Hello,
Well I'm back in civilization if we can call Kampala civilised ;-) I was visiting a friend in a village. Last night she asked if anyone in Trinidad would know what an outhouse was! And I really wondered.My memory of using a pit latrine in Point is very vague! I seem to remember walking past the pigs to do so? Daddy could correct me on that. I wonder if Andre knew that life at all? Last night in the village we had no water and no lights,and my friend Phoebes has a coalpot. At about 8 in the evening I decided I wanted to have a bath and use the toilet! What drama! She had no torch and I had to find my way to the latrine with a candle! Which meant walking very slowly so as not to blow it out,and praying that no animal is going to runover my foot (or worse bite my exposed behind!) while I'm squatting.Of course the bath meant heating the precious water and giving me a little in a bucket so I could sponge off. Luckily Kabale is very cold so you can survive with a bath evrey two or three days ;-)
I survived, but decided last night I could definitely not live out here.
Phoebes fortunately should be able tomove to a new housewith kitchen and toilet inside by next year.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Friday, September 15, 2006
Ode to Mozambique
Few people really know about what drew me to Africa, but tonight a 10 minute interaction with someone I had never met before reminded me.
I was in Zambia at a review conference hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat to analyse two projects that had been recently undertaken. I had led one of these projects in Uganda for six months in 2005.
Our conference had ended and on the last evening we had dinner at a very sophisticated restaurant in Lusaka. I was seated next the one guy at the conference who I had thought remotely interesting, and was chatting with the coordinator, the guy and two women who worked at the CYN offices in Lusaka. My ‘Nice Guy’ mentioned that a friend of his had been waiting for dinner to finish so that they could go out afterwards. His friend was from Mozambique, but didn’t know anyone in Lusaka so he was seated alone in a corner. I, of course had spent 6 weeks in Mozambique in 2005 and had suggested that we invite the friend to join us as our dinner had been going on for hours – what would expect if you bring together 26 people – and the poor guy had been sitting alone all night, but Mr. Nice Guy didn’t have the courage to ask his boss if his friend could ‘storm’ the dinner, and I didn’t know the boss well enough to make the suggestion.
At some point in the evening, the friend had decided he had had enough and walked up to the table to chat with Nice Guy, who introduced him to me. He was Elder. I said “Tudo Bem” to Elder in Portuguese and he looked so relieved to find someone who he could speak with that his face lighted up and broke into a smile, and he confidently sat with his drink in hand and we started to chat about the usual – where was I from, where did I learn Portuguese etc. etc. What happened next though is that Elder simply took over the show for the next few minutes. He politely switched back to English explaining that he could not be so rude in the company of so many people to speak in Portuguese. He was just as fluent in English as he was in Portuguese. Elder moved the conversation from banalities about the Portuguese language to a level of depth that I had forgotten about. He discussed history, politics, current affairs, economics … explained why Mozambique was in the Commonwealth, explained what he felt the West was trying to get out of its new interaction with Mozambique … he went on and on. I was mesmerized.
When he stopped for air I introduced him to Judy, our Liaison Officer at the Commonwealth Secretariat. At our conference we had been discussing Mozambique and the problems with working there etc. Judy was happy to meet him and I watched in fascination the confidence with which Elder interacted with Judy. He wasn’t intimidated by the White woman from England. He was discussing the same issues with her – the difficulty of being outspoken in Africa, the impact of the West on Africa etc. I could only listen.
Then I remembered that was it. That was the reason. The sophistication, the confidence, the charm, the worldliness of The Mozambican, particularly The Mozambican Man. I had become fascinated with Africa because of Mozambique in the first place. Mozambique – a forgotten corner of Africa, one of the least African of the Africa was actually responsible for my being here.
I was taken back to a time when I used to have similar political discussions as a student in Brazil with my colleagues from Mozambique. Ilidio, Sergio, Dunga, Oscar, Paulo de Farmacia and later on, Roberto, Engels, Paulo Matabele, Miguel, e aquele amigo do Paulo M. Wonderful, confident, strong, beautiful men. Maybe I never discussed anything with them, maybe I just listened.
I have never been that deep or that political, but I have always been fascinated by people who were. I hadn’t found that level of intellectual depth in the general public before I met my friends in Mozambique, and probably haven’t found it since, and most certainly not anywhere else in Africa as yet. It was my love or appreciation for my friends in Mozambique that had pushed me to go to Africa the first time, and though I’ve been to nine African countries so far, my social and intellectual experience in Maputo certainly stands way out ahead of the other places.
In 2004, I finally got to Mozambique, 10 years after the love affair had started. You, the reader would never believe of course that apart from a casual fling with Paulo M, and with such deep relationships with 10 wonderful men, I never had a Mozambican boyfriend! And even when I reached ‘The promised Land’ I ended up in a complicated relationship with a West African man. Oh well I guess I missed that chance. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up in Moz again in another 10 years.
Sinto falta da malta. Mozambique e maning nice!
For the record, in case you're wondering which 10 countries I've been to, so far: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia
I was in Zambia at a review conference hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat to analyse two projects that had been recently undertaken. I had led one of these projects in Uganda for six months in 2005.
Our conference had ended and on the last evening we had dinner at a very sophisticated restaurant in Lusaka. I was seated next the one guy at the conference who I had thought remotely interesting, and was chatting with the coordinator, the guy and two women who worked at the CYN offices in Lusaka. My ‘Nice Guy’ mentioned that a friend of his had been waiting for dinner to finish so that they could go out afterwards. His friend was from Mozambique, but didn’t know anyone in Lusaka so he was seated alone in a corner. I, of course had spent 6 weeks in Mozambique in 2005 and had suggested that we invite the friend to join us as our dinner had been going on for hours – what would expect if you bring together 26 people – and the poor guy had been sitting alone all night, but Mr. Nice Guy didn’t have the courage to ask his boss if his friend could ‘storm’ the dinner, and I didn’t know the boss well enough to make the suggestion.
At some point in the evening, the friend had decided he had had enough and walked up to the table to chat with Nice Guy, who introduced him to me. He was Elder. I said “Tudo Bem” to Elder in Portuguese and he looked so relieved to find someone who he could speak with that his face lighted up and broke into a smile, and he confidently sat with his drink in hand and we started to chat about the usual – where was I from, where did I learn Portuguese etc. etc. What happened next though is that Elder simply took over the show for the next few minutes. He politely switched back to English explaining that he could not be so rude in the company of so many people to speak in Portuguese. He was just as fluent in English as he was in Portuguese. Elder moved the conversation from banalities about the Portuguese language to a level of depth that I had forgotten about. He discussed history, politics, current affairs, economics … explained why Mozambique was in the Commonwealth, explained what he felt the West was trying to get out of its new interaction with Mozambique … he went on and on. I was mesmerized.
When he stopped for air I introduced him to Judy, our Liaison Officer at the Commonwealth Secretariat. At our conference we had been discussing Mozambique and the problems with working there etc. Judy was happy to meet him and I watched in fascination the confidence with which Elder interacted with Judy. He wasn’t intimidated by the White woman from England. He was discussing the same issues with her – the difficulty of being outspoken in Africa, the impact of the West on Africa etc. I could only listen.
Then I remembered that was it. That was the reason. The sophistication, the confidence, the charm, the worldliness of The Mozambican, particularly The Mozambican Man. I had become fascinated with Africa because of Mozambique in the first place. Mozambique – a forgotten corner of Africa, one of the least African of the Africa was actually responsible for my being here.
I was taken back to a time when I used to have similar political discussions as a student in Brazil with my colleagues from Mozambique. Ilidio, Sergio, Dunga, Oscar, Paulo de Farmacia and later on, Roberto, Engels, Paulo Matabele, Miguel, e aquele amigo do Paulo M. Wonderful, confident, strong, beautiful men. Maybe I never discussed anything with them, maybe I just listened.
I have never been that deep or that political, but I have always been fascinated by people who were. I hadn’t found that level of intellectual depth in the general public before I met my friends in Mozambique, and probably haven’t found it since, and most certainly not anywhere else in Africa as yet. It was my love or appreciation for my friends in Mozambique that had pushed me to go to Africa the first time, and though I’ve been to nine African countries so far, my social and intellectual experience in Maputo certainly stands way out ahead of the other places.
In 2004, I finally got to Mozambique, 10 years after the love affair had started. You, the reader would never believe of course that apart from a casual fling with Paulo M, and with such deep relationships with 10 wonderful men, I never had a Mozambican boyfriend! And even when I reached ‘The promised Land’ I ended up in a complicated relationship with a West African man. Oh well I guess I missed that chance. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up in Moz again in another 10 years.
Sinto falta da malta. Mozambique e maning nice!
For the record, in case you're wondering which 10 countries I've been to, so far: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia
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