I Made It to Africa!!!

Current location: 2nd floor of the international departures terminal at the Johannesburg airport. Happily, someone alerted the powers that be of my blog and e-mail addiction and made it possible for me to get a sweet WiFi connection at 8:30am, not even an hour after setting foot on the African continent. A blessing, too, considering the 6.5 hour layover I have before catching the flight to Maputo.

Yesterday I woke up in the most foul mood imaginable. I've been battling yet another bout of strep throat and a cold, and stayed up until 3am the night before packing my suitcases. When my alarm went off at 7am, my throat hurt, my eyes were blurry, and I was frighteningly grumpy. I lay in bed for a while listening to the storm outside. The shutters and doors groaned against the wind and I could hear big, fat raindrops splashing on the verandah. But there was another aqueous sound, too close and clearly audible to be anything good. Drip. Drip. Plip. Drip. I knew all too well what it was: water coming through the skylight and landing on the wooden stairs. I finally hauled myself out of bed and, to my dismay, found two new leaks in the roof. Not insignificant ones, either, having already formed small puddles on the landing and at the base of one of the steps. Merda. We've payed so much already to have the stupid roof fixed and it only seems to be getting worse. I gathered towels and pots to contain the situation and felt the stress creeping into my shoulders. We're probably going to have to completely redo the skylight. I've asked Beth to contact the neighbors and see who their workman is. They have the exact same setup on their half of the house and no leaks whatsoever. I fear Luis' time is up, which by me is fine. Maybe the new workman will refrain from calling me fat!

On the heels of having discovered the new leaks, the exterminator arrived to check for termites and treat the existing broca infestations in the kitchen table and in my bathroom shelves. I had him do an inspection of the entire house and we found several other spots being eaten - behind picture frames, in a closet drawer, and in the cabinets in Beth's house. The exterminator had a look at the electric meter board and confirmed that it will need to be replaced and then treated.

Speaking of the electric meter board, that whole situation is proving to be the headache I'd anticipated. I finally found a certified electrician to switch out the board, got all the paperwork in order, and scheduled the job for Saturday morning. The guy called around noon to kindly let me know he couldn't make it, and rescheduled for Monday. With the cold front that moved in, it was no surprise when Monday rolled around and the electrician was a no-show once again. The rainy weather just guaranteed the inherent flakiness of the Brazilian workman.

So poor Beth was left with a veritable laundry list of things to try and accomplish in my absence. I feel somewhat guilty for not having been able to get more done in the three weeks I spent in Rio, but I'm trying not to beat myself up about it. With a bureaucratic, informal network for getting repairs made, you need at least 2 solid months to put a dent in the old To Do list. I tried, I honestly did. Unfortunately I didn't get much of anything resolved and only ended up stressing myself out in the process. Managing a house from a distance is definitely one of the more challenging tasks I've ever taken on. But now I have to let go. I'm on to a new chapter, and can't afford to have gratuitous stress hindering my adventures. Let go, Ali. Just let go.

I took a taxi to the international airport and had two close calls on the way. First, the cab driver almost t-boned another car on the way down the cobblestone hill to the freeway. The rain made the roads super slick, and he slammed on the brakes and spun out for a bit before regaining control, nearly missing the side of a silver Fiat. Second, I almost got on the wrong flight!! The plane for Sao Paulo was set to leave from gate 37 at 2:10pm. Around 1:40, they started boarding at the gate and I handed my ticket to the agent. She tore my ticket stub, wished me a nice flight, and I was already walking down the jetway when she called out, "Moca, voce esta no voo errado!!" I had mistakenly boarded a flight for Buenos Aires and she had barely caught the mistake in time. Imagine, snoozing off only to wake up in Argentina instead of Africa!

I finally made it onto the correct flight, now leaving out of gate 35, and received the first good omen for my trip. It was no coincidence that I sat next to Marco, the owner of the Mercatto clothing stores and a devout follower of logosofia. We spent the entire flight talking about the principles of logosofia, a life philosophy developed by an Argentine thinker in the 1920's. Basically, logosofia encourages the individual to seek dynamic perfection of the self. By continually being the best person possible and seeking to fully understand one's self, the stage is set for a social revolution one individual at a time. We talked about consciousness and the power of negative and positive thoughts, engaging in an easy conversation as if we'd known each other for years. At one point, Marco asked me the following question: "What is your objective in life?" I found it strangely difficult to answer. I feel like my intuition guides me down paths that I trust will eventually bring me closer to my goals in life, but I've yet to define concrete objectives. Perhaps an objective will become clearer as this journey unfolds.

After saying goodbye to Marco, I switched planes in Sao Paulo and got on South African Airways flight 206 for Johannesburg. While waiting in line to get a new boarding pass, I found myself in the midst of some 25 men all wearing identical blue tracksuits with "Botswana" embroidered on the back of the jackets. They were all carrying Fifa bags and had on beanies from various Sao Paulo soccer teams. I asked the man behind me wearing a coach jersey what they were doing in Brazil. He explained in beautiful, melodic English that they were the Botswanan national soccer team and had been in the country training with Brazilian teams in preparation for World Cup 2006. I told him I was on my way to live in Mozambique and he started speaking in broken Portuguese. I asked how he'd learned and he replied that he'd lived in Chimoio from 1992-1993 serving as a peacekeeper after the end of the civil war. That's right. The coach of the Botswanan national soccer team lived in little Chimoio, my soon-to-be home. He kept telling me that life there would be muito bom, muito bom.

For all the difficulties I had with SAA during the ticketing process, they sure made up for it in cabin service. I haven't been on such a nice flight since my mom and I used to take the 747's to Europe a good 10 years go. The plane was super modern with plenty of leg room and huge individual tv monitors showing South African, American, and Indian films. The flight attendants passed out wet-naps, toiletry kits, magazines, and free headsets. The plane was filled with the most diverse group of travelers I've ever seen: Africans wearing headwraps and colorful tunics, Indian women with saris, Brazilians, Argentines, and entire sets of people I couldn't begin to guess where they were from. I sat next to a lovely nun from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had been serving the Church in Buenos Aires for the last 4 years. It would have been a thoroughly enjoyable flight but for the three totally out-of-control Argentine kids sitting behind us. Their mother, in typical Latin American style, had no interest whatsoever in disciplining her children. Instead, the little beasts kicked and screamed and bumped up against our seats so much that at one point the nun turned around and hissed at them, "Estan pateando y molestandonos tanto que no puedo dormir!" Needlesss to say that comment went straight to the vestige of Catholic guilt most people in Latin America harbor and the kids piped down.

After a good breakfast of mango juice and cold cuts, we started the descent into Johannesburg. The sun was just rising over the horizon, a brilliant red disc glowing through the windows. I could make out the houses and hills below, and as we got closer I could distinctly see the rush hour traffic in the streets, all transiting on the left-hand side of the highway. "This is it," I thought. I'm in Africa!

Well, my plane to Maputo leaves in about 2 hours and I'm ready to hightail it out of this internet cafe. Some guy from Pakistan wearing a tunic and turban just approached me and communicated in broken English that I look just like his wife who he's been away from for 7 months. He gestured that he'd like to kiss me and repeated, "You nice. Very nice. Just like wife. Kiss, yes?" Um, no. Time to get the hell out. Let's all hope that Ricardo is in the Maputo airport waiting for me. If so, this trip will have gone off flawlessly!

Much love!!!