21/09/10

This past weekend we went to Cambine, which is one of my favorite places in Mozambique, I can’t remember if I talked about it, but we celebrated 4th of July there. It is about 10 miles off the national highway which is huge here, you can tell instantly that you have left the highway. It was founded by the Methodist church there and as a result all of the buildings in the town are made from sand-colored stones I have never seen anywhere else. Between the buildings and the lush rolling hills you could be convinced you are in 19th century England. It is quiet, calm, and beautiful—just what I needed this weekend. Saturday night we planned to have a feast, so we went during the day into Morrumbene, the nearest large town, to buy fresh shrimp, crab, and fish as well as vegetables.
I asked woman how much she was selling her pile of sweet potatoes for and though I knew the price should be 10 Meticais, she said 20 Meticais, probably because I was a white person she didn’t recognize. When I told her I wasn’t a tourist and I knew how much they should cost, she turned to the women she was with and they switched to Xitswa (the local Bantu language there) to discuss it. One friend gave her very explicit directions with a lot pointing. The woman took two sweet potatoes out of the pile and told me it was now 10. The pile was still pretty decent so I paid for it. After, she reached into a bag and pulled out two sweet potatoes that were almost the same size as the two she had removed from the pile originally and gave them to me as a “bacela.” “Bacela” is the word for a little extra that a vendor gives you here when you buy something, especially if you are a regular customer, for example the woman I buy vegetables from in the market always gives me an extra small onion or tomato, or when you buy a cup of cashews on the street you ask for a “bacela,” an extra pinch of cashews, to be thrown in. Back to the original story, I didn’t really understand the rationale behind what she did, but I took it anyway.
That night for dinner we had shrimp and vegetable tempura, many different kinds of sushi, Thai yellow curry with shrimp and vegetables, carrot cake, and cheesecake. I felt uncomfortably full in the best way possible.