Result CAN 2010: Mozambique vs Benin: Under the second Group C match of the Mozambique defied Benin. In line with a C-rich targets, this game has provided four goals to bring the total to 19 goals in 5 games. But if the game was full of goals, it was worse than the level sumptuous Egypt - Nigeria.

• Football CAN 2010: Mozambique 2-2 Benin (grioo.com)

Mango stones, white, smushed on the ground. Stones so sucked on and dry that it almost hurts to look at them. And many of them. Purple jacaranda petals. The couple on the corner selling peanuts is laughing with a friend. Lots of people on the street at the end of the day, the clouds all turning pink. There is a gigantic mushroom-shaped cloud north of the city, or maybe it's more like Eraserhead shaped. Turning all pink. I would like to be able to stay and watch the cloud go dark. Lots of movement on the main street. Some kids playing, jumping from a bench onto the metal bar on the bottom of a billboard (Vodacom "Ish, Yowê"), swinging back and forth and laughing. Everything seems so normal, so calm, but I cannot seem to feel these moments. Feel that they are mine too.

We left not too early on Sunday, after waiting in a line at the only gasoline pump open in town with the electricity cut. The sensation of leaving town is always good. The sky opens. The greens were still weak or light before the first major rains, the rust-brown of the mud, the yellow of the caipim grasses, the grey walls of the neatest houses. The landscape north of Lichinga is punctuated by hills, and villages of Yao speakers.

One of the things I noted was the quantity of new grass on the rooves of houses and the fences around the houses. Just before the rain starts, women go and cut caipim to fix up things, and men are in charge of the DIY home improvements.

I love the trip to Metangula, which is the only "town" on the Mozambican side of the Lake. The road leaves Lichinga district, and goes through Sanga district, bending west in the direction of the Lake.

I particularly like a stretch of the road with a beautiful native forest just after the border between Sanga and Lago. There were acacias, Massukos (fruit trees), the forest at least 15m high. Lots of birdsong. So it represented for me the ideal of what the Province must have been like before deforestation for agriculture and firewood. Below is Google Earth capture dated 2006.

Just that this time, to my shock and horror, this forest had been entirely cut down and destroyed. Devastated. I saw a lookout platform from the company that committed this crime: it's called "Chikweti" (which means "wealth"). Chikweti plans to plant lines and lines of pine trees on top of this defunct native forest. So it can produce pulp for paper. I could already see the sapplings peaking out from above the wreckage of the native forest. (There are few things in the natural world so chilling as a massacred forest.)

We saw sapplings planted by Chikweti until quite close to Metangula, invading another native forest closer to the Lake. The scale of these plantations is vast. And the "consultation" of communities was via its "régulos" or traditional leaders, who motivated by personal or family interests, accept presents from the companies and concede huge land areas. Even some civil servants from the district revealed recently that they had no recourse, that the decision for this "came from above".

In the province, both the government and Swedish Aid have promoted tree plantations under the guise of "reforestation." The government in its long term planning documents speaks of 2 million hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations. They would like to turn the province into the largest producer in the world.

The case of Chikweti appears to transgress all kinds of social and environmental limits. In private, elements of the government and the Swedish are also horrified at the actions of Chikweti. Recently a national NGO called ORAM did a study on "Forest Governance" in the province and highlighted this case as one of the worst and most flagrant abuses.

It was really difficult to see this situation. I have kept up with the question of the industrial tree plantations in other parts of the province. I have seen families removed against their will from their fields. I have seen communities with problems with the "consultation" process - one visit to the traditional leaders and voilá - usufruct rights for companies. But I confess that the environmental devastation was the strongest blow.

Good thing we were on our way to the Lake. The province, which is characterized by a large planalto and a vast, sparsely populated territory, has as its name "Lake". Those who live close to the Lake speak Nyanja, which is basically the same as Chichewa, spoken on the other side in Malawi. Due to untiring colonial missionaries, they are also Anglican. The contacts today between those who live lakeside and the rest of the province seem weak.

We had with a gentleman from a Yao community near Lichinga who had never been to the Lake. He had seen it on his trips to Malawi. I've been a number of times to the Lake with people who had never been their whole life.

On the descent to Metangula, the Lake occupies all of ones vision. It looks like a sea. On my trips to the Lake, I've never actually seen Malawi on the other side. Metangula is a hot place for people from the planalto. There are baobabs, trees that seem to have a greater impact on outsiders than the locals. There were tons of mangoes for sale, enough to excite - a lot! - my colleagues.

We went to buy beer for the beach. The selection showed that the trade in Metangula is a mix of Mozambican and Malawian. We continued, along the lakeside, on the road to Chuanga, the beach about 4km from the city, that was improved recently so that a normal passenger car could pass. The bar and restaurant at the beach continues in total decadence. We bargained for grilled fish and corn meal balls (shima).

My colleagues seem like kids arriving at the beach. I felt like one too. Floating, diving, splashing. Simply grateful for the existance of the Lake. It was the first time with them I felt this sense of simple happiness. One of my colleagues is still trying to convince his wife to go to the Lake on her brief visits to Lichinga (she lives in the south of the province). He wants to share this joy with her.

I already wrote in praise of the parade of beautiful women dressed in capulanas on the main streets of town – this parade exists of course thanks to the lack of public transport, which I also described.

As is perhaps obvious, I have buying power here that I have nowhere else. On Saturdays I take advantage of this to go buy capulanas. I buy in quantity. It would be as if I went to buy 5 Chanel dresses at once or something.

I went relatively early to the market to avoid the afternoon crowd which has already had a little too much drink. The Market in Lichinga was pulsating this morning. I can say with absolute certainty that there were more vegetables and fruits for sale than I’ve seen over the past two years coming and going. Round and shiny green peppers, huge carrots, heaps of beautiful tomatoes, avacados, mangoes, green beans… I was sad that this time I do not have a kitchen.

The capulana sellers are mostly young men. Very young! Today some seemed to be on their first day on the job, lacking confidence to measure or cut cloth. I discovered that most of the stalls selling capulanas are of the same owner. But even so, there is a great deal of variety, it’s not enough to visit one or two. I have to go around and check all of them out, with all of the sensory experiences of the market. (Some of them are right next to the dried fish section.)

Everything I buy tends to be of Tanzanian origin. It’s hard to find anything here made in Mozambique. They say that some Tanzanians have opened a factory in Nampula but there is no evidence of this in the Market. What distinguishes the Tanzanian cloth is not just the quality of the print, the colors, but also the creativity and exuberance of the designs.

I have pretty defined tastes. I know immediately what I like. I like botanical motifs, or with animals, and sometimes more abstract stuff that reminds of the 1970s or lounge. Fans of the Finnish cloth from Marimekko would die if put before this selection in the market. When I think about it, the best capulanas are a mixture of elements of daily life from this part of Africa, with Marimekko and perhaps the cheek of Warhol. (And I imagine these Tanzanian design traditions well pre-date the European and American aesthetics.)

I like the browns, the vivid greens, and orange. Even though red is my favorite color, I rarely see something in red that I like. I don’t like to buy that many with white backgrounds.

I’m also always seeking commemorative capulanas. But normally these disappear quickly. Only the most boring like “120 years of the city of Maputo” remain. The ones of Josina Machel, Samora’s wife, sell out quickly. This time I found one for the “40th anniversary of the 2nd Frelimo Congress 1968 – 2008” that was made for the big party in northern Niassa last year. It has Guebuza’s smiling face. The capulana as historical artefact.

The last seller wanted to know what I was going to do with these. Was I going to wear them like here (amarrar)? Use them around the house? Have clothes made? I was ashamed to say that I use them to decorate the house, and as presents, and that I’ve still been too lazy to find a tailor in Brixton, a neighborhood full of African fabrics and tailors. But I promised myself I will this time.

It’s always fun to see the reaction of people to the heap of capulanas I leave the market loaded down with. My work colleague said when he say the only white one, “HA! All of the foreigners buy that one!!” He was envious of the 40 years of the 2nd Frelimo conference. (And this is a guy who did not vote in October.) Others admired the selection, pointing to the most colorful with the boldest and deepest colors, with great big brown and green motifs. One that had a very “deep” brown was praised in the market by other sellers. It seems everybody has very specific taste in relation to colors and patterns.

One thing I notice is that it’s hard to tell what the bigger and bolder designs actually look like until they are worn.

Men admire the capulana, but of course not as much as women themselves. I remember a work colleague here telling me that he invited his wife to dine out once, and she went with much hesitation, and ate almost in resigned silence. Unfortunately for my friend, when the bill came she got a glance. He really got it that night, because she said “I could have bought two capulanas with that money!!”

I walk everywhere around Lichinga city center. Which is really quite small. The city was a cartesian dream, only finished at the end of the 1960s. The colonizer constructed to stay. The house where I work is super solid, the layout continues to be relevant today. The kitchen and bathroom are still adequate after some minor improvements. It seems like it could last hundreds of years.

(Sometimes I try to imagine all that was lived in this house.)

The most “majestic” element of Lichinga is the office of the Governor, and the roundabout in front. The Governor’s building is a marvellous construction – I don’t even know how to do it justice. It looks like it belongs in a Hitchcock film. Cars, including the brand new white Mercedes of the Governor, park below the white angular structure on top. The roundabout is fenced off at the moment with gigantic shiny pieces of roofing zinc.

They say they are going to put a statue of Samora Machel in the middle. The only one outside of Maputo. The province was special to him for a number of reasons. Many who have that nostalgia for a more ideological time speculate that Niassa would have been another province if Machel had survived.

On the opposite side of the rotunda from the Governor’s building is the biggest mosque in town. It is painted a turquoise blue, with all due respect, a color that I associated with bathrooms. With their loudspeakers, mosques mark the passage of time in the city more than churches. A person starts to incorporate the call to prayer at 4am into sleep – today it entered my dream.

The streets and sidewalks are protected by the shadow of old acacias, pine trees and jacarandas. Their solid trunks erupt from the pavement. A red dirt penetrates everything, turning irrationally popular white shoes the color of rust.

Where the asphalt ends, starts the larger part of the city. I saw an estimate that 100,000 people live in Lichinga. I doubt that the cartesian-dream city accounts for more than 10,000. The lack of animals is a sign of this for me – the city center has few dogs and roosters.

The outlying neighborhoods have grown at an incredible rate over the past 10 years. (It would be good to see this in satellite photos.) These neighborhoods receive all kinds of people coming from the remotest villages. There are numbers of widows living with HIV who were rejected by their families and inlaws and come to the city to survive.

All of the stories of the city come from these neighborhoods. Also the paranoia of crime – many stories of thieves, robbers who attack their victims with machetes.

This dynamic of center-of-commerce and residential-periphery is nothing strange to me. But what I find odd is that there are no public or collective transports in the city. There is not a single chapa (or minibus) to transport people from their houses to the center. The preferred modes of transport are: feet, bicycles (with lifts for women and friends), motorbikes, trucks and cars. At night, people are scared to walk home, and often they are forced to pay very expensive taxis to get home. I was told that a daring businessman try to start a “chapa” service but that people didn’t take to it.

Lately African infrastructures, of all sorts, are becoming one of the most popular topics for those commenting on the state of the continent. I, at least, have a come across a number of different news and reports pointing out new developments, the impact of Chinese investment, new European and World Bank support for large-scale investment (1970s-style), communication infrastructures, etc.

So I thought I would put all of this together in a mini-round up of recent (and old) news about different aspects of African infrastructures:

Internet and Broadband

Online Africa is definitely the place to go for all internet things related: they, for example, report on the award given to the ubiquitous SEACOM for the best Pan-African initiative. They also have a section with plenty of maps showing internet bandwith connections and undersea cables.

Subsaharska has also reported on the Central African Backbone, with the latest news been posted yesterday - a follow up to the first post from two months ago.

Undersea broadband cables

Energy

I have written here before about the Desertec Foundation's plan to turn the Saharan desert into a massive energy plan, and also about Congo's vision - with World Bank support - for a massive Great Inga Dam which would have a massive ecological impact and whose power may be going, not to Africa, but Europe.

Oil continues to have a crucial importance, and the biggest African exporter, Nigeria, is undergoing a critical reform of this sector with the promotion of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), Africa-Confidential reports.

Road Transportation

After decades in which African roads were left unattended, and their state declined rapidly, a new interest has appeared in fixing the existing infrastructures, and building new ones. In Nigeria, ex-President Obasanjo has showed his concern for the state of the country's roads.

One of the key areas of Chinese investment on the continent is the creation of infrastrucries, as we have pointed before, and very recently pledged $349 millon for building a highway in Ethiopia linking the capital to the city of Adama.

European countries are also turning their attention to roads, and a few months ago, the UK pledged $1 billion to rebuilid 8,500km of roads and over 500km of railways accross eight different African countries.

Rail Transportation

Mozambique Sena Rail line has been recently reopened, linking the coal mines in Moatize with the port of Beira, which is giving neglected areas a much needed boost. This contrasts with the crumbling state of other East African railways, for example in Kenya, as today's post on A Bombastic Element notes. For more information and news on African railways, you can visit this site.

The problems which poor transport infrastructure have for a country's economy and trade are highlighted on this article on The Monitor (Uganda) signalling why the Kampala-Mombasa (Northern Corridor) is preffered to the Kampala-Dar-es-Salam one, harming thus the Tanzanian economy.

A view of the newly rebuilt Sena Line. - Photo: Stewart Currie (Railways Africa)

I writing without knowing - really - when I'll be able to publish. For two of the last three days this part of the province has been without any form of telecommunications (fixed line, mobile and internet). Today was a total "blackout". The only word from the outside world came from satellite television.

The girl in the place where I try to connect to the net said "Niassa: we're at the end of the world." (The same girl had the most hilarious polyphonic ring, a Brazilian voice screaming "GEEEEEEEEEeeeenteeee!!")

Paradoxically, at the same time when the largest operator of mobiles is able to expand the network to nearly the whole province, even areas without electricity using solar panels, they start to have serious problems with the fiberoptic line that carries all communications.

I just saw on the provinicial TV news that the line was cut between Mandimba (only the Malawian border) and Cuamba, the largest city in the south of the province. It would be easy to steal the cable and sell it in Malawi from there. Or could it be some kind of sabotage, given that the whole north of the province including the capital city loses communications?

I came here with illusions of encouraging farmers I work with here to blog. But in this environment, it's not a priority. What becomes priority is just maintaining minimum communications - through written notes, house visits and messages sent via minibus. I cannot even imagine the impact this kind of cut has on business.

I confess it's even difficult for me to motive myself to blog given this sensation of total isolation.

In an attempt to be positive, it's worth saying that I discovered today by word of mouth that there are at least two blogs from Niassa province. When I have greater access to the net, I will share the links.

Pen on paper – a blog, a diary. This was the way I started my blogging “career” eight years ago. I’m writing without knowing when, how and where I’ll be able to publish this.

The consolation of losing internet is that I spend more time observing, remembering and accumulating images, portraits. I remember I used to have a much better memory during the first years I blogged like this with pen on paper. Lichinga, capital of Niassa province, does not seem to have changed as much as certain privileged neighborhoods in Maputo, where the rate of construction shocked me last week. However, there do appear to be some construction on older buildings, especially public ones. It could be my imagination, but there also seems to be more traffic – passenger cars, and motorbikes of all kinds.

The first impression one has arriving from the air is the dimension of areas planted with pine trees – the picture is quite visible from the air – there is a big nursery only a few kilometres from the city. The pine trees make a pattern, they seem like legions of disciplined freckles on the earth’s skin. (I’ll come back to the question of the pine trees later.)

The landing is brusque. The airport of Liching is a colonial jewel that has been quite well maintained – the lookout deck from the café above was totally packed with people for the arrival of the plane, which is one of the biggest social events of the weekend. Kids sitting on top of the railings with their feet dangling, pointing at the plane. Quick baggage collection, and posters of Guebuza stapled 3 meters high on the pine trees in the parking lot.

I’m at the Mária Bakery, the social heart of the “paved” city of Lichinga, which was the first place to install a wifi network, and, from the looks of things, gave up a couple of months ago on this public service. Sons and daughters of the elites come here to eat pizza on a Sunday afternoon, while barefoot kids play outside begging for change as people come and go. But these contrasts are mitigated by the bread business that Mária does, which attracts also those with a little change in pocket. It seems the Portuguese left their taste for bread everywhere they went around the world. The gasoline pumps outside simply don’t stop filling tanks, there is a mess of motorbikes, bicyclists with jerry cans, cars, agressive truckers competing to fill up.

I see tons of “fixies” – so in fashion in London – those bicycles with no gears. Here people use these out of necessity, sometimes giving lifts to their partners and friends. I feel like asking the hipsters of East London to see the “true” fixie, the provincial Mozambican version.

The main street is also the stage for a beautiful parade of capulanas – cloth originally printed with wax, like batik. To “amarrar capulana” is one of the most essentially feminine things here. And here the capulanas come directly from the source, Tanzania. The color palette is dominated by deep greens, purples, blues and brown – beautiful colors.