Coming and seeing

It’s cooler than I remember in the Maputo winter. I was here last June and I don’t think the evenings were as chilly as they currently are. Against the dictionary definition, chilly may be a stretch, but I’m running with it as my body chemistry prefers temperatures firmly within the tropical range. Daytimes can still be lovely, sunny and warm during the southern Mozambique winter but they’re not the searing, sweaty temperatures that I’ve come to enjoy most. If any of the days that I’m experiencing at the moment were a ‘British summer day’ the Daily Mail would be falling over itself to write about the record-breaking scorcher, as I saw today in the press about the UK ‘basking’ in 22 degrees. Here I’m underwhelmed and overall prefer the sizzling 35 degrees of a few months ago.

I do enjoy walking around Maputo. Today I ran into Agostinho, the young lad from Sunday, who was in much better spirits and confirmed that he hadn’t received a beating from his parents after being robbed. It seems ludicrous to celebrate that an injustice didn’t happen but still I was pleased.

My head hurt after today’s Portuguese lesson. The verbs vir (to come) and ver (to see) are my nemesis. My ability to absorb verb endings has decreased since I was an earnest French GCSE student. To illustrate how hard they are to memorise and differentiate, and to permit me more practice in typing them out, please see below:

Present tense

I come / see
Eu venho / vejo

You (informal) come / see
Tu vens / vês

She comes / sees
Ela vem / vê

We come / see
Nós vimos / vemos

You (plural) come / see
Vocês vêm / veem

Past tense

I came / saw
Eu vim / vi

You (informal) came / saw
Tu vieste / viste

She came / saw
Ela veio / viu

We came / saw
Nós viemos / vimos

You (plural) came / saw
Vocês vieram / viram

Blip is evidently a useful place for reciting verb drills, however it might be a while before I crack vir and ver.