For all the
turbulence surrounding the coal mines, international companies, local politics
and mining in general here in Tete, until now there has been very little sign
of the actual resource that’s caused all the trouble.
Imposing company signage for "Tayanna" overwhelming the smaller sign for "Minas Moatise" stood adjacent to a few small piles of black dust surrounded by some machinery,
neatly placed next to the main road between Tete and Moatize. We passed it several times before I thought
to ask that was all about, and was told that I was gazing at a coal mine – I’d
thought they were a road construction camp!
So much for visions of headgear and an impressive mine infrastructure.
There are many stories of people struggling to establish gardens, as the coal lies less
than a spade depth below the surface. Its
proximity causes tremendous surface heat, killing plants even if you can dig
down deep enough to plant them. This
resource, which has global industry sitting up and panting, literally just lies
in the streets. As for large mining
houses and set ups of the sort we’re used to on the Witwatersrand, not a bit of
it. Just some signage announcing the
mining companies, with a few branded cars and bakkies parked next to small office
buildings, very little else to show.
But things
are changing. On the surface, Tete is slowing
down. People are packing up and moving
on and there’s a glut of rental houses on the market at prices much lower than
they were. The community notice board is filled with posts advertising cars and
household contents for sale.
At the same
time, the range of general items we take for granted in less out-posted places
has exploded and (ignore the cost – rule one of international travel, DO NOT
CONVERT TO ZAR!) – Provita, beauty and
hair salons, bath towels and stationery are quite easily come across now. Don’t shriek with laughter at how excited I
was to find sponge scourers for washing up - persuading Elita to keep it intact
and not remove the scourer side attached to the sponge is another matter. Decent coffee, tea light candles, clothes
pegs…the list goes on.
Since my last visit two lovely new restaurants
have opened up; we now enjoy superb Indian cuisine from the little place across
the bridge in Tete town and the sundowners on the deck at Agua do Coco in Moatize
are fabulous. Pizza from Chingale beats
any we’ve eaten in White River hands down.
The wizened Italian proprietor, who doesn’t speak a word of English but
always visits our table to ‘chat’ and nod, leaves us a little uneasy – we’ve
seen too many godfather / mafia movies, I think, but there is definitely a
whiff of the Italian underworld about him.
So life here is getting easier especially as we are still in the cool
season and the temperature remains in the low 30 degrees C.
But comfort
living and consumer goods are not the only changes in town – the mountain of
coal heaped at Minas Moatize now is staggering.
Huge boulders of the black rock gleam out of the pile which is taller
than a double storey house. The number
of processing conveyers has multiplied and the activity level bustles
positively. And this is a minnow compared to the mammoth global mining conglomerates up the road.
Earlier
this week I was transfixed by the sight of a passing train. Freight car after car loaded with coal clattered
past for many long minutes. The railway woes keeping the ‘bullion’ hostage in
Moatize for the past year appear to be clearing and the business of mining and
exporting coal is picking up.
I’m not
sure why the sight of that train so stirred me.
Coal is, after all, the underlying reason for the frenetic development
of the region and why we are all here.
Why should a noisy steel monster bearing piles of black energy cause any
wonder? After some pensive thought, I realize
that the growing mountains of coal and the rattling railway cars herald change. The town is moving forward, the time of pioneering
derring-do has passed and everything is growing up –transforming into and
establishing adult status.
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