New Years and black magic

Fourth week at site finds me in relatively low spirits. Im still in a state of transition, moving from Erica/ Alycia's house to my own, but the process is taking considerably longer than I anticipated. My empregada failed to show up this week to carry my water, and the bed frame I was promised would be ready to deliver by Thursday has been continuously delayed. I feel personally that I have tried to expedite forward motion, making necessary phone calls and going to the city frequently (each time a trip that takes up most of the day), but that circumstances beyond my control ('Oh, we are not selling what you're looking for this week. Next week.') or the lack of motivation of others ('I just started making your bed frame yesterday, but of course it will be ready by today! Absolutely today.' [bold faced lie]) keeps me from getting anything done. The lack of progress disheartens and frustrates me to no end, the constant sense of having nothing to yet having things that need doing.
One of my saving graces has been the friendship of the Japanese volunteer Yoko who lives next door to Erica/alycia. She is part of JICA (essentially Japanese Peace Corps) and has already been here 9 months.
On New Years, she and Jess (the Moz15 volunteer in Chibuto) came over to my house to cook dinner, making it the first time I cooked at my house, the first time I had visitors, and the first night I spent at my own house. A big night :) The bedframe's failure to arrive meant that I had to lower the mosquito net to the floor to cover the mattress on the ground. Every time I crawl in, I feel like im inside my own little fort. It's not bad, at least this space is my own.
Anyway, for dinner we made stir fry with carrots, okra, eggplant, onion, and pumpkin, and also spaghetti with a garlic tomato sauce. Just as we were finishing up cooking on the electric stove, the electricity went out (putting a thankful cease to the neighbors' competing loud music) and we ate outside and drank a bottle of champagne while looking up at the stars. It was actually a very nice way to ring in 2011.
Yesterday Yoko and I attended a neighborhood meeting, which was held under the shade of a cashew tree. In the middle of the meeting (held completely in Changana) a cashew fruit fell from the tree and clocked me on the back, startling and surprisingly painful. If you've never seen a cashew fruit, it's pretty ugly. The precious cashew nut is encased in a hard gray shell that sprouts like a wart from the top of a red/pink fruit resembling a small soft apple.
After the meeting Yoko and I requested a quick translation of the meeting, and we were explained the following: A man from another city had just moved in to a house on our street a few days ago, and it was discovered that he had been doing bad things in the other city. He was a 'feiteceiro,' a malicious wizard who had been harming others by putting crocodiles in the community's water source. So, the police had come looking for him yesterday and he was supposedly on the run. But the purpose of the meeting was to unite against this evil man and drive him away from the community, if he ever returns.
Well, as Yoko and I ate dinner that evening, there came a knock at the door, the neighbor girl coming to tell us it's time to go. Go where? Go to the feiteceiro's house because he has returned.
A crowd had already formed in the central meeting place, a lot of anxiety in the air, people blowing whistles. We watched from a distance, on Yoko's front porch. But... Nothing happened. People started trickling home. We finally went to ask what was going on, and they told us the man himself had come to the meeting and they had told him to leave the city and not come back.
This morning, all is right in the world again. Everyone milling about as usual, women carrying 25L jugs of water effortlessly on their heads.
All I can say is, African communities have a strange and independent sense of justice. They will do a similar thing with a thief or criminal in the community, ban together and beat him up.
Another exciting incident earlier in the week: I almost burned down Erica/alycia's kitchen when the capulana curtains met the gas stove. Luckily, a Peace Corps staff member had just arrived to deliver something to me and he swiftly put out the fire by shutting off and disconnecting the gas stove (duh, and why didn't I think of that?) Where's my firefighter boyfriend when I need him?
Now I need to get the charred window screens replaced, just another thing on my to-do and to-buy lists. This, my friends, is why I have an electric stove. I am far too accident prone for gas.
Aside from that, not much else going on. Keep hoping it will rain so I can have water at my house, but it's been such a tease. Five minutes of rain will barely get the bottom of your bucket wet.
Im headed to the city today to run a bunch of errands and hopefully shake the carpenter down for that damn bed frame and table.
I hope you all had a wonderful new years!