Mozambique

Days 1 and 2 in Mozambique

I took a mid morning flight from Johannesburg to Beria, one of the larger cities of Mozambique.   Like the capital, it sits on the Indian Ocean.  Antonio, the country director of the assigning agency,  was late picking me up so I had to borrow a cell phone from a taxi driver and call him.  Fortunately, I was supplied with lots of phone numbers before I left the states.   My iphone is basically useless except for sudoku.    We talked logistics and purpose, leaving me with lots of questions and grateful for the Peace Corps hammering into the new volunteers the importance of flexibility and dealing with uncertainty.   For example, the scope of work document I received before I left was the wrong one.   Antonio didnt think that location would be acceptable to a female volunteer (given the relative primitiveness of the site from which I write this, yikes) so changed it with the one I’m going to.   Fortunately the mission is somewhat similar.   A business plan still needs to be written for a farmer co-op.   He gave me a loaner cell phone with key phone numbers and a bunch of per diem cash.   I like the idea that with the per diem, I dont have to account for each penny I spend.   The hotel and transportation are paid, meals and incidentals covered by the per diem.  

Antonio dropped me off at my hotel, a homely but clean facility only a block from the ocean and across from a park, with air conditioning.  
Here is the hotel.   Notice the woman balancing a huge load of bread on her head.   There is a bakery next to the hotel and it was full of people gathering large amounts of bread (it looked like baguettes), presumably to sell.  

I ate a tasty fish kebob at this restaurant at the outdoor terrace with a view of the ocean.


Not much to do in the evening except read and sleep.   The promised internet at the hotel stayed broken throughout the evening and next morning, despite promises to the contrary.   The tv had 5 channels, only one of which had a clear picture and everything was in Portugese.   No problem.   The kindle had plenty of entertainment.

Antonio brought a usb modem this morning.   It seems to work fine.   At least I can get and answer emails.   We will see what happens when I try to post these pics to my blogsite.    Just in case, I’m putting all of the ones in the blog and a bunch of others in my dropshots site (dropshots.com/elizpou)

Lots of time waiting here.   A breakfast of cereal and juice at the hotel, followed by taxi to the Beria airport.   Not much going on there.   Yesterday, there were 6 people on my plane from Jo-burg and we were the only people at the airport.  Today, the little plane was full for the trip to Nampula, in the northern part of the country.   It was the only plane going anywhere today at that airport.   Ditto for the arrival in Nampula.   Just us.  Both airports are smaller than Asheville airport, a bit larger than Key West airport.  

Then came a 4 hour drive to Altomalaque, where I will stay the next 10 days.   The driver who met me at the airport did not speak English and we had to pick up my interpreter for the trip, a nice young man named Adriano who works for a local AIDS prevention organization.   This is his first interpreter job. 

Lots of dusty roads, small huts lining the roadway.   Just when it looked like we were going to make good time on a paved road, we would hit a detour onto dirt paths to route around a good bit of construction.   Looked like several bridges were being refurbished.   It probably added 50% to the time it took to get here.  
One group of huts after another, lots of people walking.   That’s a baby in the sling riding behind the woman in the picture.  While public transportation supposedly exists, it was not evident as we left the city.   It seems like most people were walking or riding bicycles.   Very few signs of market activity or stores where someone could buy something.  Miles of miles of this. I was glad I had the driver stop to pick up two liters of water, tho by the time this trip was over, I was sorry I drank so much of it.  

I asked Antonio about the large number of dirt structures that looked like upside down cones:
They are all over the place.   Turns out these are anthills!   Local lore is that if one gets built in your hut you have to move out and destroy the hut or someone will die.   I am pretty sure I would die if one of these appeared in my house.  

We finally arrived at my living quarters for the trip, a small compound built by the Catholic church.   There are two buildings circled by a wall.   One looks like a school building.   Mine is u-shaped around a courtyard.   The courtyard is a garden.   This pic is taken from the POV of my room, which faces onto the courtyard, a decent sized room with an ensuite bath and, thank heavens, a fully functioning flush toilet.   The shower has one of those big water tanks right over it and if it doesnt come crashing down on me,  I’m happy. 

As you might expect, multiple sockets are not in ready supply so I’m alternating the charging of my various devices, made somewhat easier as I’ve basically abandoned the ipad with no wireless available.   This place supposedly has wireless internet, but its broken, big surprise.   I’m glad I have the portable modem, which works fine, although slow. 

Somehow, my camera must have slipped out of the side of one of my carry ons so I’m left with the iphone’s camera.   So it will be good for something in addition to sudoku. 

Lots of confusion upon arrival tonite.   The facility person said they werent expecting us til tomorrow.   There are 3 agencies cross communicating here and its a bit of a challenge, but patience and flexibility pay off (thanks again, Peace Corps).   Adriano and I ate dinner at the compound with an Italian volunteer and three other people, including a man I think is the manager/caretaker.   Marco, the Italian, spoke a little English.   Everyone else speaks Portuguese.   Shades of Armenia.   One of the agency people showed up after dinner and we established a tentative game plan for tomorrow - the game plan is we will get together and make a game plan with another of the agencies and the President of the “host” organization (the one that wants help with the business plan).   This is all pretty vague for me right now and I’m just going to let the fullness of time reveal what needs to be revealed. 

Ok, now comes the challenge of getting this document into the blog.   If it doesn’t work, I’ll send it via a few emails.   Feel free to share w/ our friends.