Although the mode of transportation wasn’t ideal, the
destination was. I, as well as five
other volunteers (Anna; Vikram and
Rafael, the boys from Balama; and Troop Mariri, Jaime and Elizabeth) were
headed to Pemba, the beach-side gem of Cabo Delgado and the province’s largest
city.
I had originally intended to write a big long post about the
excursion, but I’m not feeling particularly motivated to jazz it up too
much. So, sadly, this is gonna be a
bullet point highlighted post with some short stories. Also, to those of you who have been wondering
why I haven’t posted pictures in a while, I apologize for that. And I apologize because that isn’t gonna
change in this post either. Even though
it was gorgeous, I really didn’t take any pictures. I’m still terrified to flash anything
tangible that suggests the slightest hint of wealth, and my camera (although
waterlogged and semi-functional) is currently an unfortunate casualty of that
practice. It’s only temporary though,
and as soon as I get more comfortable with things, I’ll post lots of pictures
for you to see!
So here we go…
- Pemba is hot. And humid. Like, way hotter than in-land Cabo. It needs to rain there more often.
- I spent the holiday staying with some Volunteers from one of the previous groups that arrived before us. The two girls, Ellen and Christina, live in an awesome house near their school and a 20-minute walk from a gorgeous beach. White sand, warm water, lots of broken glass scattered among lots of equally sharp pieces of broken coral, and cute little crabs frocking every which way.
- We hung out, spoke English, cooked awesome food (this is apparently a Peace Corps custom), and reminisced about home. We watched a couple of movies, one of which was Home Alone 2, and it made me really yearn to be in New York. It made me miss going to visit Val when she was living up there. Then it made me wonder what Becca was doing at that moment.
- One night, we met up with a bunch of other volunteers at a hostel by the beach we went to a random party at a Swiss guy’s house. He was from Basil, but was an electrician in Pemba. He grew up in Mozambique, but went back home a lot. He wants to leave, but his father just died in September and he explained that he had to stay at the house and occupy it, otherwise it would get taken from him. Something about Mozambique being able to do that. I dunno, sounds strange.
- Went to the beach a couple times. The second day, we saw a kid, probably 14 or so, swimming in a one-piece snow suit; literally, zippered up to the top. I couldn’t understand it, but from the look on his face and the way he was playing with his friends, he didn’t mind at all. Weird.
- Caught a boleia back home to Montepuez with some Chinese Guys who were heading that way. What luck. These guys were great. First and foremost, their truck was brand new and had air conditioning. Better yet, they liked to use it. Then, the driver bought us red bulls. The ride itself wasn’t without some events though as we got stopped by cops twice. The first time the driver tried to have the cops speak to us instead of him, because the Mozambican Police force is apparently not so fond of Chinese people. Didn’t work. He was looking for a bribe, asked our driver to step out of the car for a while, and finally let him go after a few phone calls and a potential exchange of dinheiro. The second time we got pulled over, the cop just wanted to ask for a coke. Oh Mozambique.
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