Bloco de apartamentos

Dirty white tenement blocks are my abiding memory of Maputo from when I visited for the first time in 2004, during the city's grimier heyday. It feels like various of them have been razed and replaced with newer buildings but some choice examples remain and I might end up living somewhere like this. Does this classify as art deco? It's a phrase banded about in reference to Maputo's architecture.

Maputo has some very funky easy co-working spaces, which would suit me down to the ground and avoid the gloom of working from the guesthouse where life and work bleed into each other with no respite. I was introduced to Pedro from Portugal who runs a group of these buildings, and a Colombian woman who works on education programmes for women's menstrual health was nearby selling their virtues.

I was on the cusp of signing up, and then our government partners also reaffirmed their offer of a desk for me. From painful Skypes about budgets in a poky hotel room, I suddenly have several more options which I will think about some more when back from the field at the end of next week.

I met up with Ilidio, who will be my Portuguese teacher, starting soon, and I think we'll get on famously. I felt he was surprised on this first meeting when I launched into some complicated questions on grammar. Knowing some Spanish will help as long as I can switch to a Portuguese way of speaking. No small feat as it's often accused of sounding like an eastern European language.

Dinner with a new friend Luís, who is an interesting character running his own centre for taekwondo, meditation, tantric massage and yoga. Maybe I'll throw caution to the wind and give them all a whirl. Certainly some stress mitigation is going to be needed while here, as the workload is heavy.