Freedom!!...for four days

For those who actually look forward to these blogs, please accept my apologies for the radio silence of late. Sue and I have been out of the village and it was good! Good for one, to be out of the village and even better to have a kind of a mini holiday. This week at the school is a "cleaning week", which is a week for cleaning but possibly a chance for a break for Francis by another name.

We went to a place called Tofo (pronounced Tofu) beach. If there's any place that I've been to so far that could be called touristy, this could well be it. Mind you, Mozambican-touristy comes nowhere near any of the touristy places I've been before. I mean, there are market sellers offering the few tourists that there are; shells, shorts (which I bought, they're patchwork and I didn't feel that I could miss the opportunity), t-shirts with various logos relating to Mozambique and fruit and veg. They do also hassle more than you'd like, but five or so "no"s later they get the idea.

Other than that, Tofo beach is pretty quiet, small and surprisingly empty - it's not quite the tourist season yet. In high season, apparently there are quite a lot of South Africans and backpackers after a bit of sun and sea.

p.s. On the shorts front, if there's anyone with smaller thighs and bum than me (Titch? Ruth?), then I've got a pair that you might be interested in. The sizing system at the market isn't quite uniform, you see!

Getting to Tofo was quite a journey. We hadn't been on a chapper without Francis or a grasp of Portuguese before. It turned out not to have been as bad as we'd expected. Not too bad, except for the major safety concerns. The chappers that travel on the main road are kind of like slightly larger people carriers from England. There is a sign on all of the chappers stating a maximum of 15 people. By my rough count, at the worst - or best if you own the chapper - of times there was something around 23. Fitting 23 people into one of these things involves cramming 4 people on each 3-seater bench and making your own standing room up. 

Fortunately, if there were to be one of their popular head-on collisions, we were at the back by a window. Oh actually, that's not quite right, the windows have bars on and the boot was held tightly shut by rope. We might have survived the initial impact! 

Upon arrival, we found that we were staying in a place called 'John's Place'. John's Place was a hostel with dorms and separate rooms (I opted for the cheaper 250mt rooms). John is an old white guy who loves his old music and films. He's a pretty interesting guy, born and bred in Mozambique to a Scottish mother and Spanish father. It's very interesting to talk to someone with English nuances and English as a first language, but that knows so much about the country (which I may tell you about in a later edition).

Anyway, I won't bore you with the four-day holiday details, but I will tell you about an interesting experience I unwittingly got involved in. Maybe I'll tell you what I got up to a bit later.

So, on the first day, as well as somehow managing to watch Reading vs. Swansea at a local restaurant, I met a guy and girl from France and a girl from Portugal at the hostel. They seemed friendly enough and asked if I wanted to wander round to find some food. In the spirit of a book I'm reading (thanks Hannah), I said Yes and off we went. 

Amandine (27) and Vincent (29) weren't a couple but had been traveling together for a while. Sue and I agreed that they seemed really nice, Vincent is a fireman and Amandine, I'm not too sure, but she played guitar. They're English was pretty good too. They met Carla (36 a biologist and her English was better than mine) at the island they'd visited and decided to travel together to Tofo. So to cut a long story short, we had some food at the market, it was not nice. It was some kind of fish with cabbage and rice, I'm not sure if they throw in extra fish bones for the tourists, but none of us finished it. Off we trundled to a more respectable restaurant for a bit more grub. All going swimmingly so far right? Nothing weird going on at all.

Carla spotted a kayaking trip that we would all be interested in trying, so she counted her money to see if she had enough. What's this? Oh, it's only 1100mts (£23) missing from Carla's purse!! After the obligatory 'are you sure?’ 'Where did you leave it?' and 'could you have dropped it?' questions, it was decided that, yes, it had indeed been lost. 

To cut another long story short, Carla worked out that the only time she'd left her purse alone was at the dorm with Amandine. To make things worse, Carla texted the previous girl they'd stayed with, who also had a hunch that she'd had some money missing too. Fortunately, they didn't decide to blame the new guy, I was quite worried that they might!

The following morning was filled with Carla confronting Amandine, breakfast with Sue, Carla and I and an awkward conversation between Carla and Vincent over said breakfast, Sue and I sat quietly.

We invited Carla to spend the day with us and to use Sue's double room for storage, to which she agreed. Carla ended up spending most of her time with us, as it was more than a little awkward with the French. 

I'm not pointing any fingers here, but it's all very weird. When Carla left, I spent some time with the French guys and they were absolutely fine, no money went missing and they didn't even nick my clothes when I went snorkeling! Amandine lives in Paris, works for an NGO, apparently has enough money, wears a bindi and is a Buddhist. So, you decide. Sue and I suspect it was probably Amandine, given the facts, but we were and still are pretty stumped. Is Carla just clumsy? Could she possibly have dropped two notes unwittingly? Do Buddhists steal? And isn't it Hindus that wear bindis?! 

Right. Now I've got that off my chest, I can tell you a bit about what we got up to. There's a beach. A beach that most people go to; with waves to play around and surf a bit in. But there's also an inexplicably much lesser used (usually deserted) beach around the other end of the bay, which is unsurprisingly where we spent most of our beach time. 

I'm not sure if a blog is for standard holiday snaps, but you're going to get some now. Here's the main beach:

And the lesser used beach:

There was food too! Proper beef, chicken, fish, prawns, meat! I don't need to tell you how much we ate, but it was a lot and it was always polished off. Having been at the village, I was worried that I wouldn't have half the stomach capacity that I did. So to find out, I had the cheapest and biggest T-bone steak that I've ever eaten. It equated to around £4.70 and it was huuuuuge, there are two layers to it too!! 

One of the many local pet dogs took a fancy to it too.

On the second day, with our new friend Carla and some wild dogs for company, we went for a walk to a viewpoint where you can apparently catch glimpses of whales and other things. We probably went at the hottest point in the day but don't worry Mum, I had proper sunblock and a hat, you'd be proud.

The good news is that the view was very pleasant, over 180° of sea and blue sky and we managed to spot some dolphins. The bad news is that we only saw a couple of distant glances of some splashing, which was definitely a whale. No major photo opportunities there.

On the way back, we saw something that none of us had ever dreamed we'd see in Mozambique. It was a recycling centre!!! The people that drop they're litter as soon as they're done with it, have a tip? Let alone somewhere to recycle the millions of tons of plastic they drop all over they're country.

Having said all that whale stuff. On our penultimate day in Tofo we were just leaving our favourite lesser-used beach when I looked up to clearly see a blue whale jumping out of the water!!! You could see it's white underbelly and fins and everything!! It turned out that there wasn't just one whale either, there were loads of them and they were travelling close and parallel to the beach!! I tried to get a good picture, but it's an iPhone with little zoom, so please bear all of that in mind if you're expecting clear-cut whale photos. They're there if you look hard enough and they were closer than it looks too!

Following the weird first day, the remaining ones were spent eating, buying shorts, exploring the little there is to explore and the beach. After Carla left the hostel, I met a couple of English doctors on they're way to work in South Africa. They were also very nice and invited me to go and find some food with them (maybe some kind of hostel camaraderie), I said Yes and off we went. 

Alex (27 I think) and Gabby (26) were having a holiday of indefinite length until their work visa eventually arrived. There isn't much to do in Tofo so we didn't do much, but it was nice to have some company of the same age and language.

On the last morning we had to leave at 9. Gabby and Alex had arranged to go on a bike ride with some slightly crazy South African expats. They asked me if I wanted to go, so off we went on a 7-of-the-clock, hour and half bike ride. It turned out to be around a few of the places we'd (Sue, Carla and I) walked before, but it was good fun to get up early, ride bikes through sand, see a few more sights and try to avoid the treacherous (what they called) sand puddles - deep bits of sand.

All in all, Sue and I had a good time relaxing and eating. It was good to get away and get some perspective. I thought we might feel bad having left the village and it's occupants behind. But it seems that most of the people in the village genuinely don't want to go to the beach, I guess they're happy with what they've got.

And so that's it, we got a couple of the unsafe buses back and people were intrigued with my front facing camera:

A Trip To The Seaside

Right…I feel a bit better. Today (Friday) I went outside of the house for the first time in a while. Today I also left the village for the first time since I got here. Sue wanted to help a bit with the local primary school and Francis and I had nothing to do, so we went to the beach! 

Today's first activity wasn't the best to ease my stomach back into use. The only way out of the village is by 'chapper' (pronounced 'shapper'). They're those flat back things; I mentioned in an earlier post, that they cram in as many people as possible into, until they can fit no more. I haven't uploaded a great picture on an overloaded chapper yet, today isn't going to be that day either, but I am I'm working on it. They move surprisingly quickly for a pickup truck full of people. 

Anyway, when I arrived, I was in the front seat of one these trucks; today I was in the back. There aren't any handholds, nor are there any instructions - which one would, of course, expect in England. So it seems that you either sit on a wheel arch or stand at the front if you're lucky. If you're not so lucky (me), you get to sit on the edge. Sitting on the edge is not much fun at all, obviously the road is very bumpy and there sure ain't no padding. Even more obvious, is the lack of any kind of back support. A back support would be great; it would even keep you from falling out!

Francis managed to nab the standing-at-the-front position and half way through the 45-minute journey, managed to drag me up with him. The front was good, a lot better. You can't even feel the fact that you're getting well and truly sun burnt because there's so much natural air conditioning, blowing right in your face. I managed to take a nice picture of the view from the front.

And a questionable one of the view from the back:

Arriving in Inharrime was a nice change. There are Colonial buildings (made of bricks! (and that haven't been painted since Colonial times!)), more people, less shacks, more space, more shops, more markets and fruit to buy! Yes, fruit!! Needless to say, I bought some fruit.

Not much else to report from Inharrime, except to say that I managed to take a picture from the seller's perspective of one of the many coaches passing through. The majority of sellers are offering things that are mostly useless to a coach load of travellers (brooms, baskets, chickens, all yer usual). I don't know how they make a living, but I guess it must work sometimes.

Inharrime beach isn't much to write home about. There's a lot of sea and not much beach, but it's the best beach I've seen in Mozambique. The sand is pretty white, the litter is tolerable and the water is warm enough. We mostly stayed in the shade under the road bridge on account of my pasty white skin, but apparently that's what Francis does when he's on his own anyway.

After taking a couple of (honestly not setup) pictures and having some barracuda and goat (neither were great) at the local restaurant, we hitched a ride back!

Still Ill

Quite obviously there isn't too much to tell you about from my week of being ill. I ventured out of the house once or twice.

Firstly, and probably most excitingly, you might be interested to know that I met my first ever, real life (not in a zoo), deadly spider. It was round the back of Francis no.2's house, just chillin' in its web. It hadn't caught much, maybe a few mosquitos. It doesn't look very big in the picture, but it was pretty big in person. Francis no.2 said that he does have antidote at the hospital, but it can definitely kill you and is "very dangerous". After taking a close-up, I stayed well clear.

And now for a Fatty update: please, please excuse the messy and ill white guy in the pictures, but Fatty wanted to share his hat with you - he didn't tell me as much, but I assumed he did. I couldn't even ask him why he was wearing a hat in 30° heat, but he seemed pretty happy in it.

Finally, it was a national holiday on Thursday and so from my bed, I could hear there was a lot of drinking the night before. And in the morning, a ceremony.

Apparently the ceremony was boring even if you did speak Portuguese, you can imagine how it was for a non-Portuguese speaker. Francis said that the same people stand up to say the same thing every year. I think it was to do with the signing of a peace treaty to end the civil war. It was nice to have all the generations in the village, with all the different professions represented, all under the dappled shade of one big tree. I'm sure you can find a metaphor in there if you want.

…but then there was some drumming and that was a lot more on my level! They drummed and danced for a while then we all went home (I to bed)!

Get Well Soon

Well. The good news is that I don't have malaria. Luckily the test turned out 'negativo'. Having a potentially deadly disease is never good at the best of times. The bad news is that, with varying ailments of varying severities, I've been ill and/or not quite right since Friday evening, it's now Tuesday and I'm ill, hot, bored and without a laptop that can store any more than an hours worth of charge.

I blame the drink that Francis bought on Friday night - Friday night is drinking night by the way, much like England, nobody has work the next day and so everyone thinks there's nothing better than to have a dance and get well and truly trolleyed - the drink was some terrible imitation of the creamy liquor I know of as Bailey's, the Mozambican version is called 'Choice - Irish Cream'. Choice Irish Cream comes in a plastic bottle of 275ml, 22% alcohol. 

I should have smelled a rat when I noticed the lack of sell by date, or maybe when I felt the stickiness of every single bottle of Choice on the shelf, or maybe even the fact that every single label was on wonky. All of these things I did pose to Francis, but he seemed fine about it, and as I'd seen a lot worse since I've been here, I gave it a go.

A few hours later, after only two beers and only two sips of Choice, I attempted to get some sleep. As soon as I put my head down and closed my eyes, I realised that the room was spinning and I was feeling pretty sick. There isn't much you'll want me to elaborate on here, except you'll be glad to hear I eventually wasn't sick!

The following day was made up of little other than Francis and I feeling inexplicably hung-over and rather queasy.

The day after that (Sunday) wasn't filled with much either, little other than a puzzling two-day hangover.

Monday, I thought I was on the mend but somehow managed to strain my lower back - something that I've never ever achieved before. I think that combining The Morning Workout and Fatty may have had something to do it. Since I've never had a back problem before and it was proving impossible to bend over, I think I was understandably a bit worried. A few ibuprofen, stretching exercises and not moving much, helped a little bit. And had I had known what was to come, I wouldn't have complained.

And so onto Tuesday (yesterday). Yesterday was not a good day. As far as I can remember, I was woken up by the guard doing his usual sweeping up of leaves before he ends his shift at about 5:30. Or wait, actually, maybe I was more likely woken up by a sudden call of nature - which at my age is unusual at 5:30 - it was time for the loo. Either way, the loo is where I went. Now, I didn't quite run but you've all heard of "Delhi Belly" right? If not that, maybe "Montezuma's Revenge"? Well even if it's a no to both, let's call this one "Inhassune Incontinence" and then maybe you'll get the idea. After another few trips to the bathroom, it was time for some Imodium (thanks again Ruth!) and back to bed.

So, as well as the afore mentioned incontinence, it turned out to be a headache-y dizziness and that combined the urge to be puke up the little food I'd had, meant that yesterday was not shaping up well. The rest of yesterday was spent in bed drifting in and out of sleep with only music for company.

In the evening we went to see Francis' smoking buddy and the local nurse, also called Francis. Francis No.2 tested me for malaria and once I was fortunately found to be negativo. He gave me lots of pills (for free! I think all healthcare is free here), so I've now got some paracetamol, a couple of other things that I can't understand and some repulsive 'oral rehydration salts'. 

This morning (Wednesday) wasn't too much fun either. I woke up feeling a bit better…or, hold on, was it really that I was better? Apparently not. I realised that the reason I wasn't moving from where I'd opened my eyes, was because I knew that if I moved I wouldn't feel any better at all. Cue the dizziness and sickness when I did eventually stir.

So, here I sit: on my clammy single bed, in a humid child’s room, feeling sorry for myself and not wanting to move for fear of nausea  All I've had today is two slices of bread, two boiled eggs, some coke and a lot of that disgusting salty drink.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

update 04/10/2012: For those who are wondering, today (Thursday) has not been much fun either. It's a national holiday so I'm not missing out on much. But still, I've been stuck mostly indoors with my back strain, nausea and of course, the Inhassune incontinence.

Fatty's First Day

The day started well, or badly, that all depends whose side you're on. If you are in any way 'pro rat', it was a very bad day. For us on the 'anti rat' side in the volunteer's house, this morning was a good start to the day.

It all started last night when we thought we'd got two rats at the same time. They both came out of their hole together; one went into the toilet and the other behind the shelves in the kitchen. Since the shelving one wasn't visible we focused our attention on the toilet rat. And also, since our resident rat killer (Francis) was having a shower, it was left to Sue and I to panic and wonder what to do with the stationary rat in our toilet. After much deliberating and shallow breathing, I decided that I wasn't ready to use the stick that I was meant to hit rats with. Instead, I tried the bow and arrow!!…you can guess how that turned out. The shelving rat escaped too, the result last night: Rats 2, Humans 0

However! In the shower room this morning, possibly after such a close shave last night, I found this guy:

Anyway, on only a slightly less pest related note and for all those Fatty (real name Vernacio) fans out there…as a result of our rounding up on Friday, we managed to enlist Fatty and his best friend for their first day at school!! As a result of Fridays recruitment drive, I think there was an extra 4 new guys for the youngest class and maybe 3 for the class that are a year older.

A total of 9 for the first class - 10 with a latecomer. 

Oh, and look who it is!

He even wore his bestest shirt for you dear reader...or maybe it was more to impress his classmates, who knows, I can't ask him, we haven't got a clue what we're saying to each other! If you can't make it out what the writing, his t-shirt says: "MY CAR is very speedy I am too small to reach the pedals when I grow up I'LL BE KING OF THE ROAD".

Fatty's first day was a relatively musical one. A bit of musical limbering up to start off with:

And then a bit of beanbag balancing on your head, set of course to music. I didn't manage a picture of that one; I was on guitar playing duties, you see. Some clapping and jumping was also in there for good measure.

We then did a bit of counting objects in Portuguese, only up to 5 mind you, you can't expect too much, they're only 3! After all that exertion it was time for squash, a couple of biscuits, playtime and then class time over.

You'll be glad to hear that Fatty wasn't in any way scarred by his encounter, he was outside and straight to the swings after his lesson, no time to waste.

I decided that the playing looked to good to miss out on, so I joined in a bit too.

As you might expect from a cheeky, rotund little child with big eyes and chubby cheeks, he does get into a bit of trouble and could do with a little discipline at times. At those particular times, I hand him over to Francis.

So, all in all, Fatty's first day didn't go too badly after all. He brushed up on his dancing, he learnt how to count, he made some new friends and he even got some refreshments for his hard work. All in all, a successful day, I think he'll be back.

But speaking of new friends, I have someone to introduce you to. Now, from where you're sitting, she may look a bit like a Mozambican Bride Of Chucky, but she just needs to work on her posing. She may also have some dried snot under her nose, but don't we all? Ladies and gentlemen, another very cute child straight out of Inhassune, Mozambique, I give you…Isabella!

A Day In The Life

Today after school, we set out on journey to find a good old fashioned sunset. Admittedly we could already see that it was going to be slightly cloudy, but what else is there to do on a Friday night in Mozambique? The answer is, not much, possibly drink, unless you have transport.

We also decided that on the way to this crap sunset, it would be a good idea to round up a few more kids for school on Monday. Since the turnout for the past week wasn't so good, it was time to speak to the parents. The school is completely free so they can't really say no. Oh, and when I say 'speak to the parents', what I really meant was, Francis would speak to the parents and Sue and I would stand there and look pretty…well I did anyway.

So, off we trotted towards the sunset. And what's this we should come across whilst walking along the main path, past the shacks and school children? Oh it's only a cow being tightly bound to tree by it's head, just about ready to have it's throat slit!!

Needless to say, we didn't stop for long. Apparently it had failed to give birth and the calf had died inside it 3 or so days ago. I'm not an expert but they didn't seem to think it had much chance of survival. 

Anyway, by the time we'd gone round the corner, on account of all the singing and shouting, we realised we'd just avoided the slaughter. Thankful and relieved we turned another corner and found a shit load of live cows. The fencing and the cows and their horns we like a work of art. I've attempted to do it justice in these pictures but I'm not sure you'll get the full picture.

Since there was no other way back, we had to walk past our favourite freshly slain carcass. Fortunately for my stomach, there wasn't much blood so naturally, I decided to take a picture!

It occurred to Sue and I that as well as dead african cows, we'd never seen cotton growing in a field either. Cue the next picture:

A few more cotton fields and shacks later I managed to find a genuine African cliché! This wasn't even set up or anything, even though I had to zoom in a bit, I'm pretty happy with it. Look at the colours and stuff!

Anyway, that's all really, the sunset wasn't too bad after all either. Just another day in Inhassune, Mozambique.

And if anyone wants a more accurate location of the village, it's exactly here. You can even see the football pitch and the well worn paths that cross it!

http://goo.gl/maps/Jd9Te

The Morning Workout

It seems the novelty of me hasn't worn off yet!

After breakfast I do a few exercises on the climbing frame and I take my music player out with me. There's always kids wanting to join in, they'll either do a bit of dancing - which is always funny to watch - or they'll try to copy what I do. Although I'm more than happy to help them and show them how do it properly, I'm not too sure how good exercises in general are for little kids.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share a few pictures of this morning's routine. You might notice that Fatty appears in all 3, I seem to have made a friend there. He also has a best friend (and I am disappointed that it's not me) who would usually be there, but I caught him red-handed pissing on the climbing frame!!!! He was still pissing when he was trying to put his boyhood back in his shorts!! So, naturally, I told him off and he ran away. He shouldn't be doing that again in a hurry. I have asked and I'm glad to learn that this isn't common occurrence. Today's lesson for all to take home with you: never piss on a climbing frame.