Seattle to Mozambique

My life, at the moment, consists of a lot of travel. I can’t complain. I made my own schedule for the next few weeks. I chose to travel back and forth between the city and “the districts”—as the smaller towns are called. I chose this because I’m sick—I have a bad cold and I wanted to sleep in my own beg at night. Not that it isn’t lovely, it is very beautiful traveling through the Mozambican bush and watching the slowly changing machambas being cultivated, burned, and planted. The other day had me riding in the front of a Land Cruiser with a carton of 30 eggs to be able to use for the baby food recipes that are being taught to HIV+ mothers who need to stop breastfeeding. Traveling with eggs on your lap on some of these roads is a recipe for disaster. For three hours I had to keep the eggs balanced just slightly above my knees to absorb the shock of potholes and dirt roads. Some of my muscles became very tired but I’m not exactly sure which ones. The “holding-30-eggs-above-your-knees” ones. Two days later I was back bumping along the roads (without the eggs this time) and peppering my driver with questions about land ownership and cultivation in Mozambique. Turns out that Moz owns all the land and you’re deeded the rights to cultivate it. However, you can build what you want, do what you want, and give the deed to whom you want (commonly by selling it to them under-the-table). So what is ownership then really? If you have it, you use it, you sell it, don’t you own it? Anyway….I digress. Back to travel travel. So two days later I return to Nhamatanda (about 3 hours east of Beira) and we pick up a mom so that we can drive her out to her house to do an interview with her. We drive there for two reasons, 1) it is about 5 miles away from the town 2) there are not roads, streets, house numbers etc. if we didn’t go with her we would never find the place. Turn left at Aberto market, go straight until you see three mango trees, to your left is a little path past a river, continue until you get to another path that cuts through Dona Marias machamba…. These are very difficult directions to follow. So we bumped along on a dirt road into the middle of Mozambican cultivation. We stopped when we got to the right machamba and then climbed out and followed the winding path past small groups of mud and thatch houses sprinkled throughout the machambas. We finally got to her home and met her five children who were curious about our visit and piled around to listen. She shared her home with her father and step mother and there was one central mud/thatch house for sleeping and one reed and thatch building for storage and cooking and then some pens for animals. The floor was packed earth (a nice red color) and mango trees shaded the ground. We sat on bamboo mats outside and began our interview. When we finished she hiked with us back to the car so that we wouldn’t get lost. It was a lovely spot and you couldn’t hear anything but the smack of the hoes hitting the ground to turn it over, the chickens running around like chickens do, and the occasional shout from children.

Side note:
My house finally feels like a home. There is nothing like being sick to make you appreciate a nice clean bed and familiar things. And a flush toilet and shower!!!