I LOVE INHAMBANE!
I arrived in Inhambane on Thursday and it is one of the most beautiful places. I've been fortunate to have seen a lot of beautiful places in this world, and I know this is completely subjective, but Inhambane is truly very magical.
I'm right on the Indian Ocean. The weather is obviously warm but not humid (which I am grateful too - let's keep that ocean breeze a commin'). The malaria risk is very low. The landscape is breathtaking. I need to figure out a way to upload my pictures. There are the most amazing plants which are the most astonishing vivd colors. So many glorious shades of green. I'll see pine trees, next to flowering cactus plants, next to exotic waxy leaved plants, it seems so random.
The beach is soooooooooooooooooo amazing! The water is warm, and clear. Everything is so clean and nice. There are tourists on the beach strip but it's not overdone, the natural beauty is completely preserved. Most of the tourists come from South Africa.
In Inhambane, we have access to excellent night life and wonderful restaurants as a result of the tourism. Today, we went to the beach and I had lemon sugar crepes for breakfast with guava juice and for lunch, curried sweet potato and shrimp in a coconut sauce. So cheap and so fresh.
Yeah, yeah, that's great but what about your project???
Well I haven't started working yet. I begin tomorrow, so up until now this has been a vacation and I've soaked in every second.
I went to ADPP on Saturday to tour the facility and meet the staff. Everyone seems nice. The teacher training college is beautiful. The facility is brand new and was only built in 2006. The student's dorm rooms are immaculate and the bathrooms pristine. Much better conditions than I had on the Mountain in Massachusetts.
One of the students even took me on a tour of Inhambane City, which is small and charming. He was very patient with my Portuguese, I hope all the students are this patient. Many of the people here actually speak English to my disappointment because they want to practice and once they hear my accent they try to speak to me in English. And it is great practice for them, but I need to practice my Portuguese so they are speaking to me in broken English and I'm speaking to them in broken Portuguese and somehow we communicate.
Let's see, my living conditions.
I live in a four bedroom house with one other Development Instructor, my lovely friend Tracy. I'm so glad we were placed together because we both trained on the mountain in Massachusetts, we get along really well and have a lot in common, such as spontaneously breaking out into songs from Broadway musicals.
Our house is simple but nice. I have my own room obviously with a bed, dresser and desk. We have a kitchen and a living room and a porch with chairs. We've got a crazy cat named freaky who is the loudest cat i've ever heard. She screams all day long, but she's cute so we keep her around. Only drawback, no running water and bathrooms outside. I've already seen my first tarantula in our outhouse. We have a hole in the ground with two posts for the feet and you just stand there and let it rip!
We have another hut that is our shower hut. You have to retrieve water from the well, pour it into the bucket and ladle yourself clean. It's not bad actually and it's easy. I shower about three times a day (it's so hot) and I've already gotten used to it. The best is showering outside late at night. There is nothing like the sky over Inhambane. There are so many stars here on a moon free night.
We have a really sweet cleaning lady and cook named Jaqueline who does our laundry everyday, keeps us with a steady supply of pure water, cooks our dinners and cleans our house. It was weird at first to have someone clean and do things for me, but she's very insistent and Tracy and I have no clue how to prepare food here or how to effectively hand wash our clothes (I take care of the small things like bras and underwear) so it really is all for the best and she gets paid really well.
Speaking of preparing food. I went to the market to buy Mangos yesterday and it took me almost thirty minutes to cut into my mango. I was cutting and slicing. In the end it looked like a drunken tic tac toe board. I started prying the pieces apart with my pocket knife. I'm surprised I didn't lose a finger.
The fruit here is sooooooooooooooo good. We have papaya and mango and guava and banannas and much more as well as vegetables of all kinds. The land is very fertile.
Then there are the gifts from the sea.
Ok, I'm sure this is long and I've got so much to say, but i've got to wrap it up. Before I go however, I would like to tell of my harrowing journey from Maputo to Inhambane.
Sergio, another Development Instructor and I, were told to be ready for a cab to pick us up at the gates in Maputo at 430 am. We didn't get any sleep the night before because there was no point. We got ready, and were on the porch by 415am waiting. Somehow we managed to lock ourselves out of the house but we figured it didn't matter because we'd be catching a taxi soon. So we waited and waited. Mosquitos were eating us alive, bats swirling overhead, frogs singing in the tall grass. We see the sun rise and we see people emerge from their respective homes. The stupid taxi didn't arrive until 7am. We were so mad. Sergio missed his bus and couldn't go so I had to go with the taxi driver alone because I still had time to catch mine. Mind you I don't speak Portuguese well and the driver didn't speak English well either. I told him to take me to the bus station, but he took me to the chapa station. I of course didn't know this at the time. If you remember, chapa's are the cargo vans converted into sardine cans full of people and are in terrible working condition. So we get out of the taxi in the busy chapa station and right away two men come up to the driver who was carrying my huge 70 plus pound suitcase and began to pull it away from him. I join my driver and grab on and we're all pulling and tugging. I couldn't believe they were trying to rob me. I was so angry. I started screaming at them in English which caused more chaos. I'm not sure what happened next but the two men who where trying to steal my bag started fighting with each other. My driver began to run with my bag on his head and I followed. He passed my bag to another man who carried it on his head and loaded it somehow into a crowded chapa. I thanked my driver and got on the chapa. It was full. There were like eleven people plus bags and livestock and crates. I had to sit in the seat on the hump of the wheel so my knees were to my chin. I had to balance my 30 plus pounds of carry on luggage in my lap. Behind me was a crate of fish that smelled so bad. I was so upset, I was ready to kill someone. We would drive and stop and let more people on. I could't believe it. People were on top of each other. Some were standing and crouching with their butts in peoples faces. It was horrible. Everytime we stopped, children and women selling things would come to the windows, open them from the outside and cram goods in my face while sweaty arms reached over me to pay. It was hellish.
I didn't go to the bathroom, eat or drink all day.
All I could do was sleep and stare out of the window.
Eventually though, as we got farther away from the city, my view became more and more beautiful. By the time I was in Inhambane, ten hours later, I was calm and excited. I was also extremely hungry and thirsty and tired and in need of a shower and in need of a bed. But everything, clearly worked out in the end!
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