The Perfect Proposal

I wish I could go back and write the microfinance proposal again, edit the parts I know are weak, supplement the parts I know are lacking. I would tell a much more compelling story that the one contained in the 1.5 kilos of documentation couriered to Belgium last week. I would better illustrate the hardships faced by Mozambique’s micro-entrepreneurs and small-scale farmers. Write about how these people, who are already achingly poor, are severely limited in their capacity to improve their lives because they have no access to credit, no access to safe savings facilities. The soil is rich, the demand for goods and services is tremendous, yet nothing moves forward. There is no money to help the poor help themselves.

Sure, there are ample pools of donor aid set apart for Mozambique each year. But the more time I spend here, the more I am convinced that handouts are not the solution. In fact, I am truly starting to believe that they are a huge part of the problem and an ever-growing impediment for the economic empowerment of the country as a whole, not to mention the poorest segments of its population.
But I digress…The problem of donor dependency will be a topic for another blog entry, as right now I am more inclined to vent about my perfectionistic tendencies and recent work-related adventures.

Our client for the microfinance proposal is a Mozambican owned and managed credit union with a mission of providing financial services to people that do not have access to banks, particularly women. Most of the credit union’s clients are micro-entrepreneurs (market vendors, carpenters, seamstresses, etc.) and teachers; the credit union has plans to expand its outreach to include agricultural credit and increasingly target small-scale tobacco and horticultural growers. The credit union has been able to provide small loans (between US$ 50 and $175) and savings facilities to people to help them meet household expenses, grow their businesses, and prepare for crises like drought and death in the family.

Access to credit is a huge problem in Mozambique because banks have no incentive to lend to risky clients (i.e. the poor, especially the rural poor dependent on agriculture). This is because the Mozambican government offers bonds with an annual return rate of 20%. Why would any financial institution decide to loan their money out to a market vendor or a cabbage farmer (likely a small sum with a high risk of loan default associated with it) when they could invest instead in a high-return investment guaranteed by the government?

If funded, the proposal I put together would solve a small part of this dilemma. The credit union is trying to secure funds to open a new branch, develop a rural microfinance program, and expand its current offering of credit and savings products. If funded, the institution would be in a position to serve some 7,000 additional clients, most of whom currently subsist on about US$ 2 per day.
The problem is, the proposal I sent in isn’t perfect. I worked for nearly two months reading case studies, meeting with the executive director of the credit union, analyzing income statements, and developing objectives to be met and a budget with which to accomplish everything. I definitely worked hard on the proposal. I spent a good time of what was supposed to be a vacation in San Francisco in front of my laptop, and worked for 18 hours straight the night before the proposal was due to wrap up all of the last remaining details. But it wasn’t enough. I was rushed at the end because I had procrastinated during the first month of my work on the proposal, and underestimated the time it would take to finish everything. I ended up completing the document 20 minutes before our delivery deadline at DHL, and didn’t have time to thoroughly revise the proposal. I got everything in on time, but felt sick as Ricardo and I addressed the envelope and sent the huge stack of documents on its way to the European Commission. I knew I would later revise the proposal and find a dozen errors or oversights.

I finally worked up the courage to reread the proposal last night and, in fact, I came to the conclusion that my work wasn’t good enough. I forgot to describe in detail the two new savings products that the credit union will launch, and put together a sloppy justification for the project. As I looked over the document, I started to cry. I felt embarrassed that the proposal wasn’t perfect. I was afraid that Ricardo or the director of the credit union would look at my work and be disappointed or chastise me for not having done a better job. I felt guilty about the whole thing, convinced that the proposal would not be accepted and that it would be entirely my fault for not having been more disciplined.

Being a perfectionist is such a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it drives me to produce excellent work when I put my mind to it. On the other, it sets me up to never be satisfied with myself, no matter how hard I work. If every last detail isn’t perfect, the whole thing was a failure. I am a failure. I know this is no way to go about life, but it is so hard to sit back and accept that you made a mistake, that you are not perfect, that you gave it your best and that is good enough.

Ricardo sat with me as I cried, reminding me of all the time and effort I’d put into the proposal. He complimented my work, telling me that in his opinion after working in Mozambique for nearly two years, there is nobody in the country that could put together a better proposal. It was nice to get his praise, but he gave me something even more valuable. He took my face in his hands and said softly, “Ali, I’m telling you this as your boss, not as your boyfriend. The proposal has already been delivered. You can’t make any more changes. Beating yourself up for something you have no power to control will only make you bitter and unhappy. You did your best and I accept that. Now you need to accept it as well and move on, otherwise you will only be feeding the part of you that is intent on self-hatred and that is a waste of your beautiful energy.”

I wish I had another week to work on the microfinance proposal. I wish I had used my time more wisely so that I’d have less regrets right now. But more than anything I wish I could take Ricardo’s advice to heart.

Letting go of the addiction to perfection is a frequent topic of conversation between me and my mom. The night I arrived in Chimoio after my pseudo-vacation in San Francisco, Ricardo and I watched the movie “Something’s Got to Give” with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton on the refurbished TV (it has since exploded again, but that is also a story for another blog entry). I called my mom the next day and told her how much Diane Keaton’s character reminded me of her – the perfectly furnished home, the vases full of perfect white stones from the beach, the perfectly developed career, and the realization that the rigidity of a perfect life is supremely unsatisfying. Over the years, my mom has become impressively less perfectionistic and, I belive, a much happier person as a result. I struggle with the same issues and, while I haven’t been able to fully let go of my need to be perfect in both my professional and personal lives, at least I am conscious of where I stand in that battle.

The day after my birthday, my mom sent me a lovely e-mail with the following advice (which I hope she won’t mind me sharing here):

“After we spoke yesterday I went to the Safeway and bought myself a slice of chocolate cake - yes, they sell cake by the slice, just like pizza - and celebrated with you all from afar.

Had I been with you, I would have told you the point of the Diane Keaton movie is the most important point of all. Love and relationship are life. Perfection is not. That is the something that has got to give. Yes, love and relationship, for better and worse, are fraught with pieces of Bob, Ricardo, Bruno, Patricia, Gina, Hugh, Unc, inside of us and outside of us. No matter. Love and relationship are alive and nourishing. Even if they feel sometimes like your blog on being an American. Being alone in the perfect house can be a sometime refuge, but fulltime it is empty and deadening. Black stones belong with white stones.

Live this truth and your life will be rich with meaning while being messily imperfect.”

Too Hot (Lazy?) to Write

Is it writer's block? Am I burt out from working 18-hour days and pulling an all-nighter on Monday to get the microfinance proposal finished? Is it sheer laziness? Or has the ridiculously hot weather here in Chimoio finally cooked my my brains and wiped out any capacity for writing?

Whatever the reason, the thought of sitting down to write a blog entry has been overwhelming lately. In my idle hours here, sitting with my sweaty back and legs stuck to the fake leather couch, I compose fabulous narratives in my mind. I create each sentence just like I'd want it to appear on paper, laughing alone at the funny stories I have stored away and can't quite seem to tell.

My aversion to the blog has resulted in at least one positive outcome - I've finally started to catch up on my personal e-mails. The old inbox was three pages long this morning, and I've managed to whittle it down to *only* one.

View of Maputo's central market and residential buildings from the window of my hotel room.

Big sunglasses, coordinating watch and polo shirt...you'd swear we'd planned this photo down to the last detail. But no...it was just a spontaneous moment that Nadeje caught on her camera after lunch.

Leo, Nadeje, me, and Ricardo at after a delicious seafood lunch at the Waterfront Cafe in Maputo last month.

My First Surprise Party Ever!

Just when I was semi-depressed, feeling guilty for not being satisfied with my small but lovely birthday celebrations from my housemates, I walked into the living room and saw a huge cake, chocolate cupcakes, indian fried goodies, and lots of beer and wine waiting for me. My housemates threw me a surprise birthday party, organized mainly by Rico and Lucky. I cried I was so happy, then ate until I felt like popping, and drank until I was silly.

Here are some photos from the celebration.

A birthday kiss and a bouquet of pointsettias from the tree in our garden.

Me, Pat, and Lucky in our newly re-decorated living room.

A toast wtih Patricia in front of the cake, cupcakes, and indian appetizers.

The Big 24

Today is my birthday...happy birthday to me!

How is the day being celebrated here in Chimoio? Lots of work on the microfinance proposal, mercilessly hot weather and the drone of a small fan, breakfast in bed with mango juice, and a bacalhau dinner from Patricia tonight.

Working on a fabulous blog entry about my trip back to Africa and the 2 days Ricardo and I spent in Zimbabwe this week. Once again my promise for tuesday fell through, but good writing will be coming soon.

After nearly 4 days...

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm back home in Chimoio, safe and sound despite being completely exhausted.

Working on a decent post that, despite my bad record for promising and not delivering on the blog, should be ready by the time I get back from Zimbabwe on Tuesday evening.

Until then, much love.

Oh, the excitement that awaits me!

This evening I will start my long journey back home to Mozambique. I leave at 8pm on the red-eye from Oakland to Atlanta, then cool my heels for 5 hours until my flight for Johannesburgb leaves at 10:30am. The only thing worse than a 17.5-hour flight at night? The same butt-busting trip during daylight hours. I will literally fly all day, arrive in Jo-burg at 10:30am on Friday, then wait for another several hours to get the LAM flight back to Maputo. (By the way, LAM was one of the airlines recently black-listed by France and Belgium...Not sure why, honestly. It seems like a pretty well-run airline to me.)

I will spend the weekend in Maputo working with the credit union that I'm putting together this rural microfiance proposal for, and hopefully accomplishing enough so that I can leave the capital with a finished document in hand. I fly back to Chimoio on Sunday (there are no flights on Friday or Saturday), then rest for one evening at home before leaving for Zimbabwe the next morning with Ricardo.

We will be near Chipinge in south-eastern Zimbabwe to prep our tea processing client (from my last proposal) for a conference call with the Dutch government, the potential source of funding for the project. Basically, if this conference call goes well and we are able to convince the funders of the company's financial stability, we will likely get the money to start a joint venture and build a tea factory in Mozambique!

I'm excited about going back to Chimoio, as odd as that seems given the isolated, boring nature of life there most of the time. I actually miss my housemates and their crazy ways. I miss the familiar mess of our living room, the bare dirt lot that we affectionately call a backyard, our dopey dogs...I even miss cooking for 5 on a regular basis.

Actually, there are some exciting changes awaiting back in Chimoio. Ricardo and Gemelli, in a surge of creative energy, decided to do a complete overhaul on our living room. They bought a new table and 6 chairs, all made of wood, so we can finally expell the plastic lawn furniture we've been using to work and eat on. They also picked up some large wicker chairs and some end tables that local artisans sell on the side of the highway from Chimoio to Tete, so now everyone has a place to sit and we can feasibly entertain company. The boys then varnished everything, repaired the holes in the wall where darts from an old dart board missed their mark, and rearranged all the furniture. Then came the final touches...Ricardo and Gemelli bought several capulanas, the colorful fabric sheets the local women use as sarongs, and turned them into curtains. Yes, curtains. Complete with measuring and sewing and color-coordination.

Finally, just to leave the decorating marathon on a masculine note, the boys decided to fix our poor tv that exploded in an electrical surge a couple of months ago. They took it completely apart, fiddled with the wiring, and somehow managed to rescussitate the whole thing. So now, not only do we have a working tv again, a household decision was made in my absence to get cable! This is so unbelievably exciting! A makeover for the living room and lots of mindless channels to fill our hours of boredom. I can't wait to go home!

I'm on Vacation, I Swear

Doesn't seem like it, though. All I've done since arriving back in San Francisco is work, work, work. So much for a relaxing trip where I'd get to lounge by the pool, party with friends, and shop in the city. Other than the occasional trip out to get a latte and bagel or some sushi, all I've done here is work, stock up on essential supplies for Africa, and be prodded at by doctors and dentists. Not much fun, although it's definitely been worth it to see my mom and Azul, and talk to friends and family on the phone.

This latest proposal has me super stressed out. I've been waking up every day at 5am to work on it, which even though I have jet-lag on my side is a feat that goes totally against my nature. I have to finish everything before I leave on Wednesday, as I am supposed to meet with the microfinance client the same day I arrive in Maputo, and I still have tons spreadsheets to tool with and descriptions of program activities to write. I'm even toying with the idea of buying a spare battery for my laptop so I can get in 5 hours work on the plane instead of the mere 2 that my current battery can handle.

Just as I started to develop a true hate for all things tea-related towards the end of my last proposal, I am at the point now where I can't stand to read anything more about rural microfinance in Africa!!!!!!

On Being American

While waiting for my flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta I was, for the first time since leaving the US five months ago, surrounded by Americans. I sat in front of Gate 6 and played anthropologist, although unlike a good scientist I could not refrain from passing judgement. I watched families and couples, wearing safari hats and khaki shorts with sneakers, carrying kitchy souvenirs from the airport shop, talking in twangy accents about what they'd seen at the South African game lodges. Most of the travelers were pudgy, loud, and overly critical of everything that was not up to par with their comfortable lives back in Arkansas or Nevada.

I am different from them, I thought to myself. I am somehow better because I live in Mozambique, speak the local language, have traveled around the world, live modestly, am not a tourist, am aware of history and geography, don't wear socks and sneakers with shorts. I am not like them. I'm New Mexican. New Mexico has culture and its residents are bilingual. My family is Italian. I studied in Rio de Janeiro. My mind was on the defensive, searching for any and all justifications to illustrate that I was not just one of the flock. How dare anyone confuse me with this mass of stereotypical Americans?

I am, however, no better than any of the people waiting with me in front of Gate 6. Deep down I know this, but in my insecurity it is easy to forget. We are all American, each one of us a unique manifestation of the positive and negative attributes of our culture, our heritage, our surroundings. Being around a large group of my compatriots, especially when I'm in "international mode", awakens the deep shame of being American I've struggled with for years. It is not a reaction that I admire in myself. In fact, it brings out in me the same arrogance and feeling of superiority that I so criticize in my fellow countrymen.

What a hypocrite I can be. Some of the people, places, and things I love the most in this world are American...my family, my friends that are passionate fighters of the good fight, free speech, entrepreneurial spirit, road trips, sunsets in Albuquerque, kayaking in Austin, shopping in San Francisco.

Even more perverse is the fact that I am an ardent defender of the US when on foreign soil. I can feel my blood boil when people in other countries start to criticize America with arguments wholly based in stereotype. I turn into a crusader, out to prove to any and all that we are more than McDonald's, Republicans, ignorance about world events, obesity, oil, and unfortunate government policies. I conjure up all of the examples I can to prove that Americans can be supremely intelligent, compassionate, liberal, health-conscious, and politically and environmentally aware. I become the most patriotic person possible, proud of my country and the fact that I am, along with many others, an exception to the stereotypical rule.

I can't help but wonder what this love/hate relationship with the US must do to one's identity. How is it possible to have a truly positive sense of self when part of you detests what you are and the place where you ultimately call home?

Back to Cali

Puta que pariu, ninguém merece essa viagem!!!

Honestly, this trip was insane. My bunda is square from so many hours sitting in a small seat. And, as if enduring a 37-hour trip weren't enough, I had a middle seat from Atlanta to Phoenix and the woman sitting next to me had liberally doused herself in cheap, sickeningly floral perfume. I got a horrible case of allergies and am still sniffing and sneezing away even now.

So I made it back to California in one piece, and I guess all things considered I'm feeling pretty good. It's great to see my mom and Azul, and have the luxury of resting on a good bed and eating fresh sushi.

I'm going to watch some tv and then hit the sack...I promise a decent entry tomorrow.

beijos.
Ali

30 more hours to San Francisco

I'm in Johannesburg airport right now, using the same internet cafe where I posted my first African blog and had my hand licked by a sleazy Pakistani that swore I looked just like his wife. In about an hour I'm going to board my flight to Atlanta. 17 and a half glorious hours over the Atlantic, complete with a stop in Sal Island, Cape Verde to refuel the plane.

I am already dead tired from several days of sleep deprivision in Maputo, mainly to be blamed on:
- updating budgets, reading case studies, and putting together objectives for the microfinance project I'm working on;
- watching total trash tv...and I do mean trash. Ricardo and I sat through episode after episode of Cheaters, The Bachelorette, Knight Rider, and Jerry Springer. Ah, the reality channel. Good times. The apartment we rented had cable, a total luxury after our tv in Chimoio exploded. Yes, that's right. We were watching a dvd last month and, all of a sudden, the lights in the entire house doubled in brightness, there was a sizzle and a pop, and acrid smoke started pouring out of the top of the tv.
- procrastinating and leaving packing to the last minute (surprise, surprise)
- telling stories late into the night with Ricardo about the devious things we used to do in middle and high school.

So I'm pooped, but glad to be going home for a visit. Hopefully there will be some good in-flight entertainment and some tomato juice (B-vitamins - I listened, Erin!) to wash down the Tylenol PM.

Signs of a Socialist Past

You can tell a lot about a city by the names of its streets. War heroes and politicians and cultural icons become immortalized on small green and white signposts, or etched in marble on the sides of buildings, or, as in Chimoio, painted in faded yellow on the dusty curb.

Here in Maputo, the street names unabashedly tell of a socialist past. To get from our apartment uptown to the internet cafe we are using in the downtown baixa, our path was as follows -

Head down Av. Vladmir Lenine to Av. Mao Tse Tung. Take a left and continue to Av. Salvador Allende. Go past Av. Eduardo Mondlane and turn on Av. Julius Nyerere. Keep going until Av. Frederich Engels, take another left, and you have arrived.

Interesting that now, along all of these streets, you find the offices of neoliberal, market-oriented, international development organizations like the World Bank and USAID...

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Speaking of international development projects, we just got word from the Dutch Embassy representatives that our proposal for the tea processing unit has passed Phase 1 evaluations. We will have a site visit at the end of the month, followed by a conference call with the potential funders as well as our project partners in Zimbabwe. If that all goes well, it is likely that the project will be approved!!!!

A much-needed dose of motivation as I wade through endless documents about rural microfinance initiatives in Mozambique for the current proposal I´m putting together for the European Union.

Finally, some pictures!

I´ve been especially lax in taking pictures here in Mozambique...I don´t know...something about walking around with a camera here makes me feel even guiltier than usual, like somehow I´m fulfilling the typical white-tourist-firstworld-exploiter role if I take photos of the Mozambicans and their daily lives as I walk around.

Anyway, I´m making an effort here in Maputo and have a couple of photos to share. Actually, this morning as Ricardo and I were riding around in Abdala´s beat-up taxi, I was lamenting the fact that I haven´t sucked it up and taken more photos. I realized that having a purpose for taking photos would make me feel better about the whole thing...some sort of pretext so that I could interact a bit with the people I´d be photographing. I need a theme, like Women of Mozambique or Market Vendors or something...a reason other than that I am a curious tourist that wants to take a snapshot.

So these photos were taken in Maputo last week...Enjoy!

More Maputo

What do I love about Maputo?

Lots of things, but especially those that are totally absent from my life in Chimoio...

For instance, the restaurants! In a 4 block radius from the apartment we´re staying in, there is an amazingly diverse offering of places to eat. Choices range from Nando´s, a South African fast food chain that specializes in chicken, to restaurants specializing in food from Goa, Macao, Portugal, and even Thailand. Then there are the little take away stands selling steak rolls, french fries, sodas, and other snacks. Having so many great food options is like heaven for me, especially considering that in Chimoio there are only 3 restaurants that I even take a chance with, and at each of those the food is of poor quality and the service even worse.

I also love the fact that I can walk down the street in Maputo and not be constantly stared at, followed, asked for money, or become the butt of jokes by children that are not used to seeing white people. The relative anonimity that city life offers is delicious. I like being just another face in the multi-racial mix of pedestrian traffic. It´s great to leave the house and be able to walk around the block without fearing that the next day the entire city will be gossiping about what I was wearing, why I left the apartment alone, where I was going, etc. Chimoio is gossipy like no other place I´ve ever lived, and I am sooooo tired of it!

To illustrate...last week my mom sent a DHL package to me in Chimoio. Instead of delivering it directly to the address on the box, the delivery guy went to my flatmate Patricia´s accounting business, told her that a package had arrived for me, then returned to his delivery route. Along the way he passed my friend Gemelli as he walked along the street. The delivery guy ran up to Gemelli and, for some odd reason, gave him the airbill to my package. Perhaps he thought Gemelli would see me before he had a chance to make his way around to our house...who knows. By that point, Patricia had called me, Gemelli had sent me a text message, and Ricardo and I took bets as to who would actually deliver the package. Turns out it was Gemelli, who dropped by the DHL office on his way home, intercepted the delivery guy, and carried my package on his shoulder the rest of the way. Ridiculous, especially considering I have no idea who even works at DHL. Somehow, though, they all seem to know me and my circle of friends.

So...what else do I love about Maputo? The fact that there are universities and, in general, a significant portion of well-educated people in the city. In Chimoio, unfortunately, the pickings for an intelligent conversation partner are few and far between. Here, there is an interest in literature, culture, cinema, philosophy, business, and so forth that is a welcome contrast to the country bumpkins back ´home´.

And, finally, I love the fact that there are high speed internet cafes here!!! I miss having internet at home, but quick downloads and the ability to view more than one site at once has got me spoiled!

I miss and love you all!!!!!!!

I Love Maupto!

I remember when I first arrived in Maputo I thought to myself - Holy Christ, I´ve just left civilization behind. It was a shock to the senses to see the somewhat run-down condition of the city, people walking barefoot with livestock along the city streets, children running around with distended bellies, and the general chaos of any developing country.

Now, four months later and after having gotten used to life in Chimoio, I breathed a sigh of relief upon arriving in Maputo on Friday. As the plane touched down, I looked at the skyscrapers, businesses, asphalted streets full of people, and general hustle and bustle and thought to myself - Thank God I'm back in the civilized world!

Maputo is fabulous. Despite the poverty and need for a good coat of paint and road resurfacing project, it is cosmopolitan and beautiful. Ricardo and I will be here for the next 2 weeks and I am so happy to be in an urban environment I could burst!

A Sip of Home

Today was an exciting break from the normal routine of life here in Chimoio. A big box arrived via DHL that my mom had sent last week, and Ricardo and I tore it open and unwrapped its contents like little kids. I now have new books to read, Out of Africa to watch on DVD, a fresh stock of Burt's Bees cremes, hair accessories, my favorite pair of red pants I'd left behind, 3 boxes of Chai tea, and a 700-count family pack of Splenda. Oooooh, life is so good right now. I am savoring my first sip of Chai tea in over four months, wearing my lovely red pants, and trying to decide which book to read first. Ricardo is happy, too, with the necessary computer parts now in hand to fix his laptop that has been out of order for over 6 months.

The aroma of the Chai brings me straight back to Austin where a cup of tea was at the center of my morning routine, and sometimes the only motivation I could come up with for actually getting out of bed. My alarm clock would start beeping at 7am. Still asleep, I'd hit snooze for at least 30 minutes. On particularly lazy mornings, I'd procrastinate and hit snooze for an hour and a half, barely leaving myself enough time to brush my teeth and head out the door for work. But as long as I had Chai in the pantry, the whole ordeal was much easier. I'd scoot Azul off my chest or head (preferred sleeping spots for a girl cat) get out of bed, put on my purple robe, and head to the kitchen.

I didn't have a microwave - something my mom tried to change each time she'd visit. "We can go to Wal-Mart, Ali. I'll buy a microwave for you. It will make your life easier." My mom has become increasingly microwave-dependent over the years, especially for things like oatmeal and frozen veggies and tea. But each time I'd refuse her offer. I liked the ritual of filling my royal blue kettle with water, selecting a tea bag, and waiting sleepy-eyed for the familiar whistle of steam escaping. Azul would jump up on the counter and help me brew my tea, and I'd have to focus my blurred vision to be sure there were no stray cat hairs floating in my Chai.

Then I'd take my cup of tea and sit at my desk in the living room to check my e-mail. Azul would follow me, jumping up on the back of my chair or sprawling out on my laptop keyboard, once again the helper cat. And there we'd sit for a good 20 minutes - reading e-mail and the headlines from the online version of O Globo, the main newspaper in Rio, drinking Chai, and preparing to face the day.

One sip of tea was enough to bring me right back. I even checked for cat hairs.

Ô, Coisa de Português!

Licença de Condução de Velocípides, aka Bicycle Driver's License...one of the quirkier requirements I've come across here in Mozambique. This license is from a Portuguese friend who was doing volunteer work with the Catholic church.

Blessed with a Lazy Sunday

It’s a lazy Sunday in Chimoio. I’m sitting outside on dog-ravaged wicker furniture, trying to get a breath of fresh air and at least create the illusion that I’ve gone out of the house. Our three Rhodesian Ridgebacks are sprawled out on the porch keeping me company. There is a group of boys in the street playing an improvised game of soccer that really consists in taking turns kicking a half-inflated ball as far as possible, then chasing after it screaming. Each time the ball bounces past our gate, the dogs look up excitedly. About every third time the lure of the game is greater than their laziness and they run to the gate, barking like crazy, trying to chase after the kids.

Concentrating under these circumstances, as you can imagine, is a challenge. About an hour ago, at the height of the barking and excitement from the game, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked up to the gate, put on a stern face, and yelled at the kids.

“Can you guys move further down the street to play? You’re driving the dogs nuts.”

One of the older boys looked at me smugly, hands on his hips. Who was this white girl asking them to interrupt their Sunday soccer? He gave an answer fit for a teenager trying to impress his peers. “It’s not my fault your dogs are barking!”

The other kids broke out laughing and defiantly started kicking the ball around again. The dogs raced up and down the length of the gate, stirring up clouds of dust.

My patience was at an end. I raised my voice and called over the boy who had spoken earlier. “If you don’t move around the corner to play I’m going to set these dogs loose!”

He cocked an eyebrow and I walked over to the huge lock and chain that hold the gate closed. I had no intention of setting the dogs on them, but wanted to give the brats a good scare. I fished out my keys, jangled the lock and chain, and watched with satisfaction as the kids all sprinted around the corner to continue their game far away from our house.

The dogs have since chilled out somewhat, only barking when the ball escapes and makes it this far down the block, and I can finally write in relative peace.

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So the main thing on my mind lately has been Hurricane Katrina. My housemates and I have been accompanying the storm online, from the time it hit the Florida coast through the various botched relief efforts in New Orleans. I am overwhelmed by the size of this disaster, and my heart goes out to all the people that were affected by it.

People here in Mozambique have been quite sympathetic to the tragedy. After all, they know a thing or two about severe flooding. In 2000, excessive rains punished the southern part of the country, and the major rivers in the area spilled over their banks. Huge expanses of land were completely submerged, and help was slow to trickle in. Some of you may remember one of the most shocking images from the floods – a woman giving birth in a treetop, surrounded by dozens of feet of murky water. If the US is struggling to respond adequately to Hurricane Katrina, I can only imagine what disaster relief efforts must be like in countries that are void of forecasting technology and have fewer resources in the first place.

Hurricane Katrina has also put a very humbling spin on my philosophical musings about the concept of home. I can only imagine how tremendously difficult it must be to know very well where your home is, only to have it wiped off the map overnight along with all of your possessions. I have several friends that are passing through this very scenario right now…

Meghan, my friend from high school, had lived for 7 years in New Orleans with her boyfriend. They were able to make it out of the city in time, but were not able to take much with them and are now bouncing between relatives houses, trying to figure out where and how to start anew. Their apartment building is likely going to collapse from the soggy, unstable soil around it before they are allowed back in the city. Even if it survives, they are unsure whether or not they will return to New Orleans.

Even more gut-wrenching is what happened to Erin’s family. Last year, after losing nearly everything in the 4 hurricanes that hit Florida, Erin’s mom and dad decided to leave Pensacola and start over. They moved to Biloxi, built a beautiful beachfront home, and had a year of relative calm until Katrina. Thankfully, Erin’s family made it out of the storm’s path and is safe, but the water and wind literally ripped their house to pieces and they lost everything. I talked to Erin on the phone the other day and “overwhelming” was the only way she could begin to describe losing your home and all your possessions.

My heart goes out to them, as well as everyone touched by this tragedy.

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In other news, Ricardo almost certainly has Hepatitis A. He noticed last night while brushing his teeth that his eyes were yellow. We compared our eyes in the bathroom mirror, and the difference was shocking. Even his skin was jaundiced, making my pale complexion look pink and vibrant in comparison. He is also experiencing all of the other symptoms of Hepatitis A – abrupt onset of fever, abdominal pains, dark urine, loss of appetite, nausea…It’s hard to know if he had malaria and then came down with Hep A, or if it was his liver causing trouble the entire time. Even if he didn’t actually have malaria, it is much better to be on the safe side and take the course of treatment. Hepatitis A, while a pain in the ass, is not a fatal disease. Malaria, if not treated, almost always is.

Unfortunately, there is no treatment for Hep A other than bed rest and a low-fat, alcohol-free diet for 6 months. I am thanking my lucky stars right now that I overcame my fear of needles and got all of my shots before coming to Mozambique. Had I not been vaccinated against Hep A, I would likely be yellow-eyed and miserable along with Ricardo right now.

Speaking of things health-related, I am going “home” to San Francisco at the end of the month for a week of medical and dental appointments. The main reason for the trip is that my moles have been changing and growing in a way that is making me super nervous. Nothing serious so far, but I need to get them biopsied and potentially removed. I’m going to take advantage of being in the US and also get my teeth cleaned, go to the gynecologist, go to the dermatologist, and get my hair cut.

Yes, it’s a butt-buster of a trip just to have some basic procedures and tests performed, but it is well worth it in my book. Theoretically, I could get everything done in Nespruit, South Africa and use my international health insurance, but between the flight and hotel and exam expenses, it would be nearly the same price as a ticket back to the US. Also, there is something priceless about having your mom available to hold your hand while you freak out at the doctor’s office (something I’ve been known to do more than once).

More Malaria

Seems malaria is the trend here in Chimoio these days. First Ricardo, now one of our Zimbabwean employees is sick with fever. Malaria, unfortunately, is really common here and doctors are actually quite good at diagnosing and treating the illness. However, as is too often the case in the developing world, the best malaria medicines are not available in Mozambique.

Before leaving the States, I stocked up on Malarone, a daily prophylactic that can also be taken as a cure. For people using Malarone as a preventive medicine, one pill is taken each day for the duration of the exposure, as well as for a few days before and after the trip. As a cure, a quadruple dose of the pills is taken each day for 3 days. No doubt, Malarone is expensive even for US standards (about US$ 120 for 30 pills without insurance), but it works well and has few side effects.

People have never even heard of Malarone here. The best malaria cure available in Mozambique is a 7-day treatment that assaults the liver and is not guaranteed to provide quick results. Many people have to endure a second week of treatment because the first round is not potent enough against increasingly treatment-resistant strains of malaria. When Ricardo told our friends that he'd taken a 3-day cure and was all better, nobody believed him. Mozambicans have never even heard of a treatment that is effective in such a short time.

Why isn't this treatment available here?? I wonder what kind of interests are being protected by not offering a subsidized or generic version of Malarone - or any other alternative treatment - here in Mozambique, where malaria is the top killer even over HIV/AIDS.

This Is All Normal...

Yesterday, as I walked down the dirt excuse for a sidewalk in "downtown" Chimoio, I passed a man with 12 dead guinea hens on strings hung from every available place on his body. There were 4 draped around his neck, 2 over each shoulder, and 2 in each hand. You had to look hard to see that there was actually a man under all those gray spotted feathers and wobbly necks. The best part was that this guinea hen vendor was casually engaged in a conversation with another man, nodding his head and carrying about as if that were the most normal thing in the world. And I'm sure, for him, it was.

Ricardo is doing better after 2 straight days of a high fever, night shakes, and intestinal difficulties. We still don't know for sure if it was malaria, but the doses of Malarone seem to have made a difference so I have my suspicions. The important thing is that he is relatively healthy again and I can stop waking up every 4 hours to dispense assorted medicines and take his temperature...

This experience made me realize how much I took health and easy access to medical services totally for granted back in the US. After having to walk a mile to a doctor, self-treat my boyfriend's malaria, and mix homemade rehydration fluids - all the while knowing that if something serious went wrong we probably wouldn't be able to reach a decent clinic in less than 4 hours - I am now much more aware of the blessing that is good health...

Malaria???

All week I have been looking forward to taking a trip this weekend to Vilankulos, a beach town four hours away from Chimoio that is typical of the Mozambican coast - white sand, endless stretches of coconut palms, and the calm turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. Ricardo and I have been planning a trip with 6 other friends to get away from this small town for a couple of days...we rented a house, bought food and drinks, and were excitedly anticipating a weekend of sunning, kite surfing, and relaxing in general. Until now...

Poor Ricardo woke up this morning with a burning fever, easily 40C (104F). Since we have no car and none of our "friends" were available to help, we had to walk a mile to the local clinic to get him a malaria test. Anytime someone here comes down with a fever and does not have any symptoms of a cold or flu, it is assumed that he has malaria until proven otherwise. We arrived at the Clínica Fátima, relatively well-equipped and clean considering the circumstances, and a doctor wearing a white lab coat over a Ronaldinho jersey pricked Ricardo's finger and ran the sample to the lab. Thirty minutes later we got the result - negative.

Unfortunately, the negative result did not mean a sigh of relief. Malaria tests are notorious for returning false negatives, and Ricardo's fever was still high even after 2 Tylenols. To play it safe, he decided to start a malaria treatment regimen with the Malarone I brought from the States. He spent the morning shaking with fever, but thankfully it has gone down a bit. If things get much worse, we'll have to find a way to get to Beira so Ricardo can go to the clinic accepted by his international health insurance. Not only am I super worried about his health, I see the distinct possibility of driving the car again looming in my future...

Sigh. This is Africa. Needless to say, we aren't going to Vilankulos.

Let the Craziness Begin!

So after a week of downtime, I am back on the job. The next project in line for me is a proposal to the European Community to strengthen microfinance in rural areas of Mozambique. I'm looking at another crazy month of work ahead of me, but at least I will have a change of scenery. Ricardo and I are going to be in Maputo for most of September - he will be working on a reforesting project, and I will be meeting with a credit union based in the capital. I am sooooo ready to get out of Chimoio for a while. The lack of options and small-town mentality here are really starting to get to me. I realized today that I haven't left our cozy little house in 4 entire days. Just me and the housemates and the dogs...day in, day out. I am staring to go slightly crazy!

Today was a lovely, cloudy day, a welcome relief from the wave of heat we've had lately. The best part was a quick noon rain that made the scent of the mango blossoms in the front yard waft through the living room window and perfume my entire afternoon!

And on a final note, how supremely annoying that someone is spamming my blog. I have dilligently erased all of the bogus comments and, hopefully, this will not happen again. I prefer to believe that the spam will come in waves, all at once on one post, rather than a constant trickle on all of them.

It can't always be new and exciting

I have revisited my study of personality types lately, spurred by several insightful e-mails from my mom. Although some of this stuff I take with a grain of salt, for the most part the myers-briggs classifications make a lot of sense to me and help me understand what makes me and others tick.

I am an ENTP - extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving - the visionary of the 16 types. One of the main ENTP traits is the desire to always seek out new people, places, and things. I thrive on the challenge of having to adapt to a completely new situation. I actually need this constant innovation and change to be present for me to be able to do my best work. (That is one of the reasons I like fundraising so much. I am constantly stimulated by new projects and proposals, and get the added bonus of being able to write for a living.)

However, what constitutes a strength of my personality type - being an innovator, thriving on change, constantly seeking out new and interesting opportunties - can also be my downfall. Life becomes tough when the thingsI love begin to stagnate. For me it is so easy just to go on to the next thing – because that is what I am good at and that newness and challenge is what ultimately drives me – but I am also aware that in the process I can leave things unfinished or miss out on a lot of wonderful things that come from routines, practices, sameness.

Things here are beginning to stagnate, and it is sometimes hard for me to realize that this doesn’t mean that they are not good anymore. Life in Chimoio can be maddeningly slow and monotonous. It is hard to live and work with the same people day in and day out and not grow tired, much less in a place like I am in now where there is literally nothing to do. I fought extreme boredom all day, one of the problems with finding a "home" and settling into a routine. I am still having a great time, but the newness of my work, my surroundings, my relationship, is all beginning to wear off. Real life, with all its glories and problems, is setting in.

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So, on that note, the dialogue about home continues. More below from Jenna, and thanks to those of you who contributed to the discussion on the last guest entry...

"I have recently been inundated by encounters with peers on the same oxymoronic pseudo-career track as I. We are well-educated in a system that we have only academic interest in pursuing. We are pulled to the ends of the earth only to discover universal loves that we already know. We travel far and wide before we can miss a thing that we never wanted to call home. In our brains we have always known that there is something pure and lovely about a life lived among beloved others, and witnessing true communities in the world strike us in the gut with a nostalgia for something we have never had.
What is it about a discussion of home that evokes such aimless pangs in the hearts of the members of my generation? How does a collection of such independent, worldly characters get wispy-voiced and wide-eyed at the thought of stable community? We are at an impasse in the development of our personae: each solo jaunt into the experiential world leads us to draw the conclusion that the ideal context is one of group solidarity, communal living, a stable geography with a constant awareness of the goings-on of the world at large. The impasse, then, is whether to proceed to the next solitary sojourn, continue to develop one's individual conception of Whatever, with this imagined settled community always in the distant, unreachable (impossible) future… or, rather, to seek deliberately a planned community, find this point of stability, and (impossibly) abandon one's individual wanderings as soon as the sought community exists.
The trouble a young sojourner/expatriate encounters is exactly this:
the necessarily self-centered nature of the journeys taken by a twentysomething individualist prevents her from following her intellect in the direction her journeys seem to be pointing.
I am reminded of a decision I made at age sixteen, months before embarking on my first journey abroad. As a teenager, I lamented the boring, sheltered, suburban lifestyle to which I had not so much submitted myself as failed to seek an alternative. I imagined that a greater risk-taker than myself would have found a way to have Something Happen in his or her life, and I vowed to Experience. In great and youthful rashness, I determined to teach myself the value of the negative experience through empirical contrast with the positive; I told myself that only through experience could I learn true personal meaning, make real educated decisions, and break out of the enclosed bubble of mediocrity I had thus far occupied. And I succeeded in being rash and impetuous, experiencing the consequences in their myriad forms. As time went on, I began to see an error in my plan, for my experiment was making its own decisions, and I perceived an abandonment of willpower, a loss of control. It was then that I began to recognize the ignorant wisdom of my initial caution, and I returned to the beginning, proceeding with moderation once again. I consoled the overeager extremist that dwelt within me: her loss of power, I reasoned, was for the good of the whole. After all, was not the initial purpose of living these extremes to accumulate a spectrum of experience by which to assess life decisions, allowing me to depend on a real, empirical evaluation rather than a theory whose primary basis was fear? …And yet, the retreat of the crazed, spontaneous self that had been able to guide my fun and excitement left me despondent and introverted, and even the distress of the most negative of my outrageous times paled in comparison to this drawn-out life of quiet desperation. In short, I was no longer suited for mediocrity, now that I knew what mediocrity really was.
The life experiments of a bourgeois member of the educated elite are not scientific. We do not maintain one Self in a vacuum as a control, to which we can revert if the test goes awry. Our personalities may be in flux, but each love creates a new heartstring; each scar marks us indelibly.
If we pursue a rootless journey for long enough, will we never find peace in a settled existence? If we spend too much time seeking the ideal community lifestyle, will we be inadvertently creating ourselves as unstable individuals, unable to live it? Or is my inability to follow my own advice simply demonstrating my lack of self-control once again?"

Tacos in Africa

Our kitchen is a sad sight. Not only is it messy half the time, with stacks of dishes in the sink and open cans of tuna scattered about the counter, it is poorly equipped. We have a dual freezer/fridge that is skinnier than I am and comes up to my collarbone (imagine fitting food for 5 in there!), and don't have an oven, just a pair of dual electric burners that are impossible to regulate.

Between our runt of a kitchen, the unreliable selection of food at Shoprite, and the fact that we have no car, we are always struggling to come up with creative things to eat.

So the other day I decided to make tacos. It's very strange to me to see how mexican food has traveled across the world. While Brasilians were unfamiliar with burritos and tostadas until several years ago, for some reason mexican food is super popular in South-Eastern Africa. I can find all the right spices (except, of course, New Mexico green chile!), avocados, cheddar cheese, ground beef... Oh, and there are no tortillas! The solution? Make your own.

I got out the mixing bowl and a glass to use as a rolling pin, and set to work. I made a huge batch of flour tortillas, seasoned the ground beef, chopped up tomatoes, lettuce and onions, and made some guacamole. My housemates LOVED the tacos!!!

I have since made them 4 times, and watching everyone gobble up my version of comfort food is quite an ego boost!

Yum!

Hazards on the Highway: goats and bicycles and Ali

Last Monday I had a truly terrifying experience…I drove for the first time on the left-hand side of the road. It was, relatively speaking, a successful experience in that I didn’t crash the car or hit any pedestrians or have a complete nervous breakdown. If I said it was a pleasant experience, however, I would be a big, fat, liar.

My housemates and I had rented a car for a weekend trip to Beira, the capital of neighboring Sofala Province some 200km from Chimoio. Ricardo drove the car on the way out to Beira and I was a happy passenger, playing dj and eating handfuls of roasted cashew nuts that we purchased from roadside vendors. The highway system in Mozambique is notoriously precarious, full of livestock and potholes and unpaved stretches, but I have become quite confident in Ricardo’s driving abilities. I am at the point now where I can look out the window and appreciate the landscape, oblivious to the myriad hazards of the road. The trip was bumpy and long, but pleasant. It didn’t really sink in at that point that *I’d* have to drive on the way home.

How did I get stuck with that job? Ricardo had to catch a flight from Beira to Maputo on Sunday night, and none of my other companions knew how to drive a car. That’s right. All of the twenty-something Brazilian males in my company had either 1) failed their driving exams, or 2) never learned to drive in the first place because, living in Rio, the risk was greater than the reward. So it was up to me to get us back home to Chimoio.

I get nervous driving under lots of different circumstances (parallel parking and navigating unknown cities topping the list, as many of you might know), but the mere prospect of driving down the left-hand side of the road in a rental car with the steering wheel on the right was almost too much for me to bear. Even under ideal conditions, I am admittedly not the world’s most talented driver. This was not a good scenario. I had no choice, though. We had to get back to Chimoio.

So I sucked it up, helped my housemates load the car, and promptly managed to reach over the wrong shoulder for the seatbelt and stall the car. I could feel my friends suck in nervous breaths of air, realizing exactly how precarious our trip back would be. In an attempt to disguise my frazzled nerves, I started to babble. I chatted on and on to myself about the car, my previous experiences driving, the weather, our delicious shrimp lunch the day before, and on and on and on. All the while I gripped the wheel with white knuckles and prayed for a flash of spontaneous super driving skills. Needless to day, that divine intervention didn’t come.

I had no concept of the width of the car, grossly underestimating the boundary of the left-hand bumper and nearly smashing into a post and a man on a bicycle within the first 5 minutes. In the middle of downtown Beira, trying to find the highway, I almost sideswiped a bus. Once on the right track back to Chimoio, my travel companions somewhat frantically alerted me that I was driving really close to the middle of the unmarked strip of asphalt that passes as a highway. I had to reverse the trick my dad taught me when I was learning to drive in the US and imagine that my left knee was tracing a line down the middle of my imaginary lane. Other than that, I had no clue whether or not I was within a safe distance of the oncoming traffic and the various obstacles on the other side of the car.

In the 3 hours it took us to drive back home, I honked more than in the 8 years I’ve had my license. I easily leaned on the horn more than 100 times. No joke. Highways in Mozambique are *full* of men riding bikes, women walking with stacks of firewood and basins of corn balanced on their heads, kids running around barefoot, and lots of livestock. Lots of goats and chickens, and the occasional cow or turkey. All of these people and animals invade the highway and leisurely follow their paths completely unaware of the cars and busses zooming by. They meander into the road space and will literally only move onto the shoulder if you honk the horn like a maniac. I remain undecided as to whether the people or the goats are more stubborn. And then there are the other drivers. Big trucks full of gas and agricultural products, vans packed full of passengers with suitcases precariously strapped to the roof, decrepit cars, and well-maintained 4x4’s that are the property of NGOs or government agencies. The highway is poorly asphalted, full of potholes and completely lacking any lines or lane markings, and in some stretches reduced to a miserable expanse of gravel and dust. And it’s all backwards, on the wrong side, with reason and order cast to the wind.

I made it home, though, with no major casualties other than my sanity. I think that my housemates and I all agree after this experience that it is in everyone’s best interest for me to never drive the car again.

Guest Entry - Home by Jenna

Over the past several months, I have been carrying on various e-mail discussions about "home" with friends that have been reading my blog. Some different perspectives, many similar, all interesting and poignant. I particularly liked what my friend Jenna had to say about the concept, and would like to share a bit of her writings below...

"and then, as i read your blog, i thought of my own ideas of home. It's a topic that has occupied my thoughts many, many times over the last 10 years... if i were writing on my own computer right now, which i'm not, i would send you my first actual essay on home, which was written a few days before leaving spain in 98, and then became my college application essay... it pretty much consists in feeling torn between homes, knowing that i was about to leave, and hearing a voice in my head (parents?) saying, "Come home." and my question was, "Where is home? The first place you were? Or the last place you left?" i imagined that i had changed since leaving home, but it wasn't just me that had changed; it was also the "home" itself that had had a year to change without my presence.

at that time, it was a pretty profound dichotomy... but since then, i've discovered that the home concept is so much more complex... in fact, the first place for which i ever really, seriously felt homesick was the co-op i lived in my second year of college, which i moved back to for my last year, after italy... and yet, as i should have realized, the nature of a student residence is constant change, and the home that i'd felt so strangely justified in finally feeling saudade for was actually gone, or at least different. it was even more dramatic than the change i'd recognized in my abq home when i'd first returned. and i began to believe that home will never stay static, though it sometimes seems so, and the only way to keep it as your home is to live through its changes, to change within it, to let its changes happen around you... otherwise, we will always notice the differences, the ways in which we no longer fit into our former homes, as if you gave your favorite shoes to your best friend for a year and then tried them on again to discover that they no longer had that special perfection of form-fit to your feet...besides which, your feet had grown...

and as i continue on, i have considered that perhaps the meaning of home involves more than a place, more than a house, or the cafes where you're a regular, or the landscape, the weather, even the people and creatures who live there too; it's a junction of geographical, historical, and personal connections that compose a structure of familiarity and acceptance, which goes two ways: you accept the familiar home, and the home accepts the familiar you. and the size and shape of that home varies dramatically, be it a whole city/state/country, or one room of a house, or even in that most romantic of senses, the presence of a beloved other person... in any case, that is my current home theory... which leaves itself totally open to interpretation, something i've come to enjoy about theories (probably the result of too much po-mo lit-crit training)...

it's an attempt to incorporate all the other theories i've come up with over the years. but in the end, the theory is not what matters. it only gives us guidance and a feeling of credence to select what we mean by home... sometimes, all that matters is that we can feel at home in ourselves, especially when deprived of familiar houses or neighborhoods or park swings... i have been trying to accept the familiar me for the moment, to be at home in myself on this planet... i don't know how much sense that makes, but i think it has to do with decent self-esteem while still maintaining a critical stance and an ability to change and transform..."

By the way, guest entries are always welcome, for any other people out there that might be so inclined...

Just Breathe, Ali...

I remember the late summer afternoon in 2003 when I first learned how to meditate. I was desperately sad that day. Everything around me seemed to be falling apart, and I was in the middle of it all and unsure of my path. Guilty. Alone. Depressed.

I had gone to the mountains to try and fix a relationship that had taken a spectacular turn for the worse the week before. Foolishly, I thought that if I just tried hard enough, my boyfriend at the time would see how much I loved him and how sorry I was for the whole situation. I took him to the Jemez for the day, to the special camping spot my dad and I had found years before. There were tall red cliffs on either side of us, the Guadalupe River trickling in the distance, and Ponderosa pines all around that smell like vanilla if you stick your nose in the cracks in the bark. I wanted to share something close to me, create a good memory in the midst of so much hurt.

We sat on a blanket looking out over the river below. My boyfriend loved music, and I gave him an iPod as a surprise. He unwrapped it and was happy, but not happy enough to make things better. I had gone to Wild Oats that morning and bought hummus and pasta salad with blue cheese for a picnic lunch. We ate in silence. He hated the food. Twigs snapped and lizards scurried around in the sun. We kissed a forced, uncomfortable kiss. I hugged my knees tight and started to cry.

At first, I was crying to get a reaction. I wanted my boyfriend to hug me, acknowledge the tremendous effort I was making, apologize for being insensitive. Or I wanted him to do nothing so I would have a reason to be mad at him later. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I was filled with a hundred thousand painful feelings that would not go away.

Suddenly my perspective changed. I stopped crying and entered a state of detached calm. None of it mattered. I took deep gulps of air and concentrated on the big juniper bush in front of me. The trunk was beautiful, thick twists of bark peeking out under the fat crown of leaves and berries. I breathed and imagined myself exchanging energy with the old juniper. I wondered if the Anasazi ancestors that built their dwellings and formed their clay cooking pots from the same earth I sat on had also looked at the juniper. With each breath I honored the tree, gathered strength from her, realized how insignificant we all are. I also acknowledged my sadness. It was still there – present and painful as ever – but I stopped willing it away. It was simply part of me, together with the mountain air and the juniper and the afternoon light. Not good, not bad. Just there.

I am increasingly aware that I need to cultivate a practice, call back that juniper and the stillness of breath and just let go…

Everything here is going well, despite the introspective tone of this post. I’m happy and aware, and simply need something to ground me in the midst of this experience.

Phew.

Yeah, that's about all I can muster right now. I am beyond all limits of exhaustion I knew back in the US.

I just sent off the final version of the tea proposal. I didn't sleep last night. I can't think straight and my right eye is hurting. Time for bed.

I've had some big adventures in the last 2 days but won't even begin to do them justice if I write right now.

Thank God this proposal is out of my hands...

A hill covered with tea fields in Chipinge, Zimbabwe, taken from the car window after our meeting yesterday.

Saudades and another trip to Zimbabwe

Ricardo and I are heading to Zimbabwe again tomorrow morning for our final meeting with the tea client. We have to hit the road at 5am in order to have sufficient time to cross the border at Mutare, get our visas and car registration papers in order, and navigate the 200km of poorly-paved road to Chipinge. With no wrong turns, we should make it in just over 5 hours.

We rented a car for the trip from a friend's sister and Ricardo is out right now filling up 3 big plastic containers with extra gasoline. Due to the political and economic crisis, there are chronic fuel shortages in Zimbabwe and you have to take your own fuel for any trip over a few miles. Just to be safe, we are taking 60 liters of extra gas with us! The shortages are to the point that many Zimbabweans make the trek into Mozambique just to import fuel. It reminds me of the many trips my mom across the border from Italy to Slovenia to get gas for Bibi, my grandmother's old Saab. Gas used to be ridiculously cheaper in Slovenia; things have changed now that the country is part of the EU, but nonetheless the lines at the filling stations here evoke similar memories.

If everything goes well, I'll spend the rest of the weekend finalizing the proposal, then mail it out on Monday (via DHL, of course!). I am trying to raise over US$ 600.000 in funding from a program called PSOM, an initiative of the Dutch government to increase investments in developing countries. If approved, the project we are working on stands to significantly improve the lives of smallholder tea growers in the region. Lots of if's and maybe's in the way, but I think we have a good chance of getting the grant.

Tonight for dinner we tried some of the big fish that Ricardo is holding up in the photo. Our friend said it is red mackerel, but I honestly have no clue whether that is accurate or not. Regardless of the name, the fish was delicious. Flaky white meat, fresh flavor. It was perfect in a stew with jasmine rice, tomatoes, garlic, and bits of leftover squid from last night.

For some reason, I was hit with a wave of homesickness today. Ricardo noticed I was looking a bit down and asked what "casa" I missed. I had no idea how to answer. I miss bits and pieces of all my homes, past and present. Most of all, though, I miss the people that have become so important in my life despite the fact that we only see each other once every few years. The majority of the regular readers here are people I haven't met up with in ages. Lambros I met in Greece when I was 14 and saw for the last time in Athens in 1999. Gaby was my exchange student sidekick in Albuquerque in 2000; our most recent adventures together were in Umuarama, Paraná in 2001. Angel and I haven't hung out since 2002. Then there are my friends from high school in Albuquerque, people like Jenna and Tomás, who I totally lost contact with only to discover we've been leading similar paths this whole time.

It's funny, many of these people I still consider to be my best friends even though our only form of contact is an occasional e-mail or a blog update here and there. There is something about the community of modern nomads that permits relationships to be created and nourished independent of space or time. My friends that lead similarly disconnected lifestlyes are the ones I tend to relate to best. I know that, despite the differences in our cultures and current occupations, we all suffer from the same root pains. We are motivated by similar ideas. We drift from continent to continent searching for the same sense of fulfillment that comes from fitting in everywhere and nowhere at once. I miss my friends and family desperately, but take comfort in the fact that a good number of the people I love share my same sense of ill-defined, omnipresent SAUDADES.

Ricardo and the Coleman full of fish and squid in our kitchen.

37 kilos of fish and squid

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

Late Night, Beer, Talking Shit

Having a beer with BL and Ricardo. It's late, the proposal is almost done. Thank God.

I ate sausages and tuna salad with mayonnaise for dinner. If I could make a list of my least favorite foods, these would certainly top it out.

No complaints, though. Ricardo is back home and I am less stressed. More later.

love,
Ali

Only 6 more hours!

Last night I couldn't sleep. Ricardo is coming back home today. If everything goes well, one of our clients is going to pick him up at the Harare airport in 30 min and give him a lift for the 5 hour drive to Chimoio.

To say I can't wait to hear the client's truck pull up in our driveway is a gross understatement.

Time is going by soooooooooo slowly playing this waiting game...

You mean I get to go to Zimbabwe again?!?

Merdalina. Just talked to Ricardo on the phone and he is still in São Paulo. All SAA flights have been cancelled, and they are trying to reroute him on a British Airways flight to Harare through London.

Harare is 5 hours away by car. I have no idea how Ricardo is going to get back to Chimoio. The most likely scenario would be for me to drive to Zimbabwe and pick him up...But we don't have a vehicle and the car rental guy wants to charge double the amount he originally quoted to go to Beira. I would also have to register the car and get yet another visa. To fly from Harare to anywhere in Mozambique is ridiculously expensive. Ricardo's ticket from Maputo to Beira is nonrefundable and can't be changed. Merda. Merda. Merda.

I'm at the point where all I can do is laugh at our unbelievably poor luck...

One more reason I hate SAA

Puta que pariu, ninguém merece!!!

Stupid South African Airways is on strike and has cancelled nearly all domestic and international flights going in and out of Johannesburg, their hub. Ricardo is leaving Brazil today on a SAA flight and is supposed to arrive in Jo'burg tomorrow morning, with an afternoon connection, also on SAA, to Maputo. Now it looks like he may be delayed several days due to the strike...SAA's workers want higher wages since the company just declared fat profits this quarter. Management is not negotiating. The flight crews have stopped even showing up at the airport. No end in sight...Sigh.

I have already rented a car to drive to Beira and pick up Ricardo tomorrow evening. Now I'm not even sure he'll make it out of South Africa before the weekend. What a lovely way to add insult to injury after the *insane* month I've had here in his absence...

In other, better news, Agrolink is not being audited after all. This news came through the grapevine and was an excellent illustration of how facts are easily distorted when transmited from mouth to mouth over a cellhpone. Our accoutant called the company's ex-secretary who called BL who called me. BL and I both understood that there would be an audit. Apparently, the accountant was just concered that we have our books in order should someone from the finance ministry decide to drop in on Agrolink. I still think he was setting us up, trying to get a little something extra out of us to prevent the possibility of an audit. Everyone is interconnected here...the accountant could very well call the finance ministry and "request" a visit to Agrolink.

My weekend trip to Espungabera and Zimbabwe was fabulous. In comparison to my last trip, the drive was tranquilo. Stefano's driver picked me up at 5am on Friday and we bumped along the dirt road at a reasonable speed, slowing down on curves and taking care not to spin out. Espungabera is a little, little town in the mountains that has no paved roads, one restaurant, and phone service via radio waves. Totally isolated. It was great to hole up in Stefano's project headquarters and finally get some good work done on my proposal. No noise. No flatmates. Just me and my laptop and the occasional brainstorming session with Stefano.

Saturday I woke up again at the crack of dawn and got ready for the meeting with our tea client in Zimbabwe. It went amazingly well, and we were able to negotiate all the necessary details for our future joint venture and the proposal I'm currently putting together. We had lunch with the client and his family in their beautiful estate hidden in the middle of a tea plantation. We had fresh fish and bread pudding, gin and tonics after the negotiations, and lounged about in the most extravagant house I've seen since setting foot in Africa. Swimming pool and manicured gardens and sweeping verandahs - the whole works. The client and his family are very worried, though, that any day Mugabe could swoop down and expropriate not only their tea plantation and factory, but the family's home as well. Yet another reason they are interested in doing business in Mozambique - it provides an emergency exit out of Zimabwe if necessary.

So now my task is to sit down and finish the proposal. Happily, the details and overall concept of the project have finally come together in my head, and I have a clear image from which to write. I did some simple cash flow projections and budget work yesterday, and my goal is to get a draft completed before Ricardo arrives. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm much less stressed out because I finally understand what the project is all about.

Our trip back to Chimoio was uneventful, except for the fact that we left at 5am and gave a lift to two of Espungabera's district administrators that hadn't bathed in a couple of days. I had to crack the window and stick my nose out into the cold dawn air as not to pass out from the ripe odor inside the 4x4. A car full of smelly men was nothing, however, compared to my last trip back from the mountains.

When BL, Gemelli and I went two weeks ago, we decided to drive back through the Zimbabwean side of the border. Even through the trip is an extra 200 km, nearly all of the roads are paved and you can make it back to Chimoio in about the same time as on the dirt trails through the interior of Mozambique. Obviously this doesn't hold true if you take a wrong turn and drive for 1.5 hours in the wrong direction. Somehow we missed the turnoff for Birkenough Bridge and ended up driving through the semi-arid savannah full of baobab trees. We were so fascinated by the huge trees - enormous, leafless beings that dominate the landscape like fat sentinels - that we didn't even notice we were off track. After finally correcting our mistake and getting on the proper highway, we got lost again in Mutare, the border town with Mozambique. It was dark, and there were no signs indicating where to go. All the street lights were burnt out, and packs of people roamed the streets, staring at the white strangers cruising around in circles. We finally asked a man on a bicycle how to get to the border and he sent us on a totally deserted road, past a looted gas station, into a thicket of trees. We were convinced it was a setup when finally I spotted a faded sign for Beira, the port in Mozambique over 300km away. Thank God. We zoomed through customs and drove the rest of the way home to Chimoio telling jokes to keep awake.

Well, it's time for me to get to work...My deadline for a draft is the 1st and the final proposal has to be mailed out on the 8th. Long days ahead, for sure.

On our way up the sacred mountain in Espungabera. These huts are typical of the region...

Tea, Chá, Té

I am tired. I was at the office by 7:30 this morning to meet with a client and finalize some contracts that were supposed to be signed two weeks ago. Managed to wiggle my way out of another visit to the notary (phew!) and headed home for some quiet time to work on a big proposal that is due in 2 weeks. I just spent over 2 hours reading about the tea industry - how tea is grown, processed, distributed...the works.

Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn I am headed again to Espungabera and then Zimbabwe the next day for a meeting with our tea manufacturing client. Should be back in Chimoio by Sunday evening. Hopefully this trip won't be as, ahem, adventuresome as the last one...and maybe I'll actually have some time to write about these trips I keep referring to!

Big plus - since I'm leaving for the weekend on business, I've been able to escape being the responsible party to deal with the audit in Ricardo's absence. Yay!!!!!

Love to all. Saudades...

Precious calm moments...

On top of the mountain...there is something quite Beatles-esque about this photo.

Cabe�a do Velho (Old Man's Head), a granite formation just outside Chimoio where we went hiking last Saturday.

You've Got to Be Kidding...

So today I received a fabulous piece of news...just what I needed to lessen my stress and ease my workload.

Agrolink is being audited. I think it's our accountant that set us up. I had a total Enron moment this afternoon stuffing as many files as possible in my briefcase to take home and dissect.

This came on the heels of a 3 hour stint at the notary's this afternoon, where the Senhor Conservador hit on me nonstop in front of our client as we were trying to get some contracts authenticated. Niiiiice. Nothing like suggestive comments from the head notary, someone you are required to treat with a certain level of obsequiousness in order to get anything accomplished in the business world of Chimoio.

What a day, what a day.

Good Day, Sunshine!

After a good, long cry last night, I must admit I feel a million times better. Bless BL for putting his macho ways aside and listening to my troubles...

So today is a good day. I woke up early, had a great cup of espresso and a tangerine, and am now ready to get some significant work done on my proposal.

Ah, by the way, I didn't have a virus. Norton was misreading the code from an internet toolbar I used once in the past as a trojan horse. Gemelli helped me delete it, and now the problem is fixed. So no fear when opening my e-mails (whenever it is that I get a chance to write them!)

Send good proposal-writing thoughts my way!!!!!

Love you all.

Stressssssssssssed Out!

Okay, work is totally kicking my ass. I am STRESSED!!! Drinking lots of herbal tea and listening to good music and generally trying to keep my head above water. But Holy Christ. This is insane. I still have faith, though, that it is all going to be worth it!

Needless to say I need to stop making promises to finish posts. It never happens. I will finish writing about my trip to Espungabera...it just won't be today or tomorrow. Or probably not even the day after.

I think I just downloaded a virus on my computer from an e-mail from our most important client. Merda! Hopefully SpyBot will come to the rescue and I won't have a total crisis on my hands...

Kahlua, lounging on "her" wicker furniture.

Capitu, the Lady of the house.

Paulo basking in the sun on the porch.

Loose Ends

Just to tie up a couple I noticed while re-reading past posts...

1. I got my visa renewed without ever having to set foot in the immigration office. I'm good here for another 6 months, until 26 December!

2. One of the maids was fired yesterday. Thankfully for my conscience, it wasn't just becuase of my missing clothes. She had also been taking honey, rice, laundry detergent, hand soap, and other small items over the past few months. We gave her 2 months salary as a severance pay and sent her on her way.

3. Espungabera part II will come later tonight after I run on the treadmill. Ugh. Writing will be my reward for sweating and suffering during a 45 minute run.

Love you!!!!!!!!!!! I miss you guys all so much.

Definitely Not What I Was Expecting...

Wow, what a way to make me curious... Comments on my previous entry have me totally blown away right now.

First, I'd love to know who exactly is behind this subtle movement to convince me to leave Africa!! Hahahahah!!!

Second, this was not at all the reaction I was expecting. Honestly I thought any feedback would come in the form of, "Hang in there, Ali. An insane workload and slugs in the bathroom and electrical blackouts are just part of the experience." Now two people in a row have pointedly suggested that perhaps it's time I throw in the towel and come on home, wherever that might be right now. Is my situation really that irrational? Do people hear about the things I'm doing and, despite any initial amazement or envy, think that I'm a few screws loose and rattling down a road that leads to nowhere?

Third, I am open to the possibility that perhaps dial-up internet and the blogosphere have completely wiped out my capacity to detect and appreciate dry humor... Frightening, to say the least.

On the heels of that...it's Friday night, I've worked all day, and I'm pooped. Brains totally scattered. I meant to finish writing about my trip to Espungabera but I just can't seem to muster up the effort. I want to make a point, though, to finish that story... Perhaps tomorrow.

So, at the end of the day (a stressful, frustrating, somewhat lonely one at that), all I have to say is the following: To leave Mozambique now would be to veer away from the path I have fought so hard to finally identify. It may seem precipitous, but this is it. I just know it. Everything is coming together...

Grrrrrrr...

Wow. I’m in an incredibly foul mood today. Every little thing is getting on my nerves… I feel like complaining so, in the absence of an actual person to hear me gripe, I’m going to air my frustrations on the internet.

The biggest thing pissing me off right now has to do with my clothes. I thought it was bad a couple of weeks ago when the maids were destroying my underwire bras and staining my pants. The bulk of my clothes have already been ruined to one extent or another, but at least I still have them. I’ve learned to live with a bleach stain here and an iron burn there. But now it’s getting serious. My clothes are fucking disappearing. First it was an eggplant colored tank top from Zara. Then a white shirt. And now my favorite black pants from Express that fit like they’d been tailor-made for me. Most likely one of the maids or one of the handymen here took my clothes off the line in the backyard to sell at the bazaar and get some extra cash. Apparently this is a common problem here in Mozambique. To make matters worse, it’s not like I can go out and buy a new pair of pants and some shirts. This is Chimoio. There are no clothing stores. Everything is second-hand and irregular and rejects from other, better-off countries. I now have only one pair of long pants to wear. Thank God Ricardo is in Brazil right now and has promised to buy new clothes for me. I am concentrating on letting go, being less materialistic, realizing that it’s just clothes and not the end of the world. But I could just scream right now…

What else is irritating me today? Hah. There’s a list.

I’m totally stressed out with work. I’m not currently receiving a salary (although Ricardo and BL have guaranteed that I will be paid pending project success) but am shouldering the majority of the responsibilities for Agrolink while Ricardo is away. The amount of work obviously has me stressed, but it’s not what is pissing me off. It’s the fact that all of the other shareholders made a big stink about how I couldn’t have any responsibilities or take on clients in Ricardo’s absence because I wasn’t a formal shareholder and therefore didn’t have the right to receive any information. And then everyone discovered that it was easy to pass things off onto me, that I would follow-up and do a good job. That I am overly responsible and a perfectionist. All of a sudden it’s not a problem that I’m not a shareholder. Everyone is putting the most tedious, time-consuming tasks in my hands. Part of me is flattered by this; I wouldn’t have responsibilities if people didn’t think I was capable of doing a good job. But part of me is also pissed off. I want to turn to the people that made a fuss about how I shouldn’t be allowed to work on major projects and flat-out refuse to do what they’re asking.

I’m also in a bad mood because it’s cold as hell in Chimoio right now and I spend most of the day freezing. It reminds me of winter in Maringá. We have no heat in the house and I have to work and sleep totally bundled up. I’ve taken to draping myself in a blanket while I work at the dining room table, carrying it around with me like a cape every time I go to the kitchen or answer the phone. I sleep under three blankets with my red wool overcoat draped over me. I have to wear two pairs of socks so my toes don’t go numb. Thankfully we have hot water in the house, but it comes out of the showerhead in a slow trickle and only covers a small part of your body. As such, every time I take a shower I get goosebumps and end up even colder than when I started. I don’t have a hair dryer, either, so I have to let my hair air dry. I’m amazed that I haven’t gotten sick yet.

I hate having a maid. Okay, obviously I like the fact that I don’t have to do dishes or scrub the toilet, but I despise having someone in my space, messing with my things. I feel uncomfortable every time I am around our maids, resentful that I have no privacy. Dona Gina and Dona Margarida barely speak Portuguese. They survive on a meager salary. They scrub the floor with a sponge and hand-wash all of our clothes. They clean up after five white foreigners. I hate it all. I am filled with bourgie guilt every time they ask me for money to buy dried fish and maize meal for lunch. I feel terrible even complaining about the fact that they probably stole my clothes. These women need the money much more than I need the clothes; they have suffered already so much just by virtue of being Mozambican…but I’m resentful. I’m pissed off. This fucking sucks.

My back hurts. I sleep on a sad excuse for a mattress – it’s lumpy and the springs poke through what is left of the fabric cover, making it impossible to get a good night’s sleep. My work arrangement doesn’t help one bit. I sit in a plastic lawnchair and work on my laptop at the kitchen table. The chair is too low and the table way too high. My fingers fall asleep as I type. I’m getting ingrown hairs on the backs of my thighs because I sit all damn day. I can’t seem to stretch my back enough to make the aches go away.

Finally, I miss Ricardo. He has become a fundamental part of my life here in Chimoio, and I am counting the days until he returns from Brazil…Sigh.

Home (Alone) Again

I’m in a very comfortable place right now. It’s late. My favorite CD – An Afro-Portuguese Odyssey, a collection I picked up by chance in the Oakland Museum of Art several years ago – is playing in the background. I’m alone, a rare occurrence since I left Austin nearly 3 months ago. Everything has been wonderful since then, fast-paced and exhilarating, but it’s so nice to get some time to myself. Before coming to Africa I lived alone or with a cat as a roommate for nearly 7 years. I would sometimes pass an entire weekend at home without exchanging word with another person face-to-face, only realizing that I’d been isolated for days when, startled, I’d run into a neighbor at the mailbox and say hello. I loved my time alone…dancing to music in the living room, staying up until 4am on the computer, drinking wine, and working on art projects. Tonight is the first taste of that life I’ve had in quite a while, and it’s such a relief to be home.

I say that in the figurative sense, but it’s an even bigger relief to be physically home. Yes, our humble abode, the same place where this morning I found a 4 inch leech on the bathroom floor! Honestly, after the weekend I had a slimy, blood-sucking slug at 7am is no big deal.

It all started Friday with an *insane* day at work. Since Ricardo has been in Brazil I’ve basically been running Agrolink as all the other shareholders hold different full-time jobs. In addition to administrative tasks like going to the notary and renewing our Zimbabwean employee’s visa, I have been preparing a huge proposal and following up on current projects. I spent all day Friday with a very important client who is in the process of finishing the inception phase of a seed propagation project. Essentially, a crucial contract was supposed to be signed that afternoon to guarantee a donor contribution, and everything that could have possibly gone wrong along the way did. The afternoon went by in a blur between phone calls to banks in Holland, frantic interest rate calculations, and text messages to the client. By the end of the day I was totally frazzled, all vestiges of thought revolving around a double gin and tonic and my house slippers.

Instead of being able to sleep in and do away with some stress, I had to wake up early and get ready to travel to Espungabera. A good 6 hours away, Espungabera is a speck on the map in the mountains near the Zimbabwean border where we are working on a tea processing project. Agrolink is developing a deal with a potential client in the area, and we had a meeting scheduled for Sunday morning at 8am, with plenty of prep work still to be done in the meantime. Basically, I traveled over 560km in 2 days just for this meeting, a project left in my hands to develop while Ricardo is away.

The trip to Espungabera could have been straight out of a movie, one where things go from bad to worse to unbearable for the protagonist and you can’t help but laugh out loud at the whole bit. To start, we had to borrow a car for the trip, a beat-up old Land Cruiser that was used for several long years as an ambulance for the Mozambican Red Cross. A friend of ours picked up the wagon at an auction a while back and is now dying to sell it for any salvage value. The vehicle, which Ricardo and I affectionately baptized as the “Jipe de Guerra”, is a banged up old whale that has no shocks, no hand brake, no 2nd or 5th gears, no mirrors, no seat belts, no radio, and a diesel engine that blows black smoke at every turn. In any normal situation, driving the Jipe de Guerra along the nearly deserted road to Espungabera would be an unthinkable idea. This is Mozambique, though, and life here is governed by a different set of standards.

Before hitting the road, we had to search the entire town for an open shop where we could purchase 2 tires, a couple of liters of oil, and a jack. Poor Gemelli drove us around for nearly an hour before finding a makeshift stand where some guys were selling used tires and scraps of metal. We bought the necessary tools and two tires for $25, then headed home to fix up the car. The first big laugh of the day came when BL haphazardly unloaded the tires in the back yard right into a big pile of dog shit. Without noticing the mess below, he later picked up one of the tires and inadvertently smeared shit all over his hands. Disgusted, he threw the tire in the air and ran towards the garden hose to wash up. Not noticing what had happened, Gemelli made a mad dash to catch the tire in mid-air and ended up with his shirtfront and pants full of dog shit as well. I laughed uncontrollably from the front porch as the boys ran around the yard like a couple of spooked geese, squawking and wringing their hands in disgust.

We finally got on the road about 2pm, the start of bumpy, teeth-clenching ride that made me remember just how terrible travel can be. Everyone has a different tolerance for the “adventure factor” in a trip; in most cases, my standards are quite liberal, but there are a couple of situations that make me balk. High-speed driving along steep, curvy roads is one of them. Even more so if I’m in a decrepit vehicle on a dirt trail through the interior of Africa. Now I’m certainly not in a position to criticize anyone else’s abilities, but Gemelli drives like an absolute madman. He was right at home as the back side of the Land Cruiser skidded out of control, nearly sending us off the side of a huge cliff in the middle of an elephant reserve area. BL and I, on the other hand, were scared out of our minds. We pleaded with Gemelli to take it easy, but it took several hours and a miscalculated curve that sent us slamming into a sugarcane field for the message to sink in. I was near tears the entire time, praying to whatever being has protected me thus far to keep special watch over our car.

About halfway through the trip, there is a big river with no bridge. The dirt road comes abruptly to an end and all vehicles, livestock, and people have to pile onto a floating platform to get to the other side. The platform, o batelão, is powered by a manual cogwheel that takes three big Africans to spin and moves at a snail’s pace between the banks. We loaded onto the batelão and stared out at the shallow water, grateful for a break in the driving. The light over the river was incredible – it seemed like the sky was split directly above us, one half heavy with gray storm clouds, the other an intense, clear blue. The bottom portion of a rainbow had formed in each half and thin rays of sunlight shone over the platform, accompanying us across the water. BL and I took it as a sign that we would make it safely, aware though that it was still a good 2 hours to Espungabera and it was starting to rain…

Our backyard.

The front porch of our house.

Waiting to cross the Lucite river on the highway from Chimoio to Espungabera. No bridge, dirt road. Welcome to Africa.

Technology!!!

Sweet Jesus, we now have internet at home!!!!!! I shudder to think what the phone bill will be for our household of e-mail and messenger addicts.

I've been working out of our living room for the past week because Agrolink moved into a new office and we have no furniture yet. I have totally occupied the only large table in our house with my laptop, stacks of papers, and empty coffee mugs. Work has totally overrun my life, especially now that Ricardo is in Brazil for a month and I am responsible for fundraising, proposal writing, and all of the administrative aspects of the business. I'm literally in front of the computer from 9am to midnight! Now that I have the internet at my fingertips, this is bound to go from bad to worse.

In other news, Capitu, one of our three rhodesian ridebacks, is in heat. All of the dogs in the neighborhood are going nuts, barking long into the night and trying to find a way through the iron gate in front of the house. Paulo, our boy dog, is feeling like the king of the hill these days since he has Capitu all to himself. The other day he and Capitu were going at it and got "stuck" together. We had to throw bucket after bucket of cold water on the two dogs to get them to separate. I'm already imagining what life will be like with 5 flatmates, 3 adult dogs, and lots of little puppies!!!

Things I Miss

When I made the decision to move to Chimoio, I knew that I would miss a lot of things from "home". The strange thing is, you can never really anticipate what those little details will be. When I lived in Rio de Janeiro in 2000, I developed an insatiable craving for peanut butter. When my mom came to visit, she brought a family size jar of crunchy Jiffy and I ate it all in about 3 days. Straight from the jar, on bread, spread on apple slices - I couldn't get enough. Oddly enough, I never used to eat peanut butter back in the US and never in my wildest dreams would have anticipated a jar of Jiffy being the product I missed most from home.

A similar phenomenon is at work here in Mozambique. I find myself missing the oddest things...

I miss being able to make a shopping list. All of our groceries here come from Shoprite, a South African chain store that is surprisingly like a US supermarket. However, all of the products that make it to Shoprite Chimoio are rejects from the South African stores. You find the most bizzare items, most of which are already expired, and there is no consistency in terms of product availability. One week you find pretzels from Austria, lentils from India, and Cadburry's chocolate bars. The next, none of these items are available and in their place you find litchi juice, England's equivalent of Gatorade, and Pringles chips. It's literally impossible to plan out a meal in advance, much less create a list of necessary ingredients. You get what you can, and that's that.

I miss having an oven. Right now our kitchen is only equipped with two electric burners, severely limiting my culinary abilities. I must admit, though, that we are pretty creative when it comes to cooking. The other day I actually made flour tortillas from scratch and improvised the rest of the ingredients for a taco dinner!

I miss ready-to-brew Chai tea, Luna bars, Diet Coke, green chile, and pre-packaged tortillas. I really miss being able to go to Zen and get good japanese food to go. There are only a couple of restaurants in Chimoio, all of questionable quality.

I miss washing machines and dryers and dishwashers and hot water heaters. Predictable things to miss in a poorly developed country, but oooohhhhh do I long for a hot bath and fluffy towels!

And, of course, I miss having high speed internet access 24 hours a day in the comfort of my own home. Access here is precarious at best, and I'm having to learn new ways of keeping in touch without constant access to e-mail and unlimited cell phone minutes.

Most of all, I have realized that half of the things I brought with me on this trip are totally useless in Chimoio. I knew it would happen, but I am now kicking myself for not having been more practical in deciding what to bring and what to leave behind. Take, for example, the purse dillema. Having the right purse for the right outfit was *so* important in Austin, even more so in Rio. I struggled for hours trying to pack my suitcase; letting go of even one purse seemed like such a sacrifice. I finally narrowed it down to 6 purses, of which I have used 2 thus far. Truly ridiculous...