1. Nakosso office
I usually find myself at the Nakosso office once a day, whether to do photocopying for my lessons, access the Internet, change dollars into meticais (the local currency) or best of all pick up my paycheck! There are a number of people who work at Nakosso who I usually interact with on a daily basis, and this is a very good way of improving my Portuguese!
- Augusto, the local lawyer and VERY busy man. He probably does about half the work on his own, judging by the way he rushes around when all the others seem to have a lot more spare time!
- Nelson, whose main job is to sort out the administration and finance of Nakosso, and gives us our paychecks!
- Monforte, who has a sort of secretarial role, doing photocopying, typing up documents and frequently wastes time playing games on the computer. Once he has got me or Tim to show him how to play that it!
- Fatima also has a sort of secretarial role crossed with the role of a tea lady as well.
- Artur, the Nakosso driver, who we see every morning when he comes to collect the car. I got slightly worried when I saw him walking into work with a bottle of whisky in his hand though!
- An assortment of three guards, all of whom are as friendly as the others. Which is a relief as it is very advantageous when we wake them up at 10 o'clock at night to use the Internet!
The main office is divided into three rooms. The reception area (usually Monforte's area), the administration office (where Nelson is usually found) and Augusto's office (where surprisingly one can usually find Augusto).
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2. FEN Compound
The FEN compound (as yet I have been unable to ascertain what the initials stand for) is a small area with a number of bars and restaurants with in it. In the centre there is a very attractive stone pyramid with the FEN logo on it. We have only been to two of the restaurants in FEN so far, O Chambo's, which the Lonely Planet guide book quotes as being "possibly the best restaurant in northern Mozambique". I think the possibly is about accurate, for although the food is good, and reasonably priced too, it is nothing special! The second at the moment remains nameless, but I plan to ask next time we are in. And as the food is probably the cheapest out of all the restaurants we have been to, we will likely be going again soon!
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3. Bread place
This little bread hut sells small rolls for 1000 meticais (about 3½ pence) and loaves for 15000 meticais (about 52½ pence). We have become regular customers now, usually buying from here every morning for breakfast.
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4. Market
The market! We are in here every weekend to purchase the food we attempt (sometimes in vain) to cook for ourselves.
Just outside of the market there are a numerous people selling bread, doce, sweet slabs of a sugar and peanut mixture, bolo, small balls of dough not unlike doughnuts and a few other tasty small snack like consumables.
The first area inside the market is where fruit and vegetables are sold, and is always a very busy place. As long as there is enough light to count your troco (change) by you can find someone to sell you tomatoes, potatoes, beans, chilli, garlic and any number of other vegetables. Most are sold of the floor, but some people towards the back are lucky enough to have small stands on which to display their goods.
Behind the fruit and veg section there a few small passages containing little stalls, where people are selling a wide assortment of products. From essentials such as eggs, milk, tea, coffee, sugar and salt to some slightly more luxurious items such as tinned tuna to some slight oddities such as marbles and (very rarely) nappies. Also for sale is one of our regular purchases: Jolly Jus. This powder comes in small sachets to which you add two litres of water to (as if by magic) produce some brightly coloured water with (probably) hundreds of E numbers in for flavouring.
Buried a little deeper in the market are clothes shops, hardware shops, and any number of stalls selling bits and pieces such as shoe polish, hair brushes and probably anything else that has recently fallen of the back of a lorry somewhere, and also a well hidden tea house that I only noticed recently. There is also the meat and fish section, which the smell will alert you to if you steer to close. We haven't yet bought anything from this last area but that is an adventure we might embark upon soon...
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5. Home
Our house in Lichinga was, to quote from my initial impressions I filled out for PT, "Much bigger then I had expected." We have three bedrooms (and four beds) for the two of us, all though we have had to share it with other people who work for Nakosso when they came up from Maputo.
You can see pictures of the house here. (You can use the Back button on your browser to return to this page.) (Oooo, didn't that sound posh??)
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6. Hotel Chiwindi
This hotel is just round the corner from our house and was an important landmark in finding our way home in our early days in Lichinga. Other then that it has little significance, other then being very pink.
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7. Post office
The post office (correio in Portuguese) is an attractive red and white painted brick building. (I should be an estate agent!) For some reason it costs as much to send a letter to Uganda as it does to send one to the UK, 33000 meticais (a little under £1). We are told that it can take anywhere from one to four weeks for a letter to arrive here from the UK, and at the start of October we had four items arrive at once, that were sent at weekly intervals throughout September. So Christmas cards had to be sent very early this year!
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8. Bank (BIM)
On the corner opposite the post office is a bank that we have never had the need to go into. Our Mozambican bank accounts are with Banco Austral, just up the road. Click here to read about Banco Austral. We're told that they offer appalling rates for changing dollars into meticais and also bad rates on changing travellers cheques. It seems reputation is everything even in Mozambique.
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9. Hotel Pousada
Pousada translates into lodging, leaving an accurately, if not very imaginatively, named establishment. Pousada is a popular hangout for locals and us Westerners alike, and offer very good food, in my opinion better then O Chambo's - apparently the best restaurant in Northern Mozambique! It is however very expensive, getting on for double the price of some other places. They also do very good samosas, lovely! The restaurant is set in a very attractive outdoor bamboo thatched shelter, which is slightly ruined by the plastic sheets in place (I assume) for the rainy season but are there all year. They have recently got a pool table, which very quickly became dominated by a very hardcore group of local pool players!
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10. Learning Centre
The Learning Centre (click here for another picture) looks like it used to be a flat, and indeed probably was. It consists of three rooms, the English room, the IT room, and a room that is currently empty, as well as a bathroom. I am currently teaching English, and I have two classes: one at 2:00 and the other at 4:00. Tim is teaching IT and has three classes, at 8:00, 10:00 and 2:00. We also have our Portuguese lessons at the Centre with Moises (which in English is Moses) at 12:30.
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11. Bank (Banco Austral) and ABC Cinema
Banco Austral is the bank where we have our accounts which Nakosso pay into. Which Nakosso have paid into once - for some reason they now pay us in cash, so the accounts are rather redundant. The Bank has a rather 60's feel to it, with furniture that looks like it came out of an Austin Powers movie, although not quite as colourful. Next door is the ABC Cinema which we haven’t been into yet, and I gather hosts beauty contests and other such entertainments as well as showing a few films. The area outside the cinema, which can be seen in the picture, is where outdoor music concerts and events on public holidays are held, when usually a large wooden stage is erected for the event.
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12. Church
The main church in Lichinga is an impressive looking white building, including a bell, which I can't recall having heard ringing! Although I haven’t been inside the church yet I am hoping to soon, probably once my Potuguese has improved enough to make out what is going on in the service!
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13. Government Buildings
Lichinga is the capital of the province of Niassa, and hence is home to the Provincial Government Buildings. I assume a lot goes on here, but I've never seen anyone go in or out or any other signs to indicate activity. The lights are always on however, probably to just give the impression that work is being done though. Once again the building is a classic example of the 60's architecture that dominates many buildings!
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14. Praça
The circular praça translates as square - needs rethinking that one. Just a big roundabout really with nothing special to comment on. Some one recently built a small shelter in the centre, potentially for the rainy season but I'm not really sure.
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15. LAM office
The office in Lichinga for Linahs Aereas Moçambique, the Mozambican airline. Most flights offered by LAM are internal, and they were our mode of transport from Maputo (the capital, right in the south) to Lichinga (right in the north). They also do a few regional flights and one quite random international flight to Portugal.
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16. Electricity generator
Where the 'leccy comes from. When we arrived they were using a Caterpillar generator that made a lot of noise. At the moment we are still on that generator and so the supply is on and off all the time - off more that on. We are on the brink of a new generator coming online which will mean we will have electricity all the time. Having said that, we have been on the brink of the new generator coming online for the past six weeks or so, so I'm not holding my breath!
9/12/03: The new generator is now up and running, meaning we have the luxury of electricity 24/7 now. Who knows, maybe we'll get a fridge! I won't hold my breath though. Not all of Lichinga is covered yet though, watching a movie the other night the power kept cutting in and out very unhelpfully.
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17. First Lady's office
The Learning Centre is a project set up and run by the office of the First Lady of Niassa, the Governor of Niassa’s wife. Aurelio is our man in the office, and apparently organises goings on. His organisational skills leave a little to be desired however. We only have one or two gripes, for example Tim covering for an IT teacher who failed to turn up for a week or two or never having enough paper to print on. But it all adds to the fun; "variety is the spice of life". So I am reliably informed.
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18. Immigration
The Immigration office is where our visas are extended. Fairly run of the mill building with a desk and a big, important Immigration type bloke.
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19. Quinta Capricórno
Maybe a kilometre out of town along a very rough road where 4x4 is a neccesity lies Quinta Capricórno. A quinta translates as a farm with a restaurant, and this particular one matches up to that description. At the weekend it is a popular meeting place for members of the Western community in Lichinga. From Water Aid employees to volunteers like ourselves and AIDS workers, there is a regular crowd made up of Americans, British and Europeans. Because Quinta offers accommodation as well there is frequently other faces passing through as well. The food at Quinta is pretty good, although it is well known for being a very slow service, especially when it gets busy. The number of people there on a Friday night fluctuates wildly: one night we were there it was crowded, the busiest Mariette (the owner) had ever seen it, and some times there are only two or three, if that.
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20. Golden Nights
The Golden Nights disco opens about 12 times a year, and we have only been able to attend once or twice since we arrived in Lichinga. Just a big room with a sound system imported for the event, playing music from Mozambique and cheesy British tunes from the likes of Westlife and Blue. And I make no apologies for knowing those names! The night we were there was very entertaining, once we worked up the courage to join the locals on the dance floor.
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21. Augusto Tembe's house
The aforementioned (good word) Augusto Tembe, our boss, lives in another house owned by Nakosso, as we do. We attended a party his house celebrating Nakosso's first birthday, where his empregada (maid) had joined forces with ours and with the help of some others laid on some very impressive food! Even better we were invited back the next day to decimate (another good word) the leftovers.
Augusto is soon leaving Lichinga to head up a new Nakosso office in Cuamba. Orlando, his replacement in Lichinga, is now up from Maputo and currently living here too.
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22. Train station
Lichinga's train station is a little way out from the centre of town. Lichinga only receives one train a week today and the station is clearly not its former self, but the distinctive blue tiling and architecture is worth seeing. There are three or four lines, but most are overgrown now because of the lack of use. It is quite difficult to see which line is the one that might be used today. A little way down the line the track runs past a small tourist attraction, another Quinta.
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copyright Nic Garner 2003 | last updated 09/12/03
