An African beach – sunshine, romance, business, music, exorcisms and more…
Mozambique is wearing, once again, a timid smile. It has been through a torrid time: 450 years of colonisation, a war against the Portuguese, independence in 1975 and then the cruellest of wars – a savage 16-year civil war that left almost a million dead, five million displaced, and families and the country divided.
Two thirds of rural bridges, roads, railways, health centres and primary schools were destroyed during the war – a proxy war waged between Russia and the West. Since 1992, peace and economic growth, though extremely unequal, have helped Mozambique back off its knees.
It seems a type of natural justice that the pleasure of being alive is often strongest among those who struggle the most. This pleasure is one of the most vivid impressions provided of Mozambique and Africa in general. Mozambicans, like most Africans, love to party and the simplest occasions are seized upon as an excuse. In a collective culture, there are always others willing and able to get into party mood. Of course, parties cost money, a commodity still in noticeably short supply in Mozambique, so many people head to where it is cheapest to make merry: the beach.
The warm water of the Indian Ocean laps the 4,000 km of Mozambican coast from Tanzania to South Africa and there are hundreds of beautiful, often deserted, beaches. Most of the big towns have beaches nearby and people head to the sand when the mercury rises. Maputo Beach, on the outskirts of the capital city, is one of them. Many, without money for the local minibus, walk long distances to get there. They don’t go to swim (few can) or to suntan (few need to), but to play and socialise. They jump up and down in the water and do cartwheels at the edges. Groups of young boys and girls play football as they howl and scream. Anyone can join in. They shout, “Come and play!” There are children scooping the sand for the tiny crabs, frolicking in the warm water and rolling about in the shallow water in dips in the sand at low tide.
Eating and action
Groups of teenagers, girls and boys, dance in ankle-deep surf to the sound of their own singing or to the blare coming from a loudspeaker in an open car boot.
Some come simply to do business: women and their children grill fish or chicken to serve with xima, which is a corn porridge dish made from milled maize. The small fish, called magumba, is fished in the bay and is both tasty and very bony. Cooked over charcoal and with a dollop of xima, you have your fill, eating with your fingers, for about R20.
There are sellers of oranges, drinks and various kinds of nuts. Some young men carry around the full panoply of nail varnishes and paint toenails and fingernails, often with unusual and creative designs. There is a photographer or two strolling around. Some young men tote around a trampoline on which kids jump for a few cents. A young man is jerking the strings of two wooden, gaudily coloured puppets as he has them shudder and jump in some obscene dance.
The beach also plays a role as a huge singles meeting place. Few young people have the chance to go to bars or discos, places where they might meet the opposite sex, so the ocean’s edge serves this purpose. They come to see and be seen, admire and maybe acquire. Some serious flirting is done by both sexes as girls stroll with their mobile phones in their hands. Evangelical churches also use the beaches for baptisms, prayer meetings and exorcisms. These are colourful occasions and especially noisy when a devil is being exorcised with much pummelling, rolling in the sand and energetic immersion in water.
Layers of life
The beach is the most democratic institution in Mozambique. Nobody is refused permission. The dress code is informal: street clothes, swimwear, underclothes, collar and tie and religious robes. Of course, it’s not all fun and games. Girls squat down to urinate wherever there is a dip in the sand, as there are no toilet facilities. And after nightfall, strolling on the sand, you’ll do well to watch out for robbers and amorous couples.
Further on, at the end of the beach, there is the fishing village and, there, it’s all business. There, each day, weather-permitting, people (mainly women), wait for the fishermen in their small, artisanal fishing boats to come back with their catches, and magumba is landed. Well, not exactly landed, as the women wade out at low tide to meet the boats, there being no pier. Business is brisk. Some buy to bring home; others buy to sell at the local market.
Reading a book while sitting under a coconut tree, I am seldom left alone. It surprises people to see someone reading on the beach – or anywhere else for that matter. There is little reading culture in Mozambique: books are prohibitively expensive and few schools have them. Somebody will usually come to ask what’s going on or maybe show off their rudimentary English. A girl may try to flutter her plastic lashes to see if I am concentrating on my book. Would she like to drink something? Of course she would. Would she like a lift back to town? Of course she would.
Business, pleasure, exorcisms, worshipping the sea, finding a partner, chilling out, getting drunk, dancing, fighting and showing off: there are many opportunities and few dull moments on Maputo Beach.
Text | Donal Conlon
Photography | Shutterstock
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