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 !!!)