Waterfalls!

Went to the Waterfalls today!

Namaacha is famous for its Church and its Falls.  I’ve been to the church a bunch, but have yet to take pictures.  That’s for later.  In the meantime, enjoy some of the falls!

Cliche Group Pic.

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.

Curveball, Part 1

Sometimes life tosses you a curveball.  And sometimes, that curveball comes in the form of keys, which then proceed to hit you in the eye.  Directly in the eye. 

Three nights ago I got my first curveball, and consequently, the past few days have more or less sucked.  There isn’t a much better way to put it.  I never really realized how hard life can get when you can’t use one of your senses that you current job depends on.  Why couldn’t it have been smell.  I don’t need that.  In fact, with as much as it’s been raining around here, and with extensive presence of open pit latrines, losing my sense of smell would have been a luxury. But no, instead I lose my sight.

I blame that filho de puta Karma Spider for this one.  But don’t worry, the story has a happy ending (well, the ending is still being written, but it’s looking up).

So here’s the story: 

Three days ago (Tuesday the 16th), I woke up and felt great.  Real great.  Everything just seemed to be in its right place.  I only had to wake up to pee once during the night (the Malaria Pills rarely allow me to make it through the night without having to wake up at least once to use the Xi-Xi Bucket; they also give you really weird dreams), I managed to avoid having any Malaria medication-induced lucid nightmares, the morning air was nice and warm, the water from our distribution point was clean (which meant I didn’t have to bath in dirty water!), the scorpion I saw on the way to the Casa de Banho was dead, and the Karma spider wasn’t there when I took my bucket shower.  Honestly, I’m not sure you can ask for a better start to your day at 6am.  And it only got better from there.

My jovial spirit kept up as I sat through language class and a technical training session, then grew when I came home to an amazing lunch of sautéed kale and fresh fruit.  What did I do to deserve this!  The rest of the day was equally enjoyable as I had more language and tech, but as the sun began to set, so too did my delightful disposition.

As I entered the Casa de Banho to take my second bucket shower of the day (I take two a day, one in the morning and one at night), I couldn’t help but notice that my omnipresent spider stalker was positioned a little too close for comfort on the tin wall next to where I hang my towel and clothing while I bath.  Beaming with confidence as a result of a day chalk-full of positivity, I decided to take action. It was time for me to establish dominance and remind this creepy little jerk about his place in the evolutionary food chain. Observe the power of opposable thumbs you bastard!

I used the end of a broom to brush the spider off the wall and into a bucket, which I then tossed out of the little bathing shack and onto the ground outside.  Having just rocked his entire world, the beast then ran for cover in the nearby rocks.  Satisfied, I laughed as the coward fled the scene of our second battle, thus confirming my victory.  Or so I thought…

As I finished up a pleasant bathing experience, I began to dry off.  That’s when disaster struck.  I had my keys on a lanyard around my neck (we have a big key that we use to lock our rooms when we aren’t there), and when I went to bend over and towel my legs, they whipped around and took out my eye.  I grimaced; I cursed; then I hoped.  I hoped that I hadn’t just done what I thought I did.

It was Ms. Peacock with the key in the Casa de Banho.

After taking a few minutes to collect myself and accept the fact that the horrendous shooting pain was probably not going away anytime soon, I retreated to my room to rummage through the medical kit Peace Corps had given me for anything that might make me feel better.  Eye drops.  After suffering through a one-eyed dinner, I excused myself early so I could immediately go to bed.  I was in dire need of a nice long period of time in which I didn’t have to open my eye.

I managed to sleep through the night, but the next morning the pain was still there.  It felt like someone had left a dull axe just to the right of my pupil.  It hurt when it was open; it hurt when it was closed.  It was only 6:20AM and life already sucked a whole lot.  And then I found out that our water was once again not working.  This was day number two of this, and my supply of already filtered water was starting to run dry.  I could tell that today was gonna be good. 

I called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), and lady on the line told me to take some Tylenol and go about my day.  I did just that, all the while wearing a big pair of sunglasses.  Language class was tough, Tech (Technical Class, where we learn how to be teachers) was even harder.  Both involve a lot of reading and writing, which made it all the more inconvenient that I had one eye that did work and another that was hypersensitive to light.  When I finally got home that night, I did pretty much the same thing I had done the night before: eat and then sleep.  Sleeping helped; it helped me forget that I had ripped open my eyeball.

Thursday morning was pretty similar to Wednesday.  I woke up and was quickly reminded about what I had done to myself just a few nights before.  My eye was swollen, crusty and red.  I had to use my finger to wipe the crust away just so I could open it up (apologies for the visual, but I’m trying to be as dramatic as possible).  I called PCMO again, and this time she said that the Doctor would be into town that day for the big group meetings we were having (Hub Day as it’s known around here, when all the trainees get together in one location for culture and health classes), and would check my eye out there.  Until then, I would have to continue to endure what felt like the worst injury that anyone has ever had to suffer through, ever.

Around lunch time, I finally had my chance.  The doctor gave me the once over and told me the bad news.  I was dying.  But, before she’d let me crossover, she first wanted to send me down to Maputo to get checked out by a specialist, just to make sure I really was doomed. I had an appointment at 5pm on Friday.  At this point, my eye had already stopped hurting.  Well, it still hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been.  I was easily able to ignore the pain and focus on dealing with the blurry vision and presence of humongous, swollen eye syndrome instead.  The doctor’s news helped out a lot though, and my gloomy mood took an immediate 180.  Maputo.  All would be better in Maputo.

Govenadora

Interesting last couple of days.  After the field trip yesterday, the fun did not stop.  When I got home, I found out that it was actually a pretty important Catholic Holiday; something about celebrating one of the various sightings of the Virgin Mary at Fatima.  It’s a pretty big deal in Namaacha town due to the Church that was constructed nearly 100 years ago in honor of Fatima.  They have this huge service outside the church at night, then a nice long procession where the congregants take to the streets, singing songs and reciting prayers as they march through a near-by neighborhood

After drawing my own conclusions earlier in the day based off my broken translation of both my host father and Octavio’s  explanations of the holiday, I was curious to check and see what it was all about.  Mistake.  Turns out, the service was 2 hours long and the march was a slow roll through the streets for another hour.  Cultural for sure, but also very grueling.  I ended up ducking out early with a friend I had seen, and we chatted about our experience at church.

I walked her back to her house (she subsequently got yelled at by her Mai for this, because we aren’t married), and then made my way home.  As I was cleaning the mud off my shoes, my camera fell out of my pocket and right into a bucket of water.  Whomp, whomp.  Thanks for nothing Church karma.  (UPDATE: I was worried there for a bit, but the camera has made a full recovery.  Stuck it in some rice for a few days and Voila...functionality).

This morning there was supposed to be another service, but no one in my family attended (my mai and pai are both in Maputo for a funeral). Instead of going to church, I slept in and messed with my new (and functional!) blackberry.  Around ten, Octavio told me that we were going to go visit his work site.  He said something about “Mister Valerio” who is actually his sister’s husband (side note, Valerio is also a former military pilot that was contracted by the USSR to train and fly MIGs during the cold war).  I’m still confused why he calls him Mister, but I think it has something to do with the importance of titles here.  I guess even a brother-in-law is still a “sir” in the work place.

Valerio owns a Fabrica here in Namaacha that processes corn and turns it into floor.  He has two machines that he purchased in Zimbabwe that do this for him.  His only employee is Octavio, and he pays him 4000 meticais each month to work the machines and process the corn when customers come in.  Here’s a few pictures.

Sweet shack, bro.

Machines.

When we got there, Octavio kept saying something about Valerio and Governadora. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me, but it didn’t take long for it to become pretty apparent what he was trying to say.

We waited around for about an hour and a half, messing around on facebook, taking some pictures, and talking about various things when finally a line of high profile cars rolled up to the shop.  The first was a pick-up truck with two soldiers strapped with some pretty intimidating machine guns.  Maybe it’s from all the movies I’ve seen, but the idea of having a run in with any African soldier terrifies me.  These guys looked like bad dudes.  They hopped out of the back of their truck and began scoping out the joint.  After looking around and coming to the conclusion that the funny looking Branco (read: whitey) in the purple shirt was not anything to worry about, they gave the signal for the VIP to exit her vehicle.  From the back of a Grey SUV popped out Lucidiya Ama, the Provincial Governor of the Maputo Province.  Big time.

Woman has shiny face.  Is also Provincial Governor of Maputo Province.  Big Time.

The Govenadora was followed by a trail of other people who I can only assume were a mixture of her family members and subordinates.  One woman was carrying an iPad, another was carrying a kid.  The woman with the iPad began snapping pictures.  Valerio was clearly nervous as he explained the process to the group, showing them all around his one room factory; Octavio was cool as a cucumber (by the way, they have those here, so that is an appropriate cliché to use).  When the talking stopped, my host brother put on his robe and got to work.  He processed that corn like a pro.  Everyone was impressed and Valerio wiped the sweat off his brow and breathed a sigh of relief.

The whole thing felt very reminiscent of something that might have gone on in North Korea.  Before Kim Jong Il died, there was a satirical website that would post all the state released pictures of the of the former leader looking at things in his country (Google: Pictures of Kim Jong Il Looking at Things).  This event made me feel like I was experiencing one of those pictures first hand.  It was that strange.

So that was that.  Interesting weekend. A little fun, very strange.  I never got a chance to do my laundry because the water isn’t working.  I’m running out of underwear fast.  Problem is, I won’t have another chance to do it until next weekend. It’s going to be a long, long week. Wish me luck.

Estou Conectado!

Finally!  It's been two and a half long weeks, but I've finally got internet again.  Managed to get my blackberry to function (well, not mine, but that's  a story for another day) and I've tethered it to my computer so that I can use it as a modem. I've been keeping up with my writing, so I'll spend the next few days posting some pictures and entries that will be pre-dated for when I wrote them so that they'll appear in order (and all will come before this one, which will then make this posting seem confusing...).  Stay tuned.

While you wait for more, here's a picture of me and a small African child enjoying each others company.

This picture is for Becca.  She knows why.

Highlights from My Trip to Maputo!

Today, our Language Class (Me, Ryan, Anna, Don, and Kevin) took a trip to Maputo to take care of some business.  We were supposed to practice our Portuguese at the market, but the torrential downpour prevented us from visiting.  It was a pretty crazy drive into town as we got to see rivers flowing just about every which way into makeshift lakes of mud, trash, and sometimes people (we watched some guy nearly get swept away when he tried jumping across a “river,” but only made it three-quarters of the way). Here's a picture I took as we were entering the city.  It'll hopefully give you a feel for what we were dealing with.

Dirty Water, yum.

So, instead of going to the market, we kinda just winged it.  Anna and I spent most of the first half of the day in the Vodacom Store trying to set up our blackberry's. No dice.  They couldn't seem to get them to work.  I ended up going back to Maputo just as I came, empty handed.  Well, I did get a burger out of it so I guess it wasn't a total waste.

The rain cleared up just about the time we got out of the phone store, so we took to the streets and walked around the city a little looking for Portuguese-English dictionaries and capulana's (these are huge here, but I'm still not sure what they are/how to describe them, so once I learn more, I'll write about them). We really didn't spend much time shopping, and after traversing through park full of overly-aggressive street vendors selling Chinese-made African art, we stopped to eat at Continental, a local restaurant full of delicious looking pastries.  The menu was pretty extensive, but it turned out that they really only had about two things you could order: The Continental Hamburger, or the Club Sandwich.  The burger was pretty standard, but it came with  a fried egg on it.  Curious and desperate for something that was carbohydrate-based, I decided to order one and compliment it with a can of coke.

Don't get too jealous.  I'm about 100% sure that I got some sort of parasitic worm from eating this.  It was raw.  And there was an eggy-mayonnaisey mixture on it. It sucked.

I should have gotten the club.

After lunch, Horacio, our language instructor, walked us down to one of Maputo's historic sites, an 18th Century Colonial Fort!

Hooray Reminders of Portugal's Oppressive Past!

Sweet Fort, bro.

When we got there I nearly threw up.  No, not because the burger was that bad (it was...seriously I cannot stress this enough, that burger was terrible), but because of the excitement I was feeling.  I like history...a lot.  I love getting smacked in the face with a hearty helping of history.  This fort floored me.  Very cool stuff.

This cannon once shot balls.  That's right, explosive balls.

Right around the time we were wrapping up or visit, we got a call and had to make our way back to the meeting point to catch the chapa home. With that, our day in Maputo was done!

Happy campers crammed in a Chapa on our way home (Rafael, Anneke, me, and Anna)

The Karma Spider

Today is Friday, and what better way to celebrate Friday than by going to the bar and de-stressing over a big bottle of beer that only costs you about a dollar-fifty.  Here in Namaacha, we have a few options in terms of drinking establishments.  They range from the woman selling beer on the corner out of her cooler, the white flag-waving Baraka that sells sawdust moonshine, or the expensive hotel that doesn’t seem to take kindly to our types around here (PC Trainees, that is).  And then there’s Javier’s. 

 

Javier’s is the local libation location. There, you can get anything from shots of Johnny Walker Black Label to local Mozambican beer (there are three types of Mozambican beer: Laurentina, Manica, and 2M).  Maybe I should clarify, by anything, I actually mean not much.  There’s booze, and then there’s samosas.  That’s about it.  

These Street Samosas are to diarrhea for. Get it?  Peace Corps joke.

The owner of the bar has his American friends call him James, and he’s actually a really nice guy.  Apparently, sometimes he even hosts volunteers in his own house. Anyways, if a Peace Corps Trainee is looking for some sort of social interaction (in English that is), Javier’s is the place to go.  Between the hours of 4pm and 8pm, the bar tends to draw a decent sized crowd of the English-speaking 20-somethings.

Observe: the outside of Javier's.

Young Money.

Back to the events of today...after a little convincing from a friend, I decided to pay Javier’s a visit after the Chefe Meeting (the meeting for language group leaders) to toss a few back with my new ex-patriot family. I’ve been before, but have never stayed too late.  I usually have to shower before dinner, and did not want to make my Mai mad by showing up too late tonight.  Still, I ended up getting home a little later than I think she would have liked me too.  She said something when I walked in, and I tried explaining that I was a little late because I had to walk some friends home.  My Mai has a reputation for being a tough cookie (more on her some other time), and need less to say, I’m pretty sure she knew I was not only lying, but pleasantly-toasted even before I walked in the door. She told me the water for my shower was ready, and I should go tomar banho (“shower”).  Cue the Karma Spider.

Prior to bathing, I thought I’d pay the latrine a visit. Since day one, I’ve said to myself that it’s inevitable I will one day lose something down that black hole.  That day was today.  I was setting up to aim when all of a sudden, my soap container popped out of my pocket and fell right through..Shit.  Literally.  I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.  Figures.  Guess I’m lucky it wasn’t my key’s.  That would be a disaster, mainly because I don’t think there is a second set.

After spending 15 second deeply grieving the lose of my soap container, I went to take my bucket bath. 

Well, I can now confirm that the humongous spider I once thought was real, then thought was a figment of my imagination, is in fact most definitely real.  And today, it spent a fair amount of time watching me bath. Just as I finished pouring water over myself, trying to make up for the fact that I had no soap with which to scrub, I turned around, only to find myself in a stare down with an elephant-sized arachnid. If I had been wearing pants, I would have peed them.  Africa 1, Will 0. Again, not sure what else to do in this situation, I just laughed. Oh, and I also got out of thesr as fast as I could.

After putting on some clothing, I reported my findings to my family and told them I needed a picture (at this point, they are well aware that I’m a little tweaked by humongous bugs and think its hilarious to laugh at my fear). With the support of my host brother, I went to get my proof.

Public Enemy #1.

In honor of this my new stalker, I’ve decided to start an entirely new section of my blog, simply titled: This is Africa.  In this section, which you can navigate to using the menu bar at the top of the blog, you will find a collection of all the jerks (and some of the other animals, insects, etc. that don’t suck) that I come across while getting to know Mozambique on a very intimate level.  It’ll be a fun way to show you what I encounter while romping around the bush.  Think of it like this, my mental anguish is your viewing pleasure!

So yeah, that’s my experience with instant karma today.  I think I’ll try and start getting home earlier from now on.