Thursday, March 29, 2007

The Old Routine

Now I always seem to recount tales from the field but most of my time is spent pottering around Chokwe, so I’ll describe my usual day. I get up around 7, even though my alarm goes off at 5.30 fairly often in the (always vain) hope I’ll drag myself out of bed to join Marie, peace corps friend, on her morning run. I’ve only made it twice. On those occasions it was lovely - bright, calm, cool, just the swooshing of a few ladies sweeping, and feeling smug for the rest of the day. It’s just the getting out of bed. Anyway, so usually up at 7, shower, porridge with banana or fruit and yoghurt and at work for 8. Come home for lunch around 1 and sit with Aderito and his friends/sometimes other colleagues in the usual spot under the mango tree by our houses. He always eats rice and meat made by his empregada (maid – everyone has one, I share his for clothes washing, though people still come knocking on the door asking if I’ll employ them) while I eat some salady concoction or a sandwich. Finish work at 5. After fafing on the internet for a bit, race to Casamo’s general store before it shuts to jostle at the counter and shout the things I want (nearly everything’s behind the counter, you have to direct them). Although this week I’ve been going for a drink with my colleague, Carla, to practice her English and my Portuguese until she goes to school for 4 more hours to study natural resource management – phew! Marie comes round at 5.45 for tae bo or pilates (usually pilates as it’s still hot and we’re getting lazier). I’ll have dinner then and either meet someone, go and chat next door or chill out at home - reading, watching a dvd, writing emails (and occasionally blog entries!), talking on the phone if one of the 3 people who ring me rings! (thanks mum, dad and mark). And then it’s bedtime (too late to get up at 5.30) on my dreadful foamy mattress ready to drift off to the next surrealist larium-induced la la land. Last night I had a long struggle to drown a snake in a glass of water. I finally managed it only to get a load of miniscule red nails stuck in the sole of my foot that were apparently prongs of its venom. I had to go to the doctors to have them extracted and sure enough the waiting room was filled with randoms from school. How retro.

By the way I’ve been meaning to mention that James Blunt is Huge here – ubiquitous, inescapable. And oddly enough the funny posh guy from the cavaliers – met during the bizarre British Army landing - had been in the same regiment as ‘Blunty’. He would regularly entertain, tinkering on the piano and crooning, and claiming he’d soon leave for a music career. Naturally all were disbelieving and attempts he did make at getting a record deal were thwarted on account of the British public preferring cheeky everymans like t’Arctic Monkeys to posh short ex-soldiers. Then Atlantic or someone thought of America, where the little Blunt bundle would and did go down a storm! Now he’s rivalling Coca-Cola for dominance of Africa. Dreams do come true.

M & E, baby

Last week we had a week-long EU (our donor) monitoring visit. A French lady, who’s accent in Portuguese really threw me off, had us all trundling round each community, asking and answering probing questions – as it should be. Transparency and accountability all the way! We received tons of watermelons – the backs of the trucks were full – as they’ve come to fruition with such abundance people can’t eat them all. I learnt loads about ‘the project cycle’ and monitoring and her comments were very insightful but it sure was knackering. Spent the entire day in the car on Saturday – 8 hours over dirt-track roads, no joke. The drivers take no prisoners too, flying over bumps and swerving violently round potholes and animals. My legs were twitching involuntarily by the end. Although on the whole I’ve become quite accustomed to long journeys now, clinging to the ceiling handle whilst holding a book barely in focus in failing light without feeling sick (talk about skills development). Or I just put music on and enter a meditative state. I slept for about 12 hours that night. Woke up in a daze on Sunday and felt homesick for the rest of the day, and Monday. Funnily enough the weather had turned cool and grey – rather like home! – and I was no doubt feeling the brunt of the serotonin slump. My cold shower is also a lot less inviting when I’m not sweating before I get into it. I had to do aerobics before hand to warm up. The sun’s back with a vengeance now though so the natural order and my mood have been restored.

Dark Days

Don’t worry, not emotionally. We had a four day power cut. It doesn’t sound particularly radical, but if you consider that all water to the town is pumped and thus ground to a halt, while temperatures sizzled at mid-30s discomfort levels were getting pretty high. Candles became scarce, queues of people clutching gerry cans snaked along the river, shops threw out meat and sweating grumbling westerners despaired at the lack of fans and fridges. I had ‘baths’ using a saucepan of water from my filter for a day and a half before realising this wasn’t a long term solution; maintenance isn’t one of Mozambique strong points so I went foraging for supplies... All the way next door where my neighbour/saviour Aderito, accustomed to never having running water, sorted me out with a big canister cunningly procured via car from his friend’s house.

I’d already agreed to host a bit of a slumber party with some peace corps volunteers floating about the area as it was one of their birthdays. Home cooked goodies, cold booze and all things involving light, heat and wind went out the window. So we went out to eat (gas used for cooking) then wandered the streets chatting to randoms since the whole town was out in force, milling and doing the whole ‘in the same boat’ thing that we universally do. Then we went back to my house, ate biscuits by candle light and played ridiculous games til the morning. I don’t think I’ve ever so thoroughly enjoyed a game of charades. Hilarity! Anything with animals or mildly rude words in the title was gold – Free Willy, for instance, was an inspired performance. There was a frenzied interruption at one point when we spotted a mouse and sent the boys chasing it with a broom, which they broke through bashing (and missing), then momentary rapture when the lights came on for 10 minutes and we managed to charge our phones. Anyway we had a jolly old time (quite family-on-boxing-day-esque) so we’re going for a repeat performance this weekend by the beach - with power, which might just spoil it all and leave us monosyllabic in front of a dvd.

Sunday was spent basking in front of the fan, showering for a long time and using the internet in the office. Oh and cooking, after eating a lot of salad, bread and fruit. I had my weekly hour of Portuguese. The 3 conditional moods this week. I like my teacher, Nelson. We chuckle at verb jokes. (It’s just dawned on me I’ve turned into a geek).

Monday was back to business as usual, kind of strange in itself. Sadly the black-out was the repercussion of a disaster in Maputo. An arms depot seemingly overheated resulting in big explosions and the random release of missiles into neighbouring villages. Around 100 people were killed and over 400 injured. Good grief, it’s not as if heat’s a sudden and unexpected phenomenon. God knows what happened, pretty tragic. It highlights the difference in a developing country though. Not just it happening - defunct cooling system or whatever it was – but how swiftly everyone moves on. If that had happened in the UK there would be a public outcry, media frenzy, massive investigation, heads rolling, official mourning and ceremonies galore. The public value of life and acceptance of death differs greatly (unsurprisingly given the stats) as does the degree to which people’s legal and human rights have any bearing. Not a whisper about compensation nor established culpability/formal apologies, although I think there’s an investigation pending.