Christmas 2008

Vilanculos, Mozambique, December 2008. In the morning the water would recede and anchored boats would be stranded on the sand. In the evening the water came right up to the walls lining the ocean edge of town and your footprints from earlier would be washed away.
When you're far from your home and family and friends in the States over the holidays... you spend time with your Peace Corps family and travel. Yep... since it's June and "winter" here (although it's still pretty hot), I thought I should post photos of my trip to Mozambique... that memorable trip to the country just to the East of South Africa.
We took a taxi from Nelspruit, South Africa to Maputo, Mozambique one afternoon and the very next morning we were taking a taxi at 4:30 to catch the bus that would take us to Vilanculos. A bus ride that included: a chicken, a man practically sitting in our laps,
stops where people tried to sell us cashews, bread, bottled water, cold drink, thermoses, suitcases, shoes, and so much else, heat, humidity, dust (I still have dirt in the clothes I wore), dozing, a point where every hour or two we would all just look at each other, say "uh, is this really happening?", and then laugh hysterically,
and a view of the man we so affectionately named "barrel" who was sitting on a barrel in the aisle, surrounded by fermenting tomatoes, luggage, and bags of mealie meal.
On the potholed road that resembled Swiss Cheese, we would drive for a long while without seeing a town or even people, and then suddenly there would be a little pocket of houses made of thatch.
The heat and humidity were pretty incredible... not to mention the South Africans who were also taking their holiday at the backpackers. By the first day I had a routine down... After a night of trying to sleep, sweating, praying that music at the bar would be turned down just a little bit, and swatting mosquitoes (even under the net!), I would wake up early and head out to the lapa (thatched roof over an outdoor sitting area) to drink tea with anyone else up. A little while later I would go get ready to venture into Vilanculos, the village we were staying in, for some exploring.
Nathan and I would walk about 15 minutes to the coffee shop and on the way we would always run into Jeremy. He was selling these woven wallets. A nice kid who became part of our routine.
Cafe Mozambique is where Nathan would get an espresso and I would order a cappuccino. Sergio always made them well and helped us choose the local pastries we should try.
We would sit at a little table and plan out our day... where we would walk and what we would check out. One day we walked the whole length of town and visited the school where there was a UNICEF tent (donated when there was a typhoon that hit in 2007), the local CARE (international relief and development organization)office, stood in the office of a fancy hotel and soaked up the air con, visited a restaurant where Richard Gere once ate, saw the more touristy and "white" part of town, and then caught a ride with some locals to a nearby port.
Yes, I gave that woman next to me my bottle of water so she would pose with me.
After a walk through town, we would go back to the backpackers we were staying in. It was right on the beach and had a nice view of the Indian Ocean. The walk always took a lot out of me... it was just so hot. I would then spend a couple hours in a hammock reading my book (Nathan was usually in the other one reading his) and would sometimes be lulled to sleep by the whir of a sewing machine. A local woman would come each day and make all the tourists skirts, shirts, pants, and bags out of traditional material.
One of my favorite places was the market....
With its material...
fish...
food and people. The market was full of all kinds of little walkways, stalls selling everything you can imagine were everywhere.
Mpho and Mmapula. A few of us spent a nice morning haggling and buying material. See the bags we got made? The fabric mine is made of has tea kettles all over it. This photo is compliments of Paul and Jess Vig.