Exciting Trip to the Kingdom of Swaziland!

Houses and garbage on the outskirts of Maputo. I find it hard to get used to the garbage everywhere.

In order to get our residency visas (DIRE) to work and stay in Mozambique, we had to travel to the capital of Swaziland, Mbabane (pop. 60,000), and visit the Mozambican Chancery with our duly notarized papers. We had a wonderful visit to this small, beautiful, clean, cool, friendly, mountainous country – embedded between Moz. and South Africa.

Left: The bus station in Mbabane with small mini-buses, called chapas in Moz and combi in Swaziland. Right: Swazi Plaza shopping centre - an example of how clean we found Swaziland. Garbage cans were everywhere, garbage men worked on Sundays (!) and swept the streets and sidewalks as well. People seemed to take great pride in their country.

The population of Swazi is 1.1 million people – roughly the population of Maputo or Ottawa. Swazi gained its independence in 1968 and King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch, has ruled the country since 1986. Democratic reformers would like to have a constitutional, rather than an absolute, monarchy. Sadly, Swazi has “the highest HIV infection rate in the world (almost 39% for adults between 15 and 49 years of age) and life expectance has fallen from 58 to 33 years”. (Lonely Planet’s Southern Africa, 4th ed., 2007 p.601)

We took a chapa (mini-bus holding 16-18 tightly packed passengers clutching their knapsacks and bags on their laps) from Maputo to the frontier at Goba (75 km), were all processed through each country’s border, this took about 1 hour total, and then drove onto Manzini (72 km). There we caught another chapa to Mbabane (31 km). The entire trip takes about 4 hours depending on border and passport complications of all the passengers.

In Mbabane, we stayed at the Thokoza Church Stay/Conference Centre which was very clean, safe and reasonably priced – since VSO was covering our visa travel costs. A small room with 2 single beds, desk and chair, and clothes cupboards costs 240 Rand (approx. $29 US) per night and included breakfast for 2!

The Moz. Chancery accepts passports and papers early in the morning and processes them for 2 pm the same day so, in between visits, the taxi took us to Swazi Plaza, a shopping centre. It is cheaper to shop in Swazi for clothes, shoes, electrical products than in Moz – so I bought a 9 band radio so we can listen to the news in English and Portuguese back in Maputo (100 R or $12 US).

Once we picked up our passports, we paid for a little holiday to Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary in the Malkerns Valley (45 mins. from Mbabane).

Read my next blog entry to see wildlife pics... We were all very excited by this little holiday!!!

Love Karen

Architecture and murals around Maputo

I am still waiting for the downpour to end so I have uploaded my most recent photos from Maputo and have chosen a selection of, what I consider interesting, photos of the lovely architecture (colonial and modern) and murals around Maputo. I hope you enjoy them!

Heat wave in Maputo!

A few weeks ago we had a wonderful visit to the fish market outside of Maputo. Here are some photos from the market. You choose your fish and seafood and then the restaurant cooks it for you! The prawns were fabulous and - no - we couldn't eat them all!

Apparently this week we had a heat wave in Maputo! It seemed a bit hotter to me but not that much different from other weeks. I continued to do daytime errands and shopping but okay - maybe I did get the tops of my toes burned from the sun! Even sunscreen #50 didn't save them.

I still find it sad, every time I venture out, to see the garbage on the streets, in the gutters, on the sidewalks and just blowing around. Okay, my mother would hate that about Maputo. The country seems to be on the road to recovery after the "civil war" which ended in 1992, and has many other serious priorities, but tourism continues to be a large source of economic growth. I can't imagine what tourists think! Notario, one of the local newspapers, has many ads requesting bids for infrastructure projects throughout the country. Sidewalks are in very dangerous condition and are extremely treachourous at night, if the street is not well lit.

If anyone in Ottawa (or elsewhere) feels like phoning me - I think this is the sequence 011 258 8232 92237 (my cell phone). I am 7 hours ahead of Ottawa - so the best time to phone is between 10 am to 2 pm Ottawa time (5 pm to 9 pm my time). I go to an internet cafe on Saturdays to skype my mother around 3 pm but reception at her end has been iffy, plus I know she is not wearing her hearing aids!! Thanks to all my friends in Ottawa for helping her out. Sorry to hear about horrible snow storms and freezing cold weather you are having. Canada is a very tough country to live in - weather-wise!!! However, it makes us a tough bunch as well.

We have no tv or radio at our apt. but are pretty exhausted after a day of Portuguese lessons, so bedtime and reading tends to be around 9 pm - believe it or not. Mind you, I am awake a good part of the night with the incredibly loud music and other noises where we live - so getting a bit of sleep before midnight is not a bad idea!! It could be a lot worse!

We have to write an "interesting" article about ourselves in Portuguese, complete with photos, for next week. I have no problem with the photos but the article will be a challenge. I am grateful, however, for the opportunity to study Portuguese (100 hours with Leonor!). My French has been both a help and a hindrance: I can guess at some verbs and words due to knowing French but then pronounce them incorrectly. There are sounds in Portuguese we just do not have in English! There is a language grant, for an additional 50 hours of lessons, I can apply for from VSO and I am seriously thinking about it - once I am settled in my placement at the University - beginning of February.

The street vendors also continue to be a great source of interest to me. They walk up and down the streets carrying and selling mops, buckets, extension cords, bras, pants, dresses, shoes, nail polish, skin cream, cell phone credit (you have to buy cards and top up your cell phone here - no monthly plans), etc. I currently need an extension cord badly, so that I can have both my computer charging and the fan on (for white noise mostly) at the same time, but the men are never on the street when I need them... We just saw our first female MCEL (Mozambican cell phone provider) worker this week near Polana, the posh area of Maputo. Other than selling fruits and vegetables, it is extremely unusual to see women selling anything else.

It looks like a big rainstorm heading my way, so I had better sign off and get home before my computer bag gets soaked through. When it rains, in this rainy season, it can be torrential - not just a tiny drizzle. Too late, I am here until the downpour ends... ah, time for another lovely cafe com leite or galou.

Also, the best months to visit Maputo are April, May and September, October. June to August is their winter and it is cooler ie. too cold to swim? with temperatures around 10-12 C or low 50s F.

Beijo, Karen

Feliz Ano Novo!

Happy New Year to everyone!

We had pasta with pesto (hard to come by), salad and a Ferrero Rocher chocolate each - plus sparkling SA wine at midnight singing Auld Lang Syne with our 3 guests. The music in our complex got going at midnight and ended sometime around 4 am. The competing nightly noises are the squeaking of rats downstairs (we only hear them), the many dogs barking, the muezzin calling for prayers, the rooster who crows at all hours and the two elderly men who are mixing cement and fixing a patio at the house behind us - starting at 6 am. We all need earplugs but can't find any to buy yet!

The vehicles in Maputo all seem in amazing shape ie. not rust-buckets (except the chapas)! There is a real culture of car washing, virtually every day, that I don't recall in Canada. They take real pride in their cars etc. but they do start washing early in the morning. Can you tell I am still not back to being a morning person!!!

Yesterday, we took a ferry from Maputo to Catembe, walked the beach and had a wonderful prawn lunch with rice and tomatoes (100M = $4.00 US). It was delicious and cooked by local women in a make-shift oven. See the pics above - dhows in Catembe and Dolly, Simone and I waiting for our prawn lunch!

Portuguese lessons start again on Monday for two weeks so I have to buckle down more than I have. I've been taking photos, walking and reading books - what else! I have had some success skyping my mother and some friends but the reception is great at my end and poor at their end. Ho hum! At least my mother knows I am fine. Friends are keeping her up-to-date with my emails etc.

I have discovered a cafe with free internet (for how long?) and great coffee and omelettes - what could be better! It is a short walk from where we currently live.

Simone and I are to move into a different apt. this month for the duration of our stays but we visited it last week and discovered the ceilings leaking over the beds and in the living room. In spite of the wonderful view - this is not good!!! We like the apt. so we hope repairs can be done.

Hope everyone has a peaceful and happy 2009! Love Karen

Looking forward

Ola

I am thinking forward to what lies ahead with trepidation! I am facing a new placement and am not sure what is expected of me! I am trying to adjust to African time, customs, politeness protocol, new language with a little bit of frustration. I will go to the Pedagogical University to meet colleagues in January. I am looking forward to that...

I am missing my family, friends, colleagues, my very new partner (I think? Will he change his mind?). This is all very new to me. I have many new VSO friends and for that I am very thankful.

This is a country of contrasts - streets and sidewalks in terrible condition, garbage overflowing, garbage not picked up for a month, old beautiful architecture, smiling people everywhere, frowning people who smile beautifully when you say "bom dia"!!! Mozambicans have been through wars of independence, supposed civil wars (not really), and general economic downturns the likes of which we, in the western world, have not experienced. Yet, they smile and seem reconciled/happy? with their existence. I am too cynical to accept that in toto but am amazed at their resilience!

I want my family, friends, colleagues and partner to know how much I miss them and think of them. I am on doxycycline for malaria so dreams are vivid! All about you and all nice, warm and reassuring!

Love Karen

Christmas in Maputo

Feliz Natal e Feliz Ano Novo!

Eu falo portuguese um pouco...

I have been lax in not keeping my blog up-to-date. I had promised myself I would do this weekly but Portuguese language classes and regularly being locked out of our apartment have intervened! Dolly, Diane and I have serious problems with the various locks and padlocks on the door and have been locked out 3 times (or it is 4?). We have had various visits from locksmiths and it turns out the door is out of kilter and needs to be fixed. So several locks have been broken in the interim to allow us access!

Late in January 2009, after Portuguese finishes (it is hard!!!), I will be moving into another apt. on Av. 24 de Julho at Av. Vladimir Lenin. I will be sharing with Simone, from London. The apt. is lovely - 3 bedrooms, large, 5 balconies with views of the harbour and Catholic Cathedral or the north of Maputo. It is furnished with heavy Spanish/Bordello red velvet furniture and a heavy dining room table and chairs. We are very lucky!!!! We have a stipend to buy household supplies ie. dishes and cutlery etc. and I have already been to the Saturday craft market to buy a nice big wooden salad bowl and orange batik as a bedspread. We will have to buy new bed mattresses but that is okay. We have a stove and frig and hot water - we are exceptionally lucky.

We buy fruit and veg on the street and it turns out - Q-tips, nail polish, and shoes! My favourite internet cafe is Pirata on Julius Nyerere. I have been able to phone/skype my mother, brother, son and friend Shayla. My son David is off to Edinburgh to celebrate New Year's and should have a fabulous time.

We cooked a proper Christmas Dinner ie. chicken, potatoes, veg, salad, curry (a modified Geoff's airport curry recipe) and rice. There were 5 of us - all VSO volunteers - Diane and Dolly who I share the current apt. with and Simone, who I will share the new apt. with, and Ethjel who is leaving tomorrow for her placement in Beira.

We were supposed to hold Ethjel's going away party at the beach today but it has been pouring rain so we went to a Chinese restaurant nearby and had spicy prawns, beef in oyster sauce, spareribs etc. Mozambique is known for its prawns. I had hot sauce on everything so I was very happy!

Things I have noticed: drivers have no compunction about running pedestrians down, there are a very high number of albinos in Maputo, a very high number of beautiful pregnant women and the most wonderful hairstyles imaginable plus finally - live chickens on the chapas (vans) for Christmas!

I am the pits at bargaining on the street and in the market and speak to everyone - sometimes confusing good morning with good afternoon or good evening (bom dia, boa tarde, boa noite). There are strict rules about when these greetings change. I wink at some of the older men on our street and they wink back. I am told I shouldn't do this but they are 80 and sweet so I cannot resist!!! Guess I have a thing for older men...

There are guards everywhere - banks (deliberately emptied of $$$ on holidays - rather inconvenient), houses, businesses, restaurants. They have wonderful uniforms (a big thing in Africa I am told), handcuffs and batons - no guns! However, the police and military have machine guns - they also say bom dia but won't let me take their pictures.

We took a chapa ride on Christmas Eve to the border with Swaziland - visa renewal issues - and I got some good pictures there. Busses were filled to the gills, food and live chickens were de rigueur as well as red dust and lots of wind. It was a great adventure. We have to renew our visas in January so Dolly, Diane and I are planning a week's holiday in Swaziland to stay at a wildlife reserve, take photos of the animals and birds (me) and go to Mbabane to get our visas renewed. Then we all have to start our placements.

Feliz Ano Novo, Karen

Our apartment and life in Maputo

Our apartment is about a 20 minute walk from HQ. It has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a large kitchen and eating area, a nice living room (we have yet to sit in) and a balcony to hang our laundry (well used). The stove and frig and mosquito nets are yet to arrive.



Monday night, after my clinic visit, the taxi picked us up and took to eat at a popular local restaurant called Mimmo’s which serves pizza, pasta etc. When we arrived home – the boxes containing the frig and stove were blocking our doorway. There is a serious 2 bolt outer metal door with padlocks and an inner door to unlock for secure entry into the apt. Dolly and I used our considerable strength to move them upstairs off the tiny, tiny landing to be able to open the doors and then hefted them into the hallway inside. Lest you think we are amazons – the frig is double a bar size frig and the gas stove was not too heavy.

Tuesday – we got lost on our way to our VSO briefing (a new location) and were late. We met Diane Miles, a teacher who had just volunteered for 5 years in Namibia, who has since joined us at our apartment where Diane and I are sharing a room. The three of us get along very well and had a fun experience helping Sergio, the maintenance man, hang our mosquito nets over our beds. In the end, we may write a small tome about the 1001 “other” uses for dental floss (thank you Dr. Fred Ross in Ottawa!!!)

Some other recently-arrived VSO volunteers – Simone, Ethjel and Carolina - took us around Maputo to show us a quiet internet cafe and supermarket. We used a “chappa” to get around – a small van with jump seats in it, no seatbelts and triple (or more) the passenger capacity. It costs 5M for a ride. It is very economical for local transportation. There are about 25M to a $1 US – if that helps. Internet cafes charge 35 to 60M for an hour. Since there were several crashes when I was there, I am writing my emails offline to save time and money and then loading them up when I get to the closest cafe. Hours are short on Saturday and they are closed, as are most stores, on Sunday.

Yesterday, we had a tour of Maputo and saw the central market for food, the craft market – I bought two wooden masks and a bowl, the local hospital and police station, museums (okay – my request), the port and ferry to cross the bay, and lots of different architectural building styles . The Chinese designed buildings are beautiful .

Street vendors sell everything from individually wrapped candies to pairs of shoes, watches, buckets and mops, socks and hankies on poles, underwear, fruits and vegetables, and cell phone cards. MCEL seems to a popular provider of cell phone minutes in Maputo.

It is sunny and hot but with an occasional cooling breeze and the summer rains have started. It can really pour but it is warm so very nice and refreshing. Today was laundry day – by hand in a bucket and hanging it out on our balcony to dry – on our new clothesline. Bamboo clothes pegs cost 10M for about 20. With any luck my clothes will be dry when I get home!!!

Until I can find a bodum or coffer plunger I am drinking Nescafe instant coffee! My mother will be laughing at my downward slide – she likes hot, hot coffee and instant works for her. I think of her with every sip I take.

We are eating green salad with tomatoes and fruit salad most nights. Mangos and small, sweet, green bananas are cheap (15M / kg) but grapes, pears and apples are expensive.

Tomorrow we start our Portuguese language lessons - 5 hours per day for 5 weeks. Our teacher is coming to our apartment which will be very nice - handy and cheap - since we can eat lunch at home.

Okay must sign off at the internet cafe - Pirala - they are playing my favourite song - the Righteous Brothers singing "Unchained Melody" - I may cry soon!!!!! My heart is palpitating for sure and I am in love after 17 years - what a shocker for me!!!!

Ciao, Karen