Happily in Mozambique, finally...

This is gonna be a lot different report from the last one. I feel really good now about the job, about the other volunteers, about almost everything (well, there’s always some things to whine about, like weather – we have winter now, and sometimes it’s bloody cold, meaning like 12C at nights etc) and can finally write something really positive. About the workstuff in the next email, now I just comment a bit on the last weekend that we spent in a paradise called Savane. Us, meaning me, my project-mate Barbara (Czeck republic) and Mariana (Portugal) and Felix (Germany) from TCE (HIV-awareness project).

Savane is a peninsula about 45 minutes drive North from Beira on a dirtroad which does not feel that uncomfortable in a Jeep that allowed 4 hitch-hikers on its fancy backseat (the journey from Lamego to the Savane road was less comfortable, on a open truck full of empty beer bottles). As the rainy season is ending (should be already finished, but this year is strange and the rains even continue sometimes), the overall green has turned to brownish-golden-yellow. We cross the Savane river on a big boat with well-off Mozambiquians and confront the white sand and blue waters, high coconut-palms and dreamlike bamboo huts...

In the first afternoon, the wind is rather chilly, so we use the beach just for a 1 km walk to a nearby fishermens’ village. The high tide is in it’s peak, and wetting everyone who does not pay full attention while looking for shells or watching thousands of small crabs. The fishermen clean their nets and we buy some bread. It’s expensive, as the village is so remote and hard to access. Suprisingly, the only bar has even Fanta. I used to drink this kind of drinks like twice a year or so, now, a soda is part of almost every day (sometimes 2-3 times a day).

We sleep on a cement floor in our sleeping bags. The sea is not quiet and the palm-trees seem to have something to say. In order to hear, I don’t sleep too much.

The next morning is lazy and slow in a ever hottening sunshine. We cannot see a piece of cloud as far as our eyes can see. By 10 o’clock we’re on the beach. The following can just be described as a paradise: reading in the waaaaaaaarm sunshine, having fresh papaya for a snack, “swimming” in a nice and cool (rather not-see-through, though) Indian ocean, then laying on the border of waves and sand, just forgetting everything and doing nothing but... oh, you know. Wishing the volunteer-project could be moved and stuff like that.

We dine in a only restaurant in Savane (not the village, but the camping-site with nice showers and decent enough toilets) and the fish and coconut-rice are just amazing. As well as the clams we have at night with the owners (not to mention the drinks). It’s nice to be the only guests and get the full attention (and, the free treats).

The second night we get up at five to see the sunrise. The air is white with mist and coconuts are falling EVERYWHERE! It mysterious, charming, beautiful and a bit scary to walk to the beach in almost darkness, wait for the sun to come up, hear the waves but not quite see them yet, get your feet wet from the dew and then awfully sandy from, obviously, sand. Then, realising that it’s actually too misty to see any sunrise, everybody else went back to bed, and I witnessed as one by one, wooden boats, built from one single tree by the teachings of ancestors, drift silently from the mist on the low waves, the early fishermen saying quietly something to each other and the air clearing slowly, as the invisible sun gets higher and higher.

Very soon, half of my time is over here in Mozambique. The time is flying, and it will fly even quicker from now on as in June we are buuuuuuuuuuusy! Then, it’s just two months, but we still have our “investigation” trip for 3 weeks coming up, so hopefully we’ll see a lot and my positivness will continue. I am happy to be here, get to know this BEAUTIFUL country and its beautiful people (even though they have some hard sides, which I will come to later on). And in September, South Africa, here I come!:)