Reconnected

April 12, 2011

Hello from Maputo! I am currently at Reconnect conference with the other 22 MOZ15 Health volunteers. We are staying at Kaya Kwanga, the hotel where we spent our very first week in Mozambique. Last time we were confined within the hotel due to our lack of language skills, so it wasn’t until Jess and I arrived this Sunday that I realized that Kaya Kwanga is right next to the beach! I can’t believe that escaped my notice last time.

Then again, my first memories in Mozambique were kind of a blur. As Jess and I traveled through the city this weekend, we talked about all the things we missed the first time around: murals, statues, significant buildings and landmarks. With the help of a basic tourist map, I’m finally beginning to feel somewhat oriented in the big city.

Jess and I had an overall great Sunday together. We left Chibuto at 6am and got into Maputo at 9:30am, making good time and beating the Sunday traffic. We checked into the hotel, found out we were the first ones of MOZ 15 to arrive, and promptly left on a search for Thai food. The restaurant was closed, so we settled for pizza and hamburgers (YUM). Afterwards, we visited the Craft Fair, which was both amazing and dangerous …for someone who likes to shop. The government has set aside this park for all the street vendors and artisans to sell their wares, so once you walk in you’re greeted by rows and rows of flashy boutiks and paintings, colorful capulana clothes and bags, and intricate wood carvings and jewelry. It’s a little overwhelming because while there’s so much to look at, many of the vendors are selling the same (or similar) things. I bought two small boutiks, a beautiful (and expensive) floor-length capulana dress, and some wood earrings/ accessories.

Afterwards, Jess and I walked along the Marginal (the path parallel to the beach) and checked out even more capulana wares on the side of the road. I bought a coconut for 15 mets (approx. 50 cents) and drank the juice through a straw. Then the kid who was selling them hacked open the coconut with a machete and I sat on the beach eating the white coconut flesh inside. Tough life.

Seeing all the other volunteers after four months, was of course very exciting. There was a lot of hugging and exclaims of “How ARE you?? How is site?” Together we reminisced about our previous experience at Kaya Kwanga, and oohed and aahed over the buffets of food set before us as if we haven’t had a full meal in months. (Being at an all-expenses paid for conference means three meals a day plus two teatime/snacks!)

The conference itself, not so thrilling. To transition from life at site, to 8am-5:30pm days full of Peace Corps policy, Monitoring & Evaluation, Volunteer Report Forms… Exhausting. But I won’t go into the boring stuff.

The second night, we all got to attend the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary celebration at the Ambassador’s house. We dressed up and took a private chapa (not quite a limo, but hey!) to her beautiful house, mingled, listened to several speeches, and took advantage of the free wine. (I personally love white wine, which is hard to find in Mozambique and even harder to find chilled.) I had three glasses but several of my rowdier peers were guzzling theirs down like water. I know of at least one volunteer who had 8 or 9 glasses. As poor Peace Corps volunteers in the company of wealthy ex-pats, we were also the only ones crowding around the appetizer plates being passed around, unabashedly taking two or three vegetable skewers or carne asada bites at a time. Very classy.

A few days into the conference, Peace Corps discovered that they were being charged money for the Internet that we were using in the conference room, so they cut that off really quick, without giving us advance notice. Many of us had set Skype dates with friends and family back home and were forced to scramble throughout the hotel looking for a connection. The network closest to my room works only on the other side of the building, so I have spent my past couple mornings and evenings outside with my computer. I get eaten alive by mosquitoes (Maputo has a LOT) but it’s worth it to chat.

We were told that Peace Corps funding has been on a slippery slope lately, so I guess for future conferences I can look forward to more sagging bunk beds, 4 to a room, and sitting outside on the ground to use the web.