Jonathan drives his dream car... and other less important stuff.

Amanda and I decided that in order to spice things up on this blog, it would be a good idea to have me write a guest blog post.  I should warn you now that the things that I find interesting, or blogworthy, differ quite a bit from Amanda, and include such important things as whether I can eat 20 clementines in a day, or if it's possible to eat two whole chickens and their side dishes at Pasteleria California. In case your wondering, both are possible, although the latter will have to be proven next time we are in Maputo.  That will be a good last memory for Amanda, me stuffing two chickens into my mouth in one sitting.

Since Amanda has been here, every single day when the sun goes down we seem to look at each other and wonder how yet again we made it through another day without being able to recall exactly what it was that we had done.  The times when I'm not in the classroom are spent on the front porch drinking coffee and chatting with students as they stop by, then as the sun sets, and the temperature drops we get some work done in the garden, or go for an extended walk in the coconut forest surrounding my house.  Occasionally we are given the opportunity to go and have a real adventure, and last weekend was one of those.  We knew it was off to a good start when we got two really good hitches to make it to my friend Mike's house, about 100 km north of mine.  We made it there in two hours, which is about as good as you can hope for on Mozambican roads.  

We got to Mike's house then went to meet up with his friend Rob, who is a South African doing some construction here in Mozambique.  The trip got even better when Rob let me drive his Land Cruiser 70 series, fully safari equipped with a snorkel and the meatiest suspension I have ever seen, back to town to pick up some items.  I even got to ford a river in the foggy night, and drive it over obstacles that would probably stop a hummer in it's tracks.  The first night we stayed at a deserted beach by Rob's construction project; by American standards it was a gorgeous beach, but only mediocre by Mozambique standards.  The next day we were off again on another 4x4 trail to make it to Pomene, a beach about 60 km further north.  After a very sunburned ride in the back of the Land Cruiser, we made it there and set up our camping gear on a stretch of beach with almost no one on it.  

The whole experience was a little surreal: the beach was an old colonial resort, and there was a deserted, dilapidated hotel that was perfect for exploring, and as far as the eye could see stretched white sand beaches that were only interrupted by the occasional washed up mangrove tree.  8 km from where we were camping the white sands stopped, and out shot the sharpest rocks you could imagine, that ended up ruining Amanda's fourth pair of sandals since she's been here (at the time of this writing, she is now on her 6th pair).  The cliffs were complete with hidden caves, giant walls to break the waves, small openings that sprayed water like geysers when the waves came in, and perhaps best of all, a small hidden pool that was ideal for cliff jumping into the perfectly clear Indian Ocean.  The beach seemed like something out of the pages of Treasure Island, or Swiss Family Robinson, and Amanda and I marveled at how lucky we are to have the opportunity to visit places like that.

Other than our weekend adventures, we have spent our time around Inhamussua, classes ended last week, so we are preparing for our next adventure; a hitchhiking trip up to Malawi.  More on that later…

South Africa

It's been a big couple of weeks around here, so get ready, there's a lot in this post - there, you've been warned...

Our bus ride down to Maputo on Friday was pretty quick and uneventful, which is a good thing for a Mozambiquan bus ride - one tell-tale sign that it was a good trip occurred when we realized that it took us 7 hours into the ride to notice that there was a live chicken under the seat next to ours and a live monkey in the front of the bus. Luckily they were fairly quiet passengers. 

Saturday we boarded a chappa to go across the border to Nelspruit. It's funny crossing a border on public transportation - everyone gets out of the van and walks through customs and immigration (a flurry of activity completely void of any signage or polite lines that us Americans are so accustomed to), and then magically everyone meets back up at the van on the other side. With the amount of people and vehicles coming and going it seems a wonder to me that it actually worked without anyone getting lost or left behind somewhere. But then again I have that feeling often in Africa, when I don't seem to have any idea what is going on around me, but with a little bit of patience everything somehow always comes together. The chappa driver that day did have a certain fondness for eighties music and we entered South Africa to the tune of Toto's "Africa" blaring from the speakers. Considering we were the only internationals in the van I think the irony was lost on everyone else. 

We spent three days in Kruger Park, discovering how to drive a stick shift left-handed, spotting wildlife, and camping at campsites surrounded by giant electric fences, which kept the animals out but not the sounds of them which made us feel like we were in Jurassic Park. We were a little worried going into it that it would feel just like a really big zoo, but as soon as we saw our first elephant emerge from the trees and cross the road immediately in front of our car, it became obvious that getting close enough to the animals would not actually be a concern. We saw all of the big animals that we wanted to see in the first couple days: antelope, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, warthogs, buffaloes, hyenas, zebras, hippos, and we had almost accepted defeat in seeing any cats when we spotted a little family of lions on our way out of the park on the last day. The reality of peace corps accommodations are put into rather harsh light when you consider that the campsites inside the park felt like a luxury resort to us. I don't think anyone has ever been as excited as we were for flushing toilets and hot, running water in the showers. 

        

The Mpumalunga region of South Africa is beautiful. There's rolling hills, giant blue sky and lush open spaces that could have honestly been mistaken for Napa Valley. The most surprising part though was how quickly the landscape could change. One minute the view was green and lush, and then we would come around a bend in the road or over a hill and all of a sudden it was brown and arid. The dichotomy between the two landscapes deepened when we started to realize the architecture and the culture changed as well. The lush areas were peppered with giant houses set apart from each other with electric fences and not a person in sight; while the other side of the hill was covered in small concrete houses, goats, cows, and people on either side of the road walking, hitchhiking, carrying goods home from the market. We realized rather quickly how obvious some of the lasting effects of apartheid really are. 

On our last day we drove through the Blyde River Canyon on a scenic route called the Panorama. After three days confined to the car driving 30 mph, it was a welcome change to get to interact with nature again and actually get out of the car and climb around on rocks and discover waterfalls. It was the perfect ending, before two more long days of bus rides to get home. 

  

We thought we had lucked out on Friday morning when we found a bus in Maputo that would be going right by the school. And not just any bus - a bright yellow school bus with "Atlanta Public Schools" painted on the side, and a "door" cut into the left side of the bus for passengers to enter and exit on the correct side of the road. Four hours later, when we were still sitting in Maputo waiting for it to fill up we were beginning to re-think our luck. Although the extra four hours did give us ample time to discuss the feasibility of how a school bus from Atlanta could honestly end up in Mozambique….we still haven't come up with a very good explanation for that one. Before we left for South Africa we had a little rat epidemic at Jonathan's house. Luckily one of the other volunteers has a cat that recently had kittens, and we just happened to be passing by his town on our way home. So we facilitated a little hand-off as we pulled through town - only in Mozambique can you pass a box with a kitten through the window of a school bus without any comments being made. I mean, I guess it could have been a monkey…

Twelve hours later we thought we were home-free, until the bus drove off the road and got one wheel stuck in the sand. Luckily we were less than a mile from home, so we threw on our backpacks and walked the rest of the way, cat in hand. It was a bit of a traumatic start to their life together, but for a boy who loves the Simpsons and a cat who spent six hours on a school bus, Otto seemed to be an obvious name for the little one. Things could get very interesting here soon, considering the dog was pregnant and gave birth last night to five puppies (we think it's five, right now she and the pups are holed up in a little nest that she carved out under a bush), so the animal count in this house has jumped in the last week from one to seven. But so far, no more rodents...