A trip to Manica

Last week we were sent on site visits.  I was one of the lucky few that got to leave our Training Visit and overnight in Maputo on Friday night.  We did really predictable things in Maputo--ate hamburgers, bought chocolate and stayed up late playing Picture-Sentence-Picture. (which might be the best slumber party game ever, I can't believe I'd never heard of it before.  I am learning So Much in Peace Corps).

Saturday morning we were picked up at 5am by the Chapa da Paz and taken to the Maputo airport.  From there we flew to Chimoio.  Flying is fun, and Mozambique-Airlines gives pretty decent snacks, but I had the most demonic crianca that ever existed behind me.  If I could have, I probably would have broken the window and thrown this kid out.   It wasn't so much the enthusiastic way she was kicking my seat or the rhythmic slamming of the tray table into my back but the maniacal laughing every time the plane dipped a bit or rumbled (it was a bumpy flight).  "Moommmmyyy we're falling down!  aahhhahahahahahahahahah"  I turned around and hissed "No Faz Isso" at her.  It worked, she stopped slamming the tray table and kicking me in the kidneys, but the laughing continued.  the good news is, that was the worst part of my trip.  From the second we landed in Chimoio things started looking up.  We were met by another Chapa da Paz and taken to the PC office in Chimoio--which has WIFI and AirConditioning!  A wonderland.  

Our hosting volunteer picked us (ManaVana and I) up at the office.  We hit up a few grocery stores before catching a Chapa out to Sussendenga where we spent 4 days.  Getting the chapa was pretty challenging.  There were way more people interested in going to Suss than there were seats in chapas.  And there were three of us, and two of us had backpacks.  Chapas are so crowded that finding space for three people and 2 day-pack sized backpacks is a challenge.  Luckily our host had a friend who knew a chapa-driver and he managed to secure us three seats on an incoming chapa.  And so we were off to Suss.

The drive was really lovely over a washboardy dirt road, through a flat land with low busy scrub punctuated by a giant-mountain-rock.

We spent the next few days mostly lying on the floor or fighting over the fan.  It was too hot to live.  When we weren't doing that we were playing cards with some really nice criancas or eating dinner at different peoples' houses.  Our host was the only PCV at her site, so all of her friends were Mozambique-ans.  

After our 4 days in Suss, ManaVana and I caught a chapa back to Chimoio and reunited with the 2 PCT (trainees, like myself) that had gone north from Chimoio.  We ate some more hamburgers and then stayed overnight at the house of a 3rd year Vol. in Chimoio.  Now we're to the most interesting part of this story:  What it feels like to take a shower after 6 weeks of bucket baths.  Weird. So weird.  The water was falling automatically from the wall, and even though I was busy soaping-up the water kept falling.  I felt so guilty.  The ease with which a person can shower when the water is automatically falling (contrasted with the relative difficulty of pouring the water over yourself from a small plastic jug while crouching in a bathtub, or over a drain in a concrete floor--truly an exercise in geometry and precision)  made me realize how long it really should take to shower compared to how long I used to think a shower should take.  

So now I'm back in Training-Land.  I'm super happy to be back.  I really missed my bed and my Family and my Mae's cooking.  She said she missed me too.  Ahhhh.

here's a really out of order photo-essay.

Pardon, my favorite Crianca.  We read books together and he helped me collect rocks.

I made chocolate chip cookies.  this was difficult over charcoal but we managed.

Pardon's brother, Desire, with Mango.

A large rock/mountain.

Our host's house.

A rock we climbed to the top of.

Criancas with goats?

I have my very own capulana!  It's like a giant bandana.

Our host's empregada.