The plane journey was long, very long and even longer than I was expecting. A journey which included two flat tyres, tons of insistent roadside sellers, an equal amount of bartering, an infinite amount of rubbish, so far only one instance of bribery (I was expecting more) and some chickens in a washing basket, on a bus, restrained by plastic bags.
So back to the first part of the journey: Ethiopan Airline's planes seem to be all from the 70's - which is also when I'm assuming it was ok to smoke on a plane. In every toilet there's an ashtray on the back of the door, accompanied by a 'no smoking' sign. On it's own, this is absolutely fine, but then there's also the fact the there's no soap, which could be also fine. But finally the TV screens are also from the 70's, and the entertainment was terrible: the pick of the films was 'Wall Street', second to that was one I've not heard of yet, maybe it's coming to England soon 'Cowboys 'n Angles', looks good!
Anyway, I met a lovely lady named Rudo sitting next to me. Rudo was on her way to visit her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren in Harrare. She is now retired and lives in Farnborough thanks to 2002 the war in Zimbabwe. When I told her what I was off to do, she said 'thank you', she said something along the lines of 'thank you on behalf of Africa' and I was pretty shocked, I didn't know what to say to that. I've never really felt that I can make much of a difference on my own, but if Rudo thinks that I'm doing a good thing then I'm happy. She wants me to call her when I get back to tell her how I got on. I might do that.
I was with Rudo all the way to Ethiopia, which is where I took these:
On the second flight to Maputo, I met this guy:
I didn't get his name but we both very much enjoyed playing with his football M&M dispenser. When you pull it's arm down, an M&M comes out of his side. It was amusing at the time. Anyway, he was very excited to visit his grandmother in Maputo with his parents - he didn't ask where I was going.
So then I landed in Maputo. Everything was pretty smooth (honestly), with a small visa form, two very slow luggage handlers and a quick final x-ray and search of all my possessions and I was on my way. I met the hostel guy with his hostel sign coming to pick me up (it didn't have my name on, I thought it might). I was quite worried when what seemed like a random guy came up to me whilst my lift was fetching the car. I was being pretty cagey when he asked whether I speak Portuguese (I don't) and how my flight was. He turned out to be a friend of my lift, so we all got on ok in the end.
My first impression of Maputo is that it is kind of like the films, but with a lot more rubbish. Everywhere you look there is something happening, there's so many colours and contrasts. I tried to take a picture but unless I had some kind of 360° camera, it just wouldn't do it justice. Apparently people aren't educated in what to do with they're litter and so you can see them just drop it as soon they're done. They drop the cans they finish drinking from or just chuck things out as when they're driving along. Plastic things are everywhere. There are some huge metal bins on a few streets but they are completely full and there's rubbish at least a metre on every side. There's also quite a few people sifting through the rubbish, I don't know what for, but I'm assuming it's for food.
Fatima's Backpackers, or something like that, was the name of the hostel. It was alright, they had food, beer and hot-and-or-cold showers, what more could you ask for. Oh and they also had two Shar Pei dogs, both pretty crusty, one with a limp and the other with two cataracts. I did not touch them.
Fatima's is where I met Francis, I didn't know what he looked like, but he described himself as "black, but not black, black and kind of tall", he did turn out to be pretty close to that description, although I was after a little more detail at the time.
So after meeting Francis and having a half warm, piddly shower, we decided to go the 'fish market'. We hailed a tuk-tuk and headed off to find a cash point that took my card, on the third try we were successful. The tuk-tuk driver didn't seem to obey any normal rules, of which there clearly aren't many, but he obeyed less. Anyway, the fish market had shit loads of fish, squid and shellfish, all caught from the ocean literally just over the road. There were restaurants behind the market which is where we ate. Turns out it was cheaper to buy fish from the market for them to cook, than to buy them from the restaurant.
Day 2 of traveling was filled with mainly views of this:
We left at around 6:30am and left for the bus station - otherwise known as the Junta (junction apparently) - which is nothing of what you would expect from a normal bus station. It's packed full of buses at awkward angles to each other and is equally full and bustling with sellers of water, fizzy drinks, bread, phone cards, machetes and toilet rolls. They're pretty insistent and even if you say "no" five times, they'll still carry on, I took my cue from Francis and ended up ignoring them.
We sat in the bus until it was full, which was about 45 minutes to an hour. Buses don't leave until they've filled their buses, if they're going to drive for 6-7 hours then you can understand why they won't leave until it's overloaded - see below:
Although the journey was longer and more chicken-y than even Francis had anticipated, it wasn't until the 4th or 5th hour that I got fidgety. Up until then there were so many things to look at and take pictures of. There was a couple of elderly women behind who were singing a lot, they were good, harmonising and everything!
Francis is a huge asset (and the only one) to Sing With Me Happily. It wasn't until I got to village that I understood the things that he does. He really does do everything to do with running the school, teaching all ages, repairing, building, cooking, you name it, he does it. He lives in a small shack without windows and is happy. Francis is 27 and from Zimbabwe and talks a lot about the hunting and games they used to play. He's educated but that's all his own doing, he reads books a lot, has a laptop, downloads films, wants to learn my guitar, loves music and is more importantly well schooled in life. His parents died of HIV and I'm guessing he had to learn very quickly.
After eventually arrived in the local town of Inharrime and after having a brief look around - brief because it's small - we took a 45 minute ride in one of those overcrowded pickup trucks you see in films (they're called chappers around here). Luckily Francis negogiated us a free seat up front with the driver, so I'm yet to discover how much fun, if any, standing on the back of a pickup truck on bumpy road is.
So then I met Sue - the other volunteer - after a drag of the suitcases through the sand to house, I then sprayed my mosquito bed sheet stuff, got under the net and to bed.
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