It Takes All Sorts Of People To Make A Crowd

Paul and his somewhat hesitant wife Lizzie moved to Mozambique in 1991, in the middle of a civil war, if one can believe it.

Even from the age of five Paul had resisted education. His nursery school teacher said, ‘Paul is not ready for education’. This continued all the way through his school years. The issue was that he really didn’t want to be told what to do by anyone.

Paul was brought up in Kenya and had, in his early twenties, before moving to Mozambique, run a trading store on behalf of his uncle, in the Nkwalini valley, near Eshowe, which is about a two hour drive north of the port city of Durban in what is now part of South Africa’s Kwa-Zulu/Natal province.

He knew nothing about trading and, at the time, spoke no Zulu. He was accompanied by a rehabilitated prisoner, Victor, who helped him learn Zulu, something that was critical to the venture as all his customers were rural Zulus, who spoke little, if any, English.

He was left alone to make what he could of the situation, which suited him perfectly. He quickly learnt his trade and within a few months learnt to speak Zulu. The store was a great success.

Victor lived on site and to Paul’s horror, one morning expecting to see cheerful Victor busy in the store all he found was a trail of blood coming from under Victor’s door. He had been murdered, probably by fellow ex-prisoners. Paul, somehow managed to deal with the situation; in fact within a year he had built a cottage next to the store and moved in there himself. That incident together with his Kenya experience helped him deal with some of the violence he encountered later.

Paul moved on with his life; he ran his own butchery in Eshowe and then a safari business, travelling round most of Southern Africa.

By the early nineties, living in Durban and using his now fluent Zulu he ran a large group of African sales representatives promoting television programmes throughout rural Zululand and the Xhosa speaking areas, mainly the Transkei, of South Africa; Xhosa, being an Nguni language is very similar to Zulu. He was then asked to move to Johannesburg to take on the whole country.

Paul didn’t really like living in Durban; he didn’t like ‘living in a row’ to quote him but the thought of living in Igoli (Johannesburg), freaked him out, partly because he would be working in the same office as his boss; living in Durban, it was bad enough and he could often just ignore any suggestions/instructions coming from above, in Jo’burg that would be impossible of course. He also hated the impersonal nature of big cities and as far as Paul was concerned Jo’burg was just another ghastly large city, much bigger than Durban, of course.

So he resigned his job, bought a second-hand caravan and he and Lizzie moved to Maputo (formerly Lourenco Marques) the Capital city of the independent, since 1975, country of Mozambique. Mozambique was a Portuguese Colony and its lingua franca was and remains Portuguese. At the time, neither Paul nor Lizzie spoke a word of Portuguese. Lizzie was apprehensive about the move, of course, but to her great credit consistently supported Paul.

When his doting mother, who was thinking of long suffering Lizzie, asked why it couldn’t be a new caravan, he answered, ‘Well it would be a pity for a new caravan to be blown up by a land mine’. She wished she had never asked the question.

They established themselves in the camp-site in central Maputo and eventually managed to erect a secure fence round what became four caravans and a thatched shelter, protected by a couple of fierce rottweilers. They ran several businesses from there, the most successful of which was obtaining visas for, mainly, visitors from South Africa who came for the inexpensive holidays offered by the country and for the big game fishing in the Mozambique channel, which hadn’t been touched for more than thirty years, due, firstly the Mozambique war of independence and then the civil war that ensued.

The security situation was not easy. The on-going civil war between the Frelimo Government forces and the rebel group of Renamo created a dangerous environment. While this situation continued, Lizzie, for the first few years, if she needed to go to Durban, made the journey by air. Paul too, unless, as was often the case, he had had to go to South Africa for supplies. He had a personal rule to negotiate the border posts in the morning, ‘before the soldiers had got themselves drunk’ to quote him. He broke this rule once, passing through the Komatipoort Border Post, from South Africa, just before dark. A few k’s down the road into Mozambique there was an armed man pointing a rifle at his vehicle. Paul just drove straight at him, much to the man’s surprise, but he managed to fire one shot as he jumped away, which went through the windscreen and ricocheted off a ploughshare parked between the seats in the front of Paul’s land cruiser, probably saving him from serious injury or possibly even saving his life. Others weren’t so lucky- on several occasions in the same area, hapless travellers were brutally murdered, just for their vehicle and few possessions.

The Mozambique Government eventually put Paul and Lizzie out of business by setting up consulates in Jo’burg, Durban and Cape Town and insisting that all visas to enter the country were acquired through this route. As much as anything, the commercial opportunity this represented would have been important to the Government of Mozambique; there was no malice towards Paul and Lizzie personally. Both Paul and Lizzie were by this time fluent in Portuguese. Their Zulu skills were also important since the local language of the Shangaan people in Southern Mozambique is close to Zulu.

Did Paul ‘retire hurt’? No he did not. In part in response to the influx of rural Mozambican’s to the cities, particularly Maputo, the Government had introduced a policy whereby suitable people could be given the ‘right of occupation for one hundred years’ to a piece of land, provided it was developed. Paul found a site of some one hundred or so hectares next the small village of Bobole about sixty kilometres north of Maputo on the main road north. He had a couple of boreholes drilled- large quantities of pure pristine water was the result. So he planned to build a motel on the site. Lizzie was always a strong supporter of this initiative. Neither of them wanted to return to South Africa ‘with their tails between their legs’, so to speak..

But first he had to obtain the permission of the local Chief and Administrator to occupy the land. His language skills of course helped, but as he went into the meeting the heavens opened and there was a massive thunderstorm. He was not asked any questions at all. As far as the authorities were concerned the thunderstorm was obviously a positive sign from a higher power and the requisite forms were signed there and then and Paul went on his way, the proud occupier of a sizable piece of land, now with a borehole.

So he and Lizzie built a motel, named ‘Casa Lisa’ with Paul’s own design and his own labour. The place consisted of a dozen or so chalets, built from concrete blocks, each with a shower and a bedroom and a couple of comfortable chairs, all the chalets were equipped with mosquito nets. There was a big central thatched banda with a reception area a bar and a good kitchen. Lizzie was in charge of the kitchen and the bookings. A campsite was established.

Casa Lisa was a success almost from the very start. They did very little promotional work but somehow the increasing number of visitors from South Africa, found them. Many of the visitors came with large retinue of caravans and deep sea fishing vessels and were often bound for Vilanculos which is some nine or ten hours driving further north and more convenient for the fishing grounds. Casa Lisa provided a secure place for the night as well as a decent meal, a bed and usually some congenial company. For security reasons staying in Maputo with such rigs was not an option.

Apart from providing employment for the people from Bobole village, they also built water points round the perimeter of the property and told the people in the village to ‘help themselves’. All this obviously cemented their relationship with the local population; the employment was very welcome in what is a poor area of a poor country and the pure pristine borehole water was a far better option than fetching water from the nearby, polluted, Komati River, both from a health and convenience point of view.

The environment in that area is not easy. It is very hot in summer, and it is malarial- Paul and Lizzie took no anti-malarial prophylactics, which can cause other health problems if taken over a long period of time- they just stayed inside after dusk- there were appropriate screens in all the buildings. They used mosquito nets. Paul also provided the police with forty litres of diesel each week, so they would continue to patrol. The authorities provided limited fuel to the local police, mainly because they thought they would sell most of it.

There are also almost no recreational facilities in the area and overcrowded Maputo has its limitations, so the occasional trip to South Africa was really the only relief from the seven day weeks. In fact the motel in time was sometimes used as a ‘getaway’ venue for some of the expat population in Maputo. Most of the expat population was very transient. To quote Paul, ‘we are the only expats I know who want to be here in Mozambique, people are either part of some UN agency or foreign Government representative, most of the rest are just part of the ‘fast-buck’ brigade, who want to make quick money and then get out if the country as fast as possible.’

In a couple of short years the village of Bobole had been transformed from a dusty little place of no consequence to a relatively thriving place with a main street with a few shops, café’s selling some of the basics including such items as Coca -Cola and chips. The only reason for its development was the existence of the motel.

They had more land than was needed for the motel, so they tried growing pineapples and potatoes on quite a large scale, which also provided more jobs. None of these initiatives worked out particularly well.

They sold ‘Casa Lisa’ (just the business, not the land) after a few years and built a new motel right next door ‘The Blue Anchor’, which was just an upgraded version of Casa Lisa and was equally successful. They repurchased ‘Casa Lisa’ in later years.

For many years Paul had had to generate his own electricity using an old Lister diesel engine, which was expensive. The Mozambique Government, as part of a wider electrification initiative, then included the village of Bobole to the programme. Paul’s electricity costs dropped by 90 % as a result, certainly helping the finances ot The Blue Anchor. Paul and Lizzie then installed air conditioning in all the chalets and main buildings as well as their own cottage and they built a swimming pool; both initiatives made the place much more attractive to visitors.

They ran the business for about twenty years but were looking for a retirement option since by then they were both approaching seventy. Their locally based eldest son, Nigel, who also spoke fluent Portuguese, Zulu, Afrikaans and of course English had agreed to leave his job and run the thriving business. However one week before Nigel was due his local employers woke up to the fact that Nigel was leaving and doubled his salary and offered all sorts of other incentives such as paid overseas trips. Nigel couldn’t afford to turn such an offer down, so the arrangements for Paul and Lizzie’s retirement temporarily fell apart.

Paul, unsuccessfully, over some years, tried to sell the business. He then learnt that Heineken, the Dutch based international brewer was looking for a site to build a brewery in Mozambique. Paul sought them out and eventually persuaded then to at least visit the motel site at Bobole.

Due to British and European Union aid the main road north from Maputo had been improved substantially, so Bobole was now only about twenty minutes away from the centre of Maputo, almost a suburb. Paul also emphasised the quality and quantity of the water on his property.

Eventually Heineken agreed to purchase the whole business including rights to the land. As part of the agreement they also undertook to employ all the motel employees. Heineken was able to use the motel facilities for their construction crew and the brewery was built and started operations in 2018.

This was not the end of the story, however. For legal reasons, Heineken were only able to pay the purchase price in Mozambique. Paul wanted the money outside Mozambique, which has a fragile economy and uncertain exchange rates. Paul ensured that he strictly complied with local laws; he paid all his taxes and waited and waited and waited. The reason given for Mozambique not being able to transfer the money offshore was that the country was short of foreign exchange. Paul was possibly expected to pay a bribe, something he was never tempted to do. Eventually the money was indeed transferred offshore, so Paul and Lizzie were able to implement their retirement plans.

Paul and the long suffering Lizzie did not go to Mozambique for philanthropic reasons. However, their initiative their knowledge and understanding of Africa their language skills and the sympathetic way they dealt with the people of Mozambique, firstly eventually gave them the resources to enable them to retire in reasonable comfort and secondly, due to their initiative and their willingness to endure what to most of us would be seen as considerable hardships, they transformed the small village of Bobole into what is now the centre of what will become a major industrial area, providing many jobs for local people.

It’s interesting that Paul and Lizzie take no credit for the transformation of Bobole. That was not why they went to Mozambique, they went there for personal reasons and to better themselves. They do see that their activities and initiatives transformed a small part of the country and the lives of the people who live there.

Much of what we hear and see about Africa is bad news and often a disaster. This true story gives one some hope for the future, but it does require a certain type of person to do what Paul and Lizzie managed to do.