whew!

well that was just crazy.
here's a little news to tell you what i was up to, then i can fill you in the details. btw, we waited on this guy rodrick the journalist for a few days to follow us on the count, and then he said he didn't want to camp, and bailed. still wrote the story, which horribly misquotes everyone and get many facts wrong...but i wuz there, man! and it was awesome.

Namibia begins world's largest census of animals
By RODRICK MUKUMBIRA, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 11, 6:16 PM ET
The world's largest land-based census of wildlife began Wednesday across a huge swath of northwestern Namibia, World Wildlife Fund officials said.

The annual animal census, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, came as the American agency prepared to announce that it is ending conservation funding in Namibia a year earlier that previously planned.

Wildlife in Namibia has increased since the U.S. agency began funding community conservation programs in 1993. To date, the United States has given $41.6 million to programs to help people care for natural resources and benefit from the tourism generated.
"Only a few years ago, local people viewed wildlife only as competitors for food with their goats and other livestock and as potential dangers, but all that has now changed," said World Wildlife spokesman Chris Weaver.

Weaver, whose organization manages the U.S. funds, said the conservation programs allowed animal species to flourish and made poaching "virtually extinct."

He said conservation efforts since 1995 had increased Namibia's lion population from 30 to 130, dramatically raised the number of cheetahs, and nearly doubled Namibia's black rhino population. Namibia had about 7,500 elephants in 1995, but now has 26,000, he said.
Teams of game scouts, conservationists and scientists expect to find even higher numbers this year as they fan out to count elephants, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, oryx, giraffes, mountain zebras and springbok on 16 million acres of wildlife reserves.

Besides conserving wildlife, U.S.-funded programs in Namibia have generated income from tourism, creating 946 permanent and 6,200 part-time jobs, Weaver said.

U.S. officials planned to announce the cancellation of funds in Windhoek on Thursday. U.S. government spokesman Raymond Castillo would not comment on why the funding was being cut, but said the program had been tremendously successful.

panda wuz here

was walking around today after work and saw this. the wwf logo - namibian graffiti style. those crazy environmentalists! not bad. gorilla marketing? huh. huh.

do i look like the kind of girl who likes to sing songs?

so there's this hiv cartoon poster i was reading in the bathroom. it's this guy mbdankta in a small village and he's all psyched cuz his girlfriend is coming home (he receives a letter and there are lots of floaty hearts all around his head). in the next box: a cloud with !!! above his head!!! he needs condoms!!!
so he goes to a bunch of clinics and each one doesn't have any, then he goes to visit his buddy akbar because akbar aaaalways has condoms, cuz he really gets with the ladies. but akbar says, no man, i had a craaaazy weekend! so them mbdankta is all oh, this really sucks, i will have to find something else to do with my girlfriend. what will we do? hold hands? go for a walk? sing songs? play a game? and so when he sees her he says, i'm sorry i don't have any condoms, "maybe we can sing songs instead?" and she's all, songs?do i look like the kind of girl who likes to sing songs? i'll give you something to sing about...and pulls out a whole bunch of condoms. and they are both happy.
i can find at least a few things wrong with this story...
anyway, we're packing supplies for our trip and all we have are big cardboard smile condoms boxes. teehee. seriously, our truck is going to jam packed with these, what will people think?

windhoek...kinda boring

so windhoek is indeed really neat, according to the guide book, but i don't have time to do anything because it's work work work! and prepare for our big trip next week. though i did get invited to a cool bbq at this one guy's house who lives in a glorious multi-level house that he rents cheaper than my apartment in dc. i could live here.

but still, they are slave drivers. they put the mozambiquans to shame. i don't even go out to lunch, i just eat bread and yogurt that i steal from breakfast at the hotel.

so i don't really have any stories to tell, i'm just going to show you a few pictures that i have.

this is my room at the pension uhland. doesn't it look super cute and german? i wish i had a picture of the big black fuzzy cat. only annoying thing is the big aviary outside that has a lot of chirping birds that don't let me sleep. and they keep setting off the motion sensor light so all night it's on...off...on...off...

i watch roland garros on the telefunken.

this is bbq guy's really small dog. note the scale - you can compare his size to my foot (women's size 6.5). this is right before i punted him into angola.

this is a typical windhoek street. pretty nice! looks like california or something. there are also very, very few clouds.

this is the view of a windhoek sunset (looking east tho).

culture shock in namibia

so it's still a little culture shock here in windhoek. i can drink the water! i can eat salad again! i don't have to carry wads of toilet paper around in my pockets! (i just got my cargo shorts back from the laundry...what a mess). hey, it doesn't mean i don't like roughing it, people... it's just weird to think that only a few km away, over the border is such a completely different environment (e.g. angola, zimbabwe).
the only thing i'm not prepared for...it's f-ing cold! it is winter, afterall. at night it gets rrreal chilly. like 50s. i have a fleece and a sweater, but i'll need a hat and some thick socks or something. i can only imagine what it's like in the desert up north. so i'm going to have to do some shopping. robin, my canadian colleague here (and old friend from mcgill) found a store called "beaver canoe" that he wants to check out, we suspect it might originate from america's hat. canadians, always sticking together.
so last night we ate dinner at joe's beerhouse, which is just a short walk away. it's a crazy maze of picnic tables, trees, fireplaces, animals heads...and bottles of jagermeister. the sign at the door says "the house wine is....JAGERMEISTER. drink up!" the fireplaces were all glowing and warm, just like the atmosphere. i drank a tofel and a beer shandy, and for my meal, ordered some springbok. this is a springbok, fyi:

this may have been one of the tastiest meals ever. it was a brochette of the most tender, flavorful, perfectly grilled meat (sorry, dad!). better than duck! it came off the skewer with ease, and melted like butter in my mouth. in between these tender morsels, bacon wrapped figs, mmmm. all of this accompanied by these large balls of butter corn fritters delicately pan fried to keep their shape and asparagus and cauliflower with some sweet chutney on it. simple, deelish. robin had the oryx steak, which was also tasty and we are planning on working our way up to zebra, which, according to the menu is a "man's meal."

goodbye mozambique, hello namibia!

i finished my 2 weeks in mozambique with one more night in maputo. i landed with a few hours of sunlight left, eager to explore this urban delight. the sky was already turning golden as i raced around the streets in a brisk walk.
i saw some kids with kites made out of garbage bags, just like the one i bought in northern neck and played kite runner with. there was a boy with a monstrous pile of VHS tapes in those plastic cases like they have (had) at the library. he was selling them for 50 cents each. there was a small mob arguing over a copy of rocky III.
it was friday rush hour, so hustle and bustle. pretty nice. finally, as darkness lingered i raced back to my hotel for safety, and a fantastic 7 hours of internet, catching up on emails, bills, fixing my mp3 player (yes!! finally), deciding to go to congo after namibia??
the hotel insisted i get a taxi at 5am for my 7am flight the next day. i woke up after only an hour sleep at 4:30 to take a shower. the water was hot for two seconds and then freezing cold. this went on for 10 cycles until i finally gave up. this has been THE trip of cold water showers, from before i left DC, when my hot water heater conked all the way until now. all. cold. showers. argh. i got dressed and headed down to the reception and let them have an earful. i'm not sure where it came from, maybe the beehive that has become my hair but i let out the most fantastic porto-spanglish i have ever heard.
i was all, 3 star hotel, eh? more like NO stars! the concierge guy was verrry apologetic. he offered me another room, yeah, thanks, that's really useful now.
it was dark, really cold, and i get into this beat up old car that has SPRINTER written on the side. there are no headlights, lots of metal hitting metal sounds where the wheels and engine are, and what looks like the result of a horse vs. windshield accident: windshield lost. he's telling me how it's the worst time to drive, that everyone is drunk from their friday night. indeed, i see a lot of swerving cars, people running red lights and running into sidewalks. cool.
the street names are all karl marx ave, stalin street, lenin road and east timor ave. huh?
the driver puts on his seat belt, first time i've ever seen one in use. very dangerous! he says, and i don't know if he's referring to the streets or his own car, where safety isn't exactly paramount. we pass some kids making a huge bonfire on the sidewalk where there was a fruit market the day before.
we come to an intersection with a dude totally naked except for a ratty t-shirt that just barely hides his privates. instead of feet he has ankle nubs to which flip flops are tied with a thick string. like peg legs. how does this guy manage to stand? i'm impressed. he approaches the taxi and starts screaming flailing his arms wildly. we get a nice little peep show. maputo style!
during the rest of the trip the driver comments on how dark it is, how early it is, how well he is driving and i'm agreeing, yes! indeed! claro que si! what i realized at the end is that he was justifying the reasons to raise the cost of this trip. i had unknowingly talked myself into a $20 cab ride. eh, it's still dark out, i'm tired, the airport isn't actually open so i have to sit on the sidewalk...i don't actually don't care, dude. i still had a wad of mets and no discoteca to spend it in. whatever. goodbye mozambique!
and hello namibia! what a delightful surprise! the airport is clean, shiny, a working conveyor belt and these cute little carts. my cell phone works. with email. a driver with a shiny corolla is waiting for me. the airport parking lot looks like the new one at charles de gaulle. this is weird.
we drive through a desert landscape that looks a lot like the causse mejean. there are lots of road signs for towns, narrow shoulders, passing lanes. they are all written in the curvy sans serif font on bright clean signs like you see in france. we drive into windhoek and there are no crazy homeless people, just clean streets, smiling people, bright modern buildings...are we still in africa? seriously.

ibo...sigh

getting used to life without email, lights, dishwashers, alarm clocks...we wake up real early with the sun around 5, in bed by 9. whenever the generator turns on everyone comes out of the woodwork with their phone and laptop chargers. for the first few days there was only one outlet working and it was a giant mess of extension cords, knotted cables and phones and blinking lights everywhere. i so thought i was going to get electrocuted. electrocuted on an island with no electricity!

it's ironic that across the street is a giant building with "central electrica" written on it. the last time it worked was in the 80s. yeah, more like the 1880's.

it's also ironic that on an island with no cars or lights, there's a "no jaywalking" sign in the main plaza that says to only cross when the light is green. this is downtown ibo:

our dinners at the hotel are family style with the owners and other guests, which include this couple from the bay area who really wanted our honeymoon suite. haa haaaa. we sit surrounded by kerosene lamps and figure out if the hotel should get a goat and chickens and serve fresh milk and eggs. or maybe a crocodile. something cool that eats garbage. so...goats.

so in the early morning we do real work: we head out on the water the some local fishermen. on the first day we set out 20 wicker fish traps -all homemade and amazing 0 inside and outside the fishing sanctuary. no need to use a gps, the fishermen know exactly where to put the traps, so they are eagerly diving in, doing most of the work while we sit in the boat and eat peanuts and laugh. the next day we pull up the traps, see how many fish are inside, measure them. if we're inside the sanctuary, tag the fish and let them go. if we're outside, the fishermen get to take the fish home. plus they get a small pay, and they are seeing the positive results of having a sanctuary, so they're very excited about the work (not excited about letting fish go. they usually look at these huge fish and get the little dollar signs in their eyes going "cha-ching!"). alice says the fish inside the sanctuary are poisoned, and that you have to let them flush it out for a while before you can catch them. that's her way of saying wait for them to get bigger!

there are loottts of spacious smiles, as most of the fishermen have no teeth. they wear these really ratty clothes, like one guy, whose shorts and underwear were ripped right across his ass. you could see everything. and i mean everything. so alice got them uniforms: these silly sailor boy outfits, navy blue and white with the little knot in front and flap in the back. so weird.

we have to keep all the gas for the boats under lock and key in a big empty building that is the park office, or else it will be stolen. and we have to be real careful about who goes in there, always need a watchdog to make sure they don't skim from the top. we put tick marks to make sure the levels are the same the next day. already, one guy knows about our stash and came asking for gas for his home generator. his home generator powers that annoying disco music we hear every night. sorry senor! he insisted he was an important man from the opposition party. sorry senor! ask your party for gas!

yesterday afternoon alice took me for a long walk to see a friend, a woman who lives in a hut with a dirt yard surrounded by a bamboo fence. she brought out some chairs for us while she sat on a mat with her grandchild on her lap. there were goats, chickens, garbage. i was trying to imagine living like that, with so little, spending your day preparing food and doing daily chores. it's sortof like camping...but...i imagine without the glory. there was a young girl there, who was washing clothes in a bin, and just hanging around playing with dirt and an old carboard box. i wonder what she was thinking about, how is each day different? does she ever get bored?

then we walked around the town some more and met some kids who surrounded us in awe. this little girl in a ripped dress jumped into my arms and clung to me like a little monkey. it sortof made me sad. alice knew immediately, "don't cry!"

then we walked some more to the fort at the end of the island. a big white star shaped thing i've seen on the satellite images. inside were a whole bunch of guys just sitting on the ground, banging, bending and soldering silver. silversmiths! they find old portuguese coins and make the most intricate delicate amazing jewelry. alice definitely knew i would love this place. i learned a little bit from the guys, watched them melt silver into little balls and chain links using a tube, they blow air into this hot flaming oil can thing. crazy. alice bought me a beautiful pair of earrings and i picked out 2 more, for less than $10. i could have bought the whole store. they wrapped them in torn pieces of hiv pamphlets, which are everywhere here. "Q: my baby is not gaining weight. A: your baby might have aids." sigh.

to ibo via land

to explain where i am sitting now...cross legged on a cliff with my kerosene lantern to my left, a calm sea to my right reflecting a million stars in every direction over the island of ibo. getting here was almost as spectacular.
we left pemba around 11:30 am after a morning packed of logistics. geri cans of fuel, gallons of water, rice, fruit, computers, maps. our little helper guys packed our hi-lux pickup to the gills. just enough room for us three ladies: alice, lizia and myself.
and off we went, for a little while on a nice paved road, and then, a bright red dirt path through miombo forest and endless villages of mud huts with colorful women with painted faces, waving kids, broken bicycles, fruit stands, goats, chickens everything.
alice was in a greater hurry than usual, as we were a little late catching the high tide which would allow us to take our boat to ibo island. she was flying. i kept pointing out the speed limit signs, as a joke, because on a dirt road with pot holes the size of hot tubs, there's no way you could go the posted limit of 70km/hr, but she certainly was trying! we would pass these national geographic scenes with women with painted faces, kids pumping water from a well, a dude with an old singer sewing machine in front of his hut, kids running to catch up with the truck, while adults and livestock spread like ants to jump out of our way, and ultimately we would leave them in a cloud of light brown dust. i tried to take pictures as we zoomed by and nearly lost my camera and thrice hit my head on the ceiling. i saw the perfect baobab! but it came out a blur, even with a 1/1500 shutter speed. (people don't wear seatbelts here, and had i been wearing mine, i would most certainly have been strangled)
we finally found a shady spot to have a picnic. it happened to be occupied by an older makonde woman, also taking a break in the shade. as we slowed down she had a look of absolute terror on her face and did one of those hesitations a squirrel makes when it's facing headlights, and took off in a sprint. we pulled up pretty slowly but she ran away, screaming for her life, and never looked back. we felt really bad.
she came back 5 minutes later with a young angry man with a machete and a stick. he yells at us for scaring the woman and we pleaded, we were just stopping to rest and eat. i offered her some soggy fries.
soon, more people started showing up, a guy with two chickens strapped upside down on the back of his bike, a guy with 100 lbs of rice on another, and a fourth guy also with a machete and a stick, walking in typical mekonde fighter fashion.
we get a little uneasy with this crowd and get into the car to leave. lizia locks her door. the truck won't start. we kind of sit there, awkwardly waving goodbye, see you! thanks! they surround the car, and insist they only want to help. we get out and pop the hood - the battery is being held in place with a flip flop and a bungee cord - nice. i'm sure it's the alternator. the guys look at the engine like it's a spaceship. they poke it with a stick. we look at the dash and the battery is working, but the temperature gauge is in the red, and we have been speeding over dirt gravel and sand for a while...let's just wait. the guys don't leave. we stand awkardly in silence. finally, out of nowhere, like a horse that just decides to start sprinting, the car starts. we're so outta there!
we drive for another hour, more villages and goats. i see a guy ironing with a cinder block, a little market or a bar with a tv that can't possibly be plugged into anything. you see those dirty kids playing with the metal wheel ring and the stick like from the 20s. their moms have geri cans on their heads.
we enter quirimbas national park and hi-five the rangers who scramble down from their two story hut. the roads are slightly smoother now, and we careen around corners and nearly smash into buses, loaded to the gills with people and plastic buckets. one bus is pulling a trailer made out of a half of another bus. and they will be going over the same bumpy, messy road that nearly killed our car? sometimes, we come straight towards some guys on their loaded bicycles. they have no brakes and sortof just flail off the side of the road, legs sticking out, face in fear. alice says don't worry! they're used to it!
then, there, ahead in the road...what is that? it's a huge baboon! my first baboon!
we make it to the big tree on the edge of the mangroves at exactly 4pm. this is tanganyama. also known as the "pirate port" as we'll soon find out why. high tide is just about to hit, there are slanted sailboats lying in the mud, waiting for the water to lift them. a crowd of people unload everything from our truck into a wooden boat with a crooked outboard on the back. they are carrying everything on their heads. they call it 'helping' but really, they want something. i don't want to break out out the cash so i find a softball, a bag of trader joe's rice crackers and these cookies a girl from wwf made, that honestly, are so dense and heavy i'm sick of eating and carrying them. they are elated. one guy gets mad because he doesn't get a cookie! we take pictures. everyone is smiling.
then someone asks, so where is the combustible? uhhhh, crap. we had meant to be in a two-car convoy, but the other truck had problems and turned back...with all the gas. we had thought of everything...but this! the boat driver gives us a half-full gas can and tells us to figure it out. this guy shows up out of nowhere and says "i know a place that sells gas!" we pile back in the car, and this time, we have unknowingly agreed to give a lady and her kid a ride, plus negotiator guy, so we're packed in like sardines. we zip back across a mudplain that will soon be flooded with the tide and trap us on the mainland. kids are playing soccer in the distance, the sun is setting.
we arrive at a mud hut village and meander through the streets until we come to a store, which is conveniently owned by the negotiator guy and sells gas at three times the normal price. ooooh i get it. then they talk about mixtura. do we need an oil gas mixture? crap. someone needs to call boat guy. who has a phone that works? this goes on for a while and by this point in time, the entire village is surrounding us, kids climbing all over our our truck and ogling our gas cans. the owner shoos everyone away, basta!
i get out of the car and get mobbed by the kids. they are all gorgeous and all want their picture taken, as usual. one kid has plastic bags with rubber bands for shoes. they show me their soccer ball - a wad of plastic bags wrapped in rubber bands. let's play footbal. we are running all over the village, and with this ball i am like pele, kicking, passing, hitting chickens and goats with the ball, everyone is screaming and yelling. i am heading the ball and it sends dirt and sand all in my eyes and face, they think it's hilarious. this is the best part of my day. i hear a horn honking, alice is angry. let's go! we drop off the lady and her kid, who had been waiting patiently in the car the whole time, even though their hut was only a few doors down from the store. she was loving being in the car, it was like arriving in a limousine, so she relished the moment as long as possible.
we race back across the mudplain, trying not to get stuck in the mud (the rumor is when this happens and you stop, people come out of the mangroves to help but they eventually steal your shoes - piratas!) and we arrive back at the mangroves and the tide has righted all the boats. ours is still waiting, with all our luggage and supplies inside. we have to walk through some pretty deep water with slushy mud at the bottom that is seeping between my toes. i carry my laptop on my head. look, african style! people in the boat next to us point and laugh. they are loading a motorbike into some sort of makeshit viking boat with 8 rowers.
we get into our boat and motor through the channel and see the most gorgeous sunset with egrets, sailboats with ratty home made sails. wow.
we arrive at ibo, i have no idea how, our captain took us through mangroves in complete darkness, no flashlight, nada.
we arrive to this quaint little complex that is being renovated by a belgian couple. they are officially closed, but they are letting us stay in the little honeymoon house on the cliff. we hop out and carry our stuff on our heads to land. there is a baby gazelle on the grounds that was rescued in august. his name is elvis, he has a little black tuft of hair on his head. he wants to sleep in my bed, along with the two cats. dinner is waiting for us in this open air kitchen. it's octupus curry and rice, my favorite. i give ulrich one of my maps, he is psyched.
they cut the generator just as we sit down, so there's silence, except for the 'discoteque' that is across the street. ulrich, exclaims, oh no! not again! apparently, discoteque guy just bought that "i'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world" album and he plays is OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. indeed he does.
still, a small price to pay for being in this slice of heaven. and i haven't even seen ibo in daylight yet. all i can say is...ha ha suckers, this is my JOB!

chivas regal

so for the course they organized lunch every day and morning and evening snacks through a place next door called the chivas regal. i'm not really sure why it's called that, but it's essentially a student discoteque in a former sports complex. they would otherwise be closed during the week, but for us they arranged 7 days of special buffet with some pretty tasty food, and a long table outside with plastic chairs. the food would consist of some sort of meat, fish, roasted potatoes or fries, rice, the local version of frou-frou and some salad. carbs. whoever was first and second in line would always take all the fries.
the owner is a skeevy arab guy with lots of missing teeth. the course was meant to be 7 full days but they shortened it to 5 1/2. we were having a little review session on saturday morning (i once again found myself explaining that we were in the southern hemisphere, hence latitude is NEGATIVE) and at around 12:30 they just decided to end the pain and started clapping and cheering thank you teacher! while i was in the middle of a sentence. ok.
so we pack up and head to the chivas for what would be our final lunch. smarmy arab owner guy didn't want to refund us for the 1/2 of the 6th, and 7th day of lunch and snacks we had already paid for, but offered us to exchange those meals for booze. why not? nelson the logistics guy says, how about we start drinking now and just hang out all the way until dinner and then see where we stand? do you see where this is going?
great idea! so out come the 2 bottles of johnny walker red, ice buckets, some red wine (also in an ice bucket) and a whole lot of beer.
so there are two sizes to 2M here, small and large. the small ones are normal beer size and generally cost $1.50, but the large ones are actually cheaper, the difference being quality not quantity. the small bottles are "export quality" the labels actually read "cervesa de qualidad" so, good enough for tanzanians and south africans, but the large ones don't say anything in particular, and so i guess they are more the equivelent of toilet water with alcohol.
so we're hanging out, talking, drinking, laughing. zin tells me about his chili garden that has 6 different species and he tests their hotness, their ability to grow in different soils, and their potential for elephant deterring bombs, a big part of the work in northern mozambique. awesome. there are plenty of more rasterizing jokes. it's become a favorite word
"how are you doing?"
"you know, rasterizing, man."
then comes another fish head man trying to sell an 80 pound sailfish, which he is carrying on his head. no one wants to buy his fish and he storms off. the sun sets, the music gets turned on, these huge speakers aimed at our table. they play a mix of only 3 songs: bon jovi's bed of roses, guns n roses november rain and the live version of hotel california. this series repeats, and repeats and repeats. i was gambling people millions of meticais "hey diego, i bet you the next song is....november rain!" it is blaringly loud. we ask to turn the music down, so they turn it up, then down so it actually doesn't change at all. so we move our chairs to a far corner of the patio. we sit in a circle around the last free beer...we drink it ceremoniously and someone immediately orders a round of 6 more to replace it. we continue in this fashion until it is dark, other tables and chairs are set up around us, and our long table is once again ready for family meal. it feels like a wedding, when you sit and try to talk over bad music and watch people dance.
nelson asks if we can put on a cd, to change these awful tunes. it's a jimi dudu album - mozambique afro-jazz. it's excellent. everyone in the place is rocking out, tapping their feet, whistling the melodies. nelson and sergio play air guitar and sing.
dinner is served. people point at the mystery meat dish and laugh and say, "aurelgrooves will never eat this!" referring to the dobrada debaucle. but they are chicken gizzards, i recognize them immediately. are you crazy? i LOVE chicken gizzards, for reals!
we eat, the jimi dudu album ends and is replaced by a reggae song with lyrics about the uprising. everyone starts chanting "rasta-rizing! rasta-rizing! with pixels!" and we dance stupidly. the evening continues.
people are dancing verrrrry inappropriately, especially during this one song "ta quete" which means "stop complaining and take it" or something terrible classy like that. it has this low angry voice and this hard loud beat and people do the ass shaking jiggling grinding thing, which i cannot do because i have no ass. we are taking tons of stupid pictures.
i started flipping my glass around, shocking and amazing all with my gravity skills, and then i smashed a full glass on the ground, naturally. no one found it funny. "teacher is drunk! rasta-rize!!"
so then everyone was asking me why i don't dance, and particularly why i don't dance with the men in that grindy african style and i tried to explain is was a little beyond my comfort zone and they say you have to dance with a man, it is an african rule and so i say fine, and that's when i found a new african boyfriend. his name is fernando. he moved to pemba from the south in 1941 when he was 20, so i'm guessing he's pushing 90. every single one of his bones is jutting awkwardly out of his body. he has a little hunch, wears a nice pair of sweatpants and a designer polo shirt. he can dance his ass off. his favorite song is "ta quete," he goes absolutely nuts over it. and lucky for him, they play it a lot, like several times an hour.
i bought him a lime fanta after a few tiring dance songs and i think he told me he loved me. it sounded like waarrrraammmaamawaa because he has no teeth, but i'm pretty sure he was talking about love. we danced all night. every time his song came on he would be completely extatic and clap his hands and sing.
once, he was dancing with another girl, this super hot really tight jeans wearing girl, when ta quete came on and he elbowed her in the nose to get her out of the way to dance with me. he really put on the groove. later on, she stole him back. bitch.
i pulled a 'my dad when he's drunk' and invited fernando to thanksgiving. "it's one of the many, many, many days that the americans eat better than the mozambiquans!" and hey, with a little luck, maybe he could get a spot at peconic landing? at the end of the night he saw me dancing with a co-worker and mumbled his usual warrramamaaawaaa and stormed off. i never saw fernando again.
zin showed up gave me a plastic bag full of teeny tiny extremely hot chiles. "the smaller they are, the more spicy...just like teacher!" they made my throat burn through three layers of plastic. he shakes my hand, which is now covered in super hot chile, which i later rub in my eyes.
we finally decide to change venue, and i ask to ride in the back of the pickup, mozambique style. the only thing that's missing is 15 other people riding in the back with me, that would make this more authentic. so rito decides to give some prostitutes a ride too. i'm standing there, balancing and surfing, holding onto the cab, wind flying through my hair, lsitening to portuguese, staring up at the stars. this place is amazing...i will miss you pemba.

me and peanut ladies

me and my half braided hair and my new beads dancing with peanut ladies.

peanuts!

today we hung out at the pemba dolphin allllll day. just sat under a thatched umbrella, drank some water, went swimming with nelson's daughter, played frisbee, took lots of pictures of passersby...a perfect sunday. it was hilarious to see a mozambiquan teaching chinese tourists to throw my frisbee. there's a stage nearby that had live music and dancing, including the women with the painted faces. i took their picture too.
we're taking tons of pictures. lizia decides there's not enough pictures of me and uses my new telefoto lens to zoom in on the huge zit on my chin.
so nelson's daughter isa has been tugging on my hair all day. beautiful hair! she screams. i only understand half what she is saying. we're playing in the water and once again, she's petting my hair and muttering sweet portuguese nothings. we dry off and she wants to go for a walk. perfect, i've been wanting to as well. but she drags me away from the beach across the street to marco's house, a guy from the course. marco isn't home and the guard won't let us in. isa puts on this adorable sad face and says pleeeeease, just for a moment. he lets her in and i have an awkward 5 minutes with the guard, barefoot, in my bathing suit. she comes out two seconds later and she takes me back to our chairs, no detour. so much for a walk on the beach! she pulls out the comb she just stole from marco's house. for the next hour and a half i am her live barbie doll. she is coming, braiding, unbraiding and pretty much pulling out all my hair. before i left my boyfriend asked me if i was going to get my hair braided in africa. i said no way, i'm not going to be like one of those lame tourists in the caribbean who come back with cornrows that look worse day after day. well, now i just look like a really messed up caribbean tourist with half my head in these teeny tiny braids i can't undo without ripping out all my hair.
so while i was sitting there helpless against this adorable little girl attaching my head, tons of people were coming by, selling stuff- chocolates, lollipops, wontons, chicken skewers, earrings.
dmitri the frisbee guy who calls himself "a business man" has been asking all week to show me his jewelry. i buy some beads that are these cool oval seeds and a pair of cool wooden earrings. his buddy shows up to watch the transaction in awe, where i give dmitri $4 worth of mozambiquan money. dmitri is now loaded, showing off to his friends. i wave goodbye when the friend asks me about my earrings. plata (silver)? yes, they are simple, silver hoops i buy wholesale for less than a dollar back home.
can we trade earrings???
he has these white round studs with a rubber backing.
sure, why not.
so we trade. he puts on my hoops and he's psyched.
i have these cool white carved spikes with balls on the end that feel way too heavy to be plastic, way to warm to be shell. uh, they just might be ivory. yolande thinks so. sortof cool, i guess. i can't really wear them because the stems are super thick.
i am now mostly earringless except for the one extra hoop in my right ear (i've been meaning to even out my piercings). the dude who i taught trick frisbee throws says i look weird with one earring. so strange. you should take off the last earring and give it to me!
he's probably right.
i should have brought more earrings!
so there's lots of ladies around wear typical colorful dresses, have a baby strapped to their backs and heads wrapped in colorful fabric selling peanuts out of these cool round baskets. i suddenly had a hankerin' for some roasted peanuts and so i ask to buy some. she rolls it up in a newspaper cone, or what looks like pages from a book (i heard they have been using textbooks, since they're given out for free every year).
she says 'mil' and i don't understand...that's 1,000...$40?! no. mil actually means one meticai. so wait...that's...4 cents? so these ladies are selling peanuts for...peanuts! i've actually never seen one meticai, the lowest denomination i know of is a 20 bill and the lowest i have in my wallet is a 50 (i took 3,000 out of the bank machine today and it was all in 50s. i'm carrying a WAD). ummm. it would be really annoying for me to ask for change. i'm considering buying her whole batch of peanuts, plus the basket. that's a lot of peanuts! alice doesn't like peanuts. oh well, i send her on her way. i tell alice how peanuts are more expensive where i come from. i wonder how on earth they can make any money selling peanuts so darn cheap. turns out they're really easy to grow, really easy to harvest and roast and sell.
later on we went to check out the stage where the music was coming from and listened to a singer. i danced with some peanut ladies. they let me taste some of their peanuts, yum. salty, perfectly roasted, so fresh. i want to grow peanuts in my balcony garden!

dobrada debaucle

so after work one night a few of the guys ask me if i want to go to dinner and watch the soccer game. sure. we drive off a ways towards the airport for a place that supposedly has some good authentic food. we get there and it's totally empty. rito starts to say that in mozambique an empty place is not a good place to eat. same is true where i live too. so i wonder why are we stopping then? i make the rationale that someone has to be the first person somewhere or else everywhere would be empty. so we sit down. rito asks if frenchie wants some wine. ok. they serve a freezing cold bottle of vin d'oc....with two tall glasses of ice, and a bottle of coca cola. oh no he didn't. oh yes he will. so goes my first calimocho, or, i forget the portuguese word. rito orders for everyone, something "really typical."
i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo. later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish. the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.

pemba dolphin

so this is the pemba dolphin where i eat pretty much every meal. it's a good mix of locals and foreigners. the food is tasty, but not very plentiful. there's grilled squid, prawns, chicken, sandwiches, all super cheap. there's one specialty i have to order, it's the sirloin steak on a hot rock. this guy was eating it yesterday and 20 minutes after it was served it was still sizzling. the service is....relaxed. it can sometimes take 20 minutes just to get a menu. there are some nice wooden chairs with ottomans under thatched umbrellas in a little front yard area cordoned off by rope, which you can watch the beach from. only white people sit in these though. the locals sit at the picnic tables. there's a security guard who swings a billy club around like he's a police officer in a benny hill episode. whenever i show up he walks right up to the rope and stares right at me. i'll be all, hello, how are you? he doesn't answer, he just stares. it's a little awkward when he stands directly between me and the beach, facing me, back to the exciting beach frisbee games, kids running around, fishermen, brightly dressed ladies carrying stuff on their heads. it's like when i watch a movie and my cat sits on the coffee table and watches me. i want to ask, hey, mind moving a little to the left so i can see the waves please? one would think if there was ever a threat, a robber or some sort, he would come from the beach side. the guard will never see this coming. he would get plopped on the head by a coconut, game over.

dobrada debaucle

the one day i don't bring my camera to lunch, a really really short fisherman shows up with a giant sailfish on his head. no joke, the thing must have weighed 180 pounds and it sagged over his shoulders down to his waist. he was trying to sell it. it looked like an umbrella over his head.
so after work one night a few of the guys ask me if i want to go to dinner and watch the soccer game. sure. we drive off a ways towards the airport for a place that supposedly has some good authentic food. we get there and it's totally empty. rito starts to say that in mozambique an empty place is not a good place to eat. same is true where i live too. so i wonder why are we stopping then? i make the rationale that someone has to be the first person somewhere or else everywhere would be empty. so we sit down. rito asks if frenchie wants some wine. ok. they serve a freezing cold bottle of vin d'oc....with two tall glasses of ice, and a bottle of coca cola. oh no he didn't. oh yes he will. so goes my first calimocho, or, i forget the portuguese word. rito orders for everyone, something "really typical." i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo.
later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish.
the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.

sunday part II. the disco

so after the dive i met up with the rest of the crew who just flew in from maputo. we're having lunch, chit chatting, i'm getting introduced to all the people i've been emailing the past year. the beach starts filling up with people.
the past few days i had started to think that this town is rather boring and dead, but here comes sunday! thousands of people are now walking, swimming, hanging out. my frisbee is flying up from the crowd. the guy i gave the frisbee too, dmitri, he's like frisbee guy now. he's perfected the throw the disc really hard at an angle so it comes right back to you thing. he throws solo, and he catches it between his legs and stuff. rad.
no one i'm sitting with seems to care or notice the gargantuan beach party forming. i'm itching to go out and take some pictures, walk around, whatever. they want to have a debriefing about the course. so i go back to my hotel room across the street to get some printouts and get caught in this huge parade. there are horses, motorbikes, the indigenous people with painted faces, police cars, trucks with dudes playing the drums in the back. it's insane, i have to frogger across this 2 lane mess to get to the hotel and i get caught up in this mob. i'm fighting my way through, getting grabbed into dancing circles, people waving in my face, they're like, can't you see this is a party? where are you going? and what is this white girl doing here?
i finally make it back to the lunch spot and no one seems to have noticed i've been gone for 30 minutes. i tell them there's a friggin parade and they're all oh, right, pemba is about to win an award for what i understood in their portuguese was third deepest bay in the world. i'm thinking, that's odd, who cares about being the third deepest bay in the world? so i'm asking everyone about the depth, like, 70 meters isn't that deep. i'm sure there's somewhere in russia that's way deeper. and all during the meeting i'm trying to figure it out, and everyone is all why are you so obsessed with the depth of pemba bay?
finally we end our meeting and we go check out this big stage with live music and it's a celebration that unseco has announced that pemba is the third most LARGEST bay in the world, within a category of most beautiful bays in the world. oooooh, now i get it, that makes sense. people are very psyched about this. this is a most incredible party. but you know, i went to bahia honda, in the florida keys, the supposed 2nd most beautiful beach in the world and it wasn't all that. but hey, i'm not going to bust anyone's bubble here.
so me and a bunch of my collegas decide to walk over to another beach bar and grab a seat. i vote for the small chairs close to the action. they are rocking chairs. rocking chairs in the sand? they prove to be a terrible idea. i rock forwards onto my face and sergio falls sideways like he's a drunk. so we decide to get some beer. hey, it's sunday 4pm. there's a party on the beach! pemba is the third largest bay in the world!
so we order these huge beers (2m, the company owned by the president, or, "doshem") and heckle the passers by, take pictures of kids, decide we should visit the first and second largest bays in the world, wherever they are and determine if it's true. this guy comes over to sell this delicate wooden scupture of a pelican with long wings that balances on a stand. we are amazed by the leverage action on the thing. i buy one for my dad, to add to his collection of cool balancing toys on his kitchen counter. i'm like, dude, do you have a phD in physics or something? and he answers sadly no, lowering his eyes, i only recently got my masters in engineering. boy do i feel like a jerk.
we finish our beer and decide to have a change of environment. this one guy says he knows a restaurant just down the beach, which is also a discoteque sometimes. it's 5pm on a sunday, we figure it's probably pretty chill, so we go.
it turns out to be like that saturday night live skit with the guys who dance like robots to techno. saturday night at the roxbury? there's bone vibrating tribal techno blasting and the place is packed with all the girls that i've noticed are missing from the beach party. the DJ is up in a booth wearing an "i'm hot" t shirt. the dance floor is jammed with every age class between 6 and 55 and their halter tops barely qualify as clothing. an 8 year old boy asks me to dance and proceeds to grind on my leg. this is akward. and it's 5:30 pm on a sunday. we get some more beer and hang out by the blacklight. next thing i know i'm dancing in this circle with a breakdancer in the middle. it feels like the last time i was at the queen night club in paris, like when people were doing coke everywhere and there were guys dancing in cages and bubbles and fake snow kind of thing. this old lady in a unitard comes over and grabs my waist and tries to lift me up like we're figure skating.
i remind thomas, the one with the weird straw hat that we have dinner plans with the rest of the folks in an hour and a half. he ignores me and dances with a far less than 16 year old. i'm getting my picture taken left and right and thinking, this is going to haunt me some day. then i'm asking myself when was the last time i went clubbing before dinnner? yeah! i go to the bathroom. 3rd largest bay? it has the world's most disgusting bathroom! and they call this a restaurant? the doors are falling off the hinges, the toilets are all broken, leaving yellowish brown bowls that don't quite line up with the drain, so there's leaking stink everywhere. i go out onto the beach area and there's another dance floor, exclusively for kids. my light up frisbee would be so rad here. so is my sunday in pemba.

sunday part I. the dive

so i've been spending most of my time outside work with alice. she's a tall, confident, funny marine biology phD student from maputo. she has lots of funny stories and we get along great. in the meantime, she won't let me out of her sight. seriously, if i want to go across the street for coffee or something it's wait for me, i'll come with! i think she's terrified i'll get strangled or something and the course won't go on. the thing is, this place is really safe. the security guards are mostly barefoot, and don't carry guns, only billy clubs. and most of the time they are on their backs, feet up against a wall, staring at the sky, and likely asleep. they have perfected the plastic chair nap. if more went on in this town, they would have something to stay awake for.
anyway, at the beach, alice is like my mom. she sits by my clothes while i play with the kids and swim. she makes sure i'm always walking on the sidewalks. she also makes sure i get my projects done so this trip is feeling a lot less like a vacation and a lot more like work. so i'm pretty certain she wanted a break, which is why she sent me diving sunday morning.
the day was totally crappy and windy, the worst for diving. but i went anyway. i thought it would be good for me to be underwater with my thoughts, relax. we get in this teeny tiny boat and motor over the waves and i'm instantly soaked. and i'm the only idiot who brought a towel, which is now as wet as my hair.
i always sortof freak out during the first part of a dive, because it's like, oh my god! i'm breathing underwater this is SO weird! and it takes a moment to adjust. well the entire group sank to the bottom like a bunch of lead weights. so i'm drifting there, all by myself, trying to adjust my fins, get situated and the guide comes up and is all are you ok? are you ok? with the little diving signs...yes, i'm fine...i'm coming and i'm delaying the whole group so they're like, who's the amateur? so i go down real fast, which i hate to do, and i get a little dizzy and i can't see much and my eyes are focusing on all the crap right in front of my nose, the crap that's getting stirred up by the wind and i'm all what if these are actually little stingy bugs like they had in panama? what if they get in my underpants? what if my regulator leaks? can anyone see that i'm farting? is my heart beating too fast? what do bubbles in your brain feel like? and so on and so forth.
so much for being alone with my thoughts. i'm pretty sure i'm not getting enough air, and so i'm breathing fast, but you don't want to be the loser that runs out of air first, because then the whole group has to surface and everyone is all thanks for ruining my $50 honeymoon dive, jerk.
so i'm trying to calm down, breathe slooooow and then i'm looking at my hands to see if they're pale or whatever and then i'm wondering why we have 10 fingers and toes and not a multiple of 4, which seems more natural and then my dive buddy is all are you ok? are you ok? and he won't leave me alone and then i see this big fish and i'm all YUSSSSS like my friend meg says, and then i wonder how my softball team is doing, or if my cat will be alive when i come home and then i'm wondering if my cat could ever understand that i'm underwater, thinking about her, and then i figure i haven't really looked at anything and i see another big fish and say YUSSSSSS and then i realize how ridiculous it is that i'm saying YUSSSSS off the coast of africa 90 feet underwater and then i realize that i'm 90 feet underwater, holy crap, that's deep. you can't see the surface! how do i know which way is up?
diving is [retty fun, right? i go over and swim near the weird german couple who is taking pictures of each other. they're weird because i noticed up in the boat that the guy shaves his entire body, head, chest, arms, legs, swimmer style, but the girl doesn't shave anything.so, either she's attracted to hairless guys, or he's attracted to hairy girls, or both. which is it?
then it's time to go. 54 minutes just flew by. there was lots of soft coral, whatever. it wasn't really relaxing.

thirsty lizard

so they've separated the guys and the girls into two hotels really far away from eachother. "that's how it must be in africa." they keep inviting me to their hotel for dinner...and breakfast..all organic! fresh eggs and milk! ha. slo i say, why don't we all eat somewhere in town? but too late, they decided to have a fish-n-beer thing and i'm not invited. oh well.
so i went to my little dolphin cafe and drank a beer and sat and read my book. the local beer is called dois m, or 2 m, or "doishem." for some reason when i order, they always bring two. then comes a little lizard...are you thirsty little lizard? why i think you are.

got rooster?

i woke up real early today and went for a nice walk on the beach. a peaceful stroll in my barefeet, watching the women fish from the sand bar...and then comes this guy, trying to sell me a necklace. they're always trying to sell me something, either melted chocolate, seashells. so i'm all dude, how about YOU buy MY necklace?
ok
$150 dollars. this is real quartz.
uh, how about $5.
no, now shoo!
so i'm walking back to my hotel and here comes a dude with brown oranges.
no, i'm ok with brown oranges, seriously, thank you!!
then he says "gallina?"
and i'm thinking, gallina means rooster in spanish. and he whips out two live roosters.
nah, i'm good on roosters, thanks.

professora aurelgrooves

i am definitely not cut out for this teaching thing. especially with africans.
so this training is in the universidad catolica de mozambique. a concrete breezy no windows open hallway affair on the beach. i spied a computer lab with 20 commodore 64s. we are shown to a classroom which they rent out like a conference room at a hotel. but there is no screen or dry erase board or anything, just one of those shiny chalkboards that's impossible to write on (with the chalk i find on the floor), a few windows with heavy wool curtains, some chairs that have the backs at a 90 degree angle to the seat, a spartan ceiling fan that might fall on my head, and one plug for our 22 computers, projector etc...we manage to get off to a start 2 hours late. we're doing introductions, why are you here sort of thing when custodial guys come in and starts setting up coffee, clanging pots, dropping coolers. i count 5 people on their cell phones, others are talking to each other, clamoring for the password to the wireless internet. so i make up some rules. no cell phones! it was like i had just announced the winner of the zimbabwe election. total chaos. no email! what?! crazy teacher!
my humor of punishment (punicao) and detention and cleaning the blackboard if you violate the rules is lost on them. i wish i had a ruler or something to smack their heads when i catch them sleeping. some guy from the ministry of environment comes in with his desktop computer. he's setting up his monitor, his keyboard, his whole home office when he raises his hand "may we start earlier tomorrow? like at 7? you know, so we can end at 3?" i remind the dude he appeared 15 minutes before lunch on his first day.
i managed to sweat through all my clothes all day and thankfully not have to use the bathroom, which was on par with the discoteque. this class is a nightmare. we're 3 lectures in when one guy admits he missed the part about the right click mouse button. they don't want to right click, they do whatever they can no to right click. they want to learn about satellite imagery, but they don't know the difference between a text file and a spreadsheet. "double click the file to open it." 20 hands go up. these are the same 20 people who cannot create a new folder, but can check 3 email accounts, write text messages, gmail chat and talk to their neighbor, all the while saying they are giving me their full attention.
they keep deleting stuff. one thing i do a lot is go into the recycle bin and pull the software program out. maybe they are telling me something?
then we had a long lecture about data organization. putting your data in one directory so you can find it. always save it there, end of story. so the most common question i get asked is "where did i save my file?" i don't know.
my favorite are the guys from the geography institute. they do not understand a single word of english. they raised their hand and i went over and they had the GIS program running in 54 different windows. they must have clicked 108 times on the icon. they deny everything. one guy said, i wasn't here this morning. yes you were, you asked me if i have a boyfriend. they do not know what coordinates are. they ask me what's wrong with our map? well, let's see, the coordinates of your point are 490 degrees South and 5068 degrees west. so what country is this in? that is no country, there are only 90 degrees of latitude my friends.
but this is just how it is, another world. tomorrow they want to start at 8. so everyone is all, ok, let's have breakfast at 7:30 at the hotel then! but it took us 30 minutes to drive there today....that's how it is.
but day 2 was actually way better...i tried to have a little more fun. once they started seeing cool elevation maps and hillshades, they were hooked. i had them make maps and send them in emails to their friends. we mapped data we called "rito's lady friend's house." it was almost 5 the course was over 30 minutes ago but they wouldn't leave. so where's my apple?

frisbee fiesta

i brought my frisbee out to the beach today with a plan to teach these soccer obsessed kids another sport. i'm like "friiiiiiizzzzbeeeee" and they're like, duh, we know, throw the thing already. so i toss it to this 9 year old and he catches it between the legs and whips a side-arm throw to his buddy, who flicks it like a pro to his cousin who dive-backflip catches it in the water. i have nothing to teach these kids. they picked up the hammer throw in two seconds and can catch anything i toss. they can curve it, spin it on their fingers. then they bring out all their frisbees and it's a friggin' frisbee party. 20 kids, 8 frisbees. though theirs are all tupperware plates or those free discs you get free from the bank that suck. i gave them mine. ok, maybe i'll show them what a zone defense is or something. this is my olympic team in the making.

my name is...

so there's a construction site behind my room. i have no idea what they are building, but they carry metal rods and throw them a lot, and argue, and there's a skeleton of a huge satellite dish next to a broken more intact satellite dish. there are some skinny dogs who scratch themselves against anything sturdy and a lady who fills bins with water and yells at the kids running around. i think one of them is named aurelia, because almost every time i'm sleeping, i hear aurelia! aurelia! venga! with whistling, and i wake up to get up and go, and when i realize i don't have anywhere to go i feel like i've been had. when i'm getting ready to meet alice i hear my name coming from the walls and so i hurry up and don't have time to put bug spray on and run out the door, but it's just that ghostly voice again and i get eaten alive by the bugs.
they call me aurelia here because somehow, aurelie is impossible. my name is aurelie. what? huh? crinkle the brow and squint. so i say aurrrrrelia and they're all, oh! that's so easy! a nice portuguese name!

italian food in moz

alice took me to a fancy italian restaurant on the beach....3 times. it has a 34 page menu. every combination of pasta and sauce and pizza or calzone. all homemade. i order the local pumpkin-like thing ravioli. don't have it. ok, meat then? all we have is fish ravioli. ummmmmmm. the gnochi? no gnochi today. i'll take the asparagus pizza then. no asparagus. we go through pretty much the whole menu when finally, i say, how about you just replace the asparagus on the pizza with mushrooms? or, you can add mushrooms to the regular pizza, it's the same thing (cheaper).
at this point the waiter's head explodes. he has no idea how to handle this. so i get a calzone. it's huge. it's awesome. there are loud italians drinking peroni behind us. the waves are crashing on the beach. yummy.

stinky room

so i never saw maputo, only at night, but i figure i was staying in some sort of foofy neighborhood that looked like rio. but pemba is cute. beach town, more mud-huttey than i expected, and a lot of american tourists. they drive on the left here, which makes me wonder, at what border do they decide to switch sides (in congo you drive on the right)? i'm on the beach in this little residence called 'wimbi sun' next to a brightly lit casino, and this tasty restaurant called the dolphin hut. at first, i was worried when i saw "dolphin steak" and "dolphin burger" on the menu, but they are just referring to their name, duh. kids roll in the sand while you eat lunch under a thatch hut. beer is cheaper than juice or fanta. my room is really big, has air conditioning, a whole bunch of harsh fluorescent lighting and hot, running water! there's a plastic patio chair and a matching table. my bed is actually two twin beds sideways. my bedside lamps plug into empty holes in the wall that pretend to be outlets. my phone is a decorative phone. it has buttons, a receiver, but no cords connecting anything. when you walk into the front door you think, oh, there's no one at the front desk, but no, the young muslim dude is usually on the floor praying while watching american tv. superbad was on yesterday. today, notting hill.the maid guy comes and wipes the floor with a rag under his barefeet and walks backwards to the door to make sure to leave no footprints. now that's service.



so i read in the lonely planet guide that you don't flush toilet paper down the toilet. you put it in the trashcan that's usually next to the toilet. so, that's why all these these bathrooms are so gosh darn stinky! same goes for my hotel room. only my hotel room doesn't have a trashcan, it's just a bucket. a lime green plastic bucket with a butterfly on it, fluttering happily next to a little smiley asian girl holding flowers. there's a chinese price tag on it and underneath the picture it says "best wishes! i feel dreams, i am hapiness, i am fairty [sic]" um, this bucket does not smell at all like what it describes. it takes very little to attract flies here. why did i ask the management to only come clean my room every 3 days? i go to the bathroom a lot. enough said.

day 2 status

day 2 status.number of mosquito bites: 11intestinal function: at 90% but dropping quicklystate of my forehead: currently has a bump and bruise from walking into a street sign (i still haven't slept much. it went gooonnnnggggonggggongg like in a cartoon) finger wound from the bathroom door in the plane, just like when i was 9 on the way to japan: kinda puss-ey.

here we go...onto pemba

it's impossible to know what time it is. i've reset my watch every time i see a clock, or when they announce the local time when my plane lands and it seems i'm always drifting within a half hour of reality. and i know it's not my watch, cuz it's a swatch with a brand new battery, so there. on the BBC news, there's a big mozambique logo in the lower right corner where the time would be. i don't think anyone has the correct time, obviously because i'm early to EVERYTHING. so basically, i can stay 25 minutes late and make it feel like everyone is on my schedule, or try to keep up with the atomic clock and always be let down. i think i'm just not going to wear a watch anymore.
i awoke at the ungodly hour of 5 am to catch my flight to pemba from maputo. i had asked for a breakfast wake up call of juice, coffee and a danish, but all i got was juice because they didn't have anything else. and it made my stomach turn. i waited in line at the airport with all these germans and idiots from ohio with hunting rifles (safari jerks) who think they don't need to wait in lines and barge ahead. i finally got to the counter a good hour and a half later to have the lady say, "sorry, you have to wait until 7am to check in.

"but my flight is at 7:30. (and things aren't exactly "speedy" here)

you have to wait until 7.

but it's 6:58.

you have to wait until 7.

so we stared at each other, she looked at the ceiling, i tapped the counter, looked at my watch, wondered if it was in fact the right time, she looked at her cuticles and then finally asked to see my passport, precisely 1 minute later.
security is a breeze. the two guards are watching a movie on a cell phone, laughing. this young woman is going up to every white person and asking their name...the fourth one, a hippe french chick with dreds nods no...and finally she comes to me...hello? it's alice, my new colleague.
i get on the plane and look at my boarding pass..awesome, this flight is only 1h and 30 minutes. i guess i say this out loud because the stewardess laughs. she calls me "crazy lady!" we make THREEEEEE stops! and shows me a map of mozambique and connects 4 dots in a backwards z. i point to the line connecting maputo and pemba in one smooth arc and she goes "haha." awesome indeed. i think, 3 take offs, 3 landings, i'm now tripling my chances of being in a firey plane crash.

professor stinky breath sits next to me and for the second time on this trip i'm having my personal space invaded by my row mate. the armrest is a divider, people! on my 16 hour flight to johannesburg it was fatty mcfatso, a 380 pound UMD student who wore a size 3XL sweathsirt and a few of those x's simply absorbed the armrest and invaded my seat with his thigh and belly. so gross.

so people just loooooooooove obama here. he's like a personal hero from maputo or something. i try to tell the professor that i'm already quite sick of the whole hillary and obama debaucle but no, i get to hear how great obama is for the next hour, and "si se puede!" hillary is a fascist! (sounds like my mom) i'm hoping the next plane stop will buy me a moment of relief, but i only find out that professor drinks-a-lot plans to get hammered at each stop, guzzling as much beer as possible in the 20 minute southwest style layover. so whenever the plane makes a stop everyone gets off and goes into the transito lounge, which is usually a bar on the second floor of the airport overlooking the runway. the first time i didn't get my transito pass and i had to argue my way back onto the plane. so you stand there in the breeze and watch them refuel, unload cargo. at one stop an ikea bed came down the ramp, along with two coffins. i surmised they were empty by the way two guys swung them sideways onto a pile of luggage. i also saw my bags get unloaded and was feeling nervous until one guy came running, no no no no! and took them back onto the plane. whew!

so, by the last leg of the trip professor is stinking of beer, mumbling about mississippi, muhammad ali...and obama! did i tell you how much i think obama is great? oh, and he promises to introduce me to the governor of Ibo when we arrive. she's rrrreally small he says! (he does introduce me to her and she's exactly my height).araman picks me up at the airport, shooing away all the wannabe baggage handlers and beggars and brings me straight to the office. i haven't slept in two days.

the office is actually a makeshift loft built above another office. the ceilings are 5 1/2 feet, so that's fine with me. the stairs to go up there are steep and treacherous, especially when you have short legs like mine. it's like the 2 1/2 floor.

they love my maps. they don't exactly fight congo style for them, but close. the warden of quirimbas national park (i love that they call him a warden. as i day dream into shawshank redemption) says there are 6 more people are on the phone, begging to be a part of my training. they are from the ministry of geography, the people who make all the maps. and they don't know how to use GIS?nope. i don't ask any questions, and i decide i can't turn anyone away, especially geographers. but that makes a total of 22 people i have to teach next week. i'm sortof dreading it, but plan on taking full advantage of the slow weekend ahead of me to see the mozambiquan president visit town! there are flags everywhere and the streets are spotless. i want to eat lobster by the beach. and discoteque!!

step 1. jo-burg.

so in the johannesburg airport they have lots of meat jerkey standsand...a muslim toilet? it's got a picture of a mosque and the turkish hole in the ground style poop chute.

buying a bike in DC? not for short people!

ok, so now i'm going to tell you about the tremendously annoying, demeaning experience of buying a bike in DC for people under 5'3" - which, i can safely say is about most of the non-amazonly tall women in this town, and some guys too??
so i want a new bike. a nice one. i've looked on craigslist, there's some stuff out there, but you have to sift through so much crap and you have to interact with someone who could potentially be weird, pay with cash for a bike that might have some flaws etc...wouldn't it be so much nicer to just go to one place, try some bikes out, and then buy one? shouldn't that place be a bike store?
well no. because there's a lot to consider. first, i'm short. yeah, 5'2" so a 52cm frame is just too damn big, what do you have in my size? nothing? why? i've gone to pretty much every store in DC. everywhere it's the same story. every bike they stock is either huge or huger, and if you want it in a small size, well then you have to special order it, and put down a deposit. you don't rrrrreally have to buy the bike perse, but you have to buy a bike from that store or you lose your deposit. essentially, you have to pick one bike without trying it and hope for the best. or you could start ordering bike after bike after bike and make your coolness meter go way down and eventually you'll end up putting down more deposits than a bike is worth.
and yeah, the coolness meter, there's the unwritten coolness code when you enter a bike shop these days, like, oh, you don't ride a custom fixie with no brakes and have a hip courier bag and hang out a asylum? rolling of eyes...well guess what, i do hang out at asylum and i just want a fucking bike to take me to work and back, maybe on some weekend rides, is that too much to ask?
choosing a bike is pretty intimate. i mean, i'm gonna be sitting on thing, it's gonna be...you know...touching my private areas...would you buy a car without driving it? rent a house without entering it? no.
what would happen if clothing stores only carried size XXS, or supermarkets were all "we're just going to sell meat!" or a bar was all "too fucking bad, we don't serve ugly-ass people like you!" (ok, so they sortof do that as asylum but still...) wouldn't people be outraged? i am!
so what does this come down to? TOTAL BULLSHIT DISCRIMINATION. every store i've been to has had at least one or two other women standing around in the same predicament "i like this bike...do you have it in my size?" nope, sorry!
so i've been being a little more vocal these days and demanding that i should not have to put down cash to test out a bike because tall people don't have to. and no, i'm not interested in the girlie beach cruiser with tassles, thanks for asking. bike stores should carry a range of sizes, not just big, not just small, end of story. aren't there other small people looking for bikes? it's not like i'm not a midget or anything, i'm just a lady, lookin' for a bike!!
anyway, so here are my reviews on local bike stores if yer interested:
citybikes - sometimes known as shittybikes. most of the time you go in there and feel like a total idiot because you don't know what a blah blah is, or, you're wasting their time by asking them to fix something you could totally do yourself if you had bike tools, and cable cutters and like a million other things that you don't know, or care to know about. oh, and you're not wearing hip jeans rolled up to your knees. but then again, you just might happen to land on someone super nice and friendly and knowledgeable who actually helps you pick out a good bike for you, and keeps the store open late for you, cuz they know you really want a bike and they really want you to buy one. i'm probably going to end up buying from them because they said they finally ordered a small frame for me (with no deposit, after extensive going into the store and complaining) and i live two blocks away.
the bike rack - this place has the nicest of all salespeople ever. they can talk on your level, help you find exactly what you want, very friendly and very helpful. alas, they are just starting out and have a really small stock, so...not much to choose from. wish i could buy from those guys! however, lots of other cool stuff.
capitol hill bikes - the biggest selection of independent bike stores in DC, with lots of small women's frames and a nice owner who answered my emails about some bikes, but when i went into the store, the sales guy made me feel like i was bothering him by wanting to purchase a bicycle. well sorrreeeee!
REI - meh. who wants to buy their bike from rei? i guess you get dividends. they only carry a few brands.
Hudson Trail Outfitters - another chain...haven't been yet, sorry.

your cat ran away, probably because you're annoying

my neighborhood has been plastered with lost cat posters. and not just any old posters, but professionally laminated posters that have little cut outs to take away the people's phone numbers, and are updated every week...first it was "lost cat," then "we miss you Lester [name changed to protect cat's identity]!" now it's "Lester is STILL missing!"
so i come home one night and what do you know, Lester is hanging out in my front yard. i say out loud, oh my, is that Lester? as i have his likeness and life story impounded into my brain everytime i leave my house. Lester, having recognized his name looks at me, and then runs away. i try to track him down in my backyard but he's gone. i lean my bike against the side door of my house and walk to the closest posted sign, which is about 3 feet from my front gate.
in the nano-second that i leave my bike unattended some dirty sketchy dude walks into my yard and is checking out my bike. now, i don't have my phone on me, so i'm a little nervous i can't call the copy, so i'm just standing there in my front yard entrance with my bike helmet, waiting, watching this guy. he slowly inspects the bike and finally decides to take it with him.
wtf do you think you're doing man?
he freaks out, drops the bike and is all, oh sorry mami, i was just looking for a place to pipi!
oh really? was my bike in your way?
i sortof shoo him away, wonder where on earth he came from and go inside to call Lester's owners.
there are two numbers on the little tab, and the first one is out of service...i leave a friendly, lengthy message on the second, like, don't lose hope! Lester is out there! he looks healthy! i call my friend who lives in Lester's building and is obviously constantly reminded of Lester's status. no way, you saw Lester? thank goodness, i'm sick of seeing 8 different pictures of him in the laundry room...
a few hours later, the guy calls me back. and he's super wishy washy, rather unemotional, like he was telemarketing and finally tells me that some lady who lives a few doors down from me has a whole bunch of cats, including one similar to Lester. so, would i mind calling her, asking her to send pictures of her cats, and then review them, and let Lester's people know if it was indeed Lester?
whaaa?
yeah, sure, i'll get right on it. because i have nothing better to do than hang out on the phone with crazy cat lady who i'm sure won't regale me with cat lady stories and your cat, well, i hate to say it, but if cats can sense anything, it's INDIFFERENCE, which i would say is precisely what Lester escaped from!

sorry, can't fight your fire today

well, at least a sign is better than having fire fighters find out that the hydrant outside your burning building is broken...kinda like that place on adams mill a while back...

kinda creepy

the number of messages in my gmail spam folder hasn't changed in days and it's freaking me out.

the L bus: worth the wait!

so the other day i was walking to work with my cello, which gets pretty tiring, not to mention all the people who stop you every two seconds to ask "oh, is that a viola?" i had just missed a clump of 42s, after which you have to wait a 1/2 hour for the next bus that is supposed to come every 6 minutes. anyway, an L1 rolls my way and I hop on, figuring it goes in my general direction. i barely pay when the thing takes off like we're warping to planet zirkon. i grabbed on to my seat and thought, holy crap does this thing really move! i checked out the bus driver to see if he was drunk or something, but no, he was very calm, conscious, totally attentive and even very well dressed (clean shaven, vest, collared shirt, groovy glasses) to boot.
then that afternoon there are a bunch of postings on the adams morgan email listserv about how the bus is always early, and so you end up missing it and having to wait. some dude even made a graph with a whole analysis. bravo friend, you are my kind of nerd.
well you know what i think? it's probably worth the wait since you get to your destination like, before you even left the previous one. think about THAT.

mount pleasant fire makes pedestrian street

the fire in mount pleasant was terrible, and has left an awful charred building in the center of the neighborhood. however, if you block out the whirring of the generators, the police lights and the chain link fences, i have to say you're left with a pretty nice pedestrian street. there are people outside all times of the day, you still have your 7-11 sidewalk miller-arounders and a nice wide, calm area for a community to stroll and mingle in between its numerous supermarkets and shops.
i say, keep it that way.
dc needs more pedestrian streets. in france, every town has at least one non-automobile street in its commercial area and it's great for doing your shopping, seeing your neighbors, not having to worry about getting run over. just imagine what 18th street would feel like on a saturday night without the honking taxis, buses, keg buses, stretch limos and all the idiots from maryland and virginia thinking they can find a parking spot. sure, you'd still have your giant pizza slice fights, but at least there would be some space to spread out, somewhere to seek refuge from the flying hot cheese and tomato sauce.

eco-friendly taxis

there's an environmentally friendly taxi service in town.
http://www.eco-limo.com/
but seriously people $90 to Dulles in a prius?? and what's with the chevy suburban - are you telling me it's a hybrid? probably runs on ethanol, which destroys more rainforest than mcdonald's cows. why would we pay more than a regular cab (especially when the new DC meters come out)? we'll have to see how this pans out because for the regular drunk arlington douchebag crawling home from the bennigan's in reston, not sure he'd want to shell out extra cash for his conscience.
but then there are these guys:
http://www.envirotaxicab.com/
maybe i'll start driving for them...