On Friday September 4, 2009 we drove to Bilene with a couple of international friends for a weekend sun, sand and sea. Bilene is located about 200 kilometres north of the capital Maputo and is situated at a beautiful lagoon, with colorful fish, seahorses and flamingo’s.
We arrived at our camping spot at Compleixo de Palmeiros in the afternoon and pitched our tents for the night (without the tarpaulin), because of the heat.
There were rumours about a party in Bilene during the weekend, because they’d open the Lagoon, but what to expect? On Saturday morning it was going to happen: they would open the Lagoon of Bilene to the ocean (again)! At least, that’s what we thought…
At 8:00 am we walked to the village for breakfast. We discovered that the streets were full with men, men with shovels. First we didn’t really understand what was going, but when we asked them what they’re doing there with their shovels, they told us that they’d open the lagoon today, that’s right, with the shovels! At the other side of the lagoon, a sand dune dammed the lagoon from the ocean and they were going to shovel that open. So we arranged a boat to take us to the sand dune in the afternoon, to take a look at the digging ourselves.
A couple of young kids stayed close to our camp the whole day, playing around and keeping an eye on us. When we showed them how to use a frisbee, they were very enthusiastic and practiced for hours. At the end of the day we gave them the frisbee as a present and they couldn’t be happier.
At 4 pm we arrived at the little beach, which was a lot bigger than we thought. No excavators, just a lot of men with shovels. The start was planned at 4 pm, so we arrived just in time! But again, we were wrong.
It was a huge event, but there was a problem. Instead of the 200 selected men, 300 men with shovels showed up at the beach. So before the shoveling could start, 100 men had to ‘resign’. They could earn 200 Mts (about €6) with the job and they all needed the money. Taking the plunge took some time: one moment the men were all lined up and ready to shovel, moments later they were all in groups heavily discussing who could stay and who had to leave. This repeated four times in 1,5 hours.
A lot of men with shovels
While the men were arguing, we asked around why the opening of the lagoon to the sea was necessary. We were told that they do that once in a while, because the water level was becoming too high and that’s dangerous for the electricity poles, but also to get new fish into the lagoon. It had to happen that night because it was spring tide (full moon): during low tide at night they had to dig and spring-high tide would help to make the opening wider.
Meanwhile, a group of whales swam by, so all spectators paid more attention to the ocean rather than the bickering men.
Finally, at 5:30 pm only 200 men were left and positioned in two double lines and then: the first shovel in the sand! With a lot of energy, singing and shouting the men were digging. But we were not convinced that they would have opened the lagoon by the next morning. There was só much sand…
Sunday morning at 6:30 am: ‘The lagoon is empty!!!’ With this shout from one of the boys from our group we woke up. Nobody truly believed him, but we were so curious that we all ran to the beach. Of course, the lagoon wasn’t empty, but we did see a huge opening connecting the lagoon to the ocean!
The 200 men managed to dig such a big hole in the sandbar at night that the lagoon and the ocean were connected again. An amazing performance for them and a lot of entertainment for us.
Location:
Compleixo Palmeras (camping and chalets)
Address: Lagoa Uembje, Mozambique
Email: palmeira@virconn.com
Tel: +258 282 59019
Mob: +258 82 304 3720
Please read my blogs about Tofo, Macaneta and Maputo if you’d like more travel inspiration for Mozambique.
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