Ate Logo Maputo

Adios to Maputo… Today we leave for the north. A “grande obrigado” to Bambu,  Armando for the great stay in our little abode, Taju for a great lunch and new friendship, Joaquin for the hope, the night watchmen at the parking lot, the baker who makes  the best bread in the world (no exegeration), Lina for keeping the beer cold, Ismeal for the great LP’s and visits to Radio Mocambique, Ronaldo the fruit vendor, the laundry for being clean, Nuclieo De Arte, everyone in this little neighborhood who live a great life. Poverty really is a relative term.

      The past few days, Marianne has been dragging some reed mats out into the dirt street in front of our house and hosting Art classes. All of the little kids on the street come racing over and pick up the brushes and get to work. One little girl about 3 years who we nicknamed “the warrior” started to paint all over her body! And today being Independence Day, many have been painting the flag of Mozambique. Some of their paintings, we glued to the back of old cardboard boxes and made postcards to send to people. 

      This past week we have been spending sometime at a place called Nuclio De Arte, which is an art co-operative downtown for sculptors, painters, wood carvers, etc. There is a large studio spaces that they share and sell some of their work out of the adjacent gallery. Marianne completed one painting there, and I have been busy with my pencils and sketchbook, and am enjoying it “too much” as they say here.  There is also a little bar/restaurant on the grounds, and they have live music. ON Sunday, a band called Os Gallatonos played. They are four older guys who play Marrebentu music, a traditional music from here that is impossible not to dance to….so rich…so deep.

       I also passed by Radio Mozambique this week, which is the National Radio Station. It is located inside of a beautiful old building with marble floors. How a radio station employs so many people, I do not know…but rather there than a weapons factory. We chatted with some of the engineers and disc jockeys, whom believe it or not know so much about our music back in the States. I sang the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” with a great old guy named Luis. We both vented our frustration with the new emergence of too much talk radio. Don’t we hear enough talk everyday? He asked if I wanted to bring my guitar into the studio and play a bit! It is possible tomorrow I can do this, but might have to wait till the next time through Maputo; which I am sure there will be.

    On Monday, we had a lunch with a guy named Taju who owns/runs a language school here in Maputo. He is a jolly and generous man, who has taught English/Portuguese for some 40 years. We went with he, his daughter and brother to his restaurant for a nice lunch of prawns, chicken, and a lot of red wine. They invited us up to his ranch this weekend, but we had to decline as there is just too little time. 

Mais Maputo

Things are rollin’ right along here in the wonderland of Maputo. When I as young, my parents had two National Geographic books one called “Our 50 States” and the other called “Our World”. I must have spent hours glancing through those beauties. I remember (very early memory) reading about the fantastic pastel beaches and laid back lifestyle of Mozambique. Sometimes while driving through the relaxed, yet completely hectic streets of Maputo I think…”Wow. Here I am…driving along in the chaos of an African rush hour in a place that always seemed a dream.”. The people are stunningly beautiful, the papayas are the perfect texture, and you can pull over in traffic and buy fresh fish from a fisherman walking along the streets. 

     I am currently sitting the our little living room with a fresh grouper (type of fish) baking in the oven, stuffed with onion, garlic, and pineapple. When we arrived in Maputo, we pitched a tent the first three nights at a backpackers hostel. We paid the first night, but the second two were covered via songs from my beautiful guitar. She has helped alleviate much of the accommodations cost. While at the backpackers, we met great guy named Nils. He is a Dane who has been living here for years and is building an eco-lodge-community about 300 km up the coast from here. We had a nice walk around the town, and we will certainly pay him a long visit next week when we leave. We also met another dear friend named Bambu, who is a very talented drummer who lives here in Maputo, but plays all over the world. He has recorded with many of the great African musicians whom I listen to, and it was so exciting to connect with him. When I mentioned that we were looking for an apartment to rent for a while, he offered his sister’s house, where he and his nephew currently reside . Since he left the following day to perform for a month in Canada, it is just us, and Armando his VERY hospitable nephew.

       The house is perfect: It is in a very real part of the city. There are dirt streets and people just sell things so casually: beer from their house, lettuce from a wheelbarrow, paint/locks/and telephone cards from a kiosk. Chickens walk across the corrugated roof during the day, and it sounds like a very concentrated heavy rain.  I watched four nursery school aged kids in their school uniforms cling to the back of a truck as it drove through the narrow alleys this morning…they were laughing and laughing. The guy who runs the beer counter across the street has already taken to us and I just finished getting my first African haircut from his neighbor.

       The work for our “Assignment Earth” story is going remarkably smooth. We had a meeting yesterday with an organization called JA! (justicia ambiente or Environmental justice). JA also means “Now” in Portuguese. We are writing a 3-5 minute piece about the Zambezi River delta, and its rapid changes (not for the better). The delta is about 600 km. north of here, and that’s where we will head next after our interviews, filming, and city life is finished.

    O.K.- not everything is perfect. I just pulled the fish out of the oven and it smelled like ammonia. Old very old….and my beer is done!

Swaziland to Maputo

    We recently arrived in Maputo after driving through the northern portion of Swaziland, another tiny little African country located between Mozambique, and South Africa. The country has a very warm feel, and the people of course could not be nicer. They have a king that is still the reigning figurehead of State (which I believe is the last ((or one of the last)) in the world). He has 11 wives, and a $45 million dollar private jet paid for by the hard-working hands of all the sugar cane fields. Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world with 40% of its adult population infected (yes, thats 4- 0).

     Ironically the country is very well developed, and seems to be able to export a lot of sugar. When you talk to the people about the king, they tend to lean in and whisper, as no one wants to get heard aloud commenting on the king's ruling and lack of a functioning democracy. 

     We arranged for an afternoon assembly in the village that we ended up staying a few nights in: Tshaneni. We went early one morning the the school to see if I could get a gig playing some music for a class, and Marianne could bust out the art supplies. The principle then replied that the entire school was to attend that afternoon.....400 students plus the faculty. We went back to the room, and Marianne turned an old appliance box into a nice homemade map of the world so that we could talk a little bit about where we came from. I nervously practiced my guitar for my largest gig of all time. When we arrived in the parking lot, the children were all running like a flock of birds from the Alfred Hitchcock movie. A lot of the students clapped there hands and got into the music that the strange skinny white people were making. Then a handful of 7th grade girls did a traditional Swazi dance for us, the lyrics being about how to prevent getting HIV.

       There was one little liquor store in town, that we would stop at for a beer and talk with the owner, Solomon. He would love to suddenly brake into a laugh and say: "Ahhhhhhhh, you like to joke. Ahhhhhhhhh.". One of those people that makes laughing contagious. We made many more friends, learned an African version of the card game "Casino" from our friend "Wonder", and sang old Motown tunes with Alif, our truck driving friend in the guest lodge that we stayed in (very nice, and very cheap as it is the off-season here). We listened to the same 3 songs over and over and over: "Let's get in ON" (Marvin Gaye), "Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Collins), and "I Don't Know Much" (Luther Vandross). The lodge had a a baby pet zebra that like to chew on anything it could find, including plaster doorways and wooden shelfs. Those zebras are so good at keeping their coats clean. 

     The drive through the Mozambique border post was so beautiful. A cols storm front finally passed, the rain stopped and the sun poked out. From the mountains, you could see great vistas of the blue Indian Ocean and the air got heavy, hot, and humid. All of a sudden the vendors had so much more to offer: papayas, bananas, guava, oranges, and every flower you could imagine. It was so much fun to hear Portuguese again, and I slipped right back into an old familiar language. Maputo, the capital, seems like an eternal spring: pastel colors, beautiful people, old white Portuguese buildings with there old world charm, warm ocean breezes, fresh seafood and produce sold right on the cement of the cities streets, colorfully painted fishing boats with homemade sails, and the food a mixture of Indian-Portugeese-African....We should  be here a while, as we have a few meetings for the film project next week, and it is really the only place to get things done in Mozambique.

     

Kruger

     I survived Johannesburg without getting mugged or carjacked. Contrary to popular opinion it is actually a pretty neat city….as far as cities go! I did manage to go downtown one day with a  young guy named “Mr.Fantastic” who was the son of the woman who owned the backpacker (hostel) I was staying at.  We took the taxi-buses which was a lot more relaxing than having to worry about having everything I currently own locked up in the back.

     The lovely co-pilot, Marianne Romeo, arrived in Johannesburg on Thursday at the airport after a 22-hour flight. While I excitedly awaited her arrival in the airport, I did what I do best: make friends and play music. I made a little performance at the international arrivals terminal and was able to practice some Portugeese with a few Angolans who were waiting as well. After singing a few Djavan songs (a great Brazilian songwriter), Marianne arrived with a sarong skirt,  cameras, and heart warming smile.

      The next morning we took off through the golden planes of Limpopo (the Northern province of South Africa) for the mighty Kruger National Park. We were amazed how the roads were just lined with orange stands after orange stands all selling the same thing: ORANGES!!! Some people got creative with their displays, and covered their entire windshield (if they even owned a truck) with bags of oranges. Others just sat in wheelbarrows under the shade of orange trees. We stopped in one town and laughed at the ENORMOUS bags of artificially-colored-corn-puff-packing-peanut-rainbow-puffs.  “All that great produce, just down the street folks….”

       We stopped at a place along a  dirt road called Echo Caves, and went along on a tour of the caves with a bunch of young Sunday school kids. Rather than to have our own guide, we thought it would be more fun to experience the caves with the children and their parents/teachers. John really liked top pound different musical beats on the stalagtites  that formed natural marimbas. When we left, our driver’s side wing window spontaneously shattered sending little pieces of glass and laughter across the front bench seat.

      The Kruger National Park was wildly incredible. We saw giraffes, baboons, fish eagles, elephants galore, wildabeast, warthogs, zebras, impalas (probably about 1 million of these), kudus ( I even ate some kudu jerky), mighty lions.  Crocodiles, turtles, and  a slew of birds. Marianne spotted a dried buffalo skull (antlers and all), so we stopped and secretly jumped out of the car for some photos. The neat thing about Kruger, is that you can just drive through in the safety of your car among all of these wild animals. However, it is prohibited to leave your car. Marianne quickly learned to drive in the left lane, and that was a big relief for me. It was the first time I could daydream out the window without having to stare at the road. I really liked to  watch the animals chew there food and then stare at you, as if they were saying “What is so exciting about watching me eat? Don’t you eat too? “ . The giraffes in particular loved to stare. When they finally moved, it looked like they moved weightlessly on the moon.

      Thank goodness that we have allowed for a country that exists entirely of animals and plants,  that are able to exist without 7/11’s, shopping malls, and parking lots. The size of the park is roughly the same size as the entire nation of Israel. Tomorrow, we are off to Swaziland and then Mozambique….sending love, John and Marianne

Kingdom of Lesotho (pronounced Lay-soo-too)

It is autumn here in South Africa. The golden grass makes the most soothing sound when the breeze blows. You gain a lot of elevation as you leave the coast of the Transkei and head inland toward Lesotho. It was a long day of driving, and I was not sure if I would find even a place to pitch my tent as some of the areas that I drove through looked a bit unsavory. But just as the sun was setting I pulled into the city of Kokstad, looking for a place to relax. And bingo: I found it! Wendy and Leon Sander have a little guesthouse there called "The Planes", right near the friendly streets of Kokstad. I was able to sleep in a VERY nice little room for a very reasonable rate as it is their off season. The two Jack Russel Terriers would roll over on thier side when they saw me, expecting nice pets on there bellies.

The next morning I drove through he dirt roads to the border crossing of Lesotho. It is a tiny little country that is completely landlocked my South Africa. The temperature got very cold as I gained elevation again, and laughed with the immigration guys as I was still wearing shorts and flip-flops. There was a huge line to get the passports stamped, and the immigration lady said to just go to the front of the line, as if I had more priority than the Lesothians who were there waiting in line. I politely declined, and waited my turn. After clearing customs, a man named Edward, asked if I was interested in a place to stay in Qacha's Nek, the border town as it was again getting dark. I followed him to a over-priced hotel, and then said I would just rather pitch my tent. So he offered for me to stay at his house just up the road, where his grandmother lives. Edward and his family grew up in a small one room tradition stone home with grass roof, and he showed me it as well as all around town. He is now starting a fire-extinguisher servicing compnay, as he was a firefighter in Durban for many years. He mentioned that his grandmother grew up in the countryside of Lesotho, and galloped on a horse for transportation. I could just picture this young beautiful black woman galloping through the alpine mountains with her little tin of snuff (that she still uses!)

The next morning, I set out driving to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. Now I am convinced I might have been the only white man in Lesotho, and evryone I paced on the road would just stop and stare at me! So many wonderful smiles. The scenery looked like the Grand Canyon in the states, with giant precipes, and turquoise rivers. I passed many horse drawn wagons, a woman beating a drum in the middle of nowhere, young kids with donkies.

I picked up a number of people hitchiking, including these two little kids you see in the video clip above. They were so nice, and could only say "yeah" after everything I asked them in English. I finally got the nerve to stop at one of these remote villages and pull out my guitar and start playing and singing to see there response. One by one, the whole village walked out and surrounded me with the most baffled faces you could imagine. A few on the naked children start to get up and dancelike freshly watered flowers. Then they all wanted to see the guitar...note the albino man's intense curious look.

As I drove on, I came to an area where about 15 cars and buses were stopped. I had no idea why, so I got out and walked up to the front of the line. Huge boulders from the adjacent cliff had rolled down into the road, and made it inpassable. There were men with sledgehammers trying to knock the boulders into sizable pieces to move. Finally, a truck arrived with a backhoe in the back. Since there was no ramp to deploy the backhoe, a man very skillfully rolled the rocks with the shoveled end. The starnge thing was that despite all of the rocks, the smaller trucks and cars could have easily passed by. When I asked a man why they waited for the road to be cleared, he said "The big buses can not pass. No one passes if we can not all pass." Brother your right. What was even more amazing was that the rock had fallen at 9 a.m. I arrived at 1:30 p.m., and there were only 15 cars and trucks on my side of the fall. This is the major road in Lesotho connecting the north and the south!

I finally arrived in Maseru after a long day of driving. If you ever wnat to test your concentration arrive into a new African city at night without any idea of where you are, no maps, and trying to figure out a place to stay, while taxi-buses zoom by!!! Fortunately, Edward gave me his brother-in-law's (Kiso) phone number there, and I stayed with him last night.