Island of Mozambique

The island was a Swahili trading settlement long before Europeans saw it, with a sheltered anchorage on the route between the Zambezi goldfields, the Comoros and the wider Indian Ocean; its ruler when the Portuguese arrived was a sheikh whose name, in one common account, gave Moçambique to the island and then to the whole country. Vasco da Gama called in 1498, and Portugal took the island in the first decade of the sixteenth century, building a hospital, a chapel and, from 1558, the great fortress of São Sebastião to hold the anchorage against Dutch and other rivals; sieges in the early 1600s failed against its walls.

For nearly four centuries the island was the capital of Portuguese East Africa and one of the busiest ports on the coast: a transhipment point for ivory, gold and cloth, and, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a centre of the slave trade to the Indian Ocean islands and the Americas — a history the island's buildings and cemeteries record. Merchant families from Goa, Gujarat, Arabia and Portugal built the stone houses and warehouses that still line its streets.

The end came with steamships and the mainland. Trade moved to the new harbour at Nacala, and in 1898 the capital was transferred to Lourenço Marques, the modern Maputo. The island became a quiet provincial town, its stone half slowly emptying as the thatched Macuti half filled. A bridge to the mainland opened in the 1960s. In 1991 UNESCO inscribed the whole island as a World Heritage Site, and since then restoration work, much of it with Portuguese and other foreign support, has repaired churches, the palace and a growing number of houses.

Ilha is a meeting place made permanent. Its people are mostly Makhuwa and coastal Muslims whose families have traded, married and worked across the Indian Ocean for generations, and the island's culture carries Swahili, Arab, Indian and Portuguese threads at once. Mosques, Catholic churches and a Hindu temple stand within a few minutes of each other, and Islamic festivals set the calendar for most families.

The best-known local tradition is tufo, a dance performed by women in matching capulanas to songs and frame drums, associated with Islamic celebrations along the northern coast and danced here at weddings and religious festivals. Silver and craft work, model dhows, basketry and painted furniture are made and sold in the streets, and the island has drawn artists and musicians from across Mozambique because of its setting and its history.

Life is conducted outdoors and at a slow pace. Men fish and repair boats, women carry water and trade, children play football on the open ground by the fortress, and the evening brings everyone onto the seafront and the square. Greetings are unhurried and formal in both Portuguese and Emakhuwa. Modesty in dress is the norm, and visitors are expected to ask before photographing people, houses or prayers. Ramadan is widely observed, and the day's rhythm changes noticeably during it.

About 14,000 people live on the island, most of them in Macuti Town, which occupies the southern half in a dense pattern of thatched and sheet-metal houses along sandy lanes. The stone town's population is much smaller; many of its buildings are used as guesthouses, offices, schools or storage, and some stand roofless. The island's district includes mainland areas, and many families have relatives across the bridge.

Fishing is the island's economic base, with boats going out for reef fish, octopus and prawns, and the catch sold at the landings and carried to the mainland. Tourism, restoration work, small trade and government jobs make up much of the rest, and money sent by relatives working in Nampula, Nacala and South Africa matters to many households. Unemployment is high and most work is informal.

The day begins before dawn with prayers and the first boats, the market fills in the morning, and the middle of the day is quiet in the heat. Fresh water has to be brought from the mainland and supply is a constant concern, as are electricity cuts, crowding and sanitation in Macuti Town, the cost of living, and the slow pace of restoration in the stone town. Erosion and rising seas along the shore are discussed more each year.

Island food is coastal and Indian Ocean food: fish, prawns, crab, octopus and calamari, grilled over charcoal or stewed in coconut milk with garlic and chilli. Rice cooked with coconut is the usual accompaniment rather than the maize xima of inland Mozambique, and matapa — cassava leaves ground with peanuts and cooked with coconut — appears on most tables.

Trade left its mark. Chamuças, the triangular fried pastries of Indian origin, are sold at the market and on the street, curries and spiced rice dishes are common, and cashews, mangoes, papaya and coconut are everyday foods rather than treats. Bread rolls, coffee and custard tarts are the Portuguese contribution, taken in the morning on the main square.

Drinks are tea, strong coffee, coconut water taken straight from the nut, and sugarcane and fruit juices; alcohol is available in the restaurants and guesthouses but plays little part in the life of a mostly Muslim town. The simplest and best meal on the island is fish bought at a landing beach and grilled on the sand with lime and piri-piri.