Nampula Chapa Stand, Nampula, Northern Mozambique...June 9th, 2011
(Editors note: a “Chapa” is a minivan; more specifically, an old Chinese white minivan, usually filled with about 34 people and an equal number of children in 14 seats, produce of all makes which is continually purchased and piled upon during very frequent stops, perhaps live animals, a broken windshield, suicidal driver, bald tires, and blaringly loud stereo system...an amazing microcosm of African life on wheels).
How far away this place is from anything in my recent recollection, from home, from the “ordinary”that has, over these years, become quite extraordinary in a strange turning of the tides of life.
The sun slowly rising over the chapa stand, from the east, come come market women,
brightly clad in blazing sarongs, oranges, yellows, reds, the sun projecting its warmth onto the
dirt tracks through delicate footfalls;
plastic green tubs overfilled with bread, produce, water, balanced gracefully on cloth-covered heads;
the lone policeman, an old AK-47 strapped to his young back as he meanders like a lion, a predator in this place looking for vulnerable pray; his predatory eyes lock onto me, asking me after a quick hello to buy him a cold drink, a soda, some breakfast; I hide my eyes and look away, mutter something incomprehensible in response; barefoot children, white eyes, no shoes, roaming around, looking lost, amused at the passing show as myself; what they are doing here I could not guess; the dusty brown soil underfoot, the only solidity in this sea of movement, this show of humanity;
smiles and the faint approaches of strangers; always men, of course, who run this island of mobility, this small dusty chapa stand, in a sea of stagnation; my own cloudy head, screaming for food, for coffee, knowing that neither will come soon....
Ihla de Mocambique, 11 de Junio, 2011
“Wisdom is the clear seeing of the impermanent, conditioned nature of all phenomena, knowing that whatever arises has the nature to cease. When we see this impermanence deeply, we no longer cling; when we no longer cling, we come to the end of suffering. “
-Joseph Goldstein
The rain clouds, the first i've seen since leaving the distant confines of Cape Town, which seems like a lifetime ago, yet only a matter of a week, fill the horizon, the background steel to the forefront of faded whites, sun bleached yellows, and the orange spectrum emblazoned upon the old Portuguese roof tiles which frame the skyline of this peculiar, fascinating place in which I have landed.
Knowing that this, too, will end, only serves to increase my appreciation for this place, this confluence of time, culture, setting, seamlessly blended into a wickedly perfect present moment in time.
A great Buddhist Master, Ajahn Chah, once stated, as he held a beautiful porcelin cup, that the ability to see the cup as already broken only made him love it more, yet without the attachment that clouds the mind, that clouds the experience.
The children's screams come to me from a hundred ruined buildings, the maze of the old city, shells of faded glory and grandeur; the painful task of restoration a mere dream for most, contented to live in the subsistence of the broken present. A Portuguese capital, a massive walled fort which changed the shape of history for the entire continent, and thus, the entire world, at one end, a pointed spear of defense; a maze of historic, mostly dilapidated buildings, their sun bleached facades masking centuries of lives untold, stories echoing; a thatch roofed village, Makute Town, pulsing with the rhythms of tropical African life; and a simple causeway, like a tail, an appendage, a tenuous lifeline to a barren coastline, a harsh, unforgiving interior. At certain moments in history, events collide to produce the enduring stories and edifices that shape the world; and at certain moments in time, life leads you to places which call out, which grab your mind and heart, you eyes, your senses, and all you can do is stay awhile, soak it all in, knowing that this, too, will end.
