Lunch at Victor's Apartment & Dinner with the Boss

HOW GOOD IS BRAZILIAN FOOD?

2008

Once again we head out on foot from the hotel. A persistent street vendor follows us for quite a while speaking softly about his need to make a sale. We have been instructed to pretend there is no-one there when we are accosted in the street, so we march purposefully on until he finally gives up. This does not feel good. We crisscross through the streets to end up finally at Victor’s building at 12 sharp, where he is waiting for us out front. Bernadette, the maid, has prepared a lavish meal with rice, beans, fish, chicken, salad of grated carrots and beetroot, as well as salad of cold garbanzo beans. Gabriel and Thaís are co-hosting, and Thaís has made a delicious lemon mousse for dessert. The lemons here taste like a more perfumed version of the yellow Sicilian kind, but have the peel of an ‘ugly fruit’, knobby and dirty yellow. After lunch Sr. Costa, the cab-driver of the day, takes us to see a trade fair, where for us the most interesting are glass cages with two pythons, a feisty scorpion, and with a rather large light brown hairy tarantula. The rest of the exhibition is of agricultural machines, where we had hoped for folk art. Sr, Costa moves us on to Maputo shopping, a modern collection of stores usually found in such a place, although with the striking detail that all the mannequins in the displays are white, which seems distinctly odd. We return to the hotel to freshen up and then Victor picks us up - again with Sr. Costa - to go to his university, Instituto Superior Politécnico Universitário - ISPU - where he is taking afternoon and night classes 4 times a week. The buildings are new and the classrooms reminiscent of those found in Rio de Janeiro. Back to the hotel we go (with Sr. Costa), and some hours later we pick Victor up in another cab to go to a fancy restaurant, The Meat Co., inside the Casino, where we finally meet Mr. Onitiri, who has been so wonderfully helpful to Victor. He is a very charming and intelligent man and we appreciate how lucky Victor has been to have come to this place to work for such an inspiring man, live with warm and friendly room mates and study in a pleasant environment.https://picasaweb.google.com/108088723826036223432/LunchAtVictorSApartmentDowntownAPolitecnicaAndMrOnitiri?authkey=Gv1sRgCPWxvJTJuZC5XA

LUNCH AT VICTOR’S APARTMENT - DINNER WITH THE BOSS

September 3, 2008 10:49 AM

Rice, pinto beans, poached fish, breast of chicken baked with wedges of potatoes - this is what awaits Victor and his room mates when they come home on their lunch breaks.