9.30 Anna and I leave in the "Black Panther", a low sporty little sedan, a bit beaten up and fragile. This car is a Godsend I've been leant – seems to me not the most practical sort of car to own in Mozambique but so much fun. We’re off for a morning of errands, planning to be back by 1.00. I begin to adjust to the Mozambican traffic again, remembering that trucks get right of way because they're big, two lanes mean four or possibly even five at a pinch and indicators mean nothing at all.
10.00 Airport to change US dollars to Mozambican metacais for hospitality department shopping. While I wait in the car, illegally parked, I watch a young boy of about 9, shoeless, dirty and dressed in rags, search through the bin next to the car and take out two empty water bottles. He puts them in an old rice sack, throws it over his shoulder and moves slowly on. I cry and I pray. I feel incredibly conspicuous in my nice black car. I vow to remember to buy some packets of biscuits to keep in the glove box for begging children.
10.15 Anna’s back but the car won’t start. We call Vasco (head of vehicles for the Centre) who says: "The Centre mechanic didn't come to work today. I'll try to find him.”
10.20 “He’s at home. He’ll be there in half an hour." Anna buys drinks while I wait for Julio.
11.00 Call Vasco again, who says, "He's nearly there." We sit on the ground out front of the airport and wait, receiving many second glances. I see no other white faces the whole time we’re there.
11.10 Jonny pulls up, having heard that we broke down. God bless Jonny! Opens the bonnet and tinkers. Soon a Mozambican man offers to help. He starts the car in just a few minutes.
11.30 Anna calls Vasco to cancel the mechanic. “He keeps telling me he’s almost there. He’s not there?” Mission resumes.
11.45 “Game”, my favourite place to shop. Imagine a huge Kmart and Bunnings combined, without the clothes.
12.30 Buy a new printer for hospitality. Forgot the ink, which means another trip into town another day.
12.45 Lunch at Sagrez, my favourite place to eat – right on the beach. While sitting, all we can see is the ocean, brown, hazy with scum floating on top. Cooling sea breeze, I forget for awhile where I am. Have the typical Mozambican lunch of Portuguese chicken, salad, rice and soggy chips. Hawkers hold up their touristy trinkets from the beach beyond the low green wall, calling “Sensa... Sensa...”, “Excuse me...” quietly to get our attention.
1.45 Stand to leave and notice, for the first time, the piles of garbage all along the dirty brown sand’s tide line, blocked from our view while sitting and enjoying our meal. What a mess.
2.15 Shoprite for groceries. Usually I go on the “visitors’ run” in the minibus once a week and buy very little for lack of space on the way home. Today Anna and I have a whole boot we can fill if we want to. I stock up on heavy items like canned toms and long-life milk, while Anna is here to help me carry and we have lots of space in the car. Anna buys six weeks’ worth of nappies for Gilda, the disabled girl she cares for in the girls’ dorm.
In the fresh food aisle (the term “fresh” used loosely here), a young girl, maybe ten, sidles up next to me and stands for awhile. I pull my handbag closer, thinking she has seen me withdraw money from the teller a few minutes earlier. She holds her hand in front of me and on her palm is written a word in ink: “ioma”. Then she zips her lips just like a teacher to tell me not to speak and shows me the word again. She’ll be thrown out if found begging in the supermarket. I don’t know what this word means but I suspect it’s Shangaana, perhaps for money. I look deep into her eyes and smile, and she looks back for a moment, sadder and more lost than I can imagine it’s possible to be. Then she turns and walks away, disappearing into the crowd of people shopping for luxuries like soap and cereal that she has probably never had. I want to chase after her and hug her and bring her home and feed her and tell her I can make everything better. But I can’t. Every day here, my heart breaks in a new way. Imagine how Jesus must feel.
(On a lighter note, last week at Shoprite a short, gorgeous black man started a conversation with me in the laundry products aisle. I had begun to suspect somewhere near the insecticides that I was being followed. He said he was Sudanese and he obviously wanted to chat. We talked for a moment then I excused myself, saying I had to meet my friend. He asked for my phone number, “So we can talk...” First time I’ve been asked for my phone number in quite a while. And it had to be in Mozambique, in the supermarket, next to the bleach, by a Sudanese refugee “wanting to talk”.)
3.00 I put the groceries in the car and dash up the road to Woolworths (imagine a classy deli back home with packs of ham costing $9 and individual frozen meals $13). I wonder if it's worth the effort in the heat. I nod at the guard as I enter. I buy yoghurt that I can be reasonably sure won't go off by the time I get home. I buy half a dozen eggs at almost $1 each – the only eggs I can find in Maputo with yellow yolks. Shoprite yolks are beige and, I suspect, bereft of nutrients. My weekly splurge.
3.15 We head home, Anna looking for brooms for sale on the side of the road and me looking for a bed. We see a bed, after six weeks of searching! We pull over, right outside the Bocaria, the garbage dump where the smells and the smoke are almost overwhelming some days. Today, it’s not too bad at all. We wait for several minutes for a break in the traffic then take our lives in our hands and cross in front of several shapas fighting for lane space and heading our way at speed.
We check out the silver-painted metal bed, propped up on empty cans in the sand. The maker appears and I tell him, “Nao fala Portuguese”. I don’t speak Portuguese. Somehow, he gets the opposite message, so directs all his comments to me and won’t listen to Anna, a consummate Portuguese speaker. He eventually realises his mistake and we all laugh. We take his number. Yes, he has a phone. He makes beds from scrap metal and sells them by the side of the road, in the sand. He has no running water and probably no electricity. And he has a mobile phone. Very normal here.
4.00 We get back to the Centre and wait for the guard to open the gates. I pull through and feel the piled-up sand in the middle of the driveway drag against the bottom of the newly christened Black Panther. One of our Mozambican workers appears in a car from the opposite direction. I assume he'll pull back and let us through, there being room for only one car at a time. Instead of reversing, he keeps coming towards us. He doesn’t stop – he slows and pulls to the side and motions for me to do the same. I know that if I pull into the soft sand, I’ll get stuck. He keeps driving towards me so I have no choice. I pull to the side. I get stuck. He waves and keeps driving.
We’re stuck. Anna gets out and tries to push. Another worker drives towards us. He slows, looks, waves and keeps driving. Two men walk over, look, nod, and keep walking. All the while, Anna is pushing and I’m revving and we’re getting nowhere. Then, the boys on the soccer field (really just a red dust bowl) see us and a swarm of them start yelling and running towards us. I think, “I don’t want children near a bogged, slipping car” but then realise I have no choice. And they’ll love to be the rescuers of we damsels in distress. So, seven little heroes push and push and get the car out, and cheer. We’ve made their day and they’ve made ours.
4.15 Home, groceries unpacked. We took three hours longer than expected, as we always do here. My western planning mentality seems unable to adjust to how long it takes to accomplish anything. I’m exhausted. Over the next two hours I receive eight visitors, three phone calls and half a dozen texts, for all sorts of reasons. This is why going out for a day of running errands is actually quite restful, even with break-downs and bogs and begging children in the supermarket.
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