Year 2 - Week 1: Meeting Across The River

Year 2 – Week 1: Meeting Across the River

We have officially reached the downturn – weird. All those weeks of writing “Year 1” on the top of these pieces have finally come to an end. So with a new year, it’s only appropriate that we start this year the way we did last year: with a site delivery. Mambone received its new Volunteer, Garrett, over the weekend and we thought it would be good to introduce ourselves.

The house cleaned up, we headed across the river the grabbed the chapa toward his house. His house is still a bit in disrepair right now, so these days, Garrett is chilling in a colleague’s house. It’s not a terrible thing – the colleague’s house is muito nice. While we were in town, we raided his computer for new media.

We figured that the least we could do for our new friend was buy him some lunch. We took him to Zimaima, where I was able to get my regular half-chicken, and Richie, to spite us non-fish-eaters, got fish. After our delicious lunches, we headed into town to show Garrett what’s going on in Mambone. And just in case he wanted to ever come to Machanga, we decided to show him how to get to the river and therefore Machanga.

By the time we got back to our side of the river, we were sweaty, tired, and dehydrated. Courtesy of the epic rain we got last week, we already had a lot of drinking water prepared. As I sat on our patio, two very little kids came up to the house and said “Estou a pedir agua” – “I am asking for water”. Normally, I will turn down requests because usually they are requests for money. But these kids were too adorable, and their request was all too reasonable, and it was awfully hot. I couldn’t turn them down.

Loaded up on water, I committed the cardinal sin of taking a late afternoon nap. I knew I was setting myself up for trouble later in the night, but I was awfully exhausted. I fell asleep right away. I woke up just in time for dinner, which we followed up with “Boondock Saints”, a fuckin awesome movie.

As anticipated, I struggled to sleep. It was a combination of the nap and the anxiety – good anxiety – of my family arriving in here in two weeks. Whatever it was, I was up late into the night, which pushed me to stay in bed until 8:30 on Monday morning.

With such a late wake-up, you would think that killing off the rest of the morning would be an easy task. But with more and more people peeling out of Machanga, it’s becoming awfully difficult. We can only do so much sitting. o

After lunch, I made a run to the market on two missions. The first was to find bread, which was not a problem. The second was to find a tailor – we have two in Machanga – but neither was around. I want to get a pair of pants turned into a pair of shorts. As long as I get it done before Vilanculos, it will be okay.

I was put to use Monday night when the energy came on. One of the teachers wanted to be able to print from his laptop, so I installed the printer drive to his computer. In addition, the director’s laptop wasn’t printing, which was a little strange. I did everything I could but couldn’t get it to work. Luckily, he has very little to print.

We planned to eat beans on Sunday but I failed massively to soak beans on Sunday. I didn’t make the same mistake twice, so we had beans and pasta for dinner. For entertainment, we watched “Zach and Miri Make a Porno”, one of the more recent Seth Rogan films. I don’t know if I would watch it again, but it was a good laugh.

Exhausted from the day before – and having not napped – I slept well and I slept late. More of our colleagues left today, which is now starting to kill us. It was just an annoyance, but now, since we are pegged here for a bit more time alone, it’s outright frustrating.

We didn’t do much of anything Tuesday morning. I tried to make another run to the market to get my pants done, but the tailors weren’t around. At least I tried. So we went back to sitting.

I wasn’t completely deterred though. They told m the tailor would be back in the afternoon, so after lunch, I went back. And lo and behold, the tailor was there. He dropped what he was doing and took right to my pants. I was happy to be the proud owner of a new pair of very light-weight pair of shorts.

Late in the afternoon, I was cleaning up the house (as it had been a while) when I got a call from Richie. He toldme to come down to the villa to talk to our school director. We – Richie, the school director, and I – want to put up a decent basketball court. The state of the current court is tragic. I know that we can do better than this. Of course, all discussion was conducted over a couple beers.

We came back after our couple beers and cooked up a delicious Mexican food dinner. And with only a little more energy left for the night, we watched a couple episodes of “The Office” before going to sleep.

Whenever I went ended up falling asleep, I didn’t stay asleep for the long. I was up at 4 AM and it was already light outside. Not bright, but light. The best part was that it wasn’t blazing hot: it was a perfect cool. I strolled around the house for a little bit to soak in the nice weather.

I tried to go back to bed, but there was no hope. I was up for good. As it wasn’t sufficiently bright, I lit a candle and read a little more of “Bulfinch’s Mythology”. It’s been an interesting bout with this book. There are times that I really love it. All of the history and origins of certain terminology is fascinating, but hearing of gods and goddesses just isn’t my thing. Whatever. I’ll keep to it. These days, I’ll take anything to keep my mind occupied.

The task that kept my mind the most occupied was repairing my newly made pair of shorts. I didn’t really look at them when they were done, but upon looking at them Wednesday morning, I realized that they were terribly uneven – maybe ¾ of an inch off. My faith lost in the tailor, I took on the task myself. Needle and thread in hand, I shortened the one side to an appropriate matching length. It’s pathetic that my handiwork was superior to the tailor’s. While I was in the spirit, I repaired some holes in one of my shirts.

Within an hour of finishing up the alterations, Garrett came over to hang out. We told him that our doors were open, expecting him to come over at some point, but not within the week. It’s probably for better – he gave us a good way to kill the day. We prepared our standard lunch, which Garrett enjoyed – he says he’ll be cooking potatoes and eggs a lot.

After lunch, we thought we’d show Garrett the other half of his site. In our view, Mambone and Machanga are really one site divided by a river. We walked around the town to show him how different our sides are. He concurred that our site really is in the “armpit of Mozambique”.

Garrett stuck around for most of the afternoon, which was nice. Not getting a lot of visitors, we are happy to have him over whenever. By the time he left, it was nearly 4;00, achingly close to energy time. In the time in between Garrett leaving and the energy coming on, I kicked around a soccer ball with Anjo, this 18 month old kid. I think he’s still scared of us muzungus, so it was nice to see that barrier come down a bit.

With the energy on, we decided to make pizzas. We had some Velveeta left over and we figured we should use it. They say that it should be refrigerated once it’s opened, but that’s a lie. In light of our gluttonous meal, we decided to watch “Supersize Me”. It had the confusing effect of simultaneously making me want a Big Mac and never wanting to eat fast food again.

I thought I had slept better Wednesday night, but I was wrong. I woke up Thursday and pretty much went right back to bed. For almost the entire morning – until 11:00, Richie and I were both catatonic. Most of the morning was spent on the floor – concrete is colder than a bed – tripping on Larium hallucinations.

The trouble with the Larium dreams is that they are absolutely exhausting. But I was still happy to put the morning in the past. After eating lunch and chilling at home, we knew that we needed to get out.

We headed over to the villa to grab a soda and we realized that we really needed to get out of Machanga. If it was possible to climb our walls, we would have. So we decided then and there that we would leave on Saturday instead of Monday.

There was nothing special about dinner. For the first time in a while, we made just pasta without beans. Our entertainment for tonight was “Schindler’s List” With our energy situation, we weren’t able to finish it in one night, so it will be finished tomorrow.

Moving up our travel plans meant I had to get ready. On Friday morning, I organized my packing list and got everything together. I managed to get everything into a small backpack and a computer bag. I can’t believe I managed to get it done.

The rest of the morning, and a lot of the afternoon, was spent cleaning up. Richie and I did a small load of laundry and we each cleaned the house thoroughly. We were packed and ready to go. The only problem was that it was Friday afternoon. We headed to the villa, our surefire way to kill an hour, to say goodbye to Madinha.

Friday night looked a lot like Thursday – a basic dinner (stir fry) and “Schindler’s List”. What a really beautifully done movie. I can’t believe it took me this long to see it.

“Are you up? Let’s go” was how I was greeted on Saturday. Okay, let’s boogie. A last minute thing here and there and we were out of the house by 6:30.

We had hoped to beat our 3 hour 47 minute record, and things looked promising. We got to Mambone in about 45 minutes and got a ride just as we hit the villa. Unfortunately the car was moving slowly, dashing our hopes of breaking the record. We could still make good time.

Then I made one of the stupidest travel choices I’ve made here. We had a car lined up to get to Inhassoro when a group of South Africans came blazing down the EN1. Shockingly, one of them stopped for us. He said that he was going to Vilanculos. I, being greedy, told him that we wanted to get to Vilanculos and that we already had a ride to Inhassoro, thanks anyway. Dumb. In the end, I cost us maybe an hour, plus fifty Meticais each.

The real travel fun began on our in to Vilanculos. We took a chapa in for the last leg as we usually do. I handed fifty Mets to money-collector – a punk 14 year old. He stared at me, and asked me for more money. “What? It costs 15 Mets each”, I said. “This is where you give me money”. He laughed and told me no, no, 50 Meticais. After an extensive argument and Richie and I yelling in three languages – English, Portuguese and the local dialect of Chitswa – we got the right price. Ah, the pleasures of Vilanculos in tourist season.

We dropped our things off and headed off to pizza. Richie told me that only after he had his pizza would I be off the shit list for turning down a free ride. Valid point. We met Meagan, the new Volunteer in Vilanculos for lunch, and I was forgiven.

The rest of the afternoon, into the night was quiet. As it is hotter than 90 degrees here, we decided to take a dip in the ocean, which is now bathwater warm. We ate dinner and watched “Troy”, a sweet war movie. Seeing “Troy” after reading a lot of “Bulfinch’s Mythology“ made it a lot more enjoyable.

And so our week in Vilanculos begins.