Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
often recent arrivals from the countryside, rented single-room units in cramped com-
pounds. Many people shared the same room, and perhaps dozens of people would share
the same latrine and, if one was available, a single water spigot. In the 1960s, rent for a
single-room unit might run from 20 to 50 escudos a month.
Those with steadier employment and greater means generally lived in a one- or two-
roomed reed shack built with their own hands. Many also rented such units, paying per-
haps 150 escudos per month.
Andintheolder,moreestablishedneighborhoods,suchasChamanculo,Xipamanine,
andMafalala,halfthehomesormorewerewood-framed,zinc-paneledhouses.Someof
these were featureless shacks, not much of a step up from the reed version. The grander
examples, the homes of the shantytown elite, featured multiple-pitched roofs with high
gables and covered verandahs and wood floors and large pigeon coops, all of which
spokeeloquentlyoftherelativewealthandtasteofitsowner.Somepeopleclandestinely
built concrete walls behind the zinc panels. These finer houses, when rented out, might
go for 500 escudos a month.
Figure 10.7
Zinc-paneled houses in the Maputo Neighborhood of Minkadjuine, 1987. (Credit:
CDFF)
The disparities within the
caniço
were in some ways as striking as those that distin-
guished the
caniço
from the City of Cement. A kind of proto-middle class emerged:
as-
similados
and
mestiços
whospokefluentPortuguese,whointheworkplaceformedrela-
tionships with white Portuguese that exceeded the typically narrow dynamic of servant
and
patrão
, and for whom the formalized city—predominately white though it might
be—was,ifnotcompletelywelcoming,atleastnotcompletelyforeign.Stifledbythera-
