Vendors

Walking on Water

I didn't realize that W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh story was never published until seeing the segment about his time with Magnum on The Genius of Photography. I guess it's because I have seen pictures from the project over the years. I fully realize my project is nowhere near the magnitude or quality of his wonderful obsession. The thing that got me was that he made thousands of pictures over several years under the illusion that he was changing the world with his chronicle of the city. I'm still chipping away but will probably keep at this little strip of coastal Maputo. I've been trying to show the encroachment of urban life on the Marginal, concentrating on the beach erosion and seawalls.

Out with the Kids

When I was living in Lisbon, my little boy, then the only one, often went on assignments with me strapped into his Baby Bjorn hanging in front of me. We have a nanny (out on maternity leave of all things) here, but I still spend significant time changing diapers, cooking, picking up toys and being engaged in constant battles of wills. If I ever pop back into the newspaper photo editing world, I think parenthood will make me a better manager.

My wife is back in the U.S. until next Sunday doing important government stuff, but meanwhile I'm juggling a restless one year old and three year old. Today, I took them on an outing to Catembe, a town across the bay which requires a ferry ride (we were mostly interested in the ferry ride). I had Charles strapped in front in the Baby Bjorn and Thomas on the loose. I'm always proud of getting a good picture when I have a fussy baby strapped to me who was trying to grab my camera or strap when I was shooting.

Slippin' and Slidin'

An integral part of my Marginal project that I want to refocus on and have tried to make more compelling pictures of are of the beach erosion problem. Essentially the physical road, Avenida Marginal, is going to kill part of the local culture because of the eroding beach and the construction of sea walls. A way of life will fade away when the beaches disappear. When I was a photographer at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, I worked on a long-term project with a reporter and artist called The Beach Builders that looked at the enormous monetary and environmental costs of rebuilding beaches because of beach erosion. We also explored the human cost since dredging sand that is pumped back onto beaches is one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. The story took us to the Carolinas, Alabama and Mississippi aside from our very own Florida coast and it was the type of thing that infuriates you since essentially tons of money, much damage and several lives are given essentially so rich people can keep their homes and luxury condos on the beach at the expense of everyone else: classic.

It's one of the things that struck me when I got her because it's so obvious with crumbling roads and trees with exposed roots lining the beach. Also, the new U.S. embassy is being constructed on Avenida Marginal. That along with the construction of luxury gated communties and neighborhoods, it is a pattern that I'm familiar with and know that ultimately for a cash-strapped country like Mozambique ripe with corruption a skewed priorities, a sea wall is the solution.

The ten kilometers of road that makes up "the Marginal" goes from the bridge that separates the dirt road leading to the Bairro dos Pescadores, or fishing village, from Costa do Sol to the roundabout at Praça do Robert Mugabe. The latter half of the road runs along coast where a sea wall separates land from the bay. I've been examining old photographs of Lorenço Marques (the name that the city was called until 1975 in its colonial Portuguese days), and there was once a beach called Polana beach and a club there called Polana Pavillion. I asked a young woman who works at the Club Naval, which neighbored the old Polana Pavillion, and asked her if it the zone was still known as Polana beach or if the walk was still known as the Polana Esplanade. She looked at me with bewilderment and was too confused to give any answer. I explained what used to be there and that once an actual beach and beach club and pier neighbored her place of employment. She was surprised. Essentially, the area that is now characterized by its sea walls and leads to the port and downtown Maputo is foreshadowing what will most likely be the fate of the more rural parts of the Marginal.

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

The family and I went to South Africa this weekend to go grocery shopping (things are significantly cheaper and higher quality there). I missed a boat race that was going on on Saturday at Clube Naval. It's a South African holiday and there were lots of racers from there in Maputo with their rocket-like boats, unfortunately I missed it and was a bit frustrated about it. I hung out for a few hours this morning trying again to make something interesting out of volleyball games that go on.