Home » Mozambique » South African Adventure 1999, Part 10: Mozambique -- symbolising the best and worst of Africa

After a game drive in the park, we crossed the border to Mozambique and drove to the capital Maputo. The country immediately seemed very different from Swaziland with the climate being much more tropical and the living conditions apparently much worse. This resulted in people being very aggressive in their efforts to sell us things and despite us being very careful, there was an incident where a group of people tried to steal from us. However, Mozambique was also a place where we experienced extreme generosity, and in retrospect I think our short visit was the most interesting experience on the whole trip.

South African Adventure 1999, Part 10: Mozambique -- symbolising the best and worst of Africa

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 20:33:32

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it for 100R ,and when I still just waved him away, he was selling it for "any price". All five of us were now standing around the car, with a crowd of maybe ten persons around us, some of them selling something, others just plain begging. As Gunnar was unlocking the car door, one of the guys took the opportunity to put his hand inside Gunnar's pocket, hoping that Gunnar would not notice. Fortunately, Borgny did notice and she immediately slapped the guy's hand, forcing him to quickly withdraw it from Gunnar's pocket without having obtained any money.

The next thing he did was just stand still and put his hands up in the air, trying to look very innocent. "Who me? I didn't do anything!" Borgny tried to push him away, but he refused to leave. We were all feeling slightly uneasy about this situation, and now that the car had been unlocked we got inside as fast as we could.

One guy was standing right behind the car, looking like he was just waiting for a moment where we were not paying attention to him, so that he could open the trunk of our car without anyone noticing. May Tina was concerned about this, so she waved at him to get out of the way. He then put on his most innocent expression and took one step back. We now turned our heads towards the front. Two seconds later, May Tina quickly turned around and threw herself back into the car and closed the trunk. Fortunately, she had heard that someone was opening the door at the back and had reacted quickly enough to avoid anything being stolen. Apparently a guy had been bending down behind the car so that he could not be seen through the back window. As our attention was focused elsewhere he had slowly tried to open the back door. He now stood up, put both his arms up in the air trying to look very innocent. "Who me? I didn't do anything!".

We were really glad to get away from Mercado Central. Although, nothing seemed to have been stolen, we were feeling sort ...