First weekend

Maputo is cool. Its history of colonialism, independence, civil war, stability and now development and growth makes for an interesting, lets see, what should I call it, a kaleidoscope of landscapes. Its a constant battle between new and old, modernity and history.

On the one hand, you can buy modern brand names like Roxy and Levis, and if the consumer culture doesnt heal your pain you can always visit the traditional doctor who can treat everything from asthma, malaria, heart break and love affairs, and if that doesnt work, he can also try freeing your body of bad spirits. Very often you see beautifully maintained buildings beside abandoned, apparently bombed out buildings. What makes it so interesting is that is so apparent, you cant help but notice it and wonder why its like that. Despite the nastiness of colonialism, Portuguese architecture is beautiful. Many buildings are very run down and abandoned but other buildings have been maintained and restored.
Mozambique managed to sustain a civil war for 16 years, with the help of South African and Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe, and still not any more helpful to African progress) rebel forces and arms from China, France and the USSR (remember them?). 16 years means a lot of guns and arms. The Museum of the Revolution has so many guns on display that as you continue through the Museum, displays gradually stop identifying the guns, and by the end the rest of the guns in the collection are just thrown into a final "display", essentially a pile of guns in a big glass case. The Nucleo de Arte, a very cool art gallery/jazz cafe near my house, has a large number of sculptures made out of arms, rockets, missiles, bullets, guns, etc. No pictures allowed though. Rats. I dont mean no pictures because of rats, I mean too bad. ~I did see my first rat though, in the Museum of the Revolution, dining on some discarded food. It was enormous, the size of 4 Big Macs (BMs) stacked one on top of another. If you are not familiar with that unit of measurement, it was as big as a 2 litre carton of milk. Strangely it didnt bother me as much as it should have. I must be becoming Africanized. Of course it was NIMBY (not in my back yard).

One thing I will definitely miss when I leave here is the outdoor markets and street vendors. Mega malls and big box stores cant ever compete with the old world charm and beauty of an outdoor market on a sunny day. I would much rather deal with a pesky street vendor than clueless Walmart staff any day. I am happy to say there is no McDonalds or Walmart here (but there are Woolworths and KFC). But in my truly anti-multinational corporation pessimistic way, they probably havent bothered with Mozambique because its still too poor. Coca Cola hasnt missed the boat though. They are alive and doing very well here. It's strange and a little sad to see big Coca Cola billboards and signs on run down aluminum shacks that are barely fit for shelter, but are being used as homes and food and drink establishments. But I guess everyone deserves their carbonated, sugary, syrupy vice.