The First Morning

It seems that every new volunteer/teacher/white guy is quite a novelty!

Even though I was still knackered from the journey, I managed to wake up at 7ish. Sue, Francis and I had a wander over to the small amount of shops/shacks, so I had a chance to get my bearings and take a few pictures. The school and volunteer's house are lovely, even if a little rat infested - don't worry Mum there's poison down now.

The house is much better than I was expecting, rat problem aside, there's everything we need. We've got running water on tap, a western, flushing toilet and a little porch with seats for eating and relaxing. The power we have is through the solar panels on the roof, they work fine, but aren't what I'm used to. The evening lighting is dull at most, but it can charge things as well as powering the fridge at the same time! As we've found out, it's not a good idea to charge things before dark, nor is it a good idea to try to charge two things are the same time. One and a half nights of darkness have proven this.

And so, off to the shops. I tried to give you an idea of the layout of the school - the school at the front and volunteer's house behind the climbing frame - and my short journey to the market in these pictures.

The local market has some basics, but basics is all there is. You can buy onions, yellow-y tomatoes, some kind of local lettuce that Francis says tastes like paracetamol, the occasional green pepper, garlic, potatoes and a few spring onions. There is a distinct lack of anything fruity or meaty but everyone else here seems to be healthy so I'm sure I'll manage. Oh actually, we did buy some green bananas and they turned out to be as nice, if not better, than the yellow ones. 

In the surrounding shops close to the market, there are mainly tinned goods as well as rice and pasta. I've found some yoghurt that doesn't seem to need to be kept cold - though we do have a fridge - and it's actually rather good!

Cooking facilities are: one gas cylinder hob and a BBQ, so if anyone has any recipe ideas, I'd like to hear them...and no, there are no sauces...and yes, we have done tuna pasta. Maybe baked potatoes next!

Finally, after getting back to unpack what little shopping we picked up, hark! the familiar sound of a vuvezela (those annoying trumpet things from the World Cup)! I asked Francis and he said it was a football match. I also asked Francis if I could play, he was pretty sure I could! A quick change later and a minutes walk away, a football pitch of sorts and a crowd, people cheering!! The game is between our village Inhassune and another local team. Apparently there are only 5 or 6 teams that play each other. Francis called it social-soccer, no leagues, no prizes, just for fun. Even if it was for fun, it was great to see so many people getting involved, I had no idea if there was any sense of community here. 

The pitch is pretty big, bigger than the ones I usually play on, which is great. The ground is not so great, it's pretty bumpy with litter and potholes but the main issue/s are the three or four well-worn paths that cross the pitch at different angles. If the ball hits one of those you haven't got much chance of predicting it's flight. On every side of the pitch are peoples properties, so you can't really blame them for wanting to chose to the shortest path to their homes. I haven't thought of a solution to this one yet but I'm working on it. Francis suggested fencing off the pitch!

Well the good news is that I got on! They bought me on at half time and told me to be a striker, I've played in most positions and was happy to get on so I wasn't going to argue with any of it. 0-0 at half time, final score 1-0 to Inhassune!! They seemed to really like the way I played, I'd get a huge cheer everytime I did something good (which was suprisingly often!), I wouldn't say that I was mobbed at the end, more of a circle of gawping kids. But hey, like I always say; a circle of gawping kids is better than none!

Apparently I was the first ever white guy to play for the team. I'm proud of that and I'm glad they let me play.

I spoke to the captain at one of the bars the other day and they want me to coach them too. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that with two footballs and an extremely limited grasp of Portugese, but the captain speaks English quite well so I'm really looking forward to it. Inhassune football tactics, particularly formations, aren't the ones I'm used to, so I think they feel that I help them. I think I might be able to too!

Spot the white boy!...

Lots Of Travelling!

I've finally arrived! After leaving my house at around 4:30pm Reading time on the 20th, I arrived in the village at 7pm on the 22nd Inhassune time.

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.

Departure Lounge

Well, here I am. Heathrow, Terminal 3, departure lounge. I'm in some pub and food type of place that doesn't have a pool table, nor does have the time, an atmosphere or even a TV for the football! All the normal things that I've come to expect from a pub…what kind of airport terminal pub is this?!

Anyway, I'm just about to tuck into my last taste of England for a while. In case you're wondering, it looks like a dodgy fish and chips with a slightly less dodgy ale.

Otherwise, since we last spoke, it seems that I'm now quite ready to go. I've fully crammed and checked in my two (second one free!) hold bags with no problems. And am now sat here with my guitar for company, as one of the many other single men with laptops, magazines and looks of apprehension. 

At the moment I feel not quite excited, but at least not worried (due to my excessive packing). I think I'll only really get excited when I land in the country. For the moment, there's still a few things that can go wrong - plane delays, baggage loss etc etc.

So, I've had my 2nd cholera drink today, I've had 2 out of 3 hepatitis injections and have been taking malaria tablets since yesterday. Oh and of course I've also got the imodium on hand (thanks Ruth) if necessary. In terms of illness, if nothing else, I feel that I'm ready.

For those that have been asking, here's the link to school's website so you can find out a bit more (it seems a bit religious, but we're nobody's perfect!):

http://www.singwithmehappily.com/

Anyway, that's enough of an update for now, it's time to eat this food and catch a couple of flights outta here. See you in Mozambique!

It Begins

Hello all and welcome to my first venture into the world of blogging!

For those that know me; you'll know that my memory is more than terrible, and so although this blog is for posterity's sake as well as anyone's amusement, it's mostly for me to remember how I felt and what went on! The aim is simply to record and share any interesting things, places, people, pictures and thoughts that I might have on my way around Mozambique.

I don't know how frequently I'll be able to post things, but I will be writing things without wi-fi and will upload them when I do.
For now, all I can give you is a vague map of where I'll be attempting to get to:

I'll be back when I can and when I have something relevant to say...

Tom