Potpouri

Currently I'm in the Johannesburg airport lounge and have some 6 hours waiting ahead of me. It's now 18:00 hrs and my KLM flight isn't until midnight. This is my last trip back home after 7 months of Maputo. I guess that will also mean the end of this blog (assuming I don't lose my suitcase again, which requires me to write another entry tomorrow. Or just copy a previous one).

This entry is a collection of short stories and impressions I had collected earlier, but hadn't yet told you about. It's quite a long post.

Thieves

The local thieves are lazy! I mean, really lazy! Here they steal your car radio like in any other country. But they don't run away! Running costs too much energy. No, they just sit there waiting for you and by the time you return to your car, they come up to you and explain how they saw some guy stealing your car radio. Luckily for you, they were there and were able to stop the thief! Like some sort of superhero! Maputo Man! Of course, all this heroism comes at a price. And no, not cheaply, because superheroes need expensive clothing and gadgets. Hey! Batman was a millionaire too!

It is now rainy season, which makes these thieves a.k.a. superheroes even lazier. Now, instead of stealing your car radio, they just take your wipers. I guess that is good news, since it saves you the hassle of replacing a broken window. Thank you Maputo Man! As there's no way you can drive through a rain storm without window wipers, so you're even more 'forced' to buy something which is yours to start with! It is for this reason that you see local business men park their cars at work, take the wipers off and walk with these to their office. T.I.A.!

Presidential Transportation

Here the president and the prime minister are driven around, as is the case in any country. Obviously some security is required. Yeah, some! Whenever they go anywhere there's an entire motorcade of police motorcycles, cars with sirens, flashing lights and dark windows. Seriously, if JFK had this entourage, the CIA... ehhh.... Lee Harvey Oswald would've had no chance to shoot him. He would've been blinded by the lights nd deafened by the sirens.

The funny bit is also that the prime minister actually lives across the street from the president, but she still requires the entire parade to go for a work visit. Even though each morning she goes out for a morning jog with just one security guard.

Fish Market

One of the best places to eat is the local fish market, the Mercado da Peixe. It is what you kind'a expect at an African fish market. It is not that big, the stands look like they'll collapse any second and the fish just lie there and stare at you with their big seductive eyes. Behind the stands there will be a few women looking bored while waving the flies off their merchandise.

Apart from the fish you can get - what else? - shrimp! All kinds of shrimp. Big shrimp, even bigger shrimp, tiger prawns, langostinas and lobster! And all fresh as can be. Not the Dutch kind, where shrimp - caught a year ago, then deep frozen, shipped to Morocco to be peeled there, frozen again, returned - is then sold to the supermarket as fresh. No, these shrimp are so fresh, some of them are still looking for Nemo.

The bored women all of a sudden jump alive when you enter the market. The screaming and shouting starts. Fresh shrimp! Cheap fish! Buy mine! Great Price! Get your lobster here! You wander around and then start haggling. It is a big ridiculous if you consider that you're actually haggling to get the price of one kilo of tiger prawns from 10 to 7 euros (yep, you read that right. No typo). After that you pick up two 750 gram live lobsters for 8 euros and head off to the back of the market.

There is a large open space with many tables, surrounded by small brick buildings which function as kitchens. You sit at a table - obviously not before an army of waiters has tried to convince you to sit at theirs - and hand over your just acquired merchandise. You ask them to grill it over an open fire and add some fries, rice, salad and a few nice cold 2/M beers. The rest of the afternoon you just relax with your company and enjoy the best freshly BBQ-ed shrimp and lobster. What a feast!

Job Hunting

Everybody here is job hunting. Doesn't even matter whether they are unemployed, studying or already have one or more jobs. There's always more money at the other side of the fence. You see? It is not about a huge willingness to work or big ambitions. It is mostly about getting more cash. People stop you anywhere and ask you if you have open positions at your company. The funny bit is that they have no clue what company you work for or which industry for that matter. And I'm not talking unemployed people looking for a low level position. No, guys in business suits. Accountants, bookkeepers, etc. Also at the bank so far, more people have come by to drop CV's than actual company visitors. I've had CV's given to me by people in bars, restaurants, the waiter and the receptionist at the hotel.

I'm not trying to put the local work force down, but there is also a large difference in work attitude here compared to the previous 3 countries I've worked in. Work here is a thing you have to show up at in order to get money at the end of the week or month. If you can show up somewhere else and get more for it... then go for it! It really doesn't matter whether you just started the previous job.

And if there's a chance to take more than you deserve, do so! There's no shame. So basically every empregada (housekeeper) takes food from their employers for use at home or returns from the supermarket without handing back the change. Banks have three times as many checks and balances in place to make sure the staff doesn't skim a bit left and right, store owners don't allow staff to touch the cashiers and police officers hardly write out tickets but still cash in a lot. And most of the times it is not even their jurisdiction. I know, I am generalising a lot. There are good guys out there and some of this skimming is also because people here can be hugely underpaid. This is meant to be descriptive, not judgemental.

Phone Fraud

One evening in the very beginning, me and a colleague staying in the same hotel, had just returned from dinner and decided to have a drink in the hotel bar. When we got there, there was a lady sitting at a table with champagne glasses and a nice 200 dollar bottle in the cooler awaiting her other guests. At least, so we thought. Two hours passed and she was still there. Alone, drinking a glass of tonic and sitting at a table with the champagne bottle and glasses.

She starting looking around more nervously and all of a sudden burst out crying. The bartender immediately ran over to her to check what was going on. It turns out that she was there for some celebration where she would be handed over the keys to a brand new home she had just won. Or so she thought...

She was basically a victim of some fraud. It starts with an text message which congratulates you with the unique chance of winning something. It's actually guaranteed. You just need to call or text a number and your prize will be on its way. I get these messages regularly, but obviously ignore these. Well, not everybody does. She had spent well over 100 US dollars (which is a fortune for her) while being led to believe that she won a house. A real house! She was even sent to some construction site to admire 'her' home.

Now she was told to go to the Polana Hotel (yep, the most expensive) and wait in the bar for the press and the president of the organisation to officially hand over the keys to her new prize home. She was even told to make sure the champagne was ready. Now x hours later she started realising that she was a victim of fraud and she even couldn't afford the two tonics she just had in the bar. She was too decent to just get up and walk away and started crying out of ander and sadness. What a sad story. Fraud is one thing, but doing this champagne thing is just mean. Deep down inhumanly mean! There's nothing the frauds would gain from that, so why humiliate someone like that?

Swaziland

Did you know that I actually went to Swaziland? I know, I never wrote about it, but then again, I spent the total time of 24 minutes there. And of these 24 minutes, 23 were spent in a line. The immigration line of course! Immigration laws are very strict here. My business visa issued in Brussels is valid for 180 days, but I can only stay in the country for a period of 30 days in a row. Why? I do not know, but there must be a good reason for that. There must be some sort of security measure behind this. Maybe some anti-terrorism act?

It's actually quite similar in many countries. Most countries allow tourists to stay for 180 days, but only 90 in a row. After that you should leave the country for a pre-defined number of hours. Often 72 hours. A lot of backpackers or "immigrants" staying on a tourist visa have experience with this. What they usually do is plan a short holiday (i.e. a long weekend) out of town. Here it is similar. The only difference is you do not have to stay out of the country for 72 hours, but 72 seconds is enough (if only those lines were not so long). That's it! So that's exactly what I did. I drove for an hour to the Swazi border, parked the car just before this border (so I didn't have to export and import it), crossed the border on foot, turned around, crossed it again, got my stamp and drove back for an hour. I enjoyed every second of Swaziland! All 3 of 'em!

Well, that's it then! The end of the blog! (please, please, please, let my suitcase arrive in Amsterdam tomorrow). I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I did a similar thing in 2004 during my Olympic Volunteer experience and later on realised that I still read that blog once a year. Just to remind myself of what I experienced. I guess years from now, I'll still be the one regular reader of this one.

Abraços e Beijos!