remember mozambique

I look up, and I remember where I am and that this is crazy. I step over piles of broken glass and garbage; people are everywhere and this place looks like a war zone. Unlike most 21 year olds on summer vacation, I am not stumbling out of a foreign house through the next-morning post-party rubble. For better or worse, I am walking through a garbage dump on a sunny Friday morning, feeling quite far from home.

I am in Africa. East Africa. Specifically, I am in Mozambique. Zoom in closer, and I am in the sandy country’s capital, called Maputo, within the province of the same name. I am in a place called Boccarea. Boccarea is a hill in just outside the heart of Maputo. But it’s not a nice little grassy knoll with those cliché white fences – of course not, this is Africa. But it isn’t your quintessential Africa either –Boccarea is a dump – the melding pot of everyone else’s trash in Maputo. And on this mountain of garbage lives over 3,000 people – men, women and children. And as I crest the hill of Boccarea, I can’t help but wonder why on earth I came here. Mozambique is famous for its beaches, I find myself remembering. But here I am, and here I go.


I try to take deep, steady, preparatory breath as the top of Boccarea comes into view, but the stench is foul and the air is little up here. Not because it’s so high, but because of the smoke. I look out to see this world, but I can’t see two feet in front of me. They are burning the garbage. The aforementioned men, women and children that actually live in this place, are burning the garbage to keep it down. As my eyes adjust to the haze, these people come into view. These Boccareans. The men are all rallied together, speaking wildly and using lots of gestures. The women and children stay together in their families, though I see packs of children running around. Everyone has a hook. A long, thin piece of metal bent 90 degrees at the last 3 inches. And they’re picking.

I look down at my shoes, a pair of converse all-stars I borrowed from my friend. Some orphans stole my flip flops and buried them in the sand for fun, so I had to borrow shoes. I am in Africa, and I have no shoes. But today I am glad I don’t have my flip flops, because of the dark green and brown goo rising up around my all-stars. I am sinking into the garbage. I start walking again, one foot in front of the other. Every step is hard to grip, due to rotting fruit, meat and that nasty garbage goo. I think to myself, I definitely do not want to fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

I feel confident in my steps again, so I look up. They’re still picking, with their hooks. The children are just looking for food or toys, like most children generally are, anywhere. The women are digging through garbage, and storing useful or edible items in baskets they carry on their heads. The women are digging because they must. They dig for sustenance; they dig for clothing, maybe shelter. They dig for hope. It’s like somewhere, deep inside the hill of Boccarea, there is a new life for them. And if they dig, and find pieces of it, one day that new life will come, even if only for their children. I glace around and try to avoid staring at children eating Styrofoam and raw, rotten meat. I don’t let it sink in or I might break down, and some Africans find white people crying borderline offensive. Most of them don’t want pity. Life is hard, yes, but they want my money, my help, my medicine; they don’t want my pity.

I walk up to a woman. “Como Estas?” I ask; “Esta Bien” she replies. I am good – that’s what she said. Not “could be better”, or “so-so” or “I’m living in garbage and my children are starving, what do you think white lady?” Through a translator, we chat. She speaks of Joy. She speaks of Hope. She speaks of having Enough to get by. The kids laugh and shout and pick. And I realize that these people with nothing, living off the left-overs of some one else’s better life, are perhaps happier than those of us with everything. Sure, money helps, and sure she would like some. But money is not worth living and dying for. Instead, she simply lives. And in this moment, so am I.