Mozambique

Mozambique
by R. Eric Swanepoel

I remember Mozambique. I was eight years old. I was there on holiday
with my parents, my younger brother and sister. It must have been a
long and sweaty car journey from what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia to
the Portuguese colony on our eastern border. The journey itself fades
into the other marathon ocean-seeking trips from our landbound home
that punctuated our Southern African childhoods. No doubt we uttered
the usual quota of "are-we-nearly-there-yet's" and "Mummy-I-need-the
toilet's". No doubt the car broke down at least once. No doubt we
consumed the standard amount of crisps and sticky chocolate.

I remember Loren?o Marques, the capital. Growing up in a similarly
European-titled town, I'm sure the incongruity of this name in black
Africa did not make an impression. I remember the architecture. (It was
only twenty years later when I saw Lisbon that I appreciated its
origins.) But we were not stopping in the capital. I remember bumpy
dirt roads through verdant countryside. I remember the excitement on
arrival in Pomene, a simple and remote seaside resort with a broad
silver beach. Mostly I remember this beach.

A man was flying a kite. It was a very big kite, and the offshore
breeze carried it far out to sea, beyond the breakers. It was a
glorious day, like all the others then, and this was fun, but the
simple pleasure of kite-flying was not what it was about. The kite was
carrying a thick fishing line much further than he could cast it, out
into deep waters where big fish swam. I do not remember how the line
was released, or what happened to the kite, but I remember when the
sturdy rod bent. He had hooked something in those green depths, and we
would see what it was. He walked backwards up the beach, sweating and
straining as the stubby rod flexed. Then he walked towards the foamy
shoreline again, reeling in all the while. This ritual was repeated for
what seemed like hours. Would the line break? Would he give in, too
tired to continue?

The shark was enormous, or so it appeared to me. Probably eight foot
long. It thrashed in the shallows. It must have been exhausted,
disoriented, unused to being the prey. But the big white man knew what
he was about. A gaff hook and a vicious knife and it lay there
glistening in the sunshine, rows of teeth useless against the steel
tracer and the wit of man. Twitching but dead.

The war picked up. We never went back to Mozambique. The indigenous
people of Africa did not want their colonial masters. It was too
dangerous for us to leave Salisbury, except in an army-escorted convoy.
The Portuguese pulled out of Mozambique, destroying as much of their
supposed legacy as they could. Buildings under construction had their
lift shafts filled with concrete. The Rhodesians and the South Africans
created, armed and sustained a resistance movement, Renamo. Millions of
landmines were planted, thousands of atrocities were committed. The
powerlines from the ambitious Cabora Bassa hydroelectric dam project
were sabotaged. Children were abducted, handed rifles and told to
fight. One of the richest nations in the world, at least as far as
natural resources were concerned, became the poorest. And the west did
not relieve the debt burden. 'Of course,' they would tell us in school,
'the black man is just not capable of running a country.'

Now even sharks are endangered. It's easy to kill.