About

 

Of so many aspects that interest me in life, I have chosen the subject of the sea for this blog. It was not a difficult choice, because I received promises of support from seven divers.

 

As I write these first words, the only thing that comes to me are some lines by a Portuguese poetess which I recite here from memory: “Quando eu morrer hei-de voltar/para viver os momentos que estive longe do mar”. Meaning: When I die I shall return/to live the moments spent far from the sea. These words by Sophia de Mello Breyner Anderson always had a special meaning for me. This space will show how much the sea is present in our lifes: mine, my family and seven of my favorite divers.

 

Paul, TD, Andy, JP, Jo, Vic and NB started diving for fun, and now most of them are professional divers. Basically, I expect to write about the “seven divers”, but other people will appear here. We have been living in the beautiful and suffering continent of Africa. Blogging about our experiences and adventures is a good way to remember all the unforgettable moments we are spending here.

 

Since hunters and fisherman are famous for exaggerating their accounts, I expect to illustrate when possible the facts I write about. I hope to amuse myself and a few others along the way. At same time, I want to give an idea of our ways in this town leaned over a bay.

 

Above all, the eight of us have a quest: for quite sometime we have been dreaming and planning an underwater treasure expedition (legal adventure). I cannot say a lot on this subject, but I intend to post about it from time to time. Blogging will only stop if “esperança” (hope) dies or when the quest is accomplished.

 

Why English?
The option for a blog in English was in part taken due to professional reasons. I also intend to write in Portuguese, my “mother language”. The second language I learned was French, and only after I started my English classes.

 

I can write easily, but in English it is quite different. Usually I post a text, but I keep modifying it and finding mistakes until I feel reasonably satisfied. It is also easy to tell that I write almost like in school, but I am trying to improve. If you don’t find my subjects interesting, you can always spend sometime guessing when and if I am going to see the mistakes I leave behind…

 

Caring
Someone close to me made an opportune observation about this space:

 

“Seabell,” she pointed out, “I know that you live like this down there, but for other people, used to the media image of Mozambique, you can sound like a snob!”

 

Gosh! Do I sound like a snob? Anyway, she has a point. I write about the way we live, but at same point I have to show that I care. I’m not blind when the subject is other people suffering. I will do it in three or four posts. Three of them I can already see the titles: “Salvador”, “Fear” and “Westernized”.

 

Just because I decided to write about one specific subject, don’t you dare to call me tropical snob or something similar!

 

On the other hand, I know that the sea doesn’t appeal to all as it is evident in Lewis Carroll words: “Pour some salt water over the floor/Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be/Suppose it extended a mile or more/THAT’S very like the Sea.”

 

Well, you can’t please everybody so I stick with my sea narrative for the time being.

 

Westernized
The first time I saw Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, I could not understand the reach of its message as I do today. So I ask:

 

“Do we have to read the same books? Do we have to dress with the same labels? Do we have to live in the same houses? Do we have to watch the same TV series? Do we have to do the same over and over again, until someone shows us that the impossible is possible?”

 

Recently I have finished reading José Saramago’s “A Caverna” for the second time. Here is a book showing us that even in the worst moments of despair there is a way out!

 

Westernazing Africa was it a good choice? I don’t think so.

 

The Africa I knew when I was a child wasn’t perfect by any standards. There was unfairness and cruelty, but it was a beautiful place. Today Africa is also unfair, cruel and most of its magical beauty is gone.

 

It is important to stress here that I am not questioning independence (precious independence), what I am questioning are the imposed ways of self-determination coming from the outside.

 

As far as I am concerned, I think that it would be possible to bring medicine, knowledge, water… to people, without concentrating them like cattle around the metropolis.

 

Fear
One day, when I feel tired of writing about the sea, I could very well start a blog about fear. Why don’t do it now? Because I prefer to write about something that gives me pleasure and shows better our present reality, than bring back ghosts of the past or worries about the future.

 

My parents taught us to always behave as if the man in front of us was a robber and the man behind an assassin. Even with all their care, they failed to avoid some terrible misfortunes. On the contrary, my own family escaped unhurt by the worst times in Mozambique. Sometimes I failed to protect my daughter, but the fates were kind with her. She is happy and strong. At least she is sure of her choices, while me, the overprotected one, I am still a child lost in this world.I don’t know how many fear tales I could pull together, but I am sure that there would be many. For a start, if you walk around this town you will soon discover the “fear architecture” that has been developed over the past years.

 

In countries like this, where poverty and riches exist in such extremes, it is not a surprise that crime is on the agenda. I cannot criticize the fear architecture myself, because violence gave birth to it.The worst violence of all is against your own family. I am giving here two examples for you to see what I mean. One day my youngest boy went outside for a bicycle ride with a friend arrived from USA. They were both nine years kids. A few minutes later, they appeared in silence and a bit shaken. What happened? It was like trying to take out the cork inside a bottle of wine. Finally they told me that, as soon as they arrived outside, a big guy pointed a pistol to their heads and told them to give him the NBS caps they were using. It is a terrible thing to see a son at risk because of a basketball cap!

 

The other day my daughter wrote about an episode of our past that I was trying to hide in some closet. When my husband had to travel, I stayed at home alone with the children. One day, we were upstairs when we could clearly hear the insistent noise of someone trying to break in our home.

 

The boys were very little and my daughter was only twelve. She looked at us and took the pistol from my trembling hands. Knowing that I would never pull the trigger, she went downstairs decided to do it herself. When she arrived at the back door, the man or men saw her from the window, got scared and run away. I think that they knew they would find us alone, and were trying their luck. How can we forget moments like this?

 

Violence is a sick form of expression from someone hurt inside and without moral background to act in any other way. In the Mozambican micro cosmos, it is possible to find all sort of violence, but one thing is for sure: if economical and social conditions don’t improve, violence will get worst and worst, and the fear architecture will grow from the ground like unwanted weeds.

 

Salvador

 

 

I can’t say how long I have known Salvador. He started to appear in my neighbourhood when he was around six years old. His poor family sent him to a school situated in the “rich” area of the town. Clever boy that he was, he soon discovered that he could study in the morning and spend the afternoon begging for his empty belly and the needs of his family.

 

He learned the art of street wisdom and the ways to please potential donors. He fell for our family as we fell for him. At first I didn’t see Salvador, amongst so many others like him. But one day he shouted very laudly:

 

“Andy mum’s!”, and our relationship started at that precise moment.

 

In the years to come he would never call me Seabell, because in African tradition if you have a child you became socially too important to have only your own name. You are much more than a name, you are already someone capable of giving birth. Your status increases a lot!

 

He knows everything about us: the days we go out, the usual hours to go to a certain place and how we feel in different occasions. Very respectful, he learned to be polite as a chevalier. He opens my door and helps in any he can. If we don’t give him a coin, he blinks his eye to show complicity: “Next time!” or “Today you don’t have to, it was a good day for me!”

 

Long ago, I felt compelled to bring him under my protective wing, but it was impossible because he has a family that he also loves and protects. I saw Salvador growing in the streets and learning more there than in the schools. I remember phases of his growth: times when he looked sleek and times when he became very fat because he was spending a lot of the moedas (coins) he received buying cakes at a local patisserie.

 

Today he is a grown man. From time to time, I ask my husband in a kind of shock:

 

“Have you seen Salvador lately?”

 

Depending on the answer, I start to see images of him: Salvador in a South African mine, selling his lungs to feed his family; Salvador with street girls, learning love the hardest way and possibly getting a deadly disease; Salvador selling or consuming drugs…

 

If we don’t see him for more than a week, we ask the dozens of other children just like him for his whereabouts:

 

“Where is Salvador? Is he all right?”

 

Usually the answer reassures me, but I know deep inside that one day I will hear the words that are painfully written in my mind. I also know that on that day a part of me will dive into the deepest pool of sorrow.

 

Nobody can teach certain simple things, like the need to protect children. That has to be felt and changed from the inside. Organizations and other institutions can do a lot. Yet it’s the families and society in general that must learn ways to improve the present and future of our Mozambican children.

Photos by Miquidade.