Maputo – the City of Sin

I was born in a city called Maputo, the capital of Mozambique – my beloved country. But I identify myself with the ghetto, which is where I am actually living right now, in a suburban area called Machava, around Matola City.

Anyway, Maputo is a beautiful city and a simple one, there’s no such things as a skyscrapers and the people traffic is only seen at a specific time and place, and even days.

Most of the people go to the city when they need some service, and it may be school, job, and business, handle important documents and more, because those services are mostly based in downtown of Maputo. And it is complicated to have a peaceful walk at the downtown during the daylight, simply ‘cause is where the commerce happens. Everybody is at the downtown to do business, even the hawkers. The train station is located in the downtown, and the most interesting thing is about the history, ‘cause the Maputo downtown is an historical place, that’s why the area is protected by the Cultural Heritage National Law. There are a lot of monumental buildings around, preserving the history of the town as well as the country.

I remember one of those days I was talking to a friend who is doing Ecotourism and Hotel Management and he was complaining about our government. Our country has a lot to offer in the Tourism area using the cultural heritage and a natural landscape, but the thing is we don’t see investments in this area. It is sad to see people wondering about tourists coming to downtown just to see the beauty of the city and take pictures and walking through the buildings and the finding a place like 10 de Novembro just to seat and relax with the beautiful view of the ocean.

The people in my city are more worried about surviving daily. Soon as the sun shines, everyone has to start thinking what they’ll have in the table for the family because more than half of the population are self-employees and the biggest concern is how to maintain the subsistence of the family. So most of them see the downtown as the biggest opportunity for a breadwinner. And at a certain point this makes me think on how to implement a management plan in an area where the population struggles to make their money to survive and pay bills.

Well, these are just some thoughts I had about the city I grew up where nobody cares about nobody. If you want to witness the real selfishness and interests people, just visit Maputo and live for a while. Sometimes I feel like we lost the definition of love, and sometimes I even feel like we became heartless, the time has gone when you’d by accident drop your wallet and someone right behind would call you and give it back it to you; nowadays they take it and throw your IDs away.