Maputo: Life as a City Mouse

Just for Kids: Pictures of the City Life

My first big surprise about Africa was that it had cities, too.

In fact, I've spent most of my time here living one: the capital city of Maputo.

Now, if your vision of Africa was "The Lion King" and "Madagascar", don't be embarrassed. Africa does have huge rural areas, and more diverse wildlife than anywhere in the world. In addition, most people in Africa live in rural areas. In Mozambique, this is over 70% of the people (in Africa as a whole, 60% in rural areas).

Yet cities are a major part of African countries like Mozambique and inhabited by millions. In Maputo, there are at least 1.2 million people - twice the size of Boston and ten times as big as Hartford - living here. And many of them find it very silly when we imagine their lives surrounded by lions or zebra: they are surrounded by buildings and cars!

Unlike the country, the city has many of the luxuries we have in America. There are streets, cars, and taxis; schools and office buildings; food markets and running water. Of course, you will see that many of the buildings are very old, and many of the streets have huge pot holes. But they still exist.

The city is a lively and fun place to live. There are always many people in the streets, selling arts and crafts and fruit and nuts(and battery chargers, pirated DVDs, and cell phones). One of my first surprises living here was just how beautiful the streets look when the men lay out rows of paintings and decorated clothes (batiks). I wish our streets had more color!

Mozambicans are also a very friendly culture, and walking down the street, everyone says hello! It was quite a surprise to me when people I didn't know started talking to me as if we were old friends. In some cases, I have become friends with people on the streets. In other cases, I have to ignore them and walk away so that they don't think I want to marry them!

I also learned that even in the city, there are still many, many poor people. On my street and in my neighborhood, there are very many young boys and men who live right on the street - looking for food in dumpsters and spending the day just visiting with each other and trying to stay alive. I have learned that in Maputo, young girls are actually more valuable to a family than young boys, because the girls will do cooking and cleaning and fetching water, so the boys can be kicked off when they are as young as 6 or 7 years old. At that point, there is usually no hope they will go to school, and instead they join the boys on the street. In good cases, they can get a job selling peanuts, but otherwise they may be forced to beg for every meal. There are several young boys like this on my street. Can you imagine if a good day was one in which someone gave you their leftovers from a restaurant? That is the reality here for many of the poor people in Maputo.

I hope this shares a little with you about my city. I am learning so much living here and look forward to sharing more.

Please send me any questions you may have.

Keep up the good work in school, everyone!

Liz