I was told that after the civil war ended, many of the “guerilla” fighters and their families came from out of the bush and moved into Beira. The city is very different politically than Maputo, where the ruling party, FREMLO, has a very strong presence. In Beira, the major opposition party as well as minor parties have strong representation. I heard conversations about politics and government issues/policies/problems, much more so than the conversations I hear in Maputo.
The people I spoke to in Beira are extremely proud of their citizenry and many believe that there are bad feelings between them and the people in Maputo. Maputo is a wealthier city and is seen to have many more employment opportunities, but that is the only reason many say they would go to Maputo. The youth we interviewed were proud that Beira did not participate in the strike of early September and think it was mainly an uprising of youth wanting to vandalize and burn things and agitate the police, not a proper protest.
The city was built on the coast as a major port city and was once the capitol of the country. It is still a the major port in the country and the “Port Building” is depicted on one of the currency coins. A lot of the architecture, as in Maputo, is old and deteriorating; it was built when the Portuguese occupied the country and abandoned when the Portuguese left in 1972. The civil war that ensued caused a lot of damage, particularly in this part of the country. The war came to an abrupt halt in 1992. People were encouraged to move in to the abandoned buildings and take over their maintenance. As time moved on, people couldn’t afford to maintain their flats. Many moved to what are now the barrios – the slum neighborhoods - that circle the city center. Other people looked for less expensive accommodations in the city, settling in abandoned buildings deemed uninhabitable because they are structurally unsound, and have no running water or electricity. One of these structures is the Grande Hotel in Beira.
The Grande Hotel must have been magnificent when it was operational. It is massive has beautiful sweeping lines, and is situated so that guests had wonderful views of the ocean and the city. Today it is a crumbling monstrosity, housing a miniature city of some of Beira’s most vulnerable population.
The hotel is a very dangerous place to be for a number of reasons. The building is in horrible disrepair and even in the daytime, a misstep could be life threatening. At night, when there is nothing but pitch black (there is no electricity or running water), even candle light is not always sufficient to keep people from falling off edges of the building where there are no longer walls or down elevator shafts or stairwells.
It is dangerous because there is crime, and there is violence there. At night in the absolute darkness the situation heightens. No matter the time of day, outsiders are not welcome unless they are with a resident and have been given permission to be there.
The community has its own governance structure which is complex and effective. There are layers upon layers of power culminating with the ‘Boss’ and the “Boss’s Boss.” For an outsider to gain access to even the grounds of the hotel requires a connection. To go into the structure requires permission from someone of power. To actually move about the hotel, have permission to take pictures, and speak to the Boss requires going through a series of introductions, conversations, silent/unseen approvals to move up from one level of permission to another, and ultimately it requires the Boss to decide you are of interest to him.
When we visited, we explained why we interested in talking to people and taking photographs. We were introduced to residents as we were led up and down and around the structure Eventually we were introduced to Nina, a woman who stands in for the boss when he is not available. She led us through some additional introductions (layers of approval?) ultimately bringing us to the rooftop so we could interview a young mother, Nadia, living in a circular room that – if it were to have had windows – would have had a million dollar view.
Nadia was uncomfortable with questions at first and was sharp and suspicious. When I was able to explain what we were doing and why, and clarified that we were not just prying or gawking, she warmed up. She is in her mid twenties and has a baby, not yet walking, named Omar. She has lived at the Grande Hotel since she was five years old. She “bought” the room she has just a year ago. She is worried about the location because the guard wall has fallen away in many spots so Omar could crawl, and eventually run, right off of the roof. She also doesn’t have neighbors on the rooftop which provides privacy but also leaves her without protection. In the photos you can see the size of her home. She has at least one other adult living there with her who did not come out of the house. Nadia brought the baby inside when we first arrived and he was handed back out to her wearing nice clothing. It appears she has some status, indicated by being the person we were brought to, the house she lives in which is comparatively very nice, the good clothing for the baby, and the person helping with the baby.
While we were speaking with Nadia, the ‘Boss’ of the Grande Hotel materialized on the roof top to meet us. He spent about 20 minutes with me. He talked a little about a documentary/movie made in 2008 about the Grande Hotel (titled “The Grande Hotel.” It is supposed to be very good) and said it was well done and depicted things accurately. As for what were the problems there, obviously things like crime and unemployment. But the biggest problem is that the building is dangerous and “could fall down at any moment.” The government sent some people to look around a few years ago and they promised to help people relocate but nothing happened before there was a change in who was in power, and of course, with “new management nothing will happen. They have not come again to see what is here.” He emphatically stated that he wants the government to relocate all of the residents of the hotel, en masse, to a piece of land with basic housing for everyone and take down the building. He believes this is the only solution to the issues of his community. He said bringing in water or electricity was no good as it wouldn’t keep the building from falling down in the middle of the night.
The situation at the Grande Hotel is extremely complicated. There are some people living there who could afford to move to somewhere else, albeit not a very good neighborhood, but one that isn’t going to collapse. There are people running good business in the hotel selling groceries and probably black market items and who are making relatively good money. But the majority of the people are extremely impoverished. I don’t know what options are open to them to relocate.
I don’t believe that any of the people in the hotel will relocate by themselves. This is a very tight knit community even though it is made up of 3,700 people. Many are the original inhabitants who came out of the bush when the war was declared to be over, and they have remained there, raised their families there (like Nadia’s family), and their children are now raising their families there. Others are relatives of those people coming in from all sorts of circumstances. The governing structure within the community is probably very similar to that which was used by the guerrilla fighters during the war, with pyramids of power leading up to the “Boss.” This is what the community has lived with all these years and it would be difficult to adjust to other ways of living, especially if individuals hold positions of power. It is power – not wealth – that holds sway here as in all of the communities, poor and otherwise in Mozambique.
While the structure of the community binds these people together, the fact remains that they live in unbelievable and dangerous conditions and the people that we spoke to there said they want to be in a safer place. It is hard to imagine moving 3,700 people all at once to a new place. But perhaps that is the only viable solution. Even though he may be conflicted about what he wants or how to make positive change, his parting statement from the boss to me was unequivocal and stark. “The government might worry about the cost of moving everyone. But what is that to the cost of paying for the funerals of 3,700 people when come to bury us after the building collapses.”
Selecting a photo below will link you to that photo album.
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| Grand Hotel, Beira |
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| In and Around Maputo, Mozambique |
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| Beira |
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