Yes, Ricardo finally made it back to Chimoio. Life is back to normal. I can now stop writing sappy blog entries about how much I miss him and blah blah blah. I must admit, though, that it was tremendously flattering that Ricardo chose to fly from Rio to London to Harare and then travel 5 hours by car to come home, rather than spend an extra week living the good life in Brazil and wait out the SAA strike. Bless him, I don't think my nerves would have held out otherwise.
Our reunion after a month apart was funny, to say the least. One of our Zimbabwean clients gave Ricardo a lift back to Mozambique and, upon arriving here, we promptly sat down for a business meeting. All I wanted to do was throw my arms around Ricardo and give him a huge hug and kiss, but instead I had to contain my excitement, make some coffee, and talk about the lastest round of contracts the client received from the bank. Unbelievably frustrating to have to wait out that meeting after such anticipation...
In other news, a couple of days ago a friend of ours returned from a holiday in Inhassoro and brought us a Coleman cooler full of freshly-caught fish and squid. 37 kilos worth. That's nearly 90 pounds for those of you not used to the metric system. A shitload of sea treasures, deep-frozen, enough food for 3 months. The only problem is that our freezer is miniscule, only big enough for 4 frozen chickens and four 600ml beers (again the metric system. sigh). We sent the fish to the fishmongers to be cut in steaks, and are going to distribute the majority of it to friends here in Chimoio. For dinner tonight, Patricia made sauteed squid and rice with lemon and herbs. In Mozambique they eat squid differently than I've ever had it - instead of calamari rings and baby squid battered and deep-fried, they take the body and grill it whole. You end up eating a big slab of white squid that is exquisite when fresh, rubbery and nasty when not so fresh. Tonight's dinner was, to say the least, delicious and not at all nasty.
Work is winding down, thank God. I sent the draft of the proposal to our tea client and am awaiting comments. Ricardo and I are headed to Zimbabwe again on Saturday for a final meeting and to get signatures on all the documents before sending them to Holland on Monday. Another long weekend of travel is ahead of me, but at least this time I am in good company.
Hope you are all well. I miss and love you.
Ah, yes...IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT MAIL: It won't reach me. Yes, that's right. After the fuss I made about sending out my address and asking everyone to write me letters, the damn postal service here is decrepit and non-functional. Erin sent me a letter more than a month ago and I have little hope of ever receiving it. Basically, either spend $300 to send me a DHL package, or don't bother. Sad, but true.
The moral of the story? Write me e-mails, damnit. I miss you all a lot and, even though I have little time or patience to write personal messages after 12-hour days in front of the laptop, I love hearing from you all.
Peace and good night.
Love,
Ali
1 comment:
hi ali,
you lead such an interesting and totally different way of life, I both envy and admire you...
its a good thing you did with the fish, just sharing and not worrying, that's what we all should be doing, don't you think so?
ok, the tension is off now, life is coming back to normal and hope to hear from you soon... keep well...
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