Hey everyone.
It has been a relatively quiet first week for me here in Cambine. Today was my first very busy day, and I think next week and in weeks to come, it will be more like today.
On Monday Candido took me around Cambine, showed me his school, the church, Dieudonne's farm, and then we went to the orphanage for the rest of the afternoon. I met most of the other kids and some of the women who work there, although none spoke English. The biggest problem at the orphanage just appears to be there are too many children. There were 2 women who were trying to take care of about 6-8 babies at once, which they just aren't capable doing, and the older kids are just too crowded. They're all very nice though, and we played a game of cards and then played a game of soccer.
Tuesday Dieudonne showed me around some of the other places in Cambine and showed me where I would be working. I started working a little bit Wednesday and Thursday in the mornings, just doing small jobs like feeding the animals and stuff, and in the afternoons I've been going down to the orphanage to play with the kids. Pretty much everyone in Cambine, us included, gets up super early and does all their work in the morning before it gets too hot. Then everyone just sort of lies around from around 11-3 because it's so hot you don't want to move. It has it's good and bad sides, the good part is we usually are done with our day's work by 10 or 11 AM, the bad part is we are waking up at 4-5 AM to do this.
Today was a wild day. Dieudonne has been growing some rice, and I guess in the rice growing process you at some point have to move it from one field to another- I don't fully understand what we were doing because not everything gets explained to me in English. But anyway, we got up at 4 this morning to go to the first field where the rice has been taken out of the ground. With the help of a few kids from the orphanage, and a few of his workers, we loaded all the rice into the back of his truck. Then we had to drive about 2 miles on these paths through the woods until the road ended, then get out and carry the rice another half mile or so to where it was going to be re-planted. Well, I always thought people in poor countries eat a lot of rice because it's easy to grow, but this certainly is not the case. Without a car it would've taken all day. We made 4 trips carrying rice to the fields.
So later in the day I was going to go with Candido to Maxixe, which is a small city on the Indian Ocean maybe 45 minutes from Cambine. He had to buy some books, and I was just going to see the city and the ocean. We took the Mozambiquan form of a taxi, which is called a choppah, and is actually a pick up truck with about 20 people standing/sitting in the back. People sit all around the sides, then more people stand in the middle, the ones who can hold onto something do, the others hold onto those people - I was one of the people holding onto other people. I've always felt that there are certain things everyone should experience at some time in their life. A choppah is not one of these things. It probably wouldn't be as hard on paved roads, but on the bumpy clay road from Cambine, I was literally holding on for dear life.
That is pretty much everything I've been doing for the last week. It's been a very interesting week, I've seen some amazing things, and expect more of the same in the weeks to come. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I will be writing again before long I'm sure.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Maputo
Hello from Cambine!
It has taken a long time to get here. We arrived in Cambine late last night after driving all day from Maputo. We were stopped for a little over 3 hours when the car overheated. The tube that you put the water in had broken, so we had to find a person in the village we were passing through who could fix the part.
The trip over here was long and very tiring. I got to Johannesburg at 5 PM (10 AM Eastern) after 17 hours on a plane and was unbelievably tired. I had wanted to stay in the airport hotel but that plan changed when I found out it was $309 for one night, so instead I slept on a bench in the terminal. Candido and Dieudonne arrived at about 10 the next morning, and we hung out together in the airport until our flight to Maputo in the evening.
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique, and all I can say about it is that it's completely different from anything I've ever experienced before. We had to bribe a security official $20 to bring our bags through, because Dieudonne and Candido had picked up several bags in the US, which they weren't supposed to do. Mozambique was playing a soccer game that night against Nigeria, and driving into town from the airport, we passed through slums where huge groups of people were crowded outside buildings trying to watch the game through windows, much like the end of Slumdog Millionaire.
I can tell a thousand stories to try to explain what Maputo is like and I'm not sure any of them will do justice. But I will say that I was ready for anything Thursday morning when Candido and I went for a walk and maybe 2 blocks in we passed a dumpster, and a woman was standing next to it peeing. Every street was lined with vendors, I think the large majority of people in the city are selling things on the streets, and Candido pointed out to me that many of them might go days without selling things, because so many people are selling the exact same things.
We stayed in Maputo Thursday and Friday because Dieudonne had to get some work taken care of there. Friday afternoon we went to see our friend Lucille, who is an American who has lived in Mozambique working for the church for a long time. On the way back was an interesting moment. We had been drinking beer at Lucille's, and the man who was driving us back had only had a couple, but he didn't finish his last one so he brought it in the car with him. Then his phone rang, so our driver is holding a beer and the wheel in one hand, and a phone in the other. Ifirst reminded myself that this is how people live here so I shouldn't panic, but then I remembered that dad always said that many more people die in Africa in driving accidents than anyone else, and maybe this is why. Those are the kind of things you see every day here.
I'm sorry for making this post so long, in the week I've been here there have been so many things to talk about and many more things I would like to write about. I'll just say that I've probably written about 1,000 words already, but I could write a million words about Mozambique and if you have never been to Africa, you still wouldn't be able to fully understand what it's like, that's how different it is.
Until next time.
It has taken a long time to get here. We arrived in Cambine late last night after driving all day from Maputo. We were stopped for a little over 3 hours when the car overheated. The tube that you put the water in had broken, so we had to find a person in the village we were passing through who could fix the part.
The trip over here was long and very tiring. I got to Johannesburg at 5 PM (10 AM Eastern) after 17 hours on a plane and was unbelievably tired. I had wanted to stay in the airport hotel but that plan changed when I found out it was $309 for one night, so instead I slept on a bench in the terminal. Candido and Dieudonne arrived at about 10 the next morning, and we hung out together in the airport until our flight to Maputo in the evening.
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique, and all I can say about it is that it's completely different from anything I've ever experienced before. We had to bribe a security official $20 to bring our bags through, because Dieudonne and Candido had picked up several bags in the US, which they weren't supposed to do. Mozambique was playing a soccer game that night against Nigeria, and driving into town from the airport, we passed through slums where huge groups of people were crowded outside buildings trying to watch the game through windows, much like the end of Slumdog Millionaire.
I can tell a thousand stories to try to explain what Maputo is like and I'm not sure any of them will do justice. But I will say that I was ready for anything Thursday morning when Candido and I went for a walk and maybe 2 blocks in we passed a dumpster, and a woman was standing next to it peeing. Every street was lined with vendors, I think the large majority of people in the city are selling things on the streets, and Candido pointed out to me that many of them might go days without selling things, because so many people are selling the exact same things.
We stayed in Maputo Thursday and Friday because Dieudonne had to get some work taken care of there. Friday afternoon we went to see our friend Lucille, who is an American who has lived in Mozambique working for the church for a long time. On the way back was an interesting moment. We had been drinking beer at Lucille's, and the man who was driving us back had only had a couple, but he didn't finish his last one so he brought it in the car with him. Then his phone rang, so our driver is holding a beer and the wheel in one hand, and a phone in the other. Ifirst reminded myself that this is how people live here so I shouldn't panic, but then I remembered that dad always said that many more people die in Africa in driving accidents than anyone else, and maybe this is why. Those are the kind of things you see every day here.
I'm sorry for making this post so long, in the week I've been here there have been so many things to talk about and many more things I would like to write about. I'll just say that I've probably written about 1,000 words already, but I could write a million words about Mozambique and if you have never been to Africa, you still wouldn't be able to fully understand what it's like, that's how different it is.
Until next time.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Hello
Hey everybody. I'm leaving today for Mozambique, but will be traveling until Thursday. I get to South Africa tomorrow at 6 PM, then I have to stay in the Johannesburg airport for 14 hours until Candido and Dieudonne arrive Wednesday morning, then we will fly together to Maputo, Mozambique Wednesday evening. We'll stay in Maputo that night, and then Thursday is a 5-6 hour drive to their village of Cambini.
Dieudonne tells me that while he has internet at his house, it only works about 1/4 of the time. So I will do my best to update this blog once or twice a week, or when something worth mentioning happens, but if I don't put anything up for a week or two, that is probably why. Most likely I will write stuff down on the computer a couple times a week and then post it all whenever I can get on the internet next.
The next post I make will be from Mozambique!
Dieudonne tells me that while he has internet at his house, it only works about 1/4 of the time. So I will do my best to update this blog once or twice a week, or when something worth mentioning happens, but if I don't put anything up for a week or two, that is probably why. Most likely I will write stuff down on the computer a couple times a week and then post it all whenever I can get on the internet next.
The next post I make will be from Mozambique!
Monday, January 11, 2010
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