Friday, April 27, 2007

Maputo

It’s just the three of us—Dan, Chris and I, spending a few days in the rustic guest house of the Dutch Reformed Church while we visit with Shula’s family. We had no food, so set off walking to market at 7:30 AM to see what we could find. We bought pao at the bakery, the wonderful Portuguese bread; fresh coconuts for 12 cents each, bananas and salad makings at the open-air market. Protein was difficult—there were huge slabs of beef ribs, fresh prawns, eels and other fish—all at summer’s temperatures with sellers idly waving the flies away. In the dry/canned goods booths of the market we found pilchards—sardines in tomato sauce. We very briefly considered eating them over pasta, but finally settled on eggs (unrefrigerated as in most countries except the US). By this time we were feeling quite conspicuous. Our method of making payment to the market women (who speak Shangani with a smattering of Portuguese) was to fish out a handful of coins, squint at them awhile and finally just invite the seller to take out the correct amount.

We dined on eggs and pao for breakfast, pasta with sautéed vegetables and eggs scrambled throughout for dinner, eggs again for the next morning. Oatmeal was starting to sound really appealing, so the next trip to market we tried asking for cereal. “See-ree-ul,” we pronounced slowly, after nosing around open bags of rice, dried beans and coarse brown sugar. Several neighboring women put their heads together, pointed questioningly at different items and finally directed us a few aisles over where another woman was waving at us. No oats there, however—her table displayed piles of tiny hot chili peppers. After patiently listening to us pronounce “cereal” even more distinctly, we were sent back around to a woman selling fresh peanuts, whole or in pieces. “Por comida,” she said, pretending to eat them. Silly Americans! We bought more eggs and headed home for breakfast.

We enjoyed a delicious meatless spaghetti sauce with pasta that evening, made with a large can of tomato paste, lots of sautéed onions, garlic and peppers, and seasonings. Next day, Shula’s mom Grace drove me to a little shop we had overlooked where I found oats, peanut butter, and refrigerated milk. Life is good!—Regina