Hello Africa!

I wanted to share a few snippets from my trip thus far but I'm having a difficult time being cohesive and concise - the heat is killing my ability to think.

When Flight 48 from London was descending into Johannesburg, the captain came on the intercom to announce a "beautiful sunrise over Africa".  I looked out the east facing window at an endless horizon of red and orange and a brief sense of a romanticized Africa - something from a Hemingway novel - came over me...

We're living in a 4-story walk up with a view of the Baia (bay).  The stairwell is precarious - no lighting at night and crumbling steps.  Still, the numerous children in the building manage to spend the day sitting on the landings playing cards, painting their nails, or just talking.  Women seem to be constantly sweeping or cooking meals on small coal stoves in the hallway.  A variety of smells are carried into our living room on densely humid sea breezes - spicy foods, moldy clothes, feces.  I sleep under a mosquito net, take malaria pills, and obsess about bug spray.  I have already grown used to the army of ants that seem be on a perpetual offensive in our kitchen.  I have not quite mastered the double pad locked iron gate outside our front door.  By US standards, we're living in the slums.  By Beira standards, we're in one of the nicest (Porta Gea) neighborhoods.

My first week here was technically a vacation.  We traveled over 10 hours south on a bus to Maxixe where we then boarded a wooden skiff taxi to the Inhambane peninsula.   The streets of this sleepy town were lined with lush trees and faded colonial houses.   The white sand beaches and grassy dunes of Tofo, Tofinho, and Barra were just an hour's drive away on dirt roads.   And finally, blue seas (the bay in Beira is brown).  

After meeting up with friends, we headed to the local market to buy bacon, fruit and vegetables for our Carbonara New Year's dinner (cooked by an Italian, nonetheless) where I was surprised at the number of Arab Muslims.  Apparently, Arabic traders had been coming to the region since the 11th century or possibly earlier.  You can actually hear the praying at a local Beira mosque if you are awake before dawn.  

After gorging ourselves on pasta, we headed to Ge's friend's house. Ge is a Mozambican M.D that Joe recently met - a gracious, intelligent and thoughtful host.  And though his friend's shared similar attributes, their music taste was questionable.  Yes, we rang in the new year drinking warmish sparkling wine while standing on the sidewalk, in the rain, listening to Mozambican Disco (read: obnoxious, night club house music).   Who would have thought you could stand so close to a sub woofer and actually live to tell about it.

Overall, my first week gave me an initial sense of the expansive beauty of Mozambique.  But it is not romantic.  Yes, the city gives rise to wetlands which are dotted with mangroves and bushes of a vibrant green I have never seen.   And yes, these landscapes seemingly melt into the red-brown clay dirt which in turn becomes cashew and pineapple fields.   But nature's charm does not equate to a charmed reality.  Slums of corrugated tin-roofed wooden shacks line the streets leaving the city.  25-30% of the Beira population is living with HIV or AIDS.  25% !!  Not to mention the water is contaminated to the degree that we have to boil it and then filter it - and we must wash all vegetables in a bleach solution (minor inconveniences in the bigger picture).  I'm constantly worried about malaria during the nights.  And apparently Joe's MD friend's are concerned about a Cholera outbreak migrating from Zimbabwe (which likely won't impact us since we can afford the water filtering system).    

I can't really comment on the bucolic communities to any depth.  I wasn't surprised by the intricately thatched huts or the women hard at work in the garden pastures.  However, I only saw two medical outposts and one school in nearly a week of driving 800+ miles on main streets and back village roads.  It causes me to question my desire to work within the an urban educational policy setting in the US over the developing world.  

OK - better sign off.  We're heading to Malawi today and hope to be back late this weekend.