The strange story of a normal day in Africa
That morning Ana Paula gives me to go with her to buy from Vilanculos. Drive your 4×4 by an impossible road sand and rocks as if time could not wait for. No bouncing the car, brincaba the volaba. I love its vitality. Let the bank, where it enters the inlet vip, the preserve of those occasional smudge income form. Totally empty air conditioning room and a ceremonious director capable of turning a simple operation into 30 minute wait inevitable African forms. I go out to smoke a cigarette. In the next door, the rest, in the same bank, there is a long queue of people without cool air which. Opposite to a guy with a bicycle hanging still gasping fish. By, a group of women provides a fruit, that there appears to rain from the sky, about a timbers. They do not sell a single piece, lysed dedicated to hair and sleep on chairs. That stamp, on that street sand surrounded by palm trees, could be a perfect summary of the town.
Then I decide to go to the supermarket to buy snuff. The price is calculated by the seller at the time by the weight of my flip flops and lack of tan. "New and gullible", piensa with atino weigh me regateo. It finally ends the bank, the director after 300 calls has managed to carry out the complicated operation of a deposit to another account. As we get into the car, a group of boys who sell freshly caught seafood jumped on us.. It's in plastic coolers, between ice. Ana Paula negotiated, selects and develops the sublime spectacle of the sale: "Better than ever, freshly ". "The other day was not good, it had no flavor ". "Don't tell me that lady, I never Deception ". "That's what I always say". "The 30000". "Me fool you queriendo. Te doy 15.000”. "That will not pay what it costs me out in the boat" .... And so until a price is agreed and Ana Paula says that does not carry enough money today and pay it tomorrow. Many suspicions to negotiate, but none for legit. "Do not worry, tomorrow we will be here and we give ", boys say they know at that corner is likely to be buried. No times or distances in Africa. Nothing awaits over ten miles around. For us a jail, for them the sublime freedom of knowing that only live in the present, in reality they do not generate disappointments dreams unattained so. The corner is the only place where they sell the fish. The corner is the rest of your life.
The corner is the only place where they sell the fish. The corner is the rest of your life
We go then to see some friends of hers in Zimbabwe. We crossed the more rural Vilanculos, narrow streets, thatched houses and lives that are roasted in the sun. We stopped at the first workshop that looks like a scrapyard. Vítor left there a week ago a car to get fixed is. The business aspect, in which the chickens and dogs are mixed with clutches and exhausts, makes you believe that in this place the cars are repaired in pens. "It is a machine", Ana Paula tells me smiling mechanic who keeps teasing. The car is not ready, nor will probably be in any of the 20 terms agreed, until the time when it is perhaps because he has repaired the rooster. It will. Magical Realism. In the midst of this destruction are repaired efficiently things.
We arrived at the marriage business Mugabe Zimbabwean who drove them galloped the country and settle in these beaches. The gallop is not metaphorical; he crossed the country, with his herd of horses, it was his business in Zimbabwe, and crossed the border. He saved what little he could to start a new life. In his country were rich landowners, They run a small hotel here that barely opened and offer horse riding. He eyes moisten something when talking about his homeland, while she prefers not to touch the subject. Dream to return home. We eat and after hour and a half of good conversation we go.
We return to the road turns to Ana Paula becomes highway. Suddenly we found a Swiss family that goes to our hotel and whose cars have been trapped in the sand (the same thing happened to our truck). Young men appear from nowhere offered to help. Where did they come? We dug, we put timber, discussed options and decided to change bags to other parked cars and leave yours. Spend a neighbor offered to take most of the group until the Villas do Indico. Five minutes after Ana Paula returns. At a distance of four miles, terrible, gives you time to overtake the SUV that had gone before.(I have not seen anyone driving faster than her). We also have time for a guy, who knows, hang from the back door of the vehicle and support the onslaught of bumps. Is lowered amid the leafy nothing, without sight reach me check something far space.
Arrived at hotel, almost to the five p.m.. Unloaded the seafood and some vegetables and fruits that we bought. That will be our dinner. The sun threatens to leave and the sky begins to take on impossible. I feel oceanfront contemplate a canvas unframed. How many things have happened and improbable stories I have heard in this place where nothing ever happens? He has spent a day in Vilanculos.
