Skip to main content

PEMBA!

We made it to Mozambique!

Kelly (my PCV travel buddy) and I are here in Pemba, Mozambique on the coast of the Indian Ocean. All of our travel plans fell through the day before we were going to leave, so we had a bit of a scramble with our trip. And we got so lucky! My wonderful friends at the tea estate who live even closer to the border than I do, let us stay at their home and even drove us to the border crossing at 6 AM after a cup of coffee. We got to the border and crossed through in maybe 30-45 minutes. Thankfully people right around the border still spoke Chichewa, so it was fairly easy to communicate. We started on our way-our plan being solely to hitch or catch local transport if that didn't work out (it was a Sunday which is a hard day to hitch sometimes with low amounts of traffic). And, SURPRISE, Kelly is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and Spanish are almost the same. So she has saved us on this trip!!!! We stood on the side of the road trying to get a ride to Mocuba (the first stretch of the journey), and after a few cars passed us going different directions, we eventually had a truck stop and when I asked where they were going, he said Cabo Delgado (PEMBA!). Which is 1000 km away! We got so lucky-we hopped in and hit the horrible road. It was dirt, pot-holey road for the first few hours...and a bit miserable. 




We finally stopped for lunch, the guys insisting on buying it for us. But we bought beers for us. The guys were so great. We made it to Nampula (a bigger city) where they had a friend and a place to stay. We were a bit nervous about this plan, but when we got and had hot showers, and saw our bed, we were like OKAY! We crashed with him and enjoyed more food and beers together. The next morning, the guy's houseboy made us all fresh fish, and we were on our way! 




We drove from 7 AM to 3 PM, stopping once with the guys to drop materials (they were driving all around because they were dropping basketball equipment at various schools around northern Mozambique). When we stopped, Kelly and I got a Mozambique SIM card so that we can communicate with people we meet here and do research. We also played some soccer with kids who were standing there staring and yelling at us (#peacecorpslife). Then we were back to the main road. When the guys were veering far off the road, Kelly and I sadly decided to jump out and catch a chapa or a ride to Pemba. Via a mini bus and two hitches, we arrived at Russels Place and got settled. We are staying in the dorm which is open like a treehouse, so that's really cool. Last night we enjoyed fresh seafood and local beer at the bar and watched 90s music videos on the TV. We were exhausted and at one point, Kelly said, 'So what time is it?' ...it was 7:36 PM. We found a Peace Corps Mozambique volunteer at the bar and chatted with her for awhile before passing out. 




Now it's our first full day. The bar has free coffee/juice/tea, so we're sitting enjoying a chill morning before checking out the town. The Spanish girls staying in the dorm with us are trying to make plans too, so we're trying to arrange a trip to a nearby (6-7 hours) island. We'll see. But here's your update yall. 

Xoxo
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Mud Pit

 Perched atop a mountain of dirt and next to a stuck truck with 'God's time is the best" written across it's back, the komatsu excavator whirled back and forth. It's mighty engine was the only machine running outside of the occasional motorbike, as all of the cars waiting on it's progress had long since shut off their motors and settled in. When we had approached this spot in the road, we assessed the situation. Then"good time" truck blocked the road to the left, another sat in the middle of the mess, and a big truck was teetering on one side, barely upright on the right side of the pit. A dumptruck hauled out the middle truck, but then the komatsu went straight in, after being filled with gasoline, and went to work. Groups of men sat around the heart of the action, closely observing the incredible work of such a powerful machine. Young kids helped motorbikes push their way through the giant muddy mess, jumping out of the way of the big y...
Read more

Saying Goodbye

I will sleep tonight with an extremely heavy heart and puffy, red eyes. Today I had to leave my home here in Malawi.  I remember my ideas about Peace Corps and Africa before I left America. Like most people who have never been to Africa and who often only hear about the bad things that happen here, I was intimidated and a bit scared about the idea of living in a rural village by myself. My going away parties were difficult—I thought they would be the hardest goodbyes I’d ever face. Not seeing so many people I care deeply about for two years; I couldn’t even imagine it.   But today was hard in a different kind of way. Saying goodbye to someone you love, knowing you’ll be back in two years, is completely unlike saying goodbye to someone whom you don’t know if you’ll ever see again (partially because you know they don’t have the means to leave). I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in the past two years, and I thought I’d progressed from the days when I was always the first to c...
Read more

Simple Daily Reflection

Orange spots of sunlight gleam between the bluegum trees as I watch the world disappear behind us in the fingerprint-speckled rearview mirror on the mini bus. To our left, Mulanje mountain glows purple as it always does at this time in the evening when the sun sinks below the earth, putting an end to the hot day. A faint, yet almost full moon floats above the mountain, almost in the center of the elongated rock structure.   Along my way from the capital city, I'd seen so many depressing as well as incredible sights that, despite having been here for over 20 months, still touch my heart. Child labor at its finest as kids dig up dry fields to cultivate and struggle to carry buckets of water on their heads. Diminishing forests next to piles and piles of charcoal. Then there are the pristinely wild looking mountains and hillsides and cute lines of chicks waddling along the sides of the roads. I think about how new and shocking this all was when I arrived here; debating whether it...
Read more