Pictures (I'm working my way backwards from the flight home to the beginning)

I am going to slowly upload all of my many photos from my trip. I'll post each week or so.
ENJOY
BJS
:-)

Safe and sound!

I am back in Manhattan. In many ways it's almost as if I never left. It's funny how life moves forward with such great momentum despite it all. It's strange how in the blink of an eye you can be transported from one time, one place, one reality to a completely different one. I have had almost no time to process anything. Yesterday, on the subway, Tamika and I kept blinking at each other, trying to understand how we came to be in New York, when only a few... (ok like 48) hours ago we were riding a rusty, rickety chapa.

I am happy to be back. I'm taking it slowly. I'm finishing up my final round of interviews this week. Then I'm heading to Maryland/D.C., Rochester and back to Manhattan to go through the process of re-settling (eeeh...).

I miss Mozambique already and have decided to enroll in a formal Portuguese language course so I can truly become fluent enough to go back (in some capacity or another). I'm definitely going back to Mozie, the love bug bit me the moment I stepped of the chapa, although at the time, I wouldn't have called it "love".

Tamika and I had an adventure making our way back home to the states. We almost didn't make it back.

We left Inhambane for Maputo at 4:30 am. We spent the night at Lynne's, took a chapa from the central market and arrived at 11:30. This was on a Monday and we were supposed to fly out of Joburg on Tuesday evening. Two weeks earlier, we contacted the ADPP headquarters in Maputo telling them that we were leaving and that we needed our bus tickets to Joburg (our organization is supposed to cover our expenses to the airport, etc.). Sure, no problem, we were told.

When we got off of the chapa in Maputo, we called the office to let them know we had arrived and would be heading to Machava in a few hours to pick up our tickets for later on that day (we were supposed to leave on a bus at 7pm- we just wanted to drop our bags off at our friend Jesse's apartment so that we wouldn't have to lug them around the city). When we called, we were informed that they hadn't purchased any tickets for us and that the bus that we were supposed to take was full. The panic began here.

Desperate and furious, Tamika and I showed up at a particular man's office (I am not naming names) to get to the bottom of the confusion. We were told that it wasn't possible to get a bus in time to catch our plane and that they didn't know we were leaving. I was literally told and I quote "this is not my problem, this is your problem".

This was one of the most frustrating things about living and working in Mozambique, nobody ever wanted to take accountability for anything, nobody was ever on top of anything. There were no systems in place to check or balance much of anything making it so easy to get screwed over because you couldn't depend on anyone and people didn't do anything unless you lit a fire beneath their you know what. It was a backwards mess.

We were so angry. We argued with this man and his buddies in the office. Finally, since there were no buses and we needed to be in Joburg by 7pm the next day, he decided to give us the ticket money and told us to take a chapa. This would have been uncomfortable but fine if there weren't violent conflicts at the border and people being killed. I couldn't believe that ADPP had so little concern for our personal welfare that they would send us, two females, on a rickety chopa with Mozambique plates over the border in the middle of a conflict zone where Mozambicans were being targeted and attacked. We took the money and left. We had no other options. The only bus company that we were aware of was booked solid.

We called everyone we knew. Everyone begged us not to risk taking the chopa. We were torn. Our flight would be leaving without us, if we didn't make a decision and quickly. Literally two hours before we almost took a chapa, my friend Lynne called to let us know that there were two tickets available on the Pantera Azul bus that was scheduled to leave in the morning at 7am which would get us to Joburg by 3pm. It would be a close call but it was our best chance.

Thank god for friends. We were connected with a friend of Lynne's who lived in town where we spent the night and left in the morning with no problems. Luckily my friends are wonderful, supportive people, without which, I would never have survived the journey or my experience in Mozambique.

That last clash with my organization made me so happy that I was leaving early. I can't stress enough, the importance of doing your homework before you take a contract abroad.

The Pantera Azul bus was comfortable and spacious. We relaxed our tense muscles and enjoyed the complimentary tea and biscuit service. It seemed that everything would work out in then end after all when about an hour away from Joburg, around 2:30, the bus blows a flat tire. We were horrified. We just wanted to get to the airport so that we could go home. We were so close but it was just not working out.

The driver and his first mate hopped out and worked on the tire for about 30 minutes. Somehow they patched the tire and we slowly puttered onward towards the bus station.

We finally made it to Joburg. We were about an hour late but we were there. The brother of one of the guys we knew in Mozie came to pick us up at the station and took us to the airport. We made it just in the nick of time. We were even able to spend our last rands and mets at the airport mall before boarding.

Despite it all, the flight was great. Tamika and I had two seats each. I caught up on my movies. The amarula and wine flowed freely. We had a surprise stop in Senegal? but 17and a half hours later, we made it to New York and boarded the subway and bam...we were back in the game.

My Mozambique- ADPP chapter is now closed. I am working on a book about my experiences. There were so many things that happened that I couldn't really write about in this blog that I am recording now. I'll post my introduction as well as blurbs at a later point. I can write what I want now that I'm no longer under a contract ;-)

Thanks for reading!

As many of you know I am terminating my contract with Humana People to People and ADPP a month early. I will be heading home next Tuesday. I have many reasons for this decision. I'll post a copy of my scathing resignation letter at another time.

The weather is dipping low right now. We've had freezing cold evenings where I lay awake shivering. Evenings so cold, I can see my breath when I am outside drawing water from the well. Yet during the day, the height of the afternoon, it's hot - so hot. I don't understand. This probably explains why I have a cold or maybe a sinus infection. I don't know what I have yet, but it sucks.

In other news, we're running out of water. We've hit the bottom of the well. The only water available is brown and murky. It's pretty disgusting. The water is basically runny mud and smells strange. I'm afraid to bathe. My roomates and I are turning into beasts of the bush. Luckily for me, I'm in town, hence the internet access, where I'll be able to take a hot shower at Akisha's tonight. I feel for our neighbors, we all share this well. I wonder how they are getting by?

To further complicate matters, we've run out of gas too and our "lovely" organization is refusing to pay our gas bill. According to our contract, they are supposed to take care of our gas. This means we have no access to drinking water and we can't cook. We've been waiting on a water filter for three months and it hasn't arrived. The closest bottled water is an hours walk away. The going has gotten tough. I started to hoard water. I need it to rain so I can collect rain water.

My friend Akisha threw a going away party for me and Wendy on Saturday. It was really nice. Her garden was recently landscaped and the event was just beautiful. Everyone who is anyone in Inhambane turned out for our send off. I made fudge. I ate tons of cheese. We had an enormous cake. There was fresh squeezed passion fruit juice. Life just doesn't get much better.

This week I sat in on a panel at work to grade the students as they take their oral exams in English. It's nice to have work to do. It's nice that we are fed not only bread, but bread with cold egg for breakfast (really tasty actually-just a pinch of salt and ...yum...). It's all a giant mess of course. The oral exams aren't so much oral exams as they are presentations, most of which are not very good. However, when I do get that rare student who nails it, it's exciting. Some of the students have extremely strong futures ahead of them.

Our little dog Macuti, well, the project dog (Clara's four year old daughter Suri's dog to be specific) , is growing up before my very eyes. She now has her real big-dog teeth. I'm proud of her. I watched her develop from a yappy little palm sized creature to an adolescent of sorts. Soon her puppy years will be behind her. They grow up so fast.

Oi my throat is burning.



Time to take some more Sudafed!

There is nothing like a good hot shower. Thank god for my benevolent friends in town with running water and indoor plumbing.
So fresh and so clean clean!

Yesterday I said goodbye to Akisha. She left for South Africa for a well deserved month long vacation shortly after hosting our Friday the 13th pow wow. I'll miss you akish-kish. C'ya in New York in December.

One of my favorite things about traveling is the fact that you encounter some of the most amazing people. I have met some of my favorite people while traveling. Travelers tend to be of a different breed. Most of the travelers I have encountered on my sojourns are truly open, genuine, caring, and adventurous people, I appreciate that. I will miss my circle here. It's one of those things I didn't think much about until I had to begin my goodbyes.

I gave a lecture at the Eduardo Mondlane University for Hotel Tourism. It was a very memorable experience. I spoke to a class of second year students about recycling everyday materials to create useful items that can be used in restaurants and hotels. It went over really well. The students were so creative. It looks as though I have inadvertently started a campus recycling club. I can't wait to see what the students come up with. They promise to email and keep me posted.

I spent a good portion of my morning running around the city of Inhambane filming. I want to show everyone what Inhambane looks like because I am certain that this city or town, depending on your perspective, will defy all stereotypes of what a town in Mozambique, in Africa, looks like. I also got some great footage of the beautiful bush.

I regret that it will be a very long time, years, before I see another full moon over the savannah. I am saddened that the milky way won't be the backdrop of my everyday life any longer. I will not miss the insects.

Signing off. Preparing for a girls night out in Tofo- second to last night!

ah a connection!

I am falling apart.
I don't know how it began.
One morning I woke up with a wooden splinter lodged beneath my right eye.
Another day I developed a cold that has now turned into a raging hacking cough.
We have no more gas and our organization has refused to pay for more. This means we have no drinking water and we can not prepare food at home at all.
The water in our well out back is so low, all we have are pools of thick muddy water.
We are all afraid to bathe. I look at the water and the words cholera and typhoid come to mind.
Times are getting interesting.

Happy Friday the 13th. To celebrate, we gathered at Akisha's to watch the Spanish film "Orphanage". Kids are creepy.

I said goodbye to my students today :-(
I will miss them. They were great.
It wasn't an easy decision, but I have decided to end my contract with Humana a month early and will be returning to New York on Tuesday en route to D.C. en route to New York again. I have many reasons for this decision. None of which I have time to get into now.
I will post a copy of my scathing resignation letter later.

I have to go. This computer is needed for a round of karaoke.

Crisis!

Within the past week or two, close to 50,000 migrants from Mozambique and Zimbabwe (mostly) have crossed over the border from South Africa into Mozambique through Maputo (the capitol). The situation is desperate.
The migrant workers are leaving South Africa where they have endured brutal attacks as a result of an explosion of xenophobia fueled by South Africa's struggling economy and fears that the migrants are taking jobs from South Africans.

People have been beaten, set on fire, harrassed, and over 40 people have lost their lives recently. The situation is beyond the control of the South African government (which with Joburg' being one of the most dangerous cities in the world - had questionable control to begin with).

The atmosphere here in Inhambane is tense. Everyone is talking about the problem. People are worried about crime which has increased in Maputo due to all of the traffic. The conditions in these refugee camps are deplorable. It is just a matter of days before the refugees make their way further into the mainland. It's really sad.

Is this even on the news in the US?