This is about our car. Our car is a 2000 Nissan Terrano. This is what they call the Pathfinder in countries where you drive on the left. Our car had problems from the beginning because the apparently genuine honest Aussie who sold it to us claimed in the end not to be very knowledgeable about all of the repairs needed on her car. Right after we bought it, we discovered that the seatbelt in the back didn't work and both back windows were permanently stuck. She refused to fix it, pleading ignorance and claiming she didn't know about these things the entire time she owned the car.
So Matias took the car to Vicente, a mechanic who was recommeneded to us by a very reliable source...honest mechanics are hard to find in Mozambique. Sometimes they replace very good parts that function well with cheap knock offs from China that last a few weeks...sometime they just take out good parts and keep them. Many times, your car returns in worse condition than you left it.
When we took our car to Vicente it ran well. He was supposed to change the oil, brake pads, filters for a grand total of $300. Yes, this is a good price by U.S. standards. When the car came back to us after 9 days, we were excited. We were backing out of the driveway to take Nalia to her first horseback riding lesson when the car started coughing, sputtering, and choking out huge billows of toxic black smoke. Then, it died. Matias managed to get it started again so we could go to the horseback riding lesson.
Later that night, he went to visit his cousin and it took him 4 hours to travel 2 miles home because the car would run for pregressively less and less time and then shut down. In the end, because there appear to be no tow trucks in this whole country, Matias had to hire three guys to push the car back to our house at 2am.
I was so worried when all this was going on that I couldn't sleep and decided to spend my time reuniting with Facebook. I got some good advice on how to deal with the problem with fellow Facebook nightowls.
Matias and I were both upset and disenchanted with the mechanic... I wanted to call him up and give him a piece of my mind. Matias was more philosophical and understanding- he said, "You know, mechanics are like cuandeiros (witch doctor in Portuguese)... sometimes they don't really know what's going on or what the problem is and have to try different remedies until they get it right." Vicente came later in the day and got the car running, but it only runs when it wants to. Meanwhile, while we wait for Vicente to find a cure, I'm too afraid to drive by myself....
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Photos from Our Trip Across the USA
Our camera cord has still not arrived (along with the rest of our stuff)... but I found these pictures from right before we left the U.S.
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| At St. Olaf College in Minnesota |
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| Camping in Glacier National Park |
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| We loved Glacier! |
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| Hiking in Theo Roosevelt N.P., North Dakota |
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| Finally arriving in Seattle... |
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| At the beach in Minnesota with Erin's kids and Anna |
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| Lake St. Mary's in Glacier N.P. |
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| We arrived in Morgantown, WV just in time for the Mountain Biker Fest.... |
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| Road Construction with Gabe and Dan in Milwaukee |
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| Mom and Dad at the ferry terminal in Seattle... we are almost there! |
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| Our only photo of Mozambique-- this is our house finder's car! Nalia loved the color. |
From Nampula
I am in Nampula...Nalia's first home. It has been really nice to be here. One of those very special homecomings that we don't get to appreciate or experience much in life-- I have come back after five years to find most of the people I worked with or knew socially in better positions than they were before-- life has improved. "A vida muda," as they say in Portuguese... or "Life goes forward," They have been promoted, they have gone to school and graduated. The program I started has grown from 120 nutrition and health volunteers to over 2000, not because of me but because a group of dedicated thoughtful sharp people were all able to work together for a common goal.
I have also had the opportunity to stay in my old house with my friend Greta... she took my position when I left and also my house! We don't often get to return to the homes where we once lived, but that has also been a treat-- bringing back all these little pieces of sweet memories I had forgotten-- the step where Nalia learned to jump, the water tank outside where I used to put my yogurt in the sun when I made it, the floorboard by the bathtroom that's still loose. There is something very comforting about noticing all those little things... something that makes me feel all the more human.
But the warm welcomes I am receiving from all the people in Nampula are even more comforting-- Nampula is the third largest city in Mozambique, but still small enough that people know each other. The waiter at the coffee shop, Senhor Faztudo (Mr. Doeseverything! in English) is still there, along with the lady who helps him. When people like this remember you after so many years... and you remember them, it's just one of the things that makes living here more human and intimate-- something that doesn't happen (much) in Washington, D.C.
Friday, October 1, 2010
On the Virtues of Cement and Water Taps
I travelled to Chicualacuala District last week (say... Sheekwalakwala), one of the most remote districts in the country- 8 hours or 600km on a bumpy dirt road. You can put it in Google maps and see that it's pretty near the end of the world..It was great to be out of the city and in the middle of nowhere. As it usually goes on these trips, it was me travelling with Mozambican men. Luckily, I know how to deal with Mozambican men pretty well.
Chicualacuala is on the border with Zimbabwe, and at its peak, it must have been quite a place. It was a big station on the railway that connects South Africa to Harare, via Maputo. Now it reminds me of some of the Old West ghost towns we visited in Colorado when I was little. You can see shells and remnants of luxury hotels, swimming pools, nice restaurants, but now these are just decaying shells. The climate is very arid, so there is plenty of sand and dust.
One of the most difficult things to find in Chicualacuala is water. The Mozambique Railroad Authority decided to paint the city's old watertower, which now looks very beautiful, but unfortunately, it's not functioning-- I was the only one in our group who saw the irony in this. All the people in the town have to haul carts to get water from a well at the border post-- and the water there is salty.
The border post is funny because you'd never know you were at a border, save for a piece of wire and the asphalt that starts on the Zim side, and 5 border officials sitting under a thatched hut. During the whole time I was there (24 hours), I saw only 2 other cars... so it seems the border post is fully staffed!
Anyway, I began to re-think about cement and water taps in Africa while I was there. To me, these are now two of the most important things in life. Imagine life without cement! In Africa, there are many places like this... and if it's dry, you are usually sweating and covered from head to toe in dust-- like a piece of chicken that's battered, breaded and waiting to get fried. And if it's raining, you are muddy and sticky all the time- imagine if you have a toddler... crawling.. And a water tap. I'm not talking about a well, because there is a huge difference between pouring water from a jerry can or dipping a cup in a water container and having a TAP. The tap keeps your much cleaner-- try not using yours for a few hours only.
Our hotel in Chicualacuala had no tap.. anywhere.. and a shared bathroom. Matias' parents house doesn't have a tap either, but a hotel is different because you have more people and you don't know how they are. Sanitation?
For that and other reasons, I was glad to get out of the hotel-- other reason that the rooms did not have good insultation. I shot up in my bed in the middle of the night to hear this really loud snoring , like someone was in my room. It turned out it was the guy next door and he was just snoring VERY loudly... my colleagues all heard it too.
We cannot find the cord to our camera or else I'd start putting pictures here... hopefully it's in the container? All for now... we went camping at the Maputo Elephant Reserve last weekend, so more on that in the next post.
Chicualacuala is on the border with Zimbabwe, and at its peak, it must have been quite a place. It was a big station on the railway that connects South Africa to Harare, via Maputo. Now it reminds me of some of the Old West ghost towns we visited in Colorado when I was little. You can see shells and remnants of luxury hotels, swimming pools, nice restaurants, but now these are just decaying shells. The climate is very arid, so there is plenty of sand and dust.
One of the most difficult things to find in Chicualacuala is water. The Mozambique Railroad Authority decided to paint the city's old watertower, which now looks very beautiful, but unfortunately, it's not functioning-- I was the only one in our group who saw the irony in this. All the people in the town have to haul carts to get water from a well at the border post-- and the water there is salty.
The border post is funny because you'd never know you were at a border, save for a piece of wire and the asphalt that starts on the Zim side, and 5 border officials sitting under a thatched hut. During the whole time I was there (24 hours), I saw only 2 other cars... so it seems the border post is fully staffed!
Anyway, I began to re-think about cement and water taps in Africa while I was there. To me, these are now two of the most important things in life. Imagine life without cement! In Africa, there are many places like this... and if it's dry, you are usually sweating and covered from head to toe in dust-- like a piece of chicken that's battered, breaded and waiting to get fried. And if it's raining, you are muddy and sticky all the time- imagine if you have a toddler... crawling.. And a water tap. I'm not talking about a well, because there is a huge difference between pouring water from a jerry can or dipping a cup in a water container and having a TAP. The tap keeps your much cleaner-- try not using yours for a few hours only.
Our hotel in Chicualacuala had no tap.. anywhere.. and a shared bathroom. Matias' parents house doesn't have a tap either, but a hotel is different because you have more people and you don't know how they are. Sanitation?
For that and other reasons, I was glad to get out of the hotel-- other reason that the rooms did not have good insultation. I shot up in my bed in the middle of the night to hear this really loud snoring , like someone was in my room. It turned out it was the guy next door and he was just snoring VERY loudly... my colleagues all heard it too.
We cannot find the cord to our camera or else I'd start putting pictures here... hopefully it's in the container? All for now... we went camping at the Maputo Elephant Reserve last weekend, so more on that in the next post.
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