White Hair & Other Distractions

I noticed yesterday in the mirror that my patch of white hair is returning. The patch sits a little to the left of center at my hairline. Over the past 10 years it has appeared and disappeared depending on my stress level. It appeared before my comps and then started to fade before returning for my prospectus. Well now it is back. I suppose I should get used to it because I'm not getting any younger. The best I can hope for is that the winter sun will bleach the rest of my hair semi-blonde and it won't be so noticeable. Ha! Ha! Ha! I suppose it could always be worse. I could be going bald.

Whenever I start to freak about something that isn't worth freaking out about, I try to find a good distraction. So here are some photos of Maputo.

Avenida Karl Marx - looking north from the Baixa (waterfront and old town)

Mercado Central - located on Avenida 25 de Setembro in the Baixa. You can buy just about anything here and there is a section just for handicrafts (although the Saturday market is better). I love how the salespeople try to sell me ivory bracelets and entire sea turtle shells. I tell them that I would be arrested if I ever brought it home when they try to play on my sympathy to support a poor country. The fact is that it really grosses me out - dead animals just don't do it for me. No matter how many times and ways I try to tell them that these animals are rare and endangered and therefore illegal to transport across national borders (esp. to the US) they just look at me incredulously. Other buyers from western countries must be either uniformed, uncaring, or both.

This train station was build in 1910 and designed by Alexandre Gustav Eiffel (as in the Eiffel Tower guy). There is also an iron house here that was designed by him. He never set foot in Mozambique though. If he did, he would have known that building an all iron house (walls, roof, etc) was not a good idea for the tropics. Unless, of course, you want to cook the residents in a giant easy-bake oven.

Parasailing on the bay on a windy day.

Jumma Masjid, on Rua da Mesquita, is Maputo's oldest mosque. I think it dates from the late 1700s or early 1800s but I am not 100% sure. The Saudis have put a lot of money into restoring this mosque to its former beauty. I saw it back in 2004 when they started the reconstruction - peeling paint, dirty walls, crumbling. You could see the original beauty and only despair at the state of disrepair it had fallen into. I'd love to see the inside, but I haven't visited when anyone was around and I would hate to be disrespectful by entering uninvited.

I only wish that similar efforts would go into restoring many of the old buildings in the surrounding neighborhood. The Baixa is the original port town of Lourenço Marques that grew into Maputo. The colonial architecture remains in much of this part of the city and it could be a huge tourism draw.



Some of the doors on the front of the Jumma Masjid open into small stores and restaurants. These were locked up, so I'm not sure if they've been rented out or are used by the Jumma community for something else.

This is the sign for one of my favorite shops. It is a capulana shop - stacked floor to ceiling with in a multitude of colors. The shop is located directly across the street from Mercado Central and is in an old building. I haven't had the opportunity yet to ask if the name indicates a past use of the building (ivory sorting and storage) or was named this because the owners are of Indian ancestry.

Maputo Baixa Saturday Art Market

Every Saturday morning, artists and craftsmen (and the ubiquitous middleman) hold a market in the Baixa of Maputo. The Baixa area is the oldest part of the city and is located below the sand escarpment that dominates your view if you come via water to Maputo. The big N-S avenues like Lenin, Marx, Engels, and Cabral all lead down to the waterfront. (Cabral was an Marxist African revolutionary that founded PAIGC. ) Mozambique is a socialist democracy for anyone who's having difficulty with all the communist/socialist hero worship. Socialism and Communism don't preclude democracy, its just the way they get applied to reality (see also Capitalism). I love the irony of the bourgeoisie shops full of technology and gadgets lining Avenida Karl Marx.

On to the shopping...



Wire lizards, snakes, and bugs. The 3 that look like they are about to run away, came home with me. I got a cockroach, a snake, and a chameleon. This picture makes cool wallpaper by the way.



Wire and beaded sculpture is very popular. It is often made with scrap and recycled materials and a lot of attention is paid to little details. Vehicles have wheels that spin, little guitars have strings, little critters have realistic (and fantastical) colors, shapes, patterning, etc. The smaller the item the more expensive it is, because of the labor that goes into creating all the detail.



In many markets, there are middlemen who do the selling. While there are middlemen here, artists often sell their own work. Usually, they sit in the back working on a project. If you don't see something you'd like, you can put in an order and come back in a week or two. These guys were just chilling out and shooting the breeze. The one that is waving wanted me to take a picture so that I could take the picture (I asked) to Europe. I told him I was from the US and he asked where because he has friends in LA. Of course, they told me to come back and buy more another day.



This sculptor had some really neat pieces and knew what his work was worth. He uses tree trunks and branches to form people. The faces, and sometimes other parts like hands, are polished to a high sheen, but the rest is left rough. Some of the women figures wear capulanas or head scarves in traditional print - so a wood and fabric media. They are very beautiful.



A traditional instrument and musician adding to the sounds of market bargaining.





Tourists trying to bargain. Most items in the market are not all that expensive though. Bargaining is an art, but Mozambicans don't practice it to the extreme of a Moroccan or Turkish carpet seller. ;-) It is relaxed and more about getting a deal for buying multiples rather than singles of things.



This is my village and my people - I bought it and the elephant that is sneaking up to raid the homemade beer that is fermenting outside the little hut. Probably the only time it is okay for me to say this as an anthropologist. I haven't named it yet. I'd bet interviewing here wouldn't get me far. Informant responses would be rather wooden and stiff. Sorry, couldn't resist.

I didn't see these the last time I was here in 2004. The little tablas remind me of Dia de los Muertos boxes containing everyday scenes that I've seen for sale in San Antonio's Mercado (Texas) - sans skeletons. They make them for all sorts of events. I bought a bush school for Chris for his birthday - the little boys and girls were learning the alphabet which I thought was appropriate for a 2nd grade teacher working on his doctorate in "Literacy and Learning." They also had people getting blood transfusions, fugitives, Hash runners, a football game, government officials sitting at a table planning Mozambique's development, a woman giving birth in a tree*, bars, and markets. My friend Natalina, a Senior Fulbrighter (there's a pic of her son following), studies informal markets and she got a miniature Xipamanine Market because that's where she's done many interviews.



My new bicycle. The wheels turn and the front hand-brakes work. Its about 1 foot tall by 1.5 feet long. I have no idea how I am going to get this home or through the mail without it being totally thrashed.



My friend, Etienne, is very pleased with his toy helicopter that his mom just bought him. The helicopter is made out of wire, with hand-sewn leather seats, and a battery hook-up to make the blades turn on their own. Really cool!



I'm not sure what this man is weaving, but its common to see men weaving in Maputo.

*A woman gave birth in a tree during Cyclone Eline in 2000. Her and her baby's rescue was all over the news. Everyone in Mozambique knows about the woman who gave birth in a tree.