Enjoy It While It Lasts

Big changes are on the horizon for me. Really big, as in my day-to-day existance as I've known it thus far in Africa is about to be turned upside down. I am uncertain how I feel about it. Part of me is excited and knows the change will bring along with it many benefits, both tangible and intangible. Part of me, though, is dreading it and questioning why on earth I am going to go down this path. Life will be different for me starting November 13th. I feel like a kid on summer break counting the days before the school year begins again, bringing with it all the enjoyable and maddening aspects of a tight schedule and loads of work.

In other news...

- I took the boys to the vet this morning for their rabies shot and a dose of deworming magic. They don't have worms, it's just standard here to give animals a deparasite/dewormer every 3 months. Supposedly they do it for people as well in the public hospitals. The trip to the vet's was traumatic as always, both for the boys and for me. Pria nearly bit the vet technician when he went to give her the shot, and it took 3 people to hold down the cat while the senior vet finally managed to give the vaccine. Not fun at all.

- I've been thoroughly enjoying all the home improvements Ricardo did while he was here for my birthday. Newly installed and/or fixed things include: a hammock on the veranda, a cat door leading to the small balcony off the guest room, said balcony's iron bars covered with chicken wire so the cats won't plummet off the 4th floor, curtain rod installed in our bedroom (no curtains yet, unfortunately), metal rod that holds up our shower curtain tied to a beam so it won't fall down anymore, and 2 photos taken by my dad framed and hung in the office. Saying Rico is a handy kind of guy to have around is a total understatement.

- There is a crafts fair this weekend and I am going to be there in full force with my new summer collection. I've made tons of cool jewelry with all the supplies I brought back from the US and can't wait to put it out there for everyone to see (and hopefully buy). Today I had an earring-making attack and managed to crank out 8 pairs of super dangly, sparkly chandelier earrings. They are by far the best earrings I've made to date.

- Tomorrow morning I'm going to attempt to go jogging with my friend Tracy. We will meet at 6:30am and run along what is probably the nicest street in Maputo, Avenida Frederich Engels. It is right next to the ocean, although since Maputo is a split-level city you're not actually on the beach, rather the street is the last thing before a massive cliff that drops down to the water. It has a very pretty view, lots of posh houses and tons of security guards. One of the advantages of the sun rising so freaking early here is that you can run at an ungodly hour of the morning and it's already nice and light out.

- Tomorrow I am also getting a haircut, long overdue. Perhaps I'll be able to get most of the blue out...

- Hung out with a very cool woman who is here doing a short-term consulting assignment. We had lunch together on Saturday, then checked out the Natural History Museum. It was surprisingly interesting. The collections consisted mostly of stuffed examples of African animals, all arranged in life-like positions on the museum floor (think Zebras being attacked by lions, a spitting cobra rearing up in front of an antelope - that kind of thing). There was also a Coelacanth preserved in the museum, the living fossil of a fish I remember reading about in elementary school and being so fascinated by. The highlight of the museum is a collection of elephant embryos showing development through the 22-month gestation period. Th embryos were collected during WW1 when some Portuguese general decided to clear out the land south of Maputo for agriculture. This involved killing over 2,000 elephants to make the area "safe" for humans to inhabit. What makes this slaughter even worse is that the area, to this day, has never been used for agricultural projects.

- There has been no water supply to our building for the last 3 days. I've had to take "showers" in the measly trickle of water that comes out of the sink. (For some reason water comes out of the bathroom sink but not the shower, toilet or kitchen sink.) Yesterday I thought the problem had been fixed upon hearing a gush of water in the pipes early in the morning. I rushed to take a shower but to my dismay the water ran for about 30 seconds, then stopped altogether. We have 20 liter plastic containers full of water stored underneath our sink to be able to make it through situations like this, but God do I miss running water. Hopefully it will be back to normal tomorrow.

- Good night.