ruins
Amid Renamo ruins
At sunrise, Chief Nchiri invokes the ancestors. Sitting with the chief around a sacred pakassa tree are seven men, barefoot and bare-chested. Nchiri has a white cloth draped around his waist.
Nchiri explains to the ancestors that builders from Beira want to demolish the ruined houses of Maringu. Many people died there during the war. Permission must be sought from the spirits.
Maringu, stronghold of rebel group Renamo during Mozambique’s 16-year civil war, was strategically well chosen. It lies in central Sofala province, linked to the north and south of the country. It is close to the Zambezi River, yet its three roads of access are easily cut off. And it can be reached by air, as South African planes did, landing on a bit of tarred road the Portuguese were building at the time of independence in 1975.
Maringu is the last area Renamo surrendered to government administration after the 1994 elections. President Joachim Chissano visited the district for the first time in 1996.
This region of flash-flood rivers and precious hardwood forests is Renamo’s power base, the throbbing heart of its mystique. “Our historic site,” say Renamo officials. Yet its value goes beyond history.
Here is where Renamo president Afonso Dhlakama keeps his last card: the rump of his army, an unknown number of armed men in a base a few kilometres away from the airstrip. You cannot enter without his authorisation – or that of its commander’s, nicknamed “Ma- Baioneta” (bayonette).
“They can come here; we can’t go there,” smiles a district official wryly. Now and then armed and uniformed fighters show up at Maringu’s market.
In last year’s census, the first since colonial times, enumerators did not go to the base. After high-level talks with Dhlakama in Maputo, small groups of men walked into Maringu Vila, the hub of the district, to be counted. It is not known if all came.
Dhlakama says the peace accord signed in Rome in 1992 guaranteed he could keep 50 armed bodyguards. Some deal must have been struck, because the government does not evict the men, nor count if there are 50 or 500. Yet Dhaklama does not press to have his fighters integrated into either the army or the police. They are his last illusion of leverage outside the political game.
With Renamo (and all minuscule opposition parties) boycotting this month’s municipal elections, the potential for tension grows.
As Nchiri offers flour, sugar, biscuits, Coke and cigarettes to the spirits, he recalls war, peace and the return of refugees from Zimbabwe and Malawi. Then he recaps recent notable events.
A frenzy of building activity has grasped sleepy Maringu. Two weeks ago, 75 men worked two shifts well into the night. This was increased last week to 100 men working round the clock. Two generators provide power – and cold beers, a rarity in rural Mozambique.
Why the rush? Because, by June 9, the administration seat, the administrator’s private home, the government guest house and 10 three- bedroom houses for government staff must be ready for handover.
Why the date? Because on June 15 electoral campaigns begin in 23 towns. Government presence in Maringu – never mind if it isn’t a productive investment – will look good in the media. No wonder the ruling Frelimo’s red flag flutters in the vila’s centre, higher and better placed than the national flag.
The makeover is more than cosmetic. Last year the Renamo-appointed administrator was removed unceremoniously, allegedly while on holiday. He is now on forced leave at home. A former Frelimo combatant was named in his place. In the past six months, other Renamo-appointed district officials have been replaced.
The feared riot police, the PIRs (from their Portuguese acronym), moved in to keep an eye on Dhlakama’s armed men. In September, tension peaked when men from both sides stood, guns cocked, across the road from each other.
Today both the PIRs and Dhlakama’s men have been reined in. They stick to their camps. On the surface, everything is calm in Maringu. On second look, two worlds co-exist, peasants and officials, rural and urban, touching only briefly, their rhythms apart.
And now there are the builders, bringing generators, recorded music, videos and cooldrinks.
In colonial times, architectural plans were sent from the metropolis, often with no regard for local conditions. This remains the same. In a district of cold nights and plenty of forests, the houses lack fireplaces. Building materials and labour come from Beira, 400km away.
The pink-and-white houses look out of place in the middle of the bush. Covering an area of 350m2, and with their gates and fences, covered carports and servants quarters, the houses belong in an affluent district of Maputo or Beira.
Maringu Vila consists of one block of carcasses of buildings dynamited while Renamo and Frelimo fought for its control between 1985 and 1987. In 1988 Renamo took Maringu and made it its headquarters.
There is little else. One manual water pump recently installed in front of the new houses. A few tents for workers. A caravan parked next to the workers’ bar. A bit further, the crumbling hospital. Next to it, 50 tents house the riot police. That’s the end of urban Maringu.
Along the road lie charred remains of Soviet-made armoured vehicles. One is covered with graffiti in yellow, blue and pink chalk. On the passenger’s door: “Let us remember what belongs to the past and to the future.” Signed: “Mateus.”
About 500m to the right is the market and Emasol, Renamo’s struggling timber company. Emasol must be the reason why latrines are luxuriously built with wooden boards, instead of the usual straw.
After the market, the bush takes over: clusters of thatched huts, maize plots already harvested, cotton fields being picked. And landmines. Last week, one booby-trapped with grenades was found in the vila. A demolition expert was brought from Maputo to defuse it.
Most people do not come to the vila. There is little for them here. One who came recently was Naida Vilancastro’s husband. “I must show the government what has happened to me,” he said.
Twelve kilometres away, his wife had given birth to triplets. Naida Vilancastro, who does not know her age, never saw a health worker. In the ninth month she was so heavy she could not walk, only crawl.
The babies were born healthy, the boy weighing 2,3kg, the girls 1,5kg each. This was Vilancastro’s ninth labour. Two children, aged approximately 12 and five, lived. The others died, including one set of twins.
The family was brought to hospital. The head nurse says the babies will stay there until each weighs 2,5kg. But even if they reach that weight, their chances of survival afterwards are slim. The family is too poor to feed them. Their mother’s milk won’t be enough. The boy is luckier; he cries and sucks more, is plumper. Already the mother feeds him more frequently. The girls are likely to die.
People in Renamo’s stronghold live in dire poverty. This is obvious soon after you turn off the Beira road in Manica province towards Gorongosa in Sofala province. Manica is not rich, but its people and roads are noticeably better off.
Once in Sofala, children’s worm- infested, swollen bellies, road stalls selling pitiful packets of sugar and dried river fish and the piles of charcoal bags to feed Beira’s fuel needs tell the story.
True, clothes are not made out of sacks or bark, as during the war. Nor do people look fearful and suspicious, as they did in 1992, when drought, hunger and thirst pushed them out of the bush – and pushed Renamo and Frelimo to sign the peace accord before mass starvation ensued.
But they still are Mozambique’s poorest. A recent survey reports that the average rural household here owns three tools and one small animal. One of two children does not go to school. One of two families never goes to a health centre.
The district has nearly no potable water, no resident doctor, 14 health workers for 59 000 people spread over 6 300km2 and no ambulance. During the rains, the mobile health team is grounded.
The hospital only provides basic treatment. Patients needing surgery have to go to Catandica, in Manica province, five hours away on bad roads in the dry season.
“Maringu is the forgotten district,” says a top Renamo official.
Not that Renamo is doing much about it. Its delegation in Maringu Vila is a disgrace: three small mud-and-pole huts, one tattered tent, a big hut being built, two lovely palm trees and its flag with a quail. If Maringu is as historic as Renamo claims, a bit of upkeep would show their respect.
As this picture of poverty and neglect gradually emerges, the government-built houses look more grotesque.
The original budget, as planned in 1996, was for R225 000 each for the big houses. When administrators changed, so did the houses. They became more luxurious, increasing the cost. Add that all building materials must come on bad roads from Beira. Add that between November and March, the rainy season, roads are impassable. Add delays when trucks get stuck for two to three days. A moderate estimate puts it all at a total of R1,75-million.
“Instead of a palace for the administrator, other problems should be solved,” says a local Renamo official. Like access. The roads are a disaster in Sofala. First I tried to go via Gorongosa, but the bridge at Vanduzi had crumbled. I had to go north for 436km, via Catandica and Macossa.
Here, two bridges and 12 “pontos” need to be built. In the dry season, a 4×4 can cross over dry river beds and climb slippery, sandy banks. During the rains, it’s like driving on butter. Maringu is effectively cut off – unless you do like the administrator, and send a tractor in front of your car.
Even in Maringu Vila, the road into town is one deep gully. Last September the trees lining the road, planted by the Portuguese, were leafy and shady. Now they have been savagely pruned, the branches cut right back to the trunk. The only ornamental things in Maringu have gone.
Maringu’s market is a pleasant surprise. The economy had ground to a halt during the war, but the informal sector has breathed life into it. The 150m-long market is nice and clean. Maringu’s cleanliness stems from its poverty: little to throw away; little that is not recycled. Paper for firewood, empties for the kitchen, nothing is lost.
Many stallholders in the market are former Renamo soldiers. Demobilisation pay and training got them started in business. Manuel Meque learned carpentry at a demob training centre in Beira. With his two brothers, he set up a workshop.
Sofala is home to the Sena people, for centuries traders and cloth weavers of the Zambezi. Because of an intricate taboo system related to death and inheritance of moveable goods, the Sena like to keep some of their wealth in money. It will not be burnt at death, like the hut and plot, to chase away evil spirits. The Sena are quite superstitious and keep to their rituals strictly.
The workers from Beira, urban but Sena, have no doubts about Nchiri’s ceremony. They have heard footsteps at night among the ruins. Equipment didn’t work. In a previous job at Mafambisse, the mixer and generator stalled until a ceremony was performed.
Nchiri’s powers are legendary here. It is said that last year, when the minister of agriculture was about to leave, Nchiri asked him for a packet of cigarettes. “You people are always asking for money,” said the minister haughtily, and walked away. His plane had problems. The delegation had to sleep in Casa Banana, where ants bit them. Whether this is true or not is not important; people’s belief is.
May is the time for queimadas in Sofala: peasants burn the land for planting, to burn ticks, or to hunt wildlife, and the fires get out of hand. Burnt land stretches for many kilometres along the road. Smoke darkens the sky, a haze hangs over valleys and mountains.
At night, besides the crackling noise of a queimada advancing, there are two sounds in Maringu. At the three-week- old bar set up for the workers in a ruined house hastily re-roofed and repainted in white, urban music from Mozambique, Cabo Verde and Angola reigns.
From the other side of town come the sounds of drums at Ma-Gasto (“spending”), the local shebeen. Abundant booze has been brewed, for the party sometimes lasts two days and two nights. It is the new moon, so dark you can hardly make out men, women and children dancing, body pressed against body, in a circle around the musicians.
The other evening attraction is video- cinema. These have mushroomed all over rural Mozambique, wherever there is electricity or generators. In Maringu, an enterprising young couple has plugged into the builders’ generator and set up a cinema at home, this being a tarpaulin.
To lure customers, video-cinema is free for now. When darkness falls, villagers gather in awe to watch one of four worn-out, wavy tapes. This is true image power, forget about the plot: Bud Spencer in Italian, Kung Fu in English and Zairean kwasa-kwasa. In nearby Gorongosa, villagers pay to see an early Sylvester Stallone war film dubbed in German.
While I am packing my bag, the chief of police pays a visit. It’s the first time he deigns to acknowledge my presence in Maringu, although he has seen me. He wants money for himself and other two officials. One is the new young chief of police, who stands shyly a couple of metres behind him.
The Renamo guys were in tatters, their delegation derelict, but they did not ask for anything.
When ancestor Dambo answers Nchiri’s call, we make room for the spirits to join us. No photos are allowed. Cigarettes and biscuits are passed around, then a bottle of firewater, an Exocet to the brain, called Lion’s Tear, brewed out of papaya and other fruit by an old Portuguese in Manica.
Nchiri complains that locals do not see any benefits out of the frenzied building. There are no jobs, except for a few servants to clean and fetch water; no local materials are used. Yet he is not against it.
“War ended through an agreement. With the same spirit, we can welcome changes,” he says.
The government can build expensive houses. Cultural memory that survived a brutal war and grinding poverty builds bridges of understanding.