Characters from Around Town

Living in a small town you really get to know quite a bit about most of the people you see on a daily basis. We wanted to share just a few sentences about some of the more colorful characters we encounter while we’re out and about, mainly because they usually bring a smile to our faces when we think about them:

Neto
The most prominent of the local crazys, numbering about five in total. Currently he has only one eye and nine toes. He often intrudes in dramatic fashion at church during mass and once even tried to steal the communion wafers from the priest. We oftentimes see him passed out or in advanced stages of binge drinking near the town market, but he’s usually non-confrontational with us. We’ve been told that as a teenager he was going crazy, so his parents took him to a witch doctor, who cured him on condition that he never drink alcohol. As a non-crazy he finished school and had stable employment as a security guard. One day he returned to the bottle and has been declining precipitously ever since. Luc and Romão like to imitate his distinctive dance moves, which always generates some laughter.

Moses
One of the more tragic figures in town, Moses grew up in London with some distant family and speaks perfect urban English. Being born in Africa without British citizenship he was expelled from England and has been unable to return to Europe. He is “deep into” poetry and theater, and laments the lack of access to the performing arts in our part of the world. He finds it difficult to say the name of our town in the same sentence with the word London, and misses all of the bumping action he experienced in the metropolis. He continually files paperwork in hopes of getting a visa, but I think he knows chances are slim. Moses does not feel like he fits in with our mostly rural bumpkin type population and often resorts to heavy drinking. He considers Luc a brother who transcends the barriers of race and often composes spoken word pieces for him. Lately he’s been into conspiracy theories and has an internet article about the Free Masons he wants us to read.

Chefe Leonardo
Our town mayor/chief lives in the biggest, fanciest home in town, and has a pot belly he refers to as his curve of happiness. He has fathered 9 children and claims he has sent them all to school. Any time he invites us to eat we feast on plenty of meat and are forced to drink many beverages, sodas in the case of Luc and beers in the case of Janet. He loves hearing about the outside world and gets sullen when comparing under-developed Mozambique with what we tell him of America and Europe. He always tries to make us feel welcome and prevent any type of isolation that we might experience as foreigners.

Luka
People in Mozambique who share the same name are known as xaras and oftentimes develop a special bond. Luc’s xara is the local tailor and leader of the choir at the Catholic church. He loves to have us stop by his little shop and chat, especially when he sits idle because electricity is out. He’s always full of smiles and jokes for us and likes trying to say things in English or teach us phrases in the local dialect. His work is usually good, and we get great discounts, but he’s not always able to complete our commissions on time, leaving us to make some last minute changes to our Christmas present list.

Janeti
Janet has a special relationship with some of the ladies at the market. One of them shares her name and often gives her free samples of the strange local fruits she sells, most of which we didn’t even know how to name when we first arrived. Another forced Janet to wear her sandals. Janet had developed some painful blisters from some shoes she had received from a student on Teacher’s Day and had resorted to walking barefoot, which scandalized the market vendors. Another of our market friends named her newborn boy Luka. Everyone in the market loves it when we say things in Chewa; they treat us as if we were fluent now.

Mister Light Bulb
One of our friends from church sells light bulbs in the market. We can never remember his actual name, so we call him Mister Light Bulb. His personality and face are round and shiny, and he always has plenty of smiles for us when we pass his hardware stand at the market. We also frequently see him at the Sunday evening soccer where he sits on the grass with the other older men from town to watch the game.

Senhor Cebola
We never forget his name because it means onion, which struck us as very odd at first, until we learned that it is a Chewa custom to name children after everyday objects (we’ve had students named Lettuce, Calculator, Six Pence, Lunch, Watch). He just retired as the school secretary, and tried to learn computers in one of our classes after years of using a type writer. His typing skills were great, but he never really grasped how revolutionarily different computers are from their mechanical ancestors. He loves to bring us items from his garden. He always employs the Chewa way of showing respect by clapping and bowing when he sees us. Several of his children have been our students.

Angolano
“There are only three of us,” confided the octogenarian, greeting us from his porch armchair. Born in 1925 in Portuguese Angola, and having lived in Mozambique since before it was independent, the man known only by his nationality (O Angolano) jokingly informed us that we were a group of only three white people in town. Angolano spends most of his time watching TV from Portugal he captures using the largest satellite dish in town, which also broadcasts Premier League games, which anyone can watch for 10 meticais on Sunday afternoons.

Five (Yes, that’s his name. You can also use the Portuguese ‘Cinco’ or just hold up your five fingers)
One of the many money changers who hangs out at our border post, he has learned not to get his hopes up for making a Kwacha sale, since we live here and rarely need to purchase the Malawian currency. All other foreigners who show up are fair game though; he and all the other eager salesmen rush each incoming mini-bus, thrusting wads of cash through the windows in the faces of unsuspecting white people, or any other person who looks like they might be headed across the border. When we do need to buy Kwacha, he actually quotes us the real rate the first time we ask, avoiding the usual 10 minutes of haggling afforded non-locals.