A day in city

In a word, Terrifying.

And in more words:

Serge invited Kim and I to head into the big city on Monday.  It went like this.  I was chilling on my back porch, watching the babies push water jugs around the dirt yard when Serge came over to talk.  He sat next to me and told me this story--> He had to go into town to pay a parking fine and his wife wanted a new dress--Serge is being baptized on the 23rd, oh and we're invited to that too.  We're leaving at 7am.   Ok.  Sounds fun.   Kim was in.  I figured that we'd be in town until the afternoon--we were leaving early enough, and this trip had an official purpose anyway.

Around 6:30 Serge knocked on my door.  

Ready to go?  

What? no?  You said 7.

He looked disappointed.

15 minutes.  

I shut my door, finished getting ready and around 7 we went to pick up Kim.

I was sitting in the front seat of the car because Serge's wife was sitting in the back with Junior (Serge's 18month old son) who would scream if Serge's wife wasn't back there.  At first, I was all sorts of down with sitting in the front seat--easy access to the AC, lots of room, no baby sitting next to me, a great view of the country side.  But that was when we were in the country side.  Then we got to the city, and I had to spend most of my time in the front seat with my eyes closed. That's when I stopped enjoying the front seat.  I could see everything/everyone that was coming.  I'm a nervous car-rider anyway, in the best of circumstances, but in Mozambique I think the rule is that it's the pedestrians job to get out of the way of the cars.

Eventually we parked the car, thank goodness, and disembarked into a busy busy shopping area.  So many people.  We wandered in and out of every clothing store in a 5 block radius.  The clothes stores are small--maybe 10x10 feet--and all the clothes are displayed on mannequins or small forms that line the walls all the way up to the ceiling.  The clothes have numbers on them and you point and tell them which style you want and what size.  The owners either hook the clothes down with a long metal pole or bring a similar garment out from the back, then you step behind a curtain in the corner of the store, maybe with another person or two back there and try it on.  Like riding in the car with someone else driving, I hate shopping on the best of days.  Once the novelty of this new style of clothes shopping wore off (somewhere around the 9th store) I got bored.  I followed along, tried not to get my pockets-picked and day-dreamed of a coke and some fried street food.

Sometime around 11am I got lost.  We were wading our way through a crowd when the sidewalk narrowed to a one-person-at-a-time width.  Several other people pushed in between me and Kim and when I came through on the other side of the bottleneck, blinking in the sunlight, scanning the sea of people--Kim, Serge and his wife were not there.  I checked the stores on the street, but still couldn't find them.  I gave up after about 10 minutes--plus, who wants to wander around in a big city looking lost?  So I went back to the car and figured that they'd collect me when they realized I was missing.

The car was parked in what you would call a parking lot--there were cars parked there, it was in front of a store--but it was so much more than that.  It was a bus stop.  It was full of people and the cars were parked 3 or 4 deep.  There were guys selling buttons and zippers on the side walk in front of the stores and hot dog and coke stands haphazardly sprouting out of the dirt in the middle of the lot.   Chapas were coming and going.  Actually, I would say that car-parking was pretty far down on a long list of uses for this space.  So, that's where I was.  In the sun.

I waited.  I had a coke.  I was harassed for money.  I waited some more.  I saw some police officers and got scared that I'd be arrested (I stupidly forgot my passport at home). I hid behind the car. I waited some more.

Also, I had left my phone in the car on accident.  I wasn't too worried about it at first, because I was with Kim and Serge and Serge's wife, and we were close to the car.  And really, what could happen?  But at this point, waiting in the sun, dodging police and trying not to look helpless, I felt pretty dumb without it.  After about 1/2 an hour it was clear that they weren't too worried about missing me.  So, I estou-a-pedir'd a phone from one of the zipper-button selling guys and sent a text to Kim.  They came back, we got in the car and went out to lunch.  (or, rather, we slalomed through a never-ending crowd of people until we parked the car again).

We ate some delicious chicken and potatoes for lunch at the school where Serge studied to be a teacher.  I was relieved, my venture to the city was coming to an end.  I'd be back in my sleepy little villa soon, with both of my house doors open, the breeze blowing through, the chirping of house sparrows punctuating my lazy afternoon of chilling with Tony, petting my kitten, you know...easy stuff.  That's when he said it:  

"We're going to go pay that parking fine then come back, don't worry the stores are open until 7 or 8"

WAAAAAAT?  I want to go home Right Now!

There's not much more to tell at this point--basically there were 6 more hours of scary driving, big crowds and shopping (shoes, clothes..).  I appreciated the trip to the city, I appreciated that Serge invited us to go with him.  It was so overwhelming though.  This was Varsity Level Mozambique--this wasn't watered-down touristy Mozambique.  This was all crowds and gritty streets and pushing and diving out of the way of cars and closing my eyes while other people dove out of the way of our car.  I'm not there yet so it was a hard day.

I tried to talk Kim into sitting in the front seat on the way home, but she wouldn't do it.

In other News:  Puffin likes me now.  I think the tuna and sardines I feed her have something to do with that.  

I found a mystery puzzle in my house--that means, I found a bag of puzzle pieces and no box.  It's the hardest puzzle I've ever worked on in my life.  It's all soft focus and subtle color differences.  I may finish it before my 2 years are up here.

The hardest puzzle EVER.  

The view from here.  Serenading chickens on my back porch.

Tony's crying because he fell off the porch and scraped his knee.  Also, my neighbors are killing so many chickens for Christmas.

Junior and Tony kicking it in my living room.