Spinach shortage

A Sunday spent as Sundays should be spent: relaxing, seeing friends, eating and being diligent enough to plan for the week ahead.

I took a tuk-tuk to the supermarket to ensure I could do ‘clean eating’ this week (January health drive going from strength to strength). My regular driver Paulo isn’t around on Sundays (church followed by ensuring he’s keeping his wife and two mistresses sweet - although not with flowers as every time we pass a vendor he reminds me there’s no way he’d buy a woman those).

Today’s tuk-tuk ride was lighter on the adultery but heavier on the mechanical issues. On a slight incline we came to a halt until the gearstick was violently wriggled and we lurched forward incredibly slowly. Maputo’s version of a Sunday driver.

At the supermarket there was a spinach shortage, which was annoying to realise as it’s a key part of the clean eating plan. I substituted with pak choi, which used to be a regular go-to in Vietnam, smothered in garlic and soy sauce. Each checkout experience in a Mozambican supermarket entails a twenty minute delay due to an unreadable barcode. Today some cashew nuts were the offending product which sent a cashier scurrying around the store to replace the item. It needed three attempts to be accepted. I played a role not dissimilar to Dale Winton in Supermarket Sweep, egging her on from the sidelines.

I had a video chat with Gugs in Myanmar about careers, travels and love. It was great fun. I do these less often than I should because I don’t like being pinned down to specific timeslots during my free time and I want to reduce how often I have a phone in my face. However the benefits do outweigh the negatives and it was excellent to catch up.

Later I met Luís for some Chinese food, in that totally counterproductive way humans cram things before their careful resolution to amend their ways the following day. Luís has been battling an ear infection for weeks, which has been pretty miserable, and I had to direct my booming into his one functioning right ear. He said Maputo friends had ‘taken care of me’ during the holidays, which I misheard as ‘taken heroin’. My initial response was that some ear pain seems like a lucky escape. After eating I fell asleep on the rug in his living room and extracted myself two minutes before an Airbnb guest arrived.

In the evening, still on the clean eating fad, I could be found boiling eggs, dicing onions and halving avocados.

The Maputo sky is often like this, with wispy clouds, and I always enjoy seeing it.