Games kids play

I remember seeing a great bit in the TV series Bush Mechanics with an old guy talking about how when they were kids they made cars our of sticks and wire and drove them around. In Africa they are still doing it, from Mozambique to Kenya, kids still make their own toys, and seem to have a ball playing with them. This fine example is in Mfuwe, a small village in the north of Zambia, a 10 wheeler road train !! Notice the steering wheel in the drivers hand, so the kid can steer the thing around as he pushes it. The wheels are made from bottle tops, and on the right roads these things can go like the wind !! I have even seen kids load up the back with mangoes, or water bottles, and make little deliveries. Throw away the X-Box and have some real fun !!!

With work like this: Bus touts part 2

Am is the Loiterer a terrible moraliser, projecting an unknown sense of Protestant work ethic on to others, in this case poor Africans, or am I simply trying to ignore the devastating effects of alcohol on society - in particular the effects on women and children caused by men's failure to pass on income when funds are directed towards buying alcohol ?

When I was first wandering around in Africa, I met a man in the Ivory Coast who admonished me "All you Europeans think Africa is just poverty and starving people, but there is a lot of wealth in Africa", and pausing to raise his glass of beer at 11 am in the morning under the glaring sun, "there is a lot of beer in Africa too". The more I travel in Africa the more true this statement becomes, it seems no matter where I wander I can always stumble across a bar, where there is money the beer comes in bottles and glasses, where there is little money it is home brewed and comes in plastic bottles and food tins.

Arriving at the Lusaka bus terminal at 8.15 am, I found my bus, which was parked across the road from a bar. I was approached by several touts and having already having found my bus they directed their requests at asking me to buy them a beer. As I wrangled with them, one of the touts explained

"With work like this, we need a little drink to make it", reeking of alcohol.

Having watched people doing real work all morning - carrying around food and other goods to sell - and having seen others lugging around 50kg sacks of grain, ploughing fields and doing real work, I was not particularly sympathetic to their requests and repeatedly told them no. One of the touts later reappeared with a beer in hand and offered some to me, drawing my attention to the groups of men loitering around the bar, drinking beer - the most expensive form of alcohol, and generally doing not much at all.

I start to ask myself, why do I feel such antipathy and even anger towards them ? Why do I expect them to behave any differently - they earn a pittance, their income is unpredictable, they have very little chance of moving up the socio-economic ladder and they have little or no access to education. However floating over all of this is that most of these men are fathers - most Zambians are parents before they hit their twenties - and consciously (or unconsciously) they have taken on, or had thrust upon them the responsibility of providing for others - shouldn't they take this a little more seriously.

And if I was in the same position, what would I do ?

What is a poor, ignorant tourist to do when confronted by a tout with such a request?

Brother, I am human: Bus touts part 1

"Brother I am human, the company will pay me if I take you to buy a ticket, and you pay the same price"

So I was greeted by a tout as I approached the bus station in Lusaka. Like almost every bus station in Africa, the terminal in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, is flooded with touts or bus boys. As soon as they see you heading towards the gate and they sense a traveller they surround you, trying to find out where you are going and then leading you to the ticket office. The station in Lusaka is not that large,there is room for perhaps fifty or sixty buses, and there are twenty or thirty companies, all pretty much serving the same destinations for the same price. Thus the tout has a limited opportunity to catch you before you get in to the terminal and to drag you to a window to get his commission. A tout explained to me that where a bus ticket costs 90,000 Zambian Kwacha (US$20), the tout will receive 5,000 kwacha (US$1.25). Passengers with or without a tout will be charged the same, bus companies have simply calculated their fares on the basis that most people will come with a tout and the company will only receive the ticket price less the commission. This is fairly standard practice across Africa.

Likewise in most African countries, whilst the population - particularly between 18 and 35 years, is booming, levels of unemployment and under employment are high, and continue to grow despite the best (but usually fairly feeble) efforts of local governments and the pointy heads from NGOs and the IMF and World Bank.

So, on the one hand taking people to a ticket window provides otherwise unemployed people - usually young men - with an income that they would not otherwise have. It can be presumed that most young men are either supporting their own family, or their parents and siblings, so several people probably live off this meagre income. The income probably dissuades them from turning towards petty crime as the principal way to gain an income, making places safer for tourists like me to visit. On the other hand the touts actually provide little of use - most passengers could find the ticket window/bus themselves, whilst driving up the price of the ticket. (As the ticket price is set taking in to account payments to touts, passengers don't really have a choice in the matter because even those who don't use a tout are effectively paying for the touts.) This tout component of the price means that transport is more expensive, and the flow on effects on the cost of goods and services throughout society is inflationary - as price of the goods or services carried on the bus are higher because of the tout payment, the person purchasing the good or services will increase the charge when they sell them on, so on and so on ad infinitum. The price goes up for now real benefit - the evidence of this is the high price of transport and goods in Zambia.
Further, accepting touting as a means to generate employment seems to be self defeating, it discourages people from finding or creating jobs which require skill and training and actually provide a beneficial service, and instead encourages young men to remain in a low skilled job which is more lucrative.

What is a poor, ignorant tourist to do when confronted by a tout with such a request?

African content - more safari adventures

It is the joy from the simple things in life which nourish our soul and fulfil our yearning for contentment.
In the late afternoon, I am sitting on my tree platform, looking out over the river to the thick, verdant bush that is the South Luangwa National Park, watching the baboons flitter about in the trees, listening to the hippopotamuses bellow as they rise and submerge in the river, the deep roars of thunder, small bursts of lighting and accompanying light grey rain clouds roll in, carried by a cooling breeze that relieves the heat of the day. The sheer tranquillity of the place is overwhelming - Africa has taken a hold of me - and I feel completely at peace.
After five days of 3.30 am starts and solid travelling, I arrived at the campsite at 7 in the evening, set up my tent and promptly fell asleep. The next day I was awoken at 4.30 by the sun peering through the trees in my open tent door.  I rolled over to see an elephant walking across the river bank, then swimming across the river, next to some hippos doing not much in the water. Soon thereafter the monkeys and baboons appeared, and with there endless calling to each other, they made sure that I couldn't go back to sleep.
I spent an hour or so sitting on the bank of the river watching the hippos loll about in the water, every now and then putting on a show of rising to the surface and opening their gaping jaws to show off their fine hippo teeth. It made me think of a childhood book I read, something along the lines of the 99th Great Hippopotamus Race or the like. And now, here I was watching real, live hippos do their thing, which when it comes down to it, ain't really that much at all. I ended up spending more than a week at the camp ground, which is pitched on the riverbank, so you can look across the river in to the park. I had the pleasure of seeing what a seasoned expert later told me, was without a doubt Africa's most beautiful National Park. A few of the highlights included,

• Listening to the sounds of hippos as they bark at each other and thrash about in the water every once in a while
• Seeing my first lion, from afar, and then across the dry river bank, about 30 metres away, and being left breathless. This wasn't enough for the guide though, so we drive across the river bank, up the verge, through the trees, and literally two metres away from a lion and lioness - close enough for them to jump on to our laps. As we passed the seated,young (2 year old) lion, it reared up and peered very intently at the car. We all gasped, and the guide laughed, "This young one is afraid of people", and we nervously joined in his chuckling.
  
• Having a young bull (elephant) get a little frisky and look like he was going to charge the vehicle. Then, the next day, spotting a bull by the roadside who was on to us, coming directly out of the trees to size us up, then building up speed as he came straight for us. Fortunately, our trusty steed, Pudding the Pajero legged it, and the elephant headed back in to the trees
  
• Looking out over the treeless plain, menacing grey clouds and a curtain of approaching rain in the background, with all the animals from your kiddy animal set wandering about together - zebras, elephants, giraffes, warthogs, kudu, lions, impalas, buffaloes. It still sends shivers down my spine thinking about it.
  
• Watching elephants using their trunks, curling them around grass shoots, pulling the grass out of the ground, shaking the dirt of, and them shoving them into their gob. The trunk is exclusive to elephants, yet it is such a useful tool. It can be used to smell out the good food, twirled around to grasp objects - pulling grass from the ground and leaves from the trees, then bent around the put the food in the mouth. It can also be used to push baby elephants up and down inclines, and to repel other adults when they get a little too close. (Elephants in Thailand are trained to use it as a snorkel when they are swimming across rivers) And of course, most importantly of all it can be used to spray things with water like a fire hose !!!
  
• Listening to the sounds of lions roaring through the night, and feeling the tree platform shake as an elephant rubs against it, in the middle of the night.

"Wanna play ?", said the elephant to the giraffe

An awesome encounter between a giraffe, an elephant, some impalas and some baboons. As we trundled along the road we spotted a giraffe around a bend, on the right hand side of the road. We stopped, and watched as he grazed on the tree tops. On the left hand side of the road a number of baboons, including some very small babies were sitting around. A few impalas grazed between the baboons. A few of the animals, including the giraffe, briefly checked us out when we arrived, but when the engine was switched off, they returned to what they had been doing and largely, ignored us. (The animals in the Park, particularly those who live close to the gate are probably exposed to so much traffic that they have adjusted to its presence - which is largely benign. It is a strange experience to be so close to wild animals - especially in open topped cars-, and have the animals ,for the main part, simply ignore you. Elephants are the exception, frisky young bulls like playing and sometimes charge vehicles.) It was then that we noticed that a relatively large elephant bull,  hidden behind a tree, about 10 metres away from the giraffe. We watched for the next 10 minutes (yeah, we even put the cameras away) an amazing spectacle, as the elephant and the giraffe , and the surrounding animals, interacted. The elephant, slowly approaching, then retreating  - each time getting a little closer. He clearly had eyes for us, a couple of times he looked as though he was about to charge toward the car - ears all flapping about, and a quick first couple of steps. Meanwhile the giraffe continued to completely ignore us, but closely monitored what the elephant was up to - by twisting his head, without moving his legs, the giraffe made sure that he always knew what the elephant was up to.  The moment when the elephant got closest to the giraffe - around five metres away, the giraffe stared directly at him, and the elephant seemingly disappointed that the giraffe wasn't responding to the game of chicken turned away. Eventually the elephant seemed to give up playing with the giraffe, he stopped and stared at us - raising his trunk up in the air. He then ambled across the road in front of us heading towards the baboons and impalas, and using his trunk to blow up dust he half heartedly chased them along the road, and then wandered off in to the bushes.

(Check out the series of photos to see the image I am trying to create)

• On the last night, after hearing the reports of others who had seen 17 lions together and several leopards, I decided to throw my usual budgetary caution to the wind and head out on another safari. It is a decision I will never regret for two experiences in particular. Before I detail them though, it is important to set the scene a little. Safaris are done in open air landcruisers - basically a ute (pickup) with three, tiered bench seats, welded on to the back - there is no cover and you climb aboard by hauling yourself up the side. The cab is removed, leaving only the windscreen, the guide/driver and the spotter sit in the front. Supposedly a lion's eyesight isn't all that good, so as long as you remain seated, it will perceive you as one big object, and leave you alone. Sitting five metres away from a lion, particularly when it stands up and seems to take a particular interest in the car and you, is, to say the least, a little unsettling.
  

Lounging lions

Early on in the drive, whilst it was still light, we happened upon to mature lions - about 10-15 years old with long but scruffy manes, lounging about on the edge of a plain. We drove within a couple of metres of one. The other, clearly desirous of being photographed, got up, stretched (a perfect downward dog !!!) and then ambled over and lay on top of the other. The two rolled around on each other as we excitedly and breathtakingly snapped as many photos as we could. The thing about lions is that pictures do not do them justice - when you are up close they are even more strikingly beautiful and imposing. They make you want to hug them, whilst at the same time causing a slightly quivering about the immense potential of their muscular, feline build, sharp claws and huge jaws. After watching them for a couple of minutes, three other safari cars appeared and we headed off. We drove off the plain, up the road a little, and then stopped on the edge of the river, to watch the sun go down. As we looked back across the plain from where we had come from, in the dim twilight we saw the two lions stalking across the plain heading towards us. Even from the distance, they had lost none of there awesome, regal  character, that they imposed on all that surrounded them. As they reached the edge of the plane, you could hear the baboons warning all with their cries, and see the impala, zebras and birds becoming more attentive to everything going on around them. Our guide warned us not to wander too far from the car, as the lions may well approach - instinctively every body dropped their volume and began speaking in whispers.

Leaping Leopard

After our break, darkness had set in, the spotter cranked up his powerful spotlight and we drove around for about an hour and a half without seeing much, other than a large owl and a lynx. Just as I was about to give up hope, I suddenly spotted a large, yellow cat in the bushes about 10 metres in front of us. As we got closer, "Leopard" cried out the Swiss guy next to me, and no more than five metres away from us, clearly visible in the scrub was the beautiful and gob smacking shape of a leopard, it all it's spotted glory. Suddenly is pounced, and we saw that it was chasing an impala. The impala sprung out of the bushes, and the leopard leaped to within a couple of metres. This symphony continued two or threes times, until the impala was on the road, just behind us. The leopard followed, and leaped, looking like it was headed for the back seat of the car - and a meal of a very raw, German, who was sitting on the back seat. (I later saw the German guy in Malawi and he told me that he had dreamt three or four times of the leopard leaping directly toward him) Instead the leopard ignored us, and continued across the road in hot pursuit of the impala. We all turned, facing the other side of the car, and watched, the impala escape in to the scrub. The leopard then ran alongside the road for a 15 or twenty metres, crossed the road, and slunk off in to trees. The guide gunned the car, and the spotter tried to keep the light on the leopard, but we only managed to spot it intermittently in the bushes, growing further and further away. The guide headed off the road in to the trees, in hot pursuit, and we spotted the leopard one last time about 30 metres away, it ran out of the beam of light and disappeared in to the darkness. The guide cut the engine, the spotlight was turned off and we sat it the darkness. About ten seconds later we heard the leopard growl - more like a bark then a purr or roar. And incredibly another leopard responded, and they carried on barking back and forth for the next minute or so, the cries growing fainter and fainter, and less frequent as they moved away from us and closer to each other. Eventually the background buzzing of insects took over and the leopard was gone, we started whispering at each other - did we really just see, hear and experience what we think we did ? We started retelling our particular view, chipping in over the top of each other - retelling it seemed the only way to deal with such an experience.  The photo is good only as a memory trigger for this incredible experience but I include it anyway.

Airport Hi-jinxs

Fortunately most of the time I get to avoid airports, neither having the money to indulge in a carbon loaded hop from one place to another, nor the inclination to be suddenly lifted from one place and deposited not long thereafter in another entirely foreign place and suffer the consequent culture shock generated by such rapid dislocation. It still leaves me bereft as to how it is possible to spend more time getting to and then through an airport, than actually in motion. Hence whenever I succumb to the necessary evil of plane flight I am intrigued by what goes on in airports, and the recent last minute cancellation of a flight served as a reminder that it is often more than you would think.
Unusually for me I managed to arrive on time for a change, I felt luck was on my side that day, having connected with three different forms of transport to get across New York without more than a two minute wake. Thus it was a shock to peer up at the flight listing board and see the rather ominously looking "CANCELLED" written in bold red letters next to my flight number. Having never been in that situation before I wondered to myself, I pondered as to the significance of that word to my travel plans.  As I made my way to the airline counter I noticed a line that was a microcosm of the world, closer to the counter their was an arrow like sinuous line, starting from the single person being served and fanning out across the walkway, populated by boisterous travellers, each trying to seek any advantage they could be sneaking their trolleys trolleys piled high with suitcases in to any gap in the line they could find, whilst talking loudly to their mobile phones or each other about the importance of them arriving on time - it felt like being in an Indian railway station. The line then gently petered out across to the other side of the walkway where even more passengers were corralled into the standard airport queue ribbons, which seemed to suck all of their energy leaving them with a much more resigned and lethargic look, as they lounged on their luggage and trolleys, seeking whatever comfort they could find for the long wait ahead. After eventually finding the end of the queue, and a short wait, an airline official appeared and informed us that due to bad weather the flight had never left Abu Dhabi and therefore there was no return flight (I was heading to Johannesburg via  Abu Dhabi). She passed around a phone number and suggested we call the airline in order for them to book us on another flight. Being the only person without a mobile phone I headed off to find a public phone (yes, they still do exist) and after a 45 minute wait on hold I got through to a helpful consultant who booked me on to the evening flight with South African Airlines direct to Johannesburg, leaving me thinking that every rain cloud surely does carry a rainbow. Unfortunately in order for me to obtain my ticket I had to return to the line and have the airline issue me with some kind of pass that I needed in order to get on the rebooked flight, a process that wasn't really made all that clear to me.
I returned to the line, as the last in line at 9am, and it wasn't until 2pm that I finally reached the counter and was served. Somebody had decided that the best way to managed about 150 people who were waiting for a flight was to not give them any information about what was going on or what arrangements would be made to get them to their destination, and to serve them one at a time, each person taking about 20 minutes to be served. During the waiting I did manage to make a few new friends, most of my fellow travellers were Indians, living in the US and on their way home laden with the bounty of the first world. The poor fellow in front of me had been awake since three am that morning, having flown in from Boston, with his wife and young child, it immediately made me think that a 6am start for me was flamin' luxury. Another passenger was on his way to his brother's wedding in Chennai, he was dressed in his best Paki leather jacket and white faux leather pointed shoes, and was extremely stressed that as he had planned to arrive on the Friday and the wedding was on the Saturday he would now miss the wedding. He made a repeated series of attempts at reaching the counter to pry out at least some information about what was likely to happen to him, but he was rebuffed each time and ended up back with us at the end of the line, each time a little more despondent than before. We began to share a camaraderie that somehow arises between complete strangers when they are thrown together in such circumstances; rules were laid down implicitly, each waited their turn in the queue, baggage was watched when the owners need to go to the toilet or get something to eat, we started to share our stories - where we had come from, where we were going, shared advice then lead to shared food and shared experience led to shared emotions. We all shook our heads and tut tutted at the stupidity and frustration generated by the the airline staff not giving us any information; we all sighed and and  collectively thought there but for the grace of god each time a frustrated passenger lost his cool and was reprimanded for raising his voice in discussion with the airline staff who would dare to leave the relative safety of the counter to carry out some pointless act of bureaucracy - like having us write down our names; we all chuckled to ourselves when New York's finest appeared and try to exert their authority by informing us we couldn't form a line that occupied a small part of the 8 metre wide entrance doors, and we all then worked together to return to the exact same spot we had been in as soon as the cops walked away; we all shared in the joy of somebody making it to the counter and getting a new ticket, wishing them good buy and a safe trip. As the last four or five of us reached the counter I think we all shared a little sadness, our little community thrown together by happen stance was now dissolving, we had come together as strangers and now we were saying good bye to friends.
When I finally arrived at the counter I was greeted by the particular way of bureaucracy that has been perfected by decolonised Arabs. It reminds me of an article I once read about a study done in Egypt that found that on average an Egyptian public service does about 30 minutes of actual work a day - and I am sure that about 20 minutes of that is simply stamping forms. There were 7 people working behind the counter but only one was dealing with a passenger, two stood behind him having a chat to each other, one was operating another computer, another was completing forms which were then passed to another who duly copied the information on to another form, which she handed to another who's job appeared to be to simply collate these forms, separating the relevant parts and stapling them together. Every once in a while the managed would wander in, cast a supervising eye over the workers and then disappear. The operation was so high tech they even had an old dot matrix printer (with a ribbon) churning out more printouts to be copied and collated - not exactly inspiring any confidence that if I had flown with them the actual aeroplane not have been of the same vintage.
I gave my details for the fifth time, and they then sent me in to a panic because they weren't sure if I could get on the SAA flight, however this was only momentary as a call confirmed that there was space. So a computer print out was made, given to the first woman who copied the details, gave it to the second woman who appeared to do likewise, and I ended up with piece f paper that politely requested that SAA put me on their flight. By this time the checkout for the SAA flight had not only opened, but had also cleared the initial crowd. So I wander over and after another moment of panic before the SAA staff called and confirmed they would take me, I was all checked in and ready to go - after another three hour wait !
Using the vouchers I had been given by the airline I picked up some processed chemicals called food and found a seat  in the dining area, in front of a large glass wall looking out on to the tarmac, with a queue of planes waiting in line for their turn to have a go at taking off. As I was munching away I noticed a neat, anorak and pleated nylon trouser wearing, greying, bespectacled, middle aged man, who was regularly checking the line up with his binoculars. Every once in a while he would dive in to his 70's travel bag, pull out a encyclopaedia thick book, check through the binoculars and check the picture on the page. After a couple of repeats of this I noticed the book was a "All the Planes Ever Made" publication, and I had a real life plane spotter in front of me. The thought did occur to me, perhaps because I had recently visited the World Trade Centre site, that with all the  Orwellian please-inform-us-if-you-see-something-strange propaganda, it was a risky activity in this day and age. Not five minutes later two official looking figures, one a guard and one a private security worker appeared, and started wandering about as if they were looking for something. One had a full page of written notes in his hand, which could be nothing other than a dob-'em-report, and after about thirty seconds they located the plane spotter. They started questioning him in that particularly aggressive American way, had a good look at his binoculars and searched through his bag. It was excruciating watching him trying to explain that "It's just a hobby, something I like to do in my spare time", knowing that they would have no comprehension of even the quaintly British habit if spotting machines. Finally they gave him a stern warning, telling him he wasn't allowed to do that, and that he should cease and desist forthwith. After they left the poor guy looked a little embarrassed, "I have been here for four days" he explained to interested on-lookers, "and I have been here for the last three hours." Rather than fear, perhaps all we need fear is those authorised to ensure that a general sense of insecurity is maintained.
As I ate the remainder my meal I noticed the cop return to surreptitiously check if his order was being obeyed, and it was then that the Puerto Riquena sneaked up next to me on the bench. She was a typical older Latina "mama", not much over 5ft tall, stocky, with a head of red-dyed hair clearly not hiding the grey, hands and face marked with the lines of a life of honest, hard work.
When she discovered that I spoke Spanish, she was off with her life story. After I told her I had been in New York for a week, she told me she had been "there" since Saturday (it was Thursday) and it took me a while to work out that there for her was the airport. She had come to New York for a medical procedure which was completed early, and when she asked her travel agent he said that if she went to the airport she could pay $100 and take an earlier flight home. When she arrived at the airport, she was then informed it would be $250. Rather than fork over the cash, she decided to wait until the airline brought the price down. On the Tuesday she went back, and they said she could go if she paid $150, but "I told them I had spent the money on food while I was waiting, but of course I still have the money, but now I don't mind waiting" she said, winking conspiratorially to me.
"It's not so bad here" she explained, "the first two nights I was in the other terminal and there were no comfortable chairs, and at night everybody left, so I was afraid that security would throw me out. But then the cleaners told me to come over here, and this space" she said, indicating the corner of the bench I was occupying, "is very comfortable. There are always people here so I don't have to worry about security. The cleaners are very friendly, and I have made friends from all over the world - a couple from Germany, an English backpacker, a Filipino woman, two Mexican priests and an Israeli girl who was worried about spending the night in the airport, who then bought me dinner and we spent nearly the whole night talking. And now an Australian. I have all of their address in my notebook, so now I have friends all over the world." As if this wasn't enough, the wait had had a curative effect, " When I arrived I was very stressed, and my back was always hurting me. But now I have spent a week relaxing, not having to worry, and I feel much better, my back doesn't hurt, and I have learnt to be patient."

Feeling a little guilty about having stolen her space, after a while I bid her farewell, wished her luck on her journey home, and headed off to find my gate. The queue for security was quite long, and as I weaved my way through the cattle gates I had plenty of time to observe my fellow travellers. When I finally reached the security check, and disrobe sufficiently - no shoes (including double-pluggers), no jackets, no belt, no hat, no sunglasses, laptops out of their cases in a separate container, I passed through without a hitch and stumbled on a scene which later left me in stitches, as I redressed myself. Standing at the counter, with her bag open was an Egyptian "mamma" dressed in her full length djellaba, and head scarf, she was looking at the security guard with a lack of complete dismay and incomprehension, as he held about 20 gold plated butter knives above a box of cutlery taken from her bag. Another guard walked passed and said to the guard, "La. That means no in Arabic". The guard duly tried that out, but the woman kept talking away in Arabic, apparently holding the same belief as the guard - that if you said enough eventually you would be understood. The passenger behind me reluctantly responded to the security guard's request for an Egyptian speaker, he listened to her explanation and then informed the guard that she was saying that it was a wedding present, she is taking it to her son's wedding.
As I walked away I heard the security guard speaking over the Arabic pleading of the woman, "I can't let this through, I would get fired if I let this through. My managed would kick my ass".

That was enough adventure in an airport to last me for a while yet.

Safari photos

For those who are interested I have added some of my safari photos to the little show at the top of the page, and you can also access them through Picasa online - under my email address name. (Don't ask me how !!)

Not (really) a white man - Adventures in Mozambique

Not really a white man

Coming from a large family sometimes has seemed like a load stone - not the actual experience of  growing up with so many siblings but the way that it is wheeled out as a party trick by others - ask him how many brothers and sisters he has, and the usual predictable response. In the last couple of months though I have had two unusual responses. The first was somebody who clearly had a yearning to be a game show host, she asked "Number 7, name and date of birth", the second is the story that follows:

Touched again by the hand of luck, together with a Brazlian guy that I had met at the hotel where I was staying, we somehow managed to wing our way in to a small house perched on top of a dune overlooking the best wave in Mozambique for less than what we were paying at the hotel. The photos don't really do it justice, we could sit on the patio and look out over the wave immediately below us, and across the bay stretching back towards Tofo. As the Brazlian wryly commented, I would pay that amount just for the patio - there is enough room to pitch our tent.

Every morning I would get up at 5.30, and the on the days there were no surf, I would watch the ocean in action. Almost every morning I watched dolphins swim around the point, into the small bay, and either fish or simply frolic. A number of times I saw whales swim past, usually at a distant, but a few times close enough to clearly identify them. One day I watched a huge Great Southern breach three of four times, getting its entire body out of the water, and leaving an almighty wake, with white water that was visible for 10 minutes afterwards. A few times a mother and small calf swam past, and the calf showed its playfulness by thumping its tail out of the water as it swam in circles around its mother.

Every other day the guard would show up around 10 in the morning, wash any dishes we had left unwashed, make our beds, clean our rooms, and hang around for a chat.In our initial conversation with the guard we had to disabuse him of the idea of Brazil being in Europe, and left him floundering with the idea that Australia is in Asia - (Paul Keating would be a happy man). He insisted that Noel speak to the booking agent because he was Brazilian and therefore poor, whereas as an Australian, (and a European), I had a lot of money and we would be made to pay more - "better that you pay less and tip me more", he explained.
On our final day at lunch Noel asked how many children Bernardo had. He stopped eating and with a sheepish grin he confessed ,
"I am a black man, so I have many, seven children." Unable to resist I interjected,
"Nao so os negros que tem muito ninos...." (It is not only  blacks who have a lot of children)
This didn't provoke much response, but with Noel being in on the joke insisted that Roberto asked me how many children I had.
I explained that I didn't have any but I came from a family of 15
"Ahi, he is not a real white person"

Noel attempted to explain to Bernardo that just as in Mozambique there were wealthy people, the world was populated by haves and have-nots. He is a poor Australian, and I am a rich Brazilian. Bernardo didn't seem convinced.

Other Mozambican highlights:

• Maputo is a strange city, it sits on a hill overlooking a narrow harbour. It is filled with decaying, concrete, high-rise residential buildings, which clearly haven't received any attention since the Portuguese abruptly packed up sticks and fled Mozambique in the late 1970's, leaving Mozambicans with a new country, and the almost mandatory for Africa senseless civil war. Tropical air is not kind to concrete, grime quickly covers all the outward facing surfaces, cracks soon appear sometimes exposing reinforcing, and pieces fall off. The streets are covered in that third world special black grime, rubbish lies piled on the streets, and the roads are largely devoid of traffic. It all gives the city a decrepit and dying look, the only splash of colour to be seen is the ubiquitous mobile phone network advertising, whether in the form of billboards, huge posters hanging off the sides of buildings or small stickers stuck on every possible surface.

• As I am walking in to the small town that is Ponta d'Ouro to buy my daily ration of two bread rolls, which make up two of my daily meals, I crest the small hill just before town and give my usual wave to the local boys hanging out a 3ft high wall in the shade. One of the boys calls out,  "My friend, can you do me a favour". Normally I would walk straight past, but life should be variable, so I approached and asked - "What would the favour be ?" He replies, with a completely straight face "I am thirsty my friend, buy me a beer." I couldn't hold back my mirth - but I guess you can't blame him for trying. "Not today" I replied and wandered off chuckling to myself.
• Perhaps it is a function of growing up in the suburbs and my own twisted sense of the world, but for some reason I came to Africa under the impression that most of the wildlife would be restricted to national parks. However in the first two weeks of surfing in Africa I have more accustomed to surfing with dolphins rather than without them. I surfed three times in South Africa, and each time a few fins appeared on the horizon and there was some nervous neck craning going on from the local surfers. Each time however relief soon set in as the fins came closer and a pod of dolphins swam past. When I arrived in Ponta D'ouro in Mozambique it appeared as if the dolphins had followed me. On the first day I surfed alone, and sitting outside the point waiting for a wave I saw some dolphins swim my way (thank you lasik surgery) A group of about 10 large dolphins swam right towards me, a couple flew past on either side, and then two show offs, in perfect synchronisation, formed a beeline directly for me, jumped completely out of the water immediately in front of me and then swiftly dove down and swam right under me. The water in Mozambique is ridiculously clear, and the and  smooth and seemingly effortless way in which the dolphins moved through the water made me a little envious. It made me think of Douglas Adams' So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, maybe he was right and dolphins were the most evolved animals. For the next couple of days I surfed with a South African guy, who made my previous attempts to look like Fabio seem pathetic - with his long blonde hair blowing in the breeze and his washboard stomach being shown off for all and sundry he clearly has some Italian stallion heritage in him somewhere. Each day the dolphins were regularly show up, check out what we were doing, catch a few waves if the surf was any good, and then swim off across the bay. On the last day I surfed at Ponta D'ouro the less friendly cousin decided to show up. As I was paddling back out to the point after catching the wave, I saw the South African frantically signalling at me. I soon worked out what he was trying to say with his rapid arm movements, and following his pointing, I spotted the fin moving through the water about 30 metres away from us. We quickly made our way in to shore, and on the way he explained that it was a tiger shark, about 3 to 4 metres long, no explanation was really necessary - if a South African heads out of the water after seeing a shark that is enough for me.
  
• Later when I reached Tofo the wind howled for the first three days I was there, so I had to be content with my 5.30 surf check being a dolphin watching session instead. On the second morning a large group swam in the the small bay made by a small rocky headland, and whilst the rest of the group swam around hunting fish, one smaller dolphin spent most of the time jumping through the back of the breaking waves and riding them in as they broke around the point. Perhaps, after all it is not that we are surf bums, but that the nature of the ocean and the motion of riding waves makes us that way - whether dolphin or human.
• Heading down to the beach for an afternoon swim we notice a whale particularly close to shore, about 500 metres up the beach. We run down to the water, asking each other on the way down to the water, exactly what would we do if the whale did come close to us. Whilst this gives us cause to pause, it doesn't stop us throwing ourselves headlong in to the water, in pursuit of the whale - or perhaps more accurately, in pursuit of the idea of the whale. Naturally the whale doesn't reappear, but we experience something equally spectacular. We swim out past the breakers, and diving underneath the water I suddenly notice that I can hear the whale singing. I call to my friend and we dive down and try and hold our breath for as long as we can, over and over. Each time being more and more mesmerised and exhilarated listening to the real, live whale song. After about 10 minutes or so, as we were beginning to tire, the songs began to trail off, but 10 minutes is more than enough to remember for a lifetime.
• Participating in the strange, strange ritual that is Mozambican transport. The Government has decreed that no public transport can be on the road between 9pm and 4.30am, so most chapas (old Japanese Toyota Hiaces, fitted out to seat 18 -or more- in 4 rows of 4 seats, plus two in the front plus the driver, plus the cobrador - sometimes hanging out the window) leave at 4.30 in the morning. When I decided to high tail it out of Mozambique it took me four days to get to Zambia - on the first I took the last of the day chapas from Inhambane to Vilanculos, arriving at 9pm at night - after wandering past a couple of overpriced backpackers I ended up at the end of the road, at a fenced in campsite with no one around. I reluctantly set up my tent, slept 5 hours, got up at 3am, packed up everything, walked back in to town and finally left at 5am. I then arrived at Chimoio at 1 in the afternoon to be told that nothing would leave for Tete until 4.30am the next morning. So I spent the rest of the day in Chimoio, woke at 4am and left at 4.30am, to arrive in Tete at around 1 in the afternoon, to be told again that nothing would be leaving for the border until - yep, you guessed it 4.30am the next morning. So after a fruitless hitching attempt, I stayed with some local guys, got up at 3am and the chapa finally left at 5.30, and I was at the border by 11am. (I have spent the last week in South Luangwa NP in Zambia recovering !!!)
  

Safari, so goodi

If a picture speaks a thousand words then the following pictures would simply read "Wow" a thousand times over.