Mapoots: A saga of avoiding trash holes and getting told you are fat

Place: Maputo [Mapoots], Mozambique

First things first: Apologies all around for being a big huge slacker in posting on my blog.  I now have reliable internet, so I will try to catch up and post an almost-annoying amount of blog posts for you in the next few weeks.  This one is just a sweet little reminisce on my time spent in Maputo, Mozambique.

As many of you know, I spent the first three months of my fellowship in Maputo, Mozambique.  Maputo, despite the sweltering heat and inability to get anything done quickly, has a strange way of drawing you in.  Due to the quickly growing economy, there is a large amount of foreign companies starting operations in the city, with expats in business suits frequenting the many sidewalks, made up of broken pieces of cement, dirt, and the deceptively lurking trash holes.

Typical sidewalk in Maputo, complete with an old Coca Cola container-turned-food stand.

Trash holes - I don't know what they were meant to be, but now they are deep holes in the sidewalks where people put trash [and I assume some break a leg or two].  This one looks particularly full, but some of them are up to 8 feet deep.

One of the best parts of Maputo is enjoying a beer on the sidewalk that runs along the harbor.  There, you can find whatever your heart desires, whether it be car chargers, new socks, pineapples, or chips.  And lots of chips.  Many teenage boys walking around with boxes selling chips.  If you don't want chips, you better be prepared to have a good answer as to why - when we declined chips from the 4th vendor passing by, we were asked quite a tough question, "Well, what do you want then?"  It was a fair question, but all we knew is that we didn't want chips.

2M - National beer of Mozambique...great for sunrises, sunsets, or midday.  

Another fun part of hanging out on the harbor sidewalk drinking beers is getting told you weigh more than you actually do.   There is a young vendor who walks around with a scale and lets people weigh themselves for a couple bucks.  He stopped right in front of us and asked if I wanted to weigh myself.  No, I did not, but thank you.  Then, he decided to make things interesting and after unabashedly looking me up and down, said "I bet you weigh 57 kilos."  I had just weighed myself the week before, and I weighed 54 kilos (roughly a 6 pound difference).  "No, actually I don't - I weigh 54 kilos."  He looked me up and down again, as if that was key to his assumption.  "Ok, why don't you weigh yourself on my scale and if you weigh less than 57 kilos, then you don't have to pay anything.  If you weigh 57 kilos, then you pay."  I didn't know why he was so adamant about me weighing 57 kilos, but I love a good challenge, so I took the wager.  I stepped on the scale and as he so innocently predicted, it stopped exactly at 57 kilos.  Moral of the story - his scale was rigged and this is how he earns money from girls who weigh 54 kilos.  He got me. He got me good.  Don't believe Mozambicans who tell you that you weigh 57 kilos - it's all a scheme.

Sunset view from Dhow Cafe, overlooking the harbor.

Don't let all the beautiful sunsets and charming street vendors fool you - there are hustlers in this city as well.  As a woman, beware of chapa drivers [chapas are mini buses that are the main form of transportation] trying to steal your meticais by professing their love to you.  One evening, when coming back from a sweaty day of field work in Boane, a village that is 45 minutes away from Maputo, an attempted hustle went down.  I was crammed in the back seat of a chapa, smashed between two other young woman going home.  After 40 minutes in the chapa, we were asked to pay the fare, which was 9 meticais.  I passed my 10 cent piece forward and waited for my change, which never came.  The girl beside me also noticed that I was missing one metical, and told the fare collector that he owed me.  "I already told her, I will give it to her when she gets off! What, do I need to speak in English or something..or Chinese?!" he said mockingly in Portuguese for the whole chapa to hear.  He never said any such thing, so I gave him the most scathing look I could muster [for those of you who have seen this look, it is pretty scathing indeed] and quietly contained my wrath.  When I got off at my stop, I approached the fare collector and politely asked "Can I have my metical?"  "Hold on, hold on..." and he ignored me for a few seconds while pretending to be busy with something else.  Then he turned to me and continued the hustling, "You know you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen...I am so in love with you...are you Portuguese?  What is your name?"  My patience got thinner and thinner [especially after being labeled as Portuguese - I get extremely patriotic when abroad].  "My name is 'Give me my metical or I will get it myself'," I said, edging closer to the pile of change sitting on the dashboard.  "But, beautiful, I am so in love with you...it's one metical...come on, just let me have it."  At this point, laser beams of wrath were coming out of my entire being, as such blunt sexism-based hustling is not necessarily my cup of tea.  As he made eye contact with me, one of my laser beams etched fear into his soul.  "Okay, okay, here is your metical."  He reluctantly gave me my change.  It is important to point out that 1 metical is less than $.05 USD - it wasn't the metical I was so worried about.  It was the hustlin that got me flustered.  Moral of the story - when you are super sweaty and covered in mosquito bites and dirt, don't believe the fare collectors when they profess their love for you.  Get your change and go take a shower before you see someone you know.

Avenida 25 de Septembro - one of the main streets running through the business district of the city.

Despite all the hustlin and insulting vendors, Mapoots is full of friendly people, adorable children who wave at you and make it hard for you not to take them home, and some lovely cafes.  Although you are hard-pressed to find a regular coffee made from coffee beans [even though it might be on the menu], you can find espresso and beer, both of which are great beverages to drink while relaxing at a cafe with a great view.  A good 2M and beautiful sunset makes it easy to forget how inefficient your work day was.  The broken sidewalks are full of history, as are the many abandoned buildings sitting listlessly throughout the city, whispering secrets of the colonial past.  Poverty is still wide-spread [which makes my wrath toward hustlers a little bit less scathing] but happiness is even wider-spread, and complete strangers will help you make your way to where you are trying to go with a smile.  You can find live jazz music spread in many venues throughout the city - the perfect place to feel the vibrancy of the local culture and enjoy the Moz vibe.  There may be a few petty hustlers, but for the most part, the city is very safe and a peaceful place in southern Africa to call home.  Mapoots may be a little rough around the edges, but it draws you in, trash holes and all, and left me with some amazing memories which I hope to be lucky enough to relive one day.  

Traveler's Tip #5:  Know how much you weigh at all times and be confident in this knowledge, lest you get challenged by a street vendor with a scale.