I went on a trip

I don't leave my site very often.  But when I do, it's to go on an amazing beach vacation.  With Kim.  My Best Sitemate Ever.

We left our sleepy town around 8am and hopped a chapa to the city.  Where we sat in the sun in the chapa's larger cousin the mini-bus for about 3 hours. In the parking lot. Then we rode the mini-bus for a few hours before we stumbled out into the sand at our friend Mimi's town.  

We made dinner in her house.  Her tiny house made of sticks and tin and a asthetically pleasing layer of cement.  The ceiling was so low I felt tall. 

Kim and I made dinner while waiting for Mimi to finish teaching.

This is Mimi.  This is what she wore to teach--my ugly sweater.  She was hoping that her students would notice and comment on the SHEEKY.  She was dissapointed, however, to find that this sort of thing is normal in Moz.  Do you see my sheeky new hoodie?  I have a guy.  He made it for me.

The next day we got up early and got in another bus and went to Vilankulos.  We stayed at a place called the Baobab.  See, they have a large baobab tree.  

We saw lots of fresh seafood.

We did some shopping.

Kim bought a Merry Christmas capulana.  In June.  She couldn't have been happier.

We did some hanging out by the beach.

Went on long walks on the beach.

 FOUND A SHARK HEAD.

Look.  It has like...horns?




All in all, great weekend get away.  Unfortunately while all this beach-bumming and booze-sipping-out-of-a-coconut (yes, that's a thing that happened) was going on, Mozambique got a little bit crazy.

Wednesday night (June 19), the opposition party/ex-rebel group in Moz vowed to block the main (ONLY) north south  road because they're upset with (at the time) 6 rounds of unproductive talks about election-laws..etc.  They believe that the government (which most Mozambicans can't distinguish from the 'ruling' party) is sending soldiers up in plain-clothes to surround their army-base in Sofala province.

We were fine to travel Thursday--Vilankulos is just south of the road-block.  However, all my Sofala-friends were evacuated to Chimoio for safe keeping and didn't get to make it down to the beach.  A week and a half later--they're still there--our security guy is on the ground checking out the province to determine if/when they get to go home.  But they won't know for another week.

Besides the trickle of fofoca I hear from my evacuated friends in Chimoio I don't know much about what is going on.  There is a serious lack of reporting that goes on in Moz.  I do know that on Friday (June 20, the day after the roadblock was effected) there were shootings & deaths of civilians in Sofala.  And more of the same on Monday (June 24).  The main rail-line that is used to export coal was also targeted and coal shipments from the province of Tete have ceased.  The opposition/ex-rebels are "sorry" about that.  Oops, guess they didn't expect that "paralyzing the country" would result in economic disruption.  I haven't heard anything else, but that doesn't mean that nothing is happening--just that nothing is being reported.

The president and the head of the opposition party are meeting face to face tomorrow, hopefully this will be positive and relieve some of the tension in Central Moz.

Here's a pretty good article about what's going on if you're interested