Maputo, Mozambique

(Notes from a journey to Mozambique, Malawi, and Zambia, Sep/Oct 2015.)

Maputo is the cosmopolitan capital city of Mozambique and a major port of East Africa. Its urban core grew around a Portuguese fortress built in 1787, whose evocative remains still survive. In 1898, Maputo replaced Mozambique Island as the capital of Portuguese East Africa. Maputo's major streets are named after Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, and Allende—a legacy of the country's socialist politics after gaining independence from Portugal in 1975—as well as African leaders like Nyerere, Lumumba, Kaunda, and Mugabe. New wealth is most visible in southeastern Maputo, fueled by a class of locals that has disproportionately benefited from economic globalization in recent years, as well as by international investors and expats, especially Chinese.

The business district / upmarket part of town has wide avenues with jacaranda and flame trees, sidewalks, restaurants with global cuisines, bars, shopping malls, supermarkets, and smartly dressed people. The Indian three-wheeler taxi, called tuk-tuk here, is common in urban Mozambique. It has plastic panels/doors on both sides to protect against inclement weather, which I thought would be a nice feature to add in Indian autos. A half-day excursion is a ferry ride across Maputo Bay to Catembe beach where one can get a view of the Maputo skyline.

Maputo's City Hall is on Praça da Independência ("Independence Square"); on its left is the Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Conceição; in front is a statue of Samora Moisés Machel, a military commander, socialist leader, and first President of Mozambique. As we discovered, his statues are aplenty in Mozambique. The National Museum of Art hosts many famous contemporary artworks, including by Malangatana, Chissano, and Fornasini. An art market in a park showcases attractive bright batiks and paintings and chiseled woodworks, where one can see the forms that inspired cubism in Europe. Outside this zone, however, the veneer of prosperity quickly fades (two-thirds of the country's population lives in rural Mozambique, mostly in mud-brick houses). In Maputo, we were fortunate in having many insightful conversations with both locals and expats—including a Mozambican woman from the social sector and a leading local business magnate of Indian origin—about the country, its history, society, and politics, its many challenges, tragedies, and immense potential. [—Namit Arora, October 2015]