As the time to leave for Moz. drew closer I almost got less and les excited. The amount of logistics and travel it required was so daunting. And the prospect of almost 2 weeks with the same group of people was not great. But I’m now really glad I went.
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Economics:
Moz. is very different from South Africa, and it was great to see another side of Africa. South Africa is very frequently differentiated from ‘real’ Africa. There is the ‘typical’ Africa of Kenya and Tanzania that many people imagine. Theres the Zimbabwe style dictator and Egypt’s Arab flavor. Then there’s South Africa’s prosperity, jobs, and infrastructure. Add to that the factor that the Western Cape/ Cape Town is one of the most affluent and prosperous areas of the country and you quickly get a very particular experience.
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Moz. is on the eastern side of the continent and has some of the best scuba diving in the world. Many people live in rural villages on the plains covered in palm trees, have jobs in restaurants and security desks in cities like Maputo or are fishermen on the coast. Poverty is widespread, and the tension between economic groups that’s present in SA isn’t really in Moz.
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SA runs the gambit for economic status. There are people making millions of dollars and people living in shacks in the heart of Jo-burg. There is poverty, and its widely urban. Township residents have little material wealth or access to infrastructure, but their still exposed to the captialist emphasis on materialism and consumption. Families can’t afford a real house or a doctor but they buy Coke and Sprite because it’s a ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ thing to do.
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Moz. is mostly rural poverty so lives are simple and isolated. From the road I mostly saw small villages of huts that had little family farms. Palm trees have notches in the trunk where people hacked in order to be able to climb the tree and get coconuts more easily. So while in Maputo I actually felt a not safer than in Cape Town or Jo-burg. The wealth difference was far greater and more apparent, but there seemed to be less risk of mugging or robbery. It’s almost as if the gap between us was so great that locals who noticed our purses and accents didn’t even see it as surmountable or worth the try.
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Infrastructure:
There’s very little in Moz. It was a 45 minute drive to the nearest ATM or doctor. Roads are mostly pot holes and sand. And there is no social security or welfare. While this leaves many without a safety net in hard times it also means that people are very resourceful about making money. Families def. team together to make ends meet. Young boys learn to make bracelets and necklaces and spend their weekends and school holidays selling them to tourists. When a bit older they graduate to selling their Mom’s and sister’s homemade bread and produce on the streets. Girls farm and learn to bake. THey also man their family stalls in their market/roadside/ village while the Dad fishes or works odd jobs. There are few beggars on the street because there are too few people with enough to spare to give them anything.
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While it’s a shame that Tofo is so niche-d to tourism it’s also a great opportunity for the locals. We met two 20-odd year old cousins who live together in a nearby village who taught themselves to surf so they could teach surfing to tourists as a way to make a living. They’re now hired by a scuba company on the beach and have learned to kayak and scuba and such so they can do more work. While it stinks to pay more in a ‘tourist town’ or to not see ‘real village life’ the benefits of tourism were very apparent in that case. And to really see ‘MOzambique’ would require us to have walked to a village and just set up camp for a week with no idea how to build a hut, speak the language or get food.
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A New Section
My traveling companions and I have had mixed reactions to Mozambique. My friend really had a tough time adjusting to it. The lack of infrasctructure was very daunting, and the lack of roads, to him, excalated from inconvenience to all-out hatred. Many in the group had a hard time eating few vegetables (because they’re rinsed in the questionable water), and the bug bites were fun for no one. Maputo is very much an urban jungle, and it’s very true that with few ammenities and little electricity living a ‘normal’ life was just 3 times harder. But I there are some big aspects to Mozambique that I can appreciate. Life is much simpler. There may be little electricity or technology but there is also little push for ’stuff’. Billboards promote health and education not clothes and gadgets. I’m sure it’s a hard life- and I’m def. romanticizing it in my head- but to me rural poverty seems much more manageable and fulfilling than urban poverty.
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Conclusion
Sorry there was no feel-good ending to this. I’m still processing, contemplating, and unpacking. Maybe in a few days when I’ve had a bit more distance I’ll have some more thoughts. By then I’ll also have stolen pictures from my traveling-companions so I can share those with you too.
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Until then, cheers.
Categories: Politics
Sound great.
I am planning on taking a trip this december, but im not sure where yet.
Anny suggestions?
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