Bandits fired through the window glass and through his shoulder, dumped him out on the road, and roared away in his truck. The fourth CCM truck stolen since November. At CCM Maputo we know hardly anyone who hasn't been threatened or attacked with a gun or knife or broken bottle, robbed, assaulted, burglarized or swarmed. Some few people in Maputo have gotten rich in the last two years, thanks to World Bank free-market fundamentalism. Anywhere outside Maputo, it's bare survival and early death.
People come to the city, desperate for work, and a longer life.
For many of them there is neither. But in store windows they see brand-name clothes and electronic toys. On the streets they see new Mercedes, Land Rovers, BMWs. They see the billboards hawking cars, cell-phones, credit cards, alcohol and cigarettes. The ethic they absorb is, Consume.