Two weeks ago we were able to go across the border to Mozambique for the first time. It was an incredible experience, and a distinctly different culture than Swaziland. We had a great time even though we walked round-trip 5-6 miles in the pounding heat.<\/p>\n
A few days after the initial trip we were able to go back to Mozambique, but this time we were led by our Make (host mom) who played Mozambique tour guide. Led by a lack of Portuguese, and limited knowledge of Meticais the local currency, we were ready to be pushed into a small adventure.<\/p>\n
Overall Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish that it is easy enough to read it. It is easy enough to speak if you are given enough time to recite the words in your head prior to vocalization. I felt pretty lucky last week when I was asking \u201cDonde esta el banyo?\u201d and the waiter at the restaurant knew what I was asking for, even though you ask \u201conde esta casa de banho\u201d in Portuguese. \u201cUn mas cervejich\u201d is pretty similar to a Spanish phrase in common use. There are definitely other differences, such as \u201cCiao\u201d for goodbye, and \u201cobrigado\u201d for thank you. One of the border agents corrected me on that one time I uttered \u201cgracias.\u201d<\/p>\n
Linguistic interests fulfilled by our Mozambique trips aside, I am also feeling my inner numismatist satisfied over handling three different currencies all in one day trip. Our second breakfast consisted of some Mozambican bread stuffed with bajiya, a spicy falafel like bean patty. I gladly paid the vendor using Swaziland Emalangeni. As we proceeded across the border I transacted with a money changer to move my South African Rand into Mozambique Meticais. I then proceeded to pay with Meticais as much as possible, as I stumbled upon a little known monetary issue between cultures, educations, and currencies.<\/p>\n
Our Make decided to spend Emalangeni and Rand today while I stuck with meticais. Due to the differences in exchange rate, I thought it would be best to pay attention to what implication that might have on my financial future. The exchange rate today was 4.5 Meticais to everyone 1 Rand or 1 Emalangeni. To gain admittance to the market you must first pay a fee. Make paid 5 rand and I paid 5 meticais. And no one tried to stop her. By the time I figured out what was happening, she had already paid and was inside. A second incidence occurred during a confusing purchase for a coconut. The coconut was being sold for 5 rand when I asked the vendor. I let her know that I only had meticais and the price became 15 meticais, or just over 3 rand. My initial reaction is the vendors are trying to make more money off of Swazis. Then after a while of pondering the discrepancies I thought back to two previous conversations with my Make. Before we went to Mozambique, Make said she didn\u2019t understand Meticais enough to be comfortable spending them. Yesterday our Mozambican bhuti (brother) was getting his money from Make, and he wasn\u2019t able to count the Emalangeni, because he didn\u2019t understand it. The inconsistencies I spotted have nothing to do with scams, it\u2019s an issue with the math necessary to keep the exchange rate always in your head, and be able to do on the fly monetary conversions. <\/p>\n
The exchange issue and my extreme unease about changing Emalangeni or Rand for Meticais are good first lessons on travel to Mozambique prior to my vacation that started on Monday. Almost every other volunteer in country has been to Mozambique, but we have been dragging our heels so we could go somewhere nice for my birthday.<\/p>\n
And you ask what of our fabulous Mozambican vacation? You guessed right\u2026 it was fabulous! As a distinct contrast to Swaziland, Maputo is a real city. Millions of people, dozens of bars, restaurants, shops, megastores, traffic congestion, museums, and seafood!<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n On a sad note, my bandwidth is so terrible (306 bytes per second!) that all pictures of my vacation will come later this month. Next time I write I will work on describing things in more robust detail.<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n The entire vacation was not really planned at all. We met a Canadian VSO volunteer while hanging around at the Mozambique embassy in Mbabane. Cam stayed at the backpackers in Mbabane that night, and I got to know a bit about him. He\u2019s a pretty big tech geek as well. We talked for a few hours about the good old days of servers with dozens of gigs of ram, and moving VM\u2019s around using VMware or Hyper-V. I am in a good place to find a geeky friend, so I\u2019m pretty excited about meeting him. Beyond cool\u2026 Cam invited us to stay with him at his house in Xai Xai when we visited Mozambique a few weeks from that time.<\/p>\n I was able to finally contact him briefly a few days prior to departure. Turns out his house wasn\u2019t ready and we had no where to stay if we went on to Xai Xai. So the three of us that were going decided to be spontaneous (abrivitar[sp] in Portuguese?). Our destination waffled between Tofo,Xai Xai, and the unknown. Craftiness upon the part of my newfound VSO friend saved the day and got us to Inhaca island.<\/p>\n But first\u2026 lets rewind a bit. Pulp Fiction it if you will. The decision to go to Maptuo and Mozambique wasn\u2019t set in stone, but it has been in motion for many months. We\u2019ve been seeking permission (see temporary asylum) to go to Mozambique from the Peace Corps. Due to the proximity of our site we should be able to travel there on a daily basis. Maputo is actually closer than the biggest town in Swaziland. Digressing. Without any real plans we left site to cross the border. Having practiced surfing with the local transports, it was a comfortable ride from the border gate to the bus rank on the Mozambique side of the border. There may have been only 15 people in the ride. Terrifically spacious! They really know how to pack them in on the Mozambique side. We missed the first khumbi (chappas in Moz) to Maputo because bomake were jumping from the transport as if the enemy was spotted and there was incoming artillery fire and the sarge was just taken out by a sniper. They ran. They pushed. Even when the next ride came and we were in a distinct line, pushing and physical confrontation became necessary when there were only 2 spots left on the chappas. Seat acquired the three of us moved onto Maputo.<\/p>\n Now most of the readers know Thandiwe and myself. Our friend and fellow PCV Rekha (ligama lakhe nge siSwati Nosipho) came along with us to Maputo. Rekha was born in Indian and has since become an American citizen. She has been a PCV in Morocco and the Philippines. She is friendly, crafty, sweet, and incredibly patient. She also speaks Guajarati. On a continent that has an enormous Pakistan and Indian population, it was suddenly impossible for us to be lost. You see\u2026 very few people speak any English in Maputo. Most people have as much English as many Americans have of any other language. When Rekha wasn\u2019t immediately present we were armed with Spanish (and legged with French). As I alluded to above the misguided belief that I could speak Spanish and be understood was still better than nothing.<\/p>\n With her friendly nature and native tongue, we had secured a Maputo tour guide within minutes of arrival. Don\u2019t underestimate just going up and talking to someone! Our initial guides charge was to lead us to another guide. This encounter was the equivalent of training wheels, for me getting used to paying for EVERYTHING while in Mozambique. It wanted to give the guy about M20 (20 meticais), but needed change. So I bought a bunch of postcards. Damn\u2026 no change given. Bought some bread\u2026 got the guy change. It took longer to find him change (while he\u2019s leading me to a gift shop, a phone store, a bank, and the bread stand), than it did to find our other tour guide. Our Permanent guide\u2026. Eric we call him. I think his mom probably calls him that too. Eric was great\u2026 showed us a few important buildings in downtown Maputo, fended off a drunk, and came to hang out at the fish market with us. Particularly great was he knew all the right chappas routes (called local transports when in city), and we saved a fortune on cabs. Sadly I started realizing the longer he hung out\u2026 the more it cost.<\/p>\n While the tour was in progress we did get to see the historic Maputo train station that is still in use to this day. They are currently exhibiting a train from 1895, the first from Maputo to Pretoria. It turns out Maputo used to be called Lourenco de Marques. I\u2019m not sure who it was named after, but if I had Google I would tell you. If you have Google\u2026 and I know you do, let me know! The train station had a small tourist shop with expensive postcards being the only good thing available. Immediately outside of the train station is an enormous statue of what appears to be a Valkyrie. The statue is a local myth about the first founding of the city. A long time ago the area of Maputo was inhabited by a great snake that ate all who dared to come near the area. The hungry serpent would wait for trespassers to come underneath it, and then it would bite their heads off. One woman was able to outsmart the wicked creature by carrying a large pot of incredibly hot oil on her head. When the snake attacked he swallowed the scalding oil instead. The woman in the statue is remembered as the first protector of the city.<\/p>\n We left downtown Maputo for Costa Del Sol and its famous fish market. Right about now we started realizing a tour guide wasn\u2019t necessary anymore and we donated M150 to Eric and parted ways. It was good timing since I wasn\u2019t planning on buying him lunch. I felt my hunter instincts titter when I noticed that my lunch of crabs was trying to escape from their crate when I showed up. Unless I caught it myself it would be hard to get any fresher seafood. Thandiwe snagged 2kg of prawns for a few hundred mets. Sadly they were not quite as alive as the crabs, they probably hadn\u2019t seen water for at least a few hours. Rekha is a vegetarian, but thankfully at this point in the trip she was digging on eating french fries. So after selecting our meals we were sent to sit at a table and wait for guys to prepare our food. I bought a wood and bead necklace from one of the half dozen pushy vendors. The necklace is ebony wood, and seems to be a famous medium for Mozambican art. We paid for our meals, caught another chappella and we went to Fatimas.<\/p>\n While trying to plan our next move, Rekha led the party to the Maputo Brahma Komari center. I have never been to a Brahma Komari center, so I was really interested to see what an experience it could be. Sadly no one was home when we stopped by. Plans were made for a second visit on our return trip from whatever was next. Later that night we went to a Mozambican hotspot named Nova Milano. We met Cameron and a few other VSO volunteers here. I haven\u2019t filled anyone in on the number of foreigners we are meeting, but an Australian volunteer named Jeff proposed an interesting challenge. Now all my life I\u2019ve wanted to get a beer with an Australian. It\u2019s impossible to explain really, just understand that I\u2019ve checked off something on my list of things to do before I die. Here\u2019s one great thing to understand for all the Americans reading this: beware of accents! Jeff let me know how sad it is that us \u201cyanks\u201d can\u2019t figure out one accent from another. Aussie was my second guess, but it wasn\u2019t before I threw an insult at him by thinking he\u2019s from the UK. And I found out something valuable from this; he\u2019s right. I have not been paying enough attention to accents and I am now on a quest to hear and understand the differences. Throwing down our plight of no plans with the VSO volunteers, Canadian, Finland, Aussie, and the Argentinian couple, we asked for suggestions on what to do. After a round table of fascinating discussion it was highly recommended that we go to Inhaca island in order to maximize our enjoyment. And minimize the amount of transit time to get there.<\/p>\n We found out later that night that the ferry left the next morning, and we should be at the dock no later than 6:30. This meant that Thandiwe was kind enough to wake us up around 4:30. We did make it to the dock early enough to.get in line to during the mad rush to get tickets. People in Swaziland generally aren\u2019t great about queuing in lines, and if you blink someone will cut. Here it was dirty streetfighting and all elbows to get to the front of the line. We successfully bought 3 tickets for only M5 each. Standing in line for the ferry we recognize that this is significantly cheaper than the M200 we were told the night before. Oh Cathembe island we will never know your beauty, but we have tickets to! After being at the dock for 2.5 hours we finally are able to buy tickets with little fuss, and not so much as a push. It probably helps that most people getting tickets were foreigners.<\/p>\n Sit right back and I\u2019ll tell a tale<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A tale of a fateful trip<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n That started onthis voyage upon this fateful ship\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A three hour tour<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n So three hours later the large boat pulls up to the island and docks about a mile off shore. It turns out that you can walk about half a mile out at low tide and be up to your waist. But this wasn\u2019t low tide. It was important that a small boat (local transport?) come pick us up. The importance of this wasn\u2019t immediately apparent to me, but I thought it had to do with the shallow water. Probably had a little to do with it, but the fact that I wasn\u2019t allowed to get on the dock until I paid M20 per person showed me that it was important for the residents to squeeze the Mets out of us. It\u2019s not just the residents though, because after getting off the dock we were approached by a member of Mozambiques finest, and told we must pay a M200 island usage fee. An M200 per person usage fee. That being done we were afforded the luxury of local boys bombarding us with details about how their rooms are cheaper than the next guys. Luckily Cameron armed us with a guys name and we were soon taken to the right place. Thankful for it to as the backpackers has a room with a single bed and a double bed. All three of us crashed for M800 a night. Excellent!<\/p>\n Seafood anyone? Everything that might be purchased by regular tourists was incredibly expensive on the island. Even the pineapple was overpriced. The goods at the market that were geared to locals however were right in our price range. Bajiya (bean patties) and emabawu (french bread) were less expensive than they even are in Lomahasha. We still managed to eat like kings, and Thandiwe and I ate up the seafood. Nosipho by this point was getting a little sick of french fries and was exploring new territory with bread and local veggies. The food and beverage were perfect regardless of the price when I consider where I was at. A beautiful island paradise with the most fantastic beaches I\u2019ve ever seen. I\u2019ve been to Hawaii, California, Mexico, Jamaica and now here. It is possible that whatever beach I\u2019ve been on most recently is the best beach. There was truly little trash compared to everywhere else I\u2019ve been in Africa, and practically no people. The low tide aspect of the island was apparent the next day as we strolled on the beach. There were people walking at least a mile off shore, and they were only up to their mid chest in water. At one point I was out a few hundred feet and suddenly I was in water up to my shins! The low tide, low depth and water clarity really helped my hone my crab hunting skills. If you ever need a small shellfish hunter, or pictures of small shellfish let me know. <\/p>\n The island experience was inevitably too short, as is any vacation. We made friends with a couple from Germany; and also a man named Grant ,a South African who is opening his own lodge on the island. It\u2019s pretty nice that he was there, he gave us a bit of rundown on the island, he\u2019s practically adopted a local boy, and he shared his dinner with us. It was also kind of him to share that the ferry has a tendency to breakdown so it is important to have a Plan B. It seems that everyone we have talked to since our feet touched African soil have insisted to us the importance of having a Plan B. Someday I will take the time to figure out what my Plan B is, just as soon as I figure out what my Plan A is. <\/p>\n There were a few other tourists on the island, but overall it was simply a tranquil place to kick our feet up and take in life. I hope to visit again and take advantage of snorkeling or scuba there. We only walked one side of the island, and apparently we missed the truly gorgeous beaches, the lighthouse, the other two villages and the island museum. We also found the best restaurant two hours before we left. Now we know for the next time, hopefully soon.<\/p>\n Heading back to Maputo was a treat, and added credibility to Grants stories when the alarms rang on the ferry and the burly engineers charged below deck with 50 pound wrenches. We never did quite get back up to full speed, but the 3 hours on the ferry passed uneventfully anyway. We stayed the night at Fatimas again, sad to feel the adventure closing in on the final act. As adventures go however it was far from over. Friday morning we woke up, packed and left for the Brahma Komari center. Luck! Someone was home. We were greeted by Sister Estrella and led to the mediation room. We only had a 15 minute sit but meditating is a beautiful experience. I only mediate about twice a month it seems, but this was unique. It turns out that many of the Brahma Komari beliefs fit pretty succinctly with my own. They believe that Buddha, Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammed are all expressions of the same divine qualities we should all seek in our own lives. Likewise they accept all faiths as having value and purpose, and don\u2019t believe in much of the negativity found in many religions. As proof in the pudding, a couple of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses came by to talk about their new publication with Sister Estrella. She was open about it and they had a good dialogue. While there I found a fantastic new practice they call \u201cTraffic Control.\u201d Traffic control occurs I believe every three and a half hours. It is only a 5 or 10 minute period of meditation where you just stop talking. That\u2019s it\u2026 pretty simple. Although it will take a few months or years to fit this into my life, It is going to be the first practice I am consciously choosing to bring into my life.<\/p>\n Wrapping up our trip from Maputo and still a bit enlightened from our experience with Brahma Komari, I wanted to visit an old fort turned into a museum. The fort was built when the Portuguese first arrived, and was used as the beachhead to establish the Portuguese traders in Mozambique. Sadly the museum didn\u2019t come with a tour guide, and it didn\u2019t come in English. Perhaps someday I can view the pictures I took and translate the meaning. Not knowing the language however made the visual presentation of some art that much more impactful. Two large bronze reliefs depicted the slaughtering of the natives at the canons of the Portuguese. The fort housed dozens of canons, both large and small. There was a Portuguese machine gun, and some other antipersonnel weaponry. The fort was good for a few minutes, but wasn\u2019t able to captivate us into staying a long time.<\/p>\n Not long after we left the fort we made a great deal with a street vendor to buy some batiks, and after that I got a good deal on music and cashews. A trip to the bus rank found us on our way home. The chappa wasn\u2019t packed tightly this time, and it kindly drove us all the way to the border post. It was a fantastic trip and packed with fantastic people, beaches, and food. My original Plan B in life was to become a pirate, but now I think a house in Mozambique will have to come first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two weeks ago we were able to go across the border to Mozambique for the first time. It was an incredible experience, and a distinctly different culture than Swaziland. We had a great time even though we walked round-trip 5-6 miles in the pounding heat. A few days after the initial trip we were able …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[60,61,58,57,59],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peace-corps","tag-brahma-komari","tag-inhaca-island","tag-mets","tag-mozambique","tag-rand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.briandeyo.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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