VIDA DAS MARES: EBB AND FLOW OF LIFE ON MOZAMBIQUE ISLAND
Connected to land by a three-kilometer bridge, the small crescent-shaped island is a world away from anywhere. Wooden dhows and large white sails mark every horizon, fresh lobsters sit on display in Mercado de peixe, windows and door of houses are left open to catch the coastal breeze, and on every corner are crumbling 15th-century Portuguese buildings painted in sky blues, pinks and yellows. Colour and textures are etched into every corner of Ilha, on street signs, in women’s headscarves, jewelery, windowsills, labels, bicycles, crockery; on every line of laundry. Music blasts on muffled speakers, and if men and women are not dancing as they walk, their feet or hips are always be tapping along to the rhythm.
Days on Ilha were spent waking at first light and stretched well into the early hours of the morning, as I navigated the small cobbled streets of Makuti Town, meeting more and more local people. For breakfast I would buy samosas and fresh papaya at the local market, before taking photographs at my favourite wall; a crumbling and washed aqua-coloured shopfront always bustling with activity. I carried a Polaroid camera to give people their own photograph as a souvenir, and I was often ushered from one house to the next so that different families could pose for their portraits. Different houses would play music, dance or share a beer or soda with me, without speaking a word of English but always welcoming me back or waving the next day when I walked by. In the heat of the day, I would venture to the white, sandy beaches surrounding Fortaleza de Sao Sabastiao, the oldest fort still standing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Here, kids spent their afternoons swimming, collecting seashells and occasionally finding treasures from Portuguese trading ships that had sunk off the coast hundreds of years ago. Under pink and orange skies at sunset, I played soccer barefoot outside the towering Portuguese Church of San Antonio and the tall palms on the eastern headland. By nightfall, the only local bar on the island, Copacabana, completely transformed; attracting swarms of people to dance in the streets while the DJ remixed Miley Cyrus with Mozambican pop. Each night I would climb under a mosquito net to sleep, completely bewildered at just how much I had seen in one day.
Ilha de Moçambique is one of the most beautiful places I have ever photographed; it is an oasis for any traveller, an artefact for any historian, a masterpiece for any foodie, and the most incredible conclusion to a tiring journey across the Swahili coast. The island itself is in fact, timeless. An indescribable feeling that only those walking the narrow streets, watching colours dance across the skyor swimming beneath the surface in crystal clear waters, can truly fathom.