Lesley Chambers, 3 Jan 2009 09:50 hours
Maputo, Mozambique Happy New Year! I've just noticed all the messages after my last entry. I do get spam messages from time to time, which can be deleted, but it is irritating...
Anyway, Happy New Year 2009! I am now in Maputo having celebrated the New Year in Beira. It was a nice night, despite rain. The festivities were very similar to New Year's celebrations in other countries I've been to. Fireworks were going off somewhere or other all evening, and there were lots of loud house parties going on. I went to Miramar, a cafe in a great situation opposite the beach. It's a bit down-at-heel and normally known for its prostitutes and cockroaches, but on Wednesday it had been done up quite smartly, and there was live music. At midnight everyone hugged and kissed strangers, let off fireworks and started dancing in the rain; it was good fun!
Yesterday Saude and I travelled by bus to Maputo. It's a long journey; we left Beira at 4am and arrived at 8:30pm! But it was a modern, clean bus (a "tourist bus" so fairly comfortable, and I really enjoyed watching Mozambique go by. At the moment the countryside is a very fresh green due to lots of recent rain. Throughout Moz there is a lot of burning of scrub to clear land or to hunt animals (I think), and sometimes large areas of the countryside are black and dead, but yesterday it was obvious how fertile the land really is.
I was struck, as ever, by the contrast between the South and the rest of the country. There is more money and more activity near to Maputo. Buildings are smarter (or less run-down at least), and people seem to have a purpose. There is hope that with investment the rest of the country will benefit in the same way, but at the moment it all seems to be concentrated in one area.
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