As we drive out of the bustling capitol city of Gaborone (on the luxurious bus known as the Intercape –similar to a Greyhound- or as it will remain in my memory, “the magic bus”) on our way to Jo-burg for the first leg of our vacation, my Peace Corps buddies and I paused to reflect. We had all immediately upon meeting expunged some of what I’ve come to think of as typical “toxicity” complaining about our sites and cultural struggles. We were ready for a break. Don’t get me wrong, the people I was with love villages the way I love Seronga. If anyone talked a word of smack about any of the places we’ve come to think of as home (other than ourselves of course) we’d go rounds like the “Sharks and Jets”. Existing in a foreign culture is a constant internal fugue of a battle between indignation, acceptance, understanding, and striving for change. My friend A captured it exactly when she stated “I’m just ready to be confused and slightly offended by a new and different African culture and language for a while.” She certainly called that one.
As we crossed the border (and event marked by the introduction of a young man whom shall remain known as the Mexican Harry Potter- he turns up later in the story) for the first time in nearly 9 months to South Africa, vacation officially began. It was weird to retrace our steps from when we first got here and the people we were then. As we got nearer to Jo-Burg we noticed McDonalds and other cosmopolitan establishments, and the kind of scenery that totally resembles places in Arizona or California. You could have totally told me that’s where we were and I might have believed you. These things hadn’t struck us the first time through when we were green off the plane. Back then I was busy waxing poetic about the red dust of Africa (which incidentally is not very common in my new home of Botswana… The dirt is nearly white in Gumare but that is as close to interesting dirt as I’ve come across here…) to notice that the “villages” we were driving through would now strike me as incredibly suburban…
To be in a major (sorry Gabs) capitol city for the first time in nearly a year was incredibly weird. It was like stepping out of the life I know I live for some strange alternate reality. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, it was way easier to do than I thought it would be. We had great food in Joburg, I got my hair cut (I cannot tell you how exciting that was!! A shoulder massage by the shampoo lady! I was nearly brought to tears by the “almost Aveda” scent permeating the air…) and we were again on our way. It was strange to be able to speak English and realize everyone would automatically understand you, and I found my Setswinglish phrases hard to completely let go of. It got worse the farther from home we got.
The next day we again took another magic bus (with movies and air conditioning! What!?!) and as we crossed the border to Mozambique what began as a light drizzle became a deluge of rain shortly before we reached Maputo. The bus broke down (only for about an hour and a half) and in flooded streets we arrived at our backpackers. A was now coming a bit out of her Bendryl induced coma to enjoy the festivities. We could find nothing but soggy burgers and Fanta to compliment the diet of Fanta and bread that we had been enjoying all day to this point, but it was all still in good fun. The landscape had come to be increasingly tropical and beautiful and more closely resembling my preconceived notions of what I thought Africa would look like pre-PC. It was the next morning that we entered the hell bus portion of our journey.
The next leg of our journey is a bit traumatizing to recount and large gaps have likely been struck from the record that is my memory, but I’ll just say that it put my 14 hour overnight Semanta Santa Barcelona to Seville trip to shame. The highlights were being able to buy some fresh fruit that must be some member of the mango family from the aisle of the bus and then having standing-while-the-bus-is-moving-over-horrifying-flooded-out-ruts contests with A once the crowd thinned out after our bus change during the last four hour leg of the trip. I now realize that I am completely amiss in calling the 10.5 hour bus trip from Maun to Gabs the “dehydration express.” I have now realized that the Vilanculous Express is the rightful holder of that title as there is only 1 sanctioned potty break, and no hoof and mouth gates or ID check points on which to relieve oneself. What a new and fun learning experience!
It was once we arrived in Vilanculous that the translation fun for which this blog entry is titled occurred. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese. Which I’ve heard resembles Spanish. When I was in Costa Rica for two weeks in high school I was dreaming in Spanish so I figured this would be easy! In my own mind I am still very able to pick up languages quite easily (with of course the exclusion of the Bantu family of languages which I’ve determined I have little hope of ever understanding). I was ready for this challenge.
Walking along the streets of Vilanculous a strange thing happened. I started hearing select words in Setswana. What??!! This is impossible. I determined that this must be the local tribal language. (Which I have since been told does not resemble Setswana in the slightest.) Oh boy. I was hearing this craziness and continuously reconfirming with C- she was having none of my delusion. Upon arriving in Moz, we would often try to speak English, or when the locals appeared to be confused by that, we would go for the ever less likely option of Setswana. In an irony befitting of these conditions I could not evoke the Spanish that danced like sugarplums in my head for all of pre service training and prohibited my intake of Setswana. By the end of the trip I was speaking a very poor combination of Setswana, English, Ubonicks and Spanish complimented by sweeping gestures that might resemble Central Asian Sign Language.
At one point I decided to delve completely into “cultural integration” and thought it would be entertaining to learn to say “two headless hammerheaded sharks” in the local language. (We had found them on the beach. It made sense at the time.) We were lucky in several instances to have with us our very own Mexicans, (it seems we again ran into our buddy the Mexican Harry Potter from Jo-Burg and adopted him and his sister into our motley crew) who in addition to providing us the idea of “an hour without a Mexican” (a play on the title of a film a few years back with great concept and crap execution) that we constantly made fun of… and to translate the Portuguese (and our crazy American demands- sometimes in places where you can walk into an actual restaurant you get crazy expectations in your head about what might be a reasonable request-no onions?) with their Spanish skillz.
One thing I unexpectedly, (but happily) got a vacation from was my status as “strange white rich person”. One of the first things I noticed as we disembarked in Vilanculous was that no one was staring at us because we are white. It took me a while to settle back into the policy of not greeting every single person that walked by me. When the Mozambicans did approach us, it was rarely to beg, more often it was to sell us something they had made or caught. I noticed that they addressed us with the inclusive salutation of “my sister” rather than the exclusive “Lekgowa” which emphasizes our differences. Several times we asked people to help us find something, which in Botswana (for me at least) can often end with a held out hand, whereas in Mozambique it was just a wave and a smile. Now I realize the grass is always greener, but I left feeling distinctly jealous of Peace Corps Vilanculous.
All this aside, I am happy to be back in Seronga. People greeted me in my village like I had been gone for decades, and immediately set about teaching me how to say in “compliments of the New Year” in Setswana. At least there are always some places one knows what to expect…
Showing posts with label mozambican adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mozambican adventure. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mo Mesticals, Mo Problems: Tales of a Mozambican Adventure
Mo mesticals, mo problems: Tales of a Mozambican Adventure
In retrospect, it was my own fault…..
A and C had announced their intention to do a Christmas/New Years Mozambique holiday back in September, and I was honored to be on the invite list. Along with Rainbow Brite, there were four of us, and this is, in my humble opinion, absolutely the only number of humans with which to travel. Two and you might get sick of each other, 3 you’re likely to have an odd one out, any more than 4 and there’s no chance of fitting in one room together, and finding enough bus seats is a trauma. This way we can split into twos and everyone is nearly always happy.
I told them I wouldn’t be able to really help with the planning of the vacation (what with all my copious amounts of internet time I simply cannot imagine why not) but promised to be thrilled with whatever they came up with so long as it encompassed a beach (and seafood). I let them know I trusted them completely and told them to tell me when and where to show up and who to cut a check to.
In retrospect the bright side of the needle stick incident (and let’s all remember, there’s a positive side to every situation, and I’m thankful that this one did not end in a positive HIV status!!!) is that I was able to have one of the most productive days in the last 6 months of my life while in Gabs- I got my passport visa for Mozambique (as well as my replacement mouth guard… what what!) and many other errands done. The visa business is the only reason I had any idea when we were even going to be in another country. I heard about the name of the village location I would be staying at from another PCV completely as there was another group going to Mozambique during that time and she had spoken with Rainbow Brite about our itinerary.
I’ve discovered that this is the type of traveler I occasionally like to be (Although I tend to be the tour guide Nazi with my mom and sister. I have also been blessed to find enough friends who like planning trips in my life that many times I’ve been able to just exist in a state of ignorance and show up with a smile and some sunscreen). I seem to like the element of surprise on my holidays. Just showing up and doing whatever I’m told to do and I’ve been generally thrilled with the results. This might sound lazy of me (and of that fact you would be correct…) but every ship can only have so many captains and I always thought I looked better in the Skipper’s stripes!
So what is the point of confessing my deepest darkest travel secrets to the world via this blog, besides of course providing you all with cheap laughs(?) I felt I must give you some background from which to understand what occurred on the Mozambican holiday.
So off I go, eager for my adventure to a country I knew nothing about. In my defense I did buy a travel magazine with the word Mozambique in big bold type on the cover- the pictures were beautiful- but I didn’t really get around to opening the free with purchase map or reading any of the articles until we were well into the country. I certainly wasn’t as prepared as A, who had compiled a list of useful phrases in Portuguese such as, “Am I being arrested?” and “Are you married?” She also took it upon herself to figure out the details of the currency exchange rates, and I have to tell you, by the time we crossed customs in Mozambique and were withdrawing what ended up being the fourth currency we were operating in from the cash machine (the first three were Pula, Rand, and American dollars) we were having a challenge finding the correct coins and bills to buy a drink. They had started mentioning the Mozambican money back at a bar in Jo-Burg, (I’m of the belief that they may have specifically waited for me to be a bit off my game…) and they quickly informed me (before hiding their grins behind their hands) that the currency of Mozambique was the “mestical.”
Yup that rhymes with exactly the male body part that is immediately brought to mind when the word is said out loud. (Pause for you to try it. Ok. Moving on). They let this little joke ride just long enough for actual learning to occur in my brain, and I was stuck with it for vacation. When I couldn’t manage to make my brain evoke mestical, I usually came up with metrical, madrigal, or magical. None, of course, which are correct. (the currency of Mozambique is called the meticais, although for your next Mozambican holiday I recommend using mestical for it’s hilarity inducing properties. Hell, use it for the currency for your next vacation to Mexico. It’s funny!) It became a running joke through the holiday, bartering with the locals in mesticals, (we undoubtedly got screwed left and right on this one), making bets and dares in increments of 100,000 mesticals, (the exchange rate is 24 to 1 with the American dollar) and making up rap song titles using our new beloved currency.
Now why where would we get the idea what we could use mesticals as the theme for song titles you ask? Well this stems from the incident in which I may have accidentally cut my head on the gate that stood between me and the beach at the backpackers we were staying at. It was a tricky descent to navigate when sober, in the daylight when it was dry, so it was completely understandable that the rainy and wet, dark, slightly intoxicated conditions I was operating under I may have slipped. The cut was tiny, but the next morning I made the joke that I had given myself a “Drunken Gash.” Now if this isn’t the perfect name for a band I’m not sure what is!?! I may have even seen them on MTV during my formative years of hair bands and sad country music!
The band idea was provoked by the entertainment at the bar and restaurant we stopped by after our amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (I swear I may have died and gone to heaven. Fancy, nice food, Edith Piaf on the stereo, my girls around me, it was amazing!!!) was this South African chick with fluorescent Barbie inspired extensions in her hair singing covers to bad 80’s songs to a karaoke machine. She even had wardrobe changes. We speculated that she might belong on a cruise ship somewhere and immediately decided to form our own band of us doing covers of her covers. The marketing joke for this particular idea was to give away a free bottle of Arby’s Horsy Sauce to anyone who bought a copy of our first CD, which would be recorded live at TGI Fridays. I have to say that one of the most entertaining parts of this vacation was to be able to make wildly ridiculous jokes that didn’t have to be explained through a ten minute back story. With Americans you all just “get it”. I didn’t realize how much I had missed that.
With all this hilarity, you might wonder if anything went wrong on this vacation. Up to now it sounds like all laughs sunshine. Of course we had some mishaps. There were some episodes that would have made the cut for National Lampoons African Vacation. It rained over half the time we were on holiday, but of course generally not while it would have had a lovely cooling effect while we were on any of our massively long and miserable bus rides. And the rain I speak of was not a little Botswana style afternoon shower to cool us down and then allow us back out to frolic on the beaches. It was torrential, occasionally painful or blinding downpours. There was no hot water at the backpackers we spent most of our time in Vilanculous at, or really even solid walls to provide much mosquito protection. We were all sandy, cold and wet for much of the time, as was nearly all of our stuff. I’ll let you imagine how all that began to smell. Don’t forget to add in the saltwater. The buses we had to take left us with people literally sitting in our laps and on our armrests, with small children vomiting from the sickness that comes from standing in the aisle and a straight diet of Fanta, bread and candy that appears to be a common meal on Mozambican 12 hour bus rides with loud Portuguese music and bad pop songs in English playing the entire way. There was literally so little leg room that at one point I woke up and couldn’t feel my feet. With A’s help I maneuvered them up only to be confronted by cankles and feet that resembled hooves. A and C accidentally left things at one of the hostels. My wallet was MIA for a while. Rainbow Brite got what was probably third degree sunburns on the backs of her thighs, and I cut my foot pretty badly (narrowly missing my tat… that one’s gonna leave a scar) during our snorkeling boat adventure (probably needed stitches but what can you do?). How did we make it through the vacation without killing each other you ask? How can this possibly go down in my memory as one of the most fun vacations ever?
Throughout the course of the trip we came up with a brilliant concept I plan on implementing on every trip I ever take again (consider yourself warned). This is known as the blame game. We decided early on in the trip that we would each take a day in rotation to be held responsible for anything we might be pissed off about, or that went wrong. It had the effect of making everything into a joke and preventing a lot of tension or frustration from building. An excerpt below.
Me: “Rainbow Brite, why did you make it rain on our vacation today? And why am I hungover? Why did you make me cut my foot on that coral?”
RB: “I don’t know, Jen, but I certainly am sorry. All these things certainly are my fault. I’ll work to make the sun shine tomorrow. Preferably out your ass. And that cut will certainly always remind you of what a fun time we’ve had in the rain on this vacation, won’t it?”
Cue the hysterical laughing from all involved parties and witnesses. And a great time was had by all….
In retrospect, it was my own fault…..
A and C had announced their intention to do a Christmas/New Years Mozambique holiday back in September, and I was honored to be on the invite list. Along with Rainbow Brite, there were four of us, and this is, in my humble opinion, absolutely the only number of humans with which to travel. Two and you might get sick of each other, 3 you’re likely to have an odd one out, any more than 4 and there’s no chance of fitting in one room together, and finding enough bus seats is a trauma. This way we can split into twos and everyone is nearly always happy.
I told them I wouldn’t be able to really help with the planning of the vacation (what with all my copious amounts of internet time I simply cannot imagine why not) but promised to be thrilled with whatever they came up with so long as it encompassed a beach (and seafood). I let them know I trusted them completely and told them to tell me when and where to show up and who to cut a check to.
In retrospect the bright side of the needle stick incident (and let’s all remember, there’s a positive side to every situation, and I’m thankful that this one did not end in a positive HIV status!!!) is that I was able to have one of the most productive days in the last 6 months of my life while in Gabs- I got my passport visa for Mozambique (as well as my replacement mouth guard… what what!) and many other errands done. The visa business is the only reason I had any idea when we were even going to be in another country. I heard about the name of the village location I would be staying at from another PCV completely as there was another group going to Mozambique during that time and she had spoken with Rainbow Brite about our itinerary.
I’ve discovered that this is the type of traveler I occasionally like to be (Although I tend to be the tour guide Nazi with my mom and sister. I have also been blessed to find enough friends who like planning trips in my life that many times I’ve been able to just exist in a state of ignorance and show up with a smile and some sunscreen). I seem to like the element of surprise on my holidays. Just showing up and doing whatever I’m told to do and I’ve been generally thrilled with the results. This might sound lazy of me (and of that fact you would be correct…) but every ship can only have so many captains and I always thought I looked better in the Skipper’s stripes!
So what is the point of confessing my deepest darkest travel secrets to the world via this blog, besides of course providing you all with cheap laughs(?) I felt I must give you some background from which to understand what occurred on the Mozambican holiday.
So off I go, eager for my adventure to a country I knew nothing about. In my defense I did buy a travel magazine with the word Mozambique in big bold type on the cover- the pictures were beautiful- but I didn’t really get around to opening the free with purchase map or reading any of the articles until we were well into the country. I certainly wasn’t as prepared as A, who had compiled a list of useful phrases in Portuguese such as, “Am I being arrested?” and “Are you married?” She also took it upon herself to figure out the details of the currency exchange rates, and I have to tell you, by the time we crossed customs in Mozambique and were withdrawing what ended up being the fourth currency we were operating in from the cash machine (the first three were Pula, Rand, and American dollars) we were having a challenge finding the correct coins and bills to buy a drink. They had started mentioning the Mozambican money back at a bar in Jo-Burg, (I’m of the belief that they may have specifically waited for me to be a bit off my game…) and they quickly informed me (before hiding their grins behind their hands) that the currency of Mozambique was the “mestical.”
Yup that rhymes with exactly the male body part that is immediately brought to mind when the word is said out loud. (Pause for you to try it. Ok. Moving on). They let this little joke ride just long enough for actual learning to occur in my brain, and I was stuck with it for vacation. When I couldn’t manage to make my brain evoke mestical, I usually came up with metrical, madrigal, or magical. None, of course, which are correct. (the currency of Mozambique is called the meticais, although for your next Mozambican holiday I recommend using mestical for it’s hilarity inducing properties. Hell, use it for the currency for your next vacation to Mexico. It’s funny!) It became a running joke through the holiday, bartering with the locals in mesticals, (we undoubtedly got screwed left and right on this one), making bets and dares in increments of 100,000 mesticals, (the exchange rate is 24 to 1 with the American dollar) and making up rap song titles using our new beloved currency.
Now why where would we get the idea what we could use mesticals as the theme for song titles you ask? Well this stems from the incident in which I may have accidentally cut my head on the gate that stood between me and the beach at the backpackers we were staying at. It was a tricky descent to navigate when sober, in the daylight when it was dry, so it was completely understandable that the rainy and wet, dark, slightly intoxicated conditions I was operating under I may have slipped. The cut was tiny, but the next morning I made the joke that I had given myself a “Drunken Gash.” Now if this isn’t the perfect name for a band I’m not sure what is!?! I may have even seen them on MTV during my formative years of hair bands and sad country music!
The band idea was provoked by the entertainment at the bar and restaurant we stopped by after our amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (I swear I may have died and gone to heaven. Fancy, nice food, Edith Piaf on the stereo, my girls around me, it was amazing!!!) was this South African chick with fluorescent Barbie inspired extensions in her hair singing covers to bad 80’s songs to a karaoke machine. She even had wardrobe changes. We speculated that she might belong on a cruise ship somewhere and immediately decided to form our own band of us doing covers of her covers. The marketing joke for this particular idea was to give away a free bottle of Arby’s Horsy Sauce to anyone who bought a copy of our first CD, which would be recorded live at TGI Fridays. I have to say that one of the most entertaining parts of this vacation was to be able to make wildly ridiculous jokes that didn’t have to be explained through a ten minute back story. With Americans you all just “get it”. I didn’t realize how much I had missed that.
With all this hilarity, you might wonder if anything went wrong on this vacation. Up to now it sounds like all laughs sunshine. Of course we had some mishaps. There were some episodes that would have made the cut for National Lampoons African Vacation. It rained over half the time we were on holiday, but of course generally not while it would have had a lovely cooling effect while we were on any of our massively long and miserable bus rides. And the rain I speak of was not a little Botswana style afternoon shower to cool us down and then allow us back out to frolic on the beaches. It was torrential, occasionally painful or blinding downpours. There was no hot water at the backpackers we spent most of our time in Vilanculous at, or really even solid walls to provide much mosquito protection. We were all sandy, cold and wet for much of the time, as was nearly all of our stuff. I’ll let you imagine how all that began to smell. Don’t forget to add in the saltwater. The buses we had to take left us with people literally sitting in our laps and on our armrests, with small children vomiting from the sickness that comes from standing in the aisle and a straight diet of Fanta, bread and candy that appears to be a common meal on Mozambican 12 hour bus rides with loud Portuguese music and bad pop songs in English playing the entire way. There was literally so little leg room that at one point I woke up and couldn’t feel my feet. With A’s help I maneuvered them up only to be confronted by cankles and feet that resembled hooves. A and C accidentally left things at one of the hostels. My wallet was MIA for a while. Rainbow Brite got what was probably third degree sunburns on the backs of her thighs, and I cut my foot pretty badly (narrowly missing my tat… that one’s gonna leave a scar) during our snorkeling boat adventure (probably needed stitches but what can you do?). How did we make it through the vacation without killing each other you ask? How can this possibly go down in my memory as one of the most fun vacations ever?
Throughout the course of the trip we came up with a brilliant concept I plan on implementing on every trip I ever take again (consider yourself warned). This is known as the blame game. We decided early on in the trip that we would each take a day in rotation to be held responsible for anything we might be pissed off about, or that went wrong. It had the effect of making everything into a joke and preventing a lot of tension or frustration from building. An excerpt below.
Me: “Rainbow Brite, why did you make it rain on our vacation today? And why am I hungover? Why did you make me cut my foot on that coral?”
RB: “I don’t know, Jen, but I certainly am sorry. All these things certainly are my fault. I’ll work to make the sun shine tomorrow. Preferably out your ass. And that cut will certainly always remind you of what a fun time we’ve had in the rain on this vacation, won’t it?”
Cue the hysterical laughing from all involved parties and witnesses. And a great time was had by all….
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