LIVING MUSEUM
Mozambique’s struggle for independence is the theme of a commemorative walking tour
“My mom tells me they would queue for hours just to get a loaf of bread,” says Edilson Manjate, talking of the Mozambican civil war, as we cross Maputo’s Avenue 24 de Julho on a Saturday afternoon.
It’s late winter but I’m in a summer dress. Such is the
“cold season” in Maputo. Bougainvillea tumbles along fences that run in front of Art Deco buildings in need of some love, and cars and tuk-tuks weave around each other on the wide streets. I’m walking with the 22-year-old on his newly launched Liberation Tour.
By day he’s an electronics student but in his off time the charming and smart youngster is a rising star of the Mozambican tourism scene. After attending English classes and undergoing tourism training, he set about developing a tour that would highlight the names and places that punctuated his country’s fight for independence from the Portuguese.
“I spoke to everyone, from veterans of the struggle to grannies, to get a sense of what happened,” he explains. Manjate’s walking tour is one of a handful of themed ones that you can undertake in the city. He works with the eccentric Mozambican tourism legend Jane Flood and her Maputo a Pé (Maputo on foot) team, which includes architecture aficionado Walter Thembe. This collective of 10 or so locals have more or less got the city’s streets, suburbs, arts and culture covered. (They can be found on Facebook.)
The thing, of course, about Mozambican history is that South Africans don’t necessarily know much about it — it’s barely touched on in our local school syllabus. And this despite us having so many crossovers and links that extend far beyond our shared neighbour status and common languages such as Shangaan / Xi Tsonga.