January 7, 2009

In two short days, I'll be crossing the Atlantic ocean.  As I consider packing right up there with domestic chores... procrastination inevitable... this post could be a doozy...

My high school social studies teacher found out I was home for the holidays (a true gem, he is) and before long I was spending a day at my alma mater speaking with freshmen and sophomores about my travels, the life experiences of a vagabond 25-year-old.  And giving geography lessons - one of the first questions posed to me was... "What state is Mozambique in?"  Luckily, social study teachers are well-endowed in the map department.

Some frequently asked questions, FAQs, if you will... (from a very "squirrely" population)

What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?  Monkey apples - to my knowledge.  The name sounds weird; the fruit looks weird and tastes a bit weird.  They're like coconuts in that you have to crack them open in order to get to the good stuff under the shell.  And of course, there have been a number of times I have consumed substances I had no clue what they were.  Calamari and octopus in Moz are pretty tasty albeit chewy.  Oxtail, common in Swaziland, sounds odd but is very good.  Just ask our dog, he loves loves loves the leftover bones.

What languages can you speak?  Fluently... only "American" English, been picking up key South African and British English phases, basic conversation in Portuguese, Spanish, and German.  Handful of phrases in Tibetan, Hindi, Thai, Danish, Italian, French, and Afrikaans.  Does American Sign Language count?  And yes, I get them mixed up all the time!  The better I become at speaking Portuguese, the worse my English becomes (particularly prepositions).  In recent weeks, I have been blaming it on jet lag (like the other day when I told someone I could eat calamari but not squid... jet lag).

What do they speak in Africa?  Depends where you are... in South Africa - Afrikaans and English.  In Mozambique - Portuguese mostly, some Swahili in the north, Shangaan in the south.  Malawi is French, Zimbabwe is English, Angola - Portuguese, Tanzania - Swahili, Arabic in northern countries, etc., etc.

What animals do you see?  (in Africa) Lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras, warthogs, crocodiles, hippos, rhinos, a python (I screamed appropriately like a girl), wildebeest, nyalas, impalas, whales, clams, loads of seafood, lots of birds... my favorite animal to see is probably the giraffe.  They're so awkward yet graceful when they run.  Someday I hope to see a cheetah - that would top my list in a heartbeat (been mildly obsessed with the fast cat since grade school).

What's your favorite place?  (I hate this question.  Please never ask it.)  Cape Town, South Africa is my favorite city.  It's got ocean meeting mountains - awesome hiking and vistas, and vineyards comparable to Napa Valley just down the road.  Very San Francisco/Austin-esque... even has its own version of Alcatraz... Robbin Island where Mandela spent his 27-year internment.  Swaziland is my favorite country to unwind in AND to get Christmas gifts.  Though Germany does have its Christmas markets and gluwein (warm wine, it's delightful).

What do you live in? A typical house.  Just has more electrical, plumbing problems and geckos than the average American home.  Live with a British nurse and her two children.  Normal kids.  Sometimes I wake up in the morning to the sound of Jade, the 7-year-old, singing along to the French songs on her I-pod shuffle.  Other times she delights us with ABBA and high school musical selections, usually around the hour of oh, 5am.  Her brother Tanguy has a penchant for pets.  We still have the pig.  The fish accidently perished when they were under my care.  Oops.

How do you get around? In town, I have the "office" car.  Between towns, I take buses.  Taxis when need be.

What do you miss most?  Decent-tasting milk.  (Family & friends are assumed.)  It comes in bulk, in boxes.  Ugh.  Try as I might, I cannot trick my tastebuds into tolerating it.  I picked up calcium tablets while home.  I get pretty excited about milkshakes these days.  Oh, and chocolate FROSTYS!!!

What do you plan to do when this (African stint) is all said and done?   My contract ends May 23rd.  My brother is coming to visit so that takes me to about July.  I have flirted with the idea of an overland Cape to Cairo trip (Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt) but the global economic crisis has me seriously thinking otherwise. Presently thinking when I return to the States, it'll be to work in a hospital in the Midwest.  I have never been much of a city person, yet I always wind up gravitating towards them.  Must be some cranial wiring problem...

It's almost 2009...

You would think being in Ohio one would be experiencing sub-freezing temperatures, but alas, I brought the warm weather with me. The other day it was up to 60 degrees! And then in true Ohio erratic fashion it was freezing rain the next day. So I'm still holding out for snow. I guess the man upstairs has yet to receive my 'let it snow, let it snow' memo.

Just been enjoying the $1.54 a gallon gas prices and traipsing all over the state to visit friends and family. Gotta love the holiday chaos... Soon we'll be welcoming 2009 with a bottle of Amarula - the nectar of elephants (or something to that effect) - that I lugged over from Africa.

Turkey time...!

Lights aren’t on but somebody’s home… It was brought to my attention the other day that I have been a bit behind in correspondence. So tonight after catching a Grey’s Anatomy rerun (yes, they do have TVs in Africa), my plan was to sit down and catch up on unanswered messages. Two thoughts in and suddenly, my laptop screen became the only source of light in the house. I actually had to carry my laptop around the house so I could locate my cell phone – which typically serves as my flashlight during electrical outages (though attempting to locate eyeglasses in the dark with a mere cell phone light is no simple task…).

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving! How does one celebrate Thanksgiving in Maputo, Mozambique, you ask? Well to begin, I discovered butternut squash ravioli at the deli earlier in the week (tastier then you may think… though not quite up to pumpkin pie standards) and am presently enjoying the delicacy - albeit lukewarm and in the dark. Perhaps it’s to my benefit that I can’t see what I’m eating. Tomorrow though I’ll be enjoying the fact that I’ll be one of the few people in town on holiday, going horseback riding with a friend and her family, and ending the night with a motley crew of Americans. When it comes to holiday celebrations far from home, we're not too picky, any American is considered family on Thanksgiving.


Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

It's hot and muggy and... November?

I cannot believe November is here!  I remember when October arrived and I was in shock.  By the time year 2009 arrives, I'll be left thinking someone gypped me a few pages in my calendar. Though I must confess, I'll be elated when December arrives - for I have a roundtrip ticket home!  I'll celebrate my big 2-5 on Pearl Harbor Day here (quick, who knows their history?) and be on an Ohio-bound plane a week later.  I can't wait for the temperature shock.  I'll return to Moz just in time for the commencement of the rainy season (and the ensuing plethora of mosquitoes).

At present, someone is having a hey-day on the drums just down the street.  I should be excited about this cultural experience but should this last too much longer it just may interfere with my sleeping hours.  Unforgivable transgression.  Not sure what the occasion is either.  Even the pet pig and dog seem befuddled.  They don't celebrate Halloween here and I doubt an Islamic holiday (the predominant faith) is the root of all this commotion.  On random Fridays I've been seeing little parades but big enough to slow traffic.  These Mozambicans, they're always celebrating something, always making excuses to party.  Seriously.  Their Saturday nights last until they go to church the next morning.  Around 10ish or so they go to the discotheque, stay there 'til about 2am at which time they go to the after-party bar until 5am-esque (or maybe it's 7am...gives you an idea of my own stamina...), and then onto the after-after bar.  Then you see all of them out on the beach Sunday afternoon, drinking their cold beer, loitering around the chicken braai (barbecue), and catcalling poor unsuspecting white girls.

Everyone stoked for election day?!  Or perhaps stressed is the more fitting word.  I have sent in 2 absentee ballots just in case one gets clogged up in the African postal system.  The official absentee ballot was hand-delivered to me last week (courtesy of an American diplomat whose son I work with) and then I hand-delivered its return, directions read twice over to ensure I didn't lick in the wrong place (they're so particular with these things, one wrong step and it ends up in file 13 (that being the trash).  I sent in the backup write-in ballot 2 weeks back, at which time I informed my mail courier the importance of the letter "muito importante."  His response was saying "Bush" and making a machine gun gesture with his hands and then indicating "muito dinero" wiht his fingers.  So apparently this African who survived decades of civil war in his own backyard (lasting up until 10 years ago), thinks we Americans spend a lot of money on war.  How's that for insight?  The South Africans I work with were pretty impressed with the bona-fide absentee ballot.  I quote, "Wow, it's so official looking.  And you can actually vote when you're out of the country?  What an organized voting system you Americans have!"  I suppose Florida's "hanging chad" fiasco is relatively minor compared to Zimbabwe's politics next door.

the Real diagnosis

So I was at a baby shower this morning (apparently I’ve been here long enough to be invited to such gatherings) telling my friend about my massage experience (see earlier post) when my synapses started firing. Earlier this week I found a tick clung to my upper leg likely from my weekend in the woods. I pried it off, ended its life and briefly thought ‘oh, I hope I don’t come down with something.’ A few days passed. Not wanting to be a hypochondriac I blamed abysmal sleeping hours and dehydration for headaches and fatigue. Blamed the massage for feverish symptoms and achy legs and incoordination for increasing pain in the pelvic area. Well, well, well… within an hour of this conversation (and my friend witnessing my indifference towards a chocolate confection), we found ourselves hopping from one medical clinic to the next in search of a tick bite fever test. Then came the painful process of getting blood drawn. I am cursed with tiny veins, so tiny that the Red Cross always turns me away when I want to give blood, so add a lesser qualified individual to the mix and ouch… meanwhile with each jab I’m thinking about the prevalence of AIDS (or SIDA as it’s known here) and praying that the needles are properly sterilized. I’ve been assured that they are but still… I was tested for malaria and tick bite fever and the verdict received an hour indicated the latter – yep, a parasitic bite, full blown African tick bite fever a cousin to Rocky Mountain spotted fever. A round of antibiotics and days of sleep and I should be trading in my present-sloth habits for energizer bunny-like qualities. Combined American and local remedies (as gifted to me by friends) have included chicken & pumpkin soup, mango juice, honey, a dark chocolate bar, and puppy kisses. The illness by the way can be best described as having a bad hangover 3 days straight and wishing you could walk with one leg (the bit, infected leg makes walking a painfully unpleasant endeavour).

In other news… I have a car to drive now!! So one small step for global warming, one giant leap for my independence! I have nearly mastered left-side driving, driving the wrong way down ill-marked one way streets, and receiving honks whilst conquering this foreign driving concept of round-a-bouts (but significantly less in volume compared to India, the honking that is). More importantly, I have learned that red stoplights, especially in the early a.m. hours, should be observed as 4-way stops. Due to habit, I was sitting at red stoplights for like a good 5 minutes, no sign of traffic in town, just waiting, waiting, waiting… and my boss was wandering why it took me so long to get to work in the morning… I was quickly enlightened of the “stop, look for police, if none, then go” policy. Now I mainly slow down for speed bumps, large potholes, and people who appear to have a blind spot for moving vehicles (hmm, kinda like Miami students).


Stay well, get well... take care.

playing catch-up

I noticed that I’ve been lagging in communication…
Here are a few posts from the archive that didn’t get the publish nod initially…


9/28/08

It's been a something-kind-of- month. Words -English, Portuguese-Shangaan-or otherwise -elude me. I can't even seem to find music these days to fit my mood. Aye aye aye. So two weeks ago, about 3 now around 9/11, my grandmother had a stroke. The kind that knocks you straight into a coffin. Except she held on for 2 weeks. I received news by email from my father. Receiving such news is never good timing. For me it was mid-day just prior to the arrival of a client. So I held on saw the client through and then made it an early night at work, went home, downloaded and used Skype for the first time to make the call home. I was close to my grandmother; she is much to blame for my traveling ways. I think she owned and could quote every National Geographic from 1950 onward. One of the few who could longitudinally/latitudinally locate Mozambique without a blink of the eye. And probably the last person to receive a postcard from me. Hearing and now dealing with the news of her impending and subsequent death I can only liken to an experience I had as an 8 year old. Somehow that year my family came about acquiring a skateboard. One of those used but new-to-you toys. I remember getting on it thinking how cool I was, moving not terribly gracefully but moving forward nonetheless and suddenly, no warning, WHAM on my back, wind completely knocked out of me. I stumbled over to my dad who asked what had happened. And though I knew exactly what happened, I could say absolutely nothing. The words had been knocked out of me. I could only gesture. That gesture led to my father taking the skateboard out with the trash. The analogy continues with my siblings becoming upset with me and then me becoming more so, etc. So I must confess if I haven't already, it's been a rather difficult 2 weeks. Luckily there have been some distractions. Last weekend, I took an 8 hour road-trip to Durban, South Africa for a rugby match. We had a fun time in spite of (or perhaps because of) the pouring down rain as we played. This past weekend was spent in Swaziland at an oh-so-much-needed-tranquil game reserve. One of the few in Africa in which one is allowed to walk freely among the animals. There are no lions, rhinos, elephants, or hippos in the park...whew. One only needs to be wary of crocs, black mumbas (southern africa's most aggressive and poisonous snake), and foul-mood warthogs. I saw all 3. Limbs and sanity still intact. Blood pressure still wavering. While I wish I were home right now, watching the leaves begin to change and being with my family, I still recognize the reasons for being here. Solace in my surroundings is hard to find but lately I've been discovering some diamonds in the rough, in myself. So I wait until Christmas to be reunited in my family when holiday time and funds are more accommodating.

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Today marks the day of my grandmother’s funeral. Being part of a family that’s so close, though no longer geographically, it’s difficult for me to grasp my inability to be part of such significant family function, the celebration of my grandma’s life. In some ways, I think my present grieving state stems more from my distance than my grandmother’s passing. Or perhaps her death was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think I was emotionally exhausted long before I received news of her sudden illness. Leaving “home” at 5:30am and returning at 9:30pm does little to keep a person rejuvenated. At least now when I ooze with emotion, I have something more animate to lay blame to. Death warrants tears and tissues, tiring of a workaholic lifestyle apparently does not.

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9/7/08

Tashi delek, bom dia!! I suspect you are all alive and well and perhaps downing your share of foreign-labeled beer. FYI, the brand of Mozambique is Laurentina. You even see old geezers playing checkers (with blue and red beer tabs) on recycled Laurentina cardboard boxes. I made the mistake once of ordering it in South Africa and got the look I get when I try to speak Portuguese to taxi drivers. Then again I also receive perplexed looks when I ask for water in South Africa. Apparently, British English is the only accepted English accent this part of the world. And to think that I'm suppose to be the speech therapist! I'm the one forever being enlightened as to the 'proper' way of saying things, particularly by my Brit housemate, i.e.:

- tea = the beverage as well as the evening dinner (learned through a very confusing conversation, something to the effect of me trying to convey that caffeine at 8pm is not conducive to sleep and my housemate countering that you sleep better with food in your tummy…)
- see you now = see you later
- see you now now = see you soon
- in a trice = in a minute
- midnight feast = late evening snack filled with sugary sweets
- robot = stoplight
- nappy = diaper
- Dutchmen = well-rounded men (physically) who fancy hunting, wearing 2-toned shirts, and consuming excessive amounts of alcohol whilst watching rugby. They consider chicken a vegetable (description based on true stories).
- loo = restroom
- jersey = coat/jacket
- vest = sleeveless/tank top

Frequent use of "keen" and "lovely" comparable to the adolescent usage of "like."
"Quite" replaces 'really.'

"If you're KEEN, you can ask your friend to go with us to the beach. It's quite LOVELY this time of year." "I think she was quite KEEN on going next week with her family. They are LOVELY people."

When I was in India this past summer one of my professors had flip flop paranoia (called "slops" here) Well…. Healthcare 101. If you have a cut on your foot, ugly or not, cover 'em up. My friend's foot was swollen, a tad on the warm side, in pain, yet she was convinced it was from 'walking on it funny.' Foot with cut + swollen appearance + warm to the touch = INFECTION! If you ever find yourself matching this equation and you're in a 3rd world location (Miami's Student Health Center may fit this description), soak your foot in salt water (bucket of warm water + good dosage of salt, i.e. 1 cup), dry, put honey on gauze over the wound to draw out the infection (bacteria like honey), then find the nearest healthcare provider and get yourself on an antibiotic and don't don the "slops!" I may be a hypocrite by sporting flip-flops daily but my feet are at least laceration-free…

the African definition of a "massage"

Ouch. Ugh, I thought massages were suppose to make you feel better not induce further agony. My calves are experiencing charlie-horse like symptoms and my neck is in want of pain killers. I should've learned my lesson in Thailand. In Africa, apparently a massage goes something to the effect of.... you waltz in, in my case, wanting some unwinding-Friday relaxation...the masseuse strips you of your clothing save for a little loin cloth thingey...turns on some African vibes...puts this, I swear it's piri-piri (hot sauce), lotion on you (it's laced with something with a kick - cayenne, jalapeño?) and then spends the next 60 minutes brutalizing every tender spot in your body. And because the little masseuse ladies speak only the local African tribal language of Shangaan they don't seem to pick up on Portuguese/English expressions (or are masochistic) for 'stop' 'OW!' or subtle hints of me inching away from their digging claws. 3 hours later I can still feel the heat emanating from my body and my legs are feeling very whiny. If it wasn't for the gecko that stalks my bathroom floor, I would consider its cool floor a resting place for the night’s slumber. Though I suppose that would lend to other achy ailments. 2 months shy of celebrating my quarter-century mark and I'm already facing hot flashes and arthritic pains! The traditional African healer I saw a few backs did not foresee this – that or chose not to deter me from my encounter with hot, pain-inducing massages. A real African treat for the “Gringo.”