Fronteira

Border.

We travelled from the provincial capital of Lichinga north towards the border with Tanzania, where there is a large community conservation area called Chipanje Chetu. On the way we stopped at the district headquarters where we had to leave our phones outside on a table before entering the administrator’s office, and we passed a campus of Lúrio University nestled in a familiar landscape of towering inselbergs. We also suffered from one very mashed up tyre from the very rough remote roads.

We arrived at the village of Matchedje sitting on the Rovuma River border with Tanzania. Confusingly the river is spelt Ruvuma in Tanzania, which is a thorn in my side as I coordinate a Ruvuma Landscape initiative. Matchedje is of historical importance in Mozambique as the site of a FRELIMO (the liberation movement and now governing political party) congress in 1968 that was pivotal in the push for independence from Portugal. Then the FRELIMO leaders convened in a patch of bush where today there is a ‘tourist village’. This is a rather grand appellation for somewhere with no water or other discernible amenities, yet bedded down we did. What was most incongruous for a party founded on socialist principles was the largest unit in the ‘tourist village’, entirely reserved for presidential use. Which has been once, when the place was inaugurated.

Matchedje has nowhere to get food, so we walked across the border to Tanzania where we heard there was a barraca, which refers to a simple food or drink outlet. Estás em casa (you are at home), said one of my Mozambican colleagues. Yes I very much was with an order of chipsi mayai (chips and eggs fried together into something like an omelette) and a drink of Stoney Tangawizi (a fiery ginger beer drink not available in Mozambique). Although I overall prefer the work environment in Mozambique, Tanzania is better for street food. The Ruvuma/Rovuma today gave me the best of both worlds.