Pensativities: Selected Essays

Land of Water and Rain

One of my brothers, when he was a child and in a bad mood, would threaten:

“I’m going to run away to Inhaminga.”

What he was trying to say was that he was going beyond the world, to where there were no more roads. He was going beyond the limit from which it was possible to return, and by doing this, he was putting our love for him to the test. It was a game without any risk: our love was greater than any distance.

Inhaminga was situated in some inaccessible fog. It was the farthest place that we, who were born and lived in Beira, could imagine. At the time, the district of Inhaminga, in the province of Sofala, was really remote. Not just because of the time we took to get there, but because of the variety of scenery, and the extraordinary worlds that we passed on our journey. There were still abundant woodlands of miombo trees, crossed by thousands of streams that swelled up with the slightest rain. Lions, buffalo, leopards, the inhabitants of a mystical world, all wandered through the area. To survive, people there said one needed to eat snakes and kill wild and ferocious animals. Forty years later, I make a return journey through this bewitching region. The first impression that strikes us on these incursions into the past is that the world has shrunk. What I remembered as great highways of sand were, after all, what they had always been: narrow tracks. A child’s eyes make the world gigantic. And I am at a loss before my second confrontation with the past: the forest has been pushed out of the landscape. There are still a few patches in the areas that are most difficult to reach. Nor could it be otherwise: these tracks which, after all, cross the savannah were opened up by loggers and the owners of sawmills. It was they who, for more than fifty years, had carved out these roads for their trucks. With the loggers came the hunters. And farmers grew in numbers, forcing the trees to retreat forever.

To the northwest, the famous Gorongosa Park is still a refuge for this canopy of greenery and mystery.

As I went on, I began to feel some unease in my heart. The road between Dondo and Inhaminga is easy to negotiate during the dry season. My car, however, would stop at the slightest excuse. The shacks along the side of the road, the country villages, the charcoal burners’ encampments, the level crossings along the newly reconstructed Sena railway line, all were a reason for me to jump out of my car and get talking to the people of the area. In the beginning, I was able to remember the local language, Chissena, only vaguely. But almost all of them spoke Portuguese. Like those fishermen who use a harpoon with a sharp point to comb through the deep mud of dried-up lagoons. Somewhere there is a tasty fish that lies buried during the dry season, awaiting the arrival of the rains. Further away, the storks with their wax bills compete with the fishermen. Their technique is, after all, similar: to take the distracted fish by surprise, and spear it.

I drive among hundreds of bicycles loaded with bags of charcoal and women carrying fish traps on their heads. The area is very poor, possibly among the poorest in Sofala. The trade in fish, charcoal and homemade beverages is what allows them to eke out a living. Yet there is a joviality in their behaviour, as if the future of the world were within their grasp and hope were at hand. I forget my initial sensation that something had been lost between my memory and the present.

Evaristo Faife is the region’s headman. It is he who reopens doors to a world that doesn’t require sophistry. Next to him are two countrymen, Sindique and Valicho. They have all experienced various wars, and have no wish to recall those turbulent times. The men agree to show me around and to help me in my work of recording the fauna that survives along the banks of the Sangussi River.

Next day, I meet a group of South African tourists who are there for birdwatching. That is how they introduce themselves, as if they were proudly claiming some rare ethnic identity. They are accommodated in tents, with few comforts, but in total harmony with the local inhabitants. They are on the lookout for rare and endemic birds such as the palm-nut vulture, the blue quail, and the green-headed oriole. I’m not too surprised to encounter such a group. The area to the north of Dondo is, in fact, an important international focal point for birdwatchers. The birdlife found there is famous for its rarity and for the number of species that are endemic to the area. They invite me to have dinner with them, and we share some tinned food accompanying a rice concoction they have all had a hand in making. They are happy because, that afternoon, they have been watching groups of wattled broadbills, a protected bird that can only be found in flood-prone grasslands, the tandos.

We fall asleep to the gentle but monotonous croaking of the frogs. These musical reptiles remind us that the surrounding area is a region where land and water vie with each other. Between the great Savane and Sangussi rivers, there are dozens of small water courses that flow from the grasslands towards the sea. Not far away, other tourists enjoy the Savane beach, to the north of the city of Beira.

At night, I tell the headman the story about my brother, and his use of Inhaminga as a means of emotional blackmail. The man laughs. Then a certain melancholy invades Evaristo Faife’s face, and he says:

“Your brother was right: this place is more remote than abroad.”

“That’s not true. Aren’t we all together now?”

“Yes, but how long did it take you to come back here?”

I am silent. A nightjar sings nearby. I don’t want to give an answer about the length of time between my visits. In that peaceful atmosphere, the only thing I feel like doing is making time slow down.

Article published in İndico, July 2004.