Parque Nacional da Gorongosa Moçambique

I have two stories that have come up from the depths of my memory just a few days ago. I found an old Gorongosa map in the heap of my disorganized bits and pieces of paper, looked at it, and a
30-year old film seemed to pass again in front of my eyes…

First quarter of 1975, war over, Mozambique was on the way to independence. I was sent up to Gorongosa, mostly to help reestablish destroyed game scout outposts. But my mission also included reopening long unused access tracks and data collection for some sort of human population control scheme. We only knew that during the war years an unknown number of people had moved in, particularly to the eastern sector of the park (that is, on the way up to the Cheringoma plateau, east of the Mucombedzi-Urema line).

(The film came through because the old, scrappy map pinpoints new and old settlements, indicates number of families per village, identifies village headmen and provides some more information of the same sort.)

A good portion of the work to find the new settlements and reassess old ones had to be done on foot, because cars frighten people unused to them for years and because illegal encroachers are not really keen on settling along roads, for obvious reasons.

For a number of months I went up and down with a rucksack and sleeping bag, a few kilos of mapira, beans, peixe-seco (tinned sardines), notebook, and the precious old map. My usual companion in these erratic to’s and fro’s was dear Castigo Manamankulo, who, I heard, died last year. Please consider these 2 two stories from those days a tribute to his memory.

High-Tech Population Census

We approached the first settlements the wrong way.  We got there, freed ourselves of rucksack cargoes, greeted people, drank some water, sat among the crowd, and asked directly: “Where have you come from, why, how long ago, how many are you, etc.”  It didn't work. During the war it had been promised that the land would be freed for settlement, so people looked sideways at my dear friend Manamankulo, looked even more sideways at me,  and a lot of lies started jumping into the air. One person didn't live there at all, the other had just come to visit a friend, another one was just having a quick rest on the way to some other place, etc., etc., etc.  It didn't really work. 

So we had to design a new strategy. We would arrive, free ourselves of rucksack cargos, greet people, drink some water, sit among the crowd, talk of this and of that--but ask no questions. Until Manamankulo, casually, very casually, would ask someone who appeared to be the headman:  "What about my friend Joaquim Jofrisse?  I have some business with him. I came all this way to see him, and I do not see him among you.  Is he perhaps away, working in the machamba or something?"

Joaquim Jofrisse was, of course, an invented name and an invented person. That was part of the plan. That is why the headman would always answer:  "No,  you are  confused, there is no Joaquim Jofrisse living in this place." Manamankulo would then put on the most startled look he could: "How come?  I just talked to the man a few days ago and he assured me that he was living here with his family!" 

The discussion would go on for some time until the headman seemed to be losing his patience: "Look, my friend! You are wrong. I have already told you that there is no such Jofrisse family living in this place. The families living here are (and with the right hand he started manipulating the fingers of the left hand): Madeira, Jemusse,  Nambikwaio, Miketaio, Alfinete, Nhamtaza,” and this one, and that one, etc., etc.

The whole time I would be sitting down against some tree trunk,  apparently very far away from all the discussion that was going on. In my hand I had a little stick with which I pretended to be quite lazily drawing things in the sand. But at every name heard I would casually draw a vertical dash somewhere until no more names were heard and the conversation was over  and Manamankulo  declared himself satisfied enough that his friend Jofrisse had given him the wrong information on his whereabouts.

Then, still casually, I would count the dashes: 11 dashes equals 11 families, times an average of 6 persons per family equals 66 people total.  We thanked everybody, put on our rucksacks again, and told the headman that we were moving to try and find that mischievous Jofrisse somewhere else.

Next village we would be looking for Mr Smart Mazamba or for some other imaginary fellow invented on the way. Old, dear Manamankulo would always laugh heartily at the names I invented.

High-tech census?  Certainly not. But it worked. 

Sharing Natural Resources

In one of those trips we left Kangantole after lunch and were heading south.  Objective: reach the Macorreia plains and the Mucombedzi river, where, Manamankulo said, some nice "msopo" (a fish, Clarias sp.) would be waiting for us.  Nice thought since we had been on flower and tinned sardines for quite a few days.

We arrived at the desired place late afternoon. There was the Mucombedzi, there were the usual crocodiles, and movements in the water also indicated the presence of msopo.  "Big ones, you will see," said Manamankulo.  "And fat minhoca for bait", he also said (minhoca means “worm”).

But there were no minhocas at that time of the year. Apparently there where some gaps in Manamankulo's knowledge of minhoca biology and we scratched and scratched the mud  to no avail until a grasshopper flew by and Manamankulo said how stupid he was for not having initially thought of the grasshopper, a fine bait for big msopo.

Then we climbed the river bank again and started going after the grasshoppers in the plain. We would spot one on the grass, approach it carefully, and, when close enough, jump on it, belly first. But we quickly realized that the Macorreia grasshoppers seemed to be a species quite well adapted to human predation since they would  always escape before we could fall on them. 

I gave up the fight and sat down on a fallen tree trunk, enjoying a fantastic view of the plains teeming with game.  After all it would only be another flower and sardines dinner. Or we might even be adventurous enough to shift to flower and peixe seco, who knew?

But Manamankulo insisted. From the distance I could see him approaching carefully, jump, fail and try another grasshopper until he went behind a thicket and out of my sight. 

Seconds or minutes later I heard noises behind the thicket and birds flying in every direction. A buffalo! Dear Manamankulo had probably come across one of those old buffalo that we usually see half asleep in mud baths.  I ran to help, but no help was required as Mr. Manamankulo was coming from behind the bushes in quite a tranquil manner. And he was carrying in his hand something which I couldn't identify in the distance but which at closer quarters seemed to be a guinea fowl.

It was not a guinea fowl. It was half a guinea fowl that Manamankulo had stolen from a dining jackal after chasing him away. That is what he told me.

I made an angry face.  "It is not correct, Mr M. Manamankulo. We should be friends with the jackal. We are paid to protect him, not to steal his food."

Then old Manamankulo said something that I shall never forget: "I don't quite understand you, Mr. Costa. It is true that we should be friends with the jackal.  But the jackal should be friends with us, too.  He had food, we didn't have food. I didn't steal anything from him: we just shared a meal."

You may have already heard a lot about this business of natural resource sharing, maybe even read one or two of the many doctoral theses that abound on the subject. But I never heard the issue being dealt with in Manamankulo's straightforward manner. That day the genus Homo and the genus Canis shared the food offered by the environment in which both were living. Real, true sharing of natural resources--that was what happened that late afternoon on the Macorreia plains.