PLACE

Niassa, Mozambique

Lago District
The province has a national moniker as “end of the world” (fim do mundo) for reasons that include its low population density (8.4 persons per square kilometer, in comparison to 26.1 nationally), lack of infrastructure (in 2010 there were 525 kilometers of paved roads to service the province, an area roughly the size of Mississippi), and history of non-incorporation into the Mozambican nation. In the government’s infamous “Operation Production” in 1983, unemployed urban citizens were forcefully relocated to Niassa, among other remote areas, where they were supposed to become farmers and populate the countryside. At the time of research, rumors were circulating that government officials were sent to Niassa as punishment for disloyalty to the ruling Frelimo party. 
Distrito de Lago is bordered by Lake Niassa to the west, and is dotted with small towns and villages.

The name of Lake Niassa was officially changed to “Lake Malawi” by the Malawian government upon independence. The transmogrification, though not recognized by Tanzania or Mozambique (which also border the lake), is today more familiar to many English-speakers than “Lake Niassa” or the alternative spellings “Lake Nyas(s)a.”

Metangula

Metangula is situated directly along the lakeshore, flanked by bays, rocky outcrops, and sandy beaches. Mount Chifuli sits slightly inland and quickly ascends to 943 meters above sea level. Between the mountain and the shore is a thin strip of habitable land and a small peninsula where most residents live. The town stretches approximately three and a half kilometers east-to-west and about eight kilometers north-to-south as the bird flies, but much of this area is either water or uninhabitable mountain terrain. The Ngwengwese River is the boundary between Metangula and neighboring Chuanga to the north, and an unnamed valley with white rocks is the boundary with Malango to the south. The undulating landscape between is covered in semi-deciduous Miombo woodlands dominated by Brachystegia species. Within villages, where much of the native landscape has been cleared, the valleys are dotted with towering baobabs, and the crescents with expansive mango trees.

​Despite being quite remote, Metangula as I encountered it in 2010 was not a sleepy rural outpost. With a population hovering around 10,000, a naval base, community radio station, police force, deep-water port, and the Lago District’s only daily market, gas station, Level one Health Center (facilities graded just below those of a hospital), and full secondary school, Metangula had the feel of a booming metropolis in comparison to the rest of Lago, and for that matter much of Niassa.

This diagram documents the major paths and roads as I mapped them in 2010, along with the health center, schools, major religious edifices, and other notable features. The neighborhoods of Sanjala, Seli, Dipi, Nchenga, Thungo, Chipili, and Micuio are also visible.

The town of Metangula has, since 2010, expanded considerably, with homes beginning to ascend the Chifuli foothills and trace the mountain passages. The neighborhood behind the gas station has also become much larger.
These images are from my doctoral dissertation, Sustenance and Sociability: Foodways in a Mozambican Town​ (Boston University, 2012).