Stranded in KaTembe.
Two emptied bottles of dos MM, the local Mozambican beer on the corner of a pool table. Ice cold beers they were, cerveija gelada, almost as refreshing as the Seawater that reflects the city lights of Maputo. It’s early at night, around 9 and the last ferry back to the city has left. My hair is tied up because it is still hot and the jumpsuit inspired by African patterns is sticking to my skin, so there will definitely be a second round of refreshing beer.
Stranded at night in kaTembe. What to do, before the night buses leave? Well, ‘let’s teach those street kids how to play pool’, my local friend César suggested. And here we are, enjoying our time playing against each other, always with a challenging line on the lips, and having the teenagers around us entertained. The boys even started betting on us.
The black worm and the optometrist.
“Try the black worm, Hannah!”, my colleagues and translators told me after a long day interviewing farmers. There is nothing that you cannot find at this parking lot in Giyani, Limpopo. You even find people that want to find you, even though you don’t want to be found by them, which is why I was locked into an optometrists consultancy one evening when I just told my colleagues that I would quickly get something from the pharmacy and meet them back at the car. Yeah, I wish. A weird elderly man, who probably needs to get professional psychological support started approaching me on the parking lot and followed me in a very uncomfortable way. Luckily, I could not understand everything he said, but I found help. A security guard took care of me and told me to enter the next door – an optometrist. The lady at the counter locked the door from the inside. Okay, I thought. This might take a while. So, I started having some chats with the staff and patients inside. By the time I got out, my colleagues were looking for me and happy to see me happy and healthy and so am I.
