Urban Wildlife in Maputo

Everyone has that one thing that freaks the shit out of them. For me, it's rats. I am not completely phobic, but don't ask me to babysit your pet rat when you go on vacation. Mice go into the same category.

So the rat I found hiding under my laundry sink this evening really got my heart racing. It darted out and then rushed back into hiding when it heard my flip flops scuffing along. I caught myself before some high pitched expletives started echoing around the back courtyard of my apartment building.

Rats and humans have been sharing food, disease vectors, and living space for a long time, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it. There is a rat with a white spot on its back that I occasionally spot crossing the courtyard. Really early one morning I caught a young, skinny rat exploring the walkway between my neighbor's and my doors. It looked at me, sniffed, and then continued along the wall. I know that there are other rats, and that is why my doors stay closed even on warm days.

I come by my disgust legitimately. When my brother was 5, he left the door to our home open in the middle of winter (he had just come in from sledding). Two big barn rats decided to set up house in the warm place with food. One took up residence in my closet. For two weeks, all I could hear at night was the rat scratching, trying to get out.

Try telling your dad that there is something in the closet trying to get out when you are 13. Ha! Ha! Ha! I was told to go back to sleep because I was too old for that kind of behavior. After multiple nights of me waking my parents to complain, my dad took our chocolate lab into my bedroom. I don't know exactly how it all went down, but Ginger killed the rat within 10 minutes. It was big. We found the other rat by the smell of its corpse 3 weeks later. It had eaten some poison my dad put out and died in the ceiling of my mom's office/sewing room. Anyway, that's why rats creep me out.

Roosters and guinea hens next door? Noisy, but okay. Spiders? Sure. Ants? Annoying, but fine. The cute little gecko that lives in my sneakers by my kitchen door is more than welcome. Even cockroaches are a-okay. (Chris had some pet Madagascar hissing cockroaches for a while when we lived in Oregon.) I may have been born in the Year of the Rat, but that doesn't mean I have to like rats.

Dia das Mulheres de Mozambique

Today, 7 April, is Mozambican Women's Day. In honor of the day, I've sorted through my files to post pictures of Mozambicanas.

A few quick facts about Mozambicanas:

A woman's life expectancy at birth is 40.13 years.
On average, she will have 4.62 children.
32.7% of all Mozambican woman are literate.
70% of all Mozambicans live below the poverty line and make less than $300 US per year.
Of the total estimated population in 2006 of 19,686,505:
4,177,235 girls are 0-14 years old
5,519,291 women are 15-64 years old
322,412 women are 65 years and older

Famous Mozambican Women include:

1. Alcinda Abreu - Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation (03 Jan 2005 - )
2. Adelaide A. Amurane - Deputy Minister of Labor (1994 - 2005)
3. Zena Bacar - Mozambican musician (singer)
4. Zena Bakar - Mozambican musician (singer)
5. Esperaça Bias - Minister of Mineral Resources (Feb 2005 - )
6. Lídia Brito - Mozambican forest scientist and Minister of Higher Education, Science & Technology (2000 - 2005)
7. Paulina Chiziane - Writer
8. Chonyl - Mozambican hip hop artist
9. Celina Cossa - Mozambican Farmer and Activist
10. Alcinda A. de Abreu - Minister of Social Action Co-ordination (1994 - 1997)
11. Luisa Dias Diogo - Prime Minister (17 Feb 2004 - )
12. Açuenca D.C.X. Duarte - Deputy Minister of Justice (1995 - 2000)
13. Isidora Faztudo - Deputy Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries (1995 - 1999)
14. Ângela Ferreira - Mozambican-born sculptor
15. Alcinda Honwana - anthropologist
16. Feodata Hunguane - Minister of Information (1986 - 1992)
17. Clarisse Machanguana - basketball player, has played in WNBA (US) and Spanish leagues
18. Graça S. Machel - human rights campaigner, Minister of Education (1975 - 1989), current Chancellor of University of Cape Town
19. Lina Magaia - short-story writer and novelist
20. Virgília Bernarda Neto Alexandre dos Santos Matabele - Minister of Women & Social Affairs (2000 - )
21. Salom M.M. Moiane - Deputy Foreign Minister (1994 - 1999)
22. Lilia Momplé - novelist, scriptwriter, and administrator
23. Maria De Lourdes Mutola - Olympic runner (2000 gold - 800m)
24. Mahommed J. Rafique - government minister
25. Frances V.V. Rodrigues - Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation (1994 - 2005), Ambassador to Belgium, France, Netherlands & European Union (1985 - 1994)
26. Maria dos Anjos Rosario - Secretary of State for Technical & Professional Education - Government of South Africa (1988 - 1992)
27. Nomia Sousa - Mozambique's unofficial Poet Laureate

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.

Mozambique in Mourning

Unknown Weeping Woman. Alfredo Mueche/IRIN

Although people are carrying on with their regular business, the atmosphere in Maputo is a little different. Newspaper headlines highlight the most up-to-date counts on dead and injured, aid agency vehicles carrying food, supplies, and volunteers make daily treks out towards the neighborhoods that have been destroyed, and groups of sad people in their best clothing cluster together. What happened, and what the Mozambican government is going to do (or not do), are the major topics of discussion whenever two people meet.

Officially, 101 people are dead (at least that was the number of bodies delivered to the morgue so far). The city of Maputo is providing coffins for the funerals which started on Sunday. Searchers are also trying to hurry with body recovery in the destroyed neighborhoods because the high temperatures we've been having the past few days are speeding up decomposition (which will make it harder to identify remains). More than 100 children are reported missing according to the allafrica.com news. That number hides the fact that other children are among the dead and injured. The city's psychiatric hospital was destroyed (Which may explain the man with no pants or underwear and a too small tee shirt that I passed on the street yesterday. He was talking loudly to himself in Portuguese as he ran along.).

People are really upset with the government. Apparently, when some munitions (at the same depot) went off in January, the government said that they would take care of it. Well, nothing happened and now a lot of people are dead, injured, missing, and without homes. The army is cleaning things up, in cooperation with HALO. So far over 1400 pieces of unexploded ordinance have been recovered. Most of the pieces are Soviet-made BM-24 rockets (~1m long and 112kg). Some of the ordinance is too big and dangerous to move, so they are getting rid of it on site (whatever that means, I wouldn't want to be around). They also need people who read Russian (particularly former soldiers) to help with the ordinance remaining in the Malhazine depot.

The Malhazine Depot is slated to be decommissioned, but when? And what about the other 30 munitions depots in and around Maputo as well as the others throughout the country? What are the storage conditions like in these places? What will be done about the safety of local residents in the meantime? These are among the questions that many Mozambicans are asking.

My favorite quote so far has got to be the following from the now former Minister of Defense Tobais Dai - even though it has nothing to do with Thursday's debacle. Apparently, after the last explosion at Malhazine in January 2007 which seriously injured 3 people, he said it was their own fault for building their makeshift homes (i.e. cane homes) too close to the military depot. Dai was recently (as in this weekend) fired by his brother-in-law, President Armando Guebuza.

Most of what I've reported above can be read in the local papers and on All Africa news (one of the best sites I have found for reading about what is going on in Africa). BBCAfrica carried on story and a video about the explosions, but I haven't seen anything else since (it is another good source for Africa news but it doesn't necessarily have the little local stories - great pictures though). I think that it is pathetic that nothing has been reported in the US news, although the US mainstream media did carry stories about people dying in Madagascar's cyclone and the recent Japanese earthquake. I am not saying that these are not valid stories, but why only natural disasters and not a disaster caused by governmental negligence? Is it because the American public can only handle one of those at a time?

Some links to the online stories:

Mozambique: Government Negligence Blamed for Deadly Blast
Mozambique: Explosions - Death Toll Reaches 100
Mozambique: Explosions - Death Toll Now 101, First Funerals Held

The picture above has been featured in several local newspapers and I got it from the AllAfrica News site. It was taken by Sr. Alfredo Mueche at IRIN.

Pictures from Thursday and afterwards

All of the black and white photos in my blog come from O Pais (The Country). Unexploded ordinance sitting on the street and in someone's home.




These last 3 images came from the BBC and AllAfrica.com news sources. The current count is 100 dead and 450 injured.



This last picture shows one of the bombs going off.

One Mozambican minister blamed the incident on Global Warming.

More Follow-up on the Maputo Explosions

More rumors are swirling around Maputo about what happened. Some verified by eyewitnesses, while others are still just hearsay. The current official dead count is 76 and hundreds more wounded. Eyewitnesses will tell you that the count is way too low.

Eyewitness accounts:

That big explosion I posted about - the one that caused my hair to fly up even though I was located 3 miles from the burning depot and inside my house. That bomb registered an 8 on the Richter Scale (that's the scale seismologists use to measure earthquakes just in case you forgot). I am glad I stayed in my apartment, although at the time I really wanted to see the fire and smoke (it does pay to occasionally listen to the little reasonable voice in the back of my head telling me to do the safe thing). The news reports that the shockwaves were felt over 25km away from the detonation - windows were shattered.

Natalina, Ventriss, and Etienne were out shopping and watched the roof of the department store they were in twist, buckle and shake. Natalina suggested to the store manager that they might want to consider closing early. My friend Bill saw the really big explosion as a gigantic, 50+ft tall fireball from his terrace. He works out by the depot and said that he wasn't sent home until 5pm. He was thankful (and proud) that his teenage sons were smart and got themselves and their grandma into an alcove without windows, inside the house.

Smaller explosions also registered on the Richter Scale. Maputo is build on sand dunes, so I would guess that it is very easy for shockwaves to travel. If my brother, the geologist, reads this maybe he'll fill me in a little better. Also, don't tell mom and dad. But if you do, Wil, let them know that I am okay and in one piece. If you don't, I'll kick your butt when I get home.

The munitions depot that exploded was located at the end of the airport runway - so no flights until noon yesterday. There were tracer bullets, Soviet-made short range missiles, bombs, etc. that exploded in the fire. Whole families were crushed in their homes as they huddled together as far from windows as possible. Other friends, who were in the neighborhoods checking up on friends, report that at least 2 people found headless spouses. Lots of people had stomach wounds from the shrapnel and flying debris. The dead and living had lost legs and arms. Homes were flattened. The news here reported a lot of confusion and panic as people tried to board chapas to get out of the area. I don't know if anyone was hurt in the rush, but I wouldn't be surprised.

The schools that sent children home when the bombs started exploding now have many children missing. Schools that kept children have not lost students. Three schools of over 1000 students in near proximity to the depot are completely gone. One political scientist student who went to check on friends, found 4 young men (early 20s) trying to get women and children on chapas out of the area because of the remaining unexploded ordinance (more on that later). She found a little, disoriented boy wandering around more than 10 km from his home - apparently he just ran in the confusion and was still discombobulated the next day (finally I got to use that word). He lacked the $0.20 he needed to catch a chapa home, so she gave him the money hoping that he had a family to go home to.

Natalina told me of 2 different families that have unexploded ordinance sitting in the middle of their living rooms - short range missiles. They have no other place to go. There is also an unexploded bomb (or missile, didn't catch which) sitting in the middle of Maputo's main cemetery. Unless people, mainly orphans, are still squatting in the cemetery (like they were in 2004), few people should be hurt.

Overall, the sense is that there are way more dead than reported. The Minister of Defense reported that 3 people were dead Friday morning. Soon after, the Minister of Health reported 72 dead saying he had proof in the corpses sitting in city hospitals. Consulates and agencies are prepared to help with the bomb clean up and storage, but as of Friday afternoon at 4pm there was no word from the Mozambican government according to my sources. The aid agencies that work with children did receive a call for help.

So what happened? Apparently, at least 20 tons of unexploded ordinance were being stored in an arms depot in the Malhazine neighborhood. This is only one of 30 arms depots located in and around the city (hence the vaguely worded US Embassy warning). The conditions for storage are not good and Mozambique has "hundreds of tonnes" of unexploded ordinance left over from the Civil War. It was the heat that set them off and it isn't the first time this year. There were some explosions in January too. I don't recall the incident, so it must not have been so big or killed so many.

It may sound like I am excited over all of this. I am. Excited that I am still alive and unhurt, and that my friends and co-workers are alive and unhurt. It's an excited relief - the afterglow of an adrenaline rush. But there is a little worry in that I know the temperatures will climb again. Bill put it like this at the weekly volley ball game, "We've experienced living in a war zone without the war." (Yes, we played volley ball the next day. Most people are carrying on with their business, even though they also recognize that this is a major freaking disaster. The socializing helped let off some steam and talk.) I cannot imagine how the soldiers and civilians in Iraq (or anyone living in a war zone past or present) deal with this on a daily basis - they also have the added negative that you don't necessarily know who the enemy is or when they will strike. At least, Mozambique is a country at peace with itself and its neighbors.

Rumor:

Apparently I wasn't as safe as I thought. Supposedly, there is an unexploded short range missile sitting in the middle of the Safeway grocery store parking lot. That is about 1 kilometer from my house. I don't think I'll be going to check. Some of the missile and bullets and bombs launched before they exploded, so my 4 kms or so from the depot wasn't really that much of a distance for a short range missile.

Follow-up on Explosions

The explosions last night were a big topic of discussion at the university this morning. Several of the windows had been shattered and glass was strewn on the floor. Several people, my own age, that I spoke to said that it reminded them of when they were children. Their first thought was, "Is the city under attack?"

At last count there were 72 confirmed dead and more than 200 injured. Although the official news story reported differently. I assume that the numbers will change as they dig their way out of the mess. This morning people were still being dug out of the rubble - sans arms, legs, and in some cases, heads. Houses surround the airport, both cement block and reed constructions. So it is not surprising that people are dead. But it is sad.

There is still at column of smoke on the horizon at 12 noon today.

This is the statement issued by the US Embassy to Mozambique:

"The U.S. Embassy is sending this Warden Message to advise the American community about the current situation following explosions that occurred in Maputo on Thursday March 22.

Please be advised that the Maputo airport will remain closed until further notice. Additionally, please be alert when traveling anywhere around the city or on the outskirts.

The possibility exists that unexploded ordinance could be present in the city. If you receive any information regarding unexploded ordinance, the Mozambican government would like you to contact them on a special phone line established for this purpose: 84 250 4920. Please also contact the U.S. Embassy with information about unexploded ordinance on phone line: 21 49 0723.

Also, please contact the Consul directly is you have any information about injured Americans: 82 300 0835."

What does this mean? Were the explosions at a munitions storage facility or what? Are there multiple storage facilities around the city that I need to worry about? What about the military base 2 blocks away? Nicely vague, but ultimately unhelpful. I guess I'll just go back to my business and hope for the best.

One last question though, it has been hotter than yesterday in the past few months, so what happened yesterday to trigger the explosions?

Explosions in Maputo

When I was a kid, okay well maybe into my teens, well maybe into my late teens, my dad would occasionally sit my brother and I down for the talk about appropriate things to put into the attic for storage. See, in northern NY we really only needed A/C about 2 weeks out of the whole year and even then my cousins in Georgia would tease about needing A/C for 90F weather (but the humidity is killer). The attic temps would regularly climb above 100F even with the fans on. Putting stuff that melts or otherwise reacts badly to heat was not a good idea.

Somehow my dad always seemed to find fireworks up in the attic. The little blackcat kind. Not me put them there, I swear. Fireworks are illegal in New York, but we always magically had them, probably because my dad enjoys setting them off as much as my brother and I. We were duly warned multiple times about the dangers of fireworks and leaving them in hot places. Which brings me to this afternoon's tale of confusion and perhaps terror for a few.

About 2 o'clock this afternoon, I started hearing rumbling even though the sky out my office/bedroom window was a beautiful blue. I thought perhaps it might be thunder despite the sky, because many times the sky is blue on one side of my apartment and cloudy and raining on the other side. I looked out the kitchen window, but no clouds. Hot and sunny. Then I thought, maybe an earthquake. Maputo had one last year around this time and it sounds like the 4.something one we had in NY when I was in middle school. But the rumbling continued for too long with no shaking.

Then I thought, well maybe the upstairs neighbors are moving furniture. Nope, they'd need to move an entire warehouse for the amount and duration of noise I was hearing. Still puzzled, around 3:30 I heard an explosion. People on the street below seemed startled but then continued with their business like nothing unusual happened. At this point I was thinking, thank goodness Mozambique isn't at war or experiencing civil unrest. However, the conspiracy theorist that lives at the back of my brain reminded me that 2 motorcades had gone by my apartment yesterday, and that I have been seeing lots of cops and military police on the street this past week. However, I live within 2 blocks of a military base and 4 blocks from the police station, so no go.

After 2 more window rattling explosions, I went up on the roof to see what I could see.



Not much. In the direction of the airport there was a column of smoke like something was burning. I texted my friend Natalina, who has been living here longer than I to see if she knew something. She wrote back "Arms depot. When it gets hot de bombs inside..."

It was the munitions storage facility out by the airport. When it gets hot here, the bombs detonate. However, I could have also checked my email, but when the power starts going off and on I don't like hooking into the power grid. I would hate to fry my laptop. This is what the warden from the US embassy sent me:

22 March 2007
Explosions in Maputo

The U.S. Embassy is sending this Warden Message to advise the American
community about explosions that are occurring in the Maputo area today
22 March 2007.

The explosions are apparently heat-induced weapons explosions at a
weapons site near the airport. This is not confirmed.

Americans in the Maputo area are advised to stay indoors, away from all
windows and away from the area around the Maputo airport until
explosions cease.

If you are in danger please contact the U.S. Consul on 82 300 0835 or
via the numbers below.


Thanks for the email warning. It is times like this that I wonder what would they do in a real emergency - like if the power was cut because of a cyclone or civil unrest or earthquake or tsunami. I hope that they have a plan, but you never know.


I continued cooking dinner. Around 5:45, there was explosion so powerful that the air pressure change whipped my hair about like someone was standing next to me and blowing hard. At the time, I was standing in my kitchen with the window barely cracked open (just so I could get some fresh air). The airport is about 4.5 km from my apartment (2.8 miles), so that was one hell of an explosion. I hope no one was hurt, but I doubt it.

There have been a few more explosions, but even the rumbling has calmed down since the sun set.

Dad was right.

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.