Beaches, Buses and Avocados - Our Introduction to Mozambique

We have run into relatively few Americans during our travels thus far. In Ireland and the UK they were no doubt present but there were very few to be found in Jordan and even less so once we arrived in Africa. Touring southern Africa in the rental car for a month lead to some encounters but probably less than we could count on two hands. Now that we have crossed the boarder into Mozambique and are solely relying on public transportation, encounters are even fewer. On our initial cross boarder bus from Johannesburg to the capital city of Maputo we had a handful of American foreign exchange students on Easter/Spring break heading north to the beaches of Mozambique. After two nights in Maputo we headed north to our first sample of the beaches and into the holiday crowds at the coastal town of Tofo. Easter break meant packed hotels and higher prices but it was nice to be around some larger crowds for the three days we spent there.

Since leaving Tofo 5 days ago we have spent nearly 20 total hours on 1 bus, 2 chappas (local taxi bus/mini van) and 1 boat (riding the bus here is a whole different post, think seats for 20 but 30+++ people on board). We have shared these vehicles with some 150+ people and we have been the only non-locals aboard. Yep, ebony and ivory, Chad and Colleen and the locals. We have been assured that the public transit is safe but the looks, or more so stares, that we receive are somewhat intriguing. Mostly they come from the young girls aboard the buses staring at Colleen with blank faces for minutes at a time.

The few Americans we have run into have had admirable actions that have brought them to this part of the world. We have run into multiple Peace Core volunteers who all seem to be working in neighboring Zambia. Then there was the girl from Vermont who was on break working at a startup non-profit in Kenya helping with women’s rights and the education of young girls. Then there was the chance run in with a girl from Washington DC who had left her job at a top financial firm on the east coast to work for one year in micro-financing in Tanzania. Then there was the guy who left his job in IT project management to work for 6 months in Namibia teaching technology to local high-schoolers. People in this part of the world love the USA for the New York Yankees and Hollywood (Jean Claude van Dam?) . But it is more than that. There are Americans here who have placed life on hold and selflessly left their high paying jobs and careers behind for a short while in the hopes of doing more. And for this reason Africans appreciate us as Americans. They respect us, love to speak the English they know (in Mozambique they speak Portuguese, and very little English the farer north we head), and have generally been very polite to us as guests in their country.

Today’s public transport via a 30 seater mini bus was particularly rough. No vehicle break downs as we had in previous days, but too many people for the actual space and we were positioned over a wheel well so we had our feet in the air with our knees to our chest for 11 hours. Add to that a missed alarm this morning and a 4AM sprint up a sand road to make the 4:30 bus. Besides that, the past week has been peaceful with 3 days in Tofo at the beach and 3 days in Vilankulo at the beach, and we were thrown back into the frenzy of Africa today. We are currently in Beira, the 2nd largest city in Mozambique, with the ultimate destination of Ilha de Mocambique in mind before cutting over to Malawi. Ilha is a whole 3 days of African transport away though, so I am sure we will have many more stories of bus rides ahead.

Our diets as of late have been rather simple. Meat is hard to come by and very expensive ($4 meat in a tube). When you do find meat it is then questionable where it came from and how it has been stored. I have therefore joined Colleen on the vegetarian train for the past 10 days and will probably remain so for much of the rest of Africa. Our typical daily run to the local market stalls supplies us with fresh bread, tomatoes, bananas, avocados (my saving grace), oranges, cookies, cheese (again rare and expensive and we rarely have it) and crackers. We also try to carry a jar of peanut butter with us when available. Usually our daily treat is a orange Fanta sold by the kids out of coolers on the side of the road. Restaurants tend to be pricey as well ($20 a meal for two) but we are getting by with our market visits for around $10 a day. Our stomachs are anxiously looking forward to the curries of India a couple months from now!

The bus rides are long and the meals not always optimal but the country of Mozambique continues to be an experience that we enjoy. The destinations, and the journeys in between, have been rewarding and observing the locals in their environment has been enlightening.