Mozambique
Door: Jeroen
17 Februari 2007 | Mozambique, Maputo
*****
Sunday, Jan 14th
'Crazy'
Months and thousands of kilometers away from home, far from electric light, from mobile networks, almost away from everything, and yet... between all the books about insects, birds and fish from Southen Africa, suddenly a book about the Auschwitz trial in 1965. Why is that book here on a bookshelf? Why do I take it out and open it? Why do I read it, must I read it?
How long is it that this keeps me occupied? Something like 32 or 33 years? My mothers anger when the 'Wir haben es nicht gewusst' was used as an excuse. Not just the Germans, but as well the Dutch 'not knowing'. Her point of view was simple and did leave no room for compromise: If you wanted to know, you knew. It has become my eternal question, my theme. What do you know? What do you do? Every day people die, are men being tortured in a cell, women raped and children dying from hunger. What do you know? What do you want to know? What do you do about it? Or against it? What do you do when they tell you: shoot!
*****
Wednesday, Jan 17th
Yesterday we were sitting with 15 people on the beach for an evening drink. Guests, volunteers and managers. We were served by McDonald and Frank. But am I the only one who finds it strange and feels uncomfortable that the people serving are black and de other 15 all white? Oh and I know all the rationalisations about this, but still I feel unhappy with the situation. I don't want to be here. I am here now 10 days, and honestly didn't make a big effort and hardly talked with the local people. Still it seems to me that not everybody here is happy with the lodge. Twice I hear people criticise the relations within the lodge. And I hear the whites say things that I find insulting. Not intentionally rude, but based on a feeling of superiority, and because of that especially rude. And I am convinced it is us... I have seen in Dar that it doesn't have to be like that. That there really is no difference between black and white. In fact that most problems that arise are due to bad communication. And that leaves me wondering why I can see these kind of things, but at the same time don't seem to be able to do things different or better.
*****
Cobue, Jan 16th
'The bullet'
The sun is burning hot. The gravel road leads up a hill, passes the shot up and burned down church of Cobue. Suddenly I see something in the dirt of the road. I squat down to get it out with a piece of rock. I pick up an old bulletpoint. It takes me back, way back in time.
Mozambique. Frelimo. 1975. We are sitting in the back of the class, joking not paying attention. We follow the news, comment on everything. We are smart, left-winged, radical. We know it all. Vietnam, PLO, RAF, MPLA, Frelimo that is our world. We welcome the victories of the guerrileros in Angola and Mozambique. The foreign intervention and subsequent civil war is of course the work of the CIA. I want to be fighting in Angola or Mozambique. I daydream that they need me and will come to get me.
So there it is... People have asked me many times "why Africa?". I never managed a coherent answer, but the answer is: I came for that bullet. Once I wanted to shoot that bullet. Many things have happened since. I never did shoot that bullet obviously.
In 1975 a second daydream appeared. My father was asked to guide a group of tourists to the Sovjet Union. He had done so many times in the 50's and early 60's. Now they were short one guide and asked him once more.He took me on this trip.
It was on the roofterrace of the Magnolia hotel in Sotsji. The band played that years summerhit of the black sea, 'Mrs Vanderbilt' a Wings song from 1970. I was 16, long blond hair with curls, a jeans jacket. She was 23 and beautiful. She came up to me, asked me to dance. I said 'no', and have regretted that ever since. For years I fantisized of going back and finding her.
Later, in the 80's I joined the communist party and started learning Russian. But as it seemed impossible to ever actually live in the Sovjet Union, I sat down and had a serious talk with myself. I decided to finish business school, put up a big map of Africa in my room and bought a stack of books on socialist economy and the history of Africa. I even read some of them.
Then my school came with an exchange program with the Plechanovski Institute in Moscow. I went, came back married and 16 years later everything I did felt unreal. I divorced my Russian wife, quit my job and put my house up for sale.
What now?
The first thing that came to mind: Africa!
And here I am.
*****
Sunday, Jan 14th
'Crazy'
Months and thousands of kilometers away from home, far from electric light, from mobile networks, almost away from everything, and yet... between all the books about insects, birds and fish from Southen Africa, suddenly a book about the Auschwitz trial in 1965. Why is that book here on a bookshelf? Why do I take it out and open it? Why do I read it, must I read it?
How long is it that this keeps me occupied? Something like 32 or 33 years? My mothers anger when the 'Wir haben es nicht gewusst' was used as an excuse. Not just the Germans, but as well the Dutch 'not knowing'. Her point of view was simple and did leave no room for compromise: If you wanted to know, you knew. It has become my eternal question, my theme. What do you know? What do you do? Every day people die, are men being tortured in a cell, women raped and children dying from hunger. What do you know? What do you want to know? What do you do about it? Or against it? What do you do when they tell you: shoot!
*****
Wednesday, Jan 17th
Yesterday we were sitting with 15 people on the beach for an evening drink. Guests, volunteers and managers. We were served by McDonald and Frank. But am I the only one who finds it strange and feels uncomfortable that the people serving are black and de other 15 all white? Oh and I know all the rationalisations about this, but still I feel unhappy with the situation. I don't want to be here. I am here now 10 days, and honestly didn't make a big effort and hardly talked with the local people. Still it seems to me that not everybody here is happy with the lodge. Twice I hear people criticise the relations within the lodge. And I hear the whites say things that I find insulting. Not intentionally rude, but based on a feeling of superiority, and because of that especially rude. And I am convinced it is us... I have seen in Dar that it doesn't have to be like that. That there really is no difference between black and white. In fact that most problems that arise are due to bad communication. And that leaves me wondering why I can see these kind of things, but at the same time don't seem to be able to do things different or better.
*****
Cobue, Jan 16th
'The bullet'
The sun is burning hot. The gravel road leads up a hill, passes the shot up and burned down church of Cobue. Suddenly I see something in the dirt of the road. I squat down to get it out with a piece of rock. I pick up an old bulletpoint. It takes me back, way back in time.
Mozambique. Frelimo. 1975. We are sitting in the back of the class, joking not paying attention. We follow the news, comment on everything. We are smart, left-winged, radical. We know it all. Vietnam, PLO, RAF, MPLA, Frelimo that is our world. We welcome the victories of the guerrileros in Angola and Mozambique. The foreign intervention and subsequent civil war is of course the work of the CIA. I want to be fighting in Angola or Mozambique. I daydream that they need me and will come to get me.
So there it is... People have asked me many times "why Africa?". I never managed a coherent answer, but the answer is: I came for that bullet. Once I wanted to shoot that bullet. Many things have happened since. I never did shoot that bullet obviously.
In 1975 a second daydream appeared. My father was asked to guide a group of tourists to the Sovjet Union. He had done so many times in the 50's and early 60's. Now they were short one guide and asked him once more.He took me on this trip.
It was on the roofterrace of the Magnolia hotel in Sotsji. The band played that years summerhit of the black sea, 'Mrs Vanderbilt' a Wings song from 1970. I was 16, long blond hair with curls, a jeans jacket. She was 23 and beautiful. She came up to me, asked me to dance. I said 'no', and have regretted that ever since. For years I fantisized of going back and finding her.
Later, in the 80's I joined the communist party and started learning Russian. But as it seemed impossible to ever actually live in the Sovjet Union, I sat down and had a serious talk with myself. I decided to finish business school, put up a big map of Africa in my room and bought a stack of books on socialist economy and the history of Africa. I even read some of them.
Then my school came with an exchange program with the Plechanovski Institute in Moscow. I went, came back married and 16 years later everything I did felt unreal. I divorced my Russian wife, quit my job and put my house up for sale.
What now?
The first thing that came to mind: Africa!
And here I am.
*****
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
