Beaches, BBQs, and Bioluminescence

Here is an update on what I have been up to the last few weeks.  

I spent a couple days in Angoche at a volunteer’s apartment which resembles an apartment you might find back in the US. (you can see the ocean out of every window, I kid you not! And it is huge!)  They sell these things there called Apas, which consist of a tortilla filled with a fried egg and ketchup and mayonnaise.  Don’t diss it til you try it!  It’s much tastier than it sounds!  Greasy goodness!  The town of Angoche resembles any other beach town, just imagine such a beach town mostly deserted kind of like a ghost town.  Most of the people living in Angoche live in the bairros outside the city’s center, so it seems like there is almost no one around sometimes.  We took a small boat across to a beautiful beach, imagine paradise, and boom you’re on a beach in Angoche.

On Dec 24^th, we left Angoche to meet up with the other Northerners in Ilha de Mocambique for the memorial service for Lena and Alden.  We celebrated Christmas by eating at Bar Flor, this amazing, though expensive (well expensive by Mozambique standards and my living budget, like $15 a meal) restaurant where I had lobster pasta which was delicious!  Without the Christmas carols, lights, or decorations, it was really easy to forget that it was Christmas and didn’t feel like it at all!  But I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Then on Dec 29^th, about 15 of us returned to Angoche, planning to celebrate New Year’s there.  Taking advantage of the huge, real life style kitchen, I reveled in the opportunity to cook.  One night we opted for fish tacos.  So knowing nothing about fish, I ventured with Ashley to the fish market for an adventure.  The entire market gathered round as we negotiated with the fisherman.  He presented us with about six huge, and I mean huge fish!  Like four feet long! Some even had teeth while others looked like they had had a bad day.  I had no idea what type of fish these were, and still don’t but we chose two big guys and then the fisherman handed me one by its tail.  I looked at him and then at the fish and then thought to myself, well guess we gotta carry them home some how!  So I grabbed that fish by its tail and motioned to Ashley to do the same with the second.  She gave me the same surprised look I gave the fisherman, but she too picked the huge fish up and we proceeded to walk home, fish in hand.  Those suckers were heavy!  We named them Stan and Mel and kept thinking what we would do if the fish suddenly came back to life and started moving.  It took me several hours to cook everything, but I could think of worse things to do than cook delicious food on a balcony overlooking the Indian Ocean.  And they made for some certainly tasty tacos! 

For New Year’s eve, twelve of us decided to go jump in the Indian Ocean at midnight and were greeted with an incredible surprise.  The power had been out all day, and the stars that night were unbelievably beautiful!  There were even stars in the water!  Yeah! There was bioluminescence in the water!  It looked like little jewels of light floating around whenever you moved in the water.  At midnight, some people from shore even let off a few fireworks as if anything could have made this moment more perfect!  We all kept looking at each other thinking to ourselves, this can’t be real life!  It was a moment I will certainly never forget and quite the way to bring in the new year. 

Had a couple more lazy days in Angoche before returning back to site for a night, then Peace Corps flew our entire Moz 17 group down to Maputo for the weekend.  It was awesome being able to see everyone and catch up and just have more support around. 

While we were down south, Peace Corps arranged to have us help out with a volunteer project in Catembe.  Catembe has this huge sink hole, a common occurrence along the coast of Mozambique, and had the army present to help fill sand bags to fill the sink hole and prevent it from growing during the upcoming rainy season.  So our job was to sort through the 300,000 or so bags, separating those that could be filled from those that couldn’t.  It was about as exciting as it sounds, and much dirtier than one might expect.  The bags had been delivered by a sugar company, so they were sticky and someone decided they should be placed under a mango tree, so there were dead mangos all over to add a wonderful smell to the whole mix.  The sheer number of bags was incredible!  Piled under the mango tree and spreading down the street looking like huge stacks of trash strewn everywhere.  We all stuck it out together and enjoyed a free afternoon on the beach after a few hours of the exciting bag sorting.  This beach was incredible!  There was a short pier with a little bar on the end in a tiki hut style belonging to the Gallery Hotel, definitely a place I would recommend staying to anyone planning to visit Maputo.  So beautiful!

We stayed on a USAID complex in Maputo which felt like America!  The house had a huge kitchen complete with oven and stovetop, full size refrigerator, and coffee machine.  The bedrooms had been arranged with several beds in each making it feel like we were on some MTV reality show or something.  They even had air conditioning! The whole complex felt like a gated community from the US.  There are about 15 houses or so and even a park with a playground and swing set.  One family even had a yellow lab dog!  I swear we had been transported to America!

One night, we had a BBQ with hamburgers, sausages, baked beans, cauliflower and broccoli, and chocolate chip cookies.  Then on January 9^th, we had a memorial service for Lena and Alden at the Ambassador’s house.  About 150 people attended, including RPCVs, Lena and Alden’s host families from Namaacha, Mozambican administrative officials, and our training staff.  Carl, the country director, said a few words encouraging us to have the courage and strength to continue on and return back to site, the Ambassador spoke, we read some passages from Lena’s blog and a book Alden had been reading, Patrick said a few words about Alden and Anna about Lena, we lined up to place flowers under their photos, and the Ambassador’s husband, a RPCV from the Philippines finished the ceremony with a few words of encouragement. 

Following the ceremony, for lunch we met with our Namaacha families who Peace Corps had driven down.  My mae and my aunt Rita came and I caught up with them and showed them photos of my house.  Though we only were together for about an hour or so, it was good seeing them and they seemed happy to see me too. 

Then it was vacation over and back to site and real life again.  Looking forward to the school year beginning and what new adventures lay ahead!