Lazy Maputo Days

Sunday, August 23, 2009

This week began the start of my good byes to people that I have spent a good deal of time with here. First, Megan finally went back to Old Town Alexandria (after extending her trip about 5 times!). We went out on Tuesday night for a wonderful dinner in her honor. There must have been like 25 people there. She joked that she would never get that many people out for her in DC.

It was by far the best meal out I have had since I came to Mozambique. We ordered family style and had like 4 courses of some really great seafood and meats. The price was reasonable…less than 40 US dollars per person with drinks/wine. You couldn’t do that kind of meal/food in DC for less than close to a hundred. (yes, I wish I was exaggerating that amount). Only little issue we had that night was that Jackie, Steve, and I decided to walk from work to the restaurant. Not a big deal, except the visa nazis (AKA the very underpaid and corrupt Mozambican police) stopped us and wanted to see “our documentation.” I had my passport on me, but Steve quickly showed them our Embassy badges and the guy let us go. They like to try to get bribes out of the expats that are walking around without their passport on them. Honestly, it was almost unreal, because the policeman looked drunk and gave us a drunken salute before he tried to find out if we had our passports on us. Looks like the little note that we carry on our Embassy badges, may have actually come in handy. And no I am not kidding, this is part of the Embassy badges that I was given upon my arrival in Mozambique.

There are usually checkpoints all over the place, but we have always been in a car with diplomatic plates and have never been stopped before last night. I guess walking at night in Maputo is not a good thing for many reasons.

Friday, Jackie and I were trying to finalize our plans for our Labor Day excursion to the Bazaruto Archipelago. A travel agent was able to come through and find us a flight, which we weren’t able to do on our own the day before after we had walked to the LAM airline ticket office. That evening, Steve, Jackie and I went to Costa Do Sol for dinner. This is the place that is in every guide book as the place to eat in Maputo. Steve borrowed his housemates car and joked that he felt like he was a teenager having ask his mom to borrow the car. The seafood was good –even had lobster.

Saturday, our goal was to make it to LAM to pay for our flight…didn’t happen. I was too lazy in starting my day and the LAM office closed at noon. Also, missed out on the wood market. We still had a successful day shopping, though. Our colleague Paula picked us up and took us to a home jelewry show. We all bought some cute/nice things. Then we all (about 8 of us) all went out for ice cream afterwards. This reminded me of my typical Saturday outings to the Silver Parrot in Old Town with my friends back home. Missed having my girls there to give me advice on what I bought, but it still was a fun outing. Then we were off to Steve’s going away pizza party. He is headed to do more investigation on a mystery illness on the border of Mozambique and Malawi before heading back to Atlanta. (Click on Steve's blog via my page to see some pics from the party).

Sunday, I was pretty lazy. Laid around the pool at my hotel and had a late lunch at Cafe Sole (which is owned my one of the US expats here).

Some pictures of my new home (looks nicer than it actually is) and has a large number of stray cats running around.

On the walk back to my hotel, we ran into one of the common car accidents that occur here. We found some amusement watching them try to tow the damaged vehicle. Clearly, not AAA endorsed!

Strangest moment of the week, we went to eat at one of the places on the beach near the Southern Sun. After ordering our food and waiting for at least an hour, we realized that NO ONE in the restaurant had food. This couldn’t have been a good sign. Finally, our food came and I must say, I enjoyed my crab dish…thought it was a bit messy…even messier than Maryland crabs because this had sauce on top of the crab in a shell. Try getting meat out of crab that is covered in sauce. It wasn’t pretty. Would I go back there..not sure. I know Americans are impatient, but to wait over an hour for a meal is a bit over the top.

Best quote of the week…as Jackie and I were enjoying watching music videos (yes, music videos..they must actually still play them here in Mozambique--80s music videos, no less!) and eating dinner at A Nossa Casa (which I finally learned from Malate, my portuguese teacher, means OUR House—yes, I know I should have been able to figure this out on my own. I knew Casa=house, but had no idea what Nossa meant), she proclaimed--as an expat man in a safari vest came in to enjoy a meal—Just because you are in Africa and think you are going on a safari, doesn’t mean you need to wear a vest. You had to be there…very funny and so much like my humor.

XIA XIA

Enjoying the sunset

Beautiful beach views

Xia Xia

Relaxing on the back porch

view from our house

After dinner relaxation

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Friday, I had a nice meeting with the deputy director here. He gave me some good advice about how to get my foot in the door for an international assignment, if I was interested. Of course, I was worried that he would find out that I hadn’t accomplished half of what I needed to yet. (Getting a little worried about this). Friday, is a short work day for us because we work 4 nine hour days Monday-Thursday. So we are done by 1130 on Fridays and the time flew by this past week.

Friday also means another weekend getaway. We planned to hitch a ride up to a beach house in Praia de Xia Xia (pronounced Shy-Shy). My supervisor and her husband rented a house on the beach and graciously offered to take any TDYer that was willing to go. As has been the recent pattern for the last few weekend getaways, we ended up with car trouble. (I am beginning to wonder which one of our group is bad luck). Their car’s shocks literally fell out on Friday morning and their other car is always having trouble. If there is one thing I have learned living here is that this place is so hard on cars. I would not want to own a car here. The roads are so bad that they cause numerous car issues that you would not normally have in the states. Then, you can’t get parts or find someone close by that can fix the car when it breaks down. So the purpose of this part of the story is that we got a little delayed on our departure on Friday afternoon. Luckily, a colleague lent us her car for the weekend. (Now that is a good friend!) We headed out of Maputo around 2:00 pm. Normally wouldn’t be a big deal to leave this late for a less than 200 km drive. However, the roads get very bad the closer you get to Xia Xia and we started to hit darkness outside of Xia Xia. Then we had about 40 km more to go on road that probably hasn’t been paved since the Portuguese left in 1975. There are also no street lights. In fact, the majority of the country doesn’t even have power. One of our colleagues commented on how outside of Maputo, you don’t see power lines. Something I didn’t notice intially, but once he pointed it out, I realized how little of this country actually has power in their homes. (The extreme poverty is one thing that will stick with me long after I leave Mozambique). Finally, we made it to the turn off for the house. Now, it was totally dark and we had about 7 km drive on a narrow sand road. I should also mention that we are not supposed to be driving outside of the city of Maputo after dark for security reasons. I don’t think anyone would have done anything to us, but we did have a couple of close calls with pedestrians. They are so hard to see at night until you are right on top of them. Since they have no where to walk, they walk in the middle of what little road there is available.

We finally made it to the house a little after 6 pm, but because it gets dark so early it felt like 9 pm. The house was really nice. The single girls were delegated to the loft of the house, where there were 4 single beds. We didn’t care, because we got to stay up late laughing and talking. It was probably the most I have laughed since I left home. Only problem with the loft is that is isn't made for people like me. I hit my head off of one of the wooden beams on Saturday and my head is still hurting 4 days later.

Saturday, we got up and went to the deserted beach in front of our house. The water actually wasn’t as cold as I expected. It was definitely warmer than the MD/DE coast in August. The only issue is that the water was a bit rough because it is the Indian Ocean afterall. You had to be careful of the undertow. Jackie and I took a walk along the beach before relaxing and resting on the sand. (Jackie will have to convey the story of the sad dying crab we found along the way). It is so crazy to go to such a beautiful beach and be the only ones for miles. Others in our group went out looking for fish to buy and didn’t see anyone for like 2 hours. Put a beach like that on the eastern shore of Maryland and you probably wouldn’t be able to find a place to put your towel and umbrella on a weekend. Our friends found no fish on their hunt, so we ended up with pasta. We had good conversation and then played a game of trivial pursuit before calling it a night around midnight. And yes, Jackie and I lost, but we staged a pretty decent comeback at the end. Steve has some great pictures of everyone from the weekend. Hopefully, he will post some of them to his blog and/or I get copies of them before I leave Mozambique.
Sunday, the weather was looking like rain and we woke up with no water. Not a big surpise for Mozambique. Power and water go out frequently (even in Maputo). We ended up leaving earlier than we had planned. We wanted to get out before the roads became impassable because of rain/mud. We all did joke that it really wouldn’t have been too upsetting to get stranded there a couple more days, though.

Some interesting sights on our drive home. I saw a man literally walking a vervet monkey on a rope he had made into a leash. Now that isn’t something you see everyday. There were little girls and boys dressed in all white leaving a church in one of the small towns along the way. I didn’t get a close enough look at the church to see what religion they were. How they keep their outfits that white with all of the sand/dust in Mozambique is amazing to me. I always end up wearing my meals, even when I don’t wear white. There was a woman outside of Maputo crossing the road holding a live chicken by its feathers. There was a woman outside of where we stopped for lunch in a wheel chair. We figured she had suffered from major birth defects, as she didn’t have any hands or feets. It is things like this that are hard for me to handle. The sick and the poor. I don’t think I could deal with these things everyday for any long period of time.
This weekend allowed us to see more of the countryside. As my supervisor says, Maputo is not representative of Mozambique. The majority of the country is decades behind its neighboring countries in so many ways. It is good to be able to witness it because it puts things in perspective. You wonder why the CDC and its partners can’t get services to the people that need it and then you realize that there is absolutely no infrastructure to help facilitate any services/programs.

The best part of the weekend is that we got to relax and have fun times with new friends. Here are some pictures from the weekend. (sorry, can't seem to move the pictures from the beginning of this post).

A Maputo weekend--for a change

This weekend we stayed in Maputo for the first time in a month. My body was clearly telling me this week to slow down and rest and I headed the warning. I was feeling better by Friday, so I asked one of our CDC drivers (Lileza, who is also a music dj) where to go that evening. He directed us to the French Cultural Center for some live music. He assured us that it would be a good show after checking the paper to see the acts that would be performing. The French Cultural Center was very interesting. It had a little art gallery, out door courtyard where there was live music, bar, and a semi indoor auditorium for a concert venue. (It had a roof, but was opened on the sides). We were thinking it was a cool idea and someone should open up something like it in DC. The music was really good. The drummers and accompanying dancers were amazing. There is no way I could move that fast! Then there was a group of musicians called Acoustic Africa. They were also really really good and played forever. I pooped out around 1 am and had to go home. Turns out I only missed the last song, but it had looked like they were going to play all night.

Saturday, our colleague Cate took us to the wood craft market. We were glad that she offered to take us because she had an idea of what to pay for things and can speak Portuguese. I bought some cute things for gifts and probably should have bought more, but I was in sensory overload by the end. People constantly are coming at you trying to sell you their things. They don’t even give you time to think and they gang up on you. It’s not annoying for like 5 minutes and then it gets old. I was getting a headache and we had to take a break for a drink and lunch. We walked a few blocks through the city and you can so see how everyone says that Maputo used to be the place to be. Before the Portuguese left and the civil war happened (mini history lesson—Portuguese left around 1975 and the civil war did not end until 92), Maputo rivaled Cape Town as the place to holiday. There really are some amazing old buildings in the city, but they are all falling apart now. Everything has just been neglected and it is rather sad. (Kind of reminds me of my hometown in this aspect). I think people are anticipating that the city will get it’s second wind and will be a totally different (and awesome) place in 10 years. It definitely has potential and after spending time here, I really hope for the Mozambican people that a change is coming.
So back to the market. I did enjoy my interaction with the “bead guy.” He had finished a little giraffe while I was there and I of course, could not pass it up. (If you did not already know this, I am obssessed with giraffes, as all of my travelmates found out the first time I saw a giraffe in the wild). He also wasn’t pushy. There was a lot of nice wood statues, but I couldn’t decide what I liked/wanted. (We have no idea where the alien looking heads on all of the people statues has come from, though. People say this is unique to Mozambique, so maybe at some time in history, Mozambique got taken over by aliens). Hopefully, I will get back to the wood market before I leave and will actually be able to make a decision. After the market, we went to Casa Elefante to buy capalanas (the material that women wrap into a skirt). They were closing, though, so we didn’t have a lot of time. I got a few pieces of material that I think can me made into pillows. Hopefully, I can make it back there, too. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t. I am already having anxiety at the thought of trying to get everything to fit in my suitcases for my return.
Sunday, our colleague Jackie finally arrived after spending the night in a sketchy hotel in Jo-Burg. We met up with her and found another Atlanta CDC colleague along the way, who had just arrived in Maputo, and headed to eat at the fish market. I was NOT a fan of where they sell the fish (the raw squid made me gag and if I start to think about it, I will gag again), but in the back there are a bunch of tiny restaurants that will cook your seafood the way you want it. Instead of us having to go and bargain for the raw food, they restuarants will do it for you. Then they bring the fish back to make sure it is to your liking before they cook it. Like I would know what a good raw whole fish looks like. I normally buy my fish in fillets at the supermarket. J There is something to be said for eating fresh seafood, though. It took a while, but everything was sooo good. We feasted on clams, prawns, and a big ol fish.

After this weekend, I feel I have now had the opportunity to spend time doing “all things Maputo.”

And so it goes....

I have had a rough couple of weeks health-wise. I knew I would get sick over here, but I assumed I would get some sort of GI illness. Not the case. I was getting better from my previous illness and then Monday night..BAMB. I got hit with a fever, chills, aches, etc. Went to the health unit yesterday morning and perplexed the staff. They couldn't tell if I had the flu or strep throat. They put me on Tamiflu and told me to come back the next day. Sure enough, the doc's instincts were correct and I ended up showing the classic signs of strep throat this morning. Now am on antibiotics and hope to be better soon. The staff at the Embassy Health Unit were so nice and just plain kind. (something you don't see too often in the states anymore). I was in really bad shape on Tuesday and they just let me sleep in their office. They didn't want me to be myself. Feeling better today and hope to go back to work tomorrow.

I just saw an email came out to the CDC staff here saying that many people have come down with a "flu-like" illness. I hope I am not getting blamed for this! But I don't have the flu, I definitely have strep. Plus, I think we all picked up stuff in Swaziland. A lot of the staff went there this past weekend.

One interesting side note in all of this: The doctor took samples from me to send off to Atlanta to see if I had swine flu on Monday before we came to the strep diagnosis. Well, the gov't here won't let things like this out of the country. So I guess if there ever is a swine flu pandemic in Mozambique, we will never really know.

Bush Fire Music Fest, Swaziland

I just got back from a wonderful weekend in Swaziland. We went out for the Bush Fire Music Festival, which is basically an international African music fest. We stayed at one of the Swaziland game reservces--best known for their hippo pool. :-) There were about 9 of us and I was lucky enough to stay in one of the beehives (a traditional swazi hut) that they offer for accommodation there. Here are some pics:






Above right: warthog about to unkowningly bri
himself and become dinner!




We ate dinner and watched some music on Friday. The venue was at a place called House of Fire. It was a very unique venue. Friday was in an indoor venue that kind of reminded me of a bar you would see in OC, but decorated fancier. The acts were pretty good.







The proceeds went to supporting Young Heroes, which is Swaziland's first Internet-based initiative against HIV/AIDS. Therefore, there was a lot of talk about abstinence and how to prevent HIV. One odd part of the show was when one of the woman performers (who appeared to be in her 40s) said she likes to breast feed her mother and asked the crowd if they also do, too. I would like to think something got lost in translation there, but she was speaking English. You may be wondering why Swaziland of all places would have a 3 day music and arts festival around HIV/AIDs. The HIV/AIDS rate in Swaziland is about 40%. For a country this small (or any country really), that is just unbelievable. Swaziland is ruled by a King..yes, there are still some of these types of monarchies left in the world. However, it seems to be better off than Mozambique in a lot ways (other than the HIV rate). The roads, food, and shopping were all a ton better than here in Maputo. (Hence, why I ended up doing a lot of shopping this weekend. In my defense, proceeds from the majority of what I bought went to some sort of aid organization). I also noticed a lot more ads and things through out the country that were making people aware of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and what they can do to help control what is going on. I even saw a billboard telling people to take their ARVs all the time as directed. So far, I have not seen any type of advertising/health promotion about HIV/AIDs in Mozambique, which has an HIV/AIDS rate of about 17%. (Yes, I must start putting some facts within my blog to try to give you an idea of the situation). People in Swazi are definitely poor like Mozambique (people live in shacks, etc.), but they appear to be able to run businesses, farm, and things like this way better than Mozambique. The difference between the two countries in these regards is really astonishing considering they are border countries and Mozambique is the run by a "democratic government."

But enough of the culture lesson...back to the weekend. Saturday, we got up and had breakfast next to the hippo pool. Then we decided to take a hike and got a bit lost. The map the gave us was absolutely ridiculous. It made no sense and just had all types of different lines everywhere. Our little 1 and 1/2 hike turned into about 3 hours. It started out nice, but as we seemed to get more and more lost, I thought our colleagues that went off to the spa had the better idea. Then we came upon some zebra, who were quite inquisitive of us and followed us for a while, which was a bit scary-though it didn't stop me from taking advantage of the photo ops.











After our hike, we went back to the restuarant for a drink and got to be pretty close to some of the hippos. During our conversation, we also came to a conclusion that it would be pretty nice to be a hippo. You can be as fat and ugly as you want, but people will still think you are cute. All the other animals avoid you, because they know you could destroy them at a moment's notice. You spend the majority of your life sleeping, eating, and being in water. Doesn't seem too bad to me!






Then we went to do some shopping at a glass factory, then back to the music festival to hear some music, then to dinner, then back to the music festival. We saw Johnny Clegg, who is a very famous S. African performer (I had never heard of him) that has been around since the 70s. He was actually pretty good and I may look to download some of his toons. I think some of the songs were in English, but there might have been a bit of Zulu thrown in there. The venue moved outside and was packed. We even managed to meet up with our fellow IETA, Ed. (Ed randomly went up to some of our colleagues in a grocery store and asked them if they knew of any Americans living in Mozambique...and they were like yeah. It took a little bit of back and forth (due to our colleagues joking behavior), but Ed finally realized they were with Christine and I. How random is that?) We joked that Friday night it was an international festival for americans living abroad. I think we saw almost every Mozambique USG employee there. The crowd was definitely more local on Saturday and after Johnny, the acts were not as good, so we decided to leave around 930 pm. Here are some pics:




It started to storm right after we left and rained/stormed through out the night. We stayed nice and dry in our little beehive. But at one point, Megan and I were both seeing a floating light coming through the top of our beehive. My guess it was an alien, but we never did figure out where this mysterious light was coming from. Our beehive was pitch black without any lights on, so the whole thing was a bit bizarre. Megan even went out in the down pour to try to figure out where it was coming from but no luck. The center of our beehive, where the light was coming from was pretty high unlike the entrance door, so it isn't like someone could have playing a trick on us. Insert weird space alien music here. :-)

We woke up to heavy rain this morning. After getting to watch 4 hippos be very active during breakfast, (they are so fun to watch) we took it easy by reading some books by the fire in the main restuarant overlooking the hippo pool. Then after busting through a road out of the game reserve that was apparently shut down because of the rain, we were off for more shopping and then back to Maputo. I must admit, the whole..day of downpours..seems a bit foreign to me. It so common back in DC to have days of heavy heavy rain, but I have not seen any rain really in the 6 weeks I have been here until last night and today. (It is officially the mid point of my assignment). Driving into my Maputo, it looked like a riot had happened or something. Roads were blocked due to standing water and the streets...hmmm...how can I describe this...had trash EVERYWHERE..even worse than normal, which is pretty bad on a normal sunny day. Everything must have been washing everywhere. It really was not pretty. Maputo normally doesn't get this kind of rain/storms this time of year, so the whole thing is a bit odd. Also, I got a glimpse of what the local staff keeps telling me happens in the summer months here. They say the roads flood so high that no one can get anywhere. Trash+poor sewage and drainage=DISASTEROUS.

Also, Sheila+the ability to shop=disasterous packing situation. I may need to buy a third suitcase to lug the stuff home that I bought this weekend.

Oh well, an odd way to end my blog for today. But I am sleeeeepy..and must get some rest for the work week ahead and my long evening of packing my stuff tomorrow night in preparation for our move to the hotel. :-(