How do you know that you’ve arrived in Africa?

1) The sliding doors of the airport open, you exit and are struck by around 40-42-45 degrees Centigrade of heat. You go down the three steps at the entrance and you are sweating all over.

Welcome to Mozambique immediately after the rainy season…How do you say “crazy humidity” in Portuguese?

2) Another sign of your arrival in Africa are the almost 30 travelling hours that are now behind you: Milan, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Pemba. And tomorrow we have to reach Palma, which is another 400 km away from Pemba, another hour of flight…I don’t want to fly any more!!!

3) The women wear very colourful clothes. You immediately recognise the typical capulanas in many different colours: red, yellow, green, blue, with patterns, dots, traditional motifs, tied at the waist, a capulana on the head, one wound round the back that holds a child.

4) If you meet a person’s eye, they greet you: “Bom dia, como està?” No, I don’t know this person but here everyone greets each other and thanks each other by saying: “Obrigado”.

5) The palms and unforgettable mango trees. The wonderful, majestic mango trees. Monitoring and research have demonstrated that when they produce fruit the health of the population improves, then returns to an average value, improves again when the papayas are mature and returns to an average value when the season ends.

6) The last sign that you have arrived in Africa: you’re white. The colourful capulanas don’t suit us pale whites as well as they suit the natives. We, who are white, clash a little with the red of Mozambique’s clay soil.

You need a few days to get used to it, then you don’t notice any more and you start saying that you are black, inside.