Pensativities: Selected Essays

The Sweet Taste of Sura

The dhow crosses the waters, undulating over a liquid mirror. The little boat is a narcissist. Arab in its origin, the sailing craft contemplates itself with the slowness of a time that no longer exists. It’s the Bay of Inhambane, and its vocation is that of all bays: its waters rue not being the open sea, allowing themselves to lull in the earth’s embrace. This curved bight is crossed by the fishermen, traders and travellers who link Inhambane and Maxixe. People who still have the same feeling for time as that which witnessed the place’s creation. One of the most beautiful places in Mozambique.

Geologists, who know how to read landscapes, look at the bay’s configuration somewhat skeptically. At some far-off time, the Bay of Inhambane may have been something else: for example, a closed lagoon, like the ones at Quissico or Poelela. The lagoon got tired of existing all by itself, so it opened one arm to the east. Nowadays, dhows comb the placid waters of the bay, but they know they have to obey the intricate design of the channels. Some of these underwater valleys are deep and reach depths of twenty metres.

Coconut trees and mangroves line the coastal entrance. It’s like a green frame enclosing blue. The southern limit of the bay is formed by a huge peninsula supported by dunes that undulate like a gigantic dhow imitating the sea. The highest dunes, such as Condjane that has a height of sixty metres, are interspersed with low-lying terrain where rainwater accumulates. Over these dunes, forests still survive, and some of them are considered sacred terrain, where the original founders of the place repose. The lagoons below attract flocks of birds, among them the famous “hammerhead” about which legends of witchcraft persist. In nearby trees, one can find the no-less-famous nest of this bird. Unlucky is the person who, even unwittingly, destroys one of these huge, clumsy nests. The punishment is everlasting madness.

The Bay of Inhambane provides shelter for dolphins, whales and giant turtles. The rare and almost extinct-mammal, the dugong, can be found in the inlet at Linga-Linga. It is generally believed that one of the largest populations of this mammal on the whole of Mozambique’s coast survives here. There are also terrestrial mammals such as the rare, furtive, mongoose (vungué in the local language). There are small bush babies (bwanga) and black-faced monkeys (nzoko).

An extensive mangrove swamp rings much of the bay. This marshy forest is crossed by deep channels that are used for fishing. In one of the tourist establishments here, they had the happy idea of building a boardwalk into the mangrove. Tourists can venture along this pleasant pathway and discover the incomparable beauty of this ecosystem. At low tide, millions of tiny crabs carpet the ground, creating the impression that the sands are boiling.

A World of Interweavings

The best thing about Inhambane Bay, however, is the people: their inexhaustible hospitality and their infinite willingness to share their time and their soul with you. On one of the many occasions when I have worked in that region as a biologist, I made friends with someone who left a deep impression on me. It was an old fisherman who showed me the way to a place where flamingos arrived, and he gave me, without knowing it, the title of one of my novels. I met Afonso Nhalane in one of those mangrove channels that are flooded at high tide. He had just finished checking his gillnet for trapping fish. He shook his head: the fish he’d caught would only provide one meal. Nothing more. Dragging his feet, as if he was the one who’d been trapped in some invisible net, the man climbed the dune and sat down in the shade of a palm tree.

Nhalane’s destiny is linked to palm trees. One can see immediately from his name: Nhala is the name of one of those palms from which sura is extracted. Afonso Nhalane recalls that in the olden days, there were more fish, more flamingos. Is this nostalgia for his youth, that time when, according to him, there was more of everything? But the fisherman insists: fishing with gillnets, selling sura (the famous palm wine), selling coconuts, all that was enough. Now, life is like the bay begging for ever more streams. But he doesn’t complain, and is resigned to selling the few chickens he breeds in his large backyard. “What am I now,” he asks, “a chicken fisherman? That’s what I am,” he repeats, “a fisherman of chicken.”

He invites me to go and have a glass of sura at his house. The sale of this beverage was once an important part of the family’s budget. Now, it’s only used to welcome visitors like myself. On the way there, we cross his landholding. He knows each of his coconut palms. He almost seems to greet them, calling each one by its name.

Later, with a glass of sura already half drunk, we sit catching the breeze that comes off the sea in the afternoon. We are leaning against a palisade made of plaited coconut leaves. The fisherman notes my fascination at the intricacy of the interwoven patterns of the palisade.

“Nowhere else will you find these plaits. Only here in Inhambane.”

The word fills me like the breeze: “plaits.” That’s what the fisherman and I are doing with the time: plaiting away the hours, between conversation and the excuse for another glass. As I take my leave, I pass groups of girls plaiting each other’s hair in turn. And I walk away towards the sun as it plaits away the afternoon in the background.

Article published in İndico, October 2003.