"Very nice, I think you should give her to me."

I soon found the days merging into the first fortnight of my three months stay in Morrumbala, Mozambique, before returning to work in England in the New Year.

My Portuguese was slowly improving, as much to my delight; I discovered some really good web-sites that offered free lessons. Logging on to them has become part of my daily routine, - if the Internet is working, - before settling down to writing my 1000 words a day. (This has not been very difficult to carry out. There are not many distractions here.)

The Shanty-Town at the foot of my garden.

My lap-top was set up the next day of my arrival on the table in the lounge/dining room which is the coolest place in the house where there is an air-conditioner and a ceiling fan. Both of them work 24/7, pushing the heavy air around.

My new Home

Pedro had cleaned the dust and grease off all the surfaces in the house and kitchen, laundered the shower curtain that surprisingly turned out to be white and not brown in colour, and had got used to the idea that sheets on our bed had to be washed and changed once a week.

The gardens in the OLAM complex had been sorely neglected for two years since the present management take-over and to alleviate total boredom, I happily became involved with revamping them. After all, there is a gardener allocated to each of the five staff houses, and two at the company office block. The only gardens that looked as if they had been cared for when I first arrived appeared to be the one surrounding the offices. The rest were swept yards with a vegetable garden in ours that Graham had started in anticipation of my arrival, (he knows I love eating salads, and leafy green stuff!)

On occasion, when Graham does not have to take one of his cotton supervisors with him on his trips to the peasant farmer cotton out-growers in the Zambezia Province areas, he phones me and asks “Fancy a road tip today?”

Always happy at a foray out of the confines of the OLAM complex, and excited about seeing a new area which may reveal good photo opportunities, I never turn the offer down. So, I quickly put a bag together with my cameras, a couple of bottles of water and make up filled rolls for a picnic lunch.

An OLAM Bush Station

Some of the places Graham has to visit are as much as two hours’ drive away from Morrumbala, making the round trip a good four hours. This excludes the stops at the OLAM cotton stations and the peasant farm smallholdings. It is a long day in the hot sun and the bush roads are like rusty old roller-coasters that rattle one’s bones and teeth!

On our first trip together, we went to an area called Lipembe.

En route we were stuck behind a funeral procession. It was interesting to see that all the mourners on the road and surrounding our pick-up were men. The vehicle carrying the coffin had women sitting around it, keening and howling. They sounded like very sad banshees.

Women Mourners

One of the men stopped us and warned us to go very slowly. So Graham slowed right down, (when in Mozambique, or any African country for that matter, listen to the man on the street, it can save you a great deal of mis-understandng and trouble!) The men swarmed around our truck and we kept a respectable speed.

Rolling down his window, Graham asked the man who was walking next to us in his local African language, who the person in the coffin in front of us had been, “Businessman, big businessman. Many wives, many goats, many children” was the answer.

The Funeral Procession

Eventually the procession pulled off into the entrance of the local school and we were able to proceed. It was good to get away from such a woeful crowd.

Soon after leaving the funeral, we saw a truck bumping along the track towards us. It had a load of people sitting in the back, clinging on for their dear lives. “Ah, that’s one of my more wealthy farmers” said Graham, slowing down.

“Hello Patrick” Graham greeted the man driving the overloaded vehicle. Patrick stopped his transport, jumped out the door and rushed over to greet Graham enthusiastically.

I was duly introduced, “Patrick, this is my wife.”

Patrick's Passengers

He looked me over, “Very nice, I think you should give her to me. She can come and live in my house and stay with me.”

He and my husband continued to discuss this idea for a while. From what I understood, Graham thought it better that I came home with him as I was far too cheeky for Patrick.

Graham winked at me and we drove off.

I think Graham knew that I’d be very cheeky towards him if I’d been handed over to Patrick. I am used to “living it rough” in the bush, but I have no intention of going to live in some mud hut and have the lesser status of a minor tenth wife!

Graham with his Station Managers

What impressed me on that road trip and with other trips that have followed is the affection all the OLAM station managers and the farmers appear to have for Graham. He has a way of encouraging the African people to be more productive. Also the fact that he speaks three of their languages goes a long way to good communication and understanding. Since he has been working for OLAM the ammount of

cotton planted by the outgrowers have increased from 600 hectares to an expected 6000 hectares in six months, something the company has
never seen before.

Late that afternoon, upon return to Morrembala, Graham stopped off at a house in the town. Asking him where were, he told me he wanted me to see some of the staff houses that had been built for “upper” Mozambican staff working for OLAM. There was a street of small brick homes with corrugated roofing, each with about a ¼ acre of garden and fenced.

“Very nice”, I remarked, “the people must be thrilled to have homes like this.”

“Yes and no.” Was Graham’s answer, “The houses have been here for a couple of years, equipped for running water, but never had it connected. The workers have to come into the OLAM complex every day and collect water in drums from our borehole there.”

Shocked, I said to him, “But what about sanitation?”

I was well aware that the huge mud hut village that has evolved on the outskirts of Morrembala and stops at the borders of the OLAM security fencing is pretty “rough and ready”. They have to go to the toilet in the bush on the outskirts of the village, but the basic infrastructure of the actual town of Morrumbala was created in the Portuguese era, with proper buildings, houses and sanitation.

These houses were built in this part of the town and should have all the luxuries of the senior management houses and offices have within the complex.

Shanty-Town Children and Guinea Fowl.

With a huge sigh, Graham said to me “My immediate boss seems unwilling to fork out and get a decent borehole dug to service the houses. But I am working on it even although housing is not my department.” He went on to say, “There is an Indian company here with borehole rigs and I aim to get one sunk as soon as I can convince the OLAM powers that be in Beira to part with some funds.”

This was two months ago and I’m proud to say that the bore-hole is now sunk and as of a fortnight ago, the houses have running water. Graham tells me he was very touched when he walked into the OLAM offices and received a standing ovation from the staff. They were very grateful that someone had cared enough about their personal welfare.

I have started to see a pattern here with OLAM. It appears to me, (and this is a personal observation) that they think that if you are working for them and they supply a house to live in, you should be overwhelmed with having a roof over your head. No matter what the condition. Also, if terms are not met in a workers contract, such as a company vehicle that is meant to be supplied and does not materialize, the worker/s should still carry on, making no complaints because they have a house, with or without lights and running water!  

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The Long and Winding Road from Quelimane to Morrumbala

The turn off from the main road to Morrumbala is at a village named Cero. 

It is a conglomeration of thatched huts and market stalls under huge mango trees.  The branches of the trees are used to display an assortment of brightly coloured second hand clothes, sarongs and shoes, their laces looped together and hanging from branches in chains of assorted sizes.

Suddenly the tar ended, and we were now bouncing and banging about on a bush road full of corrugations, ruts and pot-holes in the truck that OLAM has supplied to Graham as his company vehicle.

I thought gratefully about the sports bra I was wearing. Any woman with breasts larger than walnuts would not be a happy person without the support of a good binding around that area of their anatomy! 

The truck is a working vehicle. Certainly not a luxury one and the ridged shock-absorbers are not kind on one’s back or boobs!

It was now twilight and we still had an hour’s driving to complete before reaching the OLAM cotton complex where the staff houses were safely surrounded by security fencing.

OLAM Offices, Morrumbala

Native houses nestled in the midst of their small patches of maize and manioc, lining the sides of the bush track in an endless seam of humanity. Mozambique boasts a huge population of approximately 24 million people.  I remarked to Graham that I noticed mainly young adults that appeared to be in their twenties, teenagers and infants, only occasionally did I see an old person. (Perhaps they were all sleeping.)

At last we pulled in to the grounds and arrived at the Manager’s house and I was pleasantly surprised. It was one of five well built houses which had been constructed by the company that owned the cotton company before OLAM bought them out two years ago.

Our House

“Welcome home Babe,” Graham said to me as I eased my aching bones out of the truck. It had been a long journey; I was tired, dusty and interested to see the inside of my new abode.

“Not bad”, I thought. Lounge/dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, bathroom and 2 WC’s. Each house has a house-keeper and a gardener to look after the “Boss” as the managers are called here by the people who work for them. However, the house-keepers, (they are generally men and apparently know basic cooking) are used to working for bachelors and have no idea of cleanliness.

A thick film of grease covered every surface in the kitchen and the furniture was covered in red dust. The gardener’s idea of gardening is to sweep the grounds around the houses with home-made brooms that look as if they escaped a Harry Potter novel, and lay huge importance on vegetable gardens which are well stocked and could supply an army. (Well, actually they do as they gather the veggies in bags before they leave work in the evening. I presume they either take them to sell in the Morrumbala market, or home to their families.)

Shanty-Town Surrounding OLAM Complex

The entire complex is surrounded by a massive shanty-town that has attached itself to the borders of the Morrumbala village, evolving and stretching to the boundaries of security fencing that protects the OLAM cotton gin, ware-houses, offices and staff houses.

There is a constant buzz of people’s voices, loud music, the base on full blast, bellows from huge speakers strategically placed in the door ways of numerous moon-shine bars where people can be seen outside whistling, dancing and gyrating, their bare feet pounding a rhythm on the bare ground, sweeping up swirls of dust whilst slapping clouds of flies off their ebony skins.

Everyone appeared oblivious to the mingled smells of cooking, refuse dumps and night soil. Occasionally the cry of a slaughtered animal entwined itself in the continuous buzz of the human vocal hum.

Graham saw me looking at the state of the kitchen, chuckling to himself more than at me, I heard him say “I warned Pedro to clean the place before you arrived, seems he did not listen.” He then went on to tell me, “These people allocated to the houses do not like to work very much. They always think they can do a chore on another day or at another time.”

Even although it was late evening it was humid and the temperature was 40°Centigrade. 

It was far too late to worry about Pedro and the thought of taking a shower to slake off the dust from our trip, and then imbibing in a nice ice-cold drink and eating a sandwich was more appealing.

Pedro and Illoma

Tomorrow was another day and would be a new challenge.  I had never spoken Portuguese in my life and I was going to have to somehow communicate with not only Pedro the house-man and Illoma the gardener, but with people in general. I would be living in an ex-Portuguese Colony for the next three months.

The Eagle had landed.

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The Sunny Sky is Aqua Blue

Nagar’s in Quelimane is supposedly a four star bed and breakfast establishment.

Perhaps I am prejudiced because Graham and I ran our home, Beachcombers, in Cape Agulhas as a very successful bed and breakfast for a couple of years. It was awarded three stars by the South African Tourism Bureau of Standards and their criteria for star status was very strict.

At times the last people one wishes to have staying in your hotel establishment are other people who understand and have worked in hospitality. But in all fairness to Graham and me, we make a point of not making an issue of any accommodation unless it is justified.

Nagar’s was rough, ready and very expensive. One thing positive I’ll say for the place is the bedding was clean and the buffet style breakfast was edible, except for some very strange cocoon-like items that lay in wait for unsuspecting gourmets next to the bread rolls. I took a bite of one of those and had to discreetly deposit the contents of my mouthful into the paper serviette provided. It was old, rancid rice that had been moulded into glutinous ovals and left a bitter taste in my mouth. There were other items there of unrecognisable substance that I steered clear of after my adventurous attempt at the “cocoon thingies.” The cold pizza take-away from the night before became a more attractive alternative!

As Graham had purchases he needed to make for before leaving Quelimane, we left my luggage at the local offices. The O.L.A.M company vehicle he drives is an open pick-up truck, and anything in the back that is not tied down is quickly stolen. People literally clamber in and make off with things as big as generators, fridges and motor-bikes. So a couple of suit-cases would be an easy target and I could not see myself dressed in Graham’s clothes for the three months I planned on staying with him in Mozambique before returning to England for another stint of Care Giving.

My first impression of Quelimane was the smell of sewage. Open drains were piled high with discarded refuse, where scrawny dogs and cats rummaged for a possible tasty morsel. Children splashed and played in stagnant pools of murky water on the sides of the roads.

Driving from place to place in the sprawling town, I was so glad that I had my camera handy. Quelimane’s main mode of transport is the bicycle, there are thousands of them everywhere and they do not follow any form of traffic rules. They stop, turn and go where ever and whenever they wish. I saw one with a family of four people concertinaed between the handlebars and the carrier, shopping balanced on their heads and a baby one their backs, another transporting three fat goats, all winding and wheeling between huge pot-holes in the roads. Hooting vehicles travelled at high speed, miraculously avoiding the bicycles. All the time there was a loud beat of music blasting from loud speakers strategically placed outside shop doorways, enticing passers-by in to buy.

Once magnificent buildings erected by the Portuguese settlers crumbled with neglect along avenues of ancient flame trees that seemed to be trying to cheer the old dwellings up with their bright flowers that had dropped on the pavements, creating red carpets of swirling colour.

Women wore scarves magnificently knotted in fancy styles on their heads, or had their hair braided with a rainbow array of plastic beads. Sashaying in their bright congas, with baskets of goods balanced on their heads as they went about their business.

Men sat in groups on corners going nowhere slowly. Shouting out greetings to people they knew or saying something suggestive to the passing women.

At lunch we drove to the Quelimane delta and ate Portuguese piri-piri chicken at a restaurant situated on the river banks. Many early missionaries’ journeys and great white game hunters are associated starting or ending at this port. One of them David Livingston with his quest to spread the word of God to African tribes inland along the river, ended his famous west-to-east crossing of south-central Africa in 1856.

At last my piri-piri chicken arrived and I watched the fishermen in their dugouts and reflected on the story I have heard about how Quelimane was named.

Apparently when the great explorer Vasco da Gama, arrived on these shores in 1498, he asked some natives who were digging in the fields outside their village what the place was called. They thought he was asking what they were doing, so they said “kuliamani” which meant in their language, “we are cultivating”. And so that was the name recorded in his ships log. Quelimane was originally a Swahili trade centre, and then later grew as a slave market. It was founded by the Muslim Kiwa Sultante and was one of the oldest towns in the region.

In the 16th century, the Portuguese founded a trading station at Quelimane. Sisal plantations were organized by German planters in the beginning of the 20th century. The town started to grow and attracted several communities from different backgrounds, including Muslims and Indians, and new infrastructure was built by the Portuguese authorities. The busy port handled tea as its major export grown and processed in the district of Zambézia then coconut plantations were also grown, transforming the town into an important bustling city.

The chicken was polished off my plate and Graham informed me it was time to leave, so we set off on our journey back to Morrumbala. I was grateful there was air-conditioning in the truck as it was 40° and I was used to a more temperate Cape Agulhas climate. 

We stopped at a fuel station on our way out of town and stocked up with cool drinks, water and biscuits. I made sure the pizza was easily accessible too!

Huge areas that used to be rice paddies edged the main road for miles, the soil rich and black. Neglected palm plantations stretched to far horizons. Thatched huts nestled in groups under the trees and along the edge of the road. 

Peasant farmers cultivated their small vegetable gardens of manioc and maize.

Groups of children clutched chickens for sale by their feet and waved them at us as we passed by, in the hope that we would stop and buy. 

Every half mile or so I saw sacks of charcoal under make-shift shelters, the owners hoping someone would stop and make a purchase of a bag to cook a daily meal.

Everyone in Mozambique appeared to spend their time looking to make a living. Most of the people are poor, but they seem to always be smiling, bustling about like ants, greeting each other, selling, buying, talking and networking.

As we drove along, I said to Graham, “It’s one great big endless market; the sides of the road are one endless place of small innovative businesses. These people amaze me!”

He did not answer me as he was avoiding pot-holes in the road and keeping an eye on a man riding a bicycle in front of us transporting a goat, a chair and a woman.

I Like to Spend some Time in Mozambique

This time last year I would never have imagined I’d find myself sitting in a remote village in Mozambique called Morrumbala.

With my husband Graham, working as an agriculture consultant dealing with peasant farmers growing cotton for an International company called O.L.A.M.

We are into the first week of 2012.

It’s Friday, there is a tropical downpour, and the sweet smell of rain mingling with the hot, baked earth is permeating the air. It wraps itself around me with a sticky humidity.

Fat rain-drops crash down on the roof, its corrugated iron sheets sounding a drum beat which is competing with the heavy base blast of the surrounding African village’s sound system in the nearby moonshine bar.

Outside my window is a flock of little sparrows, their wings a fast beating flurry, as they duck and dive after a myriad of flying ants that emerge from giant termite mounds when the rains start in this part of Africa.

Two weeks ago every surface was covered in a film of fine red dust.

Now the rains have come it seems as if nature has taken a giant paint brush and splashed green hues of colour on the once parched foliage and splodged a bright primary pallet of red, orange, yellow and blue on a variety of tropical flowers and shrubs in the garden surrounding our house here in the O.L.A.M complex.

Just over a month ago, I flew from Cape Town, via Johannesburg where I changed planes to Maputo, (the capital city of Mozambique.) 

There I had to wait three hours for a plane to Quelimane, where Graham had travelled five and a half hours from Morrumbala to collect me.

On the day of my departure, I booked a taxi for 5 am to pick me up from our home in Cape Agulhas, the very last little village in the south of Africa.

We drove for two and a half hours to Cape Town International airport. 

I took an internal flight to Oliver Tambo Airport in Johannesburg and transferred to the International flight on the Mozambique airline that my travel agency had recommended to Maputo. 

However, nobody from the agency remembered to tell me that after I’d made the booking, the airline had put on an extra plane that they hired from South African Airways because the Mozambique offices had overbooked the plane by 90%!

Eventually I discovered what was going on, went to book my luggage on the plane I thought I had a seat on, (I even had the seat number) and the lady behind the desk told me I was on stand-by, “first come, first served” she informed me

“But I have a firm booking!” I insisted,

“Never mind,” she shrugged, “that’s the way it works on this airline” and promptly turned her back on me and some other passengers who were furious.

About twenty minutes before the flight was due to take off, she beckoned to us and said, “Go, now, you are OK to go!”

We all rushed through customs, then made our way to the plane, running all the time as we were told that we only had five minutes before the gates closed. 

As I got to the top of the stairs into the plane everything went black. I had fainted in the first class galley. When I came round, I was sitting in a first class passenger seat and the senior steward was fanning me with what looked like a fancy menu, “No, I said, I am in the wrong seat, I did not have enough money to pay for this seat.”

“It is fine,” the steward told me as he handed me a coke-a-cola, “the GM of radio and television, Mozambique has given you his seat. He is sitting in yours. Now drink this for the sugar”

With shaking hands, I gratefully took the coke and gulped it down. I still felt disoriented and embarrassed that I had made my entry onto the plane in such a dramatic manner, “thank goodness I’m wearing jeans.” I thought to myself, “If I was wearing a skirt, I’d have had it up around my ears with my nickers on display, when I did my duck-dive onto the floor!”

The gentleman sitting next to me tapped my arm and introduced himself, “Hi, you feel better now?”

“I think so.” I replied, feeling foolish.

“Oliver, head of Mozambique security,” he informed me with a smile.

“Oh heck,” I thought, “did I look like I was so bad that I now had a watch-dog to keep an eye on me?”

Oliver then went on to tell me that the man who gave up my seat was very important and a good friend of his.

“Yes, I hear from the cabin crew he is in charge of broadcasting in Mozambique.” With a chuckle I said “don’t think my taking his seat will make front headlines though.”

The plane started to speed up along the runway for take-off…

The next thing we knew the senior steward started screaming at the top of his voice, “Emergency! Emergency, heads down between your legs, heads down! ” and with that the plane rocked violently from side to side as the Captain slammed on brakes, dumping gallons of fuel at the same time.

The plane screeched round in a semi-circle before coming to a grinding halt.

I thought I was going to faint again, this was truly frightening, the plane I am sitting in has nearly crashed and I wonder why my left hand feels so sore. 

I look down and Oliver is holding it in a vice grip.

“Um, Oliver, I need my hand back please,” I say to him.

“Sorry, thought that was lights out,” his face as white as a sheet.

The Captain’s voice came over the speakers, “Sorry folks, looks like one of the emergency doors is open. We have to go back to our parking bay to get the engineers to look at the problem. Also have to re-fuel which will take a while.”

Dumping fuel is a necessary precaution in case the plane catches alight. It is also an extremely expensive exercise.

We taxi back to the parking bay. Two engineers traipse into the plane and find the problem. 

We wait for the refuelling and a time slot for the plane to take off again.

I am relieved to say that the forty minute flight to Maputo went smoothly and Oliver gave me his business card, saying that if I have any problems whilst in transit in Maputo, to call him, he’d sort things out for me.

My suitcase had been booked through from Johannesburg to Quelimane, but I thought that with the bad luck I’d had so far, I’d find it on the luggage carrousel. And so it was. 

Happily going around and around with all of its baggage friends that it had made in the hold.

Fortunately I had a three hour wait for my plane to Quelimane, so after clearing customs I made my way to enquiries to ask where I could book in for my flight. It was difficult, as the staff only spoke Portuguese, and the only foreign language I spoke at the time was French.

Eventually, with much hand waving and jumping about, I found the right area and got my boarding ticket.

I headed towards the domestic lounge, found a corner by an open door where the breeze flowed over me as I settled down with what turned out to be a long wait, the plane had been delayed.

We took off an hour later. 

The plane was full and the fellow sitting next to me was as drunk as a lord! (Payback time to me for sitting in someone’s first class seat on the last flight, I thought to myself.) 

The passengers sitting close to me all looked on in sympathy as the idiot drunk tried to rest his head on my shoulder. I pushed it off and turned my back on him, his breath was foetid.

For an hour and forty minutes, I pretended to be asleep. 

He continuously tapped me on my back, trying to chat me up until I’d had enough and hailed the air-hostess who said something to him in the local lingo and he stopped bothering me.

What a relief it was when we finally landed.

As I arrived late evening, Graham had booked us into a local Bed and Breakfast called Nagars. 

He had business to conduct in Quelimane the next day before returning to Morrumbala.

I was pleased as the trip from South Africa to Mozambique had been a long and eventful one and I did not think I could cope with a further five and a half hours of travel that night.

It was good to see him again. We had been apart from each other for a few months while I was working as a Care Giver to the elderly in England, and then returned to our home in L’Agulhas, South Africa for six weeks to get the place ready for holiday rental before travelling to Mozambique to spend the Festive Season together.

We dropped my luggage off at Nagars and then went to a restaurant run by a Lebanese family. 

I ordered pizza, but was too exhausted to eat, so asked for a doggy bag, thinking it would be a good thing to nibble on our long journey back to Morrumbala the next day. 

Much to both of our surprise we had to pay for the take-away! Yes, we paid for the pizza, and then paid more to take it away with us. When Graham asked the waiter why we had to do this, he looked at us as if we were being very silly and slowly said “take away, you pay more you see?”

We paid more, and left clutching the pizza.

“Welcome to Mozambique,” Graham said to me with a twinkle in his eye, “they do things differently here.”

“So I see.”
PS: Bob Dylan wrote:
I like to spend some time in Mozambique
The sunny sky is aqua blue
And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek
It's very nice to stay a week or two
And maybe fall in love just me and you.

There's a lot of pretty girls in Mozambique
And plenty time for good romance
And everybody likes to stop and speak
To give the special one you seek a chance
Or maybe say hello with just a glance.

Lying next to her by the ocean 
Reaching out and touching her hand
Whispering your secret emotion
Magic in a magical land.

And when it's time for leaving Mozambique
To say goodbye to sand and sea
You turn around to take a final peek
And you see why it's so unique to be
Among the lovely people living free
Upon the beach of sunny Mozambique.