Written on Christmas Day, 2010:
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you’re all spending it with good company and good food. It’s a little strange to be away from home on Christmas for the first time, but I can’t complain. I’m in the beachy resort town of Vilanculos for the weekend, staying at another volunteer’s house to celebrate Christmas with several other people in our province. The house is really nice and is in this enclosed compound of expatriates who work for CARE International. Oh, and the backyard is the beach… not bad at all. (Somoh, was this what your childhood was like? Cause wow. :)
We got up at 4:30 this morning to watch the sun rise on the beach, and later today we’re doing a white elephant gift exchange and cooking seafood and veggies. This weekend has been a great mini vacation – the contrast with my last two weeks in Mabote is pretty mind blowing. Not gonna lie, it’s a lot to get used to and has been hard.
Oh, Mabote: my new home. What can I say? It’s way out there, and you understand just how out there it is when you turn off the paved road and keep going for two and a half hours down the bumpy, sand road passing nothing but little road-side stands, a few tiny villages of cane houses, and old war trenches. We usually have power for three hours a day (6:30 – 9:30pm) and also get cell service. Power didn’t arrive until 2006, and cell service in 2008. But I hear we’re getting 24 hour power this year!
There are no paved roads, no bank, no post office, and the market only has onions, tomatoes, mangoes and sometimes bananas, in the way of fruits and vegetables. So like I said, it’s a lot to get used to. But what it does have is a hospital, two schools, several soccer fields, lots of churches, a pretty lively market, livestock, farming and the biggest, brightest sky I’ve ever seen. When the power goes off at 9:30, I just stare up in wonder, trying to figure out whether I'm imagining it, or whether the moon and stars really are closer to the earth here.
My little cane and grass house (er, hut) is cuter than I dared imagine and I spent about 24 hours in utter giddy glee when I arrived. When a Mozambican Peace Corps staffer who hadn’t seen my house came to Mabote this week, he started chuckling about how “Peace Corps” it was… meaning that it’s everyone’s idea of what Peace Corps is, though in reality most people don’t have quite that level of rugged cuteness, at least here in Moz. For example my closest volunteer neighbor, 15 km away, lives in a school dorm with a refrigerator, power from a generator 6 hours a day and a real toilet (though no running water).
Like I said, for the first 24 hours I was giddy. Then the reality of it all set in. No one wants to hear me complain about what I signed up for, so let me quickly gloss over why the last two weeks were particularly hard: Charging spiders. Bedbugs. Sleeping on the floor due to said bedbugs. Lost power completely for the past week due to some bad storms. Unexpectedly wasn’t able to leave Mabote and was running low on money, food, supplies, phone credit, etc. So yeah.
You’re getting the picture of why it’s such a contrast to my current surroundings, as I sit here beach-side with Americans speaking English and making Christmas cookies and eggnog.
But I haven’t even mentioned the best part, the part that makes it all worth it: the people I’ve met. The women (and three men) at my association have been incredibly welcoming. My first day at work the president and I planted a cashew tree in the yard of the office to commemorate my arrival. They also come to my house to visit me often, take me to church with them, and gave me a bunch of cashews to take with me to Vilanculos. I went to the machamba (farm) with Mama Marta, the president, one morning and she patiently showed me how to use the enxada (hoe) and was understanding when I proceeded to accidentally kill a bean plant with it.
There have definitely been some interesting and funny (well, now they are…) moments. For example, last Sunday when I went to Mama Marta’s Pentecostal church, what I thought was appropriate clothing (the capalana dress I had made for the swear-in ceremony) turned out not to be. I walk in, and I get swarmed by Mama Marta and other women who without a word proceed to re-arrange me. By the end of it all, I’m sitting in the front row looking like a patchwork quilt of four different capalana patterns, including one on my head that doesn’t quite sit right. So I spend the next few hours tilting my head and trying not to move, lest the head scarf fall off, as I wasn’t confident in my ability to re-tie it. Keeping still turned out to be hard since I really wanted to turn around and see what was going on behind me, which included several people prophesying in Chitswa (the local language) passionately and at the top of their lungs. Todo, I’m not in New York anymore.
There’s so much more, but I have two years to attempt to understand and explain this place, right? So for now, I’m off to go collect seashells. When I’m back in my hut tomorrow I’ll feel a little less “out there” now that I know all of this is only a 4 ½ hour chapa ride away… and that I have to come here at least once a month for banking/shopping/interneting.
Drink a mimosa for me at Mimi’s, and save me a table setting ornament at Grandma’s.
Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you’re all spending it with good company and good food. It’s a little strange to be away from home on Christmas for the first time, but I can’t complain. I’m in the beachy resort town of Vilanculos for the weekend, staying at another volunteer’s house to celebrate Christmas with several other people in our province. The house is really nice and is in this enclosed compound of expatriates who work for CARE International. Oh, and the backyard is the beach… not bad at all. (Somoh, was this what your childhood was like? Cause wow. :)
We got up at 4:30 this morning to watch the sun rise on the beach, and later today we’re doing a white elephant gift exchange and cooking seafood and veggies. This weekend has been a great mini vacation – the contrast with my last two weeks in Mabote is pretty mind blowing. Not gonna lie, it’s a lot to get used to and has been hard.
Oh, Mabote: my new home. What can I say? It’s way out there, and you understand just how out there it is when you turn off the paved road and keep going for two and a half hours down the bumpy, sand road passing nothing but little road-side stands, a few tiny villages of cane houses, and old war trenches. We usually have power for three hours a day (6:30 – 9:30pm) and also get cell service. Power didn’t arrive until 2006, and cell service in 2008. But I hear we’re getting 24 hour power this year!
There are no paved roads, no bank, no post office, and the market only has onions, tomatoes, mangoes and sometimes bananas, in the way of fruits and vegetables. So like I said, it’s a lot to get used to. But what it does have is a hospital, two schools, several soccer fields, lots of churches, a pretty lively market, livestock, farming and the biggest, brightest sky I’ve ever seen. When the power goes off at 9:30, I just stare up in wonder, trying to figure out whether I'm imagining it, or whether the moon and stars really are closer to the earth here.
My little cane and grass house (er, hut) is cuter than I dared imagine and I spent about 24 hours in utter giddy glee when I arrived. When a Mozambican Peace Corps staffer who hadn’t seen my house came to Mabote this week, he started chuckling about how “Peace Corps” it was… meaning that it’s everyone’s idea of what Peace Corps is, though in reality most people don’t have quite that level of rugged cuteness, at least here in Moz. For example my closest volunteer neighbor, 15 km away, lives in a school dorm with a refrigerator, power from a generator 6 hours a day and a real toilet (though no running water).
Like I said, for the first 24 hours I was giddy. Then the reality of it all set in. No one wants to hear me complain about what I signed up for, so let me quickly gloss over why the last two weeks were particularly hard: Charging spiders. Bedbugs. Sleeping on the floor due to said bedbugs. Lost power completely for the past week due to some bad storms. Unexpectedly wasn’t able to leave Mabote and was running low on money, food, supplies, phone credit, etc. So yeah.
You’re getting the picture of why it’s such a contrast to my current surroundings, as I sit here beach-side with Americans speaking English and making Christmas cookies and eggnog.
But I haven’t even mentioned the best part, the part that makes it all worth it: the people I’ve met. The women (and three men) at my association have been incredibly welcoming. My first day at work the president and I planted a cashew tree in the yard of the office to commemorate my arrival. They also come to my house to visit me often, take me to church with them, and gave me a bunch of cashews to take with me to Vilanculos. I went to the machamba (farm) with Mama Marta, the president, one morning and she patiently showed me how to use the enxada (hoe) and was understanding when I proceeded to accidentally kill a bean plant with it.
There have definitely been some interesting and funny (well, now they are…) moments. For example, last Sunday when I went to Mama Marta’s Pentecostal church, what I thought was appropriate clothing (the capalana dress I had made for the swear-in ceremony) turned out not to be. I walk in, and I get swarmed by Mama Marta and other women who without a word proceed to re-arrange me. By the end of it all, I’m sitting in the front row looking like a patchwork quilt of four different capalana patterns, including one on my head that doesn’t quite sit right. So I spend the next few hours tilting my head and trying not to move, lest the head scarf fall off, as I wasn’t confident in my ability to re-tie it. Keeping still turned out to be hard since I really wanted to turn around and see what was going on behind me, which included several people prophesying in Chitswa (the local language) passionately and at the top of their lungs. Todo, I’m not in New York anymore.
There’s so much more, but I have two years to attempt to understand and explain this place, right? So for now, I’m off to go collect seashells. When I’m back in my hut tomorrow I’ll feel a little less “out there” now that I know all of this is only a 4 ½ hour chapa ride away… and that I have to come here at least once a month for banking/shopping/interneting.
Drink a mimosa for me at Mimi’s, and save me a table setting ornament at Grandma’s.
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