Bruts with Utes
Our first morning in Pemba I woke up to the sound of Jon throwing up on the floor of our dorm. I didn't really worry about him, we had got into Pemba late in the afternoon the day before, after yet another full day of traveling, delayed buses, heat and dust and I figured it was just exhaustion. He groaned, went back to sleep and I went to explore Pemba.
Pemba, to be honest, was not what I had expected. The water was bluer than blue, the sand was whiter than white and the massive hotels and resorts were an ugly eyesore and very different from every other beach in Mozambique. You could take amazing photos of the sand and palm trees, but you had to be careful to cut out the million dollar yacht sailing past. I walked into town, and around the market place, looking though hundreds of designs of the beautiful capulannas, long sheets of material worn by the Mozambican women as skirts and used to carry their babies. The vegetables in the market consisted entirely of potatoes, onions, and garlic. The only food with any vitamins was baby porridge, and id already been eating that for breakfast.
Back at the bar a group of guys invited us over for a beer. Yoga, a long haired slurring Afrikaner, had lived in Mozambique for a few years and worked on a fish farm just outside of Pemba. His brother Verna moved to up a month ago and was trying to get work as a chef on the cruise boats that took tourists around the Islands. Sitting with them were two guys from Angola who worked on the farm as well, but they mostly spoke amongst themselves. Yoga and Verna invited us back to there place. Yoga had a little shack on Wimbe beach; we could get some fish and have a braai. We happily agreed.
From the very beginning of our conversation you could tell that most of these guys’ stories were pretty tall. We talked about sharks, and first they told us stories of local sightings. Later we heard stories of there close encounters with them in the water, attacks on their boats, and finally Yoga retold a gripping, emotional and heroic story of the time he rescued his mate from being mauled by a sharking, in the final moments (after the guy had lost one of his limbs) he stabbed the animal with a knife he happened to have with him (while out swimming). It made the 8 o’clock news and his Mum saw it while she was waiting at home wondering where he was. It was an amazing performance, Verna nodding along with him, adding a few more details. It was . . . . Unbelievable.
But you don’t point out this stuff to friendly people you've just met, so we let it go a little. But the night went on. These guys served with the foreign legion, owned half the property in town, had just sold one of the Islands for 19 million, spoke seven languages, knew the Governor of the region personally, and his son, and the Minister for Defense. All these people had awarded them some sort of criminal immunity which meant despite the fact that they lived in front of the police station they could smoke as much weed as they wanted. They had owned restaurants, suffered heroin addictions, spent time in jail, but were now millionaires through intelligent property investment. Hell, next month the very patio we were sitting on would be a three story resort with a dive centre and jet skis.
The stories and plans went on, we heard them again, and then for the third time, each time more dramatic and exaggerated. Some of it could have been true, but I didn't want to know what. The stories got worse. Yoga said that last year he had run over a woman and her child in his car and paid the authorities 2 million meticash ($100 Australian dollars) to make the charges go away. From what we had heard of corruption in Mozambique this could have been viable. I felt a little sick. There wasn't much air left under the pile of bullshit they were burying us in.
Jon looked exhausted so I hinted at the possibility of going back. The guys offered to take us. Ok, said Jon. I tried to catch Jon's eye to tell him I wanted to walk back. The guys were drunk and stoned, the roads were bad and dark and we were only a 20 min walk away. Jon was tired and didn't want to. I kept looking at him. I wouldn’t have walked back in the dark by myself, Mozambique was safe, but through an isolated part of the beach then you’re pushing your luck.
When the guys went inside to get jackets and car keys I put on my most serious face and told Jon I wanted to walk back. Jon would probably hate to think that I could tell him what to do, but I knew that I would get my way, he was to much of a gentleman to tell me otherwise if I was really serious, and I was. We walked backed. The two guys were annoyed, and drove to the campsite to go to the bar anyway.
As we walked into the camp ground we could see the guys at the bar. Jon walked straight to the dorm to avoid the guys, I headed for the bathrooms. When I got back Jon was going through his bag. "Check all your stuff" he said, "When I came in here the security guard was in here". We were the only people staying in the dorm.
"Did you ask him what he was doing" I asked.
"He said switching on the light, but he was at the back of the room. My knife is gone." Jon had a fancy Leatherman knife which he loved. We'd used it hundreds of times in past few weeks for everything from hacking open cans of baked bens, to making sandwiches on the bus. He left and went to repot what had happened to the bartender. Russell, the Aussie owner of the campsite wasn’t around. He was staying at one of the Islands nearby but would be back in the morning.
About 10 mins later the bartender, Jon, the security guard, and two Afrikaners were in our dorm room. The security guard spoke only Portuguese and was explaining to the bartender what he had been doing in our room. The Afrikaner guys were yelling, promising Jon that they would get the knife back, accusing the security guard and threatening him. "I’m not saying he did it" Jon kept saying, "I just want to know what he was doing in our room"
Apparently the story the guy was telling was quite contradictory, and he didn't really have a reason for being in the room. Yoga was getting really mad. He yelled and hit the guy with a stick. I yelled then, I was so angry. I knew when they walked in these guys would cause trouble. Yoga hit him again, and then a third time. I screamed more. I wanted to hit Yoga, but after each time he hit him, I yelled, and he put the stick down and I thought he would stop. When everyone finally calmed down and agreed to wait for Russell, and they left back for the bar. A local girl at the bar heard what had happened taunted Yoga with "Hit him like you hit your girlfriend??" Had I hit Yoga he probably would have slapped me back and I wouldn't have been ready for that.
Jon spoke to Russell in the morning. While we were at the beach the police came to talk to the security guard and Russell. They took the guard to see a Sangoma (local medicine woman) to see if they could get the knife back. They would brew him a drink and perform a bit of a curse, apparently it often worked in these situations, stolen goods returned, as the local people are so superstitious.
Russell asked us to meet him at the police station the next day at 2pm. They wanted us all to be there to get the story straight. Jon needed a police report for his insurance anyway. Russell told us best not to mention the South Africans and the guy being hit. Why, I though, it happened, we saw it.
We waited outside the station for about 10 mins and Russell hadn't showed so we went inside. We spoke to an officer who spoke almost no English, who asked us to wait in a small office. Officers passed in and out of the room, not doing much. One guy was typing on an ancient typewriter, the only piece of office equipment in the area. Every cop had a machine gun, and they were swinging them around like restless children carrying school backpacks. The guy sitting behind the desk swinging in his chair pulled a pistol put of his pocket and slammed it on the table, the barrel starting straight down at us. I jumped and thought it would have been safer to wait outside.
Russell never showed and about half an hour later the guys lead us upstairs to meet the constable. He spoke no English, but had a translator. Mostly these two spoke among themselves and eventually the translator turned to speak to us. He dictated to us what they believe to have been the events, the knife was discovered missing and Jon had accused and hit the security guard. It took all my effort not to say anything, I wanted to scream out. I was so scared. The translator was not at all fluent in English, just an officer who spoke a little. I was panicking, and trying to imagine what id do if my friend was arrested in Northern Mozambique by a non speaking police force.
Jon was very calm and explained what had happened very slowly and clearly, that it hadn't been him who hit the guy. We told them about the South Africans. They guys had mentioned there last names the night before, so I wrote it out with their address, the house across the street from the station. Luckily the police accepted this story.
Then we came to the police report. They had no idea what a police report was. We told them Jon needed a letter that said the knife had been stolen. The knife is lost, they said. Stolen, I corrected, you don’t go to the police if you have lost something, you only go if you have had something stolen, the report must say stolen. But we can’t tell for sure it was stolen, they argued. Yes, we said, but you only have to say that we came here and said it was stolen. We reported it stolen. They thought we were crazy, but took a lot of strange details of Jon and agreed to write the report.
A few hours later we came back to collect the report. On thin tipex socked paper was a typed declaration in Portuguese. They tried to stamp it to make it official, but the inkpad was out of ink, so they had just made a black smear on it instead. Jon shook his head "Look at this, I could have written this myself, no insurance company will accept this" he said. He inspected it further. "Actually, come to think of it, it’s unlikely anyone could come across a typewriter like that anymore anyway" he laughed. We asked the guys for the phone number of the police station if there were any problems, but the station didn't have a phone.
I was so angry with Russell when we got back to the bar. It would have been good if he had been there since he spoke Portuguese. He was also the first to speak to the police and as he had left out the assault part, which they would have learned later from the security guard anyway, it simply made us look more suspicious. We told him this and he agreed nonchalantly and bought us a beer. I felt 10 beers would have been more appropriate. I expected more from an Aussie.
Pemba, to be honest, was not what I had expected. The water was bluer than blue, the sand was whiter than white and the massive hotels and resorts were an ugly eyesore and very different from every other beach in Mozambique. You could take amazing photos of the sand and palm trees, but you had to be careful to cut out the million dollar yacht sailing past. I walked into town, and around the market place, looking though hundreds of designs of the beautiful capulannas, long sheets of material worn by the Mozambican women as skirts and used to carry their babies. The vegetables in the market consisted entirely of potatoes, onions, and garlic. The only food with any vitamins was baby porridge, and id already been eating that for breakfast.
Back at the bar a group of guys invited us over for a beer. Yoga, a long haired slurring Afrikaner, had lived in Mozambique for a few years and worked on a fish farm just outside of Pemba. His brother Verna moved to up a month ago and was trying to get work as a chef on the cruise boats that took tourists around the Islands. Sitting with them were two guys from Angola who worked on the farm as well, but they mostly spoke amongst themselves. Yoga and Verna invited us back to there place. Yoga had a little shack on Wimbe beach; we could get some fish and have a braai. We happily agreed.
From the very beginning of our conversation you could tell that most of these guys’ stories were pretty tall. We talked about sharks, and first they told us stories of local sightings. Later we heard stories of there close encounters with them in the water, attacks on their boats, and finally Yoga retold a gripping, emotional and heroic story of the time he rescued his mate from being mauled by a sharking, in the final moments (after the guy had lost one of his limbs) he stabbed the animal with a knife he happened to have with him (while out swimming). It made the 8 o’clock news and his Mum saw it while she was waiting at home wondering where he was. It was an amazing performance, Verna nodding along with him, adding a few more details. It was . . . . Unbelievable.
But you don’t point out this stuff to friendly people you've just met, so we let it go a little. But the night went on. These guys served with the foreign legion, owned half the property in town, had just sold one of the Islands for 19 million, spoke seven languages, knew the Governor of the region personally, and his son, and the Minister for Defense. All these people had awarded them some sort of criminal immunity which meant despite the fact that they lived in front of the police station they could smoke as much weed as they wanted. They had owned restaurants, suffered heroin addictions, spent time in jail, but were now millionaires through intelligent property investment. Hell, next month the very patio we were sitting on would be a three story resort with a dive centre and jet skis.
The stories and plans went on, we heard them again, and then for the third time, each time more dramatic and exaggerated. Some of it could have been true, but I didn't want to know what. The stories got worse. Yoga said that last year he had run over a woman and her child in his car and paid the authorities 2 million meticash ($100 Australian dollars) to make the charges go away. From what we had heard of corruption in Mozambique this could have been viable. I felt a little sick. There wasn't much air left under the pile of bullshit they were burying us in.
Jon looked exhausted so I hinted at the possibility of going back. The guys offered to take us. Ok, said Jon. I tried to catch Jon's eye to tell him I wanted to walk back. The guys were drunk and stoned, the roads were bad and dark and we were only a 20 min walk away. Jon was tired and didn't want to. I kept looking at him. I wouldn’t have walked back in the dark by myself, Mozambique was safe, but through an isolated part of the beach then you’re pushing your luck.
When the guys went inside to get jackets and car keys I put on my most serious face and told Jon I wanted to walk back. Jon would probably hate to think that I could tell him what to do, but I knew that I would get my way, he was to much of a gentleman to tell me otherwise if I was really serious, and I was. We walked backed. The two guys were annoyed, and drove to the campsite to go to the bar anyway.
As we walked into the camp ground we could see the guys at the bar. Jon walked straight to the dorm to avoid the guys, I headed for the bathrooms. When I got back Jon was going through his bag. "Check all your stuff" he said, "When I came in here the security guard was in here". We were the only people staying in the dorm.
"Did you ask him what he was doing" I asked.
"He said switching on the light, but he was at the back of the room. My knife is gone." Jon had a fancy Leatherman knife which he loved. We'd used it hundreds of times in past few weeks for everything from hacking open cans of baked bens, to making sandwiches on the bus. He left and went to repot what had happened to the bartender. Russell, the Aussie owner of the campsite wasn’t around. He was staying at one of the Islands nearby but would be back in the morning.
About 10 mins later the bartender, Jon, the security guard, and two Afrikaners were in our dorm room. The security guard spoke only Portuguese and was explaining to the bartender what he had been doing in our room. The Afrikaner guys were yelling, promising Jon that they would get the knife back, accusing the security guard and threatening him. "I’m not saying he did it" Jon kept saying, "I just want to know what he was doing in our room"
Apparently the story the guy was telling was quite contradictory, and he didn't really have a reason for being in the room. Yoga was getting really mad. He yelled and hit the guy with a stick. I yelled then, I was so angry. I knew when they walked in these guys would cause trouble. Yoga hit him again, and then a third time. I screamed more. I wanted to hit Yoga, but after each time he hit him, I yelled, and he put the stick down and I thought he would stop. When everyone finally calmed down and agreed to wait for Russell, and they left back for the bar. A local girl at the bar heard what had happened taunted Yoga with "Hit him like you hit your girlfriend??" Had I hit Yoga he probably would have slapped me back and I wouldn't have been ready for that.
Jon spoke to Russell in the morning. While we were at the beach the police came to talk to the security guard and Russell. They took the guard to see a Sangoma (local medicine woman) to see if they could get the knife back. They would brew him a drink and perform a bit of a curse, apparently it often worked in these situations, stolen goods returned, as the local people are so superstitious.
Russell asked us to meet him at the police station the next day at 2pm. They wanted us all to be there to get the story straight. Jon needed a police report for his insurance anyway. Russell told us best not to mention the South Africans and the guy being hit. Why, I though, it happened, we saw it.
We waited outside the station for about 10 mins and Russell hadn't showed so we went inside. We spoke to an officer who spoke almost no English, who asked us to wait in a small office. Officers passed in and out of the room, not doing much. One guy was typing on an ancient typewriter, the only piece of office equipment in the area. Every cop had a machine gun, and they were swinging them around like restless children carrying school backpacks. The guy sitting behind the desk swinging in his chair pulled a pistol put of his pocket and slammed it on the table, the barrel starting straight down at us. I jumped and thought it would have been safer to wait outside.
Russell never showed and about half an hour later the guys lead us upstairs to meet the constable. He spoke no English, but had a translator. Mostly these two spoke among themselves and eventually the translator turned to speak to us. He dictated to us what they believe to have been the events, the knife was discovered missing and Jon had accused and hit the security guard. It took all my effort not to say anything, I wanted to scream out. I was so scared. The translator was not at all fluent in English, just an officer who spoke a little. I was panicking, and trying to imagine what id do if my friend was arrested in Northern Mozambique by a non speaking police force.
Jon was very calm and explained what had happened very slowly and clearly, that it hadn't been him who hit the guy. We told them about the South Africans. They guys had mentioned there last names the night before, so I wrote it out with their address, the house across the street from the station. Luckily the police accepted this story.
Then we came to the police report. They had no idea what a police report was. We told them Jon needed a letter that said the knife had been stolen. The knife is lost, they said. Stolen, I corrected, you don’t go to the police if you have lost something, you only go if you have had something stolen, the report must say stolen. But we can’t tell for sure it was stolen, they argued. Yes, we said, but you only have to say that we came here and said it was stolen. We reported it stolen. They thought we were crazy, but took a lot of strange details of Jon and agreed to write the report.
A few hours later we came back to collect the report. On thin tipex socked paper was a typed declaration in Portuguese. They tried to stamp it to make it official, but the inkpad was out of ink, so they had just made a black smear on it instead. Jon shook his head "Look at this, I could have written this myself, no insurance company will accept this" he said. He inspected it further. "Actually, come to think of it, it’s unlikely anyone could come across a typewriter like that anymore anyway" he laughed. We asked the guys for the phone number of the police station if there were any problems, but the station didn't have a phone.
I was so angry with Russell when we got back to the bar. It would have been good if he had been there since he spoke Portuguese. He was also the first to speak to the police and as he had left out the assault part, which they would have learned later from the security guard anyway, it simply made us look more suspicious. We told him this and he agreed nonchalantly and bought us a beer. I felt 10 beers would have been more appropriate. I expected more from an Aussie.
posted by Courtney | 4:34 AM
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