So this post is going to have a little bit of everything in it...some fun stuff and not so fun stuff...some interesting stuff and not so interesting stuff...bear with me.
Yesterday marked our one week anniversary at site. We are not in our house yet but we are hoping to get moved in this week! We ran into our first of many roadblocks on Friday. We were wanting to go to Angoche so we went to the chapa stop to catch a chapa. There is this guy in our vila that has some mental problems and hasn't caused us any harm. He is just annoying and always around and follows us everywhere. Let me give you some background on gender inequality here in Mozambique...it is frustrating! The men here have it easy. The women cook, clean, fetch water, take care of the kids and house, etc. The men get to enjoy the food, the clean house, the water and don't have to worry about watching the kids. This being said the retention rate of keeping girls in school is so low because of all the responsibilities they have at home. Have no fear, that is why I am here! I am looking forward to mentoring the young women here and empowering them to explore their potential! Anyways back to the crazy guy. He was really persistent and wouldn't leave us alone at the chapa stop so we cancelled our Angoche trip and locked ourselves in our house.
Yesterday we woke up at 4am and went to the chapa stop again to see if we would have a better chance of getting a chapa to Angoche...and sure enough at 6:30am we were on our way to the beach! There are two current volunteers in Angoche, one of which was not there this weekend, but we got to meet and hang out with the other one. They have an apartment that has ocean views and washing machine! It is super fancy. They love hosting people because they have the space and the location is just perfect. Maria took us to the beach. A beach that we could only get to by canoe. Yay for adventures! We noticed on the walk there that it was getting pretty cloudy and dark over yonder. We decided to just go with it and continue on. Once we got to the beach we took picks and I put my toes in the INDIAN OCEAN...hello bucket list! I got some good pics too so check out my pics page. As we were waiting for the canoe to get us it started to rain a little and once it got to us it was pouring. We took the canoe back with some fisherman who caught a humungous fish. By the time we got across we were soaked. The next adventure was walking back. I fell in the mud and ended up walking barefoot a majority of the way back. At least I can laugh about it. Only in Africa can you walk around barefoot drenched head to toe covered in mud. After we got dried off and cleaned up we just chilled and relaxed and waited for the rain to stop. For dinner we went to an ice cream place. I know what your thinking..."Ice cream for dinner?!" First we had a fried egg with mayonaise and ketchup in a tortilla type thing. I know it sounds gross but it wasn't that bad. We had ice cream for dessert! We grabbed a beer down by the water at one of Maria's favorite places and met a friend of her's who is a dentist.
Today we woke up at 3am to catch a chapa back to Liupo. Imagine a bed of a truck that is about 8 feet by 5 feet more a less. Now imagine big bags of rice, beans, vegetables, clothes, tools for farming in that bed. Now imagine 31 people, including yours truly, 3 kids and 4 babies piled into that bed, as well. What I just described is the normal public transportation here in Mozambique. I have bruises everywhere from being sat on and pushed around. We made it back to Liupo, though, and we were happy to be home!
Hopefully the next time I post, it will be from our new home!!!! Thanks for all of your continued support!
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