Led by children

It turned out to be more challenging; in fact, just finding a way over the dunes to the flat land below was hard - I was met a few times by overgrown, steep valleys but finally found a steep but passable path down to the area I would later learn was the community of Conguiana. Below, the path split and curved and disappeared; it was all palm trees, cassava fields and, walking farther, the occasional cluster of rectangular homes with thatched or metal roofs and reed siding and no electricity. Also - no people.

Eventually I spotted a family, including three women under a shade tree, one doing another's hair and another caring for the children. I called out from afar, so as not to startle them, and they waved me over, asked me to take pictures and gamely answered my question about why there were thousands of shells piled up around the tree's trunk.

"It's to make the foundation of a house," said one of the men who joined us, Luis Ernesto. He spoke to the women in Bitonga, and told me they would send two of the children to lead me to the road, if I'd give the kids 20 meticais.

Then, in a moment that would have seemed surreal to American parents, they sent a girl and a boy, Dulce and Manito, maybe ages 8 and 6, off with a stranger through the woods to the road.

It took about 30 minutes to reach the main road - I would never have found it on my own. I gave them their money (50 meticais instead of 20, still less than $2). As I waited for the chapa to Tofo, I chatted with three men sitting at a table drinking a snow-white drink.

"Do you know what this is?" one said. Much like the kids I had met on the beach who had been unable to identify New York pizza, I did not recognize Mozambican coconut beer.

The difference, of course, was that the kids couldn't eat the pizza photo; whereas I sure could have a few glasses of beer while I waited for the bus.

The New York Times