Mozambique Part 2

At 2:30am our alarm rang…   we dragged our sore butts out of bed trying not to wonder, why are we doing this again? After all this was the vacation we chose to have! But we both agreed that 12 hours on a train couldn’t be any worse than 4 hours in the back of a truck on a bumpy dusty road. So we walked to the train station while it was still dark (we never actually saw Cuamba in the light!) and saw that the line had already formed to buy tickets. We had no idea if there was going to be 2^nd class tickets left (you were supposed to buy them a day in advance, but because we got so delayed we didn’t arrive in time to do that) so we were just hoping. Apparently all the women got to form a separate line and were given priority to buy tickets (probably to ensure that all the women and children get tickets if it sells out…) so I was told to go in that line leaving Josh far back in the men's line...and in my terrible Portuguese asked for two 2^nd class tickets. “No Second class” is what I was told, and my heart sank a little as I wondered if 3^rd class was going to be as bad as people had warned us.. so I bought 2 of those and we then got in the lineup that was apparently the line waiting to get on the train.  

We had no idea what was awaiting us and we discussed that if the conditions were really bad we would just stay here for a couple of nights and wait for 2^nd class to be available.  As it turned out, it wasn’t as bad as we thought (while we were waiting we saw the grain car that had one window and I thought if that was 3^rd class then there was no way we were going!) and we ended up getting a seat and were surrounded by a handful of other expats. I was so thankful that I had brought my yoga mat because the seats were wooden, so I had a bit of a cushion!

The first four hours of the ride were really nice, no one sat beside us so we each had a bit of space and landscape was really interesting. Mozambique is known for its inselbergs, which are large masses of smooth volcanic granite.

Inselbergs that dot the landscape

It was really good to see the true Mozambique as the train would go by and sometimes stop in all these small villages.People (mostly women and children) would sell us everything from mangoes to bread, to fried chicken to onions, to goats.. all through the windows of the train. It was amazing to see all of this flurry of activity happening in such a short time span…people yelling, money exchanging hands, huge sacks of food coming in to the train, and sometimes as the train would start moving again goods would be quickly taken up through the window and money would just be thrown out the window on to the tracks.  It never ceases to amaze me how strong people’s necks are here.. it’s amazing how much weight they can carry on their heads.  Josh and I were also amazed at how it was always consistently the women and children doing the selling, while the men would usually be sitting under a shaded tree somewhere. The gender roles and expectations of children here are pretty intense and it just broke my heart to know that instead of going to school these kids were selling and making money for their family.. this train ride just brought all of these complicated issues to such light and it was hard to just sit there knowing that this was daily life for them..

So as the train rolled on we picked up more and more people and eventually there were now people sitting next to us on these small wooden benches. It was interesting to watch them buy loads of food (onions, mangoes, garlic) at each stop, although they would be constantly leaning over us to get to the window (personal space is about a hundredth of the size as it is in Canada!) and then stuffing everything in every inch of spare leg room possible! Often in these situations I really wish josh and I were small.. because together we make up quite the pair with my long legs and josh’s linebacker width- needless to say the next 8 hours were not comfortable. But I got to know some of the other travelers (met some Japanese people from JICA- the equivalent of our CIDA, who lived in Malawi) and we had some funny exchanges with the Mozambicans beside us. But there were no doors on the bathrooms (which was just a hole in the floor) so I didn’t pee for 12 hours! I wonder what 2nd class would have been like… maybe more room and cushions on the seats, but Josh and I decided that we weren’t going to find out. Although we were glad to have done this once, twice was just going to be too much.. we decided that we were going to look into flying back if we could! So around 6:30pm (after 12.5 hours on the train) we rolled into Nampula, found our hotel and went to eat our first real meal of the day. After being awake since 2:30am, we passed out around 8:30pm knowing that we would have to catch some type of transportation the following day between 7am-10am (the lonely planet guide was not very specific- so we were just going to have to wing it!) to head to Ilha de Mocambique. One more travel day and we would be at the coast! How bad could it be?? TBC…..

Mozambique Part 1

This has definitely not been “Christmas as usual”  filled with decorating the tree, catching up with family and eating till you want to burst. No, this Christmas has been spent by riding in the back of pickup trucks, ‘negotiating’ with immigration offices, and traveling like the locals do.  I’ve always said that if you can’t spend christmas with family and friends, you mine as well do something exotic, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the adventures we had ahead.

Let me start at the beginning…

We spent a lovely, mostly hassle free first two days of our holiday on Lake Malawi (as you’ve read in previous posts) before we ventured east to Mozambique. From there we planned to take 3 days to make our way to the coast and spend 2 weeks along the Indian Ocean, hitting 3 cities. Currently we are at our first destination, Mozambique Island, and over the past day have changed our travel plans drastically because there is no way we can endure the crazy amount of traveling needed to get to the other 2 cities.  I’m not sure exactly what I expected in terms of road infrastructure and modes of travel, but it is very difficult to get from point A to point B here in the northern part of Mozambique.. especially if you are on a schedule and especially if you are impatient like Josh and I!

As I look back now at the 3 days it took to get here I can laugh a little and see that they were really ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences, but during those extremely long and uncomfortable hours I wasn’t sure if i was going to be able to keep my sanity!

Day 1:

So we spent the first day making our way from Lake Malawi to the border then on to a town called Cuamba- The distance between these two points is actually not that long (200km)  but it took us over 12 hours to get there using 5 different modes of transportation! I think it really was this first day that put us over the edge. Everything seemed to go wrong and for travel ‘veterans’ (as we sometimes like to think of ourselves) it was just extremely frustrating and irritating!  After we left Lake Malawi we were driven by the lodge owners to a town called Mangochi (a ride in an actual car? the day was starting off great!), and it was here that we would catch a mini-bus (or so we thought) to the border town of Chiponde and then take a bicycle taxi to the border crossing, cross the border and then proceed with the bicycle taxi to the nearest city in Mozambique. So it was only 50 km to the border town of Chiponde but it took us over 4 hours to get there! It turned out that we needed to take a pick up truck (not a mini-bus as we had expected) and we waited for over an hour for it to leave this depot. It was rather unfortunate as the depot was slightly sketchy and we were right in the hot sun. So when it finally left (filled to the brim with ppl and goods) we were all ecstatic! Little did we know though that this truck wouldn’t actually make it the whole way and after going about 20 km up a switchback on the mountain it broke down. So now, here we are,  the hood has been opened and about 5 guys are standing around discussing what to do. At one point they were using a wrench to hit the gas tank or the carborator… josh said it was the funniest things he’s ever seen. So after about 20 minutes with no luck, they pushed the truck around, everyone got back in and we coasted back where we started from. When the truck could no longer coast (Josh and I just kept wondering, where do they think they are going to go?) it stopped near a shady spot (thank God!) and we waited for another truck to come and pick us all up.  When this one finally arrived, it looked in no better condition (josh and I were taking bets on when this one would break down, before or after the spot the other one did) but we did as told and got into the back. To our surprise we actually made it to Chiponde (but not without wasting precious time), but we were burnt, hungry and exhausted! At this moment we were met by swarms of people wanting to take us across the border on their bicycles and asking if we needed to exchange money.  Not really sure where we were supposed to go from here, we were guided to the nearby immigration point, where we had to get an exit stamp. So here we found out that we had actually stayed in Malawi longer than our visa’s had allowed (you apparently had to renew after 30 days, I thought it was 90!) so after some ‘negotiation’ with the officer we were now on our way to the actual border via bicycle taxi.

 This probably had to be my favorite mode of transport and besides being hot, hungry, and slightly disorientated, I very much enjoyed being cycled down the dusty roads to the actual visa checkpoint of Mozambique. Here we obtained visas to Mozambique. The cost, instead of being 25$USD for a visa was 100$USD because at this checkpoint they had power.. which meant they had these fancy machines that take your picture and print it out.. so despite our best bartering , there was no budging, and they explained that this high cost was to cover these services. So after this whole process we got back on our bicycle taxi and were cycled into the nearest town of Mandimba (took about 20min.). Unfortunately because we had wasted so much time in the morning we had missed the daily mini-bus to Cuamba (our final destination that day), but were assured that in an hour or so there would be another. It was now about 4pm, and we were not entirely convinced that there would actually be another mini-bus (these usually come once or twice a day). So not really knowing what to do (our options were to a. wait and possible stay the night in this shabby town if the mini-bus didn’t come, b. hire a private car to drive us that would cost about 200$USD or c. go in the back of a truck) we decided to go into town to go to the bank, get something cold to drink and think through our options (we had yet to eat anything that day!). To our horror our bank cards didn’t work (when we were assured that they would), so now here we were with no Metical (the Mozambican currency) , no plan, hot, sweaty, burnt, hungry and irritated after having an already stressful travel day. We were lucky though that we took along some Kwacha (the Malawian currency) and some USD so we were able to get some local currency.  So after exchanging with some of the street vendors (at an outrageous rate! But we had no other option as the banks were closed) we decided that we were just going to suck it up, pay the 200$USD and get to Cuamba tonight. See the problem is that we were pressed for time because we needed to take the train from Cuamba the following day and if we wanted to ride 2^nd class (it only goes on certain days) we had to get to Cuamba that night. So after a quick fanta and some water we asked the street vendors again kinda just for fun, “how do we get to Cuamba?” and just at that moment a large truck went by packed with people in the back, they pointed and said, that truck, so someone whistled and it stopped as we made our way over to it. There was no room.. My Canadian love for personal space and a seat was just screaming inside my head, are you kidding me?  But it was this (which cost about 10$ each) or spending 200$- so josh just looked at me, I at him, and we said, ok let’s do it.  Again, a picture here is worth a thousand words, but it just wasn’t possible nor the thing to do. Besides, Josh was hanging on for dear life sitting on the back corner of the truck and I was at the front standing and holding on to the truck bed and “luggage rack”.  I just kept looking back at him thinking, ok, here we go- 4 hours of this!?  So in this truck holding about 25 people plus all their goods (tires, grain, food, a chicken) we made our way to Cuamba down a bumpy dusty ‘highway’. I felt myself lucky that I was standing as I didn’t feel the bumps as Josh did (he was lucky to still have his butt after that ride!) and actually found it a little exhilarating standing there with the wind in my hair and nothing but the vast mozambiqan landscape ahead of me. 

Standing on my left was another Malawian and on my right was a former Malawian, now  living in mozambique. They both spoke English and we actually had good conversation (they were asking me if I played sports and if this was my real hair-lol). But after about 3 hours of standing, and trying to shift my feet so that I could balance my weight equally I needed to sit down. People would come and go from this truck, shouting out for the driver to stop at random places on the road (one thatched village looked the same as the others.. we wondered how people knew which was their’s!) and eventually I was able to sit on a sack of grain near Josh. At this point it had become dark and the sky was absolutely enormous- we saw stars that we never knew existed and I felt lucky that we were able to experience this despite everything.  Around 9pm we arrived in Cuamba (the Malawian who lived in Mozambique was so nice and showed us to our hotel- we would have been so lost without him!), checked in, ate our first meal of the day and prepared ourselves to leave the next morning at 3am to line up to get tickets for the train that left at 5am.... TBC....

Merry Christmas from Mozambique!

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas (or Boas Festas as they say here)!

We are currently on Ilha de Mocambique, enjoying the fresh seafood and being on the Indian Ocean (amazing sunsets!).We are doing well, after a super crazy 3 days of traveling (I will blog about that soon) to get here (using around 7 different modes of transportation) we have now spent the past 5 days just relaxing and enjoying the amazing food. Our Christmas was filled with fresh lobster, prawns and watching silly christmas movies (charlie brown xmas, chevy chase xmas vacation!). We were sad not to be with friends and family yesterday, but this is such a once in a lifetime experience so we just had to look on the bright side of it all :)

But we hope you all have had a great christmas and i'll write soon with more photos of our time here.

Hugs from us!

Mozambique

Tomorrow we will be headed into Mozambique to celebrate Christmas and New Years.  We heard that the coast was beautiful and are excited to spend time relaxing and reflecting on our 2011 chapter (and what an adventurous chapter it was!). So if we can't spend Christmas with friends and family, mine as well go somewhere exotic right? Our final destination is the coast, but getting to the coast is going to be an interesting one.. i think it will take us about 3 days using multiple different modes of transportation (including a 12-14hr train ride!). So I will have lots to blog about!

Thanks to the Lonley planet guide, I have outlined our journey here. Tomorrow we will only make it as far as Cuamba, but we will be spending most of our time on Mozambique Island, Pemba and the tiny island of Ibo. Looking forward to eating fresh seafood and practicing our Portuguese (currently of which I have none!).

So if for some reason we can't access internet over the next 2 weeks, or the speed is just too slow, i just wanted to wish you all a Merry Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Thanks for all your comments and support over these past couple of months, they have definitely kept us afloat.

All the best!
Danny and Josh

Lake Malawi

Looking out onto Lake Malawi

So before Josh and I head to Mozambique for the holidays we are taking a couple of days at Nanchengwa Lodge here on Lake Malawi (which is really more like an ocean!). Getting here was no small feat (traveling 120km took us 4 hours) and after our mini bus dropped us off at the nearby major town we then got into the back of a pick up truck that eventually took us to the lodge. So here we are, literally sitting on the edge of a pick up truck as the driver picks up and crams as many people as possible into the back along the way. I've never experienced anything like it.. at one point in time i think there were about 22 people (including us) in the bed of this small truck. I was lucky to get a seat on the edge, but I had one lady leaning on my leg as i'm trying to steady Josh as he is standing up crammed with about 3 people literally hugging him on either side. Needless to say, it was quite comical, and another one of those moments when I was very much aware that we were in Africa.

Oh and I had my first attempted hair touching moment today with a young girl sitting next to me on the mini-bus. So here we were sitting in the minibus like sardines again, but luckily I had 2 kids next to me so there was a little more room. The girl (probably around 7 or 8) directly next to me was so sweet and absolutely fascinated by josh and I. We just kept smiling at each other and as the mini bus rolled on one arm eventually looped through mine (I think she was interested in my arm hair) while her other was trying to touch my hair. In other instances this probably would have annoyed me but she was absolutely so sweet and innocent, and just so intrigued.  So there we sat arm in arm for about the last 15 min before we reached our desintation. And as we got out of the bus (she and her family got out first) she ran up to me with both hands out, and we clasped hands and I said goodbye. It was a very sweet and touching moment. I wonder if she just hadn't seen the likes of me before, or maybe been that close but i'll tell you one thing,  it's hard not to absolutely adore the kids here! Ok, here are some photos of the lodge we are staying at (pretty spoiled as our front door opens right on to the water!):

We are staying in the beach house on the far left

 

    Our beach hut has 2 floors!

You step right onto the beach

The bar

A little sweaty and tired.. but happy to finally be here!

These are a few of our favourite... foods?

One of my favorite things to do when i'm in a new city is to visit the grocery store. I love to see all the different products and foods and take my time wandering up and down the aisles. So I thought i'd write a post showcasing some of our everyday products that we use here (just in case this is one of your favorite things to do too!).

One of our motto's here is to buy as much local Malawian product as possible- so we really do our best to steer away from imports from South Africa (but we did have to buy the imported coffee maker!). It's actually very important that we buy local because Malawi has a major Forex shortage. This basically means that they do not have enough foreign currency stock (i.e US dollars) to import goods because they don't export enough. So this causes a whole bunch of problems (including contributing to the fuel shortage crisis because they can't buy fuel from neighboring countries). So we don't want to contribute to this situation and we enjoy supporting the local farmers.

Anyways, so here in Zomba we have two small grocery stores that we frequent ('Shoprite' and 'Metro cash n'carry') and then of course the local market.

Here are some of our everyday products:

Must begin with the coffee! This is from Mzuzu in northern Malawi.
People here say that coffee is quite healthy for you!

'Sobo' our drink of choice :) 1 part Sobo 4 parts water.
My favorite is passion flavoured.. and Josh, his is orange,
but the orange tastes like the orange juice you used to
get at MacDonalds as a little kid.. ick!

Salt from the nearby city of Blantyre

Lemon creams- my cookie of choice!
This was my first comfort food here in Zomba.
 I can't even tell you how many packages of these I have eaten!
The price is K120 for 2 (about 75 cents)

Chombe Tea is the #1 Malawian Tea-
there are many tea estates just outside of Zomba.
Apparently this is a must see for us before we leave.

The milk here. It comes in these small plastic packages
 and it is not refrigerated before you open it. I always found that a bit odd..

Well, they are magic.. magically delicious.
These orange 'Puffs' are like Cheetos but round,
and as you can see ridiculously addicting..

The Malawian version of a kit-kat,and I might add, quite delicious!

Pineapples from the market- so yummy!

Lychees! A favorite snack. We get 4 dozen for K500 (3 US dollars)

Cooking Oil from Blantyre

Malawian Rice- the packaging is so colorful!

Candles from Blantyre- much needed as we experience daily blackouts. 

Local eggs- I have seen women carrying these flats on their heads!

Beans from the market. Josh is known at the market
as "black bean" guy because he apparently buys so much.

And just for effect- the butter (although this is not Malawian)..
affectionately known as fat spread.. hmm.

My First Chitenje

Yesterday I bought my first Chitenje (shi-ten-jay) from the local market here in Zomba. Chitenje's are pieces of cloth (very colorful) meant to be worn around the waist. I've been meaning to get one for a while as these pieces of cloth have many many uses and it's very respectful to wear these when you are in the villages. I heard a funny saying that, "Legs to men here in Malawi is like cleavage to men in North America"- so better cover up!

Most of the cloth sold here comes from Tanzania but this one is specifically from Malawi.

I was looking up the price for a Chitenje on the internet (wanted to know what we should bargain down to) and came across a blog post on the many uses of the Chitenje and wanted to post it here for you.

I wonder how many uses I will use it for while i'm here...

---
How many uses can you put to a rectangular piece of fabric, the most ubiquitous item by far in Malawi:

1. Baby carrier - first and foremost
2. Leg hider
3. Leg warmer
4. Body warmer (worn around torso)
5. Head gear
6. Purse (corner tied in a knot with money in)
7. Cleaning cloth
8. Bed liner (including examination beds in those busy clinics)
9. Pressure bandage/ Tourniquet (all essential casualty first aid)
10. Hanging traction weights (i.e. bricks)
11. Bench liner before sitting
12. Carrying goods (tied at the corners to make a kind of bag)
13. Securing goods (e.g. bowls full of fruit/veg carried on women’s head)
14. Head cushion (for carrying heavy water buckets/stick bundles on their heads)
15. Fashion accessory
16. Political propaganda (Design with Presidents' faces and party logos)
17. Commemoration of important events (NGOs issue many of these ones)
18. Curtains or screens
19. Mats
20. Winnow
21. Water filter
22. Tourist souvenir

(From: http://ashtinafrica.blogspot.com/2010/09/uses-of-chitenje-calico-cloth.html)

Amos the Wood Carver

Last weekend Josh and I took a trip to Malosa to see our wood carver's workshop. Now i say "our" because Amos has become a bit of a regular appearance around our house. Apparently he used to sell carvings to the people who lived in this house before us, so one day he decided to see if new potential customers had moved in. And yes, we had! It really was inevitable that we were going to buy some type of African wood carvings, so it made it all the better that we actually got to know Amos and his story. Now josh knows more details but I think Amos used to be sponsored by a Canadian family, and because of that sponsorship he was able to become educated. So when Josh told him we were Canadian his eyes just lit up. He now sells his stuff to a lot of Canadian customers and specifically to 10 Thousand Villages (so you might see some of his stuff if you go in there!).

So the first time I met Amos he had come to our house with some examples of his work in tow.. apparently Josh had told him on a previous visit (I was at work that day) that we liked tall giraffes (thanks to your awesome giraffe Jeet!) so he had made us two beautiful tall giraffes. I was worried that he made it out of ceder (which is very endangered here) but luckily he didn't. So we ended up purchasing these giraffes and told Amos that we would love to visit his workshop sometime soon and see other things he does. He asked us to come the following weekend (which was last Saturday).

So on that morning we had to take yet another mini-bus to Malosa (about 40km north of Zomba), except we didn't really know where to catch it. We were told that we could just stand on the highway and flag one down, but when we tried that every one we saw go by us was very full and I didn't particularly want to sit on someone's lap (!)... so we ended up walking back to the bus depot to catch one there. Again, there was this chaos of everyone trying to drag you to their minibus and i saw josh get dragged to one going to Lilongwe, but when we got in we noticed it wasn't that full, which meant it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So we got out of this one and in to another one which ended up leaving in the next 10 minutes. So yet again, we are flying down the highway (not as fast as the previous one to Blantyre tho!) and stopping at all the small town markets (this one was not direct apparently) and then all of a sudden he couldn't start the van again.. no gas. No gas?? We were about 20 minutes out.. i was flabbergasted.. why would he start a trip knowing that he had no gas?

Here is a funny short video josh took that just so happened to be right when we ran out of gas! I don't seem too impressed, lol :)

So luckily there was another van up ahead, which he whistled to, so we got out, and then were put in this van.. we only went another 10 km, and then this van stopped too (!) and we were put in yet another van! And apparently this van was in the bus depot at Zomba but we didn't get in this one, so the driver obviously recognized us and said to josh, "Well next time you should go in mine which was direct like I told you" LOL . So now in this 3rd van we finally got to Malosa. Malosa is just a small village, so when Amos was explaining how to get to his workshop he said, just ask for Amos the wood carver! haha.. so there was some small confusion as to where to go when we got out of the minibus, but word spreads fast when there is a Mzungu (white person) in the village, and Amos actually found us. He took us to his house where he had laid out examples of the work he does, and we just chatted and admired it.

Meanwhile we had attracted quite a crowd of kids and had about 8 following us around. The kids here are adorable and always want to talk to us "hi, how are you". So that was pretty cute. He then took us to his 'workshop' where his workers were chipping away at blocks of wood and explaining to us which blocks were going to become what.

These workers are pretty skilled at what they do, and one of them was named "Daniel" so that is always fun to explain. My name is "Dan- yell".. i have found here it's easier if i just tell people my name is Daniella. Then I don't get this confused look of "but you're not a boy?"Ha.

So back at his house again we ended up buying a few more items and then we were headed back to Zomba. It's a different experience when you are with a local because they were like, well you want the direct mini-bus, and that's not it. We asked how they knew, and they said, well we just know! So after about 30 minute wait in a nearby video/clothing/skins store that Amos's nephew owned we were on our way back (in the direct mini-bus, what a difference!).

We were really happy to have went there and met him, although it was a pain to get out there, it was neat to see him and meet some of his workers. Amos is a smart man and a good businessman and it was great to see him teaching and mentoring younger guys. Malawi definitely needs more of his type! So if you see something here that you like, let us know and we can get it for you!

What would you do with 96 Mangoes?

Perhaps it was because I hadn't had my Costco "fix" in awhile (missed using my Canadian excessiveness gene) or perhaps it was because I'm a sucker for a good deal (yup that's it) but last week I bought 96 mangoes. We on the way back from Lilongwe, a four hour drive to the capital and back for police clearance for our visas (a blog post in itself...), when our driver decided to stop for some mangoes in a small village between Machinga and Liwonde only about an hour outside of Zomba. Hundreds of mango trees lined the highway along with dozens of locals and their kids hoping to entice motorists to buy the fleshy and juicy fruit. Buying local fruit direct from the grower and organic to boot (almost everything here is organic as modern pesticides are too expensive ...although fertilizers are often used), was too good to pass up, oh...and the price was right at about 3 cents a mango (they go for 12 cents in the local market), the whole lot for 500 kwachas (less than 3 bucks).

Being convinced I needed mangoes while Danny snuck a photo.

The fruit in Malawi is incredible from mangoes, pineapples, and bananas, to passion fruit, lycees, and papayas. What's more incredible for me (coming from a non-tropical region) is to see these fruit growing nonchalantly all over Zomba, "Wow, a papaya tree or banana tree!" Nowadays, mangoes are the fruit in season and everywhere I see kids sneaking a mango off their neighbour's tree, throwing rocks at the tree above, hoping a ripe mango will fall to earth.

So after giving away about 30 and eating at least 3 a day (between the 2 of us) I had to do something with the quickly ripening fruit. There were some great suggestions on this blog and by email but given the availability of supplies and ingredients I opted for freezer jam ....yummy (no jars, no pectin). I used about 10 pounds to make the jam but we still have about 30 or so left, so shakes and juice will be the quick answer there, although I may just freeze the pulp for future use as my tastebuds are becoming desensitized to the awesome mango flavour.

Making mango jam on our new stove

If anyone has a favorite mango recipe or shake, feel free to share in the comment section....they just might come in handy if this happens again :)

The leftovers