I learned, by reading other blogs, that the best way to get around Maputo is in a car of your own. Without a car, your best bet is to hop in random cabs and collect the business cards of the drivers who don’t rip you off. Then, when you need a lift somewhere, you ring up one of your honest drivers. That’s how we met Carlos.
Carlos seems a fairly quiet guy, not very confident about his English. He speaks all of the necessary words and phrases well enough for us to understand, but every word comes creeping out of his mouth like it’s on tiptoe. When he drops us off, he smiles weakly and drives away.
Today, I rang up Carlos and asked him to pick me up at our flat. Minutes later, I was riding in the back seat of his car listening to something a bit jazzy and African and loungey at once. Until this point, the only Portuguese Id felt confident enough to try with Carlos was when we thanked him for the ride. But today I had my pocket dictionary.
“Boa música,” I said. Good music.
Carlos burst out laughing. “Boa música! Boa, boa. You speak Portuguese?” Maybe he thought I’d been holding out on him.
My turn to laugh. “No.”
“Não?”
“Estou estudando.”
“Ah.” He asked, in Portuguese, whether I am studying at home.
“Sim. E …escola?”
He then asked whether the school is close to my home. That one required repeating.
“Oh. Yes, yes. It is.”
“Não ‘yes,’” he corrected me. “Sim.”
“Oh. Right. Sim.”
Then he put his hand on his chest.
“Eu…”
I nodded.
“Não..”
He waited for me to nod again.
“Falo…”
Uh-huh…
“Mais…”
Mm-hm…
“Inglês.”
No more English for you, lady.
I slapped my forehead. “Oh, no…”
“Eh?”
“Oh, não…”
He nodded sternly, as if it say that I’d waste my breath to try talking him out of it.
I was secretly thrilled. Immersion is the best way to learn, although it’s not one that I was ready to push for. Certainly not one I’d be strict about. But him making the decision on my behalf meant that he was up for the game. That he would enforce the rules. That he actually wants to sit through my painful pronunciations and poor word choices. That he’s willing to play the role of teacher.
On the ride home, he asked question after question, one clear word at a time. I cobbled together answers using a combination of knowledge, pocket dictionary, and guesses based on Spanish. It worked. Every time I got something right, he beamed. Then I beamed.
When Carlos dropped me off, he was still beaming. I even gave him one more chance to laugh at me before he drove away, and I think that sealed the deal: Carlos é meu taxista.
But don’t quote me on that. I still have to ask Carlos whether it’s grammatically correct.
