Our whole squad has been living at the Iris Ministry base here in Dondo. Our team, along with 13 other girls, are sleeping in a building they call the clinic. Here is what our room looks like…
This month we’ve been bucket showering, which takes some getting used to, and learning to live with no running water. With our whole squad here it feels very much like a college campus.
The food here has been very consistent. Carbs, Carbs, and well… more Carbs. Every morning we have bread for breakfast with an assortment of jam, peanut butter, or for some people… chocolate spread! For lunch we have shima, which I describe as a very bland version of mashed potatoes (but it’s not potatoes it’s cornmeal) that get’s hard once cooled down. They look a lot like grits from back home. We have this with either fish, beans, spinach mix, or cabbage depending on the day. At night we have the same thing except they substitute white rice for the shima. After a couple of weeks of this consistently you start to miss fruits and veggies.
Speaking of fruit… on base we have a mango grove! I’ve never liked mangos before, but these are simply amazing, especially after not having much fruit in your diet. The pineapples here in Mozambique are also to die for. So much sweeter and flavorful when compared to the pineapples back home. They also have a ton of lime trees here. Not gonna lie… on days where you just need something sweet, I’ve eaten a lime right off the tree. So good!
On the streets there is food everywhere. Chicken shishcabobs- don’t eat them unless you want awful stomach reactions, Fried donut holes- a tasty treat when out and about, and simosa’s- to die for! A must have! Simosa’s are these triangular patties filled with potatoes and fried… Basically a perogie, but so much better!! (and that’s saying a lot coming from me). Some people here fill them with meats and different things. My favorite is just the plain and simple potatoe one.
While out and about on the street everything is super cheap. The money they use here is called Mets. The conversion is 30 Mets = $1.00. You can buy a taxi to the nearest city a half an hour away for under a dollar. It’s crazy! Most places here will not give exact change like in the US. If you’re at the grocery store and they owe you between 1-5 Mets in change they usually won’t give it to you. It took some getting used to, but when you think about the conversion it’s not that big of a deal. Also… it’s their culture. Sometimes you just gotta run with it.
Speaking of this… something all of us girls have had to run with this month has been not showing our knees. It is culturally frowned upon for a woman to show her knees. Knees, in their culture, are the sexiest part of a woman’s body. It’s like woman in the US showing their breasts out in public. Here though, woman showing their breasts is normal and it happens often. You will see more people breast-feeding more than anything else. It most definitely takes some getting used to, just like having to cover your knees. Woman here wear long wraps called caplana’s. We’ve noticed they come in handy for many things. To wear as a dress, to wear as a head covering, to carry children in, to use as a towel, to use as a pot holder, etc. etc. It’s crazy the amount of things these woman find to use this wrap for. They’re awesome and absolutely beautiful. Extremely colorful and they make them in all different designs. Here’s a picture of some of the girls at a nursery carrying some of the babies in caplanas.
Traveling around in Mozambique can be a journey all in itself. You either walk, some people bike, or you hop in a crowded taxi van called a shoppe. So far the most our squad’s seen fit in one has been 25 people, a baby, and 2 buckets of fish. They don’t waste any space on these things. On one of the rides I was sitting against the window with my hand out the side and the window fell out and was hanging from my arm as the shoppe was still moving. Thankfully, they pulled over and grabbed it. For a while I thought my arm was gonna fall off. I thought New York City taxi’s were crazy. These shoppes are seriously no joke!
Along with crazy vehicles and tons of people there are also animals everywhere. Daily you will run into goats, chickens, ducks, cows, dogs, and cats. At one of the locations we visited they actually had a bull. It was huge! It is so hard to not go up and pet a puppy that may have rabbies. It makes me miss my puppy back home. An interesting thing here though is that all the dogs look pretty much the same. There’s not a variety of breeds; they’re all the same!
Along with the animals come the bugs. I honestly cringe even thinking about this. There are so many bugs here in Mozambique all ranging in size. We’re made some lasting relationships with the spiders in our bathroom and the beatles in our house, but the mosquitoes are just the worst. My legs look like I’ve got chicken pox all over again and for me, I’m a picker. It’s so hard not to itch them! Accompanying the mosquitoes in Africa comes malaria, the disease that nobody wants, but inevitably gets. Two members on our squad have already gotten malaria while taking their anti-malaria meds. On a more positive note we have amazing people taking care of us and making sure we stay healthy and get the proper treatment when we do become ill.
Most people on our squad have been feeling sick because of the heat. It is EXTREMELY hot here. Being closer and below the equator is so different. Some days, with the heat index, it has been up to 113 degrees. I’ve already been severely dehydrated once and have felt light headed most days out on ministry. I will say that this is a huge blessing compared to some members of my squad. I am so grateful to have worked the plethora of outdoor theatre jobs that I have because they have really prepared me to work in various degrees of heat. We’ve been drinking tons of water and resting as much as possible. Earlier on the day I got dehydrated we went to the beach for our day off. Here’s a picture of the beautiful Mozambique beach in Beira.
Make sure to read "Mozambique 201" to hear about my favorite things in Mozambique!!
