This’ll be quite a long ‘un. Unfortunately, the internet has been incredibly uncooperative in the past few months, so I haven’t been able to really put up any pictures or post blogs.

Southern African journey:

Over my April holidays, I took quite a fly-by tour of Southern Africa. Here are some of the highlights:

Bus trip from Chimoio to Maputo: We left at 3:30 am from Chimoio, 5 adults sitting in the space for 4 and arrived around 10 pm. I defined the term “numb bum” on that trip.

Pretoria, South Africa: We stayed a night in Pretoria to buy some supplies for the road. I went to a legitimate Chinese food restaurant and a grocery store—they even had bagels! It was pretty surreal to compare Pretoria to any city in Mozambique.

South Africa- Botswana: There were some pretty funny street signs. One warned that you shouldn’t feed baboons. Others were for impala and warthog crossings. Later, on the road between Namibia and Zambia, there were elephant crossing signs too.

Botswana: We stayed a night in Gaborone, the capitol of Botswana. It was a peaceful, small city. While exploring Gaborone, we stumbled upon both a museum AND a visitor information center. In Botswana, we were on the Trans-Kalahari Highway the whole time, which is a 2-lane road, often flanked by livestock (LOTS of cows!), baboons, a couple ostriches, and nothing else. We almost ran out of gas in the middle of NOWHERE, so we pulled into a little town and got gas at a random house that had a 10 or 15 liter container of petrol, just enough to get us to a town with a real gas station. Our filling station attendants ranged in age from 3 to probably 75, as a number of family members came to check us out. We visited a place called Ghanzi and watched some women making jewelry out of ostrich shells, which are super thick and strong!

Namibia: On our first night, we stayed in Gobabis, the meat capitol of Namibia. There were sausage and other meat-filled rolls throughout all of Namibia, thanks to it having been a former German colony, so being the meat capitol is quite a feat.

In Swakopmund (near Walvis Bay… not sure which—if either—will come up on a map), we saw some of the biggest dunes in the world. I went 4-wheeling one days and sandboarding the next. I can’t say that I’m an expert at sandboarding—it’s quite a strenuous hike up the dune. I’d definitely like to try it again some day. One of my favorite things from that trip was coming up over one of the dunes on a 4-wheeler to see the sun setting over the Atlantic Ocean.

We stayed one night in Windhoek, which doesn’t seem like a stereotypical African city at all. Lots of shopping malls, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. In general, I was pretty surprised on my trip by how much more civilized the cities in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia were than the cities in Mozambique. The public restrooms are definitely evidence of this. They all had toilet paper and toilet seats, and I’m pretty sure they’d beat most American public toilets in the area of cleanliness.

Namibia-Zambia: We took a double-decker bus from Windhoek to Livingstone, Zambia, passing by several elephant crossing signs. Livingstone, Zambia, is home to one side of Victoria Falls (with the other half falling in Zimbabwe). The name in dialect for the Falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the Smoke that Thunders,” and they definitely thundered. The Falls were full of water because of the extremely rainy rainy season. Walking on some of the paths to see the waterfalls was like walking through a giant shower. Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Now I only have six more to go!

Back to Botswana: We took a day trip back into Botswana to Chobe Park to do a day safari. On the way to the border, we saw three giraffes on the side of the road. To cross the border, we took a ferry across the Zambezi River. On the other side were both Zimbabwe and Botswana. That was also the point at which the Chobe River met the Zambezi, which forms the border of Namibia. That area was like the 4 corners in the US.

In Chobe Park, we did both land and water safaris and saw a ton of animals: warthogs, dung beetles, lots of pretty birds, impala, crocodiles, hippopotami, buffalo, giraffes, a leopard, elephants and elephants and elephants. We were incredibly lucky to see a leopard, since they’re super-rare. I got a great picture of it, which I will hopefully be able to get up on the internet soon.

Visit to Nhamatema AKA real Mozambique:

Lindsay and I went to visit the family of our student Hélio. The family’s last name: Mibeque. Pronunciation: “my back.” His name is Hélio Pita Mibeque (Elio Peter My Back). They live in a small locale called Nhamatema, on the road between Catandica and Chimoio. There’s really not too much to see there: some small stores, a school, and a lot of farmland.

That day, we played with some of the kids in the family. For many of them, we were their first muzungos (white people), and, surprisingly, none of them cried. We helped the women de-kernel corn to make xima, the corn flour porridge. I chopped firewood, although I might have had a bit of help from a slightly more able-bodied Mozambican man.

We visited the compound where his family lives—about 27 people, in total. There are about 15 different structures in the compound, ranging from small brick houses to mud huts with straw roofs to various animal enclosures. The main gathering area is a large hut, about 12 feet tall, with open sides. At night, they light a fire in the center for both light and warmth in the winter. Elevated in the middle is a pigeon coop, where the pigeons sleep at night.

Guess who else slept there that night... That’s right, I slept right in there with the dogs and goat and whichever other animals were looking for a warm place to sleep. I can’t say it was a pleasant night’s sleep, but I did manage to get a few hours before the turkeys and roosters started crowing at about 4 am.

Nhamatema is much more traditional than Catandica in many respects. To show respect, people clap cupped hands together and do a series of small bows. Women and children are in lower societal positions than men are. (Lindsay and were treated very well there. I guess American is a gender in and of itself.) The women stay at home during the day with the children, cleaning the compound and preparing meals. Men go out to the fields or work in the little family stores. In this family, 3 of the older sons each have their own store—which all sell the exact same things. (Entrepreneurship is not a skill frequently stumbled upon in rural Mozambique, since there were about 15 more of those little stores, in addition to those of the brothers.) One of the brothers, who already has a number of children, said that he wanted many more so that they could work on the family farm, and I am still thanking my lucky stars that he’s not my father.

At mealtime, the father and elder sons eat together, sitting at a table. The women sit around in a circle on the floor and eat from community bowls of xima and whatever sauce they have prepared for it. The children sit either on the mothers’ laps or on the fringes of the circles.

At the end of our visit, they gave us a live turkey to bring back home (which is currently awaiting an early Thanksgiving dinner in my freezer, thanks to some handy knife work by Hélio). I couldn’t believe I was accepting a turkey from a family of 27, many of whom are young children with the bellies of malnutrition, but it would have been quite offensive not to take it.

On our walk back from the Mibeque compound to the road, we had to cross over a small stream where women often bathe. Men must call out in dialect to let the women know that a man wants to cross and ask for permission. When the women are decent, they call back out to the man to tell him that he may pass.

And since I’ve already poked a bit of fun at the name Mibeque, I might as well continue weaving my handbasket. Some other funny names I’ve come across this year include:

Sande (sandwich in Portuguese), Sozinho (alone), Perato (pirate), Guivimo (Give more), Mugabe and Chissano (twin brothers named after the once-great leaders of Zimbabwe and Mozambique), Viola, Alone, Fama (fame), Helton de Asses, Lavumo (Love more), Arroz (rice), Zangado (angry), Alfandega (customs officer), Flavio, Farai (Shona for happiness). I think that’s all I have as far as students go.