Here is to a fruitful 2013

 Reconnecting the internet and DSTV. Finding out what is happening at home and elsewhere in the world. Governed only by the daily rhythm of the tides our world has shrunk to miniscule events –   the fish catch, the music wafting from neighbouring homes, what to eat. 
And the activity on the beach below us. This morning I woke with first light at 4am to see a boat sunk in the bay – its mast sticking up above the incoming tide.  A group of young men were hauling on the anchor rope dragging it heavily to shore while women waiting for the catch to come in waded into the warm water and bailed out the boat with their fish buckets.
Time has stretched and expanded in a tropical stupor. Ten days has felt like a month. My friend visiting from Boston has never experienced doing nothing for such a long stretch of time. Even swimming is hot with the sea water at body temperature. 
New Year’s Day found many people literally washed up on the beach.  A party kept going all night at local beach restaurant Tropical – with a dramatic display of fireworks at midnight over the ocean. At least there is no danger of drunken driving in a fishing village. No need to risk the roads when you can stagger home along the beach and sleep where you fall to be roused by the blazing sun and rising tide at 6am!
Food is bountiful and simple. At low tide with the quiet sandbanks exposed seemingly all the way to the islands – people walk out and return with blue runner crabs –  and clams.  The speciality of the region is matapa – cassava leaves pounded with peanuts, crab and coconut cooked with tomatoes, onions and spices.  At high tide the long nets bring in a variety of firm sea fish. We cook simply, flavouring freshly caught fish with lemon, garlic, oil and chillie. 
The fresher the food the less needs to be done with it. We’ve steamed piles of clams  (five kilos for $5) with garlic and picked them out of their shells dousing them in garlic and olive oil and leaving shell debris building up the sand-dunes.  Calamari is scalded in boiling water for a few minutes and then marinated with olive oil, garlic and herbs.
The height of the fruit season means carts of pineapples, mangoes dripping from almost every tree, golden pawpaws, bananas and of course coconut. (3 for $1 in the market). We’ve cooked in coconut oil, drunk coconut cocktails – whiskey poured into green coconut water – eaten coconut rice and taken care of our sweet cravings with sticky coconut cake.
Fresh grated coconut makes all the difference. Mozambique boasts a special coconut grating stool with a serated metal blade sticking horizontally out from the stool. Takes no time at all to sit and grate half a coconut rasping it on the rounded blade.
Mix together 2 beaten eggs with ½ cup sugar. Add grated coconut and ¼ cup coconut oil – then 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1½ cups flour.  Spoon into greased tin and bake for about 40 mins. In the meantime make a syrup with ½ cup sugar, 1 cup water and extra grated coconut.  Boil together and allow to reduce before pouring over the hot cake.
We bring back coconuts and back in Zimbabwe soaking wet with lovely rain, buy mushrooms from the roadside. Abundance from earth and sea. May it continue throughout 2013.
– g.jeke@yahoo.com