As of Late...

The Good:

• Lots of new beads and jewelry supplies thanks to recent shipments from family and boxes smuggled into Moz on my behalf by friends going back to the US for the holidays.
• Rico and I re-joined the gym after nearly 7 months absence. We each set health goals - Rico is already way ahead of his and I am plodding along right on track. Slow going, but it actually feels really good to be back on a treadmill/stationay bike/instrument of torture of the day.
• After 2.5 days without water in our building, we can now flush the toilet, wash the dishes and have a shower like regular city-dwellers again.
• We have ample work. The project on horticultural production for FAO is well underway, our timber project looks as if it may (finally!) be funded, and we've renewed contact with the banana client and are going to finish a strategic plan for the expansion of his business.
• I'm throwing another jewelry/brownie/cocktail party this week. The last one was quite successful and I'm really looking forward to this one. I've made tons of cool new stuff, and thanks to free publicity from my girls here in Maputo, I've started to make a name for myself in this city as a jewelry designer.

The Bad:

• Cable/internet company charging us on direct debit for 6 months of service instead of just 1, thus wreaking havoc on my small savings and launching us into a customer service war like never before seen to obtain a refund.
• Vodacom sending me an SMS that my phone would be cut off on Saturday due to lack of payment. Detail: this month's bill was debited from our account just last week, and we had a bank statement at home to prove it. Cue yet another customer service war, although this one took one simple fax to resolve in the end.
• My hair. I desperately need a haircut. Chopping it off myself worked in the short-term, but now it's grown out and looks plain awful.

The Ugly:

• Heat wave last week with temperatures well over 40C for several days. We have no air conditioning. For part of the heat wave, we had no water at home. Thank God we joined the gym because we could at least have a shower...although the aircon there broke as well with the excessive temperatures.
• Allergy attacks more severe than ever, with a record 2 attacks this past week. All the hope I had for holistic treatment here has gone out the window. My only hope at this point is that my allergies will go away as soon as we 1) move away from Moz, 2) have access to proper medical care including allergy specialist, 3) have access to proper holistic care including acupuncturist and homeopath.
• A friend that is in dire straits and I don't know how to help. It's an awful feeling watching someone in a really, really bad situation when you know that pretty much everyone's hands are tied (even those of the person in the bad situation) and that any course of action would have serious consequences...think violence, threats, etc.
• Flooding and flood threats along much of the Zambezi River in central Moz. In Quelimane, a city on the coast, they received 344mm of rain over the last 24 hours. That is more than the average rainfall for the entire month of January.

and The Random:

• The staple diet throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa is a maize porridge called xima, pap, sadza, etc. depending on which country and which language you're dealing with. Maize is the most important crop for most communities here, regardless of what form it comes in. Maize is originally a New World food, so it follows that it was introduced to the African continent by European explorers, likely the Portuguese. How is it that a foreign crop became the overwhelming element of the local diet and what are the reasons for this? What was the staple diet of the people here before the introduction of maize? It is well known that a diet based in maize is not the most balanced or nutritious as far as grains go. Maize is also one of the cheapest crops available. Was this change in food habits economically motivated? I am very curious about this.
• I highly recommend Saudi Aramco World as a wonderful magazine, either in print or online.
• Does anyone know how to say "walrus" in Portuguese?

That's all for now. Hope you all are doing well, wherever you are.