Winter weather and law-enforcement and more

This seems to be the ideal day to write another blog. As you remember, we are on the southern hemisphere, where it is winter at the moment. Mostly we assume that winter in the tropics means the part of the year where heat is bearable. But at the moment it is freezing cold for someone used to 35 degrees. It is probably about 15 degrees and it is raining, the skies are grey and it reminds me a lot of the Dutch autumns I tried to avoid by moving to a tropical country. And the maintenance of the beautiful guesthouse here at the Seminary (we moved back to the Seminary as it doesn’t seem that the car will arrive soon and our teaching here is coming close, and it is a tiny bit cheaper than living in town) unfortunately hasn’t been a first priority in the past years. Luckily there is no water leaking inside the house (yet?), but the gutters around the porch are broken, which made all the wood rotten and now the rain is trying to make a swimming pool of the porch which we try to prevent with buckets… Still no clear winner …
While I am emptying the buckets, Erik is busy to get his online banking working. Apparently ABN Amro bank has changed the surface of their site, and while they say you will find the log-in button easily, it appears to be more like a seek-and-hide game.
So imagine us: with our warmest clothes and hot coffee mugs, annoyed with bad internet connections and the cold, waiting for our car and trying to figure out how I can renew my visa (expiring over 2 weeks), but trying to keep the spirit up, we stay on the porch telling ourselves that it is fun in the tropics … :)
But don’t worry; we are not generally in a bad mood. Usually we really like it. Like the other day, 3 hoopoes (Wiedehöpfe, pt: Poupa, NL: hop) came visiting our garden, and a curious, baby lizard explored my arms and hands.
And then we come to the story with the Mozambican law-enforcement, or actually us trying to avoid them. They like to stop any obviously none-Mozambicans to check your ID and getting a “refresco” (“a drink”), which is a nice word for a bribe. Even if they cannot find anything wrong with your ID, your car (if you have one ;-0), or your behaviour they still try to get a bribe. But Erik and me are becoming very good in getting away with some jokes. Of course you should make sure you actually have your ID. Lately, while we were still staying at the backpackers in Maputo, we met a nice Indian girl who came to do some research for her PhD about female economic position in Mozambique. The three of us wanted to see a choir contest. It is a sort of Idols for choirs. They record the shows in a theatre in Maputo and it is shown live on TV as well. Erik and I left late and underway I remembered I did not bring my passport copy. No time to go back. So we decided to watch out and walk and extra block around if necessary. Halve way we met Dikshaw, the Indian girl. At some point we talked about the whole thing of carrying your passport or a legalized copy of it. And it appeared that she did not have hers with her either, as she was not yet aware of the necessity to carry it at all times. And while we had not been checked for many, many days, of course just before we got to the theatre, we saw some police men. So we walked an extra block to avoid them. But right in front of the theatre there were more of them and that time no chance to avoid them. As soon as they approached us, I told them we were on the way to the show and it was already late. Somehow they let us go without asking for IDs. Sigh! That was luck!
The show was really nice. Church choirs, political choirs including some enactment of civil responsibilities in their singings, an Islamic choir (the only one, where the girls would stand behind the boys on the stage, but maybe we should be happy they let them into the choir at all?!), a men choir singing about how to avoid HIV/AIDS, and the choir most beloved by the audience: Singing about the history of Mozambique and telling all the names of the presidents since independence… . That was the only one which made me feel a bit strange, there between all the Mozambicans in the audience, as we were the only white people assisting the show.
Anyway, it was great fun only overshadowed by the anticipation that the police would not have been gone by the end of the show. So we left the theatre in a crowd of Mozambicans heading towards a crossroad where we expected to find a cab or a rickshaw. At the corner we say a police man heading towards us. So we turned around and walked into another street as fast as we could without giving the impression to run from them. Luckily at the next corner we got a free rickshaw and off we went.
Bribing and corruption is such a common thing here. It is amazing. Sometimes I get the impression that you either need to know a lot of people in important positions (which of course got there through corruption) or you need to pay bribes. Otherwise you won’t get anywhere in life.
And especially if I know I am wrong (like having forgotten my ID at home) the alternative is going to the police station with them to make up an official file and paying and official fine, which might go together with spending the night there in a cell. This does not seem really appealing either. But somehow, I think, if everybody would do this instead of paying the bribe, things might change. Being a police man it is only worth asking for a ”refresco” as long as you know that you will get it and it will save you the work of have to make up an official file. Yet, I am curious for how long we will be able to avoid it when we drive up north with the car. I heart of people being charged because the two flashing lights of the car would not blink exactly in the same rhythm.
Another trip we made while still in town was to the other side of the bay. It is just a 10 minutes ferry trip (not considering the 30 minutes it takes to get all the people and cars on the ferry until it is so overloaded that you fear it might sink any second, especially considering the rusty state of it.) On the other side there is just a tiny fishing village, almost no cars, a bit of beach and a view onto Maputo, but then without the noise. But don’t consider taking off your shoes for a walk in the sand, as it is filthy, lots of garbage and bits of broken glass. Also a dive in the water is not advisable: all Maputo’s waste water is drained directly into the bay untreated.Still it made up for a nice excursion and that evening we went to another theatre where they had an Mozambican version of Dürrenmatts' The visit (Der Besuch der alten Dame).
Now, we again enjoy the peace of the Seminary to prepare our classes, and over a few days we will go back to town for 2 nights before we come back here to start teaching. I am getting quite nervous about it. I still have to prepare a lot and I am so curious how it will be. And in the meantime will go to some immigration office with Henrique, the administrator of the Seminary, to see if we can get me a missionary visa. Let’s hope (and pray) for it! If not, I will have to make a trip to South Africa to see whether I can arrange another tourist visa.
I tried to call to the consulate - in a place called “Nelspruit” – today. But they insisted I come along to get information about what I need to apply for a visa. Well, I will take all the things I had to bring when I applied in Brussels, and then we’ll see. But on this and maybe some other bureaucratic hassles the next time. :)
A big hug for all of you!
Anna