20/08/10

I noticed something interesting when my dad was here: nobody harassed me. On the Mozambican scale my dad is very tall at 6’2” (I am about the same height as many of my male colleagues) and he is much bigger built too. No matter how confident I have become here in my surroundings, my Portuguese, or my manner of dealing with people, I am still a fairly small-build white girls, and that’s all anyone here sees. When my dad and I were first approaching the bus terminal (a large open space jam-packed with buses and people) I warned him that we would be swarmed by people trying to get us on their bus, since we are white. I told him brace himself for that, keep a good hold of his bags—I have had people forcibly try to take my bags so they can put them on their own bus—and I would do all the talking. When we arrived and got out of the bus ONE man came over and asked where we were going, and when I told him we didn’t need help he left us alone. I was completely shocked. In many other situations, especially in Maputo city, where I would have normally been swarmed by vendors and such because they see blinking dollar signs above all white people, nobody approached or harassed us. It was nice!