Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Outside the curve the shantytowns began. The
subúrbios
, as the shantytowns were
often called, existed in the gray area of the law. Housing there was unauthorized, and
thereforeofficiallyillegal,butitwastolerated(Morais2001).Mosthouseswerebuiltof
reed walls with zinc roofs, roads were mud tracks, homes were lit with paraffin lamps,
and fetching water was a daily tribulation. In the absence of sewage and drainage sys-
tems, flooding and cholera outbreaks were common and malaria rampant. In the 1960s,
thelocalpressdubbedtheshantytownsthe
Cidade de Caniço
,theCityofReeds(Rangel
1996).
Intheworkplace andinbarsafterwork,menfromdifferentbackgroundsoftenmixed
easily—particularly when the black men were
assimilados
. In private homes in the city
it wasn't unusual for the children of black women to grow up with the children of the
women's white employers. This kind of essentially human conviviality persists pretty
much anywhere, but while people may have felt close to each other as individuals, they
inevitably met on profoundly unequal terms (Errante 2003). In L. Lloys Frates's study
(2002) of Mozambican women's memories of late colonial Lourenço Marques, the City
of Cement was described as a place where one walked with caution if one went there at
all.
Assimilados
,particularly men, could beseen at restaurants, the cinema, schools, and
in shops.
Figure 10.6
The shantytowns of Lourenço Marques were built on poorly drained, flood-prone
land that was deemed undesirable for European development. During the annual rainy season,
African residents of many neighborhoods lived with standing water in their homes, and malaria
and cholera took a heavy toll. This photo was taken in 1966, in the aftermath of the historically
catastrophic Tropical Depression Claude. (Credit: AHM)
