Bons sinais

Good signs.

Quelimane’s river’s Portuguese name is Rio dos Bons Sinais (River of the Good Signs). This is because Vasco da Gama is alleged to have stopped off here on his odyssey to India, seen pleasing signs of drawing closer (people in Indian garb; this stretch of coast has long been a melting pot for traders and mixing between Africa, Arabia and South Asia) and remarked that the signs were good. This is how basic we Europeans were in naming things, and we probably thought we were being wonderfully creative and ground-breaking.

I had a long, slow, enjoyable post-rain walk around Quelimane this afternoon, following the trail of buildings of architectural interest. Art deco in abundance. Lots of biting ants on Quelimane’s pavements was another discovery, and not such a pleasing one as the art deco and general sense of urban history.

The humidity was sweltering so I walked at around 1 mile per hour. I was tickled to read that Quelimane no longer has ‘buffalo sized potholes in the city centre’, and I would dispute that based on some of the backstreets I wandered down. Potholes that could at least have submerged a baby buffalo.

The Águia Cinema is a particularly large landmark in the city centre. It was opened in the 1950s, I imagine for the amusement of Quelimane’s Portuguese colonial population. Today it’s well and truly shuttered, faded and fenced off. Apparently the current mayor of Quelimane is an active sort and I saw efforts being made to restore the original cathedral and colonial governor’s house. I hope we’ll soon see the Águia rise like a phoenix from the decrepitude.