African Adventure Part 2

Day 6, The worst travel day

Our goal was to get to Gurue. My friend and I left Sena at 7:30 and got to Caia (an important crossroads town right before you cross the Zambezi river into the Provence of Zambezia) by 9. We got some really tasty goat curry with xima (boiled white corn meal) for breakfast. It would turn out to be the only thing we would eat for 12 hours. We tried hitch hiking and a really really nice car stopped for us. It was a big Range Rover SUV. It was air conditioned and really comfortable, and the guy driving it was supper nice. He even offered us some soda from his cooler he had in the car, though we declined. He and his wife were from Beira and traveling to Quilimane to start up a business. He dropped us off at Nicuidala and told us that if in two hours we had not got a ride he would be continuing up a little further north and drop us off at the crossroads for Gurue.

We walked towards the edge of town to try and hitch a ride. We ended up passing a military checkpoint. The soldiers asked to see our passports. (we don't actually have to have our pass ports on us at all times but law enforcement says we do so they can try to scare us and try and get bribes. So it is just a good idea to carry it to avoid long arguments.) After they realized we had all the right documentation they said, “It's really hot out today. Buy us some sodas.” Now, in Mozambique a soda (refresco) is slang for a bribe. So to this day I am not quite sure if they actually wanted us to buy them some sodas because it actually was a hot day, or if they were trying to just blatantly ask for a bribe  even though there was nothing for us to bribe them to do. I just smiled and said no. They persisted for about a min but then just gave us our passports back.

 After about an hour of getting dropped off we got a ride with a group of guys going to Macuba. Macuba is a really pretty town set amongst rolling hills and small mountains that stick up out of nowhere. It is also a town with  surprisingly good looking infrastructure compared with a lot of other towns in the area.

We were thinking of continuing to hitchhike towards our destination, but we spied a chapa that was going directly to our destination. A chapa is a privately owned minibus that acts like public transportation. It is supposed to fit 10 people, they usually fit between 20 and 25 inside one. It stops a lot, they are almost always in poor condition and in general very slow. You also have to pay a good amount of money for long trips. Which is why hitchhiking is in many ways a preferred method of transportation. But Chapas have one distinct advantage. If you get on one, you are likely to end up where it says it is going. It may take a long time, but it is likely that you will get there the day you get on the chapa. So, my friend and I made the calculated decision that it would be better to take the chapa that is going to our destination rather than continue to try our luck with hitchhiking for the day. After all, the chapa ride was only 3 to 4 hours, at least that was what it was supposed to be.

We paied our ticket and got on at about one in the afternoon. The bus did not end up leaving until about 3 because it was waiting for more people to jam inside . Two hours into out journey we arrived at a town where the vast majority of people got out. There were only five or so people left in the chapa. So the driver wandered around for about an hour trying to see if he could get more people into the chapa. After an hour of no luck, he decided it was not worth it for him economically to only take 5 people the rest of the way. So he called a friend of his that lived in this town. His friend had a car that was slightly larger than an SUV but smaller than a minivan. The five of us hopped in with our new car and new driver.  

Now the problem was that it was Friday (known in Mozambique as Man's Day) and our new driver had been hanging out with some friends. The driver seemed sober but one of his friends was tipsy and the other one was sloppy drunk. The driver wanted to take care of a couple things around town first so he further delayed our trip by about another half an hour. During this time some of the other passengers were complaining about his procrastinating. He sloppy drunk friend told us that we needed to stop complaining because they were doing us a favor by taking us the rest of the way. I told him that if they were doing us a favor, then they should give us our money back but if they are keeping our money then it is not a favor and we have the right to complain. That won me some laughs and the admiration of my fellow passengers but no real progress.

And we were off! Dashing through winding mountain roads. Dodging people walking on the road. Honking the horn every 3 seconds. And then a sudden stop at a small store! The driver and his two buddies got out. His friends got some beers, talked with the store owner a bit and then hopped back inside.  We were off again. Now I was worried because it was starting to get dark and the driver was still pushing 120 kilometers an hour. Then they stopped at another store. The scene repeated, but there were more people there. The friends started dancing to the music a bit. The driver bought a road beer. So my friend and I looked at each and expressed our worries to each other. It was getting dark, the guy was a fast driver on a mountain road, his friends are a distraction to say the least, now he is starting to drink. On the other hand it was getting dark and we were kind of in the middle of nowhere with no other real option for transport. We decided to keep going but keep a close eye on the situation. Thankfully, the driver started to slow down as it got dark and he nursed the one beer for the entirety of the trip. But he still was driving fast and he kept on stopping every 15 min so his friends could get more beer, dance, and yell at random people. Finally, at about 7:30 at night we arrived. Thank God! We would live to see the the next morning. The drunk guys invited us to go dancing with them at the nightclub latter on. My initial reaction was, hell no I am spending any more time around these guys. But later I ended up at the nightclub with cool people.  

We were met by a Peace Corps volunteer once we got into town. She took us to the house of a friend of hers for us to spend the night. We arrived at the friend's house. He was a white Zimbabwean who is working in Mozambique. Really nice guy. We were not the only travelers that were crashing there. There were 4 young German volunteers who were friends of the Peace Corps volunteers in Gaza provence. So after our long day of travel we sat down and had a beer or two with everyone and ate dinner. Then it was decided that we should all go out to see the town on a Friday night. At first I was tired and apprehensive but seeing as I had just cheated death, going out seemed like the right thing to do. So we went into town and hit up a few bars and then went to the nightclub. Everyone got along really well and it was an awesome time.

Day 7,  The Most Beautiful Spot in Mozambique

I woke up in Gurue to some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen in Mozambique and some of the most unique formations I had ever seen period. The mountains were not particularly big, but they jutted strait up in big rocky formations, with rich green plants growing over them. Most of these plants were tea plantations. My travel buddy and I made the walk to the waterfall. It was about a 2 and a half hour walk. We passed through town  and then made our accent up the mountain. We passed by many tea fields and a few old colonial Portuguese buildings. As we walked, any Mozambican we passed asked us for our plastic water bottles. It was strange because in most parts of Mozambique a person could find an empty plastic bottle in just about any trash pit. But for whatever reason they were highly prized. At one point an elderly man stopped me and practically started begging for my water bottle. I would have given it to him but I needed the water that was inside of it for my trek up and down. Also, in most parts of Mozambique it is fairly common for children to randomly ask a white person for some money. In Gurue it was common for grown adults to get your attention and then they would not so much ask for money as they would demand it. A woman, sitting outside her house, at one point just shouted “Money!”  and looked me seriously in the eyes and shouted it again. Now you may be thinking that this means that this is just a really impoverished area. The fact is that it is slightly more economically developed than a lot of other areas in Mozambique because there is so much large scale agriculture in the area that provides food and jobs for the local population. So I do not know what the deal is. But I digress.

So My friend and I made our way up the mountain until we made it to the top of the waterfall. We sat down on a big rock  just before the ledge of the fall. From this spot we could see for miles around. It was absolutely gorgeous. I will try and post a picture. So we sat on top of the waterfall and ate our lunch, some chicken samosas we had brought up, and took a nap. Then it started to drizzle a bit so we decided it was time to head back. The fine drizzle continued for much of our walk back through the tea plantation. The fields had large jacaranda type trees growing all over the place that created some shade at a few points. There were a few small structures along the path, they were for the farm workers to hang out in when it rained and so they would have a place to make and drink tea. There was no work the day we were there because it was on a Sunday. It was only goats hanging out in these shacks this day.

We got back to the house we were crashing at, met up with the others, and rested a bit. We all went to a restaurant/bar to get some dinner. We ordered our food and then played with something like a do it yourself marry go round. It was a wheal that was parallel with the ground. It had maybe 6 spokes and at the end of each spoke was a chair. So we sat on the chairs and had one of the German guys spin us around as all the Mozambicans stared at the grown foreigners acting like children.

Now there were 8 of us and we ordered 7 chicken plates and one beef plate, but 15 min later someone from the restaurant came out and told us they had no more beef and if it was ok if we all took chicken plates. We said that that would be fine. So we waited for out food. And then we waited some more.  Then once it had been an hour and a half after the reconfirmation we decided to check in with them (it usually takes an African restaurant about an hour and a half to cook food for a group). The lady behind the counter told us that they did not have enough chicken for all of us so they did not make our food. Classic Mozambique. They did not think it would be polite to come over and tell us the bad news that they could not cook diner for us, so they decided to do nothing. At this point it was almost 9 and we were all really hungry. The restaurant recommended that we go to another restaurant but the Gurue volunteer said that this other place was notoriously slow and that we would possibly not eat until midnight. So, we went to this one snack bar hoping that we could get some sandwiches and samosas. But when we got there we spoke to the owner and he agreed to make us plates of chicken, rice and salad. Success. They made it in a timely fashion and we were just happy to finally have food in our bellies.   

Day 8, To Nampula

My friend and I made an early start to get to our next destinations. My friend was going to Alto Molocue. I was continuing all the way to Nampula. We took a chapa from Gurue to the intersection with the main highway. As I was on the chapa I was siting in the front row with my bag on my lap. The conductor of the chapa came up to me and asked if he could place my bag in the back and put another person between me and the driver seat. I said ok. Normal Moz rules are that if you ask for your bag to be placed in the back then you pay a little extra. But if the conductor decides to put your bag in the back so he can make room for another person or thing, then you do not have to pay extra because it was the conductor's decision, not yours. Follow? So, when he put my bag in the back he did not state any price whatsoever.

So we got underway and about an hour in we got stopped by police.

The police saw two white guys in the chapa so they made us get out, show them our passports and then take every last thing out of our luggage for them to inspect. My friend and I were both thinking at the time how illegal it would be in the States for a police officer to grab a random person on a bus and begin searching the luggage of the random individual. But that was just normal operating procedure in Mozambique for policemen that wanted to get bribes. I suspect they were hoping that they could find some pot in our bags, take it, and then get us to bribe them not to arrest us. No such luck for the police. My friend and I were clean so then we had to hurriedly repack our bags as everyone in the bus waited on us.

A little latter an elderly woman got off the bus. She had also been asked to move her bag to the back by the conductor. The conductor asked her for 35 MTZ. She laughed at him because that was not normal procedure and told him she had no money. He left her alone without a second word. A bit latter my friend and I got off at the crossroads. We stepped out right in front of the market area of the very very small town. The conductor asked me for 50 MTZ for my bag. I told him (smiling) that I was not going to pay him because it was his decision to place the bag in the back, that I had started off willing to carry the bag on my lap. I told him that he could not place someones bag in the back without mentioning a charge and then charge them at the end of the journey. He persisted and took hold of one of the straps on my bag and told me that I could not take the bag until I pay him.

That is when the discussion became a bit heated. I told him that he was a thief  and that he was robing me. I repeated my argument that he had not rite to charge me. Everyone on the bus agreed with me. That heartened me. I told him that he had no right to hold on to my bag and I told him to let go of me. He let go of my bag. He said that I was robing him and that he would get the police. I said OK, go get the police. Then he said, “Pay me the 50 MTZ and then get back in the van and I will take you to the police and then they can decide.” Fuck that. I told him that if I am robing him then he has to bring the police to me.

Then he took a solid hold of the side of my bag. He said that he was not going to let the bag go until I paid him the money. At that point something snapped in me. It was a little different when he was holding on to one of the straps, but now he was essentially grabbing onto me and refusing to let me go until I paid him. I got real mad. We started shouting at each other. I refused to even argue with him on the issue of the money and just started shouting at him to let go of me and that he had no right to hold onto me. My friend was backing me up but also speaking in a more soothing tone in hopes of calming things down. My friend later told me that he thought I was going to hit the guy. I had thought about it. It was the first time in a long time I had the genuine desire to physically harm another person. At that point in time it would have felt good to hit that guy. That is a very strange sensation that I rarely experience. But even in my elevated state I would never have hit him unless he struck me first. Eventually the people on the bus got really tired of waiting and started yelling at the conductor to get back in the bus so they could get going. He said that he would only do it if the people on the bus payed the 50MTZ extra he was trying to get out of me. A few of the men in the bus said they would. So he got  back on the bus and let me be. I hope that the guys were just saying they would pay the extra so they could get back on their way and that they did not actually mean it. That would be fairly typical Mozambican behavior. If they did pay that 50MTZ I do feel guilty but I do not regret having refused the man what he asked of me. The guy was trying to take advantage of other people. Also, I feel confident in saying that he pushed the issue with me because I am white. Finally he physically grabbed onto me which was completely inappropriate.

So then my friend and I decided that people in northern Mozambique are a lot more rude than Southern Mozambicans. Also, we decided that chapas really really really suck. SO we decided to try and hitchhike again. After not too long an air conditioned minivan pulled up and we got a ride the whole way. The people in the van consisted of a girl that was about 13, a boy that was about 20 and A mixed race woman of about 40. I never really got how they knew each other. But they dropped my friend off at Alto Molocue and took me all the rest of the way to Nampula, as that was also their destination. They even went into the neighborhood I needed to get to and dropped me off a couple blocks from the Peace Corps office there.

I called my next travel buddy (also named Jack) and he gave me directions for getting to the Peace Corps Office there.  Got to the office, met a few staff I had not met before, and went to the volunteer lounge ( a couple couches and a couple computers with good internet). I found a couple other volunteers there (one who had already finished his service so was not really supposed to be there and one who I had not met before because his site is in the north). I checked my e-mail and found out that it was time for me to fill out the registration form for the Foreign Service Officer Test. So I threw it together as quickly as I could because it was a lot of work and I did not want my new travel buddy, the Other Jack, to wait on me very long. I did not know the next time I would have internet access so getting this done was very important.

After all that was done, myself, Other Jack, and the two other volunteers all went out for dinner. Other Jack had to do some work in Nampula earlier that day so the organization he works with put him up in a hotel room for the night. So the volunteer I had never met before and myself crashed with him in the hotel room. We had hot showers, air conditioning, and we watched some of the newest episodes of How I Met Your Mother. A relaxing way to end the day.

Day 9, To Pemba, with Jesus

So my friend Jack and I took a chapa to the outskirts of Nampula where we were going to hitch hike. As I was walking along the main road I tripped. I was wearing flip flops so the skin on the tip of my right big toe got half torn off. It was bleeding quite a bit. But just as I was getting the bandage on, my buddy was able to get a car to stop for us. So I hobbled over as quickly as I could and finished bandaging my toe in the back of his nice car, making sure not to get blood on anything. Then he started driving. We were going over 180 KM/hour. That is about 112 miles per hour. We were flying and dashing through the traffic. There was another car in front of us that was going even faster, so my friend pointed that car out and told out driver “That guy over there is crazy.” Trying to hint that we were also going too fast. Our driver replied, “Yes, I am crazy too. I like to go fast.” So in 30 min, we reached our destination (some crossroads town) when in normally should have taken and hour and thirty. Then we got a semi to drive us to a town  about half the way towards Pemba. It was slow and long, but it was a free ride. We also got held up at a police checkpoint for a while because they were hassling my travel buddy essentially for being ethnically Asian. But he is good at talking to the police and he speaks some of the local language so they ended up liking him. We got going again but the truck driver had to drop off his materials about a third a mile outside of town, so we had to walk with our bags the rest of the way into town.

When we got there we stopped at a small store to buy some egg sandwiches. A couple large trucks packed with white people pulled up. We went over to see what the situation was, we assumed that they were a group of tourists and we wanted to see if we could buy in on their transportation to Pemba. When we started talking to them, they all had American accents! WTF, two trucks full of young Americans in a middle of nowhere town in Cabo Delgado Provence, Mozambique?! Well as it turned out they were all volunteering as missionaries for 3 months and working at a mission/school in Pemba. They were on their way back to Pemba after spending a couple weeks out in small villages showing a movie about Jesus, having conversations about it, and praying for stuff. The odd thing I found about this was that they were operating in possibly the most Muslim part of the country. Almost everyone is Muslim in northern Mozambique.

So being nice Christians they gave us a free ride into Pemba. We made friends with them on the ride. They were nice people, though a little on the “believer” side for me to really relate to them. But they really liked us and jack told me that they had invited us to go out to dinner with them. They were  going out to dinner to say good bye to some people that were heading back home. As we drove into town they started singing Kumbaya My Lord and some song about Jesus. Once in Pemba, jack and I went to the house of the Peace Corps volunteer in Pema, dropped off our stuff and talked with her for a bit. She warned us that the organization that runs the mission we were introduced to has a reputation around town for being on the crazy side. They are really into going out and recruiting people to the faith. They are constantly flying in groups of young people (18-28) from the states and a few other countries (england, australia, sweeden, china), they send them out to convert people and in the process they also put the volunteers through a process of, let us say, strengthening their religious convictions and aligning them with the philosophy of the organization (Extremism Light). Also, the volunteers have a tendency to just run around giving presents to poor people, so all the Mozambicans in the area expect all white people to just give them stuff. Apparently one girl gave an iPhone to a poor old woman one time in a restaurant.

So I was hesitant to go to dinner with them, but jack really wanted to go and be social. There were some pretty cute girls in the group, but maybe that was just because I had spent the past year and a half surrounded by unhygienic and rugged Mozambican women. So hanging out with some clean, English speaking, educated, pampered American girls seemed like a pretty nice idea (Peace Corps goggles).  Jack was raised in a church environment, so even though he did not still share the faith, he felt pretty comfortable around them. He also told me that they were expecting us to come, even though I had not recalled getting invited in the first place. (Later I realized that the only person that invited us was a Mozambican guy that was in the truck who does random work for the mission. He was the only guy expecting us.) But the lynch pin was the fact that it was an Indian restaurant and that there was a decent chance that they would buy our meals. But I still felt awkward about the whole thing.

So we showed up at the mission and we found the Mozambican guy who invited us. We asked him again if it was cool if we come to the diner. He said he did not know and that he would ask the person organizing everything. So he talked to a woman who then came over and told us that we could tag along but that we would have to pay for our own meals. Fair enough. We mingled for a bit before hopping in the back of the truck with the people we had ridden up with and started driving to the restaurant. As we were in the back, all the volunteers started chanting upbeat Jesus chants, stomping on the ground, and getting up and dancing. They do not drink, so it was like they were working themselves up into an intoxicated state. One chant was just them saying “We are the best team in the world!” over and over again.

So we ate diner with them. I got some brianni and my friend and I split a piece of chocolate cake. I had to make sure a did not swear the whole time. That was hard. One thing that was strange was that almost no one said grace before eating. I thought that that was like “a thing” with Christians. Oh well. I was sitting next to a guy who was from Hong Kong and had traveled all the way to Moz, just for this mission trip. He was a bit of an eccentric. I liked him. He asked me if I believed in Jesus. I told him that my spiritual beliefs are complicated. He told me that he still liked me and considered me a good friend. Aside from him and a Swedish girl that thought that everyone was amazingly wonderful, the meal was a little on the boring side. I just don't know how to have a conversation with really religious people. After dinner the lady that was running everything came up to us and told us that they had decided that they wanted to pay for our meals. Score.

We drove back to the mission complex and said our goodbyes. Jack and I thanked them again for giving us the ride into town and buying us dinner. This one guy that was one of the leaders told us that “The Lord provides.” I found that almost offensively ignorant seeing as we were standing in one of the poorest countries in the world. They told us that they were happy to have met us, that it was meant to happen and that God had wanted us to all meet up. Jack Newman, Heaven Sent!

The Great African Adventure. Part 1

Prologue

I went to the a market area on the edge of town to pick up some pants I left with a tailor. The pockets of two of my favorite pants had totally disintegrated from where. I needed to have them fixed before I went off on my big adventure. When I got there the tailor had not arrived yet but the vender in the stall next to his told me that he would be there in about an hour. It was a hot day in early December (African summer) so I popped into a store to buy a cold drink. The store mostly sold rice. I walked in and the owner was finalizing a deal, selling several sacks of rice to someone in preparation for the upcoming holidays. The owner was a stout woman with a warm smile and a friendly attitude. She was going over the quantities of rice and the logistics of delivering them in a very methodical and deliberate way. She was an intelligent woman and obviously successful in her business.

I had some time to kill so I decided to start up a conversation with them. Ordering my soda Guitonga (the local language) was a big crowd pleaser. I talked to them about the store and the upcoming holidays and how hot it was. They asked me about being a health volunteer. When the client left the owner started asking me question  about my work with HIV positive people. This led to a really good discussion about the virus, how it is most commonly spread (multiple concurrent relationships) and some misconceptions that she had. Another customer came in and he joined in on the conversation for a bit. He thought that some condoms contained the HIV virus and that you could get it by putting on some condoms. That conversation was my last act as a health volunteer in 2012. I had done my duty and now it was time to sign out. I picked up my travel ready pants. It was about time for an adventure.


Day One, Inhambane

I woke up early on my first day of travel I threw on my backpack and took a few photos of myself before I embarked on my journey. The plan :Overland travel to historical Ibo Island in Northern Mozambique,then to Pemba to celebrate Christmas with over 20 other friends (who were apart of the group I entered into the Peace Corps with). Then take a flight to Dar Es Salam, Tanzania and a boat to Zanzibar, hang out in Stone Town and spend New Years on the Beach. Then fly back down to Maputo, pick up my uncle, show him around my town and site, and finally hold a two day party for all the male volunteers within 4 hours of my site, aptly named “Man Weekend.” (I left my house on December 11th and Man Weekend ended January 13th).

 I took a bus up to a town in Northern Inhambane Provence called Pembara. On the way up there were butterflies everywhere. I decided that was a good sign. From there I hoped to hitch hike a little more north. One guy stoped but wanted me to pay him a lot of money to give me a lift to Chimoio. I ad a friend in Chimoio (central Mozambique) but I thought I should hold out for a better ride. Two hours later in the baking hot sun I was ready to take anything that came along. Then a bus apeared that was going to a town, where I had a friend. This town was not as far north as chimoio but it was significantly more north than where I was. I decided to take this bus to this town on the Save River. From there I would have a good jumpping off point to get to Chimoio the next day. My strategy for not wearing myself out on this trip was not to spend more than six hours on the road per day.  Unfortunatly this bus was really really packed and I was jammed in a corner with my leg occasionally getting burned on a piece of metal close to the engine.  It took longer than it should have because one guy needed some stuff on the roof to be dropped off at his house which was significantly more off the main road then he led everyone to believe. But eventually I got there, met op with the volunteer, took a bath, and cooked some dinner. The volunteer I was staying with was friends with the owner of a close by store. She called him up and had him deliver some beers to us as we ate dinner (delivery beer...nice).

Day Two and three, Chimoio

I Got a free hitchhike all the way to Chimoio on a freight Truck the next day. It was not very fast but I got on it early on, it was comfortable, and it was free. The driver was Zimbabwean so he spoke English. He listened to a lot of good Reage and recordings of some Rasta teacher who talks about how to escape the modern day servitude system created by “The White Man.” I asked him about where he had left from this morning and where he was going. He told me that He had started off in Johannesburg but was held up in Maputo for 10 days. “Why were you held up there for so long?” I asked. “Because of my cargo. Its used to make bombs. So there was a lot of paperwork.” he replied. “So, are you carrying some sort of chemical?” I asked for clarification. “Ya, its a chemical. Its fertilizer but it could be used to make a bomb.” he clarified. “So, how much are you carrying?” “Over one ton.” So there I was, riding off on a 6 hour journey in the front of one ton of weapons grade fertilizer.

The strech of land that I was crossing this day is possibly the most sparsely populated area along the main road. Therefore, there is very sporadic transportation. Any ride is a good ride. So I just chilled out in the comphy chair in the big rig, crussing by the african bush , high enough to see for quite a distance. The landscape eventually changed from flat, dry bush to Bright Green Mountains. As we got closer to Chimoio I saw some of the most beautiful and lush mountain landscaped I had seen in Mozambique.

I got to Chimoio in the late afternoon and met up with my friend at a Fancy western Style supermarket (ah the joys of the big city). I also met up with a new education volunteer. This new batch of education volunteers had all arrived tat their sites only a few days prior. It was cool to welcome her to her first few days at site and hang out with both of them. In general I really like Chimoio. I can’t really explain why. The crime is bad. Its a bit of a small city. None of the really pretty mountains are visible from the city center. But there is something charming about it. Possibly it is all the art deco buildings left over and half dilapidated from the 60s. There are also some good restaurants. On the first day I ate at a really good and really cheap indian restaurant with my friend and the new volunteer. The next day a  couple more friends of mine showed up in Chimoio as well. There were also on their way up to Pemba. The four of us went to a Lebanese restaurant in Chimoio. I got to eat a Chicken shawarma, hummus, and babaganoush. It was amazing!!!!! Amazing!!!! Then we shared a hookah. I felt so decadent. I also smoked too much and ended up feeling a little sick. Then I passed out on my sleeping pad at my friends house and fell into a blissful sleep.

Day 4 and 5, Zambezi River Valley

My Chimoio buddy decided to accompany me on my way up north for a few days. So we Planned our next stop at a town along the Zambezi River where another good volunteer friend lived. As we were leafing Chimoio there was a big uproar on the bus because there was a man traveling with a young baby and he started being accused of trying to steal his child from its mother. Eventually he got off and some local woman said that she knew the mother and that he was taking the child to her. Who knows what the real situation ever was. Its always interesting to see people arguing about baby trafficking. My backpack was tied to the top of the bus. It got heavily rained on. The last part of the journey we had to take in the back of a pickup truck. Oh the joy of getting rained on in the back of a pickup for over an hour. Our friend was on he side of the road just in time to welcome us inside as we waited for the storm to pass.  

When the storm passed I started hanging out everything to dry. Unfortunately that included some books that were thoroughly soaked. One the first day we hung out with our friend and two new education volunteers that had just arrived at her town. For over a year my friend had been living in this remote location with hardly any other volunteers within a day's travel. Now she had two other americans living right in her town. Her situation had drastically changed. Out friend showed us around town and the office of the organization she works with. I had seen the town before when I had traveled up about 6 months prior. The organization's office was really nice. It even had a small recording studio to make songs about HIV awareness. It was run by Mozambicans who were refugees that lived in Canada during the civil war. I also got to try a new beer that is being made in Mozambique. It is called Impala and it is made out of Cassava root rather than Barley. It is cheaper than normal beer and has a higher alcohol content (great for a country that has too many alcoholics). The taste was very underwhelming.  

The next day we all walked along the long bridge that connected the town my friend lives in, in Sofala  Provence to another Town on the other side of the river, in Tete Province. It is about a one hour walk across the bridge and it is one of the most beautiful landscapes. There are small mountains to the south, east and west, but big ones to the north, in Tete.  The river area is filled with small trees and tall grasses. It was amazing how different the land was, once we got to the town in Tete. Sofala is mostly flat African bush, occasionally interrupted by a small mountain that sticks up out of nowhere. Tete is rocky, rugged and dry. The town we were in was like going to a small town in the Mountains of Arizona during the “Wild West,” except for the fact that everyone was African and there are TVs and refrigerators (for keeping cold beer and soda). It was also absolutely beautiful. The view from up high, overlooking the river and the endless flatlands was awesome. It was an excellent place to sit on top of a giant rock in the middle of a rugged Mountain town. Then we went back and made some excellent chicken curry. We stayed out late hanging out that night. That was a bad idea. The next day would prove to be the hardest travel day of my entire journey.   

Here are a few highlights of the past few Months:
Canadian Despedida

There was a going away party for the group of Canadian volunteers in the city. I was invited to it. It was nice to say goodbye to some of the people  had known and hung out with. Aside from that It was a little awkward because since I was white and siting with some of the Canadian volunteers it appeared that I was also one of the “guests of honor” so to speak. That and the food made me sick about two hours later.

Reunification

I got a text message from a volunteer, from another Provence, one day saying, “You know 'So and so'?” I replied that I had only ever known one 'So and so' in my life; that she was a friend of mine in Middle school and the last time I had seen her was my High School graduation “Ya that's the one. She is in Maputo right now.”

Apparently my middle school friend became the college roommate of this volunteer and now they are super close. So, our mutual friend came to Mozambique to visit her old college roommate before she finished her time in Peace Corps Mozambique. They were going to Tofo beach (which is about an hour and a half from my house) so I met up with them for the weekend and hung out. It was cool to see her and chat about stuff and people I have not even thought about in years. In general it was just nice to see how she had changed/stayed the same and hear about what she had been up to the past 8 years.

Then the next day I went to a fish taco party in town with some peace corps friends. We got to use a really nice house as one friend is house sitting. It was almost like a real adult dinner party. It was interesting to compare where my life was when I was 14 to where my life is at age 26. Both on a physical location level and social level.

Site Mate Despedida

For my time at site there has been another volunteer who arrived about 8 months before me. She is a big hippy from the North Wast in her sixties. She did 2 years of peace Corps in Botswana before doing another 2 years in Moz. I would run into her from time to time around town and she was always eager to get into conversations and drink whiskey. She is quite a character and it was great having her around. So for her last weekend, myself and the other site mates told her that we would hold a going away party for her and that we would make it however she liked. She rented a room at her favorite guest house in Tofo and we spent the day swimming and siting on the porch drinking whiskey on the rocks. Then we made a big pasta diner. It was a great way to send her off.

Flesh Eating Bacteria

One of the new volunteers who arrived in August got a foot infection with a flesh eating Bacteria. He had to get skin removed around his ankle and then a skin graft. He is currently recovering back in the States it is unclear if he will be returning or not. His site is two hours away from mine and he was always hanging out. He is an awesome and funny guy and we all hope he gets better and gets his ass back to the “Terra de Boa Gente.” (the nick name for my Provence. It means the Land of Good People. I wrote a punk song with some others called “Fuck your Face and Welcome to the Terra de Boa Gente” )

Halloween

I went to a town called Bilene for a Halloween Party (On Friday). During this same weekend all Education Trainees (people that are in Mozambique training to be Peace Corps Education volunteers as English, math, or science teachers) were sent off to visit different site around the country (prior to expressing what type of site they would like to be placed at). Many of these trainees were to be sent to the southern Provinces in which I live. The Plan was to get them all to Bilene and have a huge Halloween Party with  all the Southern Volunteers and visiting Trainees. But the party got shut down by the Peace Corps Office in Maputo. So only about 15 people showed up in the end. But we had a great time anyways. We rented out a large Chalet on top of a sand dune overlooking the bay. We swam. We drank. We grilled. We got in our costumes and danced on the Porch (on Saturday). Then I went to a nearby city which has an Indian Restaurant (on Sunday). I had only eaten there once before, about a year ago. It was great :)

Then as I was in the middle of my meal;  got a text telling me that everyone in my Provence is in my city along with all the trainees who are visiting sites in my Provence. I was instructed to book it back. So I took one bus to the outskirts of town, waited on the side of the road for over an hour, hitchhiked to a town just over the border into my Provence, then took a bus to the next town over, then took a bus to the town on the other side of the bay from my city, then took the boat over to my city. At about 9;45 at night I arrived at the restaurant/ bar everyone was at. I am now called “The American Hero.” Later that evening a Mozambique and musician played his guitar for us and sang some songs for us. He was very, very talented. It was a great way to end a long day.

The next day (Monday) I went back to my house to do some laundry and take a bath. I returned to my friend's house in town in the late afternoon. She had three visiting trainees and it was decided that we should have an early thanks giving meal. Os we made mashed potatoes, stuffing, baked chicken and we got a hold of a can of cranberry sauce. We also had some really good chocolate brownies with cashew nuts.

The next day (Tuesday) was election day. We organized for a group of us to stay at a youth hostel in Tofo that had a large flat screen with Satalite TV. Even more Volunteers showed up and the trainees visiting them. We had about 30 Peace Corps people that had shown up by the end of the day. We hung out on the beach in the day, we cooked and drank sangria at night and stayed up late to watch CNN. But seeing as  we were 7 hours ahead of east cost time, by 2 in the morning, still not much had happened. So most people fluctuated between getting some sleep and wandering in to check up on things. I was less smart and more obsessive. For the most part I stayed up all night long. Then AR around 6 in the morning (Wednesday). We were essentially just waiting around for one of the major swing states to turn blue. Instead of projecting Ohio for Obama and then projecting his reelection, they just straight up projected his reelection. It kind of came out of nowhere. There were hours of boring nothing developments and the projecting of states that we already knew would go red or blue. Then in an instant it was decided to be all over. I was to tired to express much emotion. But then there was the whole drama of Romney not ready to step down. So I waited for all that to happen. Then Ronmeny gave his very strange speech. Then Finally, Obama gave his victory speech. It was good. Then I went swimming in the Indian ocean.

We slowly made are way back to my city and the whole giant group (plus a few more visiting Trainees who
were making their way back down from their site visit. Also two people with another volunteer organization called VSO who were just in town for a visit from their site up north) made a big diner at one of my friend's houses. We ate. We played cards. I had trouble staying awake past 8pm. I felt bad for my friends who were forced to house a ridiculous amount of people that night. Even after splitting the group in two. By the time I woke up the next Morning (Thursday) they were all gone. And that is the story of my 6 six day bender from Halloween through Election day.
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Work

• I have set up a small vegetable garden with corn and beans as an example of proper methods for growing a substantial amount of food in a small space. This is good for people who are HIV positive and do not have the energy to do hard farm work.
• I have given some English classes
• I am continuing to give computer classes and help with project monitoring documents
• I gave a class on nutrition and medicinal plants in the area after a Mother and doubter from Zimbabwe showed up and tried to sell “natural Chinese medicine” pills at extremely high prices to the health works at my organization. The sad thing is that even though the health workers do not have much money, they were captivated by the selling point of “medicine without chemicals” and all the things these pills promised to do. So they were really tempted to drop a lot of money for six pills that “help their concentration.” Even though they need that money to feed their children. I will continue to give nutrition and medicinal plant classes during our meetings.
• I went out to another volunteers site and helped give a workshop on growing seedlings for Maringa trees. These trees are legit miracles. The leaves contain protean, calcium, vitamin c, etc.. The different parts of the tree have several medicinal uses. This tree is the real deal and the organization of one of my volunteer friends is helping to build a nursery with the organization of another of my volunteer friends. SO I helped with the preparation and facilitation of this workshop. It was really cool to go to this remote and beautiful site, see all the kids playing soccer at their school in between the Palm trees, then dance with everyone in the evening when they use a gasoline generator to power the stereo system and a single light bulb. Then we gave the workshop. Then myself and my friends went to a totally secluded and beautiful beach. It is my favorite beach in Mozambique.

Recording Studio in the Bush

A couple weeks ago I went to a get together at the house of an Austrian expat who has been living in Moz for 6 years. He has a small recording studio in my city but his house is a little out of the way. His neighborhood only just got electricity a few months ago. Once they did get electricity he decided that he would build a large, top of the line recording studio on his property. The basic concrete and metal structure is up now. It looks like to is going to be really cool if/when it is completed. Right now he is waiting on a special type of hard palm wood to get trucked down from the North. Then he has to install it all and lastly place in all the electronics. His idea is to start seriously recording and promoting Mozambican musicians. Also, I think he wants to get western musicians to buy packages where they live on his property for some time and get inspired and record and album.

The Midservice Crisis

The Midservice Crisis is a commonly known stage of a Peace Corps Volunteer's experience. It generally occurs when one realizes that one is half way done with the peace corps experience. One usually feels like he or she has accomplished less than expected after one year at site and experianced much less of the country than he or she would have expected after one year at site. The Midservice crisis is characterized by feelings of frustration, hopelessness, claustrophobia, depression, and a general desire to drop any responsibility and just do fun things.
My mid service trip.By the end of July I had been in Mozambique for over a year and almost at site for one year yet I had not yet been further north than a town 3 and a half hours north of my site. So decided that I should take a week off and make a trip as far north as I could and be back within a 5 day period. It just so happened that two of my friends who are volunteers in central Mozambique were passing through my site on their way up. One is a volunteer in Chimoio and the other a small town called Sena. My original plan was to gt up to Sena as fast as possible but the Sena volunteer decided to spend some more time at the beach near my house. So I left with the Chimoio volunteer and took the really long journey up to his site. The trip was really uneventful. Once you cross the border between Inhambane Provence and Sofala Provence you have to cross a bridge over a large river. This bridge is manned by a large number of police and military personnel so it feels like a Country border crossing. This is because this bridge is the only major bridge that crosses the large "Save" river. During the civil war this was strategically a very important location as one side had more control of much of the land north of the river and the other side had control of much of the land on the other side. Today the police and military personnel are basically there to charge people to use the bridge and fine them for any paperwork or vehicle discrepancies. I am sure that they would never use their authority and absolute control of the only major bridge across this large river to pocket government fines or try and hassle people into giving bribes.
The next stop was a town called Inchope. It is a major cross roads town. Between the river Save and Inchope is hours of driving through absolutely nothing dry, dense African bush for miles, over and over again. Once in Inchope we were easily able to get a bus to Chimoio up in the mounains. The Mountains in this area are old worn down mountains. The landscape is flat and then a mountain sticks up, and then its flat for a few miles, and then there is another mountain. So the landscape around Chimoio has several small, free standing mountains within view from most points. Chimoio is a very crime ridden city. Peace corps volunteers have experienced robbery and assault on multiple occasions there. SO when I arrived at night the local volunteers went into security mode and made sure we avoided the wrong parts of town and always walked at a fast pace (as I was helping my friend carry a large bag filled with stuff he brought back from a recent trip to the states). So that was us, walking as fast as possible, from one side of town to the other as we hauled around a 100 pound bag. The next day I got to explore the city a bit. In the day time I really liked the place. Some neat parks and art deco buildings. Some modern shopping areas, a few very large outdoor markets. There is a strange mix of cultures there. There are a lot of people of Portugese decent that still live there. There are "Black" Mozambiqueans, people of Indian decent and many people from Zimbabwe as well.
Just when I was sitting around Chimoio wondering what I should do next and if I should just take the long journey back to my site...My volunteer friend in Sena called me and said she was on her way back up. So I went back to Inchope the next day and met up with her. We did not make it all the way to her site. The van we were in started overheating on the road so we ended up having to drive about 32 miles an hour for 6 hours until we got to the next town with a peace corps volunteer. This volunteer was a fourth year extendee. She had decided to stay in peace corps Mozambique for twice the required amount of time. She is my age and graduated from college the same time as me, but she went directly to peace corps mozambique and stayed their for 4 years. She will be leaving in a few months. She was a little hermit like. As apparently she does not leave her town very often or hang out with other volunteers, but she was really really nice and she had accomplished a lot around her town. She had a big house so we crashed there for the night. My friend then realized that she had left her bag with all her clothes on the van that took us up from Inchope. I was too tired to care. I finally realized just how gigantic this country is. My dinner that night was a dark beer, some bread, and a box of pineapple juice (all bought at a gas station).
The next day we made it to Sena. Honestly for the most part, once you have seen one small Mozambiquan town you have seen them all. But this one has something special. There is a railway that carries coal from the inland mountains to the port in Berra. That railway crosses the Zambezi river at Sena. There is a Large bridge that traverses the entire river. There is no road but there is a foot path that has been placed along the side of the bridge. This footpath is a little bigger than a sidewalk and there are some holes in it that give way to a straight drop, but the big holes have thick iron plates covering them (for the most part). The last time any of the footpath was re-semented was 1964 (the dates are on the cement bricks). On this footpath there are people walking from one end to the other, people on bicycles, people riding on the back of "bicycle taxis," (a small seat has been atached to the back wheel and the passenger rides sitting backwards) and motorcycles. So there I was walking out into the middle of the Zambezi river dodging motorcycles and holes in the bridge as I was looking around at one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in this country (sorry I did not realize it would be so cool, so I forgot to bring my camera.). South of the river there were 5 small mountains and green African bush as far as the eye can see. North of the river was a dry rigid mountain landscape. In between was the long expanse of the river and the long reeds and grasses along the sides. The pure green color of all the plants was vibrant all around. There were small farm plots and shacks on islands on the edges of the river and small fires all around. Looking at this valley I almost felt as if I was looking back in time to an early agrarian community living on the banks of a river in the cradle of civilization. As I was standing in the middle of this bridge (it took me 40 min just to walk to the middle) I decided that everything in my journey had led up to this point, that I had gone through all the long and difficult traveling so that I could stand on that bridge and see this amazing and remote place. Then I was really hungry so I had some fresh river fish for lunch...awesome.
That night I went to a party with a group of Mozambiquans who had lived in Canada during the civil war and have returned to Sena to do aid and development work. First we went to one person's house where we ate diner and one of the guys offered to take me Parana fishing the next day. I decided against that. Then we all went to the local bar and went to sleep.
The next day I decided to head back down because I needed to be back to my site the in two days for a friend's Birthday. Unfortunately the bus I was on was having mechanical problems and again I did the ride to Inchope going 32 miles an hour for 6 hours. I tried to see if I could still get a ride going further south at 3:30 in the afternoon, but they all had already left. So I decided to go up to Chimoio and then whey my options. As I was siting in the bus waiting to leave for Chimoio a drunken Mozambiquan man in full islamic dress sits down next to me. He is completely drunk, yelling at everyone and spilling his "juice" all over the place so the driver of the bus had to force him off (normally drivers will put up with it because they don't care and they just want the money so the fact that this driver did do something says something about how big a mess this drunk guy was). On top of this guy being Muslim and completely trashed, it was in the middle of Ramadan. Fail. A police man came over and got the drunk guy to go away. Then three Southern Asian looking guys got on the bus and sat don next to me. The police man looked in the bus, and saw these three guys and me (I was experimenting with growing a beard at the time) and asked to see the pass ports of one of the guys. The policeman decided that he did not like all that he saw so he told the guy that he and his friends needed to come to the police station with him. I stayed in the bus and told the policeman that I did not know them the policeman then looked really confused and said "OK I want all the foreigners in this bus to get out right now and come with me to the police station." So I got out and walked with the policeman, making sure I stood on the opposite side of him from the other guys and speaking with him in Portuguese ( ony one of the other guys could speak any Portuguese at all). I started asking the policeman about Inchope and his job and I told him that I had been living in Mozambique for a year as a health volunteer. He asked me where I was from and I told him that I was American. He said, "Are you sure you are an American? Yo look Italian to me." "Yes I am sure that I am an American." Strangely this is not the olny time a Mozambiquan has assumed off the bat that I am Italian.
We got to the police station and were brought to the office of the police chief. I made sure that I sat on the opposite side of the room from the other guys. They all took out their pass ports (Pakistani) and the police started to grill them and only one of them spoke any Portuguese at all (poorly). There was some problem with their World health cards that were supposed to show their vaccination records. At this point a friend of my called me and I acted like it was an important phone call. I think it gave the impression that someone of importance had been informed that I was being detained by the Inchope police.
At this point I had the following set of challenges. I wanted it to be clear that I was not involved with these other guys. I did not want to be waiting in the police station for hours as they drilled these Pakistani guys, I wanted to avoid getting pressured into giving a bribe, and finally I had to overcome my own great, great stupidity. I had forgotten my passport at my house at my site. I was basically undocumented save my California drivers license (that was still in my wallet, and now expired by several months), and my peace Corps ID card (which is a small paper card that any 16 year old with Microsoft word and a lamination machine could make, but it had my photo on it, the phone numbers for Peace Corps Mozambique HQ and the US Embassy, an ID number that has the official significance of fuck all, and a picture of the American Flag). So, as the chief was drilling the Pakistanis I said to myself, I could see if these guys speak English and I could help them out by translating, or I could try and get the hell out of here. So I walked up to the Police officer that originally brought me there with my Peace Corps ID in hand and Said, "Here is my identification, like I said before, I am an American Health volunteer. If you have any questions you can call the Peace Corps HQ or the US Embassy." "OK, can I see your pass Port." "Like I said before, I have been living in Mozambqiue for over a year. So my passports is at my home. I am not leaving the country so I do not have my passport with me. I am going back to my home now to continue my work as a health volunteer. If you have any questions, you can call one of these numbers." The officer took the card up to the chief and said "excuse me chief, here is the ID of this American. He is a health volunteer. There are a lot of phone numbers on this card. Do you want to call them?" The chief shook his head. So the officer walked back and gave me my card back. Then he walked back to the corner. I waited a couple minuets before walking back up to him and asked him if I could go. He said he did not know, so he went back to the chief and interrupted him from drilling the Pakistanis. "Do you want to ask the American any questions or can he leave?" The chief gave me a a discerning stare and then told the officer that I could go. He was obviously more interested in the three Pakistanis with vaccination discrepancies. As I was exiting the Police station a drunk guy came running up to me and said "I speak English! You pay me! I talk to Police for you!" "No thanks Amigo." I think I did better on my own.
So I got up to Chimoio and had dinner with my friend who lives there. I had the best plate of "piri piri chicken" (chicken in hot pepper sauce, it is almost the national dish) I have had in Mozambique. Then I went to secure my seat on the only guaranteed bus heading from Chimoio back to my site. I got the last seat, which was the back left corner of the bus, behind the last row of seats, on top of the radiator. I placed my sleeping bag on my "seat" as a cushion and leaned my bag on the side. Then I caught a few hours sleep on the bus before it left at 3:20 in the morning. 8 hours later I was at the town next to mine having a hamburger and Pepsi with some friends as we gathered to begin the Birthday Party weekend.
The party weekend itself was a good time. We hung out, cooked some meals, went to the beach, and watched a Brazilian Comedy at the local Movie Theater. At the beach we met a group of 9 Canadians who recently showed up in town and are doing volunteer work around town for 2 months with other young Mozambiquans as a part of a cultural exchange. Then they will all go back to a town in the middle of nowhere Canada with the Mozambiquans for another two months. Last year there was a cool guy from Toronto working with my org as I entered. Now there is a girl from Montreal. I remember telling the first guy that he could come back in one year and I would still be here and would still have about a year left to go. It does not seem like that long ago now.
The birthday party and some of the Canadians all ended up at the Movie theater. The movie was called "Elvis and Madonna." Its about a Drag queen who dresses up as Madonna and a lesbian who always wears a leather jacket who fall in love. In typical Brazilian comedy fashion, someone gets naked, someone gets pregnant and then someone randomly ends up getting shot, even if the shooter is just some random guy that just so happens to be walking around with a 45 in his pocket at exactly the right time to save someone. Then when the weekend was over I picked up a package from the post office sent from the states. The customs officers opened it to do a search. Four or five officers took me in a back room and drilled me because the description of the contents was "Bibles" yet it had tons of stuff and none of it bibles. So then they told me that I was legally obligated to pay the 45% value tax for importing rare or valuable goods into the country. So I had to pay about 20 USD in the end. Getting intimidated by government officials in the 3rd world sucks.
Teaching gigA friend of mine runs a small project where they try and link art projects with HIV/AIDS education in middle schools. Previously she had a Mozambiquen run the health lecture but that person was not showing up on time and the only information she was getting across to the kids was making them memorize how to say "Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Virus." So I was asked to step in and do the lecture for 2 days a week for two weeks. This is because I can speak good enough Portuguese and I know a lot about HIV now.
On the Tuesdays I would give a short lecture and on the Thursdays I would help keep the kids under control as we did the art component and tried to encourage them to paint about what I had taught them. I really did not know how I would do teaching these kids about HIV. I was not sure that my Portuguese really would be good enough, I did not know if I could keep them quiet and I did not know if I could actually keep them engaged and teach them anything. In short. I more or less did it. I did my best to keep them engaged even though class room participation is not really a thing in Mozambique so they did not know why I was asking them to do stuff and answer questions posed to the class. Normally teachers just lecture and then kick them out of the classroom. That is if the teacher shows up at all and also when the teacher is not hitting the students with a piece of rubber hose as the class watches and laughs (In general Mozambicans think that a person getting physically hurt is the funniest thing in the world. One time I fell down in front of a market and my shin fell on a rock. Everyone around stopped and started pointing and laughing as I was on the ground in pain cradling my fucked up leg. But I digress...)
When I went around and talked to the students individually, I fund out that the information I taught them actually did sink in. That was a big relief because when I was asking questions to the group no one said anything. So I did in the end get some knowledge transferred to them. It was pretty satisfying to do something that has a direct result. With my work at my org I am very removed from the direct interpersonal work so it is hard to see and pinpoint my contribution as I am more of a process improver. It was good to know that my Portuguese is good enough to give two lectures in HIV in front of a class of preteens. In fact it was the first time that I gave a real class lecture ever. I really think that I did a good job of connecting with the students so I feel proud of that. There may be future opportunities for me to do something like this again in February. I would really enjoy that.
Midservice ConferenceA week and a half before midservice the new group of volunteers arrived at site. There are several people in my area including a new girl in my city. The ones I have met so far are really cool so I think I am looking at a good 2^{nd year. I went out he beach with 3 of the new volunteers and then immediately left for my midservice conference.}
Midservice is traditionally just when they do medical and dental checkups on everyone. But recently they have expanded it to include some experience sharing and other presentations. It was really good to see everyone from my original group that I went through training with. Unfortunately about as soon as I got to Maputo I started feeling a bit sick. But I went to the city art center for a glass of port and some music with some friends. It is really a cool place. Half of it is a nice bar with an outdoor area and live music and the other half is an artists' studio with everything from oil paintings to sculptures made from leftover weapons and bullet casings from the civil war. Then for the rest of the week I had a fever and diahria (with blood for one of the days, that was a surprise). I was a mess. But thankfully I was at the hotel and receiving attention from the peace corps medical staff. Despite my illness I was able to accomplish the following: eat some good curries, eat some gelato, buy a bottle of imported beer from Belgium for about 7 USD that ended up being sour which was a big disappointment because I really really miss good beer, go to a karaoke bar that has a live band that know how to play all the songs, ride some bumper cars, and facilitate an hour and a half long session on "strategies for working with supervisors and counterparts." That actually turned out really well despite the fact that I was sick and totally unprepared.
You see, there were several sessions that the volunteers could lead if they so chose. I had thought that since all of us were in the same place and we all had one year of experience under our belts that the setting would obviously be that of experience sharing. But everyone else that decided to lead a session had prepared a power point and had something very specific that they wanted to present to the group that they or their organization had accomplished. So on one hand I felt like I was not prepared but on the other hand I felt like my idea of simultaneous experience sharing and problem solving would take much better advantage of the situation we were in. I am really glad that some people were able to do some really great things but I just felt like we needed to focus on what problems people were experiencing and how they can approach them.
So I rolled up with nothing more than a pad of paper with a list of challenges I had faced with my supervisor and counterpart over the past year. But to make up for the lack of power point I through on some nice shoes, slacks, a dress shirt, a tie, and my glasses (so I would look smart). So I wrote my challenges down one one side of a a large piece of paper and I asked people to add more challenges that they have had. Then on the other side we came up with solutions for these problems and people who had successfully addressed these problems were able to talk about what they had done. Of course there were some people that probably talked a little too much but in general I felt like I did a good job of facilitating a really important conversation. Afterwords, people told me that they had really gotten something important out of it and the Country Director told me that he really thought I had good group facilitation skills. So that was really faltering. This experience and the classroom experience have got me thinking about what the connection is and what I do that is good with being placed in front of a group of people. I know that I sure as hell never want to be a teacher but maybe there is something I could do with this. Ill figure it out.
As for my actual work, the conference provided me with a few ideas for stuff to do. I want to try and do radio announcements in my city for using mosquito nets and Malaria awareness. The Malaria high season will start in a few months. Also I got some sweet potatoes from a market in Maputo that I thought were the orange type but turned out not to be, because I want to start growing them around my site. I still need to get that together, especially since I have just found out that the conditions of my site are really good for growing sweet potatoes. This would be a really good thing for PLWHAs in my community to have as a source of calories and vitamins. Also, the PC staff told us that it was normal and legitimate for us to be going through a stressful time at this point in our service. So that makes me feel like I understand why I had the urge to just get up and leave my site and through my hands in the air and say to hell with my organization. So I think I will get though it.
Whale sharks or lack there ofMyself and few other decided to stay an extra day in Maputo to hang out and buy a few things. Unfortunately I assumed that the backpackers would have vacancy and I did not reserve a bed. So myself two others and a random German couple we ran into (who had just finished a trip from Tofo and saw a bunch of cool wild life when they went whale shark snorkeling. They saw Mantarays, whale sharks, hump back whales, and dolphins. This was really encouraging to hear.) all rented out a 5 bed room in a really run down and sketchy hotel. There it no good way to describe this place. It is built like a fort but it has all these strange child book paintings in front, a fake lamp post with three orbs on it that are painted different colors, and a giant neon light sign in front that says "Pensao Central" (Central Inn). There were a bunch of drunk guys hanging out front and there was no office. Just a desk at the bottom of the stairs. But I had to get up early the next morning so I did not spend much time there. I woke up at 4:30 and made my way over to the backpackers I originally wanted to go to where I met up with a friend and a random American couple. We all grabbed the early bus from Maputo direct to Tofo beach. The bus had some of the most uncomfortable chairs I have been on, but we survived. Talking to the American couple we found out that they were on an 18 month trip around the world. They had finished South America, had a quick trip in Europe, and now they were doing Africa before they make their way over through Asia.
So we made it to Tofo and met up with some friends and some volunteers from Swaziland who were also hanging out in Tofo. The next day I took a couple of the Swazi volunteers into town. One said that he felt something rattling around inside his ear so he wanted to go to the clinic in town. SO I took him to the central city health center. We basically rand around asking people where we should go for 20 min as the other Swazi volunteer was wandering around with no real direction, using all 5 of her words in Portuguese to say to everyone she passed: "Good morning. How are you? Emergency!" Eventually we had him seen and they basically took something that looked like a small baster and squirted a bunch of water in his ear. Then a big hard ball of wax plopped out. I guess that is what happens when you have just finished two years living in rural Swaziland. Then I took them to the old Mosque because they wanted to see some of the older buildings in town. The Imam was there and he said we could go in and check it out. It was pretty basic on the inside but I liked checking it out because it was built in 1840. The Imam showed us a Koran that had been written by hand somewhere in Arabia in the 1700s and then brought down here. Then the girl volunteer started speaking fluent (or close to) Arabic with the Imam. They walked all around the Mosque and chatted for about an hour. The guy volunteer told me that he never knew that she could speak Arabic. At one point the Imam asked me if I was Jewish. I said no and then he and the girl volunteer pointed at me a few times as they spoke some more Arabic. Then a little later we thanked him for showing us around and we left. Later I asked the girl why the Imam asked if I was Jewish and why they were pointing at me. She said "Oh, I thought it would be funny to tell him that you were Jewish. He really wanted to rip your head off as soon as I told him that. He said that "We Muslims kill Jews." But I told him that he should accept you because Jewish people are also people of the book. I thought it was a good joke." So now the local Imam thinks I'm Jewish and wants to rip my head off. Awesome...
The next day I went out on the whale Shark snorkeling trip. Everyone had high hopes because there had been lots of good sightings recently and lots of other wild life. So we got wet suited up and jumped in a speed boat (which was really, really fun to ride off of the coast and then back on in, bouncing off of high waves and flying in the air was the best part of the trip, though a couple people threw up). Then we spent a whole lot of time trying to find whale sharks. We saw a small pack of dolphins. A single hump back whale, and a baby whale. The baby whale was really showing off and doing a bunch of tricks in front of us. That really was the highlight. But no manta rays and no fucking whale sharks! I was happy I got to see the baby whale but truth be told, I really wanted to see the largest sharks on earth but I guess that was too much to ask for that day. Fuck you Mother Nature! Then a couple hours later I started feeling really weak and started getting diarrhea again. SO I cut my vacation time short and headed back to my house where I more or less stayed for another week and a half as I fought off one of the most long lasting viruses I have ever had. Fuck you virus!
WorkI already talked about the sweet potatoes and the malaria awareness, but I just recently found out that none of the PLWHAs that my organization's health workers visit own Mosquito nets because they can not afford them. So I really want to do some research on how I may be able to secure funding for mosquito nets for these people as when HIV and Malaria are both present in a body they perpetuate each other thereby destroying the person's health and then life.
The other thing going on with my org is this very large project that will be starting soon. Unfortunately I have been totally out of the loop with it. After I came back from midservice I was still sick and very tired so I told my counterpart just to give me the first draft of the project plan once he was done so I could look it over. That was the last time I saw him. He has been away from the office for the past week and a half and no one can get in contact with him, so I cant make any progress in helping the program until he shows up again. Ironically the president of the organization scolded me on being away from my house all three days of the recent three day weekend without telling anyone in the organization where I was. It is kind of annoying how they view me as some sort of adolescent who needs to always be looked after and who always has to check in with them even if it is not during work hours. If I do not, then I guess I look like the "bad adolescent" who is always disappearing. So in other words if I act like a normal adult who can do whatever I want on the weekend without checking in with anyone I am apparently irresponsible and disrespectful. Lame.
Aside from that I am working with the Canadian volunteer at my org to develop a face book site for the organization so they can put information about themselves and some photos up on the net. With a little luck these things will work out. The Canadian volunteer was complaining the other day about how frustrating it was to work so hard to accomplish such little things and that she had been here for one month and will be here for one more month and she feels like she has not done anything and that she does not know what she will be able to accomplish in the next month. Ya, welcome to the midservice crisis.