Living memory of a magical place

There is a magical place that lives and breathes in my mind, just on the border between memory and imagination.

I got there by waking up in the dark and boarding an overloaded chappa in Pemba, Northen Mozambique. Then I bounced along 102km of gravel, perched among bundles of chalky white cassava and untraceable tangles of dusty dark feet. After five hours, I reached a towering, elephant-skinned pillar of baobab at the edge of a seemingly endless mudflat, animated by brightly painted boats and tiny metallic crabs. I waited patiently for the tide. Eventually, on board the dhow, I saw white-faced women in vibrantly coloured sarongs shrieking, as they waded through the estuary, up to their necks in water, balancing bowls brimming with cowrie shells on their heads.

We sped through the azure blue water over scattered mounds of coral towards Ilha Ibo, a small island harbouring centuries of Mozambican, Arab and Portuguese history- and the fort.

I wondered along a white sandy path, past colonial Portuguese houses, some in ruin, some in slow repair. Ahead of me, obscured by a herd of goats and some overhanging trees, I could see a great mound of startling white.

I reached the gate in a trance and the world slowed down. There were about eight men in the entrance chamber. They each wore a Muslim cap and were bent over an anvil, carefully crafting soft silver jewelery. They barely looked up as I passed in between them, the bright sound of clinging metal rolling gently through my ears.

In the inner courtyard, grows a perfect tree with bright red leaves, its branches stretching just above the fort's bleach white walls. Leaves danced eerily in the breeze, slowing my passage through the gate and up the steps to the top of the fort.

I caught my breath.

In front of me was a white, rounded turret flanked by two black canons, pointing straight out towards the setting sun. The light on the sea turned it from bright turquoise to deep grey/blue and dhows, with full sails were propelled silently past.

I walked around the edge of the fort, struck by perfect angles created by the perfect lines of its star shape. Its center is marked by a three pillared arch, crowned by an archaic white cross.

I walked back to the turret to watch the final minutes of sunset over the sea. A huge dhow floated past. Its occupants, clearly outlined in the light, were staring back towards me. Completely mesmerized, I followed their gaze and then, as if on cue, flying in from the right, the sky was filled with flocks and flocks of slender white birds turned gold in the setting sun.

Behind the bright white facade lies a dark history of brutal slavery, but in the imagined part my memory, I see countless Arabs, Portuguese and Mozambicans entering Ibo Fort, watching the sunset, and sharing my sense of peace and awe for more than two hundred years.