The girls took turns taking the stage, dancing alone or in pairs. One flexible girl of about 11 out-danced all of them. She mocked the young men who had crept into the hut by doing a dance about having too much to drink, and kicked her legs so high I thought she’d kick herself. Her friend got up and did a moving dance about a young girl who is realizing that something is growing in her belly. Even Katie, the Canadian girl who’d brought Marise and I along, had her turn. Her work colleagues pushed her onto the floor and she good-naturedly complied with a little dance, ending with an attempt at a high kick, much to everyone’s amusement.
After the dancing we joined the rest of the party at the corral to watch the slaughter of two cows. The cows would be eaten the following day, when the engagement ceremonies continued. The first cow to be slaughtered, a small black and white one, took even longer than the bull to die. I will spare you the gruesome details of that killing-gone-awry.
I asked one of Katie’s colleagues why they used spears to kill the cow, seeing as it didn’t seem to be either the most efficient or humane way to do it, and she replied, “How else would they kill it?” Good point. A cow is a large animal, and the quick slit of the throat used on goats is rather more difficult on a large beast with horns. The men doing the killing showed their respect for the animals, though, by sitting until the animal fell.
When the two cows were motionless on the ground, the fun began. First the skin had to be peeled back, while obliging young women held the cow’s legs out of the way. Then all the bits inside were extracted and taken inside in plastic tubs, then the legs hacked off with an axe and hung on the fence to, um.... I don’t know. Dry? Finally, they carried the body of the cows into the kitchen, singing and laughing all the way. There even seemed to be a bit of a tug-of-war game going on at one point with one of the cows. How, I don’t know... You’d think a mutilated corpse would be much too slippery for such games.
After that it was time to start drinking, or time to go home. We opted for home. It was a long drive back along a pot-holed highway in a truck with malfunctioning headlights. Only the high-beams worked, so when we passed other cars either we were blinded or they were. But we made it at last, and I tumbled in to bed where visions of severed limbs danced in my head...
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Christmas Eve with Shark and Pig
In the morning I’m snorkelling in deep blue waves with a dozen sunburnt South Africans while a three-metre whale shark swims underneath us. By afternoon I find myself stuffed into an over-crowded minibus with 18 people and one pig.
Oink.
An odd combination of circumstances that is actually quite common to the backpacker’s experience of Mozambique.
The tourism industry in Mozambique is still somewhat in its infancy. The fabulous beaches have always been there, but decades of civil war kept the tourists away. About 10 years ago, some intrepid South African tourists started making their way up the coast, finding some beautiful and almost empty coastline along the way. Today they come in droves, especially around the Christmas holidays. They drive up in huge bakkies (trucks) loaded down with barbecues, four-wheelers, jet-skis and loads of camping gear.
And the hotels followed. Today dozens of resorts dot the coastline, especially along a huge stretch of white-sand beach called Praia de Tofo, about four hours north of the capital city of Maputo. There are restaurants, all-hours bars, dive shops and surf shops, almost all run by South Africans.
But the transportation infrastructure is still somewhat lacking. Visitors endure hours of bumping along roads with potholes the size of, ummm... maybe a whale shark. And backpackers have no choice but to join the locals in the cheap-and-cheerful “chappas” – minibuses loaded down with so many people that limbs and occasionally whole torsos flail out the windows, with bags and goats strapped up top, and the occasional pig or chicken under the seat.
My friend Mark and I met up in mid-December to spend our Christmas holidays exploring together. As he was working in Namibia and I in Swaziland, we decided to meet up in Johannesburg and plan our adventures from there. Our original plan had been to go to Botswana, but the lure of tropical beaches was too strong and we decided to head out to Mozambique instead.
We started in Maputo, the capital city which is tucked into the bottom corner of the country, near its borders with Swaziland and South Africa. We were pleasantly surprised by the city’s laid-back, Latin atmosphere. Both of us are living in cities founded by dour Afrikaaners, where the South African fear of crime and strip-mall culture is strong. So as we wandered through Maputo’s colourful streets full of street vendors and music, I turned to Mark and said, “This is how I imagined Africa would be.”
We weren’t in the city long before we headed up to Tofo.
The beach was gorgeous, with huge turquoise waves crashing in from the Indian Ocean. The water was warm but the surf often too rough to do much swimming, so pent most of my time hanging out on the beach. Local boys would come along every few minutes selling shell bracelets they made themselves. They said they used the money to pay for school fees. Imagine an eight-year-old in Canada working all summer so he could go to school.
But the boys were cheerful and friendly, and always brought along a soccer ball to amuse themselves when sales weren’t going so well. One day when they were playing on the beach and I approached them to take a picture. When the ball came my way, I joined in, and was having so much fun that I forgot about taking pictures. Mark joined in, then a few other tourists on the beach. So it was The Bracelet Boys versus The Tourists. They were just small enough that we managed to keep up with them. We played until the tide came in too deep.
On my second day there I embarked on a ridiculous and over-priced expedition labelled an “Ocean Safari”. The point of this safari is for a dozen tourists to get on a large boat and waste tons of gas zipping back and forth through the waves in search of a whale shark. Once the shark is found, the tourists slap on snorkels, masks and flippers and dive in the water. They snorkel alongside the whale shark until they get tired. Then the boat picks them up, takes them ahead of the whale shark, and they do it all over again.
The first time I jumped in the whale shark was coming straight for me. I adjusted my mask, peered through the turquoise depths, and mouthed “holy shit!” into my snorkel. I moved out of the way just on time, and the giant creature sailed past. They’re krill-eaters, so they’re perfectly harmless. But they are alarmingly large.
The whale shark was quite laid back, so she let us swim with her for almost an hour. Which was too long for me. The sea was rough that day, and I’m apparently not much of a mariner. I was the first to lose my breakfast over the side of the boat, so I was quite grateful when we got back on land.
Later that day, several of us boarded a chappa (the one with the pig) to Inhambane to get some money from the cash machine. Our chappa on the way back broke down, so we flagged down a passing truck. Everybody in from the chappa hopped in, which left only standing room for myself and a few others. Ever stood in the back of a moving truck on a pot-holed road? It was an interesting exercise in balance.
Our next stop was another 5 hours north in Vilanculos, a small town that hit by a cyclone just last year. Since many people in Mozambique live in reed huts, I don’t know how there weren’t any fatalities. The town doesn’t show any signs of the cyclone now, but the storm did do some serious damage to the reefs there. Which means tourism numbers are down, just when they need us the most.
But neither Mark nor I dive, so we were quite happy to spend our time there wandering around town, exploring the market, stuffing our faces with Portuguese bread and tarts, and meeting the locals. Some small girls taught me a game played with pebbles that’s something like jacks. You toss on pebble in the air, and gather as many pebbles from the ground as you can before catching it. They giggled at my clumsiness when I gave it a try.
We also did another tourist trip, this time a “dhow safari”. A dhow is a type of sailboat still used by Mozambiquan fisherman today, with an ancient design that I think was imported by Arabic spice traders centuries ago. They took us across the water to one of the islands, where the beautiful white sand led right down to a reef that’s good for snorkelling. I’ve never seen so many amazing fish. Mostly small angel fish, but others in blue, yellow, white, even one that seemed almost transparent. Tiny neons swimming in schools that flashed electric blue when I reached out my hand to scatter them. The swimming was effortless as the current carried us along the reef.
The island was just gorgeous, and after lunch (fresh crabs and calamari, with a view of dolphins leaping along the channel) I walked down the beach to a high-tide lagoon between the reef and the sand where the swimming was lovely. If Adam and Eve had a swimming pool in the garden of Eden, I think it might have been something like this one.
On the way out the men brought up the sails, tugging them this way and that with ropes. We floated gently across the shallow, turquoise water until suddenly we heard a huge crack. The mast broke in two and tumbled into the water, taking half the sail with it and narrowly missing hitting a few children.
We headed back down to Maputo for New Year’s. We got more of a chance to explore the capital this time, including the big open-air market just outside the city centre. This amazing place sold just about everything you can imagine: fruit, vegetables, baskets, hand-carved wooden spoons and bowls, goats, chickens, clothes, toiletries, even hair extensions. We took a look at the goats and the enthusiastic vendor kept pulling a mottled brown and white one towards us with a big grin. “This one very nice!” How do I explain to him that I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a goat? That meat in my world comes faceless and nameless in styrofoam trays from the supermarket? We also watched, amused, as live chickens were placed in plastic shopping bags, with little holes poked in the side where their heads stuck out.
The most interesting part was the medicinal market, which reminded me of some of the shops in Vancouver’s Chinatown. They had all kinds of pelts and skins hanging from the rafters, and jars full of dried snakes and lizards. There were bundles and bundles of twigs, bark, and roots, and jars packed with dried leaves and coloured powders. One vendor even had a dried puffer fish and a shark’s jaw. I which of these mysterious ingredients are used medicinally, and which are used for magic.
We spent New Year’s eve at a street party in the middle of a city. There was a live concert featuring several Mozambican stars, and an R&B artist from the States. It was good fun... We danced with strangers who were delighted with the two awkward white people who spontaneously joined them, and watched as a little man with a big knife try to pick a fight with our newly-acquired friends from Cape Town.
From there we went back to Joburg, where Mark went to visit some distant relatives, while I took off to Soweto. More on that later...
Oink.
An odd combination of circumstances that is actually quite common to the backpacker’s experience of Mozambique.
The tourism industry in Mozambique is still somewhat in its infancy. The fabulous beaches have always been there, but decades of civil war kept the tourists away. About 10 years ago, some intrepid South African tourists started making their way up the coast, finding some beautiful and almost empty coastline along the way. Today they come in droves, especially around the Christmas holidays. They drive up in huge bakkies (trucks) loaded down with barbecues, four-wheelers, jet-skis and loads of camping gear.
And the hotels followed. Today dozens of resorts dot the coastline, especially along a huge stretch of white-sand beach called Praia de Tofo, about four hours north of the capital city of Maputo. There are restaurants, all-hours bars, dive shops and surf shops, almost all run by South Africans.
But the transportation infrastructure is still somewhat lacking. Visitors endure hours of bumping along roads with potholes the size of, ummm... maybe a whale shark. And backpackers have no choice but to join the locals in the cheap-and-cheerful “chappas” – minibuses loaded down with so many people that limbs and occasionally whole torsos flail out the windows, with bags and goats strapped up top, and the occasional pig or chicken under the seat.
My friend Mark and I met up in mid-December to spend our Christmas holidays exploring together. As he was working in Namibia and I in Swaziland, we decided to meet up in Johannesburg and plan our adventures from there. Our original plan had been to go to Botswana, but the lure of tropical beaches was too strong and we decided to head out to Mozambique instead.
We started in Maputo, the capital city which is tucked into the bottom corner of the country, near its borders with Swaziland and South Africa. We were pleasantly surprised by the city’s laid-back, Latin atmosphere. Both of us are living in cities founded by dour Afrikaaners, where the South African fear of crime and strip-mall culture is strong. So as we wandered through Maputo’s colourful streets full of street vendors and music, I turned to Mark and said, “This is how I imagined Africa would be.”
We weren’t in the city long before we headed up to Tofo.
The beach was gorgeous, with huge turquoise waves crashing in from the Indian Ocean. The water was warm but the surf often too rough to do much swimming, so pent most of my time hanging out on the beach. Local boys would come along every few minutes selling shell bracelets they made themselves. They said they used the money to pay for school fees. Imagine an eight-year-old in Canada working all summer so he could go to school.
But the boys were cheerful and friendly, and always brought along a soccer ball to amuse themselves when sales weren’t going so well. One day when they were playing on the beach and I approached them to take a picture. When the ball came my way, I joined in, and was having so much fun that I forgot about taking pictures. Mark joined in, then a few other tourists on the beach. So it was The Bracelet Boys versus The Tourists. They were just small enough that we managed to keep up with them. We played until the tide came in too deep.
On my second day there I embarked on a ridiculous and over-priced expedition labelled an “Ocean Safari”. The point of this safari is for a dozen tourists to get on a large boat and waste tons of gas zipping back and forth through the waves in search of a whale shark. Once the shark is found, the tourists slap on snorkels, masks and flippers and dive in the water. They snorkel alongside the whale shark until they get tired. Then the boat picks them up, takes them ahead of the whale shark, and they do it all over again.
The first time I jumped in the whale shark was coming straight for me. I adjusted my mask, peered through the turquoise depths, and mouthed “holy shit!” into my snorkel. I moved out of the way just on time, and the giant creature sailed past. They’re krill-eaters, so they’re perfectly harmless. But they are alarmingly large.
The whale shark was quite laid back, so she let us swim with her for almost an hour. Which was too long for me. The sea was rough that day, and I’m apparently not much of a mariner. I was the first to lose my breakfast over the side of the boat, so I was quite grateful when we got back on land.
Later that day, several of us boarded a chappa (the one with the pig) to Inhambane to get some money from the cash machine. Our chappa on the way back broke down, so we flagged down a passing truck. Everybody in from the chappa hopped in, which left only standing room for myself and a few others. Ever stood in the back of a moving truck on a pot-holed road? It was an interesting exercise in balance.
Our next stop was another 5 hours north in Vilanculos, a small town that hit by a cyclone just last year. Since many people in Mozambique live in reed huts, I don’t know how there weren’t any fatalities. The town doesn’t show any signs of the cyclone now, but the storm did do some serious damage to the reefs there. Which means tourism numbers are down, just when they need us the most.
But neither Mark nor I dive, so we were quite happy to spend our time there wandering around town, exploring the market, stuffing our faces with Portuguese bread and tarts, and meeting the locals. Some small girls taught me a game played with pebbles that’s something like jacks. You toss on pebble in the air, and gather as many pebbles from the ground as you can before catching it. They giggled at my clumsiness when I gave it a try.
We also did another tourist trip, this time a “dhow safari”. A dhow is a type of sailboat still used by Mozambiquan fisherman today, with an ancient design that I think was imported by Arabic spice traders centuries ago. They took us across the water to one of the islands, where the beautiful white sand led right down to a reef that’s good for snorkelling. I’ve never seen so many amazing fish. Mostly small angel fish, but others in blue, yellow, white, even one that seemed almost transparent. Tiny neons swimming in schools that flashed electric blue when I reached out my hand to scatter them. The swimming was effortless as the current carried us along the reef.
The island was just gorgeous, and after lunch (fresh crabs and calamari, with a view of dolphins leaping along the channel) I walked down the beach to a high-tide lagoon between the reef and the sand where the swimming was lovely. If Adam and Eve had a swimming pool in the garden of Eden, I think it might have been something like this one.
On the way out the men brought up the sails, tugging them this way and that with ropes. We floated gently across the shallow, turquoise water until suddenly we heard a huge crack. The mast broke in two and tumbled into the water, taking half the sail with it and narrowly missing hitting a few children.
We headed back down to Maputo for New Year’s. We got more of a chance to explore the capital this time, including the big open-air market just outside the city centre. This amazing place sold just about everything you can imagine: fruit, vegetables, baskets, hand-carved wooden spoons and bowls, goats, chickens, clothes, toiletries, even hair extensions. We took a look at the goats and the enthusiastic vendor kept pulling a mottled brown and white one towards us with a big grin. “This one very nice!” How do I explain to him that I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a goat? That meat in my world comes faceless and nameless in styrofoam trays from the supermarket? We also watched, amused, as live chickens were placed in plastic shopping bags, with little holes poked in the side where their heads stuck out.
The most interesting part was the medicinal market, which reminded me of some of the shops in Vancouver’s Chinatown. They had all kinds of pelts and skins hanging from the rafters, and jars full of dried snakes and lizards. There were bundles and bundles of twigs, bark, and roots, and jars packed with dried leaves and coloured powders. One vendor even had a dried puffer fish and a shark’s jaw. I which of these mysterious ingredients are used medicinally, and which are used for magic.
We spent New Year’s eve at a street party in the middle of a city. There was a live concert featuring several Mozambican stars, and an R&B artist from the States. It was good fun... We danced with strangers who were delighted with the two awkward white people who spontaneously joined them, and watched as a little man with a big knife try to pick a fight with our newly-acquired friends from Cape Town.
From there we went back to Joburg, where Mark went to visit some distant relatives, while I took off to Soweto. More on that later...
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