Our arrival to Maputo, "i heard a word from within that told me i think i have been here before" where that could possibly come from, i have still not understood, my friends from Mozambique i have always known to be lively people and very jovial but i thought maybe that was the effect of being an artiste, but hell no, in Maputo it seems that everybody was an artiste, as crazy as any crazy artiste i know, 8th of August, the day of our arrival, it was Sitoe who came to pick us from the airport, he approached us without introduction and he said "donne moi votre passport" (give me your passports) i didn't know which one to do, laugh or obey, we obeyed but i wasn't at rest until i was sure that he was from the Centro Cultural Franco-Moçambicano, this is the only country where we learnt few Portuguese during our tour, this is the only country where we performed on a conventional venue, this is the only country where we remained at the airport for over an hour, declaring all our materials and valuables, the fatigue that followed us from Jo'burg was still with us but said goodbye when we got to the Ibis Hotel where we saw a ready made flyers of our shows, then we said ok, this is another phase.
Jean Michel Champault, the director o the CCFM also added to my reason for reply "Mozambique" when ever I’m being asked of the country i did enjoyed most? i have met a lot of French in France and elsewhere and i can really say that i hadn't met many French like Jean Michel in terms of his level of human and generosity, everything was in place just as in Jo'burg, the first plan was to visit Catembe, our venues across the river, and we had to go by boat, a journey that last not more than 20 minutes and i was surprised at the speed at which the boat was transformed to something that looks to me more like a discotheque, it was a serious vibration, the authentic smiles on their face was something i had never come across during my three long years in France, and i said to myself i think we all need to redefine what we refer to as poverty because for me nothing could be richer than a happy soul with a good hearth.
Stephanie, Diana Manhiça, Marie Elisa, Quito Tembe, Paulo David Sitoe (Litho), Antonio Sitoe and all the super people of CCFM plus the wonderful life on the streets of Maputo will want me to go back to Maputo again and again, on the day of our first show at Catembe on the 5th of August, to our greatest surprise the venue was already taken over by a group of high spirited people, each of them with a bottle in their hands, either a soft drink, water, but mostly alcohol or local aperitif, ranging from all ages and sexes, i looked at Christelle and we realized that we really need to kill this people in a very different way from a cold war, for to them i think road show and outdoor performances is not a phantom to them even if they haven't tagged it, for the next thirty minute, our so called stage has been filled with both young and old, male and female all dancing to Sitoe's vibration who was the DJ, the challenges of performing in non-conventional spaces done on us and thank God we have one thing ahead of them, i am also an Acrobat, Christelle is also a Juggler, so that was the joker we played with, i bet if we were all about dance, then we would have been in a real checkmate. it ended up wonderfully as expected while we walk down the sea side to have some delicious sea food at Diana's place, Equador Espaço Cultural em Catembe, the next performance was in township (Bairro do Jardim), an evening with Matchume and his music group Timbila Muzimba, Matchume who also happens to be a friend i met during the Avignon festival in 2006, it was the tenth anniversary of his music group, so we were like the invited performers who added glamour to the evening.
As all these events were happening, on the other end i was part of a brain storming conference in Maputo with Jasper, Selo Pessa, Painebra Gabriel, and two other guys for two days as well as rehearsals for a collaboration with four other local artistes, Edna Jaime, Macario Tomé, Jorje Ndlozy and Francisco José Macuvele who performed with us during our third show at the prestigious open air theatre of the CCFM as proposed by the Director, so we said Why not.
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