Letter1Pemba

Its Easter and the buggers stole my daypack! What's more it was taken from the dorm at the
campsite, when I was 50m away at the bar and another backpacker was sleeping in the bed right
next to mine. He thought that I had come in to get it! Although he did have malaria at the
time, so can be forgiven for not being completely with it, I guess. I lost my wallet, bankcards,
camera and backup cd with all my photos, so now I have no original photos of Pemba, aside from
the ones already posted on the internet.

My Portuguese tutor / ex Frelimo interrogator / and newly self-appointed vigilante, who I will
call "Frelimo" (to protect the innocent), was confident he would get the stuff back. Apparently,
he has sources in the villages that give him information, for a small fee of course, which I felt
obliged to pay - it was only about $3 so I was happy to. He reckons that these thieves are
simple men that drink all the cash they steal the first or 2nd night and he will know about it
when they do.

The night after they stole my things, Frelimo arrived at the campsite with an undercover cop
and one of his informers. They had heard news that the suspects were going to a disco in a
village about 40 kms away and they were going to, in his words: "catchy themy" (in his version of
English you should add a "y" to any word ending in a consonant, and occasionally to words ending
on a vowel too, but this is discretionary. This, not only makes English very difficult to
understand, but also makes me wonder whether I have learned Portuguese, or Frelimo's unique
version…). Anyhow, he needed to “gety somey peroly”, which was kindly provided by the campsite,
but first he had to go home to get his “torchy and knifey”, and did I want to come along?
Tempting, but no, I didn't want to get involved, as I heard the last guy they caught was brought
to the campsite in the back of his pick-up, with his hands and legs tied together behind his back
and covered in blood from the beating he had received. So it goes.

As I turns out the generator to be used at the party was broken and so the disco was cancelled
and the thieves had informers of their own, so had fled before my posse of vigilantes could
catch them. They lost the advantage and I lost my possessions. The formal police process was
just as rewarding, as after three visits to report my case, they still hadn't typed it up but
instead demanded payment. I refused and said that perhaps if they recovered something I might
consider a reward - Cheeky buggers! Perhaps if I hadn't been so self righteous I would've
recovered my belongings, but then again perhaps not.

I (and some friends) had also been looking to buy a piece of this paradise; where malaria is as
common as a cold, the heat is almost unbearable and work proceeds at a glacial gallop (due to the
aforementioned malaria and heat probably). Well it LOOKS like paradise in the pictures, and
besides isn't paradise always like that, great in the pictures with white sand and turquoise
water and gorgeous creatures in bikinis suntanning and smoking Peter Styversent? Until you
get there and you find there are so many other creatures that find it paradise too, smaller, less
gorgeous creatures but far more annoying, with an insatiable blood lust and a lethal disease to
administer. So much so that you realise its a lot less like paradise and more like Hell! Anyway
its due to these, and some other more mundane reasons, that we have called off the property
deal.

Last Tuesday I heard there was a flight to Ibo, one of the Islands in the Quirambus
Archipelago, as a family had chartered a flight and were looking for people to occupy the last 2
seats for $40 each. So the Dutchman and I took them. The Island was a major slave port in
the 17th century, deserted by the Portuguese in 1975 and has since fallen into ruin. It looks
like the set of a western movie, with a lot more jungle and there is absolutely nothing to do,
except sit on your veranda and watch the world go by. In fact, the only time that matters on
Ibo is low tide and high tide. No other time matters and I was about to get a lesson in the
importance of knowing this.

Some other friends were coming up for the Frenchman's birthday. They had driven up from
Pemba and needed a boat transfer from the mainland to the island. The Frenchma's mom wanted
to go on the boat for the ride to take some pictures, as it was nearing sunset. I didn't have a
good feeling about it, but she really wanted to go, so I reluctantly agreed. The journey, she
assured me would take no longer than 45 mins each way. I quickly grabbed a bottle of water and
a few little Easter eggs to keep me going. I got a bit concerned when we scrapped over a sand
bank after about 10 mins and then came to a halt about 1km from our destination, stuck in the
mangroves as the tide continued to go out. I tried to tell the skipper in my calmest Portuguese,
that we should go back before the tide got any lower. He just turned off the engine and said,
matter-of-factly, “No, we would go back when the tide came in, tomorrow” and sat down to wait
it out.

I only managed to calm down when I realised there was actually nothing I could do, as water
receded until we were stuck on dry land. Then came the hordes of mozzies. Anyhow, 6 hours and
about 50 mozzie bites later, the tide had come in enough for us to move and by 1 am we were
safely back on the Island. We celebrated by eating the goat that had been tied out the front of
his house for the last 3 days, bleating as if it knew it was going to die. Nevertheless, I was so
hungry by then that I didn't care who had died to feed me.

The day after that, we made the same journey back to the mainland, this time paying attention
to that all important tide timetable, and from there took a harrowing, neck-jerking, 4 hour 4x4
ride back to Pemba – only breaking down twice, which is good considering the state of the roads.