Archive for mercado
a typical saturday
when we get a chance to stay in Maputo for the weekend, there are a few rituals to be lived. lately it’s been so hard to do them, to stay in this city, be it because of the orphanage, or just because of weekends at the beach or other events. i had decided 3 weeks ago to not go away anymore, this first weekend it worked, the second didn’t, and i’ll explain in another post, and this past weekend the rituals came back.
these are what living in a city means. to still after so long be able to walk through it and have your own rituals and old and new things to see. Karen arrived on a tuesday morning so we waited for the weekend to show her around, to show, once more what has become our Maputo. Aldo was sick for the most part of the week and i also was feeling a bit off, but saturday we woke up determined to not let some silly and annoying flu stop us.
we always start with breakfast. the doctors recommend it and i for one love having saturday and sunday breakfast out. …that’s one ritual i take with me everywhere. the “pérola de maputo” is a very portughese coffee place, the new kind, not tradicional but where the portughese community, which makes up of about 50% of this town meets for coffee and gossip (i ten to hear everything around me), and eventhough i absolutely hate being in places where communities meet and x-ray you when you walk in because they’re first reaction is “who are you?” i admit it’s the best place to eat a palmier , it’s soft, uncooked and feels so good in the morning. so mostly when i’m alone i go there.
this saturday we decided to let Karen see it and understand this thing about the portughese community and taste good cakes for breakfast. and then off we went to our first stop, our first choise for shopping. the Pau Preto Market.
this is a place where you most certainly spend money, enough and buy exquisite things. there is not another place in town with so much color, so much variety of people and so many other people follwoing to buy things from them. it’s also the best place to hear the most annoying excuses to make the “boss” pay for anything. after 5 attempts to make you buy, you’ll end up either buying or yelling at them because it has gone from “it’s beautiful!” to “just need a coin”… the challenge is not to give in, more than give up. i have developed an amazing capacity of just stop listenning. believe me… here, it’s necessary.
if the market isn’t enough, there is always the Fortress behind us that can be a great place to walk around and just enjoy quiet time…
after walking around for a few hours or so we are ready to treat ourselves to other senses, the taste buds. the amount of color is the same but the effect it has on your taste buds is unbelievably different… it’s tastier! the Municipal Market is the place to shop for great colored fruit and tastier shrimp.
it is amazing. you always find some new vegetable or fruit waiting to be tried out by ignorant people like us… specially me who only started eating tomatoes when i was 22! anyway… it’s a pity you can’t just have lunch there, because i used to love eating at the market in Antwerp, where the libanese stand was. ui… that was a lunch!
lunch on these days definitely calls out to the Centenário, the little shack on the waterfront, with great hamburgers, amazing coffee and what a view!
miss portugal
one way to africa 