Mosamba

The Ghost House

For the next two weeks I will be working in Namaacha, a small town that sits in the Mozambican “mountains” on the Mozambique-Swaziland border. The Hluvuku office here only has two employees that service around 700 clients. This also marks the first time in Mozambique that I will be doing a homestay. One of the Hluvuku employees, Mariana, has graciously opened the doors of her home to me. I’ve stayed in a lot of weird places before, but this place tops the list for most spookey place I’ve ever laid my head.

Upon entering the home I was convinced there were ghosts in the house, kind of sarcastically but also kind of hoping that there really were ghosts in the house. The joint looks like it had to have been built by some old Portuguese colonial consul and some of the fixtures and fittings are definitely from the era.

The ornate door knocker

There is also a pretty funny social dynamic in the house. It’s me, my co-worker Mariana, her sister Mimi, and very frequently Innocencia (Innocence) our other co-worker. So every night the scene is usually three Mozambican women sitting on the couch watching the Brazilian soap opera talking about the man in Namaacha that has 75 children and Cameron sitting in the arm chair kind of saying “what the fuck is going on here?”. Needless to say, it’s a pretty fun spot.

ornate sink knobs

One night into my stay I started joking with the ladies about ghosts. They kind of laughed, kind of looked at each other and then in all seriousness told me that when they first moved in there really were ghosts in the house. They said that they couldn’t sleep during the night, that they heard people walking around in the house and people banging pots and pans. When the noises didn’t stop they told the landlord and he had a traditional healer come into the house to expel the ghosts. Now the ghosts are gone. Do I believe them? I want to, but I don’t know how much I buy into the African folklore thing. What do you guys think?

spoooooky