We’ve all needed a bit of a shove to get going again in post-pandemic life. Hospitable people fell out of the habit of having a full house, comfy people needed prising out of their pyjamas – you know the kind of thing I mean. I have a theory is that this time has been bit of a battle – it’s like we’ve forgotten who we are. So when our trip to Mozambique came round in the calendar I was a bit non-committal …. until my friends prayed for me on Zoom the morning before, and JOLTED me awake, shoving me out of my nest and onto the road! We need friends who remind us who we are and what God’s given us to do. It was soooo exciting to go, and also a little scary because of the logistics (police checks, navigation, language, and the fact that we Nichols were going to be in 4 different countries for a few days – a fun fact but not such a fun feeling).
It took hours to get anywhere near the border, and during those hours I was reminded that I hardly know South Africa at ALL: it is vast, diverse, uncontainable, and we are absolutely foreign. Once through the border, we were in another world again, driving on brand new roads with no potholes (built by the Chinese), surrounded by sandy dunes and elephants apparently? We passed an enormous Chinese cement factory too – hard to convey the size of it through a windscreen of a moving vehicle, but it was like several IKEAs stacked on top of each other – very ominous! Clearly the Chinese are very interested in Mozambique….
How to respond to such a road sign …..?
It was exhilarating to be actually GOING somewhere!! And it was somewhere NEW. As we approached Maputo we crossed over a very fancy bridge into a CITY, glittering like Christmas on Oxford St! Bars, hotels, and people, even women, walking along in the dark – something we just don’t see here. They were even still selling veg and nuts etc. We were driving on tarmac roads past designer shops – I even noticed a Kitchen Aid shop. I was amazed, as I had pictured a rundown little city with some old colonial buildings and not much else. Terrible I know – I should have done some research. We drove right through the city, following the coastline, until we got to the area where our friends live, Calmito and Benita. It was much more rural, and because we had taken so many hours at the border, we were horribly late. We drove round the sandy cul-de-sacs – it felt like driving on a beach – and couldn’t find the right house. We ended up beeping the horn and shouting our host’s name out of the window, “Calmito!!’ until some neighbours came out and showed us the right gate – Ha ha! Then we walked across their front garden and I noticed lots of senseveiras planted in buckets. There was much relief at our safe arrival, and our friends stood and sang ‘Obrigada Jesu’ when we got into the house. I felt a bit weepy. The walls were a bit crumbly but we hooked up our mosquito net on a long straight wire – Daniel (10) and his dad did it. There was really no need to do that, but I was completely paranoid about mosquitoes so they were just being kind. We had fresh lettuce and some chicken, and watched “Fast and Furious” on their massive TV. When I woke up the next morning, it was the first time I’d seen outside in the light. I looked out of the window and a huge white duck was staring at me with one eye, his head cocked to the side. It was as if he was saying “…. you’re not from round here, eh? I am watching you….” Here’s some pics of our bedroom:
Washing in a bucket isn’t my thing but it was brilliant to be forced out of my comfort zone and reminded of different lifestyles and cultures. I resolved to find a nice loo but the one at the training venue had no seat, no loo roll, and crucially, no light!? I had to up-skill quickly! The people we met were so, so kind, and didn’t mind me giggling about being so western and ill-equipped. We picked up one lady called Delight every morning, and she was bedecked in a glorious headscarf and diamanté necklace. Her hubby is the mayor of the village – Santos (pronounced ‘Santosh’). They were so friendly and kind. I had morphed from ‘Pam’ in the UK to ‘Pemm’ in Bloemfontein, and now ‘Pahhm’. My name is Pahhm, and I like Kapalana (lengths of fabric worn as skirts) and Badijia (mashed up beans deep fried and served with lettuce and onion). Yes please.
OK this is getting long, so let’s do bullet points. Things I loved about Maputo:
There is so much activity and building going on there. On every corner of every little street of shops and sellers, there’s piles of metal posts for hammering into foundations, and moulds for cement. The buildings are a myriad of patterns and colours, like in Ballamory.
I quite liked having lettuce for breakfast and bread,
It’s much, much cleaner there – there’s less rubbish. And everywhere we looked, people were hustling. Women were working, buying, selling, swapping and making. Everyone was busy, and we didn’t meet any beggars at all. Calmito said to us, “we’re too busy in Mozambique to beg!”. He explained about how the grannies get up early to get to market to buy fruit and veg, then go home and re-sell it to help their grandchildren through school. Meanwhile there’s a big problem with men, who will only get up for ‘a proper job’. (Sorry for the sweeping generalisations.)
Women looked after us in the training too – they sang, laughed and worshiped as they rustled up meal after meal for 20. I was sad I couldn’t hold a conversation but I managed to take a pic of their washing up area and of a beautiful girl called Fina, who brought round a bowl for us to wash our hands. I tried to fix her up with my son Fin, but I don’t think she quite got the gist of what I was suggesting….
One man had his bible kept in an old drawstring bag like we use in the UK for PE kits in primary school. It was made with fabric printed with rubber ducks on. I am secretly entertained by all kinds of incongruous things like that living here. eg. A red velvet sofa sitting out in the bush where we might build a new training centre. That sofa would easily fetch a couple of thousand pounds in some sort of Retro shop in the Laines in Brighton. Angolan TV shows (because of the Portuguese link). One night we watched a competition where women sat in a soundproof booth, instructing their husbands on making fresh ravioli from scratch. They were getting IRATE. It was a competition, and the men were covered in flour, sweating profusely, dropping things etc. If the man got too wound up with his wife he could press a red buzzer to put her on mute!! Ha! So politically incorrect – it reminded me of staying up late to watch TV in 70’s Britain.
Fresh papaya for breakfast on our last morning. Just too delicious. Then Benita presented me with a coconut shell necklace and said thank you – she appreciated my simplicity. It was so special – she had somehow connected with me, a 50 year-old western woman.
Benita and I bought Kapalana, and wandered around the market looking for the best-priced cashew nuts. I say ‘wandered’ but it was more like jogging – Benita is a busy woman and she doesn’t hang around. If ever there was such a thing as a ‘bustling marketplace’, this was it. Then the men disappeared so Benita said ‘let us go and appreciate some clothes’. The universal language of women out together!
On our way back to SA, we drove through Maputo and bought a plant stand made of 3 branches nailed together, which I will post on insta soon. We somehow got away without doing another COVID test – hallelujah – and we talked ourselves out of a fine for the lack of a certain permit.
We were so happy to have had a mini adventure again after all this time. We had dipped our toes back in to Real Africa! We were happy to come home to see all the decorating and renovating we’ve been doing this year with fresh eyes. And more importantly, we had remembered who we are!
PS. If you’d like more sensible news about our trip (ie. the actual purpose of the trip as opposed to all the fun I had around the edges) you need to follow our other blog – https://emmausfriendships.wordpress.com/
Big Sleeves 