Mozambique

Map

May 5–6, 2011

The airplane approaches the capital, Maputo.

For some reason I was convinced that Mozambique is a former French colony. Turns out, it’s a former colony of Portugal. Maputo’s appearance somehow reminds me of Abidjan.

The wavy mosaic pattern on the sidewalk—like in Macao— one of the indicators of Portuguese colonialism.

The communists didn’t change life in any significant way here, but their useless monumental mosaics with depictions of liberation movements remain.

And the Kalashnikov on the flag remains as well.

Trash dumpsters in the capital.

A traffic light.

A pedestrian traffic light.

A traffic light pole.

Warning: Mozambican children.

The local sign which prohibits vending from mobile stalls is interesting.

This is what vending from mobile stalls look like:

The Russian Embassy. It must be mentioned that photographing anything that might be of any interest whatsoever in Mozambique elicits suspicion. This is why the Russian Embassy is also treated like a top-secret facility. Naturally, as soon as I photographed the embassy, my car was stopped by the embassy’s security guard, who was no doubt looking forward to a nice round of giving me a hard time. But I just stuck my Russian passport out the window and told him that since it’s my country, I can take photos if I feel like it.

Housing in the capital.

Windows and balconies are protected with grilles everywhere. Even on the fifteenth floor, you can’t feel safe.

Remnants of former grandeur.

The mussels at the fish market exhibit a curious behavior. Every once in a while, one of the mussels in the giant tubs decides to go “pffth” and squirt out some water, making a little fountain. I’ve never seen mussels act this way before. The fish are more reserved.

A man sits outside the market, nonchalantly sharpening a knife on the curbstone.

A construction site fence.

The Eiffel who built the tower in Paris once built a house in Maputo. Completely out of metal. People moved in and promptly moved out the next day: it was too hot, what with the metal and all. So they had to wait until one day air conditioners were invented.

A church shaped like a citrus juicer.

A tuk-tuk.

A license plate.

The L stands for learner (like in Australia).

A collection of vehicle inspection stickers from recent years.

Interestingly, every vehicle larger than an SUV has to wear a yellow sticker with diagonal red stripes on its rear bumper.

A Mozambican post office.

Almost all the British pillar boxes are being used for trash instead of mail.

Street signs.

The toponymy has a decidedly communist bent.

There are lots of beautiful old neon signs around the city.

The most original and interesting part of the urban infrastructure: electrical boxes with marvelous little skulls and profiles of the hotline operator (evidently, before penetrating into the box).