Just Back: a happy picture of Mozambique I point my lens back towards the fading exterior of Maputo's central railway station and click off a couple of shots. It's early autumn in Mozambique, the sun is still strong, even at dusk, and the people move lazily along Avenida 25 de Septembro from one empty building to the next. I've been walking around the city for three days now. The Portuguese abandoned the country overnight in 1975. Fifteen years of civil war followed, then 20 years of peace in which it would appear nothing has been built, pulled down or renovated. At times it feels as though I'm walking through a place lost to the world, where nature has strolled in to reclaim the buildings and roads. Tree roots and weeds push through pavements and turn-of-the-century façades, distorting carved stonework and decorative paving into grotesque caricatures of European architecture. The man in the Jeep is the fourth white man who has warned me of danger. In three days I haven't seen a single white person walking anywhere, and few white people at all. The only exception is the Café Continental on Samora Machel Baixa, where South Africans, Americans and Europeans meet for good espresso and fabulous patisserie. When they finish they get back in their cars or their taxis and disappear again. A group of kids heads my way. I raise my camera in defiance of pessimism and they smile at me and keep walking. People have been smiling and staring since I arrived. Wood smoke is rolling in the air. If I close my eyes I could be in the country: the city's sounds are muted and dull, and the air is fragrant. Everything about Maputo is incongruous. Everyone is selling something but the shops are abandoned. Families sleep under rusting lorries parked up outside Edwardian villas. The streets are filthy but they smell sweet. On my way to the ferry (I'm staying across the bay in Catembe) I come to a gaping hole in the pavement, 20 feet square at least. I can feel the ground give way as I step to the edge. I can't see the bottom. There's no warning of danger. Maybe one day someone will steal my camera. They stole my last one. But that was in London. And no one smiles at me there. Email your entry of no more than 500 words (with the text in the email itself rather than attached) to justback@telegraph.co.uk by midnight on Wednesday, April 18.