The End of June and Halfway through 2013

I’ve lost some ground on my writing goals of chronicling events and doing so regularly.  At first, my inconsistency in writing was due to work: teaching eats up so much time, even when you’re in between classes.  Students, particularly ours here, need a lot of help.  Yet I have been on winter break for the last two weeks, and I still didn’t do much writing.  I’ve got myself in another rut, I’m sorry to say. 

So I’m back.  Hoping that writing would again get me unstuck. 

And yes, we are on “winter” break here.  In the middle of the day it’s still usually warm here in Cuamba, but in the mornings and in the evenings it’s been cold the last five weeks or so.  The beginning of June was particularly cold.  I would wake up in the middle of the night, shivering.  Thus, my electric fan has been on winter break, as well.  In fact, every night in bed for the last month I’ve been slumbering cocooned in my sleeping bag.  I’ve been hibernating, I guess.  

I do read a lot.  I’ve been sleeping with my kindle (my apologies for the product placement) pretty much every night.  Thanks so much, Nay and Tay, for sending me that book light that I can just clip on the side of my bed.   When you sleep in a mosquito net, it really sucks to get out of bed just to turn the light on or off.     

Other than reading and a bit of writing, life in Cuamba has been quiet, to say the least.  I’ve been aching to travel out of Cuamba.  But the atrocious roads (or lack thereof, which leaves us with atrocities of dust clouds and exhaust fumes), the great distances between towns, and the ludicrous transportation system—the closed ticket booth for the train, and then no tickets when open, insane drivers of chapas (or minivans), not to mention the junky-tin-can chapas, etc., etc.—these are the things that put me off.  But I shouldn’t whine anymore. 

In the central regions of Mozambique, PCVs have been consolidated, moved to safer sites, due to political tension.  I know little about Mozambique’s political climate, except that it is “tense” because this is an election year.  Or actually the presidential election I think is next year, but the primary election is this year, so I suppose this “tension” will go on for another 12 months.  My main news sources are the headlines from google email alerts and the security updates we receive via SMS or text messages.  RENAMO, the “opposition party” (i.e., the one not in power) has stated publicly that they would close the main highway in the province of Sofala. So PC has enforced a travel ban, with good reason, from travelling through Sofala.  RENAMO says that the Mozambican government (FRELIMO) is planning to kill its leader, as troops have been deployed in the central province.  There has been “armed conflict” at a military base, far from PCV sites.  Thus, the consolidation of PCVs.

In all honesty, a part of me wants to be among the consolidated. . . That sounds horrible, I know, but at least my chronicling of events here wouldn’t be so limited.  I could provide a proper, bloggish treatment of what’s happening.  And of course, I also wish I could just hang out with fellow PCVs I haven’t seen since last December. 

Did I say, by the way, that there are no Cape Verde Transfers anywhere near Cuamba?  Sodade Kabu Verdi cuts all the more deeply when no one around you feels it, when you alone are stricken by it. 

I’ve been away from the states for almost two years.  Next month will be our two-year anniversary, of leaving the states and arriving in Cape Verde.  I plan to post a bunch of photos, a sort of retrospective of Cape Verde 2011-2012 in two weeks.  So I guess I’ll just pour out my sodade-stricken-soul in July.  I’m sure you all can’t wait. . . yeah, right. 

I do appreciate the peace and quiet here in northern Mozambique; don’t get me wrong.  I sleep, and over sleep.  I do yoga, most mornings.  I’ve been creative with my coffee.  It is Ricoffy after all, which is fake coffee by Nescafe (again, sorry for the product placement).  Just add coco powder, then powdered milk, which is Nido “fortified,” in case you didn’t know.  I sometimes like to add some rose syrup called “Rosa.” On the label it states “Premiado em Exposições Internacionais”—Prize Winner in International Expositions.  Oh yeah, and I’ve also made rose ice cream, a recipe borrowed from fellow PCV Zackaria. 

My favorite, though, is adding Amarula* as a sweetener for Ricoffy.  I discovered an inverse relationship between the amount of Amarula and one’s level of nostalgia for real coffee (i.e., the more Amarula, the less you remember you’re drinking faux coffee). 

Amarula enhanced Ricoffy—breakfast of champions, if you haven’t tried it. 

*Amarula is the South African version of Bailey’s.  Except it’s not as strong.