Purple

I was invited to join the 40th birthday celebration of Paloma, the wife of one of my colleagues. Paloma didn’t hold back and she organised a boat trip in Maputo Bay for a big group of friends. I was expecting a pedestrian one hour pootle but we stayed on the boat until well after dark. It was sensational fun and spectacular light around the Catembe Bridge at sunset.

Disembarking rather merry, the boatload of 40 people went back to Hélder and Paloma’s apartment until the early hours for more beer, music, shisha and an unidentified spirit from their ancestral homeland in Inhambane Province. Roughly fermented from sugar cane, it almost ripped my throat off.

I’m missing my parents’ golden wedding anniversary gathering so I raised a toast on the boat instead.