2. marjoribanks - 9/10/99 10:39:15 AM
Pelle,
I will mercilessly and ruthlessly (and unhumorously) hound you from thread to thread on this site until you start putting stuff into this thread.

3. pellenilsson - 9/10/99 11:05:27 AM
Right now I'm sitting in my temporary office. The door opens to an outside walkway. If I go out there I look down on a small courtyard. It is dusk now, otherwise I would have seen several species of birds which I cannot identify which makes cmboyce a little upset. He suggests I buy a book over birds in southern Africa. But I can tell you this, folks: bird books are utterly useless when it comes to identifying birds.

Office hours end in five minutes but I'll probably stay on for a while. Then I'll pass by a supermarket - a very small one by American standards and buy some cheese, bread and wine for dinner. This to avoid losing time by having to go to a restaurant.

I need the time because have promised myself to finish a report today. It has the fancy title Trends in telecommunications - the global perspective. That will take two or three hours, I guess. Then I will tackle the simple drawing of a hay sweep which I began yesterday but lost through a computer glitch. It strikes me now that have no means to post it. Maybe I can convince Irv to give it a home on his website for a few days.

That's all for now from a rather hot and clammy Maputo. Tomorrow is Saturday so I'll see if I can come up with something more substantial then.

Marj, I don't see any tools. Are sub-thread hosts not entrusted with them. Not even Delete? Do I have to trust you to protect me from abuse and threats such as yours?

4. marjoribanks - 9/10/99 11:14:13 AM
Excellent stuff Pelle, thank you.

I'm wondering - the bread must be Portuguese-influenced. Or is it standard packaged loaf kind of stuff. And the cheese, is it processed and imported or local. I'll feel like boyce on the birds if I don't hear the details on this. And what about the wine? And the cost?

Is your office in a diplomatic enclave kind of set-up? What is the security situation in Maputo like? Is there a sanitized zone or is the whole city fairly safe?

"Marj, I don't see any tools. Are sub-thread hosts not entrusted with them. Not even Delete? Do I have to trust you to protect me from abuse and threats such as yours?"

Of course not, Pelle. There are several rules and regulations pertaining to this issue. feel free to submit an application form (in triplicate) on our next working day (Oct 2) and i'll send you the correct forms to fill out. You can be assured that the strictest letter of the law will be carried out.

5. IrvingSnodgrass - 9/10/99 11:47:11 AM
Pelle:
I'll be glad to post anthing you want on my website.

Thanks for the report on Maputo.

7. PsychProf - 9/10/99 4:58:03 PM

9. PsychProf - 9/10/99 5:04:55 PM
Banks...here is yours...

10. marjoribanks - 9/10/99 5:08:57 PM
Thanks wabbit and prof. Two maps are better than none.

11. marjoribanks - 9/10/99 5:19:12 PM
I actually didn't realize how south Maputo is.

My grandfather's cousins migrated to Mozambique from Portuguese Goa, to the fairly large Goan community that used to live in Beira. They were all civil servants of varying achievement. And they fled with most of the other Goans, to Portugal, where they are the proudest Portuguese, prouder than any native, you'll ever have the displeasure of sizing up. Horrible fellows, I hate spending time with them.

12. marjoribanks - 9/10/99 5:40:57 PM
Pelle, I wonder if you've got any "holidays" planned while in Mozambique? Any trips to Lake Nyasa or one of the national parks? Have you seen the Zambezi, the very name of which captivated me as a child? And what is the beach like at and near Maputo.

13. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 2:52:51 AM
Good morning. It's 8.45 am here. Thank you for the maps PP.

Yesterday night went as planned. There has been a weather change accompanied by thunderstorms. It's raining heavily and the temperature has dropped by at least 10 C. I have no umbrella. It is very dark with bolts of lightning crossing the sky. The thunder has that horrible tearing quality indicating that it is very near. I hope the electricity supply will hold out.

To add to the inconveniences I found the hotel invaded by German tourists. Noisy Germans for breakfast is not my cup of tea.

This is the plan for today. First I'll dig out what I wrote in International and repost it here, then I'll try to answer marj's many penetrating questions. After that we will see what the day brings.

14. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 5:10:24 AM
First posted on Aug 28

Maputo looks like the archetypical third world city. The buildings, even rather new ones, are a bit dilapidated. The streets are full of loopholes. There is a lot of pedestrian traffic due to a lack of public transport and lack of money to pay for rides on the privately operated mini-bus routes. They drive on the left here, which creates some problems for me. A factoid that you are not likely to know is that in Sweden, we too drove on the left until 1967. But we did it in cars that had the steering wheel on the right. So it is not the left-hand driving per se that troubles me, but doing it with the steering wheel on the left. The controls (except the pedals) are reversed too. I constantly find myself turning on the wipers when I want to indicate a turn, and hitting the window handle when I want to change gear. I solved the latter difficulty by putting the car in second gear at the start and never shift, although today I became adventurous and actually had it in third gear a couple of times. The traffic is rather light and driving habits are quite gentle, but complicated situations seem to develop all the time.

Mozambique is a poor country. The legal minimum wage was recently increased from $28 to $34 per month. Something like 70% of the population live in rural areas. A majority of them are subsistence farmers who are not at all connected to the monetary economy. They walk to the market once a week and barter for the necessities they cannot produce themselves.

15. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 5:12:24 AM
First posted on Aug 28

The country is also recovering from a long and bloody civil war which started when the Salazar regime in Portugal collapsed in the early 1970's. The 'revolutionaries' simply abandoned Angola and Mozambique. Marxist-type parties took power in both countries and civil wars broke out. The insurgents were supported by the then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa and, in the case of Angola, by the US. (Wasn't that chap Jonathan Sawimbi shown strutting around at Reagan's side once?) With the ending of white rule in South Africa, the war in Mozambique ended too, because there wasn't really anything to fight about. In Angola there is - diamonds and oil - and there the war continues.

Nowadays Mozambique has an elected parliament with new elections due in December. Marxism is long gone; liberalisation and privatisation are the buzz words of today. But the heritage lives on. Today I did some shopping on Avenida Vladimir Lenin and on my way there I crossed Avenida Ho Chi Minh.

Mozambique's major export commodity is hydroelectric power to South Africa from a huge installation on the Zambezi river. It is a bit ironic then that most of the rural areas here lack power, a major disadvantage when it comes to building a telecommunications infrastructure. Solar power is feasible but expensive.

The official language here is Portuguese. There are said to be several indigenous languages but I have no information on them. Our absent host might be interested to know that there is a not insignificant community of Goan origins. The Director General of the monopoly telecom operator is one of them. His surname is Fernandez, which is said to be a reliable indicator of Goan ancestry

16. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 5:14:00 AM
First posted on Sep 4.

I mentioned earlier that the streets are in fairly bad shape. But I now
see that there is a massive repavement scheme in progress, and it
seems to be moving ahead rather quickly.

GSM cellular phones are frequently seen and heard. There are nearly
10,000 of them in Maputo which is not bad in a poor country where
the service has only been available since the beginning of the year.
GSM is a fantastic success everywhere and a prime example of the
benefits of standardisation. When I switched on my handset here it
immediately logged on to the local network, and people who dial my
Swedish number will be connected to me here.

The food is fairly good with a distinct Portuguese touch although the
inevitable Chinese and Indian restaurants are there too. No
McDonalds, no Kentucky Chicken. Yesterday night I had sardinhas
asadas, charcoal grilled sardines, a dish that I like and which evokes
pleasant memories from vacations more than 25 years ago in Algarve,
then much less exploited than today. My idea of a relaxing day is to
walk a bit along the beach looking at stones and various flotsam,
swim for a while and then take a large espresso and a pre-lunch
brandy, of the sweetish local variety, at a small café near the small
fishing port, looking at the small boats coming in to unload their
bewildering variety of fish.

A final observation. The African/Portuguese/Indian mix seems to
produce some stunningly beautiful girls.

17. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 6:46:24 AM
Now the time approaches noon and it's still pouring down, but it is not as dark any more, and the thunder has stopped. Our plans for lunch are off. We were to have gone to a beach restaurant where they sometimes serve suckling pig, a great dish if it's done right, that is spit roasted to a crispy golden brown colour with the meat still succulent and tender.

To marj's pressing questions.

I'm wondering - the bread must be Portuguese-influenced.

Everything here is Portuguese-influenced. It is like a poor version of Portugal but with more black people. No African dresses around.

And the cheese, is it processed and imported or local?

There are quite a few kinds of cheese. The ones I have seen have been imported, most from South Africa. A lot of foodstuff comes from there. Cheese is amazingly expensive. I saw a Swiss cheese yesterday, nothing fancy, a Gruyère I believe. It sold for something like $35. The South African ones go for $15-20.

Damn. The power went off. Just when I thought we were safe.

I'll feel like boyce on the birds .

You may have coined a phrase there, marj. Very good.

And what about the wine? And the cost?

Portuguese and South African. Ordinary wines (and I have not seen any others) go for $10-15. You will be disgusted when I tell you that I buy the kind of stuff that comes in cardboard containers. They are half the price and that bottled wines are not much good in any case because they are not stored properly.

Is your office in a diplomatic enclave kind of set-up?

No. It is in an area with many embassies, but there is no enclave. We have guards on permanent duty, though. The private homes are also guarded. In fact the office is in a former embassy building. There is a nice part and a shabby part which probably housed the local staff. I'm in the shabby part.

18. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 6:49:02 AM
What is the security situation in Maputo like? Is there a sanitized zone or is the whole city fairly safe?

It is pretty good and it has improved a lot these last few years people say. As in any big city there are areas where it is not wise to loiter at night.

Pelle, I wonder if you've got any "holidays" planned while in Mozambique? Any trips to Lake Nyasa or one of the national parks? Have you seen the Zambezi, the very name of which captivated me as a child? And what is the beach like at and near Maputo.

On missions like this, time is always too short. Either from the beginning or because tasks are added. I could of course spend some extra days, but frankly I don't like going to places without my wife. The beaches north of here are said to be excellent.

It's funny with exciting names. I have list too. For the moment I remember these:

Kanchenljunga (sp?)
Mandalay
Marrakesch
Timbuktu
Trinkamalee

Of these I have been to Marrakesch. A gigantic tourist trap.

Still no power. It's been off for half an hour now, an ominous sign. Maybe it's a big fault. And it's dark in the office too. The windows are small with trees outside. The only place with decent daylight is the toilet. Maybe I could sit down there and put the laptop on the bidet. It would not be ergonomically correct but it could work.

Sorry, rambling while waiting. I'll play Solitaire until the power comes back or the battery gives up. If the latter I'll go for a spot of lunch and a nap and come back in the late afternoon.

It's back!! Now let's hope the ISP is juiced up too.

19. pellenilsson - 9/11/99 8:09:33 AM
Last observation of the day.

The sun is out.

20. JayAckroyd - 9/11/99 8:38:01 AM
The beach I hung out at for a couple of days, north of Maputo, was nice. In a place called Xai-Xai. The highlight was probably the group baptism that took place one afternoon on the beach. There are supposed to be more tourist oriented beaches elsewhere that used to be the vacation spot of choice for South Africans.

Pelle--are you staying in that neo-colonial hotel with the pair of pools? Can't remember the name; when I was there we were staying in the State dept/USAID compound.

21. JayAckroyd - 9/11/99 8:43:02 AM
And, boyce, don't get too shook up about unidentified birds. While Botswana was a birder's delight (between there and Kruger we racked up 150 species in about eight days, without trying terribly hard), Maputo is like most urban areas, common, human habituated birds. I'll check my notes when I get home and see if we added any to our list while we were there.

22. marjoribanks - 9/11/99 9:08:24 AM
Superb stuff Pelle. This is the best thread on the Mote. Thank you very much. And even within our small group we have another person who has been to Mozambique, cool.

I have several questions, which I will develop over the course of the morning, but the one idle one is about music. A pleasant album came out earlier this year, one of a series, called Red, Hot and Lisbon (which is basically music of the Portuguese speaking world). There was a very good Mozambican group on it, fervent Portuguese singing overlayed with typically liquid E-African guitars and a relaxed drum pace. I don't have my album on me, but I'll try and find the name. The question is, have you heard anything interesting, do you have a radio? And does your hotel feature an interesting band of any kind? I sure hope it's not the usual lounge act, but if it is request Hello Dolly for me one time.

23. marjoribanks - 9/11/99 9:14:07 AM
BTW, I've been to Marrakesh as well, and while it is a bit overtouristy I also found the Souk and that Grand Square quite intriguing. Also, I've seen Kanchenjunga ( it's damn impressive and more beautiful imo than Everest) and Trincomalee (superb Sri Lankan harbor, now dangerous as hell thanks to the ongoing civil war).

24. Hashke - 9/11/99 11:39:36 AM
Terrific material pelle! Keep it coming.

Was that your photo that I recently saw somewhere in these precincts? If so, that and your wit preclude the 'dour and humorless Swede' sobriquet. It should rather be 'a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy'.

25. stostosto - 9/11/99 5:34:56 PM
Pelle

It's fascinating to hear from you in Mocambique; I have never been to Africa myself. I am childishly envious of you. So I have got to tell you that you are missing out on the most wonderful Indian summer in this part of the world. At least here in Denmark. It has been sunny, cloudless and temperatures up to 25C for two weeks now and they say it's going to last at least five more days.

More on topic - and I don't know if this may have been touched upon by others elsewhere in these threads - but I am wondering about the Portuguese retreat from their colonies. The Salazar regime collapsed, and the new people simply abandoned the colonies? Including East Timor? And then hell broke loose: Angola, Mocambique, East Timor (were there others?) Couldn't or shouldn't the Portuguese somehow be blamed for that mess? I haven't really seen this view purported anywhere (which is not to say it hasn't been). I am just wondering...

26. marjoribanks - 9/11/99 6:06:25 PM
Well, there were only four significant colonies after WWII, and the Portuguese held on to all of them for dear life, especially when Salazar took over. The "invasion" of Goa ( quite eagerly welcomed by the Goans) became a major international issue, which is the fourth example. The Salazarists fought the last as hard as they could in any international alliance they could fine. The Indian takeover of Goa was not acknowledged by International law until Portugal relinquished its claim a good dozen years later. Which is the same time they cut loose the others, without any preparation other than a false promise of custodianship in the international arena.

So yes, I think some blame for the current state of the Portuguese former holdings in Angola, Mozambique and E. Timor can be laid at the feet of the former colonial power.

27. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 2:45:28 AM
Good morning. After yesterday's rain and thunder we have a cool, clear, crisp morning in Maputo.

The Germans are still around. You won't believe this but they actually sang German songs at breakfast. Songs on the line "it is a new day - let us face it with good spirits and vigour ...". Disgusting.

Thank you for reading my stuff and for your comments and questions. I'll get back later. Right now I'm off to check out the main threads, in particular to see what uzmakk has to say about my latest.

28. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 6:03:27 AM
I spent a long time reading the Mote and the time is near when we are going to have the lunch we planned for yesterday. I will return in the afternoon to answer your questions and comments which I have printed out in my normal ambitious and painstaking manner.

I have posted this elsewhere but thank you again marj for your spirited defense of this sub-thread.

Before I go I have time to update you on yesterday's dinner eaten at a Portuguese restaurant. I had a sea-food platter with mussles au gratin, prawns, lightly grilled over charcoal, and fried octopus, all with a pleasing touch of garlic and served with a lemon-butter sauce.

I'm not sure about usage here. In Sweden we only have one word 'inkfish' to describe the two species. But I assume that 'octopus' is the one with eight tentacles which is the one I had. That would make 'squid' the one with ten appendages, or is that a generic word describing both? Convoluted question; straight answer asked for.

29. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 8:04:59 AM
Bom dia, Pelle.

The word you may be looking for is cephalopod. Both squid and octopus fall into this category. But it's more a scientific word, as far as I know they are always differentiated in English, as squid and octopus. I am fairly squeamish about eating such things, but I've seen octopi (octopusses) underwater and they're quite beautiful, and surprisingly fast, and chameleonlike in their ability to change colors according to their surroundings. They're also rumored to be intelligent, and to have "moods". More than you ever wanted to know about the octopus I'm sure.

30. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 8:16:18 AM
Now, the roast suckling pig that you ate for lunch ('leitao assado' in Portuguese) is something I often eat. It is a delicacy wherever the Portuguese went, I'm sure. In Goa, it is the signature dish at any traditional wedding or other occasion for serious celebration. And when it is done very well, it is absolutely delicious. It is the only pork I will eat in that part of the world, since the little critter is still suckling when it's killed and hasn't had the chance to eat the stuff adult Goan pigs eat. Namely, human shit.

Anyway, in Goa it is eaten accompanied by rice, perhaps a prawn or fish curry and some vegetables. What are the accompaniments in Mozambique. I'm curious to know if the Mozambicans eat as much cassava and sweet potatoes as their neighbors to the North.

31. ScottLoar - 9/12/99 2:08:07 PM
Simply charming excursus, I'm overcome by languor. Treat the presence of Germans at breakfast as a dust mote in the eye, irritating at first but washed out by a few tears. Treat the presence of Germans after dinner as an excuse to leave.

Now, what is that Portugese spread made of tuna fish which is commonly offered at breakfast with such fine breads and fruits?

32. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 2:13:05 PM
Perhaps you're talking about some version of the dreaded bacalhao, Loar.

However, I'm charmed by your equal aversion to the mass of German tourists abroad. They're most off-putting.

33. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 2:14:56 PM
Loar,

I appreciate your use of 'languor' in this context, which I take to mean a certain tenderness.

34. ScottLoar - 9/12/99 2:16:31 PM
No, Marj, not pasted or whipped bacalhao, but a genuinely tasty spread made of tuna fish and whatever, quite common in Portugal, comprising one of my dearest memories. The spread is everywhere in small tubs and packets of tin and plastic.

Germans seem oblivious to everyone but Germans, save that anyone else is an irritant or object of discussion.

35. ScottLoar - 9/12/99 2:19:41 PM
Marj, yes. I do appreciate those who appreciate good expression, which is why I'm so terribly self-conscious in crafting posts. PhilipDavid also seems to have this same nagging quality about his posts.

36. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 2:20:42 PM
For whatever reason, I prefer the Portuguese-influenced foods to the equivalents available in the country itself. A very good example is Feijoada, which sucks in Portugal. Eat a Brazilian version, it's far more palatable.

37. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 2:30:11 PM
There is something I want to make clear. I'm not an intrepid traveller/explorer like marj and Pseudo who huddle with the natives in their squalid huts, interrogate them about their social mores and the finer points of the local pashtan dialect, and then go on to sample the local delicacies with gusto and abandonment.

During my stay here I'm inside the expatriate cocoon, or golden ghetto, and whatever I know about how the local people conduct their lives is second-hand knowledge.

The suckling pig was not available today. I had crab instead. Very nice with giant claws and an interesting sauce served in the crab's shell. I couldn't identify the ingredients except a whiff of curry..

The hotel Jay refers to in #20 is the Polana. It's right across the road from here. Very expensive. I don't stay there but in another place which has Sheraton ambitions it doesn't quite live up to. The Germans are gone by the way. I wouldn't call the Polana neo-colonial. It opened in 1921 and is beautifully preserved, including a very fine old elevator.

I know little about African music, marj, and there is no band at the hotel. There is a chap playing the keyboard in the bar but it is mainly what you call the usual lounge act. But he does do some standard jazz pieces quite well.

I'll address the colonial issue in a moment or two

38. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 3:06:34 PM
On reflection I find that I don't have much to say about the colonies. It was twenty-five years ago and my memory is hazy. Portugal's colonies in Africa were Angola, Mozambique, the Cap Verde islands and Guinea-Bissau. a place I've actually been to twice. I don't think many have. I've been to Cap Verde too, but only to change planes so it doesn't really count.

As marj says Portugal held on to their colonies for dear life. I was almost beaten up once, in 1971, when, on vacation in Algarve, I suggested that this with the colonies could not go on for much longer. Asked why I said it was immoral and all hell broke out. But it was only a few years later that the Salazar regime was toppled. As I said, things are hazy, but I seem to remember that it was the death of Franco in Spain that set things moving. Those that took over contained a core of far-left people. They wanted out of the colonies as fast as possible and didn't care about the fact that there were no political structures in place to take over. The Portuguese, you see, were in control everywhere, down to the local council level. This was in sharp contrast to the English who ruled through the traditional leaders.

As I write this, some things are coming back to me. In all the colonies there were "freedom fighters" of the leftist kind. It is quite possible that the new guys in Portugal completely misjudged the situation and thought that these movements represented the genuine "will of the masses". But they didn't and Rhodesia and South Africa were able to exploit this fact.

I have a wish. Marj, can you tell us in more detail what happened in Goa? What lead up to the take-over? Did the Portuguese resist? Was there any fighting at all? Or should we take this to the main thread?

39. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 3:07:32 PM

No more posts tonight. I have a few observations about life in the streets here but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I have a busy week in front of me but I will try to put in a post every day. On the other hand, marj, if you need this space for something else, feel free to do so. But give me a word of warning so I can archive the stuff.

Boa Noite from Maputo.

40. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 3:14:56 PM
Pelle,

Your daily reports and musings are fabulous. There is no way that this thread is going to be deleted until you feel it should be.

I'll be happy to produce some extended comments on the Goan "takeover" here if you think they're appropriate. In the meanwhile please do try to compile your reaction to "life in the streets" in Maputo. They would be eagerly received.

42. marjoribanks - 9/12/99 3:18:12 PM
Boa Noite.

43. ScottLoar - 9/12/99 3:39:17 PM
I can well understand PelleNillson needs attend to his business in Mozambique but... we want more! No false modesties, please, nor need to fear tempting critics as we all seem to be lapping eagerly at his feet. Really, this stuff is good.

44. pellenilsson - 9/12/99 3:47:06 PM
I shall go on. Praise from ScottLoar is rare.

45. ScottLoar - 9/12/99 3:50:27 PM
Praise from ScottLoar is sincere. Truly, I find your notes charming. I like them, they're good.

46. pellenilsson - 9/13/99 2:54:31 AM
Bom Dia

Another fine morning here. Our driver just cam in and gave me 1,225,800 Metacaiz for the $100 I had asked him go and change.

I've gotten myself into a real mess over the weekend. I have to do what I came here to do. I have a big discussion with Spence in Economics, although it should finish today. Then I have my project with uzmakk in Arts.

And this.

And on top of that there is a demand that I adapt a piece of software I wrote several years ago to be used here. There are thousands of lines of code in Pascal. That language is supposed to force structured programming but my talents are such that I have managed to put a fair amount of spaghetti into it. And I haven't even looked at it since 1996. What to do? What to do? In any case no risk for boring evenings at the hotel watching the boring CNN.

I'll be back later.

47. pellenilsson - 9/13/99 7:12:01 AM
I just managed to post the drawings in Arts. I fear that page will be slow to load and that I will be cursed by many moties, and JJ in particular. But it cannot be helped. The Project must go on.

But now, a few minutes for a few lines on street life in Maputo. It takes a while, but then you notice what is not there. There are no war invalids. There must be many of them but kept out sight, perhaps to help the healing process after the war. When I visited Angola in 1980 they were everywhere; a tragic sight, begging in their uniforms which practically rotted away on their bodies.

There are very few beggars and those are mostly old men who are courteous about it. The worst place I have been for beggars is Melilla, one of the Spanish enclaves in North Africa. Agressive little louts who encircled one everywhere.

There are no wild dogs and cats, indicating that there is a working extermination programme.

There are very few food-shops. This I noted on my second day here, when I wanted to buy some cheese and biscuits. I had no car then so I walked long and wide in the city centre without finding anything. Eventually, and by pure chance, I came upon the Mercado Municipal, an impressive building from the 1880's. There they had all kinds of stuff: groceries, meat, fish, clothes, shoes, you name it. It was full of small stalls, except the fish section which was in an open space. So I guess there are such market - not as big of course - in all parts of the city and people to most of their daily shopping there.

The railway station is also said to be very nice, but I have not seen it yet. I spend all my days and evenings writing reports, preparing for seminars and posting to the Mote.

What a life.

48. pellenilsson - 9/13/99 7:12:57 AM
What one does see are street hawkers selling everything from strawberries and cigarettes to African art and pottery. I seldom by from hawkers, because like most Swedes I'm no good at haggling. marj would make out well here, of course.

Then there are the boys who want to "watch" your car for you (and you know what happens if they are not allowed to). They are everywhere and are a real nuisance. Not that it costs anything: they accept ten cents and are happy with twenty, it is the hassle. And sometimes there is fighting. It must be a never-ending turf battle going on. The hotel and some of the larger shops have guards who keep the boys at bay.

Talking about guards there are not many police around. One sees them, but not more often than in, say, Stockholm. And no military at all.

This will be all for today I think.

49. marjoribanks - 9/13/99 8:14:29 AM
More, Pelle, more.

Maputo sounds very much like a peacful place in comparison to many other big cities in Africs. The idea of you wandering around with very little to bother you other than a few urchins and beggars is actually extremely surprising to me. Try that in Nairobi, or Johannesburg and you take your life in your hands, even in daylight. From what I've read of your stuff on Maputo, it seems more sleepy and decaying, kind of like some of the old colonial cities in Latin America. Very interesting stuff anyway.

As for bargaining, I'm really not a haggler by nature, especially in the poorer countries. However, I generally try to have a very good idea of what an item costs and simply refuse to buy unless the asking price is with the ballpark. In India, for instance, people are always telling me off for paying a paltry ten or twenty rupee premium for some things when I presumably know better. But the difference is so tiny, and generally the profit margins for these unfortunate peddlers is so small, that I have absolutely no problem with paying slightly more than the going rate.

On the other hand, for big expenditures, particularly art, I'm a ruthless negotiator - aware of a bargain and completely shameless about beating down prices if I sense a weakness in the seller. The most prominent contemporary art dealer in Mumbai actually displays real fear in his eyes when I walk casually into his establishment. He knows that he will wind up selling me something small or large, that it will be an exceptional and unusually fine example of the artist's work, and that I will cudgel his requests down to the point where it is a genuine bargain. And that he is more or less at my mercy, with no choice in the matter.

50. pellenilsson - 9/14/99 7:29:45 AM
Good morning. I have really nothing to say and just a few minutes to say it in. Yesterday evening was ruined by the need to restore a Word file I had messed up something awful. I still don't understand what went wrong.

I only broke off for a meal in the coffeeshop and that was nothing to write home about, as the Swedish saying goes. I briefly considered Chicken Giblets but while I know that giblets are innards I don't exactly of what kind. The idea of risking chicken stomach put me off that one. Now if it means liver and heart, that's another kettle of tea. Information anyone? My eye then fell of Pig's Ears in Vinaigrette Sauce. Can one eat pig's ears? Is there anything to eat on them? If you read this Scott, are such eaten in China or any other place you know of? Have you, per chance? So Portuguese Sausage it was. Enough said about that.

This morning it was decided that my mission will be extended another week, taking it up to Sep 31. That's OK I guess but I really miss my books. I have nothing really good with me except a biography of Schopenhauer which I will read again. I have never studied him because I sort of pulled the plug after Kant. I hated Hegel and I'm glad to see that S. did so too. He says some nice nasty things which I will take note of during the second read.

For those who wonder. Yes I miss my wife too, very much in fact. But I can manage without her. Books I cannot be without.

Tonight I will ruminate a little and come up with something more serious and enlightening.

Bye for now.

51. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:38:45 AM
I'm writing this Tuesday evening after returning from the coffee shop. I forgot to check if there was any advice on giblets and pig's ears, and none of the two waiters who speak good English was around, so I settled for an egg and bacon sandwich. Solid piece of work.

While I attacked the sandwich I read a book from 1975 titled "Portugal's southern Africa wars", partisan with a marxist-style analysis but with many facts. I'm a compulsive reader at table. My wife tried to wean me off the habit for the first 10-15 years but resigned. Now she even does it herself sometimes. Does any of you suffer from this affliction? Are you fighting it?

The book reminded me that this is a country where a civil war has raged for thirty years. I say civil war because during colonial times there were a lot of Mozambiquans who fought on the Portuguese side. Civil wars are like wounds that don't heal completely. Now and then a splinter works its way out through the skin causing pain and possible infection. It happens in the US, in Spain and in Finland. I wonder what will happen here. And in the former Yugoslavia.

52. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:41:49 AM
Telecommunications consulting for Telia abroad is a small world. Although there are more than 200 of us overseas, there is a core group of people one runs into every so often. Among those who are here now is Bernt, the project manager who is on his second tour here with Miami and Brasil in between. We have met regularly at our annual project managers' meeting. There is Olaus who I first met in Yemen in 1980, and who worked in Jordan 1983-84 and returned there for some short-term missions in 1994-96. Pekka, the Finn, was in Jordan 1987-88 and then in Lebanon around 1995. I used to pop over there quite often because he used the software I referred to the other day. The Lebanese members of Pekka's team were remarkable. Two boys and two girls, all aged 25-30. They were the kind of people who understand what one is saying before one has stopped speaking. They saw the possibilities and started to explore them. They saw the constraints and started to think about ways to circumvent them. These trips were pure joy.

Jan is also here. We worked together - and played a lot of squash together - in Gothenburg in 1967-73. He was the Head Office contact person for the Yemen project and later became project manager in Guinea-Bissau. He met a Danish girl and moved to Copenhagen where he worked for Carl Bro, a large consulting firm. He is still there but now as an independent consultant. We last met in Poland a couple of times in the early 90's.

It is strange that when one meets such people who one hasn't seen in years, one immediately takes up where it ended as if no time had passed. I'm sure that many of you have the same experience.

But what interest do you have in people I happen to know? I'm rambling as usual and I promised more solid stuff for today. (At this point, because I'm tired, I did what marj did yesterday; I ordered up a beer, which will either help or completely stop my endeavours.)

53. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:45:27 AM
We will be talking communications and not only of the tele variety.



The map doesn't show any roads but you may visualise one from Maputo, via Beira, to Nampula. There is only one problem: there is no bridge over the Zambesi river. Last week I saw a video from a field survey our people did in that region. They had to camp out for three days because three of the ferry's four engines had broken down. And the road that runs along the river is in reality a narrow dirt road which is impassable by anything but four-wheel drive cars when it has rained. Even so, the guys had to use the winches several times to get out of mud-holes.

Lorry traffic may either chance the ferry or pass the river up at Cabora Bassa, the big hydro-electric plant where there is a bridge, and then pass through the southern tip of Malawi. Imagine the paperwork and delays involved in passing two border in Africa!. So the Zambesi really cuts the country in two and as roads are generally bad, the country is fragmented. The south has its main relations with northern South Africa and Swaziland, the Beira region relates to Zimbabwe and the north, which is a rich agriculture area has no good connections to anywhere.

54. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:48:23 AM
I have mentioned earlier, although perhaps in the main thread, that we have a subsidiary here. Why, you may wonder, does big Telia have a subsidiary in a poor, rather crummy place like Mozambique? There are two reasons. The first one is complicated and bureaucratic. Its main effect is that the company is co-owned by Telecommunicaçaoes do Moçambique (TDM), our main customer, and ourselves. A strange arrangement which I can explain if you want, but I'll pass it over for now. The other reason is more business-like.

Land communications in this part of Africa are generally north-south with their nexus in South Africa. This is an heritage from colonial times when Zambia and Zimbabwe made up Rhodesia (named after the explorer and imperialist Cecil Rhodes). Zimbabwe had an alternative outlet via Beira but the capacity of the port there was insufficient, and both the railway and the road were in bad shape. Several years ago, when the force of apartheid was still strong, an effort was made to break out of the South African stronghold. An organisation called SADCC, Southern Africa Development Cooperation Council was created, and within that SATCC where the T stands for - you guessed it - Telecommunications. The dependence on South Africa was not so strong in our field because of the satellite option but for links to neighbouring countries satellite is uneconomical because of the high cost for leasing capacity on them. Also, there is the 0.5 second round trip delay which can be really annoying. And, the countries involved use satellite also for domestic purposes, causing a delay of one second which contravenes international agreements.

55. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:52:00 AM
Sorry for being technical there for a while. I'm setting the background for why we saw a business opportunity in the region. We thought that with TDM as a co-owner we had an African flavour to work to our advantage. And we could go all the way on that one. TDM had - and has - some very good engineers whom we would not hesitate to deploy as consultants. Some work, not insignificant, did indeed come our way. But the big money went into land communications, and in particular into what became known as the Beira Corridor. I have heard various figures, but not less than US$ 100 million, all of it aid money of course, went into the upgrading of Beira port and the railway and road to Harare in Zimbabwe.

The Beira Corridor worked well for a while. But soon after its completion came the fall of apartheid. And much of the shipping switched back to Durban, its traditional port of call. It's not too hard to understand why. Beira was probably still in a learning curve while Durban is an established port with good procedures, efficient custom's clearance, good ship's chandlers and other conveniences leading to less hassle and shorter turn-around times. Simultaneously, Zimbabwe's economy stagnated under the unwise policies of Mugabe, who after the demise of Zaire's Mobutu is the last surviving of the 'old elephants'. (If we don't count Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings of Ghana who re-emerges from time to time, but who at least has the good sense of not promoting himself to Air Field Marshal or something.) Mugabe is a freedom fighter, who, after his moment of glory, didn't manage to transform himself into a good civilian leader. His cronyism is infamous and a matter of public scandal. In these respects he resembles Yassir Arafat (or rather vice versa) who may already have destroyed all hopes for a truly democratic, open rule in Palestine with a good business climate to attract foreign investments.

56. pellenilsson - 9/15/99 3:54:05 AM
But I'm digressing which indicates that (a) the beer had some effect after all, and (b) it is time to stop.

Don't expect any bulletin tomorrow. I will have a few drinks and a nice dinner with Olaus and Danish Jan (there is another Jan here too) and retire early.

And, marj. If I do post on Friday it will be the last one. If anything interesting happens I will post in the main thread. Please allow 24 hours after my post for possible comments and to allow me to archive the whole shambackle (TM sto^3).

A last note. As I was going to bed I heard a big noise outside. I leaned out the window but saw nothing that could have caused it. But I did see my car with the lights on. It's so easy to forget because back home we are required to drive with half-beam on also in daylight, and they are operated directly by the ignition key. Luckily, turning off the key had switched the lights to parking and they had only been on for six hours. No problems to start. I know because one of the guards asked me to move the car to where he has a better view of it. But what a lucky coincidence! Without that noise my morning would have started with a big hassle.

57. marjoribanks - 9/15/99 11:20:04 AM
Very interesting, enjoyable, and informative stuff Pelle. If you have the time and the inclination it would be fascinating to read about what your predictions are for the progress of your project, and the kind of impact you envision it will have for Mozambicans.

Of course this thread will remain up as long as you wish. It has been excellent reading and I hope you'll add more before you decide to call it quits. Thanks very much for undertaking the first Diary of Motering Abroad.

58. IrvingSnodgrass - 9/15/99 1:19:20 PM
Great stuff, Pelle. Please continue the thread as long as you're in Maputo.

I too am an avid reader while I eat, although I'm not allowed to read at dinnertime, which is reserved for the family.

59. stostosto - 9/15/99 4:53:27 PM
Pelle

My eye just caught the kilometer scale on that map. It's a damn large country Mozambique, eller hur? I just checked on my globus; it's actually larger than Sweden, or France, or Texas. I have never thought about it as a large country. But then many African countries are geographically wide stretched, yet go unnoticed most of the time...

Why is Mozambique's capital located so far south? And what keeps such a large country together if the roads are no good, and the Zambesi is all but impassable? Common history? Language? Anything? Nothing?

60. pellenilsson - 9/16/99 5:36:49 AM
Thank you for your comments. Very encouraging.

I was not going to post today but I had a piece of good news which relates in a way to marj's question about what 'my' project will mean for the country. Well, my project does not have any, shall we say, concrete components at all. It is about choice of technologies in the medium term, say 2004-08.


Next time you pass a high-tension power line, please note that there is a line at the very top of the poles or towers. Because it is on top it is called the 'ground wire'. Seriously, this is part of the earthing system wich protects the line against lightning.

Since some time it has been possible to manufacture such lines with optical fibres for telecommunications inside. In case you wonder: no lightning will not cause any damage to the fibres, nor to the signals they carry. They are all glass and plastic.

I went to the power company to hear about their views on this and if they would be willing to discuss the use of such groundwires. To my great joy I found that (a) they have a massive extension program going, and (b) they have just recently decided to put in optical fibre in all new power lines.

This is extremely good news which will allow me to be much more optimistic on the possibility to bring telephone service (and the Internet) to rural areas.

By the way, I forgot the mention when I discussed the Internet with Irv that in 5-10 years time, perhaps sooner, there will be no distinction between Internet and the telecommunications network. They will be the same thing, although that will not necessarily be visible to the user.

I'll try to return to sto's questions (although I lack specific answers) tonight if nothing else comes up.

61. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:22:07 AM
It is early afternoon on Thursday and I am at the hotel because I feel a bit queasy. The shellfish dinner yesterday, perhaps. It's nothing serious but it feels safer to be where relief is nearer at hand, as it were. The disadvantage is that the chair is much too low relative to the desk so I'm sitting atop a pile of pillows, which makes me feel childish.

The Dell laptop I have goes into sleep mode when I close the cover so I never turn it off. When I opened the top just now I found it had frozen solid. The kind of freeze when not even pressing the power off button has any effect. One has to remove the battery and remove the power cord to close it down. And then, when it starts up, and because it has not been shut down properly, it starts ScanDisk, which goes on for a long time and asks a lot of stupid questions. I see a day when there is some kind of mechanical device that prevents me from removing the battery. Then the computer will be in total control. This reminds me of two short stories by Arthur C. Clark. Did you know that he was the one who first formulated the concept of geostationary satellites?

62. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:24:46 AM
The first one is set in the not so distant future, about now, perhaps. The world's telecommunications network is controlled by a vast network of computers who communicate via data links (this is so at present). With so much inter-linked processing power available the inevitable happens. The network develops consciousness. It comes alive. And by that time, society's dependence on the network has become so great that enormous amounts of redundancy has been built into it. It has become impossible to close it down. Telecoms rule the world!

63. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:25:46 AM

The other story is called The Billion Names of God and is set in a monastery in Tibet in the 1960's. The monastery is occupied by an esoteric sect of Buddhism. They have a special alphabet which is only used to spell the name of the Supreme Being, and which has been handed down from generation to generation. Their problem is that they don't know the name. But they do know that once the name has been spelled out, the endless tragic cycle of birth and re-birth will end. The University will cease to exist. Karma will rule. The task of their Order is to spell out all possible combinations of letters in the alphabet, and they have worked out an elaborate system of pegs and disks to do that.. The monks are not, however, averse to technology and they keep track of what is happening. They are also not short of cash. It becomes clear to them that a computer could speed up things enormously, and so they order IBM's top-of-the-line mainframe which duly arrives at the small airstrip in the valley accompanied by a diesel generator and fuel. All these things are carried up the mountain on mules and the backs of men. The computer is accompanied by two engineers who will set it up and design the program which will solve the monks' problems. They spend a lot of their time in light bantering about "crazy monks" and the need to "give the customer what the customer wants". Task accomplished they set out, on a clear, cloudless night, for the long walk down the mountain to be at the airstrip in the morning. Suddenly they look up; and they see the stars going out, one by one.

64. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:27:48 AM
Today it happened again, maybe for the fourth time. I come out of the office, my head full of thought (in this case about the incomprehensible new line uzmakk is taking for the Project). I walk to the car, unlock it and sit down. Then when refocusing from the inner to the outer reality I suddenly realise: no steering wheel! Opened the wrong door. And there is the guard looking at me, curiously. Rummage around in the glove compartment. Ponder some papers found there for a while. Get out. Walk to other side. Behave naturally. Maintain dignity.

(This reminds me of similar incidents in Cyprus, which in turn remind me of a four-wheel drive excursion there with several mishaps. It could possibly become a mildly amusing anecdote. Perhaps I will try a write-up tonight.)

marj's observation a few posts back (I cannot access his post now) that Maputo seems to be a lazy, somewhat dishevelled city is right on the mark. It is a big city but it is not a Big City. It has no nerve, no vitality, no distinct identity, no throbbing night life, in sharp contrast to, say, Beirut or Cairo. Or why not Copenhagen, sto? Stockholm is definitely not a Big City but it is the Stockholmers' tragic fate to believe it is. Maybe we could at some time have a discussion on "Which are the World's Big Cities?".

65. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:30:14 AM
Concerning sto's questions I think that many of the answers are found in the very long Portuguese presence. The big land-grab in sub-Saharan Africa didn't start until the last half of the 19th century. The Portuguese had been there much, much earlier. A time table:

1445 Cap Verde
1449 Guinea-Bissao
1471 São Tomé and Principe
1482 Angola
1490 Mozambique

So there has been ample time to build a kind of African/Portuguese cultural and social identity. And there has been much intermingling along the way. The Portuguese were very relaxed about these things.

Any nitpicker out there will by now have shouted with joy because I forgot São Tomé and Principe in an earlier post. Like Cap Verde, these islands were uninhabited when discovered. According to the book I'm reading they were settled with "Jews, convicts deported from Europe, and Africans from the mainland. I would love to ask Rustler if there are any historic facts or legends about this African diaspora, but I haven't seen him around lately. Has anyone? What is happening on these islands now? I haven't a clue.

I have no answer to why Maputo (formerly Lourenço Marquess), in the extreme south, has become the capital. One of our 19th century poets created a character called the Wise Fool who once remarked that it is indeed a lucky thing that great rivers run where the great cities are. But there is no river near Maputo.It was probably an early settlement which then grew into the administrative centre.

66. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:33:15 AM
The borders in Africa were settled at the Berlin Conference. I have no date for it but I would put it somewhere around 1860-70. It was there absurdities like the Caprivi strip were created. This is a narrow corridor, the purpose of which was to link German West Africa (Namibia) with German East Africa (Tanzania). You do know, don't you, yes of course you do, that Tanzania is made up of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the latter being under nominal Omani suzerainty well into the 20th century, but effectively ruled by the British as a separate colony. It still has a special status within Tanzania.

The mention of the Berlin Conference reminds me of the early British explorers. There is a lovely book The White Nile by Arthur (?) Simpson which recounts the hunt for the sources of the Nile. The big names are in there (Burton, Speke, Schweitzer, Stanley) but also some other curious characters. Africa expeditions were the business of the upper class and the catering for them seemed to be well organised. You went down to Purdey's to procure your elephant guns and other armoury, and then to Fortnum&Mason to order foodstuffs, delicacies, port wine and other essentials for a two year Africa jaunt to be delivered C.I.F. Zanzibar packed in baskets suitable for portage.

67. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 3:35:02 AM
Once in Zanzibar you contacted the British consul and sat around for a few weeks while porters were organised, usually by an Arab slave trader who would also supply a guide to take you to the edge of the unknown. I'm specially fond of a man and wife team who didn't take the Zanzibar route. Instead they had a disassembled steam boat carried up to above the cataracts of the Nile and reassembled there, only to become stuck in the marshlands called, I believe, the Sudd in southern Sudan for several months. They seem to have dealt with it with extraordinarily good cheer.

There are passenger ferries on Lake Victoria and the other great lakes. But there are no shipyards. Work it out.

If you want to read about harsher conditions and a more intrepid explorer, Mungo Park's Travels in Africa is unsurpassed.

And that's all the rambling for today.

68. pellenilsson - 9/17/99 11:09:26 AM
test

69. marjoribanks - 9/17/99 11:30:02 AM
Pelle,

You are hitting a very good groove now as a Diarist, communicating place, thought patterns and situational context in a very fine way.

Have you kept a diary for extended periods of time? I get the impression that you have. I'm one of those people who cannot, though I am permanently scribbling something or the other down, particularly when travelling.

70. RustlerPike - 9/17/99 2:05:07 PM


Pelle:

Yes, I haven't been around: my PC was being fixed. Thanks for noticing!

As for the islands settled with "Jews, convicts deported from Europe, and Africans from the mainland": I've never heard of that particular community, but my guess is that the Jews were not 'settled' there (Jews were rarely 'settled' anywhere; they were usually either killed or deported and left to fend for themselves), but settled themselves there because it was a good spot for trading. I'll see if I can dig anything else up.

71. RustlerPike - 9/17/99 2:28:13 PM


Pelle:

Yes, I haven't been around: my PC was being fixed. Thanks for noticing!

As for the islands settled with "Jews, convicts deported from Europe, and Africans from the mainland": I've never heard of that particular community, but my guess is that the Jews were not 'settled' there (Jews were rarely 'settled' anywhere; they were usually either killed or deported and left to fend for themselves), but settled themselves there because it was a good spot for trading. I'll see if I can dig anything else up.

72. RustlerPike - 9/17/99 2:30:15 PM

sorry. I tried to refresh and then it said I had to repost the form data and this is what happened. Why can't one refresh normally?

73. RustlerPike - 9/17/99 2:32:40 PM

I tried searching but haven't found anything worth posting.

74. RustlerPike - 9/17/99 2:45:28 PM


Never say never!

75. marjoribanks - 9/17/99 3:39:09 PM
Pike,

Pelle was asking about Sao Tome and Principe, not Mozambique. I checked out your site, it has no info on that small island nation.

76. stostosto - 9/17/99 5:43:09 PM
Pelle
That early Portuguese expansion is fascinating. 1445-90. Thank you for your remarks. I must read up some myself on this subject, I think. I'll probably find time in two-three decades, I suppose.

77. pellenilsson - 9/18/99 4:28:05 AM
We have had another of these weather shifts starting with hot, clammy weather, then strong winds followed by a sudden drop in temperature. I suppose it must be Atlantic air making its way across the continent.

Yesterday evening was a long series of mildly annoying mishaps. Let me start by noting that the most difficult thing about going to left-hand driving with the steering to the right is to develop a feel for where the left front is.

So on my way from the office, trying to wriggle past a double-parked pick-up I heard that crunching sound from the front. When backing off a bit I saw no damage to the pick-up so I simply drove off, not wishing to get involved in an argument in a semi-dark street. Back at the hotel I saw only a small scratch on my car so I wonder what really happened. There were a few people around, but I hope there won't be any repercussions.

Back at the hotel I had a sandwich, scribbled a bit, decided to call it a day and, it being Friday, go down to the bar for a G&T. I was almost out of cigarettes so I ordered a pack. No cigarettes! Maybe in the other bar they said, but no. The time was now 9 p.m. and shops closed. My mind searched wildly for a solution, and I recalled that my friend Olaus had mentioned in passing that he had been out buying the stuff. I know that he always buys whole cartons. But was he at home? I called - line busy. Good. When I get through I'll ask him if he wants to come here for a drink or I should go there. Called again - line busy. I keep doing that for twenty minutes when I suddenly realise that he must be logged into the Internet.

So I took the car and drove to his house anticipating to replenish my by now completely empty stock. Arrived there - nobody at home. He had gone out forgetting to log out.

78. pellenilsson - 9/18/99 4:29:28 AM
By now I was not far from the luxury hotel Polana. I went into the bar there, which to my relief had a visible stock of cigarettes. I went up to the bar disk, ordered a pack and a G&T and sat down at a table. After a little while the headwaiter edged up carefully, almost sideways, and whispered: "So, sorry Sir, we do not allow sneakers in the bar after 7 p.m."

But I got the pack and headed back to my hotel where I now ordered a double G&T.

And a little later I ordered another one. It had been a long day.

79. ScottLoar - 9/18/99 11:02:39 AM
Sneakers not allowed in the bar after 7. Charming. I was once reminded that jackets and ties were needed after 5 in that gentle, unobtrusive, almost apologetic manner, as if "I apologize for reminding you sir (surely you knew, but the press of affairs allowed that knowledge to escape you) that, of course, the social conventions are acknowledged here after __ o'clock. If I can be of any service, say pressing your slacks or preparing your dinner jacket, you may be sure it will be attended to at once. You drink may remain here, of course sir, for your return. Let me freshen it for you".

80. marjoribanks - 9/18/99 11:21:52 PM
Pelle,

It sounds as though your atmosphere is starting to get you down. While Maputo sounds rather peaceful, I imagine you are starting to feel a bit weary and bored. Is that the case? Or are you such an old hand at this that you approach every irritant with practiced calm?

If this

81. marjoribanks - 9/18/99 11:23:29 PM
pelle

I don't know if you are here or wherever. I just read the latest entries in the Maputo diary, and I am impressed with them and the breadth of your knowledge. When I saw the map I had the same reaction as stostosto. It seemed very strange to see Maputo tucked off in the southern corner, sort of cut off from the rest of the country. How did that location happen?

When reading the account of your comrades in arms I was reminded that some years ago (I forget how many, perhaps 10 or more) I sat beside a Dane enroute from Surabaya to Jakarta. He told me he was working for a large company which had a contract with the Indonesian government to maintain the telephone system. Could it have been Telia? Have they ever been involved in Indonesia? The Dane and I had a very interesting chat about our mutual experiences in that far flung country as we had both traveled widely, but in different pursuits.

82. marjoribanks - 9/18/99 11:34:49 PM
Whoops. Post #18 above was by ProfEmeritus.

83. marjoribanks - 9/18/99 11:35:23 PM
81

84. pellenilsson - 9/19/99 3:20:30 AM
ProfEmeritus

Yes, it could well have been Telia. I remember that we did some maintenance assiatance but not exactly when. During the last five years or so we have been involved with the network extensions partly financed by the World Bank. At the height of activities we had some fifteen people there plus a lot of local staff. Now there are only two or three (they are in Bandung) and I think they will wind up activities by the end of the year.

85. pellenilsson - 9/19/99 6:36:04 AM
Today the good weather is back and I had breakfast on the second-floor terrace which overlooks the cathedral. It is a rather ugly building with a barrel-shaped roof and in bad need of a new layers of white paint.

It was pretty to see families coming to morning mass wearing their best clothes,and there was a group of teenagers, the boys in white shirts and the girls in all white. A confirmation group perhaps. There was even some decorous dancing and singing at the entrance of the cathedral. All in all a pleasing start of the day.

Note from the hotel management:

Due to the heavy winds we have been experiencing since yesterday the orientation of the Aerial Dish is now from the Satellite. We are gathering all efforts to solve this problem.

We apologize for all the inconveniences.

Yes marj, I do feel a bit weary, bored and homesick. You would too after four weeks in a hotel. And the two people here I feel most relaxed with have left, one for Denmark, the other for a two-week field trip to the north of the country. And I have another report to write, the important one. I know what I need to know, and I know what I want to say, but I have yet to come up with a way to organise the stuff in a logical and convincing way.

86. Hashke - 9/19/99 11:33:21 AM
Speaking of sneakers, ties, and jackets, my wife and I were once turned away from a restaurant in Tangiers because I had no tie. Rules of the house. My wife fashioned a string tie on the spot with her belt and we were admitted. The bloody idiots!

87. ranheim - 9/19/99 2:56:33 PM
There was a conferance in Berlin in 1885. Should you wish, there is a map, ostensibly originating from this conferance, under Ohio State Univ.

Try : www.lib.ohio-state.edu/OSU_profile/bslweb/afcolony.html

88. pellenilsson - 9/20/99 11:42:15 AM
Ranheim

Thanks for the link. Here is the map in all its glory.



Who can identify that little Spanish speck on the west coast below Nigeria?

89. marjoribanks - 9/20/99 11:55:11 AM
It's Spanish Guinea, Pelle, also known as Equatorial Guinea.

90. pellenilsson - 9/21/99 2:43:22 AM
I'm in a much better mood today (Monday evening), and the laptop is playing Satchmo with Jack Teagarden. After a good night's sleep the structure of the report sprang ready-formed from my mind. I have been in a state of flow today. The ideas that have come together have translated effortlessly into prose, which is, I think, neither stiff bureeaucratese nor too flowerish, and, above all, suited to the audience, not all of whom are fluent.

My cardinal rules for report writing are: What do you want to say? Whom do you want to say it to? What is your theme? It is amazing how many people violate the first two rules. I guess that many of you have had the unfortunate experience of wading through reports where you ask yourselves: what does the author want to say, and why does he or she want to say it to me?

The theme is a rule of my own. It is something that keeps the thing together. It is set out in the "Introduction", then it plays discreetly in the background during the many turns and digressions necessary in a report, and finally it returns in full force in "Conclusions and Recommendations". If one is lucky, the reader finds the whole thing to be a consistent unit rather than a disparate collection of essays which are brought to an abrupt end. For a technocrat like me, report writing is an art and I'm always trying to improve. In two weeks I'm gone. But if the report is good it will outstay me.

91. pellenilsson - 9/21/99 2:44:44 AM
Today , after four weeks, I discovered that the car I drive has A/C. I thought not, because the other guys haven't. So it is one of those perks that we in the small caste of present and former project managers allow each other. Another one is that I live in a nice hotel although we have a comfortable guest house. It is the famous Casa Grande which always comes up in stories from Mozambique, most of them funny, some of them sad. It is a mansion house which used to belong to the colonial Director of Telecommunications, a two-floor building, each floor something like 300 m2 (about 3,000 sq ft). The ground floor consists of several salons and a library; on the upper floor there are four large bedrooms and a small apartment, presumably once used for the Director's live-in staff.

We gathered there last Friday for drinks before we had a farewell dinner for Danish Jan (he's coming back in two weeks, but all occasions for celebration are seized upon). We went to a Italian restaurant, owned by an Italian who has worked for seven years in Sweden as a psychiatrist. Strange story but I never got the full gist of it. I had grilled prawns with a garlic-saturated tomato sauce. Very nice.

92. pellenilsson - 9/21/99 2:47:16 AM
The last time I had something similar was in 1978, in Restaurant Mauretania, in Oran, Algeria. There it was called Bouqette des Crevettes Provencale and was served by the clever Vietnamese waiter. When he, expertly and adroitly, mixed the ingredients of a Boeuf (sp?) Tartar (minced meat, chopped onions, pickled cucumber, red beets, etc.) his hand moved so fast as to create a blur of motion. That dish is properly made from meat that has been scraped off the filet with a sharp knife. But mostly it is from high-quality minced meat. Or low-quality if you go to the wrong place.

The word 'filet' takes me back another couple of years, to Beirut. We were invited to one of the best French restaurants, which, because we're talking Beirut, means good. Before I go on I should mention something about the cooking of beef. In English there are three grades: well done, medium and rare. In French this corresponds to bien cuit, au point and bleu. But the French have one more grade: 'tick-tack' indicating the length of time the steak should be in the pan.

This restaurant was famous for its Filet Mignon made from meat imported from France (of course) and from that famous race of cattle, whose name I don't remember but it begins with 'Cha...'. So the head waiter took our orders and asked how we wanted the filet done. When my wife's turn came she said 'bien cuit'. The head waiter stiffened and said, a bit haughtily: Madame, on ne pas detruit la viande ici!. (Madame, we don't destroy meat here). Our hosts hastily injected some words in Arabic, perhaps to the effect that we were Swedes and did not know better. The waiter then softened and said: Madame, je comprend parfaitemment bien, mais le Chef m'en refusera. (Madame, I understand perfectly well, but the Chef will refuse to do it.)

93. pellenilsson - 9/21/99 2:49:22 AM
To continue on the line of food we went Saturday to the restaurant that sometimes has suckling pig. It was not 'sometimes' then either. The waiter and my friend Olaus persuaded me to have a whole charcoal-grilled fish. I was sceptical, rightly so it turned out. I have never really liked fish from warm waters. I think they grow more quickly than fish from the cold, and because of that the meat has another texture, which I don't find pleasant.

Olaus wouldn't know that because he is from the north and used to sweet-water fish, which is again different. The Baltic Sea is connected to the Atlantic but the water is brackish because of the inflow of sweet water from the big rivers in the north. In the south the salt contents is perhaps 1%, at the latitude of Stockholm 0.5% and in the north very low. Yet, some fish require salt, even if the contents is low, in order to thrive. This applies in particular to the Baltic cod, a commercially valuable species. If the salt contents is too low, the cod survive but cannot spawn. Salt water from the Atlantic is pushed into the Baltic, through the Sound, by north-westerly autumn storms. One of the great controversies surrounding the bridge over the Sound was about the extent to which its fundaments would hinder this movement of water. Extensive dredging has taken place to compensate for such effects.

One fantastic scheme is to create a huge fresh-water reservoir in the north of the Baltic Sea by building a dam across it at the narrowest place. The water would then be pipelined to parts of Italy , Spain and southern France where there are chronic water shortages. It will never come to pass because of environmentalist objections but it is a fascinating thought.

Little from Mozambique, much this and that. Bye for now.

PS. The Aerial Dish is now on the Satellite. And the jakaranda trees are in bloom.

94. pellenilsson - 9/22/99 3:36:16 AM
No more food talk today, I promise. I try to think of something to write about on my way back from the office, but today I came up dry. So I'll start by saying something about telecoms here and se where that takes us.

First, I seriously misspoke in International a while ago when I said that only 4 people in 100 have a telephone. That would have been a quite respectable figure in Africa. No, it is 4 people in 1,000. In the western world (and Japan) the figure is between 600 and 700. By the way I heard two interesting facts today. Finland is the first country to have "crossed the line". There are now more cellphones there than ordinary lines. And in Sweden an astounding 38% of all telephone traffic is accounted for by dial-up access to the Internet.

An aside here. The latest fad in Sweden is to have a handsfree setup with a earpiece and a discreet microphone dangling below the chin. It is a slightly absurd experience to hear men sent out to fix things for dinner (it is always men) pushing around their shopping cart in the supermarket while talking to the wife: "What kind of tomato sauce, darling? Do we need orange juice for tomorrow?"

95. pellenilsson - 9/22/99 3:38:17 AM

Here it is very different. Not only is the penetration very low, but 80% of the phones are in urban areas where maybe 20% of the population live. But TDM (the monopoly operator) is really trying. I spoke to someone the other day who has travelled widely in the country. He said he was astounded to find payphones (cardphones actually) in some quite remote places. But the country is still far from achieving a modest goal set by the UN several years ago:

A person should not have to be away from home for more than one day in order to make a telephone call.

And Mozambique is not alone in this. Many, if not most, countries in sub-Saharan Africa fail to achieve that goal.

I have to stop here because of pangs of hunger. I'll go down to the coffee shop and have me some grilled squid with garlic butter (yes, tragically broken promise, I know).

96. marjoribanks - 9/22/99 9:47:16 AM
Excellent stuff the last two days Pelle, please don't hold back on the descriptions of food - they have been a running highlight of your Diary. I eagerly await your first success on the sucking pig quest, for example.

97. SnowOwl - 9/22/99 10:38:15 PM
I don't know how I missed all this stuff earlier. It's fascinating, Pelle, thank you for sharing it with us. And I'm with Marjoribanks, don't cut back on the food descriptions, they help bring the whole diary to life.

98. pellenilsson - 9/23/99 4:32:45 AM
There will be no significant post today. Yesterday we conducted a seminar (two guys flown in from Sweden) on Access Network Technologies. You should have been here! Then we had a couple of beers in the project manager's garden and went out to have crab au naturel and vinho verde. Delicious.

99. ScottLoar - 9/23/99 11:42:22 AM
Dinner at an Italian restaurant owned by an Italian who worked for seven years as a psychiatrist in Sweden. Interesting perspective, and probably explains his later career change to the "fast lane" of restaurant owner.

Vietnamese steak tartar is excellent, a rarity in Asian cuisine (okay, a fusion of East-West) for meat served raw.

100. pellenilsson - 9/24/99 2:17:59 AM
Here I am again, sitting on my pile of pillows. It's Duke Ellington tonight: The arrival of Billy Strayhorn. I'm in a good mood because in a great spate of creativity and productivity I finished the draft report 24 hours ahead of schedule.

I thought I'd say something more about the city of Maputo. It sits, as you know, on the Indian Ocean and the whole city slopes gently downwards. That, and the regular lay-out of the streets makes it difficult to get lost here. Amman, for example is very different in that respect. It looks the same everywhere: deep valleys and steep hills with no landmarks to navigate by.

There are several tree-lined avenidas, wide four-lane streets with a divider. I cannot identify the trees except the palm trees and what looks as two species of akacia. And the jakaranda trees of course, which start to come into bloom now. It is one of those species where the flowers come before the leaves. The flowers are light blue and plentiful. It is very beautiful. There is a view from a particular spot in Beirut which I will never forget; a wide street lined with jakaranda trees. The flowers come out in March. If you stand there at the right time you have the trees in full bloom ahead, the deep blue Mediterranean on the left and in the distance the snow-clad peaks of Mount Lebanon.

I'm sometimes worried about my punctuation. Am I putting commas in the right places? Are there right places to put commas in? Is it bad taste to end a sentence with a preposition? Endless questions. No ready answers.

101. pellenilsson - 9/24/99 2:19:52 AM
There are few remarkable buildings here. There are quite a few high-rises - the highest one being known as "the thirty-three storey building" ( I know, ..... by American standards ......., no need to point it out), often used as a landmark to describe the way to somewhere. And then there are the skeletons. Building projects, some of them really big, which were abandoned when the Portuguese pulled out 25 years ago. Just standing there made up of untreated concrete. I can visualise how cracks develop over time, moisture creeps in, and rust attacks the reinforcement bars. The only thing to do is to blow them up and while I'm writing this I'm wondering why it has not been done.

The answer I come up with is that the new state must have confiscated all land belonging to the Portuguese and South Africans Now the Government doesn't know what to do with these things, because it is too poor to venture into large scale building projects, So they will stand there until (and if) these properties are privatised.

There are some well preserved buildings from colonial times. Hotel Polana is one of them, the seat of the High Court is another. On my way to the office I pass two buildings which must have been great once. If one spent a couple of days walking about the city, I'm sure one would find many jewels, now in a sad state of disrepair, tucked away among the ugliness.

102. pellenilsson - 9/24/99 2:20:59 AM
There is no central square. There must have been once, between the cathedral and the main Government building but it has been converted to a giant round-about. There might have been another one down at the Mercado Municipal but it, and the surrounding streets, are in a horrible state with potholes large enough to rip your wheels off if you are not careful.

Potholes .... That reminds of an incident in Taiz, Yemen's former capital. The contractor had started to excavate a manhole but had not come very far when night fell. It was perhaps two feet deep. You wonder about manholes? If you walk the street you see round or square cast iron covers. Beneath those discreet covers are huge structures where cables are jointed together, and large cables split into smaller ones which go off in different directions. A manhole is typically 10 m2 (100 sq ft) with a height of six feet or so.

When the work crew came back in the morning they found a Volkswagen Beetle in the unfinished manhole, the front window wound down. The driver must have climbed out that way (yes, most Yemenis are small, thin people). He must also have been deadly drunk because the site was properly fenced off and there were warning signs. The driver eventually turned up, and because he was well connected, he sued the contractor for carelessness, and was eventually bought off for a rather reasonable sum.

And that brings me to the final observation of today, the car fleet in Maputo. It is totally dominated by Japanese and Korean cars with a sprinkling of Volkswagens, and old Volvos left behind by aid workers. I have seen a couple of Jeep Cherokees but otherwise no American cars. There are some very well maintained Beetles around and an equally well maintained classical London taxi.

103. pellenilsson - 9/24/99 8:30:09 AM
Jacaranda tree.

104. pseudoerasmus - 9/24/99 1:28:46 PM
Kuligin, could you talk about the 20,000 or so Germans still resident in Namibia? What do they do mostly? What are they like politically?

105. pellenilsson - 9/25/99 5:25:07 AM
I'm at the office watching an incredibly slow printer turning out overhead slides for the presentation of my "findings and recommendations" on Tuesday. I'm doing it early because a routine meeting yesterday turned into a rather heated quarrel about Terms of Reference which will continue on Monday. There is another consulting firm involved (Portuguese) which thinks that it's part of my job to generate input to what they are doing. Ha!

The description I gave yesterday may have given you the impression that Maputo is an ugly city. Essentially it is, but the image is softened by the luxurious greenery. There are trees everywhere, along the streets, in small parks and in private gardens.

Now, after two hours of printing, the last of the 22 slides popped out. I need to change five of them. Sigh.

106. CalGal - 9/25/99 4:31:48 PM
Pelle,

Finally got a chance to read this thread. Marvellous job.

107. pellenilsson - 9/26/99 3:35:29 AM
Good morning. The square converted to a round-about apparently reverts to its original function now and then. It was the scene of an all-night rock concert that forced me to close the window and turn on the A/C. When I finally woke up it was to a cacophony of sounds: the concert, a car alarm, church bells and my own alarm clock.

Perhaps in way of compensation the hotel offered champagne (= sparkling wine) with breakfast. I had a glass. One feels so deliciously depraved. The French tourists are gone. Its funny how tourist groups bring out the national stereotypes. We've had singing Germans and endlessly chatting Italians. With the French it is a question of having the right attire for the occasion, in this case an African Expedition. It comprises one of those vests with a hundred pockets, trousers, also with many pockets and with zippers so they can be converted to shorts, ankle high jungle boots, and headgear which I cannot really describe. It is not a helmet although it vaguely resembles one. And - I swear this is true - some of them had pieces of cloth attached to hang down the neck to protect it from the burning sun. Just like the Legionnaires.

It's been some time since I mentioned food. It is because I have no dinner companions and it's no fun to dine alone. So I make do with some boring beef steak or whatever in the coffee shop.

108. IrvingSnodgrass - 9/26/99 11:56:16 AM

109. ScottLoar - 9/26/99 12:11:00 PM
Your workings from Maputo are quite tasty, Pellenilsson, and each bit is eagerly devoured.

110. pellenilsson - 9/27/99 1:49:10 AM
What the hell is that Irv? Surely must be made up?

111. marjoribanks - 9/27/99 10:40:08 AM
Pelle,

I notice that, in another thread, you have posted a recipe you are looking forward to preparing when you get back home.

I meant to ask you a relevant question a couple of days ago. Now that you are decidedly on the home strectch of your trip, I'd imagine you're already planning some particular things that you've missed while so far away in another country and culture. What are they? Only food? And what particular food or foods? Besides the people you've missed, what else?

In my case, on similar trips, I start thinking of the precise restaurants and dishes I intend on indulging on as soon as I return. And I start literally dreaming of home-cooked Indian food if I've missed out on it while travelling. And I start to anticpate with great relish certain walks, my "home" gymnasium, pick-up basketball with the long-established crew, particular CD's I've left behind, even some periodicals.

112. IrvingSnodgrass - 9/27/99 1:28:44 PM
Pelle:
It's a real street sign. I think it's from Minnesota.

113. pellenilsson - 9/28/99 1:54:07 AM
Good morning from a relatively chilling and drizzling Maputo.

I shall not have the time to post much today and tomorrow. The first draft of my report has leaked out (as was intended) and the vested interests have emerged from their dungeons. Official presentation today afternoon. We shall see then

114. pellenilsson - 9/28/99 2:05:56 AM
It's not drizzling and more. It's pouring - open sky.

115. stostosto - 9/28/99 10:43:34 AM
tjenare Pelle
How did it go?

116. pellenilsson - 9/29/99 2:26:40 AM
Today (Tuesday) I had two strokes of luck. I managed to sweep my glasses onto the stone floor of the bathroom. Miraculously they didn't break, but one of the lenses popped out from the frame. Without glasses I'm rather helpless in the traffic. I do carry a spare pair, but they are sunglasses of the photochromatic type (I wonder if this term is used in English). What it means is that they get darker the more sunlight they are exposed too. I feel very uncomfortable wearing dark glasses indoors.

That dates back to my days in Lebanon when I smoked hash for the first and only time. One of the side-effects is that the pupils dilate and at that occasion I had to put on sun-glasses. I understand that many opium-based drugs have the same effect, and I'm now deeply suspicious of people with shades indoors, in bars for example. Shady guys, probably. Did you know, by the way, that in the 19th century, some ladies used to take a drop of belladonna, an opium extract, in their eyes to dilate the pupils? Such dilation, when occurring naturally is , as we know, a sign of sexual attraction.

My second stroke of luck was that today was a drizzling, dark day and the glasses stayed fairly transparent. In any case, I discussed the case with Samuel, our driver, who went away for an hour and came back with the glasses in perfect repair at a cost of $4.

117. pellenilsson - 9/29/99 2:29:02 AM
My presentation today went well, at least I think so. It can be hard to tell because people here are very polite and low-key. But there were some good-spirited discussions and some words of encouragement, so I prefer to think it was OK. And because of that I have rewarded myself with half a bottle of a rather nice South African Cabernet Sauvignon which I bought in the bar at a ridiculous price. Full-bodied, fruity with a lingering, not unpleasant, aftertaste of bitter almonds, it would be a good buy if I find it in the shops. (This sentence provided to maintain the International crowd's reputation as snotty, self-appointed connoisseurs and bon vivants).

There are Koreans in the hotel: two well-groomed executive types and some sharpish-looking younger fellows. I wonder what they do here, perhaps hydro-electric power. There is a big plant at Cabora Bassa on the Zambezi river. It was built during colonial times, and the main power line runs along Mozambiques western border and into South Africa. There is a scheme under way now to divert some of that power back into Maputo by hooking up to the South African grid. The colonial heritage! Cabora Bassa generates two Terawatts today and will be expanded to three. There is also a plan to build another plant of about the same capacity some distance downstream the Zambesi.

118. pellenilsson - 9/29/99 2:29:51 AM

When marj asked me what I miss most my immediate reaction was: a decent Internet connection. That day was really bad with the bytes crawling in at a snail's pace. Seriously, I have already answered that question; what I miss most is my wife and my books. There are of course a lot of other things I will enjoy when I get home, but I don't dwell on them now, because then I might end up feeling sorry for myself. I'm in suppression mode as regards these things, much as in an airport when a delay of six hours is a announced. The only thing to do is to go buy one of these books they have at airports (Dick Francis and Tom Clancy work well, I've found), in order not to waste the real travel literature, and then to encapsulate oneself in a stasis field. It's useless to get angry or upset (or sentimental) about things one can do absolutely nothing about. The wisdom of age, fellows, the wisdom of age...

But as you have noted, there is not much about Mozambique in this post, so I suppose my mind already dwells elsewhere.

119. marjoribanks - 9/29/99 11:24:18 AM
Pelle,

Another question. What are you buying, if anything, to take back with you? Are you the kind of person (I am) who takes back lots of little things to distribute to friends and colleagues? For youself, do you have your eye on anything? And for your wife? If I went abroad and came back empty handed, my wife would be grown-up and cool about it but I know she would also be secretly very disappointed and perhaps a little hurt. Hence, she has a LOT of jewellery.

I liked the African image you reproduced in the Test thread. Do you have any such pieces (it looked W. African to me, actually)? Are similar pieces available in Maputo? What do they cost? Is there a serious art gallery in the city that you know of?

120. stostosto - 10/1/99 5:13:54 PM
Pelle
I have a much more genuinely concerned, and substantial question.
In the World Bank's reckoning, Mozambique is ranked 199 out of 210 countries wrt GDP per capita. In other words: It is just about as dirt poor as any miserable country gets at this here wretched earth. Can you confirm such a view of the country from your impressions? (Apart from the appallingly low number of telephone lines per 1,000 cap.) And, if so, how is poverty on such a scale reflected in the life of Maputo?

121. pellenilsson - 10/2/99 3:50:25 AM
sto

It is difficult to judge degrees of poorness. Obviously one sees many poor people around, but one does that in places like Cairo and Damascus too. On the other hand, I don't think that the GDP per capita figure tells everything, or even a lot. It is generally thought that 70% of the populatione here live in rural areas and that out of those at least 50% are subsistance farmers who live practically outside the monetary economy. In numbers, this translates to 5 million out of 16 million, who, economically speaking, do not exist.

marj

We've been travelling for more than 25 years. If we brought out all the things we have bought over the years our home would look like a cluttered ethnological museum. As it is, we have most of the 'collection' in the basement and we have stopped adding to it unless there is something extraordinary. I have not seen anything extraordinary here. On the other hand I have not been looking very hard.

All

Yesterday I found the suckling pig in the restaurant owned by the Italian-Swedish psychiatrist. It was good but not as good as in Cyprus where they cook it in an outdoors, wood-fired clay oven.

I also met the American Dick who is here visiting Jan and his wife Marie. They and Dick met somewhere in the US long ago and have kept up a correspondence. When they suggested that come and visit he responded eagerly. It turned out that he had been posted to Beirut in the late sixties as regional director for the Federal Civil Aviation Authority so we had a lot to talk about and he has an amazing memory for details and places. Dick is 89, turning 90 in January.

This is the last post from Maputo. Thanks for joining me.

122. marjoribanks - 10/2/99 5:45:50 PM
Pelle,

Thank you very much for taking on this Diary. It's been splendid and fascinating reading, I'll miss it.

One final request. Perhaps you'll find a summing-up statement within yourself when you return to Sweden. Please do post something along those lines, if you feel like it. Otherwise, have a pleasant and safe trip back. And thanks again.

123. marjoribanks - 10/2/99 5:47:26 PM
Also, very glad you found the suckling pig available before you left.

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