Glossary

Terms are in alphabetical order:

• Bairros: Neighborhoods that subdivide a village; similar to the Spanish term “ barrios.” The neighborhoods are usually monitored by a “chefe do bairro,” who hears complaints, deals with conflicts, and sometimes helps to organize local sports teams and committees.
• Dirtiness: Matola used the Portuguese word “sujedade,” which literally means “dirtiness” but is often used to mean something like “crap” or “shit.”
• Empregada: Literally, “one who is employed”; derived from the Portuguese “emprego” (“job”). An epregada (female) or epregado (male) is someone hired to cook, clean, and take care of other household duties. In Mozambique, one does not have to be particularly wealthy to hire a full-time epregada or or epregado; given the high rate of unemployment, many men and women will work as empregados or empregadas for less than US $1 a day.
• Komatipoort: A town on the South African side of the South African/Mozambican border. Like most third-world border towns, it is full of strange dealings, money-changers, illicit goods, and prostitutes. For Moambans, however, Komatipoort’s pre-packaged meats and luxury items were worlds away from what was available in Mozambique.
• Não estão equipado para o hip hop: Literally, “They [these languages] are not equipped for hip hop,” in Portuguese.
• Papaya: This soft, mild fruit is widely consumed in Mozambique. Although it’s sold in marketplaces, the papaya is also a communal fruit, available for the taking where trees grow in the wild.
• Pipoca: “Popcorn” in Portuguese; also the name of an open-air bar in Moamba.
• Portuguese verb structure: As in Spanish, many Portuguese verbs end in “-ar”; for example: explicar, manipular, vomitar. This verb form also allows for the easy invention of slang, by simply adding “-ar” to the end of an English word or name. (My favorite was the slang word that described the act of improvising a solution or a tool — e.g., sharpening a pencil with a rock. The word for that, based on reruns of an old American TV show broadcast on Televisao de Mocambique, was “MacGyvar.”)
• Pretoria: Also known as “Tshwane”; the executive capital of South Africa and the largest major population center close to Mozambique.
• Que Bom: “How nice” in Portuguese.
• Senhor Tovene: “Mr. Tovene” in Portuguese.
• Standard eight : Eighth grade. In Mozambique, universal secondary school goes up to tenth grade; after that, students can choose if they want to do two more years, specializing in either “sciences” or “letters.”
• Tontonto: A cheap and highly alcoholic bootlegged liquor that is not to be trifled with.