Of love and hunger (Or how to get your mojo going)
Mozambique is starting to import every fresh product from South Africa. Tomatoes, Lettuce, Mangoes, Papayas, potatoes et al. The reason for this is simple. Greed. Local produce can be sold at an extra charge in South Africa, and vice-versa. The irony behind all this is that Mozambique importing produce is like Texas importing retarded, they grow on trees everywhere.I may not have these figures accurately. When I thought about writing an essay on import-export in Mozambique I knew that in order to produce a half-ass informative essay I would have to gather, dig and study a whole lot of information, thus after a few minutes of considering the issue I came to the conclusion that this would not be a half-ass essay. But it will be informative.
Going shopping in Maputo is like an Indiana Jones experience. The moment you arrive to the market or Supermarket you are welcome by a group of kids fighting among them to be the one with the privilege to watch your car while your in picking your food. Once you get over this, usually by the complicated process of just looking forward and disregard the rest, you are faced with tough security at the doors. Criminality is the most blooming business in town. Can you imagine going into your local Carrefour and see three guys in bullet proof vests and combat helmets holding a gun that can bring down a 747 by the door? Well, that’s Mozambique. In any case, once you are past the guards from hell, you are faced with the real criminals in this country.
First of all allow me to clarify that as of November 2008 minimum salary in Mozambique was of 41.6€ per month and most households endure the fact of only one salary coming in to feed a family of average 6 people. From here on make your own calculations on amount per head per month. In addition to this here are some prices from today’s´ markets.
Tomato – 2.6 € p/k
Fish – 3.4 € p/k (Local fish consisting mostly of skin and bone. Similar to a sardine)
Milk – 1.8 € liter
Oil – 2 € liter
Fruit;
Papaya – 3 € p/k
Mango – 3 € p/k
Bananas 2 € p/k
Apples – an arm and half your left leg.
Strawberries – both arms and your first-born.
I tell you it is insane. Everything everywhere is charged considering European salaries. And even then it’s not easy.
Lets say you feel like taking your girl out for a romantic evening. Hell, you’d better have won the lottery. Pizza for two will free your wallet from at least 20 €. A regular Menu dinner will release you beginning at 50 €. So better take her to the seaside and hope you find stranded fish.
However, all restaurants are full, markets bloom in public and the cars around here are just out of sight. Yes, I do understand that what I am looking at is the 0.1% of the population who can afford these luxuries and that the vast majority are not seen because simply they cannot come to the part of town where to have a coffee would mean no breakfast for your family this week. I know all this and cannot but amaze at the fact of no one doing nothing. Mozambicans are stale in hunger and deception and foreigners move about in the same manner as they do in their village in the Paris Area. Including myself. I don’t feel too good about it.
Posts
4 comments:
I feel terrified for this … not much is changed from the war period. I knew that out of Maputo there were some cooperatives ( local vegetable production) that managed to satisfy part of the demand. If it is easier to buy S.A. products all these women ( I remember that there were most women that joined the working cooperative) how might support their families? I don’t know if it is changed something in Mozambique but during the ’80 I remember that the “land” was owned by the State, maybe giving the propriety to the “campezinhos” could change something ….
As foreigners, we all made a different life in Maputo, maybe in the period I lived there we were not so ostentatious . From that period I still eat all I have in my plate remembering that my father used to say that I was lucky to have lunch and dinner every day. I had one pair of shoes until their death and I was forbidden to wear fancy clothes …. But still I was 10.000 times richer than the Mozambicans that lived near us ….
That my friend is a thing of the past. I am in touch with a lot of people that, at one time or other, stayed for a while in Maputo during the 70's and 80's. People from europe, the USA and South America. People who dream of going back to a place in their past that holds no resemblance to actuality. Those days are gone my friend. They are a dream of a forgotten past. Samora's dream, that is no more my friend. His interpretation of a socialist idea did not work, the people lost their power (however little it was then) and greed grew at an outstanding speed. I'm not even going to get started on politics. South Africans "Boars" and Zimbabwean "Rhodesians" have bought considerable rights to land that by law they are not allowed to buy, yet they own and operate tourist resorts everywhere. As Danny mentioned in Maputo prices are for the foreigners "brancos" not for the people. So the people what, you ask? Very little has improved for them I'm afraid, yet it has. Thanks to people like Danny's mom, that have taken health care and education where they could only dream of before. Unfortunately though, its not widespread enough. Maputo is not a reality for Mozambicans, but a farcical example of what is to come for the rest of the country. For the few "elite" Mocambicanos of Maputo, this is a dream time, but for the Machambeiros, there is very little light at the end of an already dark tunnel. So in the rest of the country the local mercados have everything, but they would be better served if they could break into the export game of Maputo. Buddy, our Mozambique is gone... Abaixo ou imperialismo? .... haha ... yeah right!
Insane. What does fresh produce cost at the Mercado downtown, and is that still local produce, or is it also imported?
I have the same memories as Nat; I might add that I remember times when even us wealthy foreigners had not much more to eat than rice with carapao fish, and an egg was an absolute luxury. So, thanks to Mozambique,I'm still in the habit of eating everything on my plate, living with the bare minimum if possible, recycling all I can (though that's a concept that got refined later) and wearing the same shoes to death before I buy the next pair. To digress a little,the biggest and most memorable culture shock of my life was when I went to study in Europe after living for 8 years in Mozambique: I just couldn't comprehend how, in the midst of such plenty, people could walk around so elegantly dressed but so sour-faced...
Danny, here's an idea that I've had for a long time but haven't dared to throw your way so far: if you ever get completely sick of Barcelona and want to go back to Mozambique permanently, how about applying your "Solodarity Café" idea over there?... Might be an appropriate complement to the rest of your activities... Just a thought.
J.
Hmmmm, I had thought about this. Not easy but more sustainable.
Times sure have changed down here hein? Those of you gone for a few years would not recognize it at all.
Post a Comment