I get asked a lot of the time ‘are you locked down in Mozambique?’ or ‘what’s the lockdown like in Mozambique?’. So I thought I’d explain it here. First of all, there isn’t a lockdown as such. It isn’t like the UK was. We aren’t restricted to our house. There are some restrictions here. There is some guidance. There are varying amounts of adherence to all of this.
We are in a state of emergency. This is the first time a Mozambiquan president has declared a state of emergency, and that includes during a civil war. That started in April. It was renewed in May. They can only renew that once more. As far as I know, the constitution doesn’t allow a state of emergency and the extra powers the state has during that period, to go on for over three months.
Exactly what the rules and regulations are here is a little hard to know. To start with some were in place before we arrived. Then as the president put the country into a state of emergency (just days after we arrived) he made a speech about what he was going to do. Some of those things were then blocked by parliament, so it got a little muddled what was in place and what wasn’t. So practically whats going on?
We have social distancing here. We are all supposed to stay a meter or so apart. You are also supposed to wear a face mask. Originally it was ‘in a busy place’ I think it has now changed to ‘anywhere people gather’. In places like supermarkets, shopping malls and places like that everyone wears a mask. Many shops won’t let you in without one. All shops and malls have hand sanitiser that you use on the way in. Many places with trolleys are disinfecting the handles too. Staff mostly have plastic face shields. Lots of shops have also stopped letting children in.
If you go more into the local markets or the centre of local towns its all a bit busier. Some masks are being used, and lots of people are all pretty close together.
Bars have been shut down as has the famous drinks market. I am looking forward to seeing that. It’s like a market where all the stalls are bars. How good is that? But at the moment probably not a great place to go even if they are open. Restaurants are open although they are pretty quiet. Most are doing takeaways. I have found an app called Deliva. It seems to be the African equivalent of Uber Eats. We have only tried it once and the food was quite cold and slow. So we usually stick with places that do their own delivery. So pizza, burgers, Indian food and more can all come delivered to the door. There seems to be a very vague restriction that you can drink with a meal, but not excessively and you shouldn’t go to a restaurant just to drink. So a bowl of olives and 15 pints is out of the question for now.
We are supposed to only go out of the house when we really need to. What constitutes this I’m not quite sure. We go out for exercise sometimes (although we do a lot of Joe Wickes at home). We go out to the supermarket and other shops sometimes, I try to do shop visits all in one go. We haven’t been into the city much apart from to visit a shop and then leave.
The government wants everyone to socially distance at work. For this, they allow a 3rd of the workforce in work at once. The other 2/3 needs to work at home. Who is at work should cycle around every two weeks. Its an odd system but does spread people out. Connectivity is quite good here but not that cheap so working from home can work.
The beaches have been shut. Maputo, where we live is on the coast and has a huge beach. The beach restrictions are pretty strictly enforced by the police. The beach and front are popular places to hang out, exercise, drink beer or fresh coconut milk.
There is a massive issue here with full lockdown. The vast majority of the population can’t manage without going out to work or sell things for more than a couple of days. They don’t have the money to buy food and other essentials for any longer than that. So a lockdown here can’t really work like one in the UK.
So we have restrictions here, but not a lockdown. We don’t go out for meals and we don’t go to peoples houses. We did manage to have a socially distanced beer with our neighbours not long ago which was great. We try and make our own rules and balance our sanity with our safety and our needs with the livelihoods of the locals.
Are we getting the balance right, who knows? We haven’t gone insane and we haven’t got very ill so maybe. Only time will tell. The cases are now starting to rise. The next few weeks are going to be key to what happens next.
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