Contra-tempo (Against time)

It’s 06:49 am and you’re on your way to Chamissava in KaTembe, to watch birds. You’re crossing the wetland. Dirt and pavement have been laid down to connect an area in rapid urban expansion and the old KaTembe town, where you’re coming from. You’re taken aback by the colours in the horizon. Here, time doesn’t seem to follow a linear trajectory. The past, present and future come together. Urbanization is held back by the cyclical flooding of the wetland, but you can see demarcated plots emerging. Even a petrol station. Red dirt, extracted from somewhere, is poured on top of this swampy land — we’re reclaiming the area now. To your left, you see trash pilling up in an enclave on the roadside — signs of an incipient makeshift dump site. Public services are hard to come by in the expansion zones that characterize most of the Greater Maputo Metropolitan Area. To your right, you see the city of Maputo across the bay, enveloped in the early sun, and take a picture. You try to capture the past, present and future, all at once. The lower parts of Maputo were once a marshy area, just like this one. To this day, flooding still plagues the city’s downtown. Rain has become a symbol of our tense relationship with time and the city itself. Rain has become a “contra-tempo”.

Contra-tempo — from compounding the words contra (against) and tempo (time), in Portuguese. It refers to an unexpected circumstance or incident, which prevents or contradicts the course of an event. An obstacle, hindrance, annoyance. Something out of time, inopportune.