Mariri

Happy Saturday!  And that it was.  To celebrate not being sick anymore (or maybe it’s better to say to celebrate slight improvement and not having to run to the bathroom every 20 minutes), my site-mates and I decided to hitch a ride with Chad, our Missionary friend, and visit two of our friends in Mariri, arguably one of the most Matu Peace Corps sites in all of Mozambique.  As I’ve previously mentioned, the term “Matu” means bush, and when you use it to describe something, you are essentially saying that something is out there, or in Portuguese, simply “la.” 

So, Mariri is Matu.  It’s just about right smack in the middle between Pemba and Montepuez, and seventeen kilometers off the main road between those two cities.  Oddly enough, there’s a paved road that veers off the main road in a perpendicular direction and then goes all the way there even though cars rarely use it.  For the most part, motorbikes are the main means of transportation to town (if you can even call it that) to and from the main road.  At the main road, you find the town of Nanjua which is essentially just collection of homes set up around a market that’s as barren as the dirt roads running though this rustic crossroads.

Turn down the paved road and follow it for 17km through a few small towns until you finally hit Mariri, a sleepy African Oasis entrenched behind an enormous rock and at one point in time, home to the most prestigious secondary school in the entire country.  During the war, if you were a student, this was the place to be.  Samora Michel, as well as a laundry list of other highly influential people all sent their kids there to study.

Unfortunately the story today isn’t as encouraging.  Fallen from grace, the school now functions as a spillover for the surplus student population from the surrounding cities, towns and villages that were unable to register in time to take classes where they live.  Practically none of the teachers that work there are native to the area, and therefore they mostly commute in for the week and leave on the weekends.

Although still gorgeous, the feebly painted concrete complex has an eerie feel to it. Walking through the quiet community up to the school along a gravely road lined with humongous, wide-armed mango trees felt like walking through post-Chernobyl Pripyat.  Everything is still intact and oddly aesthetic, yet it’s completely deserted.  I should probably point out that we were there on a Saturday, so that probably accounts for the feeling of complete and utter abandonment.

We explored the desolate school yard, popping in and out of buildings hidden by tall grass and upturned soil, pretending like we were the only ones left on earth.   One dark room we came across looked as though the school decided to use it as an above ground, contained trash heap.  Loose papers covered the floors a couple of inches deep.  Random broken furniture was thrown about, entangled in piles of other junk.  And then wouldn’t you know it, but we saw a body; or, what we thought was a body.  Once a relic of the school past prominence, someone had thrown the top half of a very realistic, yet plastic cadaver dummy into the pile where it was resting in an upright and terrifying position.  In the low light, it was hard not to mistake it for the long-lost peace volunteer that was in Mariri before our friends, but never heard from again.

Totally a body.

Behind the school, we followed a path along a lake, and up into the matu until we eventually penetrated a thick forest.  In the middle of the forest, we came across the remnants of what appeared to be a concrete Portuguese  tee-pee.  So naturally, we took a picture in front of it.

On the other side of the forest the was the mountain, a enormous homogenous piece of rock poking out of the ground at a docile angle and stretching far above the canopy.  So naturally, we climbed it.  Even though it was raining. And then we took pictures.  And then we descended.  And then everyone slipped and fell.  And then laughed.

We made it back to our friends home just in time to meet Chad for our Ride home.  But the adventure doesn’t end there. Driving though the matu on the way home we ended up getting stuck in the middle of a bush-town and had to recruit the majority of the populates to help get us out.  Here are some pictures.

Who wears a Pink Parka to a pull-out?