Bizarre-o Africa

Yesterday my friend T. and I finally figured out the perfect way to describe Nelspruit. Do you remember the parallel universe of Bizzare-o from the Superman comics, or perhaps the parody episode from Seinfeld when Jerry and the gang wander into a coffee shop on the other side of town and find their eerily similar counterparts?

Well that's what Nelspruit is: Bizarre-o Omaha, Nebraska.

Everything is so similar to the midwestern United States. The wide freeways, the big parking lots overrun with 4x4s, the shopping mall everyone flocks to on the weekend, the rolling farmland, the ruddy-cheeked grain-fed locals wearing shorts and sandals. If you don't concentrate on shop names, the direction of the traffic, or the language and cultural traits of the people, you'd swear you were in Omaha. It is all uncannily familiar.

Upon closer inspection, there are differences. The green fields surrounding Nelspruit are full of citrus, avocado, sugarcane, bananas mangoes and nuts. The jagged hills of the lowveld are dotted with palm trees, aloes and precious hardwoods. The girl with a spiral perm working as a receptionist at the auto parts shop speaks Afrikaans, as does the family in the waiting area with 4 overweight blonde children that are whining and tugging on their mother's overalls. The groups of punked-out teenagers cruising the mall, with their dyed black spiked hair and pierced lips, speak English to each other but with an accent so thick I struggle to even recognize it as my own language. The African women employed as janitors at the mall have headwraps and wear printed sarongs around their waists and chat with each other in Songa. All of the stores carry the same familiar goods, but have new and unknown names.

T., her boyfriend and I shopped at Mr. Price Home (bizarre-o Pier 1 Imports) for home furnishings. We bought cute shirts from a local label called Ginger Mary at Truworth's (bizarre-o Macy's). We had coffee and bagels at Mugg and Bean (bizarre-o Starbucks), before leaving the mall and heading to Hi-Fi (bizarre-o Best Buy) to get an electric tea kettle and some blank DVDs. Then we went grocery shopping at Spar (bizarre-o Safeway) where even the layout of the store and the packaging of the bakery and deli products was exactly the same as in the US. They even had that counter with ready-to-eat fried chicken, potato salad and eggrolls (only at Spar they were samoosas). Finally we stopped at Woolworth's (bizarre-o Whole Foods) where I just about died and went to heaven looking at all the organic and natural products.

I went to Nelspruit convinced that I'd do some window shopping and only buy essentials that I can't find here in Mozambique like good cat food, clumping litter, and whatever random foodstuffs I came across. I ended up going on a full-fledged shopping spree, unable to contain myself in the midst of all these beautiful products (just like from my favorite shops back home), but with excellent prices thanks to the recent devaluation of the Rand. And although I ended up spending way more than I'd planned, I am so happy that I went ahead and splurged.

You see, our flat has been bare since we moved in back in March. We spent all of our available funds purchasing the essentials that are not included when you rent an apartment here in Mozambique: an oven, a refrigerator, a washing machine, light fixtures, and the most basic of furniture. Since the move, we've been so busy with work and living on such a tight budget that we've done absolutely nothing to fix up the flat.

I don't have a problem living simply, but I have to have a home that feels beautiful. I could live in a one-room shack if I had to as long as it were put together with love and decorated minimally to express my personality. I need pretty things on the walls (even if they are just photos of friends, family and exotic places). I need my environment to feel clean. And unfortunately, our flat - until the past week - has been none of these things. Our landlord made no effort to keep this place up. The walls are filthy and the ceilings are stained gray, the wooden floor panels in some of the rooms are coming apart, the doors are splintered and don't close properly, the closet doors are crooked and destroyed by the landlord's kids covering them with stickers, the bathroom sink is crooked and cracked, the shower has rusty pipes and the curtain rod is falling out of the wall, we have no proper curtains... The list goes on and on. The "foundation" and basic structure of our flat is very nice, but it feels as if the poor place has just been left to rot.

In its current state, I am embarrased to have people over to the flat. I feel like my home is dingy and unkempt, and that it isn't even a shadow of how I'd like my environment to look and feel. It was to the point that the state of our flat, the lack of beauty in my daily life, was making me depressed. So in the last week, I have made a tremendous effort to start making some positive changes, even on a limited budget.

Here are a few photos to illustrate the changes:

Before Ricardo left for Brasil, I told him I really wanted to get some color on the walls. We went to Game, the South African department store here in Maputo, and bought some paint. It was a blind purchase, just a bucket with a promising name: Moroccan Tan. We purchased a gallon and decided to paint an accent wall in the living room last weekend. Here is Ricardo mixing the paint on top of our table. Notice the green bucket holding the flowers Rico gave me. We don't have a vase and were unable find anywhere to purchase a decent container on a Sunday.

Here's our wall after 3 coats of Moroccan Tan. I couldn't get a picture without the flash, so the color is a bit more pink in the photo than in reality. I'd describe the wall as a light terracotta. What a difference in the feel of our home this one wall made!

Since we painted not a week ago, I have this Moroccan Tan color seemingly imprinted in my brain. Shopping around Mr. Price Home in Nelspruit yesterday, I found this cotton floor rug and just knew it would be perfect. It's part of a collection called Jozi Design that supposedly captures South Africa's new urban design trends, a mix of tradition and modernity expressed in fabric. Parceiro, basking in the sun below, certainly appreciates having a rug to lounge on.

The day before Ricardo left, our couch cushions we'd ordered over 2 months ago finally were finished. This is the epitome of Mozambique - simple jobs like stitching pillows take forever because so many things go wrong in the process. The upholstery shop has no stuffing for the cushions. Then the stitcher gets malaria. Then the shop owner falls ill and is unable to give us the bill for the job. Then the delivery man gets malaria and can't drop off the cushions. We went through quite the runaround for a few couch cushions, but it was worth it as they add a nice touch to our handmade wicker furniture. (Interesting fact - the natural linen I purchased to make all of these cushions cost US $12, a steal at $2 per meter.) Pria, about to launch herself onto the rug, is loving the cushions as well, especially when she gets to use them as a scratching pad.

While participating in the crafts fair on Friday, the guy at the booth next to me was selling his handmade batiks. This one caught my eye and he made me a great deal on it before I packed up for the day. Batiks are very popular in Mozambique, one of the traditional forms of artwork. This particular work is now hanging above the table next to the terracotta wall.

What a difference a week makes! Our living room has been transformed, and I'm no longer ashamed to have visitors in this part of the flat. The other rooms still need a tremendous amount of work and injections of color and beauty, but I am quite satisfied with how the living room is turning out.

Wanting to take advantage of my decorating bug, I put this smaller batik up on the wall in the hallway. This was a present from Rico several months ago, and until now it had just sat in a heap on top of the bookshelf in our office.

And finally, I bought a duvet cover and 2 embroidered cushions on sale at the mall yesterday. These are for our guestroom, which I will eventually decorate using a chocolate, turquoise and rust color scheme. Right now there is beautiful bedding in the guest room, but unfortunately no bed or other decorations. One of our clients is supposedly making us a trundle bed for this room, but he's been promising for over 2 months now and I'm not holding my breath.

Our bedroom, unfortunately, is the saddest room of the lot at the moment. So much so that I'm ashamed to even post a picture. Hopefully in the next few months I'll be able to work on our room as well and eventually share with you another transformation.

(Other things purchased in Nelspruit include kitten food, cat litter, several kinds of cheese, banana chips, hot mustard, assorted spices, almond protein bars, balsamic vinegar, soap and exfoliant from The Body Shop, candles, and 2 beautiful t-shirts that I can't seem to post a photo of. I'll try to share next time, along with some photos of my jewelry creations.)