Rest of my trip in Mozambique

I apologize for the long radio silence...it's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks. I wrapped up my trip in Mozambique about two weeks ago, flew back to Boston, drove to Toronto, moved out to San Francisco where I am spending the rest of my summer! For about a week, I amused myself by thinking about how far I had traveled recently.

Before I talk about my experience in California, I wanted to briefly wrap-up my trip to Mozambique. I spent the last week of work putting together a report for the organization that I serving. Lots of Excel and PowerPoint, the typical tools of a former consultant. I spent my last weekend in Mozambique chilling out in Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. I met up with a friend from school, ML, who had just arrived in Mozambique for his internship.

I had a blast with ML. We toured Maputo and stuffed ourselves with way too much seafood. On the Friday night, we went to a fish market for dinner. The fish market allows patrons to purchase the day's catch from local fisherman and then take it to restaurants, which are attached to the market, where they cook the food for you. We ordered clams, shrimp and fish. All three dishes were fantastic, especially the shrimp and the clams! We ate so much, we had no desire to tackle Maputo nightlife. Instead, we opted for some intense development discussions back at Marco's place, where I was staying.


On Saturday, we took on the local crafts market. Artisan set up shop in an outdoor plaza. We bargained our way to some paintings, sculptures and other souvenirs. I was also tailed by a street vendor for almost an entire block. He was trying to sell me a drum for 100MT ($4) and I kept turning him down. Somehow he knew that I would crack...so he kept following me. I asked for 50MT, but he wouldn't lower the price nor leave me alone. After an entire block, he finally lowered his price to 80MT and I relented and purchased the drum. I love this photo! I was basically attacked by these artisan vendors while posing for a photo. I just asked ML to take the photo anyway.


The rest of the weekend was more relaxing. We hung out in the gardens of Maputo's nicest hotel, Hotel Polona, which is a restored colonial building with beautiful views of the ocean, we partied at one of Maputo's two nightclubs, and we ate more shrimp.

One of my favourite parts about Maputo are the street signs. Mao Tse Tung Ave. and Lenin Ave. are reminders of Mozambique's socialist past. There are also many streets named after dates of important battles or revolutions, such as 24th of June Avenue. It was amusing to walk around Maputo, if only to check out all the difference street names.

My experience in Maputo was very different from my experience in Chimoio. Maputo is clearly much wealthier than most other parts of Mozambique. Basic infrastructure is better developed - the roads are paved, high-speed internet was available and many parts of the city were lit at night. There is a wide selection of food from Italian to Thai to Ethiopian. There are entire neighbourhoods of large gated mansions with groomed gardens. Most of these mansions had Mercedes-Benzs and BMWs parked in the driveway. The contrast between Maputo, Chimoio and the even small villages provided a clear reminder of how difficult it can be to spread economic development beyond urban centers and capital cities. It also provided a stark reminder of the inequality that exists in the country.

Even though I was only in Mozambique for 4 weeks, it was a fantastic experience. It gave me the opportunity to reflect about much of my coursework over the past year. I don't think I necessarily know how to apply it any better, but I certainly used many of the concepts from the classroom to analyze the problems that I observed first hand. Hopefully, I will actually be able to provide some solutions to these problems after a couple more years of school!