Sunday Afternoon in Maputo

The cool temperatures (mid 70s) and overcast skies made Maputo quite pleasant today. I'm not sure where the stormy weather came from - perhaps a tail from Cyclone Indlala that is sacking Madagascar right now. KwaZulu-Natal had some freakish weather earlier this week that killed several people. Then, there is the shitstorm that has been heating up Zimbabwe over the past few years.


Coconut vendors - A good drink at the beach.

A couple of hard-bargaining beach salesmen. They tried to get me a few minutes later, but I had no money. They also didn't realize that I knew the current SA Rand to US Dollars to Moz. Metacais exchange rates and can calculate that sort of thing in my head.

Futebol is very popular. Most players are barefoot, but check out the red socks on the guy in the second picture.



Boys with new toys. Kids here are pretty inventive and imaginative. I guess that's what happens when you don't have much access to t.v., video games, and money to buy lots of toys. The toys kids make here are pretty cool.


Future DJ

One more since this kid was such a ham.


These ladies were having a great time gossiping and laughing despite the back-breaking chore of washing clothes by hand and fetching water. They loved it when I tested out my Changaan. The adults seemed pleasantly surprised that I could say hello respectfully and tell them that I was a student of their language and culture in Changaan. The children found the mulunga (white person) who could speak their language hysterical - almost to the point of ROTGL.

Since it is a Sunday afternoon, these kids may be working just to give their parents or grandparents a day off. But maybe not. School is not free in Mozambique. It costs money for tuition, uniforms, supplies, and books. Parents struggle to send their kids to school. I don't know what the fees and supplies cost, but the average yearly salary is maybe 200-300 USD. On regular school days, I often see children working - selling cashews, newspapers, oranges. Other children work with their parents and sell food at the markets. Orphaned children beg and will carry your groceries at Mercado Central in exchange for a few metacais. School, in general, is not free in southern Africa. Pretoria had a student group march and run amok on Friday demanding free education for South African students.


Famba khwatsi.

Maputo From My Roof

Last week I discovered that I had access to my apartment building's roof. It is quite cool up there in the mornings and evenings and overall gets a good breeze. Of course, Google Earth does a great job of letting peer down at the landscape like supreme beings, but if you're reading this blog you probably can access Google Earth on your own. ;-)

This photo shows Avenida Lenine running southwest towards downtown and the waterfront around 0600. This shows the Ciudade de Cimento (or Cement City) that urban dwellers work and aspire to live (if they don't already).


This shot shows Avenida Lenine at 1730. My apartment building is only 6 stories high. The lens is aimed eastward towards Universidade Eduardo Mondlane which is a 15-20 minute walk from my front door. I live at the edge of the Coop bairro (pronounced coop as in chicken coop - jeez running afoul of chickens has left some karmic scars). Maputo has a lot of trees within its boundaries, many of them produce edible fruit like mangoes and mafurra (Trichilea emetica).

Not a great shot of the Ciudade de Caniço, but from up on the roof it is the best I can do. So, stay tuned for in-depth coverage of Maputo's cane suburbs. The area is called a cane city because most of the houses are hand built from recycled materials and cane. People are building cement block homes but it is a slow and expensive process.


Coop barrio at 0600. For anyone wondering why I use military time, its just easier for me. I got used to using it in the field doing ecological and anthropological research and it just stuck. Kind of like the metric system, or commie units as my brother Wil likes to call metric units.

Its fun watching people as they go about their morning business. A lot of people sleep, eat, and pretty much live outside even in the city limits. There is one family living near me with an outdoor bathtub in their backyard that gets used as a bathtub. I haven't seen any adults using it, but a bunch of little kids were enjoying the water on a hot afternoon. One of the older boys living next door at the mechanic shop sleeps outside on a mat. It is most likely cooler than being stuck inside a cement building with no fan. But before you ask, I do not spend my days peeping in on people. I do like to watch people on their way to work or coming home from school or just hanging out and chatting.
The bairro. You can sort of see the corner of a garbage pit located next door to my building. I think it originated as a basement for a building that was either knocked down or never built. At any rate, garbage migrates daily into the pit and gets burned a couple of times a week. I've been collecting pictures of garbage and recycling in Maputo to post. The smell of burning trash in Maputo is dominated by plastic with an undercurrent of rotting vegetation that leaves a vaguely nauseating afterfeeling. I have gotten used to it. It reminds me of upstate New York or Oregon on Saturday mornings, but without the distinct musty leaf smell.

Meu bairro in the other direction. I've never heard the bells toll. That's probably a good thing. Just beyond is Avenida Karl Marx - full of shops and shop keepers.

Hoyohoyo Tijondzweni ta Xichangani!

I just came back from my first Changaan class. It was pretty intense. Tatana Mukhavele is not going to cut us any slack. There are many new sounds and lots of verb prefixes and suffixes.

Some of the new sounds include a whistle (svi), a click (q), and another sound that gets made at the back and roof of your mouth (hlw). I knew there was a reason that I annoyed my mom making all those weird mouth noises as a kid. (Did you ever notice though that boys make more strange mouth noises than girls? What is up with that?)

Here are a few things I learned so that if you ever find yourself in a Changaan speaking area you can have a very simple conversation. You never know when this will come in handy - traveling in Kruger NP, dinner at the Mozambican embassy in DC, downtown Atlanta, the final round of Jeopardy.

Lixile (lee-she-lay) - Good day.
Lipelile (lee-pay-lee-lay) - Good evening.
Khanimambu (ka-nee-mam-boo) - Thank you.
Himina... (hee-mee-na) - My name is...
Wena ke? (way-na key) - And you?
Wahanya? (wah-han-nya) - How are you?
Nahanya. (nah-han-nya) - I'm fine.
Tatana (tah-tah-nah) - Mr.
Mamana (mah-mah-nah) - Ms.
Se yichahile! (say yee-cha-hee-lay) - See you later!
Fambani khwatsi. (fam-bah-nee kwat-see) - Go well.

I should point out that for many words, the penultimate syllable is stretched out. So Lixile sounds like lee - sheeee - lay. The way that words get said reminds me of summer days when it is too hot to do anything or scuffing my flip-flops along a sidewalk. Synesthesia?

Also, this won't get you very far. Mozambique uses Portuguese as its official language because over 43 indigenous languages are spoken throughout the country. Changaan, and similar languages like Ronga, are spoken in the south of Mozambique to as far north as the Rio Save. You might also hear a little Changaan spoken near the border in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga (South Africa) and Zimbabwe.

Changaan verbs, with all their prefixes indicating numbers of actors and suffixes telling whether it is a command or the sentence continues, make learning verbs in Romance languages look easy.

Hoyohoyo Tijondzweni ta Xichangani!
(hoy-oh-hoy-oh tee-zhon-dz-we-nee tah she-chon-gah-nee)
Welcome to Changaan class!