People will tell you that African Time means that everything happens three hours later than it's supposed to. That's a misconception. African Time means that everything takes three hours longer than it ought to. Here's how.
My counterpart and I were visiting drop-in centres today. The plan was that we would go today, tomorrow, and Friday, visiting probably about five centres a day in our quest to eventually visit each centre three times (by the way, we're still on the first round). We were supposed to meet up as usual at seven-thirty in front of Mopani Spar, the grocery store near the taxi rank.
Usually something happens to foil this. Sometimes, my counterpart is late. Sometimes, my supervisor, whose car we use, is late. Sometimes, everyone is actually on time but we spend an hour at the office for unknown reasons. Because I take public transportation and know that my options are fifteen minutes early or twenty minutes late, I'm usually fifteen minutes early (sleep deprivation by the end of the week may make it my fault we're late this Friday, though). Today, they were both late. More accurately, my supervisor was with the car (and my host mom, so I should've seen this coming) in Malamulele, a town to the north of here, and didn't get in until around nine. My counterpart however did not see this coming and was going to meet them at the office and then pick me up in town. In fairness, she called me when she realized this was going to take longer than expected, about fifteen minutes after our meeting time. Oh, by the way, it's the dead of winter here and I was cold.
Fortunately I was very bundled up, had a magazine, and there weren't any random people to harass me because nobody was at Mopani Spar because it was on fire on Monday. Yep. People told me it burned down and I imagined ashes on the ground, but actually they put it out before it got to that stage. Word is it will be closed for two months at least, which leaves me with the dilemma of where to buy groceries, but that's another story. Anyway, as far as standing in the cold on random sidewalks go, it wasn't that bad. I anticipate these things now.
Elisa at last did arrive, around nine (did I mention I woke up at six? I did. That's sleep I could have had), and we drove off to fill up with petrol. While at the filling station, she mentions, oh by the way, we can't do site visits tomorrow, Queen (my supervisor) needs to car to go to a meeting in Polokwane. I kinda saw this coming, too. Last time we had three days of site visits scheduled we missed the middle one because it was Election Day (that one we really should've seen coming). We need to schedule three days just to assure we'll get one.
And then we drove to the first site, Loloka. Not only does this involve driving out of town and eventually turning onto dirt roads that have bumps on their bumps, we also don't actually know where the drop-in centre is, so we have to keep stopping to ask people. Sometimes the people jump in the car with us and give us directions from the backseat. This happens pretty much every time. I'm still impressed that Elisa knows where all the villages are, since some of them have some pretty gnarly turnoffs from the main road.
When we do arrive, we are greeted either with great excitement or bewilderment. Both of these are time-consuming. If it's great excitement, we have to sit around and greet each and every person individually. There is small talk. If it's bewilderment, underlings (carers and cooks) get on the phone with or send a small child off to find the supervisors who have all of the documents, etc. that we want to see. Then, we do the actual evaluations, which takes maybe half an hour, including going over the most egregious things that can be corrected. Like totaling income and expenditures to get a balance, grr, did you not go to the financial management course or did the trainers decide to skip the most important part or just screw it up /rant. After that, we are fed. Tea and bread, cold drink and pap, whatever. We are guests and therefore we must be fed. I don't eat actual meals at home on site visit days, the five meals I eat during the visits are pretty hard on my stomach. Then there are lengthy farewells, and at last we leave, to repeat the cycle again, driving a ways to the next village over.
Just when I think it's about to end, it's not. Today, we were driving back to Giyani and we passed a bunch of people from two other drop-in centres walking by the side of the road. So we stopped for twenty minutes to hang out by the side of the road with them. Which was perfectly entertaining. But that is why everything takes longer in Africa.
On the way home, we decided we would do site visits tomorrow anyway using public transportation. I'm excited to see how that will add a new wrinkle to the experience.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Kitchen Update
pieces, like a roof and doors and window panes, but I think it's
starting to look pretty good.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Water
The water has been off in my village since Monday. Water has been a problem this year in the Giyani area; in town, the water is often off several days a week, and recently it has been off for about two weeks straight. Usually it is more reliable in my village, where it only goes off occasionally, and then usually only for one or two days, but right now it's the height of the dry season. The water was off for about a week around this time last year, too. This year is even drier, since during the rainy season the rain started late and wasn't as plentiful as usual when it did at last begin; our mango trees consequently produced barely any fruit, and the dam near Thomo is nearly dry.
Even though the pipes that bring water have been dry, there is still water available to me. Because this happens occasionally, my host family (and most people who live here) are prepared and keep several barrels and buckets full of water to use as a back up source. We're more frugal when the water's off, of course, which means forgoing laundry and less bathing. Fortunately I did my enormous backlog of laundry just a couple days before the water went off, so I'm okay on that front, though my hair really needs to be washed. After a week our water supplies are pretty depleted, but we refilled them yesterday thanks to a neighbor with a car who took all of our barrels somewhere where the water was working; still, we're hoping that the water comes back on shortly...and that it's a rainier season this year.
Even though the pipes that bring water have been dry, there is still water available to me. Because this happens occasionally, my host family (and most people who live here) are prepared and keep several barrels and buckets full of water to use as a back up source. We're more frugal when the water's off, of course, which means forgoing laundry and less bathing. Fortunately I did my enormous backlog of laundry just a couple days before the water went off, so I'm okay on that front, though my hair really needs to be washed. After a week our water supplies are pretty depleted, but we refilled them yesterday thanks to a neighbor with a car who took all of our barrels somewhere where the water was working; still, we're hoping that the water comes back on shortly...and that it's a rainier season this year.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Vacation Roundup
I wrote this post in Word at the office, and then when I went to save it, Word ate it. It was a really long post, and I had some other stuff written that also got eaten, so this version (being written directly into the website) may end up being a bit shorter. I know--how does Word eat documents as you're trying to save them? Because of virus-riddled South African computers, that's why.
Anyway, I began vacation in Maputo, where we wandered around and only managed to accomplish about half the things we intended to but still had a great time. It was a Monday, when the museums are closed, so the Natural History Museum was tightly gated shut; the Art Museum, on the other hand, had somebody there who would let you in for a nominal bribe. And the art was well worth it. We got horribly lost on the way to the fish market, but spent a nice hour wandering through the central market and buying immense quantities of fresh produce, including the first cilantro I've seen for sale in a year and a half. So instead of fish, we had delicious guacamole and very rich pastries (bought from one of the 5 million bakeries in Mozambique) and some other mezze for dinner).
After Maputo, we headed up to Vilankulos, which turned out to be a much longer drive than we had anticipated. My fault, I didn't realize how much the pothole obstacle course would slow us down. We got in well after dark and then got lost in Vilankulos looking for the backpackers, since Mozambique is very poorly signposted and the map in Lonely Planet is basically like navigating off of a globe. So we ended up parking near some distinctive statuary and calling the backpackers, which sent someone to guide us the rest of the way.
The next day, we had a relaxing morning sleeping on the beach. Well, relaxing except for the horde of dogs that tried to have a fight on our beach towels and spent the day stalking us, begging for morsels of our fruit (we didn't have any food that should have been appetizing to dogs, I swear. It was all fruit and chocolate). At last somebody from a nearby bar/restaurant chased them away for us, and I attempted to read but promptly fell asleep while E and Milenka went wading in the ocean and had a fun brush with death (Milenka can't swim). It was wonderful to sit on a beach. About four days in, I finally felt like I was on vacation--not to say I wasn't having fun already, I just didn't feel like I was actually on vacation yet. That afternoon, we rode camels. Seriously. Evidently there was a Sudanese guy who brought some camels with him when he emigrated and runs half hour rides on them now. Camel riding on a beach, after you get over the initial fear of death, is quite fun.
For day two in Vilankulo, we took a dhow, which is like a sailboat, out to the Bazaruto Archipelago, where we went snorkeling and had some amazing fresh crab and fish. It was beautiful out there, though the current was overly swift and instead of gently floating through the fish it was more like speed cruising through the water while straining your eyes to make sure to see all of the cool sealife as you careen past, while also trying to avoid running directly into the 8 million jellyfish the current seems to want you to accost. No stings, though I had some still-healing wounds from scraping against the coral. We spent that evening wandering around for about two hours looking for a restaurant that was open and had food, the latter being a much more difficult prospect than you would think.
After Vilankulo, we headed down to Tofo, which involved another insanely long day of driving. However, we didn't get lost on the way and we made it into the backpackers before dark (though the previous entry's photos were taken later that day in the backpacker's parking lot). We also found the bread shack that day, which listed donuts on its menu, a very exciting prospect, but they turned out to just be fat cakes with fillings. The bread was great, though. The next day, we went whale shark watching. It started with an ocean launch, which involves pushing a motor boat into the ocean and then hopping in while it is getting ready to start motoring rapidly against the waves, and then riding on the side while it rocks back and forth wildly on the water. No seatbelts, terrifying, and not a little nausea-inducing. Lots of fun though. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy which made it difficult to see any whale sharks in the water, so we didn't spot any. There were many, many dolphins out frolicking, though, so we jumped in the water to snorkel with them instead. Well worth it.
After the whale shark watching, we went down to the market in Tofo which sold textiles rather than fresh produce and was a lot of fun to walk around. Combined, E and Milenka are fantastic bargainers, and I got to reap the bounty of their skills. We also had lunch at a little hole in the wall restaurant that served fantastic tasting and fantastically cheap shrimp. Mmm.
The next stop was Swaziland, so we wished Mozambique farewell--which, as always, took a lot longer than expected since the drive took twenty million hours and included bribing a cop, buying strange fuzzy fruit, and getting lost looking for the border--but we made it into Swaziland before the border closed. Seriously, finding the border was a lot trickier than expected. Have I mentioned yet that Mozambique was really poorly-signposted? Also, the last stage involved driving through a tree farm. No joking. Now, Lonely Planet's map of Swaziland is a lot less globe-like than their Mozambique map, in no small part because Swaziland's map covers a much smaller area in the same sized page, and it is infinitely better signposted (they also have a strange obsession with speed bumps, which we experienced in a number of different flavors, none of which were potholes [Mozambique] or cows [South Africa]). We still got lost on the way to the backpackers. This was because it was dark, the map of Swaziland is still like finding a particular hotel on a page-sized map of Massachusetts, the Coast to Coast directions are usually only penetrable if you already know where you're going, and we were really tired. But we pulled into a restaurant and got surprisingly good directions, after which we found the backpackers. We then drove back to that restaurant for dinner, before watching Brazil humiliatingly defeat the US in the Confederation's Cup semifinals. Eish, we were up three when we left the restaurant! What happened?
We considered going back to the same restaurant for breakfast, but sadly it was closed. However, it worked out for the best, because it turned out there was a great coffee shop further down the road. We needed to get to the South Africa border before it closed at 4 pm, so we had an activity-packed morning and managed to get everything we wanted to done in record time: hearty breakfast-eating, craft-shopping, museum-visiting, and hot springs-swimming, where we attempted to teach Milenka to swim (see pictures). As expected, it took twice as long to get to the border as we had expected, but now that we know to expect it, we made it in plenty of time.
Farewell, Swaziland. Farewell, Mozambique. I really love both countries, and would love to go back...or transfer to there...but probably won't get a chance to before my service is over. Oh, final note: fun game to play while driving through Mozambique? Spot the Peace Corps Volunteers. They're the white people jogging by the side of the tar road with their iPods.
Anyway, I began vacation in Maputo, where we wandered around and only managed to accomplish about half the things we intended to but still had a great time. It was a Monday, when the museums are closed, so the Natural History Museum was tightly gated shut; the Art Museum, on the other hand, had somebody there who would let you in for a nominal bribe. And the art was well worth it. We got horribly lost on the way to the fish market, but spent a nice hour wandering through the central market and buying immense quantities of fresh produce, including the first cilantro I've seen for sale in a year and a half. So instead of fish, we had delicious guacamole and very rich pastries (bought from one of the 5 million bakeries in Mozambique) and some other mezze for dinner).
After Maputo, we headed up to Vilankulos, which turned out to be a much longer drive than we had anticipated. My fault, I didn't realize how much the pothole obstacle course would slow us down. We got in well after dark and then got lost in Vilankulos looking for the backpackers, since Mozambique is very poorly signposted and the map in Lonely Planet is basically like navigating off of a globe. So we ended up parking near some distinctive statuary and calling the backpackers, which sent someone to guide us the rest of the way.
The next day, we had a relaxing morning sleeping on the beach. Well, relaxing except for the horde of dogs that tried to have a fight on our beach towels and spent the day stalking us, begging for morsels of our fruit (we didn't have any food that should have been appetizing to dogs, I swear. It was all fruit and chocolate). At last somebody from a nearby bar/restaurant chased them away for us, and I attempted to read but promptly fell asleep while E and Milenka went wading in the ocean and had a fun brush with death (Milenka can't swim). It was wonderful to sit on a beach. About four days in, I finally felt like I was on vacation--not to say I wasn't having fun already, I just didn't feel like I was actually on vacation yet. That afternoon, we rode camels. Seriously. Evidently there was a Sudanese guy who brought some camels with him when he emigrated and runs half hour rides on them now. Camel riding on a beach, after you get over the initial fear of death, is quite fun.
For day two in Vilankulo, we took a dhow, which is like a sailboat, out to the Bazaruto Archipelago, where we went snorkeling and had some amazing fresh crab and fish. It was beautiful out there, though the current was overly swift and instead of gently floating through the fish it was more like speed cruising through the water while straining your eyes to make sure to see all of the cool sealife as you careen past, while also trying to avoid running directly into the 8 million jellyfish the current seems to want you to accost. No stings, though I had some still-healing wounds from scraping against the coral. We spent that evening wandering around for about two hours looking for a restaurant that was open and had food, the latter being a much more difficult prospect than you would think.
After Vilankulo, we headed down to Tofo, which involved another insanely long day of driving. However, we didn't get lost on the way and we made it into the backpackers before dark (though the previous entry's photos were taken later that day in the backpacker's parking lot). We also found the bread shack that day, which listed donuts on its menu, a very exciting prospect, but they turned out to just be fat cakes with fillings. The bread was great, though. The next day, we went whale shark watching. It started with an ocean launch, which involves pushing a motor boat into the ocean and then hopping in while it is getting ready to start motoring rapidly against the waves, and then riding on the side while it rocks back and forth wildly on the water. No seatbelts, terrifying, and not a little nausea-inducing. Lots of fun though. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy which made it difficult to see any whale sharks in the water, so we didn't spot any. There were many, many dolphins out frolicking, though, so we jumped in the water to snorkel with them instead. Well worth it.
After the whale shark watching, we went down to the market in Tofo which sold textiles rather than fresh produce and was a lot of fun to walk around. Combined, E and Milenka are fantastic bargainers, and I got to reap the bounty of their skills. We also had lunch at a little hole in the wall restaurant that served fantastic tasting and fantastically cheap shrimp. Mmm.
The next stop was Swaziland, so we wished Mozambique farewell--which, as always, took a lot longer than expected since the drive took twenty million hours and included bribing a cop, buying strange fuzzy fruit, and getting lost looking for the border--but we made it into Swaziland before the border closed. Seriously, finding the border was a lot trickier than expected. Have I mentioned yet that Mozambique was really poorly-signposted? Also, the last stage involved driving through a tree farm. No joking. Now, Lonely Planet's map of Swaziland is a lot less globe-like than their Mozambique map, in no small part because Swaziland's map covers a much smaller area in the same sized page, and it is infinitely better signposted (they also have a strange obsession with speed bumps, which we experienced in a number of different flavors, none of which were potholes [Mozambique] or cows [South Africa]). We still got lost on the way to the backpackers. This was because it was dark, the map of Swaziland is still like finding a particular hotel on a page-sized map of Massachusetts, the Coast to Coast directions are usually only penetrable if you already know where you're going, and we were really tired. But we pulled into a restaurant and got surprisingly good directions, after which we found the backpackers. We then drove back to that restaurant for dinner, before watching Brazil humiliatingly defeat the US in the Confederation's Cup semifinals. Eish, we were up three when we left the restaurant! What happened?
We considered going back to the same restaurant for breakfast, but sadly it was closed. However, it worked out for the best, because it turned out there was a great coffee shop further down the road. We needed to get to the South Africa border before it closed at 4 pm, so we had an activity-packed morning and managed to get everything we wanted to done in record time: hearty breakfast-eating, craft-shopping, museum-visiting, and hot springs-swimming, where we attempted to teach Milenka to swim (see pictures). As expected, it took twice as long to get to the border as we had expected, but now that we know to expect it, we made it in plenty of time.
Farewell, Swaziland. Farewell, Mozambique. I really love both countries, and would love to go back...or transfer to there...but probably won't get a chance to before my service is over. Oh, final note: fun game to play while driving through Mozambique? Spot the Peace Corps Volunteers. They're the white people jogging by the side of the tar road with their iPods.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Adventures of Chico Rojo
On this past vacation, my friends and I rented a little car we referred to affectionately as "Chico Rojo." Chico was a little car, untested and new to the ways of the world. Chico did not like Mozambique at first. Mozambique's roads are kind of like driving on tetris blocks, if tetris also had crazy people trying to commit suicide using your car. But Chico grew up during his trip to Mozambique. Chico became strong and arrogant. And then, the Bamboozi parking lot happened to him. Here is Chico Rojo, stuck in the sand at Tofo, with Milenka trying to push him out:
Here is a close up of Rojito's wheels:
We put our heads together. How could we possibly save our darling Rojito? And then inspiration struck! We would use the carpet trick, except instead of carpet on the snow, we would use palm leaves and coconut shells on the sand!
Victory!
The pit Chico left behind:
The second time Chico Rojo got stuck (also in Tofo), we didn't have time to find palm leaves before some Afrikaners on vacation came by and latched Chico to their tail and pulled him out. No pictures of that one, sorry.
Here is a close up of Rojito's wheels:
We put our heads together. How could we possibly save our darling Rojito? And then inspiration struck! We would use the carpet trick, except instead of carpet on the snow, we would use palm leaves and coconut shells on the sand!
Victory!
The pit Chico left behind:
The second time Chico Rojo got stuck (also in Tofo), we didn't have time to find palm leaves before some Afrikaners on vacation came by and latched Chico to their tail and pulled him out. No pictures of that one, sorry.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Pictures from Vacation
Here are my pictures from vacation to Mozambique and Swaziland:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/MozSwaz
I've also added more pictures to my album from Kruger National Park:
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