Mtwara Thoughts

25th January 2007

Afternoon
It seems funny, or rather, strange writing that date. Sitting here, looking out over a plane of flat sand, wearing loose cotton cloths, feeling the warm breeze, it feels as though it can’t be January. I feel separated, divorced and distant from all that the word connotes; cold, wind and rain-January, a troublesome month of darkness.

So here I among the coast of Mtwara, way down south on the Tanzanian mainland, I’m having a few stolen hours of nothing. I have escaped from work, following a non-existent workshop this morning, to a quiet hotel with a lovely view. It’s rather more splendid than our own accommodation, which has been in considerably more basic Mtwaran establishments, much to my enjoyment.

The view here stretches over the wet sand flats to the blue grey-green expanse of the sea beyond. I can see the occasional fisherman wading through the shallows, over half a kilometre out and a sailboat, cruising for fish, sail billowing, gliding softly southward with a full crew aboard. There are also two young boys, who I took to be rocks, sitting so still, the colour of the coast line, ochre and brown. Otherwise the beach is left to the crabs, seaweed and coral stone.

Standing on the sand I could hear a distinct tapping. Convinced it was crabs, I began to scan the rocks for them. The creatures on the shoreline here are hard to spot, blending with their environment so well, only their movement betrays them. Crabs, sand grey and muted green, even a soft jade merging with grey coral rocks. There are small lizards too, of similar soft, blue-grey hues. Camouflage aside, there were simply not enough crabs to be making that noise. I listen closer, perhaps more of a popping? It was the seaweed; languorous on the smooth rocks, slowly drying in the active breeze.

Being on the coast of the mainland always fills me with a thrill, thinking of the vast expanse of land stretching behind me, all the way westwards across the continent. Deep down south, near the border with Mozambique, looking out to sea, here I am on the edge of it all. Wow.


******
Night
So, it’s raining. An occasional drop, then a patter, then a constant stream, a downpour, a torrent, and just as you think it can’t get any heavier, a thunderous gush of pounding followed by a brief abatement, like a drawing of breath, before another onslaught.

I love the rain. I watch it from my window here at the hotel. It’s not the most promising of views, through the mosquito mesh and seurity wire out onto a small car park with a pick-up and two Toyotas, a closed gate and a coconut tree, bark silver with wet. But I can see the night sky light up with sheet lightning; quick, bright flashes that come at surprisingly short intervals and I can hear the distant rumbling roar of thunder rolling of the sea.

I’m writing with the light off so that I can see the light play across the patch of sky. Really this storm deserves a dramatic back drop to match its energy, depth and variety. I remember Morogoro and the fantastic stage of mountains there; lightning brightening the open night sky, silhouetting the mountains.

Finally, a power cut, so that I can further justify the romantic torch light. Now that it’s really very dark, the flashes are more pronounced; a vivid, almost blue strobe, a moment of captured highlights, dim- bright – dim, the coconut black against the white sky.

Lights back on, drama lost, but still the rain falls.

With my eyes closed the rain transports me home to those occasional thunderous downpours. I imagine a north Cornish coast, battered and drenched, the drumming on caravan roofs, hot tea and jumpers. Here, wrapped in a cotton scarf, with the fan whirling, it’s not quite the same, but the same secure, snug sense of being dry and warm, apart from the dampness of sweat, still is.