After an absence of three weeks, here's the African blogger again. Back in business! It is now Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting at Mundo's, the sports bar. On the screens there are two matches being played. On the large screen it's the rugby world cup, the biggest thing in this South African bar and on the small screen the final of the women's world cup football. As with the men the two countries which have played most finals face each other: Germany and Brazil. James just texted me saying that he's watching it too and it is as boring as women's basketball. Sorry ladies, but I have to agree.
I've been back now for a week after an extremely busy two weeks 'holiday' in Holland. It was so busy I heard myself say to someone: "I think I have an opening tomorrow morning between 10 and 11". This was supposed to be a holiday!!! But the two weeks were great! I know this is supposed to be a blog on Mozambique, but one entry on Europe couldn't hurt, could it?
As you know the trip started off on a wrong foot with the lack of fuel for my air plane, but I got lucky (thank you again, Mr Katanja). So I was back in Utrecht just an hour later than planned. To start off, that first day I already got shot to shambles. Death by needle as the medical services gave me a few more vaccine and tuberculoses related shots. After some more work related appointments I finally got to hang out with my friends at - where else? - Cafe Flater. That had been a long time and very enjoyable.
(By the way, I think a former Flater bar girl just 'fell' of the balcony of here actor boyfriend totally drugged and into a coma. You probably heard about it in the news this last week. It's on De Telegraaf with pictures and everything.Poor Kim).
Of course the highlights of the trip included live concerts of Prince and The Police and the visit to Spa Franchorchamps for the Formula 1 race! Let me start with Prince. As we were a bit late in booking a hotel, we ended up at a youth hostel. Last time I did that, I was actually a student visiting New York and staying at the local YMCA (No, that is not a gay bar for groups of guys dressed up as Indians, construction workers or police officers). Back then I swore never to do that again. Especially after I saw all the turds floating around the shared toilets just minutes after they actually cleaned it. Luckily this place, called the Vi.... ehh.... the Generator, was quite decent and relatively clean. Of course, I didn't dare touching a wall or shower curtain, but other than that, it worked out fine. Still again, the last time of course!
Prince was, well, Prince! Absolutely brilliant as a live artist. If you like live music you should definitely have done a Prince concert once in your life. Even if you don't like his music. What made it even better is that he only played his older songs, which increased the party feel as those are the songs all fans know by heart and let's face it, it was his best period. The absolute highlight though was at the end of the concert. It was over, lights were on, security was packing and people were leaving. When almost half of the people were gone, Prince just reappeared on stage wearing some sort of sweat suit and just started playing the piano. All by himself! People ran back, security guys had no clue what to do and we all went totally nuts. He played intros of his songs and then the audience did the lyrics. Absolutely brilliant!
There is actually some footage on his website of one of the London concerts. Check out a 10 minute set here.
Two days later it was time for The Police in Amsterdam. It was a good concert. They played all the favourites, Andy Summers is a great guitarist (better than I actually remembered) and it was the fulfilment of a childhood dream: seeing The Police live. And they really are one of the all-time best bands. Even now, it still sounds current and not old fashioned. However, it just is quite unfair to them (and I guess myself), to watch them live just two days after the purple one. But I'm happy I did.
Then it was time for the road trip with Frits. First to Maastricht on the Saturday, hang out there and party a bit and then, of course, the second leg to the Ardennes in Belgium for my first ever Formula 1 race. first of all, it is a very beautiful setting. A race track in the hilly forested area. Something wonderfully contrasting about seeing these mechanical wonders in between pine trees where you expect a grizzly bear to come at you at any second.
But what stuck most was the sheer impressiveness of these cars. They're fast, very very very fast! They are 10 times faster in real life than on television. And they make about 100 times more noise than you can even imagine! And so small! These are lawn mowers on some serious steroids! Rasmussen would race the Himalayas on this stuff!
And you know what I really missed during my stay in Maputo? That delicious 'Dutch' food! And I ate it all during these two weeks: Dim Sum, Pita Giros, Peking Duck Pancakes, Roti, Rijsttafel, Won Ton soup and of course the lovely Japanese twins Sushi & Sashimi! They're so yummie!
Then it was time to go back to Moz. After my two flights with Kenya Airways I had learned my lesson. This time I was doing my own luggage. First, no more KQ for me. Second, no thru-labelling of my suitcase. I flew KLM to Johannesburg and South African to Maputo, but I was getting my suitcase of the belt at JBG and checking it in again. It worked. The flights worked like a charm and I got back here on time and complete (meaning me and my suitcase made it together. we are so happy).
Sunday, 30 September 2007
Sunday, 9 September 2007
And The Winner Is...
After a small interruption, for which we would like to thank President Mugabe yet again, the blog is back on track with part 2 of the final quiz results.
7. How did former president Samora Machel die?
He was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventually the Presdent. Machel led the country to independence in 1975 until his death in 1986, when his presidential aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain where the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa converge. He is for the Mozambicans what Ataturk is for the Turks.
Machel's widow, Graça is convinced (like most of the country) the air crash was no accident and has dedicated her life to tracking down her husband's killers. In 1998, Mrs Machel married the then South African President Nelson Mandela. She thus became unique in having been the first lady of two different nations, although not simultaneously.
In 2006 it was reported that the South African government is to reopen the inquiry into Machel's death. The Minister of Safety and Security, told reporters in Parliament: "We owe it to the people of Mozambique to ensure the matter is thoroughly investigated. Discussions are under way for dealing with the matter." All of South Africa's law enforcement agencies are expected to be involved in the probe, in co-operation with their Mozambican counterparts. We're still waiting for that one...
8. On what street will our bank open its doors?
And that would - surprisingly - be the Avenida Samora Machel. The bank will open right next to the Gil Vicente movie theatre and Gil Vicente cafe, a jazz/blues blues club described in one of my earlies postings. Across the street there's park with next to it the Iron House designed by Eiffel.
It's a sharp contrast towards where we are now. Our current temp offices are in the middle of a very posh residential area. If I look out the windows there's no way you can tell you're in Africa. Okay, apart from the guards that stand in front of every house.
9. What will be the name of this bank?
BANCO TERRA, O BANCO DA NOSSA TERRA! Say it loud and say it proud! (Guess the movie!) Why do I say it proud? Simply because I am at the roots of this bank. Not just a bank. No, the first real Mozambican commercial bank! It is not a foreign bank that opened a branch here, but a local bank. Admittedly funded for a large part by European money, but still a local bank. Let us have a look at my crystal ball..... The year is 2026 and I'm sitting in an Cuban stadium in Havana watching the world cup football semi-final between Holland and Mozambique. On the bench, the African reserve players and coaches are wearing jackets with the Banco Terra logo on it and I lean over to your grandchildren and say "did you know that uncle Roberto was in the small team that set up that bank?" How cool would that be!? I am, of course, referring to Holland being in a semi final...
10. What type of nut is available in huge numbers in this country?
I loooooooove nuts. I hardly eat chocolate, candy or crisps. When I want to much on something, it's nuts. Not peanuts, but actual nuts. I adore pistachios, walnuts, almonds, hazel nuts and my favourites: Brazil nuts and pecans. But no, here there's only one single nut available. The cashew nut. Together with macadamians my least favourite nut. And it is really the only one you can find here. I have not even seen cans of mixed nuts yet. Oh well...
11. Approximately how many times can you fit Holland in Mozambique?
This one nobody answered correctly. Even though it is quite simple to calculate. Go to the CIA's World Factbook (never leave home without it!) which you can find in the my links section on the right labelled "Facts & Figures" and look up the area sizes for both countries and perform the calculation. And you know, the CIA is never wrong! Never! And Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone! And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction! And Fidel Castro is still a major threat!
There's one slight issue with this calculation. The factbook states land, water and total area separately. Now what should you take? Do you compare land areas? Or do you compare total areas? My logic, but that is not necessarily your logic or any logic at all, says that thou shall take land area as including water is not totally fair. For example, Holland's water area is about 18% of the total area. And are territorial waters included? That would make Canada even bigger! Oh well, everybody answered 20 times, whereas comparing water areas gives you a factor of 19 (actually 19.3) and land areas results in 23 times bigger! On a side note, the population of Mozambique is 20 million, as opposed to 16 million in Cheeseland.
And in case more people got the same number of correct answers, we had the tie-breaker where the closest one to the correct answer wins.
12. How many beers were there on my July hotel bill?
This was obviously by far the toughest question. Okay, I admit. I do enjoy the occasional beer. Actually enjoy the regular beer even more! But I am a social drinker, meaning that I drink in company. For those of you who've been to my place and have had a look in my fridge - and since I'm the kind that will serve you once and after that just point at the refrigerator, most of the visitor have - will have noticed that there's very seldom beer in there. I do not drink beer at home and drinking in the hotel bar is a bit like drinking at home (No, I do not employ bar staff at home. I wish!).
So the number of beers on my hotel bill is actually limited to a few I had with colleagues staying in the same hotel. Actually the bill is tainted as the beers I offered to these colleagues are also on my hotel bill. But then again, the question did not refer to the beers I drank, but to the ones on the bill. The correct answer should've been..... drum roll........ 14! Yes, that is fourteen. The number made famous by that other J.C. That's logical!
So, now you know all the correct answers and know how many you had wrong. All entries have been carefully reviewed by Robertole Lopelulu Abukaramirez from the renowned, respected and trusted accounting firm Arthur Andersen and there was a clear winner. The tie breaker was not necessary as Frits beat out the rest by answering 10 out of the first 11 correctly. Parabens!
In the meanwhile the award ceremony was almost cancelled due to a lack of a prize. That was still inside my suitcase somewhere between Dar Es Salaam and Amsterdam. Luckily for me and Frits (and Kenya Airways), the suitcase found its way back to me. And only a day and a half later. Suitcase and owner are doing fine and can be visited during the day. Please make an appointment.
7. How did former president Samora Machel die?
He was a Mozambican military commander, revolutionary socialist leader and eventually the Presdent. Machel led the country to independence in 1975 until his death in 1986, when his presidential aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain where the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa converge. He is for the Mozambicans what Ataturk is for the Turks.
Machel's widow, Graça is convinced (like most of the country) the air crash was no accident and has dedicated her life to tracking down her husband's killers. In 1998, Mrs Machel married the then South African President Nelson Mandela. She thus became unique in having been the first lady of two different nations, although not simultaneously.
In 2006 it was reported that the South African government is to reopen the inquiry into Machel's death. The Minister of Safety and Security, told reporters in Parliament: "We owe it to the people of Mozambique to ensure the matter is thoroughly investigated. Discussions are under way for dealing with the matter." All of South Africa's law enforcement agencies are expected to be involved in the probe, in co-operation with their Mozambican counterparts. We're still waiting for that one...
8. On what street will our bank open its doors?
And that would - surprisingly - be the Avenida Samora Machel. The bank will open right next to the Gil Vicente movie theatre and Gil Vicente cafe, a jazz/blues blues club described in one of my earlies postings. Across the street there's park with next to it the Iron House designed by Eiffel.
It's a sharp contrast towards where we are now. Our current temp offices are in the middle of a very posh residential area. If I look out the windows there's no way you can tell you're in Africa. Okay, apart from the guards that stand in front of every house.
9. What will be the name of this bank?
BANCO TERRA, O BANCO DA NOSSA TERRA! Say it loud and say it proud! (Guess the movie!) Why do I say it proud? Simply because I am at the roots of this bank. Not just a bank. No, the first real Mozambican commercial bank! It is not a foreign bank that opened a branch here, but a local bank. Admittedly funded for a large part by European money, but still a local bank. Let us have a look at my crystal ball..... The year is 2026 and I'm sitting in an Cuban stadium in Havana watching the world cup football semi-final between Holland and Mozambique. On the bench, the African reserve players and coaches are wearing jackets with the Banco Terra logo on it and I lean over to your grandchildren and say "did you know that uncle Roberto was in the small team that set up that bank?" How cool would that be!? I am, of course, referring to Holland being in a semi final...
10. What type of nut is available in huge numbers in this country?
I loooooooove nuts. I hardly eat chocolate, candy or crisps. When I want to much on something, it's nuts. Not peanuts, but actual nuts. I adore pistachios, walnuts, almonds, hazel nuts and my favourites: Brazil nuts and pecans. But no, here there's only one single nut available. The cashew nut. Together with macadamians my least favourite nut. And it is really the only one you can find here. I have not even seen cans of mixed nuts yet. Oh well...
11. Approximately how many times can you fit Holland in Mozambique?
This one nobody answered correctly. Even though it is quite simple to calculate. Go to the CIA's World Factbook (never leave home without it!) which you can find in the my links section on the right labelled "Facts & Figures" and look up the area sizes for both countries and perform the calculation. And you know, the CIA is never wrong! Never! And Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone! And Iraq had weapons of mass destruction! And Fidel Castro is still a major threat!
There's one slight issue with this calculation. The factbook states land, water and total area separately. Now what should you take? Do you compare land areas? Or do you compare total areas? My logic, but that is not necessarily your logic or any logic at all, says that thou shall take land area as including water is not totally fair. For example, Holland's water area is about 18% of the total area. And are territorial waters included? That would make Canada even bigger! Oh well, everybody answered 20 times, whereas comparing water areas gives you a factor of 19 (actually 19.3) and land areas results in 23 times bigger! On a side note, the population of Mozambique is 20 million, as opposed to 16 million in Cheeseland.
And in case more people got the same number of correct answers, we had the tie-breaker where the closest one to the correct answer wins.
12. How many beers were there on my July hotel bill?
This was obviously by far the toughest question. Okay, I admit. I do enjoy the occasional beer. Actually enjoy the regular beer even more! But I am a social drinker, meaning that I drink in company. For those of you who've been to my place and have had a look in my fridge - and since I'm the kind that will serve you once and after that just point at the refrigerator, most of the visitor have - will have noticed that there's very seldom beer in there. I do not drink beer at home and drinking in the hotel bar is a bit like drinking at home (No, I do not employ bar staff at home. I wish!).
So the number of beers on my hotel bill is actually limited to a few I had with colleagues staying in the same hotel. Actually the bill is tainted as the beers I offered to these colleagues are also on my hotel bill. But then again, the question did not refer to the beers I drank, but to the ones on the bill. The correct answer should've been..... drum roll........ 14! Yes, that is fourteen. The number made famous by that other J.C. That's logical!
So, now you know all the correct answers and know how many you had wrong. All entries have been carefully reviewed by Robertole Lopelulu Abukaramirez from the renowned, respected and trusted accounting firm Arthur Andersen and there was a clear winner. The tie breaker was not necessary as Frits beat out the rest by answering 10 out of the first 11 correctly. Parabens!
In the meanwhile the award ceremony was almost cancelled due to a lack of a prize. That was still inside my suitcase somewhere between Dar Es Salaam and Amsterdam. Luckily for me and Frits (and Kenya Airways), the suitcase found its way back to me. And only a day and a half later. Suitcase and owner are doing fine and can be visited during the day. Please make an appointment.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Cannot Airways!
This latest posting, I apologise to all quiz entrants, is not the second part of the results, but an article on the latest developments. I am now sitting in seat 10F of an MD-11 (that’s a plane) that just left out of Dar Es Salaam on its way to Amsterdam. Nothing strange about that, you would think. Well, think again! My ticket says Maputo-Nairobi with Kenya Airways followed by Nairobi-Amsterdam with KLM. So what am I doing in an Amsterdam bound flight out of Tanzania? Let’s go back in time… (fuzzy image, fade out)
The days started fine. The alarm clock (well, actually the automated hotel wake up call that goes something like “good mooning! theez eez yo wakup col’ followed by music even an elevator would not dare to play) went at the planned time of 07:00 hrs. As my mini-break started the night before with some 12/M’s (the beer’s called 2/M, but I think I had six or so) I wasn’t entirely fresh but hey! It’s a holiday! After taking a shower I dropped some of my clothes in a colleagues room as I don’t want to go back and forth with all this stuff I don’t need in Holland anyway. I went down for breakfast and took my time. Some nice sunny-side-up fried eggs followed by a fresh fruits salad. I was feeling better already! The hotel-airport transfer was arranged for 09:20 and was very much on time. In Maputo the protocol is to be at the airport 2 hours before departure and the hotel adds another 30 minutes to that. They say it’s to be on the safe side, even though the biggest traffic jam I’ve seen in these three months was the line of 7 cars waiting on the Macaneta ferry (see one of the first articles on this blog).
Before checking in, the suitcase is scanned and some dude takes it out of the scanner and rolls your suitcase to the check-in line some 3 meters further away. This amazing piece of service sets you back a few Meticais, but… what the h! I’m in a good mood. Checking in went smoothly and then comes the long wait for my first flight. During this entire wait you ask yourself: why again did I show up this early? Luckily, the KQ (that is how every African calls Kenya Airways) flight arrived on time and we boarded. Then the first delay started. Some passenger was late. We wait and wait and finally a rasta dude shows up accompanied by two very official looking Brits. Official as in security officials. Later I hear this guy went to England, was refused entrance there and was escorted back to Mozambique by British immigration officials. Now he was back in a plane to return to England once again (via Nairobi) as Mozambique refused him too, as it was not possible to establish his nationality. When asked he would answer ‘I’m a citizen of the world!”.
So finally we departed out of Maputo with about an hours delay. No problem! I had more than 4 hours wait at Nairobi anyway so what could go wrong? The flight to Nairobi made one stop at Harare. That is in Zimbabwe, which as you might know is ruled by president Mugabe. This is the president that a few years back repossessed all farms from white farmers which was quite a bloody mess. One of his latest ploys is to not allow companies with majority foreign ownership So yes, foreign investors are running. Logical result: the economy of Zim (as everybody around here calls it) is collapsing.
So we’re there in Harare and looking out the window, I see a fuel truck next to the plane and 6 guys (!) involved. I remember wondering why you needed 6 guys to fuel a plane. A few minutes later I found out what was really going on. The 6 guys were there discussing the amount of fuel. It turns out that due to the collapse of the local economy there are fuel shortages and Mugabe had decided to ration fuel distribution. Even for regular scheduled flights! Like a plane is supposed to cover the same distance with less fuel! Not his problem!
So the KQ captain came up with a new plan. He had enough fuel to fly to Dar Es Salaam. There we would refuel and continue our journey to Nairobi. Total additional time? Less than an hour. I was still looking good. Still two hours to switch planes in Kenya. Should be enough, even for my suitcase.
Just before landing in Tanzania, the purser starts collecting all the head phones. I ask him why, as we still had the last leg to Nairobi ahead of us. His answer: “the captain wants us to”. This is where I started getting a little bit suspicious. We landed (actually bounced) in Tanzania, taxied to the gate and then it became very quiet. Looking out the window, no fuel truck. Also no announcements by the captain. Everybody just looking at each other with question marks on their foreheads. Finally the captain gets on the mic and starts his sentence with ‘Unfortunately…”. Noooooooooooooo, I had heard that word so often already on this flight! Unfortunately the crew was out of their hours, meaning they had flown up to the allowed legal limit and where therefore not allowed to fly us to Nairobi.
Of course, there’s no crew readily available in Dar Es Salaam. They have to be flown in from Nairobi. And it was expected that they would arrive in 3 to 4 hours time. Bye bye KLM connection in Nairobi! At that moment I knew I would spend 5 hours waiting on the airport in Tanzania, go to Nairobi, get into an airport hotel booked by the airline and pray they can rebook me on the morning KQ flight or on the next KLM flight (which would be 24 hours later).
Of course the captain apologised and promised we would be well fed and telephone services would be made available to contact my loved ones (that’s all of you of course). So after 30 minutes waiting in the plane, we were led to a closed section of the airport restaurant where a buffet was looking eager to be eaten. One problem: there was absolutely no one from the airline or even from the airport available. The transfer desk people probably expected to be bombarded with questions and fled. The KQ people obviously thought that attending to their stranded customers was not a priority. And the phones? Yeah right!
After a few minutes of looking around I noticed a departures screen which said that there would be a KLM flight from Kilimanjaro, passing by Dar Es Salaam on its way to Amsterdam. This is when the big search started. Forget searching for Easter eggs, finding your ideal job or even the love of your life. Finding a KLM, KQ or Transfer Desk staff member on Dar Es Salaam airport is the real challenge! There we were, me and 3 girls who were also booked on my flights, running from left to right, stopping every person wearing a uniform to ask if they were or knew anyone from those companies. Everybody was very sympathetic. When we asked them if they could contact someone to come and talk to us they all answered ‘Yes, we understand. Yes’ and went on with their whatever-they-were-doing.
So we decided to risk it and enter the country, meaning, we passed immigration to try to find the KLM check-in counter. That could potentially mean, filling in forms, paying for a visa and be subject to airport tax again. One of the girls charmed the immigration officer to let us through without all that hassle. You should’ve seen the dude. He was eating out of her hand. Okay, she was cute, but still… He took our passports hostage and we were on our way to the desk. There our hope quickly vanished. The desk head didn’t look eager to help us and stated repeatedly that they were overbooked and we should not expect anything. We went back, got our passports again from the love puppy and were ready to surrender.
That is when Mister Karanja appeared! I call him Mister with a capital M, because he is THE MAN! There was still not a single KQ guy attending to the passenger, but Mister K, actually working for KLM, decided to attend to these poor people. And he didn’t have to, as it was a KQ problem. After patiently having talked to everyone it was our turn. We explained the situation and how we would really like to be transferred to this KLM flight from the Nairobi one, if he had seats available of course. He said ‘Yes, I understand. Yes’ and went on. For a few minutes we sank back in our chairs not expecting much from it, but no. Is it a bird? A plane? No! It’s Mister K! And he wanted my luggage tag! That was not yet the same as receiving a boarding pass, but very close to it!
The sad part (well, to be honest, not for me), he only asked for my luggage tag. And yes, an hour later he returned once again with a boarding pass for me, but not for the girls, as he had only one available seat. Being the total gentleman that I am, I properly said my goodbyes and rushed off for the gate! Vamos emborra! So, after yet again an eventful set of flights, I was finally on board a plane going to Amsterdam and the arrival time was only 90 minutes later than my original flight from Nairobi.
(This last part is written while on the Schiphol train to Utrecht)
Needless to say, my suitcase did not make it yet again. I guess it is in Nairobi. Either my suitcase really loves Nairobi or KQ can just not say goodbye to it. I have now flown KQ twice and both times I arrived without my precious box of - now dirty - clothes. Oh well, I guess KLM will just have to drop it at my doorstep somewhere in the next few days.
The days started fine. The alarm clock (well, actually the automated hotel wake up call that goes something like “good mooning! theez eez yo wakup col’ followed by music even an elevator would not dare to play) went at the planned time of 07:00 hrs. As my mini-break started the night before with some 12/M’s (the beer’s called 2/M, but I think I had six or so) I wasn’t entirely fresh but hey! It’s a holiday! After taking a shower I dropped some of my clothes in a colleagues room as I don’t want to go back and forth with all this stuff I don’t need in Holland anyway. I went down for breakfast and took my time. Some nice sunny-side-up fried eggs followed by a fresh fruits salad. I was feeling better already! The hotel-airport transfer was arranged for 09:20 and was very much on time. In Maputo the protocol is to be at the airport 2 hours before departure and the hotel adds another 30 minutes to that. They say it’s to be on the safe side, even though the biggest traffic jam I’ve seen in these three months was the line of 7 cars waiting on the Macaneta ferry (see one of the first articles on this blog).
Before checking in, the suitcase is scanned and some dude takes it out of the scanner and rolls your suitcase to the check-in line some 3 meters further away. This amazing piece of service sets you back a few Meticais, but… what the h! I’m in a good mood. Checking in went smoothly and then comes the long wait for my first flight. During this entire wait you ask yourself: why again did I show up this early? Luckily, the KQ (that is how every African calls Kenya Airways) flight arrived on time and we boarded. Then the first delay started. Some passenger was late. We wait and wait and finally a rasta dude shows up accompanied by two very official looking Brits. Official as in security officials. Later I hear this guy went to England, was refused entrance there and was escorted back to Mozambique by British immigration officials. Now he was back in a plane to return to England once again (via Nairobi) as Mozambique refused him too, as it was not possible to establish his nationality. When asked he would answer ‘I’m a citizen of the world!”.
So finally we departed out of Maputo with about an hours delay. No problem! I had more than 4 hours wait at Nairobi anyway so what could go wrong? The flight to Nairobi made one stop at Harare. That is in Zimbabwe, which as you might know is ruled by president Mugabe. This is the president that a few years back repossessed all farms from white farmers which was quite a bloody mess. One of his latest ploys is to not allow companies with majority foreign ownership So yes, foreign investors are running. Logical result: the economy of Zim (as everybody around here calls it) is collapsing.
So we’re there in Harare and looking out the window, I see a fuel truck next to the plane and 6 guys (!) involved. I remember wondering why you needed 6 guys to fuel a plane. A few minutes later I found out what was really going on. The 6 guys were there discussing the amount of fuel. It turns out that due to the collapse of the local economy there are fuel shortages and Mugabe had decided to ration fuel distribution. Even for regular scheduled flights! Like a plane is supposed to cover the same distance with less fuel! Not his problem!
So the KQ captain came up with a new plan. He had enough fuel to fly to Dar Es Salaam. There we would refuel and continue our journey to Nairobi. Total additional time? Less than an hour. I was still looking good. Still two hours to switch planes in Kenya. Should be enough, even for my suitcase.
Just before landing in Tanzania, the purser starts collecting all the head phones. I ask him why, as we still had the last leg to Nairobi ahead of us. His answer: “the captain wants us to”. This is where I started getting a little bit suspicious. We landed (actually bounced) in Tanzania, taxied to the gate and then it became very quiet. Looking out the window, no fuel truck. Also no announcements by the captain. Everybody just looking at each other with question marks on their foreheads. Finally the captain gets on the mic and starts his sentence with ‘Unfortunately…”. Noooooooooooooo, I had heard that word so often already on this flight! Unfortunately the crew was out of their hours, meaning they had flown up to the allowed legal limit and where therefore not allowed to fly us to Nairobi.
Of course, there’s no crew readily available in Dar Es Salaam. They have to be flown in from Nairobi. And it was expected that they would arrive in 3 to 4 hours time. Bye bye KLM connection in Nairobi! At that moment I knew I would spend 5 hours waiting on the airport in Tanzania, go to Nairobi, get into an airport hotel booked by the airline and pray they can rebook me on the morning KQ flight or on the next KLM flight (which would be 24 hours later).
Of course the captain apologised and promised we would be well fed and telephone services would be made available to contact my loved ones (that’s all of you of course). So after 30 minutes waiting in the plane, we were led to a closed section of the airport restaurant where a buffet was looking eager to be eaten. One problem: there was absolutely no one from the airline or even from the airport available. The transfer desk people probably expected to be bombarded with questions and fled. The KQ people obviously thought that attending to their stranded customers was not a priority. And the phones? Yeah right!
After a few minutes of looking around I noticed a departures screen which said that there would be a KLM flight from Kilimanjaro, passing by Dar Es Salaam on its way to Amsterdam. This is when the big search started. Forget searching for Easter eggs, finding your ideal job or even the love of your life. Finding a KLM, KQ or Transfer Desk staff member on Dar Es Salaam airport is the real challenge! There we were, me and 3 girls who were also booked on my flights, running from left to right, stopping every person wearing a uniform to ask if they were or knew anyone from those companies. Everybody was very sympathetic. When we asked them if they could contact someone to come and talk to us they all answered ‘Yes, we understand. Yes’ and went on with their whatever-they-were-doing.
So we decided to risk it and enter the country, meaning, we passed immigration to try to find the KLM check-in counter. That could potentially mean, filling in forms, paying for a visa and be subject to airport tax again. One of the girls charmed the immigration officer to let us through without all that hassle. You should’ve seen the dude. He was eating out of her hand. Okay, she was cute, but still… He took our passports hostage and we were on our way to the desk. There our hope quickly vanished. The desk head didn’t look eager to help us and stated repeatedly that they were overbooked and we should not expect anything. We went back, got our passports again from the love puppy and were ready to surrender.
That is when Mister Karanja appeared! I call him Mister with a capital M, because he is THE MAN! There was still not a single KQ guy attending to the passenger, but Mister K, actually working for KLM, decided to attend to these poor people. And he didn’t have to, as it was a KQ problem. After patiently having talked to everyone it was our turn. We explained the situation and how we would really like to be transferred to this KLM flight from the Nairobi one, if he had seats available of course. He said ‘Yes, I understand. Yes’ and went on. For a few minutes we sank back in our chairs not expecting much from it, but no. Is it a bird? A plane? No! It’s Mister K! And he wanted my luggage tag! That was not yet the same as receiving a boarding pass, but very close to it!
The sad part (well, to be honest, not for me), he only asked for my luggage tag. And yes, an hour later he returned once again with a boarding pass for me, but not for the girls, as he had only one available seat. Being the total gentleman that I am, I properly said my goodbyes and rushed off for the gate! Vamos emborra! So, after yet again an eventful set of flights, I was finally on board a plane going to Amsterdam and the arrival time was only 90 minutes later than my original flight from Nairobi.
(This last part is written while on the Schiphol train to Utrecht)
Needless to say, my suitcase did not make it yet again. I guess it is in Nairobi. Either my suitcase really loves Nairobi or KQ can just not say goodbye to it. I have now flown KQ twice and both times I arrived without my precious box of - now dirty - clothes. Oh well, I guess KLM will just have to drop it at my doorstep somewhere in the next few days.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
The Results Are In!
Yes, August 31st is now behind us and that means that the Maputo Memoirs Quiz is now closed. No more entries are accepted... unless accompanied by a 'refresco' which translates to refreshment, and is local police language for what is known in Brazil as a 'jeitinho'. It usually consists of a friendly handshake where some content is transferred over (from you to them of course). This content not being a refreshment...
I started writing down all answers to the question and elaborated a bit too much on these. As I do not want to let all this typing go to waste, I decided to keep the suspense as high as possible and cut the article in two. You will therefore have to wait another few days for part II of the answers and the announcement of the winner. I hope your heart can handle the suspense!
(And as I'm very busy at work, since I'll be out of the office during my home leave these coming weeks. It is therefore quite convenient to have the next blog entry already prepared...)
So, let me not keep you waiting much longer. Grab your answer sheets and keep score!
1. How many countries share a land border with Mozambique?
Probably the easiest one out there. Just look at any map. Well, at least one with the African continent on it.... and with land borders... and not older than 15 years as country names do have a tendency to change on this continent. You will see that this country borders (from north to south) the following six countries: United Republic of Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South-Africa and Swaziland (and then South Africa again). On the east side after a long swim you will arrive on the beaches of Madagascar, but as it technically does not border Mozambique, it is excluded.
In November James and I intend to visit Swaziland and South Africa during a short holiday to conclude my assignment here. If I don't return, I've probably been eaten by a lion, shot by James (who is from Brooklyn, so you never know) or run over by a hippo. Despite its popularity in zoos and cuddly portrayal in cartoons, the hippopotamus is among the most dangerous and aggressive of all mammals (didn't expect that, did you?).
2. How do you say 'shrimp' in Portuguese
That would be camarão and is the first and only thing you should look for when visiting a Mozambican sea food restaurant for the first time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, shrimp is the thing to eat here. I've eaten I don't know how many shrimp since I got here and it is soooooo good. Even the vegetarians love it. A vegetarian friend of mine here decided to quit her belief for one night to enjoy the local delicacy. Actually come to think of it, she's been sick ever since! (but I don't think from the shrimp).
The shrimp is the most important catch for the country’s fisheries sector. But shrimp, just like everything else actually, have been overfished. In the 1980s they would catch about 80 kilos an hour. Now they catch 26 kilos an hour. To try to conserve the little buggers the government is no longer issuing new licences to fish for them... at least in theory, since a nice 'refreshment' can get you everything here.
3. Which football legend was born in Mozambique?
...but actually never played for this country. He was born and raised here in Lourenço Marques (former Portuguese name of Maputo), but his talent got noticed by the Portuguese, who at that time still occupied Moçambique, resulting in his move to the Iberian peninsula in his late teens. There, 'the Black Pearl' played at the club Benfica for 15 years, and is the team's all-time top scorer. He got international recognition in the 1962 European Cup final 5-3 win over the then dominant Real Madrid and was elected European footballer of the year in 1965.
During the World Cup 1966 in England, he helped Portugal reach third place, being the top goalscorer of the tournament. Remember? The one world cup were, for a change, the Germans got robbed in a final (do I hear a cheer coming from Hungary, Holland and Argentina? and a big boohoo from England?). Of course I am talking about Eusébio Ferreira da Silva
4. What is the name of the local currency?
The Metical Nova, the new Metical (plural: Meticais). Not so long ago they had only one Metical (now known as the old one) which replaced the Portuguese Escudo in 1980 and everyone was a millionaire! Beverly Hills was nothing compared to Maputo. People earned and spent millions! The average monthly salary was 1,500,000 Meticais! And that was just for a job as a doorman! Obviously this meant that you needed a wallet the size of a backpack in case you wanted to buy a suit and pay cash (since paying in stores with a bank card was not common).
The Metical underwent severe inflation. After the revaluation of Romanian Leu (yes, Cosmin was once a millionaire too), the Metical briefly became the least valued currency in the world, at a value of about 24,500 Meticais per USD, until the Zimbabwean Dollar took this prestigious title in August 2005.
In July 2006 they switched to the new Metical by basically crossing out the 3 trailing zeroes. One of the funny consequences of this is that now most locals totally mix the words Thousand and Million. Even in their own Portuguese language. Basically when counting hundred Metical notes they say: "seven hundred... eight hundred... nine hundred... one million". I guess it is tough not to be a millionaire any more.
5. What is the most spoken first language in this country?
Once again the CIA comes to the rescue. Where would the world be without them...? But, back to the question. This was a slightly tricky one, as first instinct would be to answer Portuguese, which is the most spoken language here. However, it is not the first/native language for most people. On the subject of first languages, the factbook states (in order): Emakhuwa 26.1%, Xichangana 11.3% and Portuguese 8.8%, followed by over 10 (!) local tribal languages.
Xichangana (pronounce: Shjangana) is the language of the South and therefore most heard in Maputo. All Mozambican languages are all so-called Bantu-languages and these were introduced through migrations by tribes from Central Africa.
Why so many languages in one country? The creation of Mozambique – just as the creation of other African states, like for example Nigeria where you could actually split it up in 3 different countries, which would probably be best for them anyway – was done without regard to the local conditions, tribes, culture, language etc. This took place in Berlin around 1885, where the European countries sat down to share Africa. A bit like playing Monopoly. Can I get this street and then I'll give you that other one in return? The idea was to give the land to the power who had that particular area under control. Funny enough, Portugal did not have control over Mozambique, but still it got the right to have this as a colony. Strange huh? Maybe a refresco?
6. (Tough one) How do you say 'Thank You' in this language?
Once you had the answer to the previous question, finding the answer to this one would be a question of proper googling. Entering +emakhuwa +"thank you" in the Google search box would give you some 56 results from which a few contain simple dictionary. There you will find that the proper way to say 'thank you' in that language is Asantte.
Of course, if your answer to question 5 was Portuguese, you would've answered obrigado and/or obrigada to this question, depending on whether you are a boy or girl (to find the answer to that dilemma please measure the amount of time you need to get ready for an evening out. If it is over 30 minutes there's a 90+ percent chance you're a girl and therefore should say 'obrigada' to your impatiently waiting boyfriend for putting up with your dressing ritual...).
If you answered Xichangana (and I have no clue why, unless you're British... Hi Chris! Now you know which questions you answered incorrectly) on the previous question, your answer here would be Kanimambo.
That was it! The answers to the first 6 question. Keep an eye on this blog for the next few days (and the other on your boss in case he walks by, so you can quickly minimize this screen and pretend you were working) for the following six anwers and..... the Winner!!!
I started writing down all answers to the question and elaborated a bit too much on these. As I do not want to let all this typing go to waste, I decided to keep the suspense as high as possible and cut the article in two. You will therefore have to wait another few days for part II of the answers and the announcement of the winner. I hope your heart can handle the suspense!
(And as I'm very busy at work, since I'll be out of the office during my home leave these coming weeks. It is therefore quite convenient to have the next blog entry already prepared...)
So, let me not keep you waiting much longer. Grab your answer sheets and keep score!
1. How many countries share a land border with Mozambique?
Probably the easiest one out there. Just look at any map. Well, at least one with the African continent on it.... and with land borders... and not older than 15 years as country names do have a tendency to change on this continent. You will see that this country borders (from north to south) the following six countries: United Republic of Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South-Africa and Swaziland (and then South Africa again). On the east side after a long swim you will arrive on the beaches of Madagascar, but as it technically does not border Mozambique, it is excluded.
In November James and I intend to visit Swaziland and South Africa during a short holiday to conclude my assignment here. If I don't return, I've probably been eaten by a lion, shot by James (who is from Brooklyn, so you never know) or run over by a hippo. Despite its popularity in zoos and cuddly portrayal in cartoons, the hippopotamus is among the most dangerous and aggressive of all mammals (didn't expect that, did you?).
2. How do you say 'shrimp' in Portuguese
That would be camarão and is the first and only thing you should look for when visiting a Mozambican sea food restaurant for the first time. I've said it before and I'll say it again, shrimp is the thing to eat here. I've eaten I don't know how many shrimp since I got here and it is soooooo good. Even the vegetarians love it. A vegetarian friend of mine here decided to quit her belief for one night to enjoy the local delicacy. Actually come to think of it, she's been sick ever since! (but I don't think from the shrimp).
The shrimp is the most important catch for the country’s fisheries sector. But shrimp, just like everything else actually, have been overfished. In the 1980s they would catch about 80 kilos an hour. Now they catch 26 kilos an hour. To try to conserve the little buggers the government is no longer issuing new licences to fish for them... at least in theory, since a nice 'refreshment' can get you everything here.
3. Which football legend was born in Mozambique?
...but actually never played for this country. He was born and raised here in Lourenço Marques (former Portuguese name of Maputo), but his talent got noticed by the Portuguese, who at that time still occupied Moçambique, resulting in his move to the Iberian peninsula in his late teens. There, 'the Black Pearl' played at the club Benfica for 15 years, and is the team's all-time top scorer. He got international recognition in the 1962 European Cup final 5-3 win over the then dominant Real Madrid and was elected European footballer of the year in 1965.
During the World Cup 1966 in England, he helped Portugal reach third place, being the top goalscorer of the tournament. Remember? The one world cup were, for a change, the Germans got robbed in a final (do I hear a cheer coming from Hungary, Holland and Argentina? and a big boohoo from England?). Of course I am talking about Eusébio Ferreira da Silva
4. What is the name of the local currency?
The Metical Nova, the new Metical (plural: Meticais). Not so long ago they had only one Metical (now known as the old one) which replaced the Portuguese Escudo in 1980 and everyone was a millionaire! Beverly Hills was nothing compared to Maputo. People earned and spent millions! The average monthly salary was 1,500,000 Meticais! And that was just for a job as a doorman! Obviously this meant that you needed a wallet the size of a backpack in case you wanted to buy a suit and pay cash (since paying in stores with a bank card was not common).
The Metical underwent severe inflation. After the revaluation of Romanian Leu (yes, Cosmin was once a millionaire too), the Metical briefly became the least valued currency in the world, at a value of about 24,500 Meticais per USD, until the Zimbabwean Dollar took this prestigious title in August 2005.
In July 2006 they switched to the new Metical by basically crossing out the 3 trailing zeroes. One of the funny consequences of this is that now most locals totally mix the words Thousand and Million. Even in their own Portuguese language. Basically when counting hundred Metical notes they say: "seven hundred... eight hundred... nine hundred... one million". I guess it is tough not to be a millionaire any more.
5. What is the most spoken first language in this country?
Once again the CIA comes to the rescue. Where would the world be without them...? But, back to the question. This was a slightly tricky one, as first instinct would be to answer Portuguese, which is the most spoken language here. However, it is not the first/native language for most people. On the subject of first languages, the factbook states (in order): Emakhuwa 26.1%, Xichangana 11.3% and Portuguese 8.8%, followed by over 10 (!) local tribal languages.
Xichangana (pronounce: Shjangana) is the language of the South and therefore most heard in Maputo. All Mozambican languages are all so-called Bantu-languages and these were introduced through migrations by tribes from Central Africa.
Why so many languages in one country? The creation of Mozambique – just as the creation of other African states, like for example Nigeria where you could actually split it up in 3 different countries, which would probably be best for them anyway – was done without regard to the local conditions, tribes, culture, language etc. This took place in Berlin around 1885, where the European countries sat down to share Africa. A bit like playing Monopoly. Can I get this street and then I'll give you that other one in return? The idea was to give the land to the power who had that particular area under control. Funny enough, Portugal did not have control over Mozambique, but still it got the right to have this as a colony. Strange huh? Maybe a refresco?
6. (Tough one) How do you say 'Thank You' in this language?
Once you had the answer to the previous question, finding the answer to this one would be a question of proper googling. Entering +emakhuwa +"thank you" in the Google search box would give you some 56 results from which a few contain simple dictionary. There you will find that the proper way to say 'thank you' in that language is Asantte.
Of course, if your answer to question 5 was Portuguese, you would've answered obrigado and/or obrigada to this question, depending on whether you are a boy or girl (to find the answer to that dilemma please measure the amount of time you need to get ready for an evening out. If it is over 30 minutes there's a 90+ percent chance you're a girl and therefore should say 'obrigada' to your impatiently waiting boyfriend for putting up with your dressing ritual...).
If you answered Xichangana (and I have no clue why, unless you're British... Hi Chris! Now you know which questions you answered incorrectly) on the previous question, your answer here would be Kanimambo.
That was it! The answers to the first 6 question. Keep an eye on this blog for the next few days (and the other on your boss in case he walks by, so you can quickly minimize this screen and pretend you were working) for the following six anwers and..... the Winner!!!
Monday, 27 August 2007
Home Sweet Hotel
Just 2 weeks ago I decided to move hotel. Originally I was in the Polana hotel which is quite a presidential palace kind of hotel. The type of hotel you see in those dictator movies. You know the scene: Outside, people are chopping each other up into many bite-size pieces and inside the general, who just committed the bloody coup d'etat, is enjoying a brandy with some foreign ambassador. Hotel Rwanda! Luckily no one was chopping outside. The only chopping going on were the art craft salesmen working on their merchandise in between 'harassing' all the unsuspecting tourists walking by.The Polana is a very nice hotel and staying there is like visiting the African Madam Tussauds. The big difference being that the 'statues' are not made out of wax but are the actual originals. It is the hotel where all the famous, rich and/or important people stay. Come to think of it, some of their wives' faces did look like they were made out of wax.
So, in the 2 months I stayed there I saw almost every African president (including their entire posse which can be quite large), the Senegalese national football team, the internationally acclaimed local painter Malangatana (his work can be seen here) and even an actress from Law & Order. Not that I recognised her, but some countryman of hers felt it necessary to announce to all at breakfast how famous his table guest was. I also had Adriaan van Dis, Willem-Alexander and Maxima as co-guests. For you non-Dutchies, these are people that are 'world famous in Holland'.
What else can I say about the Polana? It's very nice and very old fashioned at the same time. It has a great garden with a large (unheated) pool. I tried going in there once, but it was this cold (holding my thumb and index finger about two inches apart). The WiFi works in most parts of the hotel, so you can sun bathe pool-side with your laptop while updating your blog. Not that I would do that, since as a proper Antillian I "sun-bathe" and blog in the shadow.
The restaurant is the only place in Maputo which has European prices on their menu. For one big meal at Polana you could eat an entire week anywhere else. And I've heard the quality isn't that great. I didn't eat there since I don't like eating in hotels. It is sad enough to live in one, so I avoid eating in it too.
And then there's the Polana Hotel Bar. Normally hotel bars are quite lively with business men and women enjoying a few beers after yet another tough day, but the hotel bar here is a bit to stuffy for that. It looks like one of those men-only social clubs where old men with grey hair and grey suits sit in green leather chairs enjoying a whiskey and cigar. The one good things is that they have a great piano player and a local female singer with an excellent voice. I'm not a Whitney Houston fan, but this girl did a flawless "I will always love you" at full force without microphone. And that, my friends, is impressive!
By the way, the bar has this Norwegian spirit called Akvavit (aka aquavit) and legend has it that it will only taste right if it has crossed the equator twice! So that is exactly what the factory does. They ship the barrels before bottling it and on the back of the label you will find the name of the vessel and the dates it crossed middle-earth. Just a bit of trivia that might come in handy during a quiz night (It ain't easy!). On Wikipedia I found the following:
Particular to the Norwegian tradition is the occurrence of Linie akvavits (such as "Løiten Linie" and "Lysholm Linie"). These have been carried in oak casks onboard ships crossing the equator ("Linie") twice before it is sold. While many experts claim that this tradition is little more than a gimmick, some argue that the moving seas and frequent temperature changes cause the spirit to extract more flavour from the casks. Norwegian akvavit distillers Arcus has carried out a scientific test where they tried to emulate the rocking of the casks aboard the "Linie" ships while the casks were subjected to the weather elements as they would aboard the same ship. The finished product was according to Arcus far from the taste that a proper "Linie" akvavit should have, thus the tradition of shipping the akvavit casks past the "Linie" and back continues.
So I decided to switch hotels and I now 'live' in the Hotel Avenida, which is a more modern typical business traveller hotel. Definitely not as 'posh' as Polana, but I actually like it a lot more. For starters, it is right smack in the middle of what I now call the Polana strip. The strip is where most of the restaurants, the sports bar, some banks, the movie theatre and a mini shopping mall is located. Actually, you would almost think that you weren't in Africa when walking the strips apart from all the huge sidewalk holes, street vendors and beggars... and the cars, the smell, the badly maintained apartment buildings, the many guards with AK-47's etc. etc.
The hotel also has a quite well equipped gym. I hadn't seen one since leaving Holland (even though the Polana had an ancient gym) and I could tell! I was developing love handles like never before. Well probably more lack-of-love handles as some loving would've implied some form of activity. So now I am being a good boy again and take the elevator up to the top floor to exercise a bit with a nice night view of the city. That, and the fact that I'm playing football again, should bring me down to my usual athletic muscular Adonis-like sculpted figure... (did I just hear someone cough?)Overall the hotel has a more modern and younger feel to it. The room size and rates are the same, but the facilities just a bit more 21st century: proper climate control and a consistently working shower. Also the guests are more my peers: business people, consultant types, etc. The Polana looked like a board room, the Avenida like a project meeting room, if you know what I mean.
Well the fact that I am now finally not sleeping next to the elevator engine (yes, I requested a different room....3 times!) and that the hotel is not trying to charge my credit card without me, nor my card, nor my signature being present (did somebody say 'fraud'?) is also a nice little added benefit of this move, but that is an entirely different story...
Friday, 24 August 2007
I like!
Ladies and gents. This is just a quick message to let you know that you have only one week left to enter in the big Maputo sweepstake! One week to win Mozambique's greatest souvenir! Just answer the 12 questions in an email to myself and you could be our lucky winner!
So far no one has answered all questions correctly. The toughest question of course being the last one. If I see the answers you guys have submitted, I drink anywhere between 0 and 7 (!) beers per day in the hotel. Wow!
The souvenir has been bought and I must say, it is really nice! To quote my American friend who's a big Borat fan: "High five! I like!"
So far no one has answered all questions correctly. The toughest question of course being the last one. If I see the answers you guys have submitted, I drink anywhere between 0 and 7 (!) beers per day in the hotel. Wow!
The souvenir has been bought and I must say, it is really nice! To quote my American friend who's a big Borat fan: "High five! I like!"
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Shoprite or Wrong?
I’m playing football now on a regular basis. The first two months were great but I really felt that something essential was missing from my life. Well, apart from the Ferrari, yacht, an Oscar, a Puma sponsorship deal and the two super models, of course… It was something different. I had not been playing football for the entire period. Two months without touching a single ball… (ehhh… No, too easy!). And I wasn’t even injured.
Of course there was enough football to be seen. Not only did I visit the legendary Mozambique vs Senegal game, but I could also follow the European Under-21 tournament Holland won (with the extremely overestimated Drenthe), the Copa America (great goal by Messi against Mexico) and even the FIFA Youth World Cup in Canada in which Sergio, the youngest of ‘my’ Argentinian 2005 squad, won the best player and goal scorer award (next to his second consecutive world title).
It is funny, actually, how I could (if I wanted to) see more football here in Third World extremely poor sub-Sahara Africa than most of you guys in techno Europe and US. Yes, last week they even had the Amsterdam and Rotterdam tournaments live.
But, now I joined a team. Well, not really a team, but a local pick-up game. A bunch of guys play every Friday in a concrete courtyard a five-a-side game. Of course, it is all Maputo style. When I was invited to join they informed me that the game would start at 20:00 hrs. I normally work until 18:30 hrs which shouldn’t be a problem apart from the fact that I had to buy some sort of futsal shoes first. And I had no clue where to buy this. Not only is there no such thing as a shopping area or a mall, but all stores close rather early as well (and yes, they have a long siesta too).
This is where our management assistant (even though here they are still referred to as secretary) came to the rescue. She offered to go with me to the Shoprite shopping centre. Did somebody say shopping centre??? A real one? One with real brand stores, hallway music, a car raffle, fast food joints, multiplex cinema, bored teenagers and frustrated husbands carrying their wives bags? YES! YES! YES!
No!.... It’s a supermarket, two banks, a flower shop, a shoe store and possible one or more kitsch gift shops I might have missed on purpose. And don’t think the shoe store is where I went for the futsal gear. No, here in Maputo, if you really want to succeed in shopping, you go to the supermarket! Either the Shoprite of the Game. These are not just your regular supermarkets, these are hypermarkets. Brazilians, Americans and the French will know these. It’s the kind of supermarket that is the size of a regular IKEA and apart from your Camembert cheese you can also buy a pool table or a new suspension for your car. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to pick up a plasma TV, wheel barrel, Christmas tree and a new wedding dress in aisle 14.
Since I already have good futsal shoes back home, I decided to go for the cheapest possible futsal look-a-like shoe. In the meanwhile the secretary had gotten company from the HR girl of our bank. It’s almost like women can smell when someone (with credit card) is going clothes shopping. What is that? Where do they get this talent from?
And they were ready! We arrived at the store together in the same car, but for some inexplicable reason these ladies had already scanned the entire sport shoe section (and undoubtedly the women’s shoe section as well) before I even got there! And they had already picked one for me. And it was perfect! I tried them on, they fit and I headed straight towards the cashier leaving behind two very disappointed looking women. The shopping was over! I committed the ultimate man sin. I went shopping with ladies and had succeeded in 39.32 seconds...
However, these women did not give up. They dove into the shoe mountain only to re-emerge with all different kind of shoes in their hands. Try this one! Maybe you like this one more! What about the one with the cute purple stripe? Why not try them all? Desperation was taking over. All rationale disappeared. Done with shoe shopping within a minute??? Impossible! Where’s the world going too? Al Gore was right! We’re doomed!
I ignored the howl of the sinister shop sisters and walked in a steady unwavering pace straight to the cashier. Don’t look back!, I kept telling myself. They’re probably more afraid of you than you of them. I reached the caixa without a scrath, quickly paid the 800 Meticais for the pair (that is a staggering 24 Euro) and headed for the car. A few minutes later they appeared. I trembled, but that wasn't necessary. I guess the full moon must’ve disappeared behind a cloud, because they were close to normal again. However, it was a long quiet ride back to the hotel…
PS: I actually intended to write about the local football thingy, but this article totally diverted and I more or less filled the page with the shopping part. Oh well, African football stories will have to come some other time.
Of course there was enough football to be seen. Not only did I visit the legendary Mozambique vs Senegal game, but I could also follow the European Under-21 tournament Holland won (with the extremely overestimated Drenthe), the Copa America (great goal by Messi against Mexico) and even the FIFA Youth World Cup in Canada in which Sergio, the youngest of ‘my’ Argentinian 2005 squad, won the best player and goal scorer award (next to his second consecutive world title).
It is funny, actually, how I could (if I wanted to) see more football here in Third World extremely poor sub-Sahara Africa than most of you guys in techno Europe and US. Yes, last week they even had the Amsterdam and Rotterdam tournaments live.
But, now I joined a team. Well, not really a team, but a local pick-up game. A bunch of guys play every Friday in a concrete courtyard a five-a-side game. Of course, it is all Maputo style. When I was invited to join they informed me that the game would start at 20:00 hrs. I normally work until 18:30 hrs which shouldn’t be a problem apart from the fact that I had to buy some sort of futsal shoes first. And I had no clue where to buy this. Not only is there no such thing as a shopping area or a mall, but all stores close rather early as well (and yes, they have a long siesta too).
This is where our management assistant (even though here they are still referred to as secretary) came to the rescue. She offered to go with me to the Shoprite shopping centre. Did somebody say shopping centre??? A real one? One with real brand stores, hallway music, a car raffle, fast food joints, multiplex cinema, bored teenagers and frustrated husbands carrying their wives bags? YES! YES! YES!
No!.... It’s a supermarket, two banks, a flower shop, a shoe store and possible one or more kitsch gift shops I might have missed on purpose. And don’t think the shoe store is where I went for the futsal gear. No, here in Maputo, if you really want to succeed in shopping, you go to the supermarket! Either the Shoprite of the Game. These are not just your regular supermarkets, these are hypermarkets. Brazilians, Americans and the French will know these. It’s the kind of supermarket that is the size of a regular IKEA and apart from your Camembert cheese you can also buy a pool table or a new suspension for your car. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to pick up a plasma TV, wheel barrel, Christmas tree and a new wedding dress in aisle 14.
Since I already have good futsal shoes back home, I decided to go for the cheapest possible futsal look-a-like shoe. In the meanwhile the secretary had gotten company from the HR girl of our bank. It’s almost like women can smell when someone (with credit card) is going clothes shopping. What is that? Where do they get this talent from?
And they were ready! We arrived at the store together in the same car, but for some inexplicable reason these ladies had already scanned the entire sport shoe section (and undoubtedly the women’s shoe section as well) before I even got there! And they had already picked one for me. And it was perfect! I tried them on, they fit and I headed straight towards the cashier leaving behind two very disappointed looking women. The shopping was over! I committed the ultimate man sin. I went shopping with ladies and had succeeded in 39.32 seconds...
However, these women did not give up. They dove into the shoe mountain only to re-emerge with all different kind of shoes in their hands. Try this one! Maybe you like this one more! What about the one with the cute purple stripe? Why not try them all? Desperation was taking over. All rationale disappeared. Done with shoe shopping within a minute??? Impossible! Where’s the world going too? Al Gore was right! We’re doomed!
I ignored the howl of the sinister shop sisters and walked in a steady unwavering pace straight to the cashier. Don’t look back!, I kept telling myself. They’re probably more afraid of you than you of them. I reached the caixa without a scrath, quickly paid the 800 Meticais for the pair (that is a staggering 24 Euro) and headed for the car. A few minutes later they appeared. I trembled, but that wasn't necessary. I guess the full moon must’ve disappeared behind a cloud, because they were close to normal again. However, it was a long quiet ride back to the hotel…
PS: I actually intended to write about the local football thingy, but this article totally diverted and I more or less filled the page with the shopping part. Oh well, African football stories will have to come some other time.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
It's Quiz Time!
This is your chance to bring a little piece of Mozambique into your home! Through the following quiz you can win a locally crafted item to decorate your home, office, caravan, tree-hut or cardboard box with. There are so many local art craft salesmen outside the hotel harassing me whenever I walk out, I figured I might as well reward them for their persistence and buy something from them one day. And it can be yours! Just be the one that answers the most questions correctly.
How to Enter:
12. How many beers were there on my July hotel bill?
On behalf of the organisation, the judges, the notary, the sponsor and the union for multiple personality disorders, me, myself and I wish you all good luck!
How to Enter:
- Complete below multiple choice questions and email your answers to me.
- Do this no later than 31 August 2007 (yeah, you have some time).
- Hold your breath in excitement as you wait for the final results.
- Make your testament (do this before step 3).
- Everybody can enter. Even close relatives and employees. Even I can enter!
- You can enter only once, even if you have a multiple personality disorder. I that case you each can also only enter once...
- If you have no personality you can try to enter using someone else's.
- There is no age limit, even though the organisation will be quite suspicious if people under the age of 4 enter. In that case both parents will be excluded.
- There's no limitation with regards to sex. However, it is not recommended to complete this quiz during it.
- And last but not least. There will be no mandatory drug testing.
- How many countries share a land border with Mozambique?
- How do you say 'shrimp' in Portuguese
- Which football legend was born in Mozambique?
- What is the name of the local currency?
- What is the most spoken first language in this country?
- (Tough one) How do you say 'Thank You' in this language?
- How did former president Samora Machel die?
- On what street will our bank open its doors?
- What will be the name of this bank?
- What type of nut is available in huge numbers in this country?
- Approximately how many times can you fit Holland in Mozambique?
12. How many beers were there on my July hotel bill?
On behalf of the organisation, the judges, the notary, the sponsor and the union for multiple personality disorders, me, myself and I wish you all good luck!
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Bridget Jones
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. You voted on the survey about what the next topic should be on my Mozambican blog and the subject you really really are dying to hear about is Bridget Jones. A chubby desperate pale single girl from the UK? I guess James didn't vote otherwise I'm pretty sure a different category would've popped up as the clear winner...
Well, to start of with, there are no people from the UK in Mozambique. Not a single one seen so far, which is not so unusual as it is not a former British colony and not the Spanish coast (which seem like the only places Brits go to). Oh by the way, for some weird reason Mozambique does get to participate in the commonwealth games.
So not a Brit to be seen, apart from an old guy that has been working here a while and sits in the hotel bar every single night from 18 hrs onwards waiting for his local girlfriend (which could've been his granddaughter). Sometimes she's late, which is not entirely unusual over here, and by then he's gone a bit drunk (due to the continuous drinking without yet having had dinner) and starts mumbling to himself with the occasional yelled out complaint towards the live entertainment. What he complains about? Oh, in the middle of a Whitney Houston song he'll scream out something like "Sing in English! None of this local language bullsh*t!".
Of course, at some point his 'baby' shows up and then the entire bar gets to enjoy the scene where he tells the girl that she's late and she apologises. A bit like a primary school teacher telling off his student. Highly disgusting. Enough about the Mackerel (which is our nickname for him).
If I look around here for Bridget Jones, what resembles her most are the female South African tourists. You get a bunch of them invading the city and its nearby beaches. 90% of the tourism here is from the RSA since it is the shortest route to a beach from the eastern side of South Africa. These guys an' gals are exactly that: guys an' gals.
They highly resemble what in the US would be called red necks! Big obnoxious farmers with their sloppy wives and girlfriends invading Maputo with huge 4x4's acting as if they own the country. The real Afrikaners. Also, a lot of the beach houses and hostels up north are owned by South Africans and you hear really bad stories about how they treat their local staff. Often they also do not accept guests which are a bit more 'tanned', if you know what I mean. They probably still live in that era when Mandela was still on Robben island (no, not named after Arjen). Of course, I am talking here about a specific group of South Africans, mostly (game) farmers, which are probably not representative of the country (my apologies Kevin, in case you read this and feel offended).
So what else can I say about Bridget Jones? The local Bridget Jones' are very active and aggressive. They do not sit around in a corner praying some handsome guy will court them. They do sit in a corner, but that is where the comparison stops. They sit there and scan the area for prey. If you are a foreigner and you dare to look at one for more than 0.7 seconds (yes, I have done the full experiment and that seems to be tipping point) then you can bet she will get up and jump all over you. Hello mister meal ticket! It will take you 0.7 hours to undo your 0.7 seconds.
These girls are not what one would call 'working girls'. They are comparable to what in Singapore is known as SPG's, Singapore Party Girls. Mostly very attractive and representative girls, wearing expensive clothing and jewellery (very likely donated by the one before you), hanging out in hotels and touristy bars and speaking fluent English. The concept is simple, they hang out with you and you pay the bills and buy her a few gifts. I guess you can see them as a one woman Escort Service. Self employed company!
And in case you were wondering, the answer is no...
PS: The survey on this blog has been updated, so feel free to vote again.
Well, to start of with, there are no people from the UK in Mozambique. Not a single one seen so far, which is not so unusual as it is not a former British colony and not the Spanish coast (which seem like the only places Brits go to). Oh by the way, for some weird reason Mozambique does get to participate in the commonwealth games.
So not a Brit to be seen, apart from an old guy that has been working here a while and sits in the hotel bar every single night from 18 hrs onwards waiting for his local girlfriend (which could've been his granddaughter). Sometimes she's late, which is not entirely unusual over here, and by then he's gone a bit drunk (due to the continuous drinking without yet having had dinner) and starts mumbling to himself with the occasional yelled out complaint towards the live entertainment. What he complains about? Oh, in the middle of a Whitney Houston song he'll scream out something like "Sing in English! None of this local language bullsh*t!".
Of course, at some point his 'baby' shows up and then the entire bar gets to enjoy the scene where he tells the girl that she's late and she apologises. A bit like a primary school teacher telling off his student. Highly disgusting. Enough about the Mackerel (which is our nickname for him).
If I look around here for Bridget Jones, what resembles her most are the female South African tourists. You get a bunch of them invading the city and its nearby beaches. 90% of the tourism here is from the RSA since it is the shortest route to a beach from the eastern side of South Africa. These guys an' gals are exactly that: guys an' gals.
They highly resemble what in the US would be called red necks! Big obnoxious farmers with their sloppy wives and girlfriends invading Maputo with huge 4x4's acting as if they own the country. The real Afrikaners. Also, a lot of the beach houses and hostels up north are owned by South Africans and you hear really bad stories about how they treat their local staff. Often they also do not accept guests which are a bit more 'tanned', if you know what I mean. They probably still live in that era when Mandela was still on Robben island (no, not named after Arjen). Of course, I am talking here about a specific group of South Africans, mostly (game) farmers, which are probably not representative of the country (my apologies Kevin, in case you read this and feel offended).
So what else can I say about Bridget Jones? The local Bridget Jones' are very active and aggressive. They do not sit around in a corner praying some handsome guy will court them. They do sit in a corner, but that is where the comparison stops. They sit there and scan the area for prey. If you are a foreigner and you dare to look at one for more than 0.7 seconds (yes, I have done the full experiment and that seems to be tipping point) then you can bet she will get up and jump all over you. Hello mister meal ticket! It will take you 0.7 hours to undo your 0.7 seconds.
These girls are not what one would call 'working girls'. They are comparable to what in Singapore is known as SPG's, Singapore Party Girls. Mostly very attractive and representative girls, wearing expensive clothing and jewellery (very likely donated by the one before you), hanging out in hotels and touristy bars and speaking fluent English. The concept is simple, they hang out with you and you pay the bills and buy her a few gifts. I guess you can see them as a one woman Escort Service. Self employed company!
And in case you were wondering, the answer is no...
PS: The survey on this blog has been updated, so feel free to vote again.
Sunday, 29 July 2007
One Big Marketplace
Like in any poor country there are many people on the streets trying to sell you lots of stuff. We all know the scene, when you are on holiday and locals offer necklaces, bracelets, wooden crafted statues, paintings or just some local snacks. Here in Maputo you have the same and then a 'little' bit more.
It starts quite simple with some 5 guys just outside the hotel (and outside every hotel or touristy restaurant) spreading wooden pieces of art on the side walk. Oh, and by the way, these items include 2 meter tall wooden giraffes. Try to explain that at your airlines check-in counter.
You walk buy and they ask you relatively politely whether you would be interested in acquiring a piece, or maybe a few more. Like ten or so. Of course, they do not understand the meaning of 'no, thank you' (or maybe your English pronunciation is just not up to par) and make sure you really think about your decision. So they ask again... and again, totally ignoring whatever you say. It's almost like being on the phone with the corporate help desk.
It is even worse if you are a female tourist (i.e. a white woman). Then you're in for the ride. With guys, one comes up to you, asks the question 4 times and once you've shrugged him off, the rest kind'a just points at their stuff but know you'll just mumble the nao obrigado and that will be it. A woman comes along and all 5 guys grab as many items from their 'display' into and onto their arms, run up to her and surround completely surround. Buy mine! Mine! Mine! For some inexplicable reason the local salesmen think women really love shopping...
So if you're a guy, let any woman walk past them first and then it's free sailing for you all the way past the market. But the hotel guys are quite innocent compared to the rest. Once you get further into town, the market place becomes more diverse and so does the approach styles. And it really gets diverse.
Outside any restaurant you can buy jewellery, paintings, batik cloths, t-shirts, socks, suits (!), DVD's (Yes, Harry Potter, the Simpsons and Bourne Supremacy are already available here), prep-paid phone cards, Mont Blanc pens, Ray Ban and Oakley sunglasses, Havaianas, cashew nuts and candy bars. Overall it is fair to say that the side walk here has as good a collection as the Albert Heijn To Go at the Utrecht Central Station, but it comes without their rats of course...
I even could buy, and this is the best of all, electric extension cords and outlet adaptors! I really have no idea when and where someone proved that selling those items in particular was a profitable way of making ends meet, but I guess it happened...
Then you go further into town. In the area where all the (non-touristy) shops are. There the side walk market only gets better. Ever thought of starting your own business? Maybe you wanted to be Al Bundy and start your own shoe store? Be independent? Define your own marketing and sales strategy? Do things the way you think they should be done? Great! Of course, starting up your own shoe store is not easy. The most expensive part of course being the store itself. You need to find the right location, hope there's a building available, pay x months rent upfront, get some interior decoration done, design your display and all of that before you've sold a single shoe!
Why not do it the Mozambican way? You buy your shoes at the wholesaler, throw them on your wheel barrel, push that around town until you find the perfect spot, throw a few blankets on the pavement, line up your shoes on it and start selling. If you want to, you can even do so right in front of a 'real' shoe store. The owner won't like it, but hey, it's a free world here (at least since 1992). And I do not mean a single guy with a blanket with some 20 or so pairs on it, but basically an entire shoe store is laid out in front of you. With staff!!! I wonder if they have performance management cycles also...
Of course there is more than only shoes. Anything, and I mean anything is sold through these street 'stores'. You can buy clothing, books, CD/DVD's and yes, car parts straight off the side walk. You can also have you shoe soles repaired or get your own tailored suit fitted. And the guy will actually sew your suit together right there on the pavement! Guaranteed hand-made!
It starts quite simple with some 5 guys just outside the hotel (and outside every hotel or touristy restaurant) spreading wooden pieces of art on the side walk. Oh, and by the way, these items include 2 meter tall wooden giraffes. Try to explain that at your airlines check-in counter.
You walk buy and they ask you relatively politely whether you would be interested in acquiring a piece, or maybe a few more. Like ten or so. Of course, they do not understand the meaning of 'no, thank you' (or maybe your English pronunciation is just not up to par) and make sure you really think about your decision. So they ask again... and again, totally ignoring whatever you say. It's almost like being on the phone with the corporate help desk.
It is even worse if you are a female tourist (i.e. a white woman). Then you're in for the ride. With guys, one comes up to you, asks the question 4 times and once you've shrugged him off, the rest kind'a just points at their stuff but know you'll just mumble the nao obrigado and that will be it. A woman comes along and all 5 guys grab as many items from their 'display' into and onto their arms, run up to her and surround completely surround. Buy mine! Mine! Mine! For some inexplicable reason the local salesmen think women really love shopping...
So if you're a guy, let any woman walk past them first and then it's free sailing for you all the way past the market. But the hotel guys are quite innocent compared to the rest. Once you get further into town, the market place becomes more diverse and so does the approach styles. And it really gets diverse.
Outside any restaurant you can buy jewellery, paintings, batik cloths, t-shirts, socks, suits (!), DVD's (Yes, Harry Potter, the Simpsons and Bourne Supremacy are already available here), prep-paid phone cards, Mont Blanc pens, Ray Ban and Oakley sunglasses, Havaianas, cashew nuts and candy bars. Overall it is fair to say that the side walk here has as good a collection as the Albert Heijn To Go at the Utrecht Central Station, but it comes without their rats of course...
I even could buy, and this is the best of all, electric extension cords and outlet adaptors! I really have no idea when and where someone proved that selling those items in particular was a profitable way of making ends meet, but I guess it happened...
Then you go further into town. In the area where all the (non-touristy) shops are. There the side walk market only gets better. Ever thought of starting your own business? Maybe you wanted to be Al Bundy and start your own shoe store? Be independent? Define your own marketing and sales strategy? Do things the way you think they should be done? Great! Of course, starting up your own shoe store is not easy. The most expensive part of course being the store itself. You need to find the right location, hope there's a building available, pay x months rent upfront, get some interior decoration done, design your display and all of that before you've sold a single shoe!
Why not do it the Mozambican way? You buy your shoes at the wholesaler, throw them on your wheel barrel, push that around town until you find the perfect spot, throw a few blankets on the pavement, line up your shoes on it and start selling. If you want to, you can even do so right in front of a 'real' shoe store. The owner won't like it, but hey, it's a free world here (at least since 1992). And I do not mean a single guy with a blanket with some 20 or so pairs on it, but basically an entire shoe store is laid out in front of you. With staff!!! I wonder if they have performance management cycles also...
Of course there is more than only shoes. Anything, and I mean anything is sold through these street 'stores'. You can buy clothing, books, CD/DVD's and yes, car parts straight off the side walk. You can also have you shoe soles repaired or get your own tailored suit fitted. And the guy will actually sew your suit together right there on the pavement! Guaranteed hand-made!
Now also Interactive!
This blog has just been taken to the next level! Not only one, but two new functions have been added and they are both interactive!
First we have the 'who in the world is reading this blog' map. Quite a cool gadget showing the different locations from where it is being read. Technically it can be rigged and is therefore not 100% accurate, but in general it should be quite trustworthy. My mission of course is to get as many dots on this map as possible, so please do keep on reading during your holidays! And go really far away during these holidays! Go to Alaska, China, Japan or Siberia! Even if it is just to read this blog! I beg you!
Second new addition is the poll. Or I should say the survey. It is a quick survey for you to let me know what you would like to hear about. Currently the following four options have been listed:
The Office
What it is, where it is, what it looks like and what it is supposed to look like.
Mozambicanas
Maybe you are really interested in the local girls (for the ladies, we can discuss men in the future).
My Hotel
Or 'mi casa' as I call it. This dump I live in.
Bridget Jones
Don't ask me why I added this option, but it was playing on the television when I created the survey, and since I didn't have a fourth option at hand...
Now all rush out and vote! Voting is your constitutional right so make sure you make use of it! Vote as many times as you like if you feel really strong about a subject. Don't vote at all if you don't care!
Hasta la victoria, siempre!
First we have the 'who in the world is reading this blog' map. Quite a cool gadget showing the different locations from where it is being read. Technically it can be rigged and is therefore not 100% accurate, but in general it should be quite trustworthy. My mission of course is to get as many dots on this map as possible, so please do keep on reading during your holidays! And go really far away during these holidays! Go to Alaska, China, Japan or Siberia! Even if it is just to read this blog! I beg you!
Second new addition is the poll. Or I should say the survey. It is a quick survey for you to let me know what you would like to hear about. Currently the following four options have been listed:
The Office
What it is, where it is, what it looks like and what it is supposed to look like.
Mozambicanas
Maybe you are really interested in the local girls (for the ladies, we can discuss men in the future).
My Hotel
Or 'mi casa' as I call it. This dump I live in.
Bridget Jones
Don't ask me why I added this option, but it was playing on the television when I created the survey, and since I didn't have a fourth option at hand...
Now all rush out and vote! Voting is your constitutional right so make sure you make use of it! Vote as many times as you like if you feel really strong about a subject. Don't vote at all if you don't care!
Hasta la victoria, siempre!
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Chow and Booze
There just has to be an article on the food and, especially for Avinash, the local brews. No Avinash, no weird potions that'll turn me into some creepy animal (Hey, I know a few guys like that!) or even worse, into half IT-er half snake, a Boa Contractor!The local brews I've seen so far are actually all beers. Maybe you'll find some home-made moonshine out in the rural areas, but here in the city it is Laurentina, 2M and Manica beer. All locally brewed and I must say, very very good. The first two are the most popular. Laurentina, or as I call her "Loira" meaning Blonde, is slightly softer, more buttery. 2M or as I affectionately call them "Dois Malucos" (Two Crazies), is a dryer, more
'gassy' beer. The blonde also has a raven haired sister which looks and tastes like a Guinness.The locals love their beers and rightfully so. You will hardly see a Heineken, Bud, Fosters or whatever non-Mozambican beer here in the bars. I've actually only seen these in the hotel bar where new guests are not yet brave enough to try something they do not know.
As for the food? Yes! Especially if you are into sea food (and I am!) you will find this place paradise! I already wrote before about the shrimp being the Rolls Royce and it has lived up to its reputation. Hubba Bubba Bubba! I've had fried shrimp, cooked shrimp, curry shrimp, baked shrimp, raw shrimp, pepper shrimp, grilled shrimp, cajun shrimp, boiled shrimp, shrimp on a stick, butter shrimp... (no, I'm currently not scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush).
Other than shrimp you can enjoy all relatives of the shrimp: langostinos, lobsters and prawns. Other sea-food greats are clams (as a starter), barracuda, garupa, lengua and sole. If you're not into sea food then there's always the local churrascaria. Yes, a Brazilian crossed the Atlantic and opened up a Gaucho style churrascaria, appropriately called Rodizio. Those of you that have been to Brazil (or to Amazonia restaurant in Aruba) know what I am talking about when I say: You will be attacked by meat!
Being a former Portuguese colony it is obvious this place and its food is very influenced by the
Iberians. Many Portuguese restaurants can be found which blends in well since their kitchen also relies heavily on fish. Watch out with a Portuguese restaurant though! When you get seated at your table they tend to immediately put 10+ little dishes in front of you, almost as if it concerns welcome snacks. Obviously, as you and I know, nothing in this world comes for free. But one of our Dutch colleagues had to discover this the hard way. A Dutchman! Somebody coming from the land where a customer has to pay separately for mayonnaise and even for a toilet visit! How could he not have known!He went to one of those restaurants by himself and was so grateful for all the snacks, he tried them all! Of course one main course and coffee later he was presented the bill only to see all these not-so-free gifts listed on it. This happened 5 days ago and he is still complaining about it now. Oh well, food is quite cheap here. This huge bill of his, the largest I've seen so far, totalled 875 Meticals (=25 Euros).
There's also this fish market here where you can go, buy a kilo of whatever and then walk to the back where old ladies will cook your fish or prawns over an open fireplace for less than 2 euros per kilo. Finger lickin' good!
Other often seen cuisines include Italian (of course) and Thai. I do not know why this place has 5 known Thai restaurants, but only half an Indian and half a Chinese restaurant. For some odd reason the Indian restuarant here serves a full Chinese menu. That basically means that this tiny 20 seat restaurant has a target group of around 2.5 billion people! The owner must've been thinking "Hmmm, how can I start a restaurant that appeals to as many people as possible?".
The most popular restaurant with the Dutch colleagues here is Mundos, which is basically a cross between a sports bar and a Scheveningen beach restaurant (but then without the beach). The food is typical cafe-food and therefore quite boring, apart from their pizzas. Those are actually very good. I prefer to go there when there's something on. I've been watching the Copa America, Wimbledon and even the FIFA Youth World Cup (being played in Canada this year)!Well, all this talking about food has made me hungry again. Bom Apetite!
PS: My Argentina is in the final again of this Youth World Cup and with one of the players that was in my team in 2005. Sergio Aguero, now with Atletico Madrid but back then a dreamy little 16-year young kid, is the captain and they play the final against the Czech Republic this Sunday. For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, have a look at these pics.
Thursday, 19 July 2007
Street Scenes
Just a couple of observations made while driving around this town on any given day.
Saturday
A wedding here is an event by itself. Not anything like a generic Dutch wedding, where people dress up in their daily outfit, get married on Tuesday morning because it is cheaper and the guests are provided with one coffee, piece of cake and a single drink ("please leave your gift/envelope on the table"). No sir! Here it is done the third world way.
First of all, Saturday seems to be the only wedding day in Maputo. The chapel is quite close to the hotel so we get to enjoy it all. First everybody gets seriously dressed up and I mean everybody! No matter how poor or young you are, no matter how hot it is, you are dressed up. The place is crowded with 4 year old boys wearing 3-piece suits. The guests arrive in cars with the license plates covered. The front license plate will have the name of the bride and the back of the groom. Quite a cool touch!
After the ceremony and the mandatory pictures on the stairs of the chapel, the entire entourage sets of on a journey to take more pictures. Not just the couple with the photographer. Nope, everybody! First stop, the park. On any given Saturday afternoon there will be at least 3 large groups of people following 'their' couple. It looks something like this. The couple is being directed by at least 3 photographers providing conflicting instructions. Behind them the bride maids (and there are at least 6) stand and look at the scene. Around them the guys are just being guys. They stand with their hands in their pockets, probably talking sports and wishing they were in a bar. All other women (and some of the older men) position themselves in a circle and sing tribal songs of celebration while doing some slow ritual dance steps. A fantastic scene!
After the park, everybody gets into and onto their rides (many of the guests are sitting with their best suits in the back of a pick-up truck) and head for the coast for photo shoot numero 3. Here the scene repeats itself, but instead of grass there's sand. If you drive along the coast line on a Saturday afternoon, you will see a marriage mob every 200 meters. Of course, the entire thing ends with a big party where there's food and, more importantly, booze for all!
Sunday
On Sunday entire families pack their Tupperware storage containers filled with meat, self-made salads and corn, drag along a few coolboxes (i.e. ice cooler of 'jug') filled with ice and beer, and then heads off to the beach. There you swim, BBQ and drink beer. Similar to a Sunday in Curaçao. There is one major difference though. In Curaçao the men drink beer and operate the BBQ. Here, the men just drink...
On any weekend night (and on Sunday evening) most cars on the road are operated by male drivers that have enjoyed a bit too much moonshine (and I don't mean a night of stargazing under a full moon with your fixed or floating partner). As I mentioned in a previous post, traffic police over here is very fanatic. However, there's one thing they cannot check because of the lack of means. Yep, you guessed it! Cheers!
Any day
There are car park attendants everywhere! Well, actually it concerns mostly dudes hanging around parking areas, claiming they have guarded your car whenever you are getting back in your car to leave. Of course this is is a very valuable service which deserves an equal valuable reward. And for just a little bit more they will "wash" your car, leaving it almost as clean as it was before you parked there!
Just like on Curaçao, there are mini-buses all over the place. In most western countries, public transport in the city is mostly taxis and buses. Larger cities have trams and subways (i.e. metro, i.e. tubes), but third world countries have mini-buses. It is basically a modern version of a VolksWagen bus (yes, as in Little Miss Sunshine) with small handwritten signs behind the front window saying where they intend to go to. They are very flexible in many ways. They do not necessarily need bus stops and can therefore pick you up and drop you off anywhere along the route. If you're nice to the driver, he might even do a little detour to drop you off exactly there where you want to be.
Now in Curaçao these mini-buses (or "autobus" as these are known locally) seat 9 persons. This number is determined by law and stated explicitly on the bus. In general, all drivers stick to that in order not to be fined and not to practise some sort of unfair competition with your colleagues, the other mini-bus drivers. In Maputo, these slightly larger buses seat 15 people and that is also explicitly stated on the Chapa (as their known here), but that is exactly where the comparison ends. Every Chapa here seems to be competing for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records, specifically in the section on "How many people can I fit in...". A British student I met the other day, shared a Chapa with 26 (!!!) other people. Okay, I will not exaggerate, one was a baby...
Saturday
A wedding here is an event by itself. Not anything like a generic Dutch wedding, where people dress up in their daily outfit, get married on Tuesday morning because it is cheaper and the guests are provided with one coffee, piece of cake and a single drink ("please leave your gift/envelope on the table"). No sir! Here it is done the third world way.
First of all, Saturday seems to be the only wedding day in Maputo. The chapel is quite close to the hotel so we get to enjoy it all. First everybody gets seriously dressed up and I mean everybody! No matter how poor or young you are, no matter how hot it is, you are dressed up. The place is crowded with 4 year old boys wearing 3-piece suits. The guests arrive in cars with the license plates covered. The front license plate will have the name of the bride and the back of the groom. Quite a cool touch!
After the ceremony and the mandatory pictures on the stairs of the chapel, the entire entourage sets of on a journey to take more pictures. Not just the couple with the photographer. Nope, everybody! First stop, the park. On any given Saturday afternoon there will be at least 3 large groups of people following 'their' couple. It looks something like this. The couple is being directed by at least 3 photographers providing conflicting instructions. Behind them the bride maids (and there are at least 6) stand and look at the scene. Around them the guys are just being guys. They stand with their hands in their pockets, probably talking sports and wishing they were in a bar. All other women (and some of the older men) position themselves in a circle and sing tribal songs of celebration while doing some slow ritual dance steps. A fantastic scene!
After the park, everybody gets into and onto their rides (many of the guests are sitting with their best suits in the back of a pick-up truck) and head for the coast for photo shoot numero 3. Here the scene repeats itself, but instead of grass there's sand. If you drive along the coast line on a Saturday afternoon, you will see a marriage mob every 200 meters. Of course, the entire thing ends with a big party where there's food and, more importantly, booze for all!
Sunday
On Sunday entire families pack their Tupperware storage containers filled with meat, self-made salads and corn, drag along a few coolboxes (i.e. ice cooler of 'jug') filled with ice and beer, and then heads off to the beach. There you swim, BBQ and drink beer. Similar to a Sunday in Curaçao. There is one major difference though. In Curaçao the men drink beer and operate the BBQ. Here, the men just drink...
On any weekend night (and on Sunday evening) most cars on the road are operated by male drivers that have enjoyed a bit too much moonshine (and I don't mean a night of stargazing under a full moon with your fixed or floating partner). As I mentioned in a previous post, traffic police over here is very fanatic. However, there's one thing they cannot check because of the lack of means. Yep, you guessed it! Cheers!
Any day
There are car park attendants everywhere! Well, actually it concerns mostly dudes hanging around parking areas, claiming they have guarded your car whenever you are getting back in your car to leave. Of course this is is a very valuable service which deserves an equal valuable reward. And for just a little bit more they will "wash" your car, leaving it almost as clean as it was before you parked there!
Just like on Curaçao, there are mini-buses all over the place. In most western countries, public transport in the city is mostly taxis and buses. Larger cities have trams and subways (i.e. metro, i.e. tubes), but third world countries have mini-buses. It is basically a modern version of a VolksWagen bus (yes, as in Little Miss Sunshine) with small handwritten signs behind the front window saying where they intend to go to. They are very flexible in many ways. They do not necessarily need bus stops and can therefore pick you up and drop you off anywhere along the route. If you're nice to the driver, he might even do a little detour to drop you off exactly there where you want to be.
Now in Curaçao these mini-buses (or "autobus" as these are known locally) seat 9 persons. This number is determined by law and stated explicitly on the bus. In general, all drivers stick to that in order not to be fined and not to practise some sort of unfair competition with your colleagues, the other mini-bus drivers. In Maputo, these slightly larger buses seat 15 people and that is also explicitly stated on the Chapa (as their known here), but that is exactly where the comparison ends. Every Chapa here seems to be competing for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records, specifically in the section on "How many people can I fit in...". A British student I met the other day, shared a Chapa with 26 (!!!) other people. Okay, I will not exaggerate, one was a baby...
Monday, 16 July 2007
BREAKING NEWS!
We interrupt this blog for a news story that has just broke. Please be advised that the following story contains items which might be disturbing to some. It is rated PG-13. Parental discretion is advised.
RUMOUR OF MAN TRANSFORMED INTO SNAKE GRIPS BEIRA
Maputo, 13 Jul {AIM} - Even in Mozambique's second largest city, Beira, superstition and rumour still have such a grasp that on Thursday large numbers of people gathered outside a police station in the hope of seeing a man who had allegedly been turned into a snake.
The story that spread through Beira was that the unfortunate man had been bewitched. His legs were still human, but from the waist up he was a large snake. ccording to the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique", one colourful version of the story was that a woman went to a local witch-doctor to buy a potion that would stop her husband having sex with other women. She put the potion in her husband's bath, from which he emerged with his upper body transformed into that of a snake. is horrified relatives were then alleged to have seized the wife, and the witch-doctor, and dragged them off to a police station.
A completely different story claimed that a local street vendor transformed himself into a snake, after he was beaten up by municipal policemen who had accused him of selling goods in an improper place.
But it was the story of the woman bewitching her husband that grabbed the imagination of Beira citizens. A large crowd gathered in Chipangara, the neighbourhood where the transformation from man to reptile was supposed to have happened. But at the Chipangara neighbourhood offices, municipal officials assured the crowd that there was no snake on the premises, let alone a man-snake.
So the rumour changed direction. The man-snake was somewhere near the Beira city hall, and his wife was under detention in the first precinct police station. Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station, anxious to catch a glimpse of the man-snake. Photos published by "Diario de Mocambique" make it clear that this really was rather a large crowd. Some people had even paid for transport from distant neighbourhoods in the hope of seeing this unnatural marvel.
The commander of the police station, Simao Isaias, was at a university class when the crowd showed up. He received an urgent phone call from one of his subordinates warning him that the police station was being "invaded" by people who were demanding to see the man-snake and the woman who had bewitched him. The police had to clear the crowd away from the station, and sought reinforcements, including a tanker truck from the Beira fire brigade, ready to hose down the crowd, should it try to storm the police station.
The police assured the crowd that they were wasting their time. There was no man-snake, and the whole story was just a senseless rumour. But a section of the crowd refused to disperse, and shouted "No smoke without fire ! The police are hiding something !"
"Diario de Mocambique" heard that one man was arrested for spreading the rumour, but the police refused to confirm this.
{AIM}
PS: The author of this blog is in no way responsible for the effects this story might have on the readers nightrest. Any claims due to traumatic thoughts and dreams are to be directed towards the writer of above article Clark Can't, also known as Snakeman.
RUMOUR OF MAN TRANSFORMED INTO SNAKE GRIPS BEIRA
Maputo, 13 Jul {AIM} - Even in Mozambique's second largest city, Beira, superstition and rumour still have such a grasp that on Thursday large numbers of people gathered outside a police station in the hope of seeing a man who had allegedly been turned into a snake.
The story that spread through Beira was that the unfortunate man had been bewitched. His legs were still human, but from the waist up he was a large snake. ccording to the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique", one colourful version of the story was that a woman went to a local witch-doctor to buy a potion that would stop her husband having sex with other women. She put the potion in her husband's bath, from which he emerged with his upper body transformed into that of a snake. is horrified relatives were then alleged to have seized the wife, and the witch-doctor, and dragged them off to a police station.
A completely different story claimed that a local street vendor transformed himself into a snake, after he was beaten up by municipal policemen who had accused him of selling goods in an improper place.
But it was the story of the woman bewitching her husband that grabbed the imagination of Beira citizens. A large crowd gathered in Chipangara, the neighbourhood where the transformation from man to reptile was supposed to have happened. But at the Chipangara neighbourhood offices, municipal officials assured the crowd that there was no snake on the premises, let alone a man-snake.
So the rumour changed direction. The man-snake was somewhere near the Beira city hall, and his wife was under detention in the first precinct police station. Hundreds of people gathered outside the police station, anxious to catch a glimpse of the man-snake. Photos published by "Diario de Mocambique" make it clear that this really was rather a large crowd. Some people had even paid for transport from distant neighbourhoods in the hope of seeing this unnatural marvel.
The commander of the police station, Simao Isaias, was at a university class when the crowd showed up. He received an urgent phone call from one of his subordinates warning him that the police station was being "invaded" by people who were demanding to see the man-snake and the woman who had bewitched him. The police had to clear the crowd away from the station, and sought reinforcements, including a tanker truck from the Beira fire brigade, ready to hose down the crowd, should it try to storm the police station.
The police assured the crowd that they were wasting their time. There was no man-snake, and the whole story was just a senseless rumour. But a section of the crowd refused to disperse, and shouted "No smoke without fire ! The police are hiding something !"
"Diario de Mocambique" heard that one man was arrested for spreading the rumour, but the police refused to confirm this.
{AIM}
PS: The author of this blog is in no way responsible for the effects this story might have on the readers nightrest. Any claims due to traumatic thoughts and dreams are to be directed towards the writer of above article Clark Can't, also known as Snakeman.
Saturday, 14 July 2007
Bourbon Street?
Last week Friday I went to Gil Vicente Cafe, which is some sort of a jazz & blues cafe. It is exactly what you expect in such a bar. It is dark with small wobbly tables, thick smoke, some pimpin' dudes wearing sunglasses sitting in the corner and ladies running around serving mostly whiskey. For a second there I though I was in New Orleans, but the floor was dry (I know... that's a nasty joke).
They had a large projector screen hanging from the ceiling and a U2 concert DVD was on. The small flyers on our table said that a band named Projecto Africa would play live at 22:30. In the meanwhile, Bono & co had the honour of being the support act. Yawn! For some reason, listening to Sunday Bloody Sunday in a city which was terrorised by a civil war for many years just doesn't have the same effect. I do agree that U2 made (and still makes) some great classic songs, but the concert is so boring. Every song is played almost exactly as it is on the album. No different arrangements or cool solos. Then again, they can't all be as talented as Prince.... (O2 Arena, here I come!).
Around 22:50, as The Edge almost drove me over it (get it?), the Projecto Africa band members took the stage and that was the end of U2. No mo' Bono! At first I was not really impressed with this band. The first song sounded a bit cheesy, but once these guys got warmed up, they really started sending some serious African vibes around the room! Great bass lines, long whiny guitar solos and of course, ass kickin' drums!
The place started looking even more like a Louisiana blues joint from the 30's. The men in black were still sitting behind a glass of whiskey while smoking a cigar, but now their heads were slowly moving rhythmically side by side, a bit like watching Stevie Wonder in slow motion. And in between the tables, women in short dresses were dancing. The overall scene was just simply sexy. Not in an erotic way, but just ....cool!
During the break the projector screen came down again and we got a piece of, believe it or not, the Queens birthday concert. I'm not talking Dutch artists playing in Amsterdam in front of drunk oranges, but serious stiffness in front of Buckingham Palace. There's nothing more contrasting to the scene I had just witnessed, than following it up with images of Prince Charles trying to be cool on that stuffed dinosaur Tony Bennett (official Latin name: Tonysaurus Ex).
At least that scene was followed with Annie Lennox doing Why live, which is a highlight of any concert. she stole the scene behind the piano during Live 8 and did it again at this show.
The break ended and the local heroes took the stage again. This time just three of them sitting on chairs next to each other with just a piece of cardboard on their laps. What followed was percussion ecstasy. They did all different styles of African rhythms and solos and the place really went crazy. The Stevies were speeding up their movements and the women started to grind it! Heads and butts were bopping left and right. To quote Olav Mol (you Dutch F1 followers will know this): "Man Oh Man! Man Oh Man!". When they finally stopped I was out of breath... and I hadn't even participated!
This lasted some 20 minutes and then they all took their original positions to play the rest of the set. Obviously the room had been heated up sufficiently for all to dance the rest of the night away. What a cool night!
PS: If you never saw Annie Lennox do a live rendition of Why, then please do your eyes and ears a huge favour and check it out here!
They had a large projector screen hanging from the ceiling and a U2 concert DVD was on. The small flyers on our table said that a band named Projecto Africa would play live at 22:30. In the meanwhile, Bono & co had the honour of being the support act. Yawn! For some reason, listening to Sunday Bloody Sunday in a city which was terrorised by a civil war for many years just doesn't have the same effect. I do agree that U2 made (and still makes) some great classic songs, but the concert is so boring. Every song is played almost exactly as it is on the album. No different arrangements or cool solos. Then again, they can't all be as talented as Prince.... (O2 Arena, here I come!).
Around 22:50, as The Edge almost drove me over it (get it?), the Projecto Africa band members took the stage and that was the end of U2. No mo' Bono! At first I was not really impressed with this band. The first song sounded a bit cheesy, but once these guys got warmed up, they really started sending some serious African vibes around the room! Great bass lines, long whiny guitar solos and of course, ass kickin' drums!
The place started looking even more like a Louisiana blues joint from the 30's. The men in black were still sitting behind a glass of whiskey while smoking a cigar, but now their heads were slowly moving rhythmically side by side, a bit like watching Stevie Wonder in slow motion. And in between the tables, women in short dresses were dancing. The overall scene was just simply sexy. Not in an erotic way, but just ....cool!
During the break the projector screen came down again and we got a piece of, believe it or not, the Queens birthday concert. I'm not talking Dutch artists playing in Amsterdam in front of drunk oranges, but serious stiffness in front of Buckingham Palace. There's nothing more contrasting to the scene I had just witnessed, than following it up with images of Prince Charles trying to be cool on that stuffed dinosaur Tony Bennett (official Latin name: Tonysaurus Ex).
At least that scene was followed with Annie Lennox doing Why live, which is a highlight of any concert. she stole the scene behind the piano during Live 8 and did it again at this show.
The break ended and the local heroes took the stage again. This time just three of them sitting on chairs next to each other with just a piece of cardboard on their laps. What followed was percussion ecstasy. They did all different styles of African rhythms and solos and the place really went crazy. The Stevies were speeding up their movements and the women started to grind it! Heads and butts were bopping left and right. To quote Olav Mol (you Dutch F1 followers will know this): "Man Oh Man! Man Oh Man!". When they finally stopped I was out of breath... and I hadn't even participated!
This lasted some 20 minutes and then they all took their original positions to play the rest of the set. Obviously the room had been heated up sufficiently for all to dance the rest of the night away. What a cool night!
PS: If you never saw Annie Lennox do a live rendition of Why, then please do your eyes and ears a huge favour and check it out here!
Saturday, 7 July 2007
MS Office Party
Somewhere last Sunday after having seen Raikkonen win the French Grand Prix, I walked into the lobby to be greeted by Microsoft logo's all over the place. As if having been bombarded by iPhone news over the previous days wasn't enough.
Talking about that iPhone. Could you believe those Mac-heads (those that get religious about how good all the white hardware is and that think that Steve Jobs - the other Bill Gates - is the reincarnation of Elvis and Einstein in one) have been sleeping in front of Apple stores for 5 days just to get their hands on an iPhone? 5 days??? Do you realise how long that is in order to spend USD 600 and be stuck to America's worst mobile network provider for at least two years?
I just loved that news item with that chubby guy (see photo) that was the first one in NY to buy one. He actually lives in San Francisco (!) and decided he couldn't wait for the San Fransissy Apple store to open, so he took up half of his annual leave days to do 5 on 5 (that's five days on 5th Avenue). When he got his phone he was jumping, cheering, screaming (probably the most exercise he got in at least 10 years) and the best part? Everybody was applauding him as if he just found Bin Laden! Hooray for the nerdy chubster!
(Ladies, he's single. And he has one of the first of Apple's new wondertoys)
But back to the other nerds. It turned out that the hotel was hosting an internal regional Microsoft conference. Yes, internal! Meaning that after having been surrounded the previous week by over-zealous meat-heads protecting not-Barbara, I could now expect a bunch of geeks wearing company polos and jackets to roam around the hotel lobby with their laptops comparing their IRQ settings (whatever that is) and looking for the precise location for the best WiFi coverage. I was wrong...
The conference started Sunday evening with MS-Staff checking in the hotel, followed by a welcome MS-Buffet dinner. So far so good. nothing special. Your regular conference. There was even some bandwidth left for me!
Monday things started getting rowdier. When I returned from the bank, the entire MS-Hotel bar was packed with MS-People. Normally that bar is empty, apart from a few elderly European male business travellers -often accompanied by some young local girl - sit there, drinking whiskey and preparing for the activities to follow (Nasty thing, I know. Typical third world scene).
Enough about those dirty ol' men. Let's get back to the Gates Group. After their warm up drinks they almost reluctantly went for their dinner buffet. That's where the MS-Foundation was created for the rest of the night. It was party party party! The MS-Disc Jockey was playing the beats (not using iPods, mind you!) in the big party tent, erected in the hotel garden especially for the MS-Crew. They were partying as if the iPhone was never released!
These guys must have been the commercial sales staff of that company. Because, if these people were really the ones actually designing and developing the software, we would all be operating on MS-Fiesta instead of Vista with the MS Office Party package containing cool software called MS Word Up!, MS Powerjoint, MS Stoutlook (or Foutlook) and of course, our favourite spread(-sheet) MS Sexcel. Don't forget to install a proper anti-virus tool before using this software! And those of you for whom the standard party edition if not enough, you can upgrade to the pro party version containing MS Excess...
This lasted three days. The way these people were behaving I'm pretty sure no one pressed the Home button. It was Up- and Download all the way!
PS: I know. This entire blog entry is full of Nerd humour. Well, I guess I'm a bit of a nerd too. But if you smiled at least once while reading this piece, then you are at the very least a little bit nerdy too. Don't worry, that is not bad.
Just get yourself an iPhone and you'll be cool as a Dutch summer!
PS2: by the way, check out the miPhone! It's the Mozambican equivalent of the gadget that has got everyone going nuts! All you need is an iPod and this cool accessory.
Talking about that iPhone. Could you believe those Mac-heads (those that get religious about how good all the white hardware is and that think that Steve Jobs - the other Bill Gates - is the reincarnation of Elvis and Einstein in one) have been sleeping in front of Apple stores for 5 days just to get their hands on an iPhone? 5 days??? Do you realise how long that is in order to spend USD 600 and be stuck to America's worst mobile network provider for at least two years?
I just loved that news item with that chubby guy (see photo) that was the first one in NY to buy one. He actually lives in San Francisco (!) and decided he couldn't wait for the San Fransissy Apple store to open, so he took up half of his annual leave days to do 5 on 5 (that's five days on 5th Avenue). When he got his phone he was jumping, cheering, screaming (probably the most exercise he got in at least 10 years) and the best part? Everybody was applauding him as if he just found Bin Laden! Hooray for the nerdy chubster!
(Ladies, he's single. And he has one of the first of Apple's new wondertoys)
But back to the other nerds. It turned out that the hotel was hosting an internal regional Microsoft conference. Yes, internal! Meaning that after having been surrounded the previous week by over-zealous meat-heads protecting not-Barbara, I could now expect a bunch of geeks wearing company polos and jackets to roam around the hotel lobby with their laptops comparing their IRQ settings (whatever that is) and looking for the precise location for the best WiFi coverage. I was wrong...
The conference started Sunday evening with MS-Staff checking in the hotel, followed by a welcome MS-Buffet dinner. So far so good. nothing special. Your regular conference. There was even some bandwidth left for me!
Monday things started getting rowdier. When I returned from the bank, the entire MS-Hotel bar was packed with MS-People. Normally that bar is empty, apart from a few elderly European male business travellers -often accompanied by some young local girl - sit there, drinking whiskey and preparing for the activities to follow (Nasty thing, I know. Typical third world scene).
Enough about those dirty ol' men. Let's get back to the Gates Group. After their warm up drinks they almost reluctantly went for their dinner buffet. That's where the MS-Foundation was created for the rest of the night. It was party party party! The MS-Disc Jockey was playing the beats (not using iPods, mind you!) in the big party tent, erected in the hotel garden especially for the MS-Crew. They were partying as if the iPhone was never released!
These guys must have been the commercial sales staff of that company. Because, if these people were really the ones actually designing and developing the software, we would all be operating on MS-Fiesta instead of Vista with the MS Office Party package containing cool software called MS Word Up!, MS Powerjoint, MS Stoutlook (or Foutlook) and of course, our favourite spread(-sheet) MS Sexcel. Don't forget to install a proper anti-virus tool before using this software! And those of you for whom the standard party edition if not enough, you can upgrade to the pro party version containing MS Excess...
This lasted three days. The way these people were behaving I'm pretty sure no one pressed the Home button. It was Up- and Download all the way!
PS: I know. This entire blog entry is full of Nerd humour. Well, I guess I'm a bit of a nerd too. But if you smiled at least once while reading this piece, then you are at the very least a little bit nerdy too. Don't worry, that is not bad.
Just get yourself an iPhone and you'll be cool as a Dutch summer!PS2: by the way, check out the miPhone! It's the Mozambican equivalent of the gadget that has got everyone going nuts! All you need is an iPod and this cool accessory.
Saturday, 30 June 2007
Macaneta
Last week Sunday I went to the beach with two colleagues and some of their family members. To the Macaneta beach (see the map). This beach is about an hours drive away from the city and you really need a 4x4 though to get there.First you drive out of the city. This drive is an adventure by itself. First you pass a bunch of, what looks like, wildfires. It actually is a mountain of garbage, created by the people that live there, set on fire. That is one (smelly) way of getting rid of your garbage. Very smelly, as there's no distinction between types of garbage (paper, plastic, wood, food, rubber, etc.).
Next is, what I call, Contradiction Road. On the right side there are beautiful houses. Large, luxurious villas with about 4 people living in houses with on average 16 rooms. On the left side there are man-made shacks where I guess 16 people live in 4 tiny rooms. And this is literally 8 meters apart (the width of a single two-way road)! You expect differences in third world countries, but not as in-your-face as this.
Then there's a nice 10 meter wide smooth road all the way to Macaneta. There are no lines painted on this road, just a stretch of brand new asphalt. I have no clue if it is a one-, two-, three- of four-lane road and neither does anyone else. You basically drive anywhere on it and avoid hitting any car coming from the opposite direction! (that is actually a good habit, no matter what road you're on)Then you get to Macaneta, but before you get there you have to cross a river. For this there is a ferry service.... How do I explain this? Imagine 6 SUV's on a metal platform no larger than a volleyball court. Get the picture? No? Just check out the pics.
Are we in Macaneta? Nope. First some cross-country driving is required. This is where the requirement for a 4x4 becomes clear. Put it in 4-wheel drive, preferably in the low gearing mode. That basically means that your engine will be revving heavily whilst your car is doing no more than 5 km/hr in the mud. If the conditions are really bad, you actually release air from the tires, as empty tires have more grip.
And then finally you get to Macaneta... and it is worth it! A very nice peninsula with long stretches of sandy beaches reaching into the Indian Ocean. You get really nice waves to play with. Not big enough for Leandro to rip his cut-backs, bottom turns or do a front-side, but fun enough for 'non-dudes' like the rest of us. It is also known as one of the 'sharkiest' places around (many shark hunters come here to fish), so be aware!
After you swim you can enjoy a fresh fish meal at the one and only 'restaurant' on this peninsula.Being from the Caribbean, I love eating fish in places like this and I do so whenever I can. This will always beat whatever deep frozen stuff they usually sell in Holland as "catch of the day"... (It is a good thing they do not mention which day or year, for that matter. Or from which discount wholesaler they 'caught' it)
The fish is actually caught by the very few people living here, using boats made by joining a bunch of bambooish pieces of wood. It doesn't look very safe and stable to me and I would definitely not dare facing Jaws (I, II nor 3-D) in it, but the local fishermen seem to have no problems with it. Oh well, I guess in a country with a male life expectancy of 41, you take your chances...
The drive back is, in some ways, even more challenging. Not because of nature elements, but because of human nature. You actually drive past a lot of hangouts, bars, open air eating places, etc. Especially on Sundays these spots are crowded with people drinking and drinking and drinking. That's okay, but then they're drunk and literally cross the streets (to the hangout on the other side) without looking left or right. Possibly looking up or down (mostly down), but that's it! They should have signs on the road to warn drivers of crossing drunks! Maybe a red triangular warning sign with Boris Jeltsins face on it?
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Did you also know...
...that a large part of the movie "Blood Diamond" was filmed right here in Maputo? Mainly the scenes supposedly in Freetown, Sierra Leone and the fisherman's village where the son of Djimon Hounsou was abducted in the very beginning of the movie. That means that Djimon, Leonardo Carpaccio and the very cute Jennifer Connelly were right here, sitting on the same barstool as I! It is quite cool to read the production notes on the subject.
(Yes, you can click on the blue text to see the notes in a separate window)
...that in March an army weapons depot exploded killing 115 people? This explosion was 15 kilometers away from our current temp offices, but you can still see the cracks in the ceiling caused by it. Even during my first week here (3 months after the explosion!) a few kids were killed due to stepping on live ammunition found 10 kilometers (!) away from the depot. The army restarted their search for explosions and found some buried 6 meters in the ground. A bit like Enschede, and then some!
...that just last month an airplane could not land here because the runway light were stolen? This one just cracked me up. It turns out that local thieves trespassed airport terrain at night to steal the light bulbs from the runway. I guess these can be used at home (?). At first the police was called in to patrol the runway at night but that didn't work out. Only the second night of their patrol an airplane was forced to circle this town four times until they lined up enough cars with their headlights on to illuminate the runway. I am not kidding! This is the actual truth! Can you imagine sitting in seat 12A, a nice window seat on your plane, about to touch down at the airport of your destination, looking out the window and seeing total darkness apart from a bunch of car headlights? I too was laughing out loud for at least 10 minutes when I heard this. Now the airport employs their own security and that seems to work. Whatever that implies, I leave up to you.
...that Maputo has one of the strictest traffic police in the world? You will be checked here at least 3 times a week in a normal week. They will check your drivers license, insurance, etc. It is almost impossible to speed over here and get away with it. They are everywhere! However, it is good to know that most cars on the road here are technically incapable of speeding. If the average car over here goes over 70 km/hour I think it will literally fall apart. Seriously, Fred Flinstone had a better car!
...that the fine for ignoring a stop sign of the traffic police is 100 meticais (4 USD)? And that the lowest fine for a traffic offence, apart from ignoring a stop sign is 400 meticais? ...ehhh..... hmmmm... shall I stop? Or maybe.... ehhhhh......... Go baby go! Pedal to the Metal! See ya! Run, Forest Run! Heeehaaaa!
...that there are two cell phones companies in Mozambique and that the competition is fierce? You have M-Cel with 2 million subscribers and Vodacom with 1 million. How do they advertise? They pay poor locals who actually live alongside the road a few bucks in order to paint their house in the company's colours with the slogans and logo's on it. Just last week M-Cell accidentally splattered their adverts al over historical houses which are on the Unesco World Heritage list! What a waste!
...that because of filming Blood Diamond here there is an error in the movie? In the beginning you see a sun rise on the beach. Supposedly the Sierra Leone beach. Problem is that Sierra Leone is on the other (west) side of Africa and therefore doesn't have a sunrise at sea. Only a sun set. I bet you didn't figure that one out for yourself!!! :-)
(Yes, you can click on the blue text to see the notes in a separate window)
...that in March an army weapons depot exploded killing 115 people? This explosion was 15 kilometers away from our current temp offices, but you can still see the cracks in the ceiling caused by it. Even during my first week here (3 months after the explosion!) a few kids were killed due to stepping on live ammunition found 10 kilometers (!) away from the depot. The army restarted their search for explosions and found some buried 6 meters in the ground. A bit like Enschede, and then some!
...that just last month an airplane could not land here because the runway light were stolen? This one just cracked me up. It turns out that local thieves trespassed airport terrain at night to steal the light bulbs from the runway. I guess these can be used at home (?). At first the police was called in to patrol the runway at night but that didn't work out. Only the second night of their patrol an airplane was forced to circle this town four times until they lined up enough cars with their headlights on to illuminate the runway. I am not kidding! This is the actual truth! Can you imagine sitting in seat 12A, a nice window seat on your plane, about to touch down at the airport of your destination, looking out the window and seeing total darkness apart from a bunch of car headlights? I too was laughing out loud for at least 10 minutes when I heard this. Now the airport employs their own security and that seems to work. Whatever that implies, I leave up to you.
...that Maputo has one of the strictest traffic police in the world? You will be checked here at least 3 times a week in a normal week. They will check your drivers license, insurance, etc. It is almost impossible to speed over here and get away with it. They are everywhere! However, it is good to know that most cars on the road here are technically incapable of speeding. If the average car over here goes over 70 km/hour I think it will literally fall apart. Seriously, Fred Flinstone had a better car!
...that the fine for ignoring a stop sign of the traffic police is 100 meticais (4 USD)? And that the lowest fine for a traffic offence, apart from ignoring a stop sign is 400 meticais? ...ehhh..... hmmmm... shall I stop? Or maybe.... ehhhhh......... Go baby go! Pedal to the Metal! See ya! Run, Forest Run! Heeehaaaa!
...that there are two cell phones companies in Mozambique and that the competition is fierce? You have M-Cel with 2 million subscribers and Vodacom with 1 million. How do they advertise? They pay poor locals who actually live alongside the road a few bucks in order to paint their house in the company's colours with the slogans and logo's on it. Just last week M-Cell accidentally splattered their adverts al over historical houses which are on the Unesco World Heritage list! What a waste!
...that because of filming Blood Diamond here there is an error in the movie? In the beginning you see a sun rise on the beach. Supposedly the Sierra Leone beach. Problem is that Sierra Leone is on the other (west) side of Africa and therefore doesn't have a sunrise at sea. Only a sun set. I bet you didn't figure that one out for yourself!!! :-)
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Not Barbara
As I mentioned in a previous post a Bush is forcing me out of the hotel. It is Tuesday night now and tomorrow sees the arrival of George W's wife. Nobody here seems to remember her first name, so I just refer to her as 'not-Barbara'. She must be the most unknown US presidents wife in recent history! Everybody knows Hillary, Barbara and Nancy, but what's her face?
The fact that not-Barbara is coming has been noticeable here for the last few days. The hotel has slowly been taken over by gringos ('US Americans' for those of you not familiar with Latin American slang). Most of them security. That basically means that the hotel bar (normally a civilised place where guests enjoy a conversation and drink before retiring to their rooms) is now a room packed with badly dressed meat-heads making sure everybody else gets to 'enjoy' their conversation. Yes, it is loser-fit Gap jeans, plaid shirts, college sweaters and large white sneakers (with white socks of course) that now define the hotel fashion trend.
The purpose of not-Barbara's visit is to check up on how US funds donated for the purpose of fighting AIDS have been allocated. Apparently, apart from being presidents wife, she's now also a financial auditor.
Well, we all know what happens during these visits. Some flag waving and anthem playing at the airport, a welcome speech by the local president, the mandatory visit of a children's hospital, some more handshaking, followed by a dinner attended by the local captains of industry (and whomever is a relative of someone important). Then the usual speech saying how impressed she is with the progress she's seen and a promise of some more funds or goods.
Don't get me wrong! I think it is great that western countries invest and contribute to local causes and I will always support this. This is just me having a bit of fun presenting a cynical view on the ceremonial part.
But forget about this whole AIDS thing! The real issue of course is that I have to check out for one day. So Wednesday I have to check out because the hotel has been fully booked by the US embassy and Thursday I can check in again. Life's a bush!
By the way, her name is Laura...
PS: Sorry guys, the twins are not coming, so you can keep your Tequila shot glasses in the cabinet.
PS2 (added on thursday): Below a quote taken from a local newsletter regarding not-Barbara's visit...
LAURA BUSH ANNOUNCES MONEY FOR FIGHT AGAINST MALARIA
Maputo, 27 Jun (AIM) - The First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, announced in Maputo on Wednesday a grant of 17 million US dollars for the fight against malaria in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia. During her short visit Laura Bush, accompanied by the coordinator of the PMI, Admiral Timothy Ziemer, was received by President Armando Guebuza, visited the Maputo Central Hospital, and a mosquito spraying centre in the outlying suburb of Machava.
The fact that not-Barbara is coming has been noticeable here for the last few days. The hotel has slowly been taken over by gringos ('US Americans' for those of you not familiar with Latin American slang). Most of them security. That basically means that the hotel bar (normally a civilised place where guests enjoy a conversation and drink before retiring to their rooms) is now a room packed with badly dressed meat-heads making sure everybody else gets to 'enjoy' their conversation. Yes, it is loser-fit Gap jeans, plaid shirts, college sweaters and large white sneakers (with white socks of course) that now define the hotel fashion trend.
The purpose of not-Barbara's visit is to check up on how US funds donated for the purpose of fighting AIDS have been allocated. Apparently, apart from being presidents wife, she's now also a financial auditor.
Well, we all know what happens during these visits. Some flag waving and anthem playing at the airport, a welcome speech by the local president, the mandatory visit of a children's hospital, some more handshaking, followed by a dinner attended by the local captains of industry (and whomever is a relative of someone important). Then the usual speech saying how impressed she is with the progress she's seen and a promise of some more funds or goods.
Don't get me wrong! I think it is great that western countries invest and contribute to local causes and I will always support this. This is just me having a bit of fun presenting a cynical view on the ceremonial part.
But forget about this whole AIDS thing! The real issue of course is that I have to check out for one day. So Wednesday I have to check out because the hotel has been fully booked by the US embassy and Thursday I can check in again. Life's a bush!
By the way, her name is Laura...
PS: Sorry guys, the twins are not coming, so you can keep your Tequila shot glasses in the cabinet.
PS2 (added on thursday): Below a quote taken from a local newsletter regarding not-Barbara's visit...
LAURA BUSH ANNOUNCES MONEY FOR FIGHT AGAINST MALARIA
Maputo, 27 Jun (AIM) - The First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, announced in Maputo on Wednesday a grant of 17 million US dollars for the fight against malaria in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia. During her short visit Laura Bush, accompanied by the coordinator of the PMI, Admiral Timothy Ziemer, was received by President Armando Guebuza, visited the Maputo Central Hospital, and a mosquito spraying centre in the outlying suburb of Machava.
Saturday, 23 June 2007
New and Improved!
This blog was just taken to the next level. If you carefully look upwards, you might actually see a little glimpse of it.
So what's new?
First of all, I am now publishing my photos on my own website. For those that need practise with their typing skills, enter http://maputo.lopezramirez.net in your address bar, press enter and viola! All others can just click on the "See The Pictures!" link on the right side of your screen.
You can now also get an idea of what is where and what this city looks like (from above). I have created a Google Map with markers on all the spots which for whatever reason are relevant. Most common reason for its relevance would be because I was there! ;-)
Even the typing students would have trouble with the map's URL, so I simply refer to the "Check The Map!" link on your right.
And last but not least! You can now all leave comments behind on this blog. Previously it was only possible for gmail-members to post, but that restriction is now gone. I hereby would like to express my gratitude to René, the "nachtburgemeester" of Da Bush, for being the first to comment.
Talking about Bush, one of them is coming next week! Which is why I'm being kicked out of this hotel next Wednesday. Will tell you more about it next time.
Adeu!
So what's new?
First of all, I am now publishing my photos on my own website. For those that need practise with their typing skills, enter http://maputo.lopezramirez.net in your address bar, press enter and viola! All others can just click on the "See The Pictures!" link on the right side of your screen.
You can now also get an idea of what is where and what this city looks like (from above). I have created a Google Map with markers on all the spots which for whatever reason are relevant. Most common reason for its relevance would be because I was there! ;-)
Even the typing students would have trouble with the map's URL, so I simply refer to the "Check The Map!" link on your right.
And last but not least! You can now all leave comments behind on this blog. Previously it was only possible for gmail-members to post, but that restriction is now gone. I hereby would like to express my gratitude to René, the "nachtburgemeester" of Da Bush, for being the first to comment.
Talking about Bush, one of them is coming next week! Which is why I'm being kicked out of this hotel next Wednesday. Will tell you more about it next time.
Adeu!
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