Maputo, Maputo, Maputo.
Seven weeks of placing one foot in front of the other. Avoiding potholes. Meeting gazes. Bom día, how are you?
I am good. And you?

This strange city is just like many others, yet in many ways different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I am already familiar with people selling goods sitting on the ground, the loud markets; we had that in some of the places I grew up (in Russia, to be more precise). But I have never lived in a place where moments of eyecontact are so long, and where people reach out to you in such an open and personal way as here, even in brief encounters.

I came here to chage, willingly opening up my head and heart to get stuff thrown around, turned upside down and ruffled.

Please, change.

Seven weeks now, and the changing gets harder. We’re arriving at the deep stuff, I am meeting more and more resistance. This is good. It makes me see who I really am, what is the stuff I simply can’t or don’t want to change, as well as what are the deeply rooted habits and patterns that I really, badly want to change.

Tracing the edges of the self.

It takes time. I am determined to remain soft and slow. Holding the inner child by the hand, growing up a second time.

…

(This story told in pictures.)