There’s not much sense in writing a play-by-play for my time in Maputo because it’s pretty much a cycle of eating, reintroducing myself to the internet (what do you people do on this thing all day?!), and sleeping. It’s been boring. More than anything, the anxiety about coming home – both good anxiety and bad – has been building for the last couple days.
I’ve felt like I’ve been saying goodbye for six weeks now. There has always been something else coming to its conclusion: school, exams, leaving Machanga, leaving Inhassoro, leaving Vilanculos, and on and on. Things have been ending bit by bit. People have been trickling out of the country week by week. I must have said goodbye a hundred to a hundred people. It has felt like it was never going to end.
But it finally hit me on Sunday night that I was actually leaving Mozambique this week. Two years, one month and three weeks later, it’s over. This didn’t hit me when I said goodbye to other Volunteer, nor did it hit me I left Machanga or arrived in Maputo. It hit me a couple hours after I spoke with my parents for the last time from home.
The finality of the phone call – the fact that it was the last phone call – didn’t do it for me. In fact, that phone call was immediately followed by a call from my grandmother. What did it for me was the last sentence at the end of our conversation: “See you on Thursday.” Not “Talk to you soon” or “Talk to you on Thursday.” “See you on Thursday.”
And even this was different from the last “See you on Thursday”, or whatever day my family arrived here in Mozambique. Sure, there was anxiety with my family coming here. After all, my family was not built for Africa – they were built for Hawaii and Caribbean cruises. I had no idea how they were going to handle the madness that is Mozambique. But that was different anxiety. That anxiety was because of them. It wasn’t their fault of course. But there was a huge sense of responsibility – at least I felt there was, anyway – that I had to keep my family safe here, that things had to go well, or as well as things can go. And maybe most importantly, it was a different kind of stress because I wasn’t going anywhere. I was “at home” in Mozambique. Everything was familiar.
Now, there’s going to be a whole new kind of stress. I’m coming home to a place that, for many reasons, I’m not going to recognize. A lot changes in two years, though it probably doesn’t feel like it when you live with it on a day-to-day basis. Remember that when I left America, there was no such thing as a mysterious piece of technology called “iPad”, “tweet” wasn’t a verb, Barack Obama wasn’t president, I didn’t have a niece, and the San Jose Sharks weren’t pathetic (oh wait, some things don’t change). Additionally, the house where I’ll be living has been moderately remodeled. I’m going to need a tour of my own house! Everything has changed.
Me included. If nothing else has happened, two years of living in the bush in Mozambique has certainly given me a fair amount of perspective. I’ve learned that I don’t really need a lot to get by, or thrive for that matter. “We’ll make it work” became a mantra that nearly killed my sister in the two weeks she was here visiting. I’ve gained a monstrous appreciation for a hot shower – especially the variety that doesn’t include a cup and a bucket. I came to enjoy wearing a sweatshirt during the few months of cold weather (relatively speaking). As I quickly found out, especially after the hot months, you can pile on as many layers as you need during the cold months, but you can only get so naked in the hot months. The list goes on and on, long enough to fit a book’s worth of lessons.
But most importantly, I figured out what I really need in my life. I guess that when you’ve stripped everything down to its bare minimum, life will give you that kind of lesson. I don’t need to be constantly connected to the internet. I don’t need a refrigerator, or twenty-four hour electricity or running water – although life certainly is better and easier with these things. I don’t need an iPad, although you can be damn sure that I’m going to at least consider buying one. What I need – really need – is a short list that all the money in the world can’t buy: family, friends, health and happiness. That’s exactly what I’m coming home to.
It’s been quite the adventure. Sometimes great, sometimes awful, occasionally exciting and often boring. That said, at the end of the day, Peace Corps life is just like America, except under slightly more extraordinary circumstances. We cook, we eat, we work, we drink, and we make friends. We laugh a lot, cry occasionally, and often want to punch a wall – until we realize that they’re either made of concrete, which would result in a broken hand; or built of bamboo, which would result in a whole in the wall.
What’s incredible– in the most literal definition of the word – is that it’s in the past tense. It’s over. It’s done. That wobbly tree-trunk canoe is pushing away from the shore toward a horizon of uncertainty. Whatever it is that’s out there, though, I know I’ll be ready for it, I know that I’ll make it work. There will most certainly be challenges along the way and frustrations that will make me long for the good old days in Mozambique, even the good old days that weren’t so good.
But it’s time. It’s time to come home. It’s time for America. It’s time for turkey and hockey and seven-dollar beers. It’s time for comfortable beds and timeliness and seeing my niece Gia for the first time. It’s time for reconnecting with old friends, both from home and American friends from here. It’s time for punctuality. It’s time to share stories and answer questions from the curious.
It’s time. I’m ready. I’m ready for what’s next.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Year 2 - Week 49: You Can't Spell "Accosted" Without C-O-S
And here it is: the last full week in Mozambique. Wow. I’d think by now that I’d start feeling something – anything – about leaving, but right now, I’m largely unemotional. I guess, for the most part, I’m just trying to soak it all in.
On the top of the list of things to soak in is this glorious summer weather. I’ll be walking into late autumn weather and hopefully it won’t be too chilly when I get home. For now, though, I wanted to get as much sun as ocean as possible. I perched myself in a chair with my book, looking out to a long, empty beach and a beautiful blue ocean, and read for the better part of the morning.
Around 11:45, I walked down to the market in search of food. I had made arrangements to go on an ocean safari in the afternoon. I figured it would be best to have at least a little food in me before heading out onto the water. I waited forty-five minutes for my food to come out, which meant I only had fifteen minutes to eat my food and get up to the dive shop.
An ocean safari is exactly what its sounds like: a safari on the ocean. Instead of going out to look for lions or elephants or zebras, like you would on a land safari, we went out looking for big ocean animals – manta rays, humpback whales, dolphins and whale sharks.
I knew moments after we hit the water that whatever lunch went down would come up very quickly. The water was choppy – not good for looking for whale sharks, not good for my stomach. Early on the trip, we came across a group of dolphins. We were able to swim with them for a bit before they scurried away.
Things went pretty poorly from there. We spend a lot of time on the boat looking for whale sharks, but they weren’t out to play tonight. Like any safari, sometimes you see a lot, sometimes you see a little. Today, we saw very little. All that time on the water did me in. With twenty minutes to go on the trip, I was leaning over the edge, saying goodbye to my chicken and rice lunch.
There was one little piece of excitement before we hit the shore. A drunk Mozambican man was swept out to sea by the heavy surf. Our boat ended up making a fairly historic rescue of this man, who clearly couldn’t sleep very well.
As usual, I immediately felt better when we hit the land. I made my way back to the hostel to grab some money for a market run. I bought some pretty normal provisions – pasta and all the ingredients for tomato sauce. When I returned, though, I was met by my new buddy Sergey. He wanted to go on the hunt for seafood, and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I decided to go with him. We ended up buying some shrimp and four good sized crawfish.
While we cooked our food, we were joined by five other people. Four of them were from Israel, recently released from their military duties, and the last person was an Argentine reporter. Along with me and Sergey, a Ukranian-born American citizen, we soon realized that we all had one thing in common: we’re all Jewish. Funny how we tend to find each other.
We were eventually joined by one other person, a woman from Canada. I fell in love with her the moment she said “I’m a flight attendant for Toronto Maple Leafs charter flights.” We spent a good portion of the night talking about her adventures with the team and her travels when she’s not working. The whole night was just more proof that when you are traveling, it’s not a matter of where you go or what you see, but who you meet.
I was on the road early Monday. It should have been an easy travel day: chapa to Inhambane, boat to Maxixe, car to Xai Xai. Of course, things are never that easy. I sat in Maxixe on the side of the road for hours, waiting for someone to pick me up, but no one was willing to pick up this muzungu.
Finally, I gave in. I had to get on something going south, so I jumped into a bus heading to Maputo. The ride was uneventful. I fell asleep for a good portion of it, but it wasn’t enough rest.
The travel day was way too long. I eventually arrived at my host’s house, tired and starving. His empregada had already cooked beans, some of the best beans I’ve had in this country. We each ate a plate of rice and beans and I went to bed shortly after, at the pathetic hour of 7:15.
Hopeful that I wouldn’t have another disastrous travel day, I got out to the side of the road early. I was promptly passed by a car full of white people, which is always frustrating. But then, something very strange happened: they turned around. It turns out that the car wasn’t full of South Africans, like I had suspected, but with Peace Corps Volunteers heading to Maputo. Woo! That made my morning much better.
The rest of the afternoon for me was all very quiet. I lounged around the Peace Corps office, watching satellite television, browsing around the internet, being largely unproductive. I later made my way to my hotel to drop off my bags.
Around 7 o’clock, I was joined by my good friend Kate. We were making our way toward a restaurant when a man about our age starting walking behind us, babbling some bullshit. I immediately got suspicious and we decided it would be best to let him pass. At this point, the man went in front of us, picked up a rock, grabbed my shirt and tried to attack me. Clearly, he was drunk and slow, and I was able to grab the rock right out of his hand.
I carried the rock with me for the rest of the night, all the way to the restaurant. We had some delicious Indian and Chinese food, then returned home by taxi. I’m a firm believer that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but there’s no sense in testing that theory now.
Wednesday was the first day of many that, in theory, I’d be doing stuff. In reality, this is probably going to be a long, boring process that will be drawn out by bureaucracy and disorganization. The fun began with a lovely little trip to Namaacha. This was a purely business trip – visa renewal.
The day started off beautifully. The person responsible for helping us with our visas ran into the Volunteer lounge with a big smile and his face and proceeded to make it rain, spraying money all over the lounge. That was the best part of our day.
What should have probably taken an hour took the entire day. I would have liked to have been back by noon, grab some lunch, then close my bank account. Of course, not of that would be possible, because we were stuck in the tangle that is Mozambican visa renewal until 3 PM.
There was no way that I could do anything in my remaining hour or two in Maputo. The bank conveniently closed at 3 o’clock, so I sat around the Peace Corps office, doing nothing in particular.
After last night’s attempted robbery, there was no way that I would be venturing very far for dinner. We went to Mundo’s, one of the closest restaurants to the hotel, and I ate some delicious pizza. If nothing else, this is going to be a week of eating delicious food. To top it off, we went out for ice cream afterward. We’ll see how my stomach handles all that lactose.
Thursday put me right into the black hole of Peace Corps/Mozambique red-tape-land. I was supposed to begin my medical check-up in the morning, but naturally that didn’t happen. I sat in the Peace Corps office for three hours before I decided to be productive.
Then, in a shocking turn of events, I got a lot of things done in the afternoon. I managed to close my bank account in less than two hours, then finished all of my medical nonsense, and finished up by taking my language test.
The night was just one crazy adventure. It started at a bar with Laurentina Preta on tap, which might be the greatest thing ever. Then we went right back to Mundo’s, where I had an obnoxiously good chicken sandwich. The night was topped off when a friend of ours decided to take us to a bar in Maputo’s Red Light district. The tequila shot didn’t make me black out, but the beer after it sure as hell did.
I woke up early Friday morning unsure if I was still drunk or hung over. I popped some rehydration fluids and a liter of water, and felt better for the most part. I finished up some medical stuff – a FECA video, a TB shot – and had brief interviews with my bosses. After doing all that, I am so achingly close to being done here. I’ll I need is to have my TB test read on Monday and I’m done.
For most of this week, I’ve been on the two-meal-a-day plan – breakfast and dinner. But today, the day after Moz 15 site placement, we wanted to meet the new Machanga people. One of them came down to Maputo. We ended up having lunch at Spicy Thai, talking about Machanga, and amazingly, our replacement bought our meal. He said it was the least he could do for all the stuff we’re leaving him. Sweet. Free lunch.
I went back to the Peace Corps office briefly before heading over to my “dentist appointment”. Here’s how much faith I have in my obligatory dentist appointment: I’ve scheduled a dentist appointment for the first available day I’m home. Richie and I both showed up late to our appointments, which was perfectly okay because, you know, we’re still in Mozambique.
We went on the hunt for food early in the evening. Tonight’s food was Middle Eastern – shwarma. We were joined by three other Volunteers and, naturally, we topped the night with ice cream.
Saturday was largely uneventful. In fact, it’s barely worth writing about. So I’m going to take care of it one paragraph. I sat at the Peace Corps office all morning being unproductive, then ate delicious fried food for lunch. I walked to the a significant-sized mall even though I didn’t need anything, just to burn the calories from lunch. I sat in the Peace Corps office for a lot of the afternoon, then ate chicken for dinner before passing out.
Really soaking in this last week in Maputo...
On the top of the list of things to soak in is this glorious summer weather. I’ll be walking into late autumn weather and hopefully it won’t be too chilly when I get home. For now, though, I wanted to get as much sun as ocean as possible. I perched myself in a chair with my book, looking out to a long, empty beach and a beautiful blue ocean, and read for the better part of the morning.
Around 11:45, I walked down to the market in search of food. I had made arrangements to go on an ocean safari in the afternoon. I figured it would be best to have at least a little food in me before heading out onto the water. I waited forty-five minutes for my food to come out, which meant I only had fifteen minutes to eat my food and get up to the dive shop.
An ocean safari is exactly what its sounds like: a safari on the ocean. Instead of going out to look for lions or elephants or zebras, like you would on a land safari, we went out looking for big ocean animals – manta rays, humpback whales, dolphins and whale sharks.
I knew moments after we hit the water that whatever lunch went down would come up very quickly. The water was choppy – not good for looking for whale sharks, not good for my stomach. Early on the trip, we came across a group of dolphins. We were able to swim with them for a bit before they scurried away.
Things went pretty poorly from there. We spend a lot of time on the boat looking for whale sharks, but they weren’t out to play tonight. Like any safari, sometimes you see a lot, sometimes you see a little. Today, we saw very little. All that time on the water did me in. With twenty minutes to go on the trip, I was leaning over the edge, saying goodbye to my chicken and rice lunch.
There was one little piece of excitement before we hit the shore. A drunk Mozambican man was swept out to sea by the heavy surf. Our boat ended up making a fairly historic rescue of this man, who clearly couldn’t sleep very well.
As usual, I immediately felt better when we hit the land. I made my way back to the hostel to grab some money for a market run. I bought some pretty normal provisions – pasta and all the ingredients for tomato sauce. When I returned, though, I was met by my new buddy Sergey. He wanted to go on the hunt for seafood, and since I didn’t have anything better to do, I decided to go with him. We ended up buying some shrimp and four good sized crawfish.
While we cooked our food, we were joined by five other people. Four of them were from Israel, recently released from their military duties, and the last person was an Argentine reporter. Along with me and Sergey, a Ukranian-born American citizen, we soon realized that we all had one thing in common: we’re all Jewish. Funny how we tend to find each other.
We were eventually joined by one other person, a woman from Canada. I fell in love with her the moment she said “I’m a flight attendant for Toronto Maple Leafs charter flights.” We spent a good portion of the night talking about her adventures with the team and her travels when she’s not working. The whole night was just more proof that when you are traveling, it’s not a matter of where you go or what you see, but who you meet.
I was on the road early Monday. It should have been an easy travel day: chapa to Inhambane, boat to Maxixe, car to Xai Xai. Of course, things are never that easy. I sat in Maxixe on the side of the road for hours, waiting for someone to pick me up, but no one was willing to pick up this muzungu.
Finally, I gave in. I had to get on something going south, so I jumped into a bus heading to Maputo. The ride was uneventful. I fell asleep for a good portion of it, but it wasn’t enough rest.
The travel day was way too long. I eventually arrived at my host’s house, tired and starving. His empregada had already cooked beans, some of the best beans I’ve had in this country. We each ate a plate of rice and beans and I went to bed shortly after, at the pathetic hour of 7:15.
Hopeful that I wouldn’t have another disastrous travel day, I got out to the side of the road early. I was promptly passed by a car full of white people, which is always frustrating. But then, something very strange happened: they turned around. It turns out that the car wasn’t full of South Africans, like I had suspected, but with Peace Corps Volunteers heading to Maputo. Woo! That made my morning much better.
The rest of the afternoon for me was all very quiet. I lounged around the Peace Corps office, watching satellite television, browsing around the internet, being largely unproductive. I later made my way to my hotel to drop off my bags.
Around 7 o’clock, I was joined by my good friend Kate. We were making our way toward a restaurant when a man about our age starting walking behind us, babbling some bullshit. I immediately got suspicious and we decided it would be best to let him pass. At this point, the man went in front of us, picked up a rock, grabbed my shirt and tried to attack me. Clearly, he was drunk and slow, and I was able to grab the rock right out of his hand.
I carried the rock with me for the rest of the night, all the way to the restaurant. We had some delicious Indian and Chinese food, then returned home by taxi. I’m a firm believer that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but there’s no sense in testing that theory now.
Wednesday was the first day of many that, in theory, I’d be doing stuff. In reality, this is probably going to be a long, boring process that will be drawn out by bureaucracy and disorganization. The fun began with a lovely little trip to Namaacha. This was a purely business trip – visa renewal.
The day started off beautifully. The person responsible for helping us with our visas ran into the Volunteer lounge with a big smile and his face and proceeded to make it rain, spraying money all over the lounge. That was the best part of our day.
What should have probably taken an hour took the entire day. I would have liked to have been back by noon, grab some lunch, then close my bank account. Of course, not of that would be possible, because we were stuck in the tangle that is Mozambican visa renewal until 3 PM.
There was no way that I could do anything in my remaining hour or two in Maputo. The bank conveniently closed at 3 o’clock, so I sat around the Peace Corps office, doing nothing in particular.
After last night’s attempted robbery, there was no way that I would be venturing very far for dinner. We went to Mundo’s, one of the closest restaurants to the hotel, and I ate some delicious pizza. If nothing else, this is going to be a week of eating delicious food. To top it off, we went out for ice cream afterward. We’ll see how my stomach handles all that lactose.
Thursday put me right into the black hole of Peace Corps/Mozambique red-tape-land. I was supposed to begin my medical check-up in the morning, but naturally that didn’t happen. I sat in the Peace Corps office for three hours before I decided to be productive.
Then, in a shocking turn of events, I got a lot of things done in the afternoon. I managed to close my bank account in less than two hours, then finished all of my medical nonsense, and finished up by taking my language test.
The night was just one crazy adventure. It started at a bar with Laurentina Preta on tap, which might be the greatest thing ever. Then we went right back to Mundo’s, where I had an obnoxiously good chicken sandwich. The night was topped off when a friend of ours decided to take us to a bar in Maputo’s Red Light district. The tequila shot didn’t make me black out, but the beer after it sure as hell did.
I woke up early Friday morning unsure if I was still drunk or hung over. I popped some rehydration fluids and a liter of water, and felt better for the most part. I finished up some medical stuff – a FECA video, a TB shot – and had brief interviews with my bosses. After doing all that, I am so achingly close to being done here. I’ll I need is to have my TB test read on Monday and I’m done.
For most of this week, I’ve been on the two-meal-a-day plan – breakfast and dinner. But today, the day after Moz 15 site placement, we wanted to meet the new Machanga people. One of them came down to Maputo. We ended up having lunch at Spicy Thai, talking about Machanga, and amazingly, our replacement bought our meal. He said it was the least he could do for all the stuff we’re leaving him. Sweet. Free lunch.
I went back to the Peace Corps office briefly before heading over to my “dentist appointment”. Here’s how much faith I have in my obligatory dentist appointment: I’ve scheduled a dentist appointment for the first available day I’m home. Richie and I both showed up late to our appointments, which was perfectly okay because, you know, we’re still in Mozambique.
We went on the hunt for food early in the evening. Tonight’s food was Middle Eastern – shwarma. We were joined by three other Volunteers and, naturally, we topped the night with ice cream.
Saturday was largely uneventful. In fact, it’s barely worth writing about. So I’m going to take care of it one paragraph. I sat at the Peace Corps office all morning being unproductive, then ate delicious fried food for lunch. I walked to the a significant-sized mall even though I didn’t need anything, just to burn the calories from lunch. I sat in the Peace Corps office for a lot of the afternoon, then ate chicken for dinner before passing out.
Really soaking in this last week in Maputo...
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Year 2 - Week 48 -- Ta Ta 'Zungu
Even though we were all pretty exhausted, none of us was able to sleep beyond 5 or 530. It he better for our guests, as each of them had long travel days ahead. For me, I was just frustrated. I would have been happy to sleep the day away. I said my goodbyes and tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. I was wide awake. Might as well be productive.
I began the first major round of clean-up in my room. There was so much crap that I brought with me that I never really used. I thought I had done a decent job packing for this. I was very wrong. I did a terrible job. After an hour or so, my room was pretty empty. Everything sat on one little shelf.
For all my hard work, I rewarded myself with a run to the market to by some internet phone credit. Vodacom had this sweet deal going, where we got 125 megabytes of internet time for only fifty minutes. I excitedly entered my credit, thinking 125 megs would be more than enough for me. But you know what they say about something being too good to be true. That was the case here. I had to use all that time within 24 hours and then the credit would be gone. I went from being thrilled with Vodacom to thinking they were banditos in a split second. I spent the rest of the morning playing on the internet, trying to burn through as many megabytes as possible.
After lunch, Richie and I began phase two of clean-up. Our rooms already cleaned up for the most part, we got to work on our kitchen and little living area. Our house is so small that we only needed an hour or so to put everything in order. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to get through “Guns, Germs and Steel”. To this point, it’s been interesting, but it’s starting to get a little repetitive.
A productive day behind us, we took it easy in the evening. We went with all prepackaged food for dinner: a pack of spaghetti, an alfredo sauce packet and a half of a pack of chicken breast brought up from Vilanculos. It was all quite delicious. I spoke with my parents for a little bit – the last time I’ll speak with them from Machanga – and we wrapped up the night with an episode of “Dexter”.
I got an amazing night of sleep Sunday night. I actually managed to make it all the way through the night until about 6 o’clock. That’s a victory.
Monday was the start of National Exams for all of Mozambique. Almost all of the teachers made their way to the school around 6:45. Richie and I were not among the people who went. We knew when we should have gone, but no one told us to be there. We took that to mean that we were not obligated to go. Richie was going to drop in voluntarily but thought better of it just as he was about to walk out the door.
It was a very relaxing morning for me. I had another three hours before my internet deal expired, so I spent the better part of the morning being thoroughly unproductive online. Once the internet deal expired, I stayed in bed and continued reading my book. I’m so close to finishing that I’ll be ashamed if I can’t finish it by the time we get out of here.
I took a lovely nap after lunch. It’s not that I was particularly tired, especially after my good night of sleep. It was just so damn hot that it was the only way not to think about the heat.
We decided on beans for dinner, and since we didn’t soak them, we knew that they would take forever to cook. We started carvao, through the beans on the stove, and walked to the market while the beans started to soften.
The market run had very little to do with us – we needed to get some things for the house that would be of use for the people who follow us. Since our water pump has been busted for a couple weeks, we’ve been using a well, which requires rope and an oil can. What no one told us is that everyone needs to have their own rope and can. This completely baffles me, since everyone here is so reliant on the community. Whatever. I don’t have to deal with this for much longer.
While the beans finished cooking, I strung together the rope and oil can. The rope was barely long enough to reach the water. Once the rains begin, it should be perfect. The beans, as usual were delicious. We ended the night with two episodes of “Dexter”, leaving us one last episode for our last night in Machanga.
I spent Tuesday morning finishing up “Guns, Germs and Steel”. Other than the repetition at the end, it’s an extraordinary book. I probably learned more from that book than I learned from some college courses.
Tuesday was a big day for us for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason was that Tuesday was our last day in Machanga. Richie must head to the border by Friday to renew his visa and there was no way that I would stick around Machanga alone for a couple extra days. Plus it would just be awkward for one of us to say goodbye and have one of us stay.
For the students in Machanga, Tuesday was a huge day: the day of the English exam. Everyone was nervous, and with due reason. It’s rare for anybody to study here. Those who do actually study do well. Everyone else, it seems, just hopes or prays or does something else. Regardless, I’m cautiously optimistic. They did well on the final exam, so they should do just fine on this exam.
Richie and I had plans to go over to Madinha’s for lunch. We didn’t have any eggs in the house and we really wanted a good meal. Before we could head over to the market, I had to read through the English exam to check for mistakes. This exam was probably the cleanest the government has produced. There were very few errors, and none that particularly affected answers, which was a huge improvement over last year.
Madinha did a hell of a job with lunch. The meat from the chicken she cooked fell right off the bone. It was absolutely delicious. The late lunch, plus all the time it took to get to and from the market, killed a good portion our afternoon. When we returned home, we watched our final episode of “Dexter” and made our last celebratory cake, to be consumed later.
We were still full from lunch when dinnertime arrived. We had some left over rice and beans from last night, and some frozen chicken breast still in the freezer. Richie whipped up some tortillas and we ate delicious burritos. After dinner, we headed back to the market for one last beer with some of our colleagues.
As we walked back from the market, I stumbled several times. This wasn’t drunken stumbling -- I only had one beer in the villa. I kept tripping because I wasn’t watching where I was walking. My head was looking up, staring at a perfect sky full of stars one last time, watching not one but two shooting stars streak right through Orion.
Wednesday was the day. Departure day. After two years, it’s finally here. Two years in Machanga has come and gone, and now it’s time to get out of here. Before leaving, there were still some things we had to do: one last sweep, one last mop, one last set of goodbyes. We said our goodbyes at the school, turned in our keys to the school director, then headed to the villa to say goodbye to Madinha and Osorio.
There was only one thing missing from our departure: where were the little kids. Usually, little kids are standing on the side of the road, always saying “Ta ta muzungu!” They weren’t here this morning. It kind of made me sad.
We were accompanied the entire time by one of our colleagues and some students. God forbid we should have to carry our bags to the river for the millionth time. We were the only people wanting to cross the river, so Richie and I each paid double to avoid the wait and the awkwardness of our colleagues just standing there, waiting for us to leave.
There would be plenty of waiting for us to do in Mambone. Almost no one was heading out to Maluvane. We waited a good forty-five minutes before finally getting going. The ride was fine, uneventful. From Maluvane, Richie and I split ways: he headed north toward Chimoio, I headed south to Inhassoro. We got rides within a few minutes of each other.
My rides from Maluvane to the crossroads to Inhassoro were all free and more importantly, all fast. A little faster would have been nicer because I could feel the stomach issues coming on. Eating cake late last night was a bad decision. The same stomach issues hit Richie at exactly the same time. We’ve clearly lived with each other for way too long.
I chilled out at one Volunteer’s house while I waited for the other Volunteer – one of my better friends here – to get home from Maxixe. While I relaxed, she told me that the Vilanculos to Mambone chapa – a chapa I’ve been on at least twenty times – crashed on Tuesday, with at least two people dead. Might be a sign that it’s time to get out of here.
In the meantime, I spent a little time on the internet and in the brand new deli that opened literally across the street from the Volunteer’s house. So much meat. So much cheese. So much deliciousness. I made an executive decision then and there: in spite of my stomach issues, steak and cheese would be consumed tonight.
When my buddy arrived, we headed over to the market to pick up some final ingredients for dinner. We decided on rice and beans, plus steak and cheese. I’ve made plenty of beans in this country, and I can say without qualification that this batch of beans was the best I’ve ever made. They would have been that good even without the steak and cheese. The additions really put it out of reach. We ate until we felt sick (what a great feeling) and crashed.
I didn’t sleep particularly well Wednesday night. Good thing I didn’t have much to do on Thursday. We started our day with delicious cheesy omelets. While my host went into work (sucker!), I lazed around the house reading Noam Chomsky’s “Imperial Ambitions”. I wish I had one hundredth of one percent of the knowledge of that guy. Later in the morning, I jumped online, just because I could.
After my friend returned from work, we continued with breakfast with pancakes. He took care of the batter while I made the syrup. The pancakes were delicious and should definitely hold me over for the rest of the afternoon.
Early in the afternoon, I said goodbye to my friend. Luckily, he’s a good NorCal kid, so I know I’ll be able to catch up with him after he finishes his second year. I waited on the side of the road for about half an hour before a chapa came around the corner.
I knew as soon as I got in the car that it was going to be a bad ride. I just didn’t know how bad. It turned out being the worst chapa ride I’ve been on in two years. I’ve probably said that a couple times over the course of these two years, but this went above and beyond. What should take 90 minutes took three hours and fifteen minutes.
Now, I’m usually very calm, cool, and collected when it comes to this kind of thing. I believe that I have the right to get as angry as the angriest Mozambican. The guy sitting next to me was pretty fumed. He would yell something to the driver – “Are we going to take six hours to get to Vilanculos?!” – and then I would comment to him. “We should have walked. It would have been faster”.
When we finally arrived in Vilanculos, the driver tried to shaft me by charging 100 Mets for a 65-Met ride. It was a point that I snapped. I decided that I was going to public dress this guy down. I wish I knew more Portuguese swear words. I had to settle. “That ride was a joke, you’re car is trash, and you are trash too!” He didn’t respond, but the people who watched me yell at this guy were quite entertained.
I definitely felt better after the verbal assault. And I was happy that no one got in my way or pissed me off on the walk over to the Vil girls’ house. I told them the story, and they were proud of me for going off on the guy. He definitely had it coming.
One of the girls from CARE (a non-Peace Corps Volunteer, but a volunteer nonetheless) came over to make crepes. So to review, I had pancakes for lunch and essentially had pancakes for dinner. The Vil girls made ice cream with their ice cream maker (life in Vilanculos is so difficult. So difficult.), I took a phenomenal running water shower, and I went to bed, exhausted from a frustrating afternoon.
I was happy to have a relaxing Friday, especially after yesterday. I was on my own for most of Friday morning. I didn’t have much to do in town, so I sat around the house, destroying Laura’s computer at Scrabble.
Around noon, upon Laura’s return, I headed out to the market in search of food and banking information. I got myself a delicious sandwich, then made my way to the bank. Thankfully, my money for my time in Maputo had been deposited. Lord knew I needed it because I was down to 600 Meticais.
The rest of the afternoon was very quiet, very calm. I read some horrifyingly old magazines, but they were new to me, so it was all good. I got another glorious hot water shower. Then, the three of us, along with another Volunteer who came up in the afternoon, went to Smuggler’s for dinner.
The house was horrifyingly hot when we got back, so I felt it best that I should sleep outside for the night. I sprayed myself up and down with bug spray, threw some couch cushions on the patio, and slept a beautiful, wind-aided sleep.
Saturday started out so promising for me. It was yet another travel day and after the Inhassoro-Vilanculos disaster and the Vilanculos-Mambone, I really didn’t want to take a chapa. Lucky for me, people were very cooperative in the morning. I hitched a ride from the school to the bank, then from the bank to the highway, all for free.
Then the waiting began. I sat at the crossroads, burning, waiting, but nothing was coming south. Finally, a car heading to Maxixe came around the corner. Exactly what I needed. I jumped in the car and we started hauling.
We made it to Maxixe in good time. I thought I wouldn’t have to pay, but the driver asked for cash when I got out of the car. Okay, okay. I headed over to the pier and caught a boat heading to Inhambane. Once in Inhambane, I had myself a delicious (and cheap) chicken lunch in the market before heading to Tofo by chapa.
It’s been a good while – almost a year – since I had been in Tofo, and it always seems to take my breath away. It’s just so beautiful. Of course, everyone wants to treat me like a tourist, but a little Portuguese goes a long way.
I dropped my bags off at Fatima’s backpackers, changed into a bathing suit, and hit the ocean. It wasn’t nearly as warm as I thought it would be, but still plenty comfortable, at least for a little bit. When I got back to the dorm, a guy named Sergey introduced himself. He worked for the Millennium Challenge Corp., which piqued my interest, and my being a Peace Corps Volunteer interested him. We talked for a little while, and had dinner together along with some Brazilians.
The rest of the evening was lovely. I was going to take a little walk on the beach, just to catch the night stars. As I walked down to the beach, four people were sitting in front of the stair case. As soon as they said “sorry”, I knew they were American. They were study-abroad students in Cape Town, enjoying a little vacation time. We ended up talking for about an hour about all things American.
Maybe this is how I’m supposed to re-integrate myself into American life.
I began the first major round of clean-up in my room. There was so much crap that I brought with me that I never really used. I thought I had done a decent job packing for this. I was very wrong. I did a terrible job. After an hour or so, my room was pretty empty. Everything sat on one little shelf.
For all my hard work, I rewarded myself with a run to the market to by some internet phone credit. Vodacom had this sweet deal going, where we got 125 megabytes of internet time for only fifty minutes. I excitedly entered my credit, thinking 125 megs would be more than enough for me. But you know what they say about something being too good to be true. That was the case here. I had to use all that time within 24 hours and then the credit would be gone. I went from being thrilled with Vodacom to thinking they were banditos in a split second. I spent the rest of the morning playing on the internet, trying to burn through as many megabytes as possible.
After lunch, Richie and I began phase two of clean-up. Our rooms already cleaned up for the most part, we got to work on our kitchen and little living area. Our house is so small that we only needed an hour or so to put everything in order. The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to get through “Guns, Germs and Steel”. To this point, it’s been interesting, but it’s starting to get a little repetitive.
A productive day behind us, we took it easy in the evening. We went with all prepackaged food for dinner: a pack of spaghetti, an alfredo sauce packet and a half of a pack of chicken breast brought up from Vilanculos. It was all quite delicious. I spoke with my parents for a little bit – the last time I’ll speak with them from Machanga – and we wrapped up the night with an episode of “Dexter”.
I got an amazing night of sleep Sunday night. I actually managed to make it all the way through the night until about 6 o’clock. That’s a victory.
Monday was the start of National Exams for all of Mozambique. Almost all of the teachers made their way to the school around 6:45. Richie and I were not among the people who went. We knew when we should have gone, but no one told us to be there. We took that to mean that we were not obligated to go. Richie was going to drop in voluntarily but thought better of it just as he was about to walk out the door.
It was a very relaxing morning for me. I had another three hours before my internet deal expired, so I spent the better part of the morning being thoroughly unproductive online. Once the internet deal expired, I stayed in bed and continued reading my book. I’m so close to finishing that I’ll be ashamed if I can’t finish it by the time we get out of here.
I took a lovely nap after lunch. It’s not that I was particularly tired, especially after my good night of sleep. It was just so damn hot that it was the only way not to think about the heat.
We decided on beans for dinner, and since we didn’t soak them, we knew that they would take forever to cook. We started carvao, through the beans on the stove, and walked to the market while the beans started to soften.
The market run had very little to do with us – we needed to get some things for the house that would be of use for the people who follow us. Since our water pump has been busted for a couple weeks, we’ve been using a well, which requires rope and an oil can. What no one told us is that everyone needs to have their own rope and can. This completely baffles me, since everyone here is so reliant on the community. Whatever. I don’t have to deal with this for much longer.
While the beans finished cooking, I strung together the rope and oil can. The rope was barely long enough to reach the water. Once the rains begin, it should be perfect. The beans, as usual were delicious. We ended the night with two episodes of “Dexter”, leaving us one last episode for our last night in Machanga.
I spent Tuesday morning finishing up “Guns, Germs and Steel”. Other than the repetition at the end, it’s an extraordinary book. I probably learned more from that book than I learned from some college courses.
Tuesday was a big day for us for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason was that Tuesday was our last day in Machanga. Richie must head to the border by Friday to renew his visa and there was no way that I would stick around Machanga alone for a couple extra days. Plus it would just be awkward for one of us to say goodbye and have one of us stay.
For the students in Machanga, Tuesday was a huge day: the day of the English exam. Everyone was nervous, and with due reason. It’s rare for anybody to study here. Those who do actually study do well. Everyone else, it seems, just hopes or prays or does something else. Regardless, I’m cautiously optimistic. They did well on the final exam, so they should do just fine on this exam.
Richie and I had plans to go over to Madinha’s for lunch. We didn’t have any eggs in the house and we really wanted a good meal. Before we could head over to the market, I had to read through the English exam to check for mistakes. This exam was probably the cleanest the government has produced. There were very few errors, and none that particularly affected answers, which was a huge improvement over last year.
Madinha did a hell of a job with lunch. The meat from the chicken she cooked fell right off the bone. It was absolutely delicious. The late lunch, plus all the time it took to get to and from the market, killed a good portion our afternoon. When we returned home, we watched our final episode of “Dexter” and made our last celebratory cake, to be consumed later.
We were still full from lunch when dinnertime arrived. We had some left over rice and beans from last night, and some frozen chicken breast still in the freezer. Richie whipped up some tortillas and we ate delicious burritos. After dinner, we headed back to the market for one last beer with some of our colleagues.
As we walked back from the market, I stumbled several times. This wasn’t drunken stumbling -- I only had one beer in the villa. I kept tripping because I wasn’t watching where I was walking. My head was looking up, staring at a perfect sky full of stars one last time, watching not one but two shooting stars streak right through Orion.
Wednesday was the day. Departure day. After two years, it’s finally here. Two years in Machanga has come and gone, and now it’s time to get out of here. Before leaving, there were still some things we had to do: one last sweep, one last mop, one last set of goodbyes. We said our goodbyes at the school, turned in our keys to the school director, then headed to the villa to say goodbye to Madinha and Osorio.
There was only one thing missing from our departure: where were the little kids. Usually, little kids are standing on the side of the road, always saying “Ta ta muzungu!” They weren’t here this morning. It kind of made me sad.
We were accompanied the entire time by one of our colleagues and some students. God forbid we should have to carry our bags to the river for the millionth time. We were the only people wanting to cross the river, so Richie and I each paid double to avoid the wait and the awkwardness of our colleagues just standing there, waiting for us to leave.
There would be plenty of waiting for us to do in Mambone. Almost no one was heading out to Maluvane. We waited a good forty-five minutes before finally getting going. The ride was fine, uneventful. From Maluvane, Richie and I split ways: he headed north toward Chimoio, I headed south to Inhassoro. We got rides within a few minutes of each other.
My rides from Maluvane to the crossroads to Inhassoro were all free and more importantly, all fast. A little faster would have been nicer because I could feel the stomach issues coming on. Eating cake late last night was a bad decision. The same stomach issues hit Richie at exactly the same time. We’ve clearly lived with each other for way too long.
I chilled out at one Volunteer’s house while I waited for the other Volunteer – one of my better friends here – to get home from Maxixe. While I relaxed, she told me that the Vilanculos to Mambone chapa – a chapa I’ve been on at least twenty times – crashed on Tuesday, with at least two people dead. Might be a sign that it’s time to get out of here.
In the meantime, I spent a little time on the internet and in the brand new deli that opened literally across the street from the Volunteer’s house. So much meat. So much cheese. So much deliciousness. I made an executive decision then and there: in spite of my stomach issues, steak and cheese would be consumed tonight.
When my buddy arrived, we headed over to the market to pick up some final ingredients for dinner. We decided on rice and beans, plus steak and cheese. I’ve made plenty of beans in this country, and I can say without qualification that this batch of beans was the best I’ve ever made. They would have been that good even without the steak and cheese. The additions really put it out of reach. We ate until we felt sick (what a great feeling) and crashed.
I didn’t sleep particularly well Wednesday night. Good thing I didn’t have much to do on Thursday. We started our day with delicious cheesy omelets. While my host went into work (sucker!), I lazed around the house reading Noam Chomsky’s “Imperial Ambitions”. I wish I had one hundredth of one percent of the knowledge of that guy. Later in the morning, I jumped online, just because I could.
After my friend returned from work, we continued with breakfast with pancakes. He took care of the batter while I made the syrup. The pancakes were delicious and should definitely hold me over for the rest of the afternoon.
Early in the afternoon, I said goodbye to my friend. Luckily, he’s a good NorCal kid, so I know I’ll be able to catch up with him after he finishes his second year. I waited on the side of the road for about half an hour before a chapa came around the corner.
I knew as soon as I got in the car that it was going to be a bad ride. I just didn’t know how bad. It turned out being the worst chapa ride I’ve been on in two years. I’ve probably said that a couple times over the course of these two years, but this went above and beyond. What should take 90 minutes took three hours and fifteen minutes.
Now, I’m usually very calm, cool, and collected when it comes to this kind of thing. I believe that I have the right to get as angry as the angriest Mozambican. The guy sitting next to me was pretty fumed. He would yell something to the driver – “Are we going to take six hours to get to Vilanculos?!” – and then I would comment to him. “We should have walked. It would have been faster”.
When we finally arrived in Vilanculos, the driver tried to shaft me by charging 100 Mets for a 65-Met ride. It was a point that I snapped. I decided that I was going to public dress this guy down. I wish I knew more Portuguese swear words. I had to settle. “That ride was a joke, you’re car is trash, and you are trash too!” He didn’t respond, but the people who watched me yell at this guy were quite entertained.
I definitely felt better after the verbal assault. And I was happy that no one got in my way or pissed me off on the walk over to the Vil girls’ house. I told them the story, and they were proud of me for going off on the guy. He definitely had it coming.
One of the girls from CARE (a non-Peace Corps Volunteer, but a volunteer nonetheless) came over to make crepes. So to review, I had pancakes for lunch and essentially had pancakes for dinner. The Vil girls made ice cream with their ice cream maker (life in Vilanculos is so difficult. So difficult.), I took a phenomenal running water shower, and I went to bed, exhausted from a frustrating afternoon.
I was happy to have a relaxing Friday, especially after yesterday. I was on my own for most of Friday morning. I didn’t have much to do in town, so I sat around the house, destroying Laura’s computer at Scrabble.
Around noon, upon Laura’s return, I headed out to the market in search of food and banking information. I got myself a delicious sandwich, then made my way to the bank. Thankfully, my money for my time in Maputo had been deposited. Lord knew I needed it because I was down to 600 Meticais.
The rest of the afternoon was very quiet, very calm. I read some horrifyingly old magazines, but they were new to me, so it was all good. I got another glorious hot water shower. Then, the three of us, along with another Volunteer who came up in the afternoon, went to Smuggler’s for dinner.
The house was horrifyingly hot when we got back, so I felt it best that I should sleep outside for the night. I sprayed myself up and down with bug spray, threw some couch cushions on the patio, and slept a beautiful, wind-aided sleep.
Saturday started out so promising for me. It was yet another travel day and after the Inhassoro-Vilanculos disaster and the Vilanculos-Mambone, I really didn’t want to take a chapa. Lucky for me, people were very cooperative in the morning. I hitched a ride from the school to the bank, then from the bank to the highway, all for free.
Then the waiting began. I sat at the crossroads, burning, waiting, but nothing was coming south. Finally, a car heading to Maxixe came around the corner. Exactly what I needed. I jumped in the car and we started hauling.
We made it to Maxixe in good time. I thought I wouldn’t have to pay, but the driver asked for cash when I got out of the car. Okay, okay. I headed over to the pier and caught a boat heading to Inhambane. Once in Inhambane, I had myself a delicious (and cheap) chicken lunch in the market before heading to Tofo by chapa.
It’s been a good while – almost a year – since I had been in Tofo, and it always seems to take my breath away. It’s just so beautiful. Of course, everyone wants to treat me like a tourist, but a little Portuguese goes a long way.
I dropped my bags off at Fatima’s backpackers, changed into a bathing suit, and hit the ocean. It wasn’t nearly as warm as I thought it would be, but still plenty comfortable, at least for a little bit. When I got back to the dorm, a guy named Sergey introduced himself. He worked for the Millennium Challenge Corp., which piqued my interest, and my being a Peace Corps Volunteer interested him. We talked for a little while, and had dinner together along with some Brazilians.
The rest of the evening was lovely. I was going to take a little walk on the beach, just to catch the night stars. As I walked down to the beach, four people were sitting in front of the stair case. As soon as they said “sorry”, I knew they were American. They were study-abroad students in Cape Town, enjoying a little vacation time. We ended up talking for about an hour about all things American.
Maybe this is how I’m supposed to re-integrate myself into American life.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Year 2 - Week 47: No Job, But So Much Work
This is probably the best measurement of how lame the Halloween party was last night: I was sober/smart enough to set an alarm for the next morning. If this were a real party, I would have been out cold well into the morning. Instead, I woke up at 7:00 to the pulsing rhythm and vibration of my cell phone.
Five of us had a big day ahead of us. For the first time in two years, I was finally going to snorkel off the islands of Vilanculos, the Bazaruto Archipelago. It is apparently some of the better diving-snorkeling in the world, and there was no way I was going to pass up that opportunity.
We had an absolutely perfect day for going to the islands. Just a few wisps of clouds floated in an otherwise blue sky. The weather was not too hot, but far from chilly. And the ocean was a perfect green-blue, calm, and bathtub warm.
The five of us were joined by two South Africans, and a couplee from very northern Europe (he from Iceland, she from Sweden). The trip out to the islands took about forty-five minutes. It quickly became apparent that, contrary to what we have thought over the last two years, it would be impossible to walk to these islands. Those of us who were snorkeling were dropped off on one of the islands to adventure, snorkel, do whatever really.
The Vil girls wanted to walk around the island. I was eager to jump into the water. The Europeans joined me in snorkeling off the beach. To give you an idea of just how pale this poor Icelander was, he went swimming in pants and a long-sleeve shirt and I’m pretty sure he still sunburned.
Toward the end of the morning, the girls and I climbed up the sand dunes than overlook the other islands and Vilanculos. Looking out over the water, I immediately not regretted not doing this early. It was one of the most landscapes or seascapes I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, all of us headed out to Two Mile Reef. Apparently, it’s a reef that is two miles long. They really stretched to name it. On the way out to the reef, we came across a group of five or six dolphins. Of course, everyone tried to take pictures, and everyone failed.
One of the Volunteers who went diving in the morning snorkeled with us in the afternoon. We putzed around for an hour or so in the water. He told me that the snorkeling was as good as the diving. After saying that, I felt like I definitely made the right decision to snorkel. I haven’t been diving in years, and doing so four weeks before I get home just didn’t seem too practical.
While we waited for the divers to finish their dives, we sat on the boat, rocking back and forth uncontrollably. I know how this story usually ends: with me hanging over the edge of the boat. I popped a Pepto in lieu of Dramamine earlier in the day, but I knew it wouldn’t hold up. I closed my eyes and hoped I would get better.
After picking up the divers, we made a quick pit stop on one of the islands. I lay down for the few moments we had and immediately felt better. We then booked it back to the mainland, just a little hungry.
There was no way that any of us would cook tonight. It just wasn’t going to happen. Good thing that Vilanculos has delivery pizza. We ordered as soon as we got home and the pizzas arrived at a reasonable dinner hour. All of us devoured our pizzas and quickly found our way into bed.
It goes without say that I slept well Sunday night. A day on the water always knocks me out. Richie, as usual, was up and moving early. We said our goodbyes – real goodbyes, not see-you-next-time goodbyes – and hit the road for Maxixe. This would be a week of goodbyes.
We took the first car that we could catch out to the crossroads, and then the waiting began. After twenty minutes of sitting at the cruzamento, Richie started becoming impatient. He should know better than that. Just as he was ready to give up and take a dreaded chapa, a car that was blazing down the EN1 stopped for some us. After some initial concern (“You’re not going to jump me, right?”), we got in the car and made it to Maxixe in two hours.
Part of the amazing time was the fact the driver was doing 120 kilometers and hour for most of the way. A bigger factor was that the dreaded “Massinga Road” – the one that has been one giant pothole for our entire time here – is now almost completely paved. We spent less than five minutes on dirt. I’ve spent plenty of space here bitching and moaning about how terrible this road was and how it seems the only progress being made was backwards. I have to give them credit: they’ve done a really nice job on this road. Sure, it may have taken years to do, but it’s pretty much done.
Just after arriving in Maxixe, we were met by two of the Volunteers in the area. We made this trip down just to say goodbye to them. It’s been three months since we’ve seen them and they’re leaving next week. It was a trip that had to be made.
The four of us went out for lunch at a little restaurant in the market. I’ll say this: if there were a little restaurant in our villa where we could eat for twenty-five Mets a day, I would do that every single day. After lunch, one of the guys went back to work (poor soul, working during his last week) while the other stuck around for a couple more beers. The three of us eventually made our way to a grocery store, where each of us picked up some dinner items.
Before splitting ways, we stopped at the bank to see what went wrong with my deposit this month. Apparently, 2000 Meticais was lifted from my account by someone in Chimoio. How lovely. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying (and failing) to work this out with Peace Corps. Between this and the uncertainty around our visa renewal, it’s been a frustrating few days.
For dinner, we had a regular smorgasbord. The person with whom we were staying already had some rice and couvi prepared. Another Volunteer who lived within a stone’s throw had some beans. Richie and I brought some pork from the store. We threw it all together to make a pretty tasty meal.
It didn’t take long after eating for us to fall asleep.
I didn’t get the best night’s sleep, but it was good enough. We had a long travel day ahead of us. We figured that it would take us eight to ten hours to get home. Add an hour to that because we had to sit on the side of the road while every single car heading north passed us. Finally a car heading way north – beyond our crossroads – stopped for us. We didn’t make it more than thirty minutes in his car before police stopped him and held him for some irregularities in his papers.
Fine, we’ll catch another ride. Shortly after getting out of the car, another little sedan came flying up the road. It passed us by a good 100 yards before slamming on the brake and kicking it in reverse. He was heading just beyond where we were going, right to the Rio Save. Perfect. When I asked him if he had work up there, he turned around and pointed to his cap sitting on the back seat. He was a policeman. There was no way we were going to get stopped now. We could break as many laws as we want and still not get pulled over.
In a mere three hours, we made it from just north of Maxixe to Maluvane. Yes, we paid for the ride, unlike the free one we got coming down, but it was worth it. Our travel luck continued when we got a pretty fast truck heading into Mambone. And then a canoe was waiting for us when we hit the river. Including the hour wait on the side of the road in Maxixe, we needed seven hours to get home. Not bad at all.
Finally, home, we could sit and relax for a little bit. There will be no more big trips for me – just the one that gets me to Maputo, Johannesburg, and California.
After getting my feet back under me, Richie and I made a run to the market to begin paying for everything for our goodbye party on Friday. It’s a very strange feeling: I can’t believe we’re saying goodbye already, and yet, it’s completely believable. Then again, it’s a strange feeling to think that these two years have gone by both really fast and that it’s been a long time.
Once we got home for good, it was a night of D’s. It started with collecting on some debts. I had 2100 Meticais out to colleagues. I knew that it would come back, but since I’m out two grand thanks to the banks here, that money became all the more important. About half of it came back that night, which surprised me. I’m sure the rest will be back soon enough. We ended our night with dinner – stir fry with some shockingly good non-filet meat – and an episode of “Dexter”.
With Sozinho good – thankfully – the onus of washing clothing fell squarely on our shoulders. I forgot how much this job sucks. It’s not that it’s difficult – it’s just boring. And much like taking a bucket bath, nothing gets entirely clean, just less dirty. At least I felt like I had done something productive, and it wasn’t even 8 o’clock.
The rest of morning was taken up by two jobs. The first was another run to the market to blow a lot of money. Ten frozen chickens, five kilos of beans, eight cases of beer and four cases of sodas costs a lot of money. Madinha now has all the food for our party. There was no way that we’d be cooking all this stuff. Madinha knows how to handle this stuff.
When I got home, I had one other small job to do. One of our power outlets broke just before we left for Vilanculos. We don’t want to leave the house in disrepair for the next Volunteers, so we bought a new outlet while in Vilanculos and I replaced it just before lunch.
Having done all of that work before lunch, I definitely earned myself a relaxing afternoon. I napped for a little bit in the afternoon, then started cleaning out some little nooks and crannies of my room.
Wednesday night was a night of celebration for us. It was the last time we’d spend a Wednesday night in Machanga. Exciting? Absolutely! We cooked up our remaining beef with some tomato sauce and yellow rice, followed it with a small cake, and watched three (three!) episodes of “Dexter” before going to bed.
I was summoned into the school Thursday morning. The director needed some help alphabetizing lists of names for the National Exams next week. That job took about five minutes. While I had the opportunity, I told him that because of our visa situation, we’d have to leave a little earlier than anticipated. He seemed to not have a problem with this. He also took advantage of the situation of me being there: he asked me if I could put together a massive spreadsheet for National Exams. Having nothing else to do, I took the job. At least it killed an hour of my morning.
That was just the start of my work on Thursday. One of our colleagues from last year was having computer problems in his office. I can’t say that I was able to repair the problem, but I was at least able to save his documents and music. All that computer work took me right up to lunch time. For not having a job, I sure had a lot of work.
The afternoon was just as busy. Around 2:30, Richie and I ran to the market to pick up the drinks for our party. Twelve cases of drinks weigh a lot, even with a little handcart for carrying. The walk took us about twice as long as usual, but hey, we have our drinks for the party.
There was only one piece missing for the party – the goats. Who would have thought that in a place full of goats that the goats would be the most difficult purchase? Five of us set out way into the bush to find the suckers. It took nearly two hours but we finally got them. Sozinho tied one of the goats to a tree and literally within one minute, it snapped the rope and ran away. Stupid goat. If there’s any good news, it can only run so far and it’s probably going to run right back to where it came from. Stupid goat.
I got home before Richie did, so I cooked the spaghetti and cheese sauce packet. We powered through our dinner quickly, watched a single episode of “Dexter” and passed out quickly.
Friday was a day of mayhem, but it at least started with a little piece of mind. Sozinho went over to the house where we purchased the goat yesterday. Not to anyone’s surprise, the goat went right back to its house. Stupid goat. He took Stupid Goat and Richie’s slightly smarter goat over to Madinha’s so she could start cooking.
Richie wanted to head over to the villa late in the morning to begin the celebration, but I had a place to go. A Volunteer from near Xai Xai was on her way up to Mambone. She had said that she wanted to see our site, and this was the best opportunity. Quite frankly, I can’t believe she actually made it. Before biking to the river to meet her, I stopped by Madinha’s to buy a bottle of water and check in on all the cooking.
Barring some crazy issue, this would be the last time I’d be walking back from the river to Machanga. It goes without say that I’m excited about that. While we walked, though, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. It was as hot of a day as we’ve had here and I was walking through the bush under the noon sun. At least I was smart enough to buy the bottle of water.
I got our friend settled into our house and we went over to Madinha’s to begin the party. I think the plan was to drink slowly, to get a good buzz going for the party, but at some point, we switched gears into get-tanked mode. We drank for a good couple hours while we waited for one other Volunteer to arrive.
The rest of the afternoon was pure madness. Quite frankly, the whole experience makes me not to want ever organize a party ever again. It’s way too stressful.
Eventually, around 8:00, I got a ride with the school padre to Madinha’s to pick up all of the food for the party. When we got back, I started organizing things in the cafeteria and getting people moving in that direction. We told people 9:00, which I’m sure they assumed meant 10:00, but no, I really meant 9.
The party, by all accounts went well. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone. The music was decent. Everyone seemed to have a good time. We ran out of steam around 2 AM but I know many others kept on chugging.
The four of us were all up and moving by 7:30, which was only a little depressing. I really didn’t want to get out of bed until at least mid-morning, but my body said it was time to go.
I only had one thing to do all day on Saturday, which was probably for the better because I felt absolutely miserable. I wasn’t drunk miserable or hung over miserable. My stomach just hurt a lot. I knew I was going to be in for a rough day.
Around 10:00, a large group of teachers came over to see what I was giving away. The answer was “a lot”. Over the last couple of weeks, Richie and I had put together a huge suitcase full of clothing that we wouldn’t be bringing back to America. The clothing in the bag was there for various reasons – too small, too stretched out, too worn out, too bleach-stained (thanks, Sozinho) – but all of it will go to good use here.
The rest of the day was very relaxed. In an effort to recover from last night, all of us napped for a little bit right around noon. We had a late spaghetti lunch just after 2:00, followed by a viewing of “Bad Boys”.
Whatever stomach problems I had during the morning were gone by mid-afternoon, just in time for us to make brownies. We were going to save them for after dinner, but once we got going, they had no shot. The four of us nearly finished the tray before we got to our chicken tacos.
Finally fully recovered from the night before and full on tacos and brownies, we sat down on some extra mattresses and watched a couple of episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. We were all exhausted by the end of the second episode. And given that our two friends have long travel days tomorrow, we decided to call it a night.
Five of us had a big day ahead of us. For the first time in two years, I was finally going to snorkel off the islands of Vilanculos, the Bazaruto Archipelago. It is apparently some of the better diving-snorkeling in the world, and there was no way I was going to pass up that opportunity.
We had an absolutely perfect day for going to the islands. Just a few wisps of clouds floated in an otherwise blue sky. The weather was not too hot, but far from chilly. And the ocean was a perfect green-blue, calm, and bathtub warm.
The five of us were joined by two South Africans, and a couplee from very northern Europe (he from Iceland, she from Sweden). The trip out to the islands took about forty-five minutes. It quickly became apparent that, contrary to what we have thought over the last two years, it would be impossible to walk to these islands. Those of us who were snorkeling were dropped off on one of the islands to adventure, snorkel, do whatever really.
The Vil girls wanted to walk around the island. I was eager to jump into the water. The Europeans joined me in snorkeling off the beach. To give you an idea of just how pale this poor Icelander was, he went swimming in pants and a long-sleeve shirt and I’m pretty sure he still sunburned.
Toward the end of the morning, the girls and I climbed up the sand dunes than overlook the other islands and Vilanculos. Looking out over the water, I immediately not regretted not doing this early. It was one of the most landscapes or seascapes I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, all of us headed out to Two Mile Reef. Apparently, it’s a reef that is two miles long. They really stretched to name it. On the way out to the reef, we came across a group of five or six dolphins. Of course, everyone tried to take pictures, and everyone failed.
One of the Volunteers who went diving in the morning snorkeled with us in the afternoon. We putzed around for an hour or so in the water. He told me that the snorkeling was as good as the diving. After saying that, I felt like I definitely made the right decision to snorkel. I haven’t been diving in years, and doing so four weeks before I get home just didn’t seem too practical.
While we waited for the divers to finish their dives, we sat on the boat, rocking back and forth uncontrollably. I know how this story usually ends: with me hanging over the edge of the boat. I popped a Pepto in lieu of Dramamine earlier in the day, but I knew it wouldn’t hold up. I closed my eyes and hoped I would get better.
After picking up the divers, we made a quick pit stop on one of the islands. I lay down for the few moments we had and immediately felt better. We then booked it back to the mainland, just a little hungry.
There was no way that any of us would cook tonight. It just wasn’t going to happen. Good thing that Vilanculos has delivery pizza. We ordered as soon as we got home and the pizzas arrived at a reasonable dinner hour. All of us devoured our pizzas and quickly found our way into bed.
It goes without say that I slept well Sunday night. A day on the water always knocks me out. Richie, as usual, was up and moving early. We said our goodbyes – real goodbyes, not see-you-next-time goodbyes – and hit the road for Maxixe. This would be a week of goodbyes.
We took the first car that we could catch out to the crossroads, and then the waiting began. After twenty minutes of sitting at the cruzamento, Richie started becoming impatient. He should know better than that. Just as he was ready to give up and take a dreaded chapa, a car that was blazing down the EN1 stopped for some us. After some initial concern (“You’re not going to jump me, right?”), we got in the car and made it to Maxixe in two hours.
Part of the amazing time was the fact the driver was doing 120 kilometers and hour for most of the way. A bigger factor was that the dreaded “Massinga Road” – the one that has been one giant pothole for our entire time here – is now almost completely paved. We spent less than five minutes on dirt. I’ve spent plenty of space here bitching and moaning about how terrible this road was and how it seems the only progress being made was backwards. I have to give them credit: they’ve done a really nice job on this road. Sure, it may have taken years to do, but it’s pretty much done.
Just after arriving in Maxixe, we were met by two of the Volunteers in the area. We made this trip down just to say goodbye to them. It’s been three months since we’ve seen them and they’re leaving next week. It was a trip that had to be made.
The four of us went out for lunch at a little restaurant in the market. I’ll say this: if there were a little restaurant in our villa where we could eat for twenty-five Mets a day, I would do that every single day. After lunch, one of the guys went back to work (poor soul, working during his last week) while the other stuck around for a couple more beers. The three of us eventually made our way to a grocery store, where each of us picked up some dinner items.
Before splitting ways, we stopped at the bank to see what went wrong with my deposit this month. Apparently, 2000 Meticais was lifted from my account by someone in Chimoio. How lovely. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying (and failing) to work this out with Peace Corps. Between this and the uncertainty around our visa renewal, it’s been a frustrating few days.
For dinner, we had a regular smorgasbord. The person with whom we were staying already had some rice and couvi prepared. Another Volunteer who lived within a stone’s throw had some beans. Richie and I brought some pork from the store. We threw it all together to make a pretty tasty meal.
It didn’t take long after eating for us to fall asleep.
I didn’t get the best night’s sleep, but it was good enough. We had a long travel day ahead of us. We figured that it would take us eight to ten hours to get home. Add an hour to that because we had to sit on the side of the road while every single car heading north passed us. Finally a car heading way north – beyond our crossroads – stopped for us. We didn’t make it more than thirty minutes in his car before police stopped him and held him for some irregularities in his papers.
Fine, we’ll catch another ride. Shortly after getting out of the car, another little sedan came flying up the road. It passed us by a good 100 yards before slamming on the brake and kicking it in reverse. He was heading just beyond where we were going, right to the Rio Save. Perfect. When I asked him if he had work up there, he turned around and pointed to his cap sitting on the back seat. He was a policeman. There was no way we were going to get stopped now. We could break as many laws as we want and still not get pulled over.
In a mere three hours, we made it from just north of Maxixe to Maluvane. Yes, we paid for the ride, unlike the free one we got coming down, but it was worth it. Our travel luck continued when we got a pretty fast truck heading into Mambone. And then a canoe was waiting for us when we hit the river. Including the hour wait on the side of the road in Maxixe, we needed seven hours to get home. Not bad at all.
Finally, home, we could sit and relax for a little bit. There will be no more big trips for me – just the one that gets me to Maputo, Johannesburg, and California.
After getting my feet back under me, Richie and I made a run to the market to begin paying for everything for our goodbye party on Friday. It’s a very strange feeling: I can’t believe we’re saying goodbye already, and yet, it’s completely believable. Then again, it’s a strange feeling to think that these two years have gone by both really fast and that it’s been a long time.
Once we got home for good, it was a night of D’s. It started with collecting on some debts. I had 2100 Meticais out to colleagues. I knew that it would come back, but since I’m out two grand thanks to the banks here, that money became all the more important. About half of it came back that night, which surprised me. I’m sure the rest will be back soon enough. We ended our night with dinner – stir fry with some shockingly good non-filet meat – and an episode of “Dexter”.
With Sozinho good – thankfully – the onus of washing clothing fell squarely on our shoulders. I forgot how much this job sucks. It’s not that it’s difficult – it’s just boring. And much like taking a bucket bath, nothing gets entirely clean, just less dirty. At least I felt like I had done something productive, and it wasn’t even 8 o’clock.
The rest of morning was taken up by two jobs. The first was another run to the market to blow a lot of money. Ten frozen chickens, five kilos of beans, eight cases of beer and four cases of sodas costs a lot of money. Madinha now has all the food for our party. There was no way that we’d be cooking all this stuff. Madinha knows how to handle this stuff.
When I got home, I had one other small job to do. One of our power outlets broke just before we left for Vilanculos. We don’t want to leave the house in disrepair for the next Volunteers, so we bought a new outlet while in Vilanculos and I replaced it just before lunch.
Having done all of that work before lunch, I definitely earned myself a relaxing afternoon. I napped for a little bit in the afternoon, then started cleaning out some little nooks and crannies of my room.
Wednesday night was a night of celebration for us. It was the last time we’d spend a Wednesday night in Machanga. Exciting? Absolutely! We cooked up our remaining beef with some tomato sauce and yellow rice, followed it with a small cake, and watched three (three!) episodes of “Dexter” before going to bed.
I was summoned into the school Thursday morning. The director needed some help alphabetizing lists of names for the National Exams next week. That job took about five minutes. While I had the opportunity, I told him that because of our visa situation, we’d have to leave a little earlier than anticipated. He seemed to not have a problem with this. He also took advantage of the situation of me being there: he asked me if I could put together a massive spreadsheet for National Exams. Having nothing else to do, I took the job. At least it killed an hour of my morning.
That was just the start of my work on Thursday. One of our colleagues from last year was having computer problems in his office. I can’t say that I was able to repair the problem, but I was at least able to save his documents and music. All that computer work took me right up to lunch time. For not having a job, I sure had a lot of work.
The afternoon was just as busy. Around 2:30, Richie and I ran to the market to pick up the drinks for our party. Twelve cases of drinks weigh a lot, even with a little handcart for carrying. The walk took us about twice as long as usual, but hey, we have our drinks for the party.
There was only one piece missing for the party – the goats. Who would have thought that in a place full of goats that the goats would be the most difficult purchase? Five of us set out way into the bush to find the suckers. It took nearly two hours but we finally got them. Sozinho tied one of the goats to a tree and literally within one minute, it snapped the rope and ran away. Stupid goat. If there’s any good news, it can only run so far and it’s probably going to run right back to where it came from. Stupid goat.
I got home before Richie did, so I cooked the spaghetti and cheese sauce packet. We powered through our dinner quickly, watched a single episode of “Dexter” and passed out quickly.
Friday was a day of mayhem, but it at least started with a little piece of mind. Sozinho went over to the house where we purchased the goat yesterday. Not to anyone’s surprise, the goat went right back to its house. Stupid goat. He took Stupid Goat and Richie’s slightly smarter goat over to Madinha’s so she could start cooking.
Richie wanted to head over to the villa late in the morning to begin the celebration, but I had a place to go. A Volunteer from near Xai Xai was on her way up to Mambone. She had said that she wanted to see our site, and this was the best opportunity. Quite frankly, I can’t believe she actually made it. Before biking to the river to meet her, I stopped by Madinha’s to buy a bottle of water and check in on all the cooking.
Barring some crazy issue, this would be the last time I’d be walking back from the river to Machanga. It goes without say that I’m excited about that. While we walked, though, I wasn’t exactly thrilled. It was as hot of a day as we’ve had here and I was walking through the bush under the noon sun. At least I was smart enough to buy the bottle of water.
I got our friend settled into our house and we went over to Madinha’s to begin the party. I think the plan was to drink slowly, to get a good buzz going for the party, but at some point, we switched gears into get-tanked mode. We drank for a good couple hours while we waited for one other Volunteer to arrive.
The rest of the afternoon was pure madness. Quite frankly, the whole experience makes me not to want ever organize a party ever again. It’s way too stressful.
Eventually, around 8:00, I got a ride with the school padre to Madinha’s to pick up all of the food for the party. When we got back, I started organizing things in the cafeteria and getting people moving in that direction. We told people 9:00, which I’m sure they assumed meant 10:00, but no, I really meant 9.
The party, by all accounts went well. There was plenty of food and drink for everyone. The music was decent. Everyone seemed to have a good time. We ran out of steam around 2 AM but I know many others kept on chugging.
The four of us were all up and moving by 7:30, which was only a little depressing. I really didn’t want to get out of bed until at least mid-morning, but my body said it was time to go.
I only had one thing to do all day on Saturday, which was probably for the better because I felt absolutely miserable. I wasn’t drunk miserable or hung over miserable. My stomach just hurt a lot. I knew I was going to be in for a rough day.
Around 10:00, a large group of teachers came over to see what I was giving away. The answer was “a lot”. Over the last couple of weeks, Richie and I had put together a huge suitcase full of clothing that we wouldn’t be bringing back to America. The clothing in the bag was there for various reasons – too small, too stretched out, too worn out, too bleach-stained (thanks, Sozinho) – but all of it will go to good use here.
The rest of the day was very relaxed. In an effort to recover from last night, all of us napped for a little bit right around noon. We had a late spaghetti lunch just after 2:00, followed by a viewing of “Bad Boys”.
Whatever stomach problems I had during the morning were gone by mid-afternoon, just in time for us to make brownies. We were going to save them for after dinner, but once we got going, they had no shot. The four of us nearly finished the tray before we got to our chicken tacos.
Finally fully recovered from the night before and full on tacos and brownies, we sat down on some extra mattresses and watched a couple of episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. We were all exhausted by the end of the second episode. And given that our two friends have long travel days tomorrow, we decided to call it a night.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Year 2 - Week 46: Sub-One
(Sorry for the delay in getting this online so late. We were on the road until Tuesday. Without further ado…)
Something must have been going on. There were way too many cars here on Sunday for this to be a normal day. There were way too many people for that matter too, including the head priest for the group of mission schools. It became clear that something was going on with the church. Nobody really bothered to explain, which was just fine by me because I didn’t really care.
The only person who said anything was one of my students, who came over not to tell me what was going on, but to get help with his tie. “You’re not going to church, Mr. Lee?” Ha. Ha. No. I don’t go to church. He clearly accepted this as normal because he didn’t say anything after, like “Well, it’s a pretty special day. Some people are being christened today.”
Oh. Well, that would explain the flood of cars and the mass of people. It would also explain why someone was dressed in a red robe with a red hat and a gold staff (is there a technical term here?). And it would also explain why church ran for almost four hours this morning, into this afternoon. Just another reason I wouldn’t go to church.
I managed to keep myself busy during this time. Being Sunday, I had my own church to go to – ESPN’s College football score page. I love seeing that yet another #1 ranked team went down. Sadly, despite their massive winning streak, Boise State won’t be getting to the National Championship game, again. Playoffs?
I also spent a fair amount of time this morning sorting through my inbox, which was flooded with twenty-three emails from Facebook. Which was strange, because I don’t spend my life on Facebook. Apparently someone invited me into a group, which didn’t require me to accept the invitation, and then opted me in to receiving an email every time someone posted something. The next time I get some decent internet, I’m going on a mission to get this shit taken care of.
Once I finished with all the internet stuff, I ran over to the bread stand to pick up some fresh bread. This required me to walk right passed the open-air church. I tried to go unnoticed. Didn’t really work out. I might as well have been wearing a clown suit. I’m surprised they didn’t stop church to say “Look at the muzungu going to by bread!” accompanied by pointing and laughing.
After lunch, I was sitting around on the patio, reading, trying to not be a hermit, when the school’s assistant director came over to the house. There are only a couple reasons he ever comes over: he either needs some help with his computer or needs me to take care of something at school. So you can understand my surprise when he said “Vamos beber?” – “Let’s go drink?”
Mm, okay. I was a little suspicious. I thought this must have been some sort of ploy – get a drink in me and then ask something of me. I wouldn’t blame him for doing this because that is our approach when we need something from our school director: buy a bottle of scotch, get everyone laughing, then tell him we’re going to Malawi.
But no, this was just drinking. Well, for the men, it was just drinking. The women were all busy behind the house preparing a meal. Apparently, the assistant director’s empregada – the girl who works at his house – was one of the people christened today, an occasion worthy of food and drink for friends.
The festivities last until just about dinner time, with the eating and drinking only interrupted by a phone call from the family. The food was plenty good, but there just wasn’t enough. Richie and I returned home and promptly made spaghetti and four cheese sauce. Sufficiently full, we polished off the first season of “Modern Family”. We’re sad that it’s over.
I knew I’d sleep well Sunday night, which was good news, because sleeping has been a challenge these days. Between the nights getting hotter, the sun (and people) rising earlier, and me losing my back support (thanks to having to put together Richie’s bed), I’ve been struggling to make it through a night. I guess all the libations helped me out Sunday night.
Richie and I went through our standard Monday routine. The morning was all about football scores. I’m no longer surprised by the 49ers losing. This season, like the last couple, is a lost cause. Good thing at least one team in the bay area has figured out how to put together a decent season (and make it pay off in the playoffs). This is what I’m coming home to.
Late in the morning, I made a run to the market. We were low on food, and given that we’ll be on the road later in the week, I had to be cautious not to buy too much stuff.
After lunch, I did something that I haven’t done in ten months: I shaved my goatee. It was sad to see it go. I felt like I was losing a pet. I was scared that I was going to have an awkward tan line, given that my chin had been covered for the better part of the year, but I was surprised that everything was nice and uniform.
I looked like a different person. Richie didn’t really recognize me, although he managed to figure out that I was me. Nice being the only white people in town. Reaction otherwise was generally unanimous: “You look like a child.”
Full-blown boredom has overtaken not just our household but the rest of the teacher housing. One of our partners in crime brought out six beers and just put them on his patio. Richie, buried in a book, didn’t really want to drink, but I was bored and not preoccupied with anything so I figured what the hell.
While we drank, I fixed two tech problems. The first was a satellite issue in one house. A small image of an envelope found its way into the corner of our neighbor’s television screen. The problem required only someone who speaks English and is technologically literate. I qualify as both and within minutes I had the problem solved. The other problem was one that required a little luck. A colleague’s computer didn’t have a soundcard. I just happened to have the soundcard for that model. He was so happy to have music again that he bought me a beer.
While I drank/fixed things and Richie read, we let Sozinho cook. We knew this was going to be a bad idea because Sozinho doesn’t know how to cook. He cooked rice (which any Mozambican older than age four should be able to do) and beef curry, which isn’t really surgery. What we got was oil and MSG. It was almost inedible.
After suffering through dinner, Richie and I opened up Season 4 of “Dexter”. We were lucky to get our hands on this, especially since it just came out on DVD two months ago. The worst part about this season is we already know that one of the main characters dies. Now we’re just waiting for her to get axed.
I was back to my normal not sleeping. The first wake up was at midnight, the second at 3:30. From there, I was awake for the rest of the morning. Between the mosquitoes, the roosters, and a singing neighbor, there was no chance of me going back to sleep. I stayed in bed and continued reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
Once I found the strength and energy to get up, I had Sozinho run to the market to see if Dique was killing any cows this week. When Sozinho returned, he told me that Dique would be killing on Monday. I didn’t believe him, since Dique rarely goes more than a couple days without killing a cow. Thus, I fell back on two of my rules for living here.
1) Trust nobody, especially not your idiot empregado
2) If you want something done right, do it yourself
I walked over to Dique’s, bag in hand, to ask him myself.
The only problem was Dique wasn’t there. He was out buying a cow. There was some hope: the kid holding the fort down told me that he’d be killing this week. So somebody’s lying. I’d have to go back later in the afternoon to find out who is not being honest with me.
Shortly following lunch, tropical storm-force winds took over Machanga. Sand blew all over the place. Dirt caked our house, our floor, and our faces. We ran in side and closed the windows, which kept the house cleaner but subsequently turned the house into a furnace.
And I still had to go back to the villa to find out about beef. Somehow I conned Richie into going to the villa with me. Sadly, we were disappointed with the answer. He’d be killing the cow on Saturday, which meant I couldn’t bring filet down to the Vil Girls’ going away party. I guess cake mix and funfetti frosting will suffice as our contribution.
Thanks to the crazy winds, our energy was out all evening. We lit carvao, which, with the crazy wind, took about four seconds to get going. I cooked spaghetti and sauce while Richie and Sozinho ate fish. We couldn’t watch “Dexter” because our computers were both dead, so we both ended up asleep by 9 o’clock. This is the tragedy that is my next twenty days.
I didn’t even make it to midnight Tuesday night. Gotta be impressed by that. I was up and moving at 11:48. At least I was prepared this time. I had a bottle of water in bed with me, so I didn’t have to get out of bed to rehydrate. I was up again at 3:30 until 5:30, then miraculously fell asleep until 7:15. Small victories.
Wednesday morning was shockingly busy. A colleague came over looking for just a bit of computer help. It turned into a two-hour marathon. Then I had to prepare for a prep session for the English national exam. That took my right up to lunch time.
The preparation for the national exam was pure mayhem. First off, I had 100 students packed into one classroom. As long as I was teaching one group, I figured I might as well get to the other group. Secondly, I had to get in as much material as I could squeeze into 90 minutes. How am I supposed to teach all English grammar in 90 minutes? It’s impossible, but I did my best.
Following the two hours of English terror, it was almost time to cook. We lit charcoal and got beans cooking. While we cooked, I started preparing a backpack for what could be my last trip to Vilanculos, certainly my last time seeing our lovely hostesses in Vilanculos. We ate our beans, watched some “Dexter”, and went to bed early, knowing that we had a travel day – one of the last ones – ahead of us.
Our travel day on Thursday started out so promising. We arrived at the river and people were literally waiting for us in the boat. Beautiful. The river was quite full, which was fine by us because it meant less walking on the Mambone side of the river. Once we landed on the other side, we booked it to the villa. A couple of cars turned down the main road. It’s always frustrating when that happens because those could be potential rides.
As we hit the villa, I noticed that there was a red hatchback down one of Mambone’s side-streets. I remembered a saying that my grandfather loves to repeat: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. With this in mind, I approached the car and asked, “Are you going to Vilanculos?” He said, “Yeah, but we have to squeeze four in the back.” We’re used to being squeezed four to a row, so we had no problem with this.
It was at this point that for the first time in a long time, I was accused of being fat. Mind you, it’s a compliment here, but that didn’t stop Richie from calling me a “fat fuck” for the rest of the day.
We had a game-plan for the day in Vil: bank, cell phone store, then to the house for glorious hot running-water showers. A small kink was thrown into our plans right away, when we saw how many people were in line at the bank. I’m done waiting in lines like this. And really, why wait in a line when we can wait at our favorite cheeseburger place and eat delicious food?
With our bellies slightly fuller, we continued with our plan to go to some cell phone stores. Following the protests here last months, the government decided that all cell phone numbers must be registered by November 15. I don’t know how two companies are going to manage to register four million phone numbers in one month, but ours are two that they won’t have to worry about.
The line at the bank had cleared up by the time we were finished at the cell phone stores. Perfect timing, I’d say. With all our main tasks done, we walked over to the north side of time to the teacher girls’ house. We love this house because of their hot shower and refrigeration. With three weeks to go, we found another reason: one of them received an ice cream maker. Seriously. An ice cream maker. All I can say is that this ice cream tasted like America. It was that good.
Late in the afternoon, Richie and I made our way to the other side of town to finish registering our phones and to look for food. As soon as we laid our eyes on frozen chicken breast and cheese, we knew what we were doing: chicken cheeseburgers.
We borrowed a proper barbecue from one of the neighbors of the Volunteers and grilled the chicken to perfection. All said, it was a pretty good travel day. No sense in trying to add anything to it. Shortly after dinner, we went to bed.
Friday morning picked up right where we left off Thursday night – with good food. In celebrating someone’s birthday, we went to a little place called Na Sombra. One of the Volunteers from last year claimed that Na Sombra had the best French fries in Mozambique. After trying them, I can’t disagree. The rest of their food was pretty tasty too.
From breakfast, we made our way to the south side of town to meet one of the health Volunteers. She only had to work until ten o’clock. We could have waited at the restaurant. But in two years of going down to Vilanculos, we had never seen where she worked, so we figured that we’d drop in to check it out.
Cut loose from work, the three of us made our way to the market to meet the fourth Volunteer. She needed a couple hands carrying all sorts of meat for her going-away party back to her house. Having nothing better to do, we lent her a hand – or four, I guess.
Being so close to the ocean, and being so late in the year, we prepared ourselves to take a dip into the world’s biggest bathtub. The water should be really warm this time of year. So you can imagine our shock when we started shivering as soon as we touched the water. We didn’t last more than ten minutes in the water before giving up.
The birthday celebration continues in the market, with the addition of another Volunteer from the area. Five strong now, we took up a table at a bar near the market. The party started slow, then we made Mozambican Car-bombs (Irish Car bombs, but using Amarula instead of Bailey’s and a Mozambican dark beer instead of Guinness. Delicious? Absolutely.
Somehow, we managed to get to this point in the afternoon without eating lunch. 4:30 isn’t too late for lunch, right? We made a brief stop to split a chicken before heading back to the girls’ house.
One of our missions for this trip was to try some new pizza. The place is owned by a couple of Germans, so we weren’t entirely optimistic. But much to our surprise, the pizza was pretty good – certainly better than the garbage we ate in Inhassoro last week.
After eating our own food, we dropped over to the health girls’ house to see how their party was going. We didn’t want to eat anything, just wanted to say hey. After a little bit, the party dissipated and we made our way over to a bar. The five of us were ready for a big night, but a shitty band combined with a bad crowd forced us home early.
We were all looking forward to Saturday, the day of the big Halloween party in Vilanculos. We had heard good things about last year’s party, so we had high expectations for this year.
The day on the whole was pretty quiet. In the morning, Richie and I made our way back to the north side of town to take advantage of the hot shower. The rest of the day, we mostly hung around, trying to conserve our energy for the party. There were two frozen chickens left over from the party last night, which we took advantage of. I barbecued them up and we made tasty sandwiches.
From there, we transitioned right into pre-game with cake and pizza bagels and some beers. We had a ride our to the party, which was good news because the party was at some place that was a good fifteen minute drive away down a shady road.
When we got to the party, we were a little disappointed. First of all, there were a ton of kids there, which was really disappointing. We can’t really get tanked with so many little children around. Second, we were the only adults in the only party to get dressed up. People are lame. And third, the music was absolutely terrible. It pretty much put us all to sleep. Instead of having a crazy drunken time, most of us sat around playing cards before abandoning the party.
Better to get some sleep. We had big plans for Sunday.
Something must have been going on. There were way too many cars here on Sunday for this to be a normal day. There were way too many people for that matter too, including the head priest for the group of mission schools. It became clear that something was going on with the church. Nobody really bothered to explain, which was just fine by me because I didn’t really care.
The only person who said anything was one of my students, who came over not to tell me what was going on, but to get help with his tie. “You’re not going to church, Mr. Lee?” Ha. Ha. No. I don’t go to church. He clearly accepted this as normal because he didn’t say anything after, like “Well, it’s a pretty special day. Some people are being christened today.”
Oh. Well, that would explain the flood of cars and the mass of people. It would also explain why someone was dressed in a red robe with a red hat and a gold staff (is there a technical term here?). And it would also explain why church ran for almost four hours this morning, into this afternoon. Just another reason I wouldn’t go to church.
I managed to keep myself busy during this time. Being Sunday, I had my own church to go to – ESPN’s College football score page. I love seeing that yet another #1 ranked team went down. Sadly, despite their massive winning streak, Boise State won’t be getting to the National Championship game, again. Playoffs?
I also spent a fair amount of time this morning sorting through my inbox, which was flooded with twenty-three emails from Facebook. Which was strange, because I don’t spend my life on Facebook. Apparently someone invited me into a group, which didn’t require me to accept the invitation, and then opted me in to receiving an email every time someone posted something. The next time I get some decent internet, I’m going on a mission to get this shit taken care of.
Once I finished with all the internet stuff, I ran over to the bread stand to pick up some fresh bread. This required me to walk right passed the open-air church. I tried to go unnoticed. Didn’t really work out. I might as well have been wearing a clown suit. I’m surprised they didn’t stop church to say “Look at the muzungu going to by bread!” accompanied by pointing and laughing.
After lunch, I was sitting around on the patio, reading, trying to not be a hermit, when the school’s assistant director came over to the house. There are only a couple reasons he ever comes over: he either needs some help with his computer or needs me to take care of something at school. So you can understand my surprise when he said “Vamos beber?” – “Let’s go drink?”
Mm, okay. I was a little suspicious. I thought this must have been some sort of ploy – get a drink in me and then ask something of me. I wouldn’t blame him for doing this because that is our approach when we need something from our school director: buy a bottle of scotch, get everyone laughing, then tell him we’re going to Malawi.
But no, this was just drinking. Well, for the men, it was just drinking. The women were all busy behind the house preparing a meal. Apparently, the assistant director’s empregada – the girl who works at his house – was one of the people christened today, an occasion worthy of food and drink for friends.
The festivities last until just about dinner time, with the eating and drinking only interrupted by a phone call from the family. The food was plenty good, but there just wasn’t enough. Richie and I returned home and promptly made spaghetti and four cheese sauce. Sufficiently full, we polished off the first season of “Modern Family”. We’re sad that it’s over.
I knew I’d sleep well Sunday night, which was good news, because sleeping has been a challenge these days. Between the nights getting hotter, the sun (and people) rising earlier, and me losing my back support (thanks to having to put together Richie’s bed), I’ve been struggling to make it through a night. I guess all the libations helped me out Sunday night.
Richie and I went through our standard Monday routine. The morning was all about football scores. I’m no longer surprised by the 49ers losing. This season, like the last couple, is a lost cause. Good thing at least one team in the bay area has figured out how to put together a decent season (and make it pay off in the playoffs). This is what I’m coming home to.
Late in the morning, I made a run to the market. We were low on food, and given that we’ll be on the road later in the week, I had to be cautious not to buy too much stuff.
After lunch, I did something that I haven’t done in ten months: I shaved my goatee. It was sad to see it go. I felt like I was losing a pet. I was scared that I was going to have an awkward tan line, given that my chin had been covered for the better part of the year, but I was surprised that everything was nice and uniform.
I looked like a different person. Richie didn’t really recognize me, although he managed to figure out that I was me. Nice being the only white people in town. Reaction otherwise was generally unanimous: “You look like a child.”
Full-blown boredom has overtaken not just our household but the rest of the teacher housing. One of our partners in crime brought out six beers and just put them on his patio. Richie, buried in a book, didn’t really want to drink, but I was bored and not preoccupied with anything so I figured what the hell.
While we drank, I fixed two tech problems. The first was a satellite issue in one house. A small image of an envelope found its way into the corner of our neighbor’s television screen. The problem required only someone who speaks English and is technologically literate. I qualify as both and within minutes I had the problem solved. The other problem was one that required a little luck. A colleague’s computer didn’t have a soundcard. I just happened to have the soundcard for that model. He was so happy to have music again that he bought me a beer.
While I drank/fixed things and Richie read, we let Sozinho cook. We knew this was going to be a bad idea because Sozinho doesn’t know how to cook. He cooked rice (which any Mozambican older than age four should be able to do) and beef curry, which isn’t really surgery. What we got was oil and MSG. It was almost inedible.
After suffering through dinner, Richie and I opened up Season 4 of “Dexter”. We were lucky to get our hands on this, especially since it just came out on DVD two months ago. The worst part about this season is we already know that one of the main characters dies. Now we’re just waiting for her to get axed.
I was back to my normal not sleeping. The first wake up was at midnight, the second at 3:30. From there, I was awake for the rest of the morning. Between the mosquitoes, the roosters, and a singing neighbor, there was no chance of me going back to sleep. I stayed in bed and continued reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.
Once I found the strength and energy to get up, I had Sozinho run to the market to see if Dique was killing any cows this week. When Sozinho returned, he told me that Dique would be killing on Monday. I didn’t believe him, since Dique rarely goes more than a couple days without killing a cow. Thus, I fell back on two of my rules for living here.
1) Trust nobody, especially not your idiot empregado
2) If you want something done right, do it yourself
I walked over to Dique’s, bag in hand, to ask him myself.
The only problem was Dique wasn’t there. He was out buying a cow. There was some hope: the kid holding the fort down told me that he’d be killing this week. So somebody’s lying. I’d have to go back later in the afternoon to find out who is not being honest with me.
Shortly following lunch, tropical storm-force winds took over Machanga. Sand blew all over the place. Dirt caked our house, our floor, and our faces. We ran in side and closed the windows, which kept the house cleaner but subsequently turned the house into a furnace.
And I still had to go back to the villa to find out about beef. Somehow I conned Richie into going to the villa with me. Sadly, we were disappointed with the answer. He’d be killing the cow on Saturday, which meant I couldn’t bring filet down to the Vil Girls’ going away party. I guess cake mix and funfetti frosting will suffice as our contribution.
Thanks to the crazy winds, our energy was out all evening. We lit carvao, which, with the crazy wind, took about four seconds to get going. I cooked spaghetti and sauce while Richie and Sozinho ate fish. We couldn’t watch “Dexter” because our computers were both dead, so we both ended up asleep by 9 o’clock. This is the tragedy that is my next twenty days.
I didn’t even make it to midnight Tuesday night. Gotta be impressed by that. I was up and moving at 11:48. At least I was prepared this time. I had a bottle of water in bed with me, so I didn’t have to get out of bed to rehydrate. I was up again at 3:30 until 5:30, then miraculously fell asleep until 7:15. Small victories.
Wednesday morning was shockingly busy. A colleague came over looking for just a bit of computer help. It turned into a two-hour marathon. Then I had to prepare for a prep session for the English national exam. That took my right up to lunch time.
The preparation for the national exam was pure mayhem. First off, I had 100 students packed into one classroom. As long as I was teaching one group, I figured I might as well get to the other group. Secondly, I had to get in as much material as I could squeeze into 90 minutes. How am I supposed to teach all English grammar in 90 minutes? It’s impossible, but I did my best.
Following the two hours of English terror, it was almost time to cook. We lit charcoal and got beans cooking. While we cooked, I started preparing a backpack for what could be my last trip to Vilanculos, certainly my last time seeing our lovely hostesses in Vilanculos. We ate our beans, watched some “Dexter”, and went to bed early, knowing that we had a travel day – one of the last ones – ahead of us.
Our travel day on Thursday started out so promising. We arrived at the river and people were literally waiting for us in the boat. Beautiful. The river was quite full, which was fine by us because it meant less walking on the Mambone side of the river. Once we landed on the other side, we booked it to the villa. A couple of cars turned down the main road. It’s always frustrating when that happens because those could be potential rides.
As we hit the villa, I noticed that there was a red hatchback down one of Mambone’s side-streets. I remembered a saying that my grandfather loves to repeat: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. With this in mind, I approached the car and asked, “Are you going to Vilanculos?” He said, “Yeah, but we have to squeeze four in the back.” We’re used to being squeezed four to a row, so we had no problem with this.
It was at this point that for the first time in a long time, I was accused of being fat. Mind you, it’s a compliment here, but that didn’t stop Richie from calling me a “fat fuck” for the rest of the day.
We had a game-plan for the day in Vil: bank, cell phone store, then to the house for glorious hot running-water showers. A small kink was thrown into our plans right away, when we saw how many people were in line at the bank. I’m done waiting in lines like this. And really, why wait in a line when we can wait at our favorite cheeseburger place and eat delicious food?
With our bellies slightly fuller, we continued with our plan to go to some cell phone stores. Following the protests here last months, the government decided that all cell phone numbers must be registered by November 15. I don’t know how two companies are going to manage to register four million phone numbers in one month, but ours are two that they won’t have to worry about.
The line at the bank had cleared up by the time we were finished at the cell phone stores. Perfect timing, I’d say. With all our main tasks done, we walked over to the north side of time to the teacher girls’ house. We love this house because of their hot shower and refrigeration. With three weeks to go, we found another reason: one of them received an ice cream maker. Seriously. An ice cream maker. All I can say is that this ice cream tasted like America. It was that good.
Late in the afternoon, Richie and I made our way to the other side of town to finish registering our phones and to look for food. As soon as we laid our eyes on frozen chicken breast and cheese, we knew what we were doing: chicken cheeseburgers.
We borrowed a proper barbecue from one of the neighbors of the Volunteers and grilled the chicken to perfection. All said, it was a pretty good travel day. No sense in trying to add anything to it. Shortly after dinner, we went to bed.
Friday morning picked up right where we left off Thursday night – with good food. In celebrating someone’s birthday, we went to a little place called Na Sombra. One of the Volunteers from last year claimed that Na Sombra had the best French fries in Mozambique. After trying them, I can’t disagree. The rest of their food was pretty tasty too.
From breakfast, we made our way to the south side of town to meet one of the health Volunteers. She only had to work until ten o’clock. We could have waited at the restaurant. But in two years of going down to Vilanculos, we had never seen where she worked, so we figured that we’d drop in to check it out.
Cut loose from work, the three of us made our way to the market to meet the fourth Volunteer. She needed a couple hands carrying all sorts of meat for her going-away party back to her house. Having nothing better to do, we lent her a hand – or four, I guess.
Being so close to the ocean, and being so late in the year, we prepared ourselves to take a dip into the world’s biggest bathtub. The water should be really warm this time of year. So you can imagine our shock when we started shivering as soon as we touched the water. We didn’t last more than ten minutes in the water before giving up.
The birthday celebration continues in the market, with the addition of another Volunteer from the area. Five strong now, we took up a table at a bar near the market. The party started slow, then we made Mozambican Car-bombs (Irish Car bombs, but using Amarula instead of Bailey’s and a Mozambican dark beer instead of Guinness. Delicious? Absolutely.
Somehow, we managed to get to this point in the afternoon without eating lunch. 4:30 isn’t too late for lunch, right? We made a brief stop to split a chicken before heading back to the girls’ house.
One of our missions for this trip was to try some new pizza. The place is owned by a couple of Germans, so we weren’t entirely optimistic. But much to our surprise, the pizza was pretty good – certainly better than the garbage we ate in Inhassoro last week.
After eating our own food, we dropped over to the health girls’ house to see how their party was going. We didn’t want to eat anything, just wanted to say hey. After a little bit, the party dissipated and we made our way over to a bar. The five of us were ready for a big night, but a shitty band combined with a bad crowd forced us home early.
We were all looking forward to Saturday, the day of the big Halloween party in Vilanculos. We had heard good things about last year’s party, so we had high expectations for this year.
The day on the whole was pretty quiet. In the morning, Richie and I made our way back to the north side of town to take advantage of the hot shower. The rest of the day, we mostly hung around, trying to conserve our energy for the party. There were two frozen chickens left over from the party last night, which we took advantage of. I barbecued them up and we made tasty sandwiches.
From there, we transitioned right into pre-game with cake and pizza bagels and some beers. We had a ride our to the party, which was good news because the party was at some place that was a good fifteen minute drive away down a shady road.
When we got to the party, we were a little disappointed. First of all, there were a ton of kids there, which was really disappointing. We can’t really get tanked with so many little children around. Second, we were the only adults in the only party to get dressed up. People are lame. And third, the music was absolutely terrible. It pretty much put us all to sleep. Instead of having a crazy drunken time, most of us sat around playing cards before abandoning the party.
Better to get some sleep. We had big plans for Sunday.
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