Day 2 in Maputo: A run-in with friendly policemen

On my second day in Maputo, a lot of the sites I had planned to visit were closed. I knew this of the National Gallery beforehand, but I was caught by surprise when I arrived at the doors of the Museu da Moeda and they were not open. Contrary to the information on Google, the museum would not open until two o’clock, which was far too late for me given my afternoon flight. It was in front of this museum that an old lady approached me and demanded I erase my pictures of her from my camera. At first, I did not understand what she was saying, but when I did, my surprise gave way to a kind of disbelieving admiration for the misguided vanity that had led the lady to believe I was taking a picture of her and not of the historical building quite literally across the road from her. She did not believe I had not taken a single picture of her even when I showed her my camera roll, so I had to ask a nearby policeman to intervene. She demanded he give her his bottle of water.

The only museum I found open that day (I did not really feel interested in the fishing museum) was the Maputo Railway Museum – the Museu dos CFM. There were not very many people inside, but the displays and panels were interesting enough, presenting the history of Mozambique’s railways alongside the country’s turbulent political developments.

I left the railway station hoping to find a tuk-tuk immediately, but I did not come across one until I had walked along the street stalls past several major junctions. I asked the driver to take me first to the Square of Mozambican Heroes and then the Airport, but I must have expressed myself unclearly in my practically Neanderthalic Portuguese, as the driver drove past the square and I had to ask him to go come back.

I was walking on the square taking pictures of the star-shaped monument in the middle when a policeman called out to me and approached me. I managed to respond to the first line of the obligatory pleasantries in passable Portuguese, so he proceeded to speak to me in the language despite my evident struggle to put together a proper sentence without resorting to a mutilated Spanish. The policeman told me that taking pictures on the square was prohibited (though it was, he explained, permitted from across the square) and asked me to accompany him to the police station just across from the square. He did this all in such a polite and friendly manner that I had no misgivings and followed him as blithely as I would a local guide.

My interview at the police “station” – a table under a marquee – was very laid back. The policemen were curious about where I was from, why I had chosen to visit Mozambique, and how many days I was staying. They did make me delete almost all my photos of the monument, but I took longer and longer between each file asking, “and this one too?” until they took pity on me and let me keep the last two in exchange for my repeated assurances that they were intended strictly for my personal pleasure. I could see my driver observing the situation nervously from behind the fence, but I was let go within less than five minutes. When we arrived at the airport, I left him plenty of change for his patience.  

The view from my hotel room
The gate of Tunduru Park
Inside Tunduru Park
The Museu da Moeda
The Central Railway Station
Inside the Railway Station
The Victory Monument in front of the Railway Station

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