Maputo, Mozambique

Maputo is a city that has been left to rot, like a dead tree trunk with new, flourishing creepers poking their way out out of the decaying husk. The people still live there, in the massive crumbling buildings, relics of a colonial history that look like the wastelands of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. 1970's and Art Deco architecture towers over the natural jungle of Mozambique; grotesque, alien looking paw paw trees and cliche looking, swaying postcard perfect coconut palms that grow out of sandy ditches in the potholed pavements. The buildings are all in various states of disrepair, most seem to have never been painted, merely mostly finished and abandoned. The old and the new mingle freely, brand spanking new shopping malls and banks shining out of the scrap heap, their crisp paintjobs making them seem like promiscuous young upstarts, the new kids on the block destined to become decrepit, wrinkled and tattered like the old timers of Maputo's architectural scene.

Hawkers line the streets, selling fresh prawns, dried fish, consumer goods, and a bewildering array of uniquely african things. You could almost live your whole life here and never darken the doorstep of a shopping mall, and in fact, most people probably have, since there might easily be only two shopping malls in the whole of Mozambique, for all I know. And they both suck, in case you were wondering.
Everything you need is on the streets. Coriander, parsley, spring onions, peri peri, fruit, vegetables ( though not a massive array, basically just onions, green peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes), coconuts, bananas, cashew nuts and lettuce are all pretty common things to see on the streets, lying on questionably sanitary bits of plastic sheet, cloth or sacks, in the hot african sun. So sure, not the most hygienic way of shopping of most things, but hygiene quickly becomes a dim memory, something you do when you're at home, like shower most days and talk about religion.

This style of shopping is convenient, efficient and really has a lot of potential! Gone are the long queues of Pick n Pay, no more weighing items and comparing six different fucking types of quinoa, you just take what there is, haggle or accept the price, and pay. Cash only, no cards, no standing in that snake of a queue, past the sweets and chocolates, (should I get a snickers, do i deserve it, yes!) no awkward hello's to the cashier who obviously has the shittiest job on the planet. You simply walk from wherever you're coming from to wherever you're going, and buy what you need for dinner there, on the way. The prices are lower, because you're buying from only one person with practically no overheads who benefits directly, and you walk away feeling less of a consumer, more a person who merely buys their food. At the end of the day, you have thousands of people being self employed, rather than working for some creepy massive corporation. These micro-entrepreneurs are building relationships with their customers who live near them, who buy from them every day (only enough for a meal, no weekly shopping here!) The only casualty is the hygiene, which was over rated to begin with anyway..