Indicators of Normalcy

On our ride to work in the university van, a professor mentioned, “I’ve got some shopping to do before the end of the month, I’ve heard that prices are going to rise significantly the first of September…” This professor refers to himself as my African grandpop and teases me about my boyfriends (aka any guy he sees me with… we’re just friends I promise). He tried to direct the driver to pull over at the lojinhas (shops) by the train tracks, and the driver just smiled and shook his head in that “Oh you, always trying to break the rules….” kind of way and continued driving towards the faculdade, towards work (not shopping!). A week before, after my late class (which ends at 22:45, way too late, if you ask me, for teachers to be teaching and students to be learning) I got in the van and the driver apologized for driving with the windows down on such a chilly night, he was airing out the car since earlier in the evening the grandpop professor had decided to smoke a cigarette to alleviate stress (Truthfully, at the moment I was thinking that I could use a cigarette and maybe a night cap….. ). The driver, partly exasperated but mostly humored, complained that the professor didn’t even ask as he puffed in the back of the van: “He is naughty! He is very very naughty!/ Ele é indisciplinado. Ele é muito muito indisciplinado.”

When the professor first mentioned the price spike, I didn’t think much of it, too distracted and amused by the driver thwarting the naughty professor’s attempt to bend the rules, and figured it was the usual price fluctuation. When these so called “bread riots” did eventually start, everything was concentrated in Maputo and frankly there wasn’t a sign of anything anywhere else, just the reports from Maputo on the radio and the same flashy images on TV that ended up on major international media. The demonstrations started popping up in a couple other major cities, but daily life was generally unchanged. Not that I want to belittle what demonstrations there were or say I wasn’t a little nervous, but there wasn’t nationwide chaos (most volunteers didn’t hear a peep).

We had one day of commotion where I live. I was at work and we got a phone call saying it was better to go home, people were congregating at the mercados, the praças, etc. How many people? Not really sure, never saw anything. What was the mood of the crowd? Again, not really sure, never saw anything. Schools were closed, the neighborhood girls said they ran straight home without stopping and their parents kept them indoors the rest of the day. Someone else said there had been a tire bonfire by the fairgrounds. And someone else said the demonstrators had left the streets littered with stones. But who knows, it’s all hearsay and I’m not much of an investigative reporter, I’m satisfied with loose gossip. I spent the day at my colleague’s house, waiting for things to die down, gauging the intensity of the protests by the frequency of police gunshots and the number of cars passing on the street. It was unnerving but not terrifying. At the end of the day, after things calmed down, I got a ride to my house to pick up a couple things and returned to spend the night at my colleague’s house (I really wasn’t interested in sleeping alone at home).

On the ride over to my house I wondered what would be the indicators of normalcy here, how would I know things are safe happy and calm? Back home, I guess it would be…. buses going up Thurman Street? The only citywide shut-downs from home I can think of are Oregon so-called snow storms: 2 inches of snow and the city Portland is immobilized and in hysterics (no judgment: I can drive in a downpour fine, a snowflake stresses me out). When the buses get off their snow routes and start heading up Thurman Street again you know that it’s probably all right to drive down the hill, this is my sign that everything is a-okay.

The call to prayer was projected from the turquoise mosque. But the streets were relatively quiet and cleared, few people out, few cars. All of the lojinhas by the central market were closed and some were boarded up, but across the street the vendor boys had already laid out their t-shirts on the corner sidewalk, ready to sell. The main market was deserted except for 6 women at the entrance who had set up their baskets with lettuce, couve, and those bitter greens that I don’t know how to cook.

Normally, the main intersection at the end of the day is monitored by traffic control (traffic light at the major intersection in town… pshhh). They pull up a cylindrical wooden stand that is painted with vertical red stripes (it reminds me of those step-stools for circus elephant performances) to the center of the intersection and a traffic guard stands on top directing the hectic confusion between outgoing cars, kids on bikes, especially-full chapas going to the outside bairros, buses coming in from Maputo, and big pushcarts from the central mercado with unsellable goods. Every two seconds the traffic guard mechanically bends one elbow, then the other, left, right, left, right, regardless of the flow of traffic, left, right, left, right,…..then he turns to direct traffic on the cross-street. His trained movements are rhythmic and precisely timed. Meanwhile, a crazy man with a cotton, fisherman hat and chin-length dreadlocks, standing at the side of the intersection, also attempts to control traffic; he waves what looks like a mini padded golf club (there is a piece of blue fabric cinched at the club-end by red string) at cars as they pass by. Never mind that he only “directs” one of the cross-streets, but he does so with the pace of traffic, like how traffic control is done in the states, swinging the club at the speed the cars should be moving at and with a slight sense of urgency: “Your turn. Go Go GO!” When he is tired, which is understandable since he is out there hours on end (even covering times when the officials aren’t there), he loosely waves his club while sitting on the curb, chin resting on hand.

I’m not sure how Cotton Hat Man perceives the police traffic patrol officer: competition or assistance? Or maybe he doesn’t notice. Either way, this strange, crazy man directing traffic at the end of the day was my major indicator of normalcy, oddly comforting, more so than the market ladies or the t-shirts on the sidewalk. When I saw the swing of the club my first thought was: it’s just like any other day. It didn’t matter that the police weren’t there with their striped stand, he was there, unfazed by the commotion earlier in the day.

***


I’m no economist nor a political essayist, so I won’t comment much, but I’d say the demonstrations aren’t the critical part of it all, or even the most frightening part. For me, it’s the big picture stuff that doesn’t come with a flashy burning tire photo or a “bread riot” tag line, the stuff that is too hard to define and delineate to make a catchy headline.

I think everything has passed, at least the demonstrations. I am writing this on a national holiday and texting is not working. Rumor says: the two phone companies have blocked all cellphone texts, jamming what was the most popular mechanism for protest organization, but who knows… I’m just a spreader of unconfirmed facts. The Problem is still here (regardless of government subsidies), and will continue to remain unresolved indefinitely.