English summer

I haven't had much to say about SA recently - partly because I haven't been out of Joburg, or indeed anywhere much except at home and in the office - and in the UK for two weeks, my first visit since I got here. In England I was struck again by the luxury of being able to walk just anywhere - in Norfolk I took a walk on my own across the fields for a couple of hours (impossible or at least very unadvisable in SA) - and didn't see anyone except a lone woman walking her dog - and the dog was very small, not a mastiff serving as bodyguard. We should appreciate the freedoms we're able to take for granted, where we can.

How poor is Africa?

I've just finished reading Martin Meredith's "The State of Africa" - an excellent summary of African history since the 1950s - and very dismal reading: a litany of the abuse of power of dictators, generals and politicians, their extraordinary greed (Kenya's Daniel arap Moi was estimated to have looted $3 billion during his 24 years in power), and their cynical exploitation of tribal loyalties to unleash violence whenever they thought it suited them. What comes across very clearly is that the disasters that hit the headlines of the western media, in which place names come to stand for extremes of human misery - Biafra, Rwanda, Darfur - are always caused by or exacerbated by factional politics. In many countries governments have purposefully eliminated entire groups of their own people rather than put up with opposition - and withholding food has often been used as a weapon and a campaign tactic (Abednico Ncube, Zimbabwe's Deputy Minister for Social Welfare, addressed a village in 2002 saying "You have to vote for Zanu-PF candidates before the government starts rethinking your entitlement to this food aid").

Meredith's conclusion doesn't offer much hope for improvement. Africa was already the world's poorest region fifty years ago, and it's only fallen further behind - average income is a third lower than the next poorest region (South Asia). Most Africans are poorer now than they were thirty years ago - half of the people in Africa life on less than one dollar a day. Africa's entire economic output is 1.3% of world GDP - less than Mexico's. Half of all African women are illiterate. Life expectancy is falling - especially because of AIDS, which was only addressed very late by most African countries - in Botswana 37% of the population is HIV-positive (and in SA Mbeki's government perversely denied any connections between HIV and AIDS - it was considered to be a plot against Africans, and AIDS was jokingly refered to as "Afrikaaner Invention to Deprive us of Sex").

Meredith concludes that Africa needs Western help and better government - but the two need to go together: Western donor fatigue has set in because $300 billion of Western aid seems to have made little difference - aid has been falling since the 1990s; the US spends .01% of its budget on aid to sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time Western governments stop many African products from competing on world markets by subsidising their own agricultural sectors - the US and the EU subsidise their cotton farmers to a value which is higher than the value of the crop itself - allowing them to take a third of the world market - the lower world price represents a cost to Burkina Faso (as an example) of 12% of its entire exports - a similar story can be told about sugar, rice, tomatoes and onions. So - the West isn't helping.

But Meredith's main conclusion is that, apart from in SA and Botswana, Africa's politicians have to take most of the blame for the state of Africa: "After decades of mismanagement and corruption, most African states have become hollowed out. They are no long instruments capable of serving the public good."

Isicathamiya and Oswenka

Last night I saw a wonderful performance by Mtuba Thulisa Brothers, an Isicathamiya group - this is the style of Zulu music and dance developed by migrant mine workers and made famous by Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It's extremely impressive and very moving done live - impeccably choreographed, and the harmonies are stunning.

There was also an Oswenka competition - this too is a tradition developed by mine workers for their Saturday night self-entertainment - they often couldn't afford or weren't allowed to go off the compound: between Isicathamiya performances individuals put on their best suits and "swanked", with audience reaction being taken into consideration by a judge when awarding the prizes. The swankers pose, take off their jackets to show off their shirts, lift their trouser legs to display matching socks, etc. - all done with much irony - to a storm of hoots, whistles and applause from the audience. Great fun.

More Art-efacts

More plunder from my travels - the first one might need some explanation, it's a hollow gourd about 18" high into which tiny drawers have been fitted - and the blob on the top is a stylised head; the base is half a coconut. Surreal. Then: a mask; a carved and painted wooden plate; and a painted wooden fish. My flat is already starting to look a bit overcrowded with "objets", but I find this sort of shopping irresistible. They're wonderful things and I'm rubbish at bargaining (the sellers always look very happy with the final price, so from their point of view I'm a patsy) - so I can tell myself I'm helping the local economies.

More Mozambique

Macaneta

On my Sunday in Mozambique we went to a beach south of Maputo, a trip involving avoidance of potholes on the main road, a river crossing on an aging ferry, half an hour on a badly rutted dirt and mud track (4x4s coming into their own), and young boys hitching rides on the backs of the vehicles without permission (stopping and telling them that this is dangerous has no effect; they get off but then jump back on as soon as the doors close; but then we were moving pretty slowly anyway so perhaps it wasn't all that dangerous). Then we got to a beautiful white-sand semi-deserted beach with the breakers of the Indian Ocean rolling in and depositing large crabs on the beach - which then immediately dashed back in to the water. Apparently the likes of Sting go to high-class resorts on Mozambique's offshore islands - and as mentioned earlier the country has a thousand kilometres of white sand beach to choose from.

I paddled but didn't swim, mostly because the water was cold (it's autumn here, after all) - my friends who live in Mozambique were tougher and went swimming. Later it occurred to me to ask them about sharks. "No, no sharks here," they said. "Or only small ones, anyway, they wouldn't attack you." (pause) "On the other hand they have sharks in Durban and that's just a couple of hundred kilometres away." (pause) "Well we haven't heard of anyone being killed yet."

Above: the ferry; Macaneta's main road; the beach; fruit salesmen (inedible fruit, in reality; the sales pitch was that we should buy these objects "por effetta" - decoration only); persistent hitchhiker; road crab (not a sea crab); the river at sunset.

Maputo

Last weekend I went to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique - a one hour flight from Joburg - and a different world. It reminded me of.... Rio de Janeiro, where I lived as a teenager. This shouldn't have surprised me, as Rio and Maputo have a similar colonial background, share a language, have a similar racial and cultural mix (although Maputo is clearly more African in some ways) and are both on the sea. It was weird for me, though, because I haven't been back to Brazil since I left at the age of sixteen (a number of years ago...) and the recognitions hit me on a semi-forgotten emotional level.

It's an attractive city, with tree-lined streets, crumbling Portuguese colonial architecture, and a long straight beach either side of the estuary that runs into the city's port - the beach to the north runs for more than a thousand kilometres until it hits Tanzania. The feel of the city is relaxed - it's okay for tourists to wander around, even on their own while carrying a camera, during the day in the main streets at least, and the hassle level is low; muggings are not unknown but without the disproportionate levels of violence that sometimes occur in Joburg. So, a good place for me to use my legs for once and generally decompress.

It's not so rosy in Mozambique for the residents, however - it's still a post-conflict country with a struggling economy, and the infant mortality and life expectancy rates are among the lowest in the world; GDP per capita is a mere $465, compared to $5,700 for South Africans and a whopping $43,800 for Brits. Education is also a struggle - the school buildings are enormous but not big enough - there are three shifts a day to get the kids in. A million school-age kids still don't go to school at all, and half the teachers in Mozambique have no teaching qualification. This is 16 years after the end of a civil war which lasted fifteen years - a sad reminder that it takes many years, if not generations, for a country to recover from war.

Above: wedding party in a park; mouth of the estuary; a wicker furniture shop spreads out near the beach; batiks for sale.