Year 1 – Week 4: Surviving Machanga from Meal to Meal, Minute to Minute

With a good New Years behind us, we had high hopes for getting out of Vilanculos. Richie and I woke up on the early side figuring we would give ourselves a good chance of getting out. Of course, as we walked down to the villa, it started raining. Hard. This was not good news for anyone. Once we got into town, we came across a rather large group of white people, including some Volunteers, all looking to head toward Beira. This was good news for us. The other Volunteers tried to negotiate a price, but it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.

Richie and I didn’t want to wait, so we headed out. We caught a ride to the crossroads – from a Namibian man now living in Vilanculos – where we ran into our friends from Peace Corps Zambia. They had been waiting all morning trying to get a ride north. Richie and I joined them, but there weren’t many cars passing and the ones that were didn’t stop. About 20 minutes after we got to the crossroads, a chapa stopped, and who is in it but the group of white people from earlier. We jumped in the chapa, and we were off and running.

No more than forty five minutes into the ride did we hit a massive pothole and blow a wheel bearing. We had hoped it was something less serious and reparable, but it didn’t look promising. Richie and I decided that we were going to get in the first car that stopped for us, regardless of direction: either we were heading north toward Machanga or back south to Vilanculos. It took a half an hour, but a car stopped and took us all the way back to the villa. We paid the man generously.

I walked back to the room where we had been staying, hoping that our friends were still there. The door was open and all of their stuff was there – minor victory? I knocked on the door, and our friend replied “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t even form a response. All I could do was laugh like a psychopath. And then she joined in on the laughing. We decided that we should try to catch the bus heading to Beira the next day and then go from there. The bus left at 4:30 AM, so we pretty much slept the rest of the day, until waking up at 2:30 AM to get to the villa.

Of course, it was raining as we walked down to the bus stop. The bus was empty – very good news. We got on the bus and found some decent seats. And after the thing was push started, we were told to get off the bus. Apparently, you needed a ticket to be on the bus. No one clued us in on this little detail. Defeated, but not totally hopeless, we got off the bus. We knew that a chapa left for Mambone – the city across the river from us – sometime during the morning. We waited for its arrival at around 7:30, but we figured we would be waiting – I mean, how many people want to go to Mambone?

We sat in that forsaken van for three hours as people eked their way into the car. Before leaving, a couple young girls walked up to the chapa trying to sell us onions. The only words they said in English – to Richie – were “Where do you touch me?” Strange sentence to know. Meanwhile, they were sure that we spoke English – until I told them that we were from Russia and couldn’t understand English. This put aside any efforts by them to speak English, plus it helped me work on my Portuguese.

Finally, at 10:31 on a miserably grey Saturday morning, we were off and running to Mambone. We didn’t want to say anything on ride up about having good luck or whatever because if we said anything, it would surely screw everything up. But all in all, we made it to Mambone pretty quickly. We crossed the river in a canoe with eight other people; I thought we were going to sink. Finally, we finished our trip with a walk through the bush to our school, complete with snake sighting. I never thought I’d write these words, but I can actually say I was happy to be back.

We spent our afternoon relaxing, mostly waiting for the electricity to come on. The high point of our afternoon was shaving – what sad lives we lead. And it was all down hill from there. As I was prepping for dinner, I sliced open my thumb. It bled enough for me to donate what I had lost to the Red Cross – almost. When the energy came on, we plugged in our newly-acquired stove into our newly-acquired power strip. It seemed to be working fine, until it started to smoke and then explode. Shit. Wisely, Richie tried to unplug the power strip, but exposed his hand to open wires, electrocuting himself. This was a bad day for hands. We ate our spaghetti dinner – that’s right, back to basics for us – watched some episodes of “The Office” and went to bed as the electricity went out.

I woke up at 7:30 – after nine solid hours of sleep – thinking I could get a good jump on the day. I had written out a list of five things I wanted to get done, and then I remembered that this was Africa, and accomplishing just one of those would make for a good day. But instead of starting on that list, I stayed in bed for another two hours. Now 9:30, I was ready to get on with my day. I went to the well to pump some water so I could do laundry. It has been so long since I have done laundry that I almost forgot how to do it. As I finished hanging my laundry, it started to rain. Why, god, do you torture me like this?

As I did laundry, Richie went to the market to buy our standard items – potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, and bread. But for some reason, many of the stores were closed, so Richie came back with potatoes and tomato paste. That meant lunch was French fries – very healthy lunch. After lunch, we went back to the well to pump water. I am convinced that one can get in a full arm workout just by pumping water. Of course, we probably didn’t need to pump water, as it started to rain again shortly after.

With a lot of potatoes and nothing but time on my hands, I thought I would be ambitious and try to make gnocchi. I found the recipe in our handy cookbook, but could not get the right consistency after mixing in the flour. I figured how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty standard. I accomplished one of the things on my list – creating a “closet,” which means a stick where I can put hangers – and starting drawing out a building plan for a kitchen. This, of course, requires materials, which we don’t have. One can dream, right?

As the electricity came on, we fired up the stove and put the “gnocchi” up. Remember how I said “how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes”: it was bad enough that I had to put the word “gnocchi” in quotes because what we ate definitely did not qualify as gnocchi. I may have insulted all Italians with this disaster. It tasted like xima (SHE-mah), a Mozambican staple food made purely of corn flour and water. It was bad enough that neither Richie nor I could finish our food, and that never happens. This is what I get for being ambitious – epic failure. Maybe it’s better just to “aim medium,” as a family friend would say. We decided that we should stop trying and just stick to our standard food for a while.

With that nightmare and this long day behind us, we needed to laugh. We watched a couple episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” until the power went out. At least there was no bleeding and no electrocution today.

After last night, it could only get better. The gnocchi gave didn’t give us any stomach problems – in fact, it may have actually helped. I woke up late and headed to the market; it was my day to go. I can’t really call the market trip successful, but it wasn’t a gnocchi-sized failure – they were falta tomatoes and potatoes and some child followed me the entire way home. I yelled at him twice. And then somebody told me “Ele nao e bom na cabeza” – “He is not right in the head.” On the positive side, I got a cold – yes, cold! – Coca-Cola and we bought a small storage unit.

Vowing not to let the gnocchi failure deter me – and since there were no potatoes – I was forced to stray into a new food realm: rice. With some fried egg, garlic, onions, and soy sauce, Richie and I enjoyed what was possibly or best meal here.

We did almost nothing in the afternoon. We talked with some colleagues, did some Su Doku, stared blankly at walls, pondering “what are we doing with our lives?” Our energy came on late, as has been the norm recently. We don’t like this very much. With no potatoes, and not wanting pasta, we turned to Betty Crocker. We cracked one of the two boxes of instant potatoes my aunt sent me, cooked some eggs, and had a decent meal. We closed the night watching “Knocked Up,” a quality movie.

I had trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t helped by a 2 AM sports report text message from another Volunteer. We woke up to a monsoon-like downpour. And by “we,” I mean “I,” because Richie was bed-ridden for the entire day. He was supposed to go to the market today, but he couldn’t even make it to the front door. So I made my way over and – hello! – I fond delicious bread. This is good news. I also came across red onion for the first time and just for good measure, I got another cold Coca-Cola. To top it off, no one followed me home today.

I returned home and Richie was exactly where he was when I left – curled up in bed. Richie didn’t want to eat, so I made rice for one, and it was pretty good again. I killed off the afternoon playing Su Doku and learning a new game similar to checkers. I got slaughtered in every game, but it’s okay. It was a good opportunity to bond with co-workers and work on some Portuguese.

As the afternoon wound down, and it cooled off a bit, I started clearing out the land behind our house. Once the rain stops, I’ll be able to plant some crops. I’m sick of walking to that market, and it will be so much more convenient to walk to the backyard to get tomatoes. After a long afternoon’s work of throwing a hoe, I relaxed, made the standard spaghetti for dinner (which Richie actually ate), and called it a night.

I had trouble sleeping again, another night ruined by Larium. Richie went to the market early, early enough to return before I rolled out of bed. It looked like a decent day, so I finished up some laundry. Finally, all of my clothes were clean. Clothes washed, I went back into the yard to continue tilling the land. We made rice and eggs, again, lunch. It’s good, but it’s already getting old.

The afternoon started as usual – heat, Su Doku, doing nothing. Of course, I chose the hottest part of the day to continue working on the garden. I also started on the front of the house. It’s nothing but a layer of sand over dirt, and some flowers would add some decent color to this otherwise hideous yellowish-reddish house. Richie and I also spent part of the afternoon talking to colleagues about nothing in particular. Post-game, we vented about how much Portuguese we still don’t understand. In time, I hope, we will get it. I think once school starts and all of our colleagues are here, it will flourish.

With the power on earlier than the now usual 6:30, but still later than when it supposed to come on, we ate our spaghetti and watched “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In all, this was the fastest day I’ve had in Machanga. Keeping busy helps a lot. And with a lot of work to do behind the house, I should be able to keep busy up until school begins.

Thursday marked a second consecutive “fast day.” I had trouble sleeping again, this time from a combination of the heat and hearing bugs all around my bed. I slept until about 9:00 and headed to the market. All of our standard items were still missing, which is starting to become problematic, but they did have pineapple for the first time in a while. There was also some improvement with the mentally challenged boy following me. He asked me for money three times and I just ignored him. As I walked away from the market, he stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at me. And the little bastard actually hit me. I turned around, and just laughed. There was no point in going back there to deal with him. He would just follow me around more.

By the time I got back from the market, it was just about time to start preparing for lunch. I lit up the charcoal while Richie prepped the food, and by noon we were cooking our now standard lunch: rice and eggs. This time, though, we grilled up some pineapple and threw it in the rice, and it actually made for a tasty meal.

The afternoon went by faster than the morning. Richie and I did a lot of work behind the house, flipping over another 150 or so square feet of land. It should be enough for a decent garden. It was strangely quiet around the school today, so the garden kept us busy. Also of note is that I made a small shelf (although the word “shelf” might be generous) using a piece of cardboard, duct tape and cardboard. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

As fast as the last couple days have been, things have really decelerated the last couple of days. We have been expecting more people to arrive, but it hasn’t been much more than a trickle. There are definitely more teachers here, but it’s still just a couple more than the usual.

With not a lot to do, we stuck to our same general routine these days. Richie went to the market while I did the dishes from the night before. Thankfully, today marked a return of the long-lost potato. I have never been so happy to take on oil burns. Then again, I wasn’t expecting the kind of oil burns that I took on. In between frying the potatoes and putting the eggs in the pan, the entire pan of oil set on fire. Oops – my bad. Apparently, vegetable oil does set on fire. Lesson learned.

We lazed around for the better part of the afternoon. We threw around the Frisbee for a while, which not only attracted children, but also some adults. The game came to an abrupt end when I threw the Frisbee on the roof of our house. Once again, oops, my bad. Toward the end of the afternoon, I made a spice rack using four soda cans and cardboard. It isn’t pretty, but it’s holding our spices, so I’m satisfied.

Having not learned the lesson of trying to make new foods, Richie was feeling ambitious and decided it would be a good night for pancakes. This was a good idea in theory, but as with the gnocchi, there was too much flour, and it just tasted like xima. It didn’t really matter. We were full by the end of the meal. Once again, we just need to stick with the basics. We capped the night by watching “Juno”

As this week came to a close, we had what might have been our best day here. I went to the market and they had two items that made me very happy: tomatoes, for the first time in a while; and olive oil, for the first time, period. This should help with the tomato sauce we make. Our scrambled eggs and French fries were particularly good today, maybe because they tasted like victory.

It seems like when something goes well in the morning, it inevitably goes wrong in the afternoon. So not wanting to ruin the great day, Richie and I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the afternoon. I got on a good roll of Su Doku, Richie finished off a book, and we both took hours-long naps. I would call that a successful afternoon.

The night was pretty standard. Spaghetti with amazing tomato sauce, a little bit of “The Office”, and an obnoxious amount of sweating. I spent a little time talking with colleagues after the power went out. Pretty good day for Machanaga.

All that really matters is that we survived. Another minute. Another meal. Another day. Another week.