Lichinga

The 3.30am alarm felt less than welcome. The Maputo to Lichinga flight departs every few days at 6am, so bleary eyed fumbling to the airport was unavoidable. Many fellow passengers were experiencing similar emotions judging by the clamouring around the coffee hatch, waiting for it to open.

It was my first time in Lichinga, the capital of Niassa Province. It’s so easy to dismiss towns like this as obscure, dull and decrepit, the go-to description of foreigners and Mozambicans alike. Everywhere has redeeming features and it’s evidence of an unimaginative mind not to explore them better. This journal by a foreigner who has known Lichinga well over the years is a great read and contains this wonderful quote about the changes in the town:

I could never have imagined that developments would/could go so fast in the way they have gone, from the dire poverty and underdevelopment of the war besieged town I knew first, to the busy and booming Lichinga of 2006. How can people see Africa as “a sinking continent” with “failed governments”?  

She’s absolutely correct based on the speed of change, outstripping anything the UK has achieved since the industrial revolution. I went for a stroll with the guest I am taking into Niassa Reserve tomorrow, and we spied this characterful old cinema. It’s not operational now, having been occupied by a branch of a big Brazilian church. We didn’t find too many landmarks, although we did enjoy exploring the wide tree-lined avenidas. At the hotel restaurant I was asked by a fellow guest (Kenyan I think) to help communicate with the waiter in Portuguese, which was a first for me. I was able to confirm that no, they didn’t have pepper or mushroom sauce to accompany his dinner. Only tomato. He seemed deflated.

From tomorrow my connection will be less regular for around two weeks. Taking advantage of hotel internet I investigated my eligibility for the European elections as I’ve likely fallen off the electoral register. I’ve unfortunately and stupidly missed the deadline, as Farage gleefully rubs his hands and continues to act as the smuggest human ever to have lived. I tried to register anyway but was scuppered by needing to insert a current postal address so they could ‘write’ to me about my voting status. Is there no way in this current age to get around this? Mozambique doesn’t have a functioning postal system, as exemplified by birthday and Christmas cards that have never arrived. Any advice welcome from anyone who’s set up a UK postal (and/or proxy) vote via the internet whilst living overseas.