Tete: the washerwomen of the Zambezi
On the left is a long bridge spanning the Zambezi River; in front, the city of Tete, Northern Mozambique, is shown as a weak concrete skeleton, distant, as if the instream would gobble at any time; below, under the roof of the glossy coffee Cigane where I am, contemplate a striking picture: dozens of women, some half-naked, wash their clothes and bodies in the river. They do the routine every morning he goes to a must, the washing of clothes and his body to the gaze of the absent other.
The scene seems so evocative, strange, and impressive, as at times I find in my camera obscene attitude
Not the first time I see a similar scene in Africa, but it is the first to observe it within that framework as unequal: Payment Bridge, old and chipped concrete buildings stained by smoke from the now important aspect mining city rabble; bar design in which the music mutes the river and ... they, abstracted from all that environment, of our eyes, our photos, of our world as opposed to giving back flushing their bodies. The scene seems so evocative, strange, and impressive, as at times I find in my camera obscene attitude.
Then I look a little further to the right. There is a group of children bathing in the river. Owners of a huge pool called Zambezi, regardless of the elusive crocodiles plying its waters to dismantling them. Beyond, more to the right still, men are. Some are naked. Also wash their bodies in the mass inertia liquid short southern Africa before emptying into the Indian. There is a compelling harmony in all that mess. Them on the one hand, them by another, and in the middle, permissive in childhood, a meeting place. Perfect image of an Africa where it is difficult to see couples strolling hand in hand, seized, when the light suggests the affections. And they provided them until night falls, the darkness that covers it all, and returns them to their meetings and mud huts of cane.
And they provided them until night falls, the darkness that covers it all, and returns them to their torrid encounters of wattle and daub huts.
The next morning the scene is repeated. It seems modeled on the previous day. Choreography again that women who shake the clothes against the rocks, rubbing their bodies in murky water. Then you understand that the image has both past and future. May be repeated if the economic growth of the city is not concrete drowns his little world. And another time you're away, far, watching less than ten meters to the Zambezi laundresses washing and drying clothes in the sun.
Little more to say. Only an image for which the city of Tete inhospitable becomes suitable for the traveler stop. Only an image of a river, an industrial town and some people washing their clothes and their bodies.
