Hey, it may be a dump, but it´s MY dump!

It´s a non-descript, neglected , 4 story structure in a crumbling city of elegant buildings that haven´t seen a lick of maintenance since the Portuguese left in a hurry in 1975. The building that I call home is just across the street from the beach, and a block from the city hospital (800 beds, 1400 patients). Like the rest of the city, it cries out desperately for a fresh coat paint. When I first entered it, climbing up 5 or 6 steps onto a small stoop, then into the building, I was a bit dismayed to find a homeless man living in the lobby- unkempt, smelling of urine, clothes in tatters. I later found out he was the night watchman. The smell of urine recedes you climb up the 5 flights of stairs to the top floor where we live. Along the way, you can catch glimpses of the street below through dirty and mostly broken windows. If you´re lucky, it´s still light out, otherwise you are left standing in the dark outside our flat, trying to find the slot for the key. Our main door, dead-bolted and latched in 2 places, is protected by an impressive padlocked gate of steel rebar.



As you enter, the circuit breaker panel is to your left. I found out yesterday, when I was investigating the non-functioning water pump (the city water supply had inexplicably failed), that the fuses had all been bypassed with strips of wire. The ceiling of the living room has a large crack that leaks when it rains. We are told not to leave the kitchen door open at night so that the rats won´t come in. The shower has two settings- cold ,and really cold! The windows don´t close tightly, so the mosquito´s get in at night (yup, malaria in the air). An industrial strength fan keeps the mosquito´s down and makes some white noise. The road between the building and the beach is extensively potholed and repaired, and the old death trap cars and busses that pass by all day protest loudly. Luckily, the traffic mostly dies down after 10 PM, and we hear mostly the waves on the beach at night (unless it is Friday or Saturday, when a bar magically appears in the building across the street and plays loud music till 2 AM.

The view from the deck is a fine one of the beach and bay to the south. I watch fisherman sail out in dugout canoes as I eat my breakfast, and watch them come back as the sun sets in the evening. You can cross the street to the beach, and buy fresh fish from the fisherman in the evening.



They street scene makes for good entertainment: lots of hospital employees, medical students, patients families, etc walking by. In the early morning poor African women gather in the street, bent over at the waist, sweeping sand that has blown from the beach into little piles, using a bundle of sticks for a broom. They load the sand into sacks and wheelbarrows, and carry it off to their houses in the slum, which is built in/on the swamp and has a lot of standing water. They put the sand on the ground to try to raise it up a bit and dry it out. (They are not allowed to collect sand from the beach.)



Mohammed and Achmed are the two brothers, both medical students, who live in the garage downstairs. Their “space” contains the large water tank for the whole building . On either side of them is a ”paderia”, a small shopfront that sells bread at irregular hours, and a small beauty parlor. Out back, in a sort of shack that may have been maid´s quarters at one time, lives a women with 3 or 4 small children. They hang out on the sidewalk most of the day next to a small stack of banana´s and tangerines (about 30 cents for 6 bananas, 5 cents for a tangerine)