Curveball, Part 2

I woke up Friday excited about the day.  My eye was still pretty swollen, but there was no longer any pain.  It still felt like there was something in there, but having dealt with the events of the previous few days, it was easy to ignore this comparably small inconvenience. 

After going about my day, I hitched a ride to Maputo around 2pm in one of the Peace Corps Land Rovers.  Along for the ride was Grisha, another Volunteer who was heading down to the hospital to get some stitches removed.   Both of our appointments were scheduled for 5pm, so we had plenty of time to drive the 60km down from the mountains and into downtown Maputo.

The ride went by quickly: One, because I spent most of the time talking with Grisha and looking out the window at the beautiful scenery (big, round mountains that reminded me of what you see driving into and then past Frederick, MD) and two, because Mozambican’s drive freaking fast.  After dropping my new friend off at his hospital (he was going somewhere different then I was), I was dropped at my hostel where I was told to wait for the Peace Corps city driver who would come by and pick me up when it got closer to 5pm.  With a flushing toilet and free internet, I wasn’t going to complain about having to wait.

 The driver showed up right on time and took me to a local optometrist who doubled as a glasses retailer.  Really, it was no different than what we’ve got stateside.  There was a bit of drama when I got there, and they told me that the doctor was in and that it was impossible for me to have had an appointment scheduled.  Confused, I called the PCMO to inquire about this.  They told me they’d handle it and about ten minutes later, the woman who had initially told me the doctor wasn’t in, changed her mind and took me upstairs to get examined.

The exam went smoothly and I was out of there just about as fast as I came in.  I was given some eye drops and some pills, and then sent on my way.  Easy as Pie.

The city driver picked me up, and then went to retrieve Grisha from his appointment. Feeling hungry and curious, the driver dropped both of us off at my hotel and told us about a few restaurants in the area.  Armed with the 725 Meticais Per-Diem the PC Medical Staff had given each of us for our trip, we then set off in search of ways to spend our newfound riches.  We walked around and explored a little before ending up downtown at a restaurant/bar that looked like it could provide exactly what we wanted for the right price (beer and food).  A couple beers, a plate of grilled calamari, and a big bowl of pasta with tomato and basil later, I was satisfied.  It was about 930PM by this point and it was raining pretty hard.  We were both tired, so we decided to call it a night. 

After a little searching, I managed to find my hostel.  It was exactly where I had left it.  I wish I had initially remembered where that was. Lucky for me, earlier in the day I had anticipated a high likelihood of getting lost due to a miserable sense of direction, so I took a screen shot of the Google Maps location service on my iPod and e-mailed it to myself.

7101 Dear Leader Drive.

Please take note of the street names.  What you see here is correct, I am currently staying just off Kim Il Sung Avenue.  It's just north of Mao Tse Tung Ave and not to far away from a number of other avenues who get their names from former communist premiers.  I have decided that I love this country.

Anyways, a little wet and very full, I decided to warm up by taking advantage of the fact that I had a shower at my disposal with warm running water.  You can be sure that I used every last drop that was in the heater.  I then spent the rest of the evening camped out in front my computer listening to music and using the internet.

The next day was GREAT.  The driver that was taking me back to Namaacha wasn’t coming until 11am, so even though I slept in til 9am, I had plenty of time to kill.  I decided to run a few errands, walk around a little, and get some breakfast.  I found a little café in the park up the street from my hostel and sat down to spoil myself by spending whatever money I had left from my stipend.  Here’s a picture of what I got:

Spoiled myself with this one.

It was freaking phenomenal, and a pretty amazing way to end what was supposed to be a somber trip to the capitol city infirmary.