Becoming an RPCV.

Yesterday I received my official Close of Service date from Peace Corps. On November 18th, 2014, I will leave Ha Selomo, a place I've called home for more than two years, travel to the capital for paperwork, medical exams and tearful goodbyes, and then make the simultaneously terrifying and exciting transition from Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) to RETURNED Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV).

I didn't grow up dreaming of Peace Corps service, and I never knew anyone who had joined Peace Corps before I got on a plane and moved to Lesotho, so the term RPCV never really held any power for me... Until now. Now I'm starting to understand what it means. They won't call me a FORMER PCV. There is no such thing. It's a small, prideful difference. Once a PCV, always a PCV. You're never NOT a Peace Corps Volunteer again. Once you've served... Once you've left behind family, friends, and every sense of security you've ever known.... Once you've found home and family in a culture and people not your own... Once you've endured the isolation and loneliness- And then miraculously discovered a way through it using a new lanuage and sheer courage. Once you've trusted other people completely and with total abandon, relied on strangers and lived on the faith that "it all works out." Once you've loved kids, given every day of two years to teaching them, and made them "YOUR kids"... Once you've experienced what a miracle their companionship and innocence can be... Once you've experienced births, deaths, hunger, cold, exhaustion, and joy with people, found joy in new holiday traditions and watched the seasons unravel... Once you've lived through Peace Corps, you're never the same. It's an experience that will never NOT be a part of you.

I understand now that I will always be a Peace Corps Volunteer... I may be "returned" to my family and country, but I can't ever undo the OTHER family and country that made me theirs as well. I found some more resilient, less judgemental, and more humble part of myself here. And some other part of me was newly forged here, and I will always be ausi Limpho now. That's what makes this transition both exciting and terrifying. I know that I can't just walk away from it... Now comes the hardest part of the experience, where I try to find a way to make both of these identities coexist in a new life, wherever that may be.

I'm ready to try.

With Love from Lesotho… Mary E.

Ethical Travel

I  have travelled at different times in my life, for many different reasons. Sometimes for guilty pleasure, occasionally to explore and learn, and at others for adventure or sport. I have been the obnoxious tourist, complete with kitschy photos in front of "post card perfect" sites, boisterous excitement, and fanny-pack tackiness. I know what it is to travel for personal gain and comfort.
Yet on my latest trip to Botswana I witnessed some tourist-classic behavior that made me flinch at the audacity, blind-arrogance, and naiveté of westerners. It made me embarrassed for them, and after two years of living immersed in an indigenous culture, defensive of the rights and integrity of the local people.

Here are some of my observations about ethical and "culturally-sensitive" travel:

1) Culture isn't for your entertainment, and indigenous people aren't its performers.

While in Botswana we stayed at the D'Qae Qare Game Reserve, a reservation owned by the local Naro San people and dedicated to their cultural preservation. During our stay, several different groups of tourists trickled through. We were all there for the same reason: To learn about the local bushmen culture. Yet it quickly became obvious to my travelling companion, Amanda, and I that not everyone went about "receiving" the culture and local people the same way.
One night, we were seated around a family-style dinner with a large group of German tourists. Amanda and I had already been there for two days, and had made a point to get to know the San staff. After all, what better way to know the culture than to know the people, right? The cook, Dinah, was a jovial, pretty woman in her mid-30’s who seemed to be the life and glue of the staff. Despite her many roles on the reserve, she constantly toted her 6-month old baby, Anne, around on her hip or back. We came to absolutely love Dinah during our time at D’Qae. That night, as she served dinner she stopped to explain the dishes in her near-perfect English (a truly impressive feat for someone who is entirely self-taught in the language.) As she excused herself to go back to the kitchen, a tall blonde man stood up. "Can you say something in your own language?!" he shouted at her excitedly, as if prepared for a great amusement. Dinah nodded cordially, and commenced to reintroduce the dishes in Naro (the local "click" language, for which the man didn't even have the courtesy to ask of the proper name of first).
It was a performance by any standard. Dinah did well. She held her bearing and smiled, but I was mortally affronted for her, and for the thoughtless man. He had treated her no better than a circus performer. I wanted to tell him... ‘If you're interested in hearing a local language, spend some time with the people. If you're interested in witnessing a piece of their culture, have the decency to respect their traditions by referring to them by name.’ 

2) Pause. Look around. Realize WHERE you are. If you aren't ready for the reality of a place, then don't travel there.

I understand that westerners are accustomed to a certain level of comfort. When travelling, however, it's important to remember that not all corners of the world are capable of or designed to cater to your every whim. If you're not prepared to accept that, then DON'T TRAVEL THERE. Travelling is a choice. YOUR choice. If you don't want rocky roads and cold showers, then for goodness sakes don't go to the middle of the bush in northwestern Botswana.

On more than one occasion during my time in Botswana, I witnessed tourists complain about everything from the accommodations to the roads to the food to the imperfections of the staff's English (which, by the way is their THIRD language, after Naro and Setswana). It was offensive to watch people bad-mouth the local people for things that 1) the locals live with EVERY day without complaint, and 2) they can't change. There is no way to make the remote bush into a Hilton Hotel without destroying the very essence of the place and culture you are trying to preserve. And being hyper-focused on your physical surroundings often means you miss the kindness, generosity, and genuine hospitality of the people all around you.
If you're not prepared to accept cultural travel with humility and a grateful heart, then don't go.

3) You are a guest in THEIR country, culture, and community. Stop expecting everyone to speak English.

This is a common hazard of travelling… And I absolutely understand. The inability to communicate can be frustrating. You need answers. Maybe you’re lost in a strange place. You don’t know what’s going on. Confused. It’s disarming and uncomfortable, right? Embrace it. Taking your frustration out on host country nationals because YOU can’t communicate is your problem, not theirs. You are a guest. You chose to travel to a place where YOU don’t have the necessary skills to live. Uncomfortable? Then stay at home. Angry? Then look around and realize that you are the one that doesn’t belong.
Westerners expect everyone to speak English… And I know, it’s an international language, you’re paying good money, yada, yada, yada… But in my experience, host country nationals make a HUGE effort to try to speak English, even though it’s uncomfortable for them as well, they’re in their own country, AND they often have had little to no opportunity for formal training in the language. All I’m saying is, try to meet them half-way. Look at language as an opportunity to bridge cultural divides and show that you’re a good sport.
Yet again… It all comes down to travelling with grace and humility.

4) Being poor doesn't make you stupid. Being different doesn't make you incompetent.

I see this a lot in Peace Corps… Americans frequently get frustrated working with people that think and work different ways than they’re accustomed to. Perhaps a business meeting starts two hours late because people sit around talking about their families forever. It’s frustrating; I understand. It happens ALL the time in Lesotho. Yet we often undervalue what we don’t understand. The business meeting starting late isn’t a sign of disrespect for everyone's time, it occurs from a belief that relationships are important. It’s a subtle yet important difference, that takes time and humility to understand.

There are many ways to exist in the world, and none is more right or wrong than any other. The same can be said for knowledge. There are many different types of knowledge and intelligence, and (hold onto your hats engineers!), not all of them are quantifiable or even written. How many people look down on the uneducated, illiterate poor as lesser? Yet I would guess that these same people, utterly overlook the incredible genius of  a San man who can recite the individual names and uses of a thousand different plants and herbs. Or a woman who remembers, word for word, an hour long legend passed down from her ancestors.
Culture is powerful. It affects the way we think about time, what forms of knowledge we value, how we prioritize values, and how we go about work. When travelling, don’t make the terrible mistake of confusing being poor or illiterate with stupid or incompetent. To do so would be to miss out on the incredible plethora of gifts and worldviews present amongst humanity.
So next time you think your waitress in a foreign country seems lazy, or that the guy sitting on the street corner begging must be stupid, stop and step out of your own prejudices and worldview for a second. You might be surprised by what you find when you give people the benefit of the doubt.

5) YOU are not entitled to people's images, stories, or experiences.

Travelling can be exciting… Perhaps you’re like me and have the impulse to try to capture and preserve everything you see and experience. I constantly have a camera in my hand. I always seem to want to document every image, story, and experience. And it’s always a challenge to try to find a way to respectfully capture these pieces of peoples lives. Do you ask permission? Does it make them uncomfortable? Should you pay them? It can be a tricky thing.
But I think perhaps that’s the point… It should be tricky. Taking something as intimate as a person’s image or story should always be a question, not a demand.
You are not entitled to peoples images or stories, and to assume so, by snapping photos without permission or by asking intimate questions can be both impolite and offensive, depending on the culture. Westerners often haphazardly snap photos of strangers, without think twice about how that may make the local people feel. Or they hear or witness things abroad, go home, and then relay the stories and lives of local people as cocktail party jokes.
When I travel and spend time with local people, I try to remind myself that their stories and images are gifts. They should be offered, not taken. They should be guarded and respected for the lives of the people they represent.

6) If you want to know a place, know the people.

I suppose the entire point of this post, boils down to this… If you want to know a place, then you should get to know the people. People matter. In my opinion, there’s nothing more important in life than the way you treat another human being. It’s sacred. And when you travel, you leave footprints behind you. You affect the local people when you visit a place. Your behavior will be remembered (more than you ever know… Trust me on that one!) and it will in turn affect the way the people you met think about your culture and country.
So look at travelling as a gift… Something to be approached with reverence and humility. Travel ethically. Know that you left the world a better place than when you ventured into it. You’re being trusted with other people’s sense of self and integrity. And that’s a huge responsibility.

With Love from Lesotho… Mary E.

Idealizing the “Simple Life.”

There's a habit we have, as Americans... We have a tendency to idealize or fantasize about the "simple life." I see/hear it all the time... People talk longingly about a "simpler time and place," going "back to basics," a return to values and a forgone way of life. And as a PCV, people look at me with admiration for having attained this apparent "dream like" life. As if living without electricity and running water is some desirable life, a testament to a more honest or spiritually evolved way of life.

And I absolutely understand the fantasy... I was guilty of idealizing what it would be like to go "back to basics" before I came to Peace Corps. As if it was some more natural and evolved state of being "one with nature." Even during my first few months in Ha Selomo, I took pride in going to the pump to haul every ounce of water I used. I grew a garden and felt somehow superior for, for the first time in my life, living almost completely out of the reach of the global food market. I became a circumstantial vegetarian, simply because meat was expensive and difficult to buy. I felt like my new Peace Corps lifestyle was admirable, and told people I enjoyed "going back to basics" because I honestly did and do. But I was contributing to the same "idealization" I've now become frustrated with.

Living simply, in my eyes, is sometimes just another euphemism for living in poverty. My Basotho friends and neighbors are not lucky for having a "simpler" life. They are impoverished. And there's nothing beautiful, admirable, or noble about it. Americans project this fantasy of what an adventure it is to live without electricity, running water, or modern technology onto others. It's not a gallant, noble move to save the environment or get back to some more worthy way of life. It's suffering.

You know what life without electricity is? It's freezing cold. People die of cold here in Lesotho. Sickness sweeps through villages, attacking those too old, young, or sick to resist. Basotho literally FEAR the cold. They talk about it constantly. Like a superstition or imminent threat. I went to 7 funerals last year, in the span of 3 months during the winter. And you know what else no electricity means? It's dark. Pitch dark. As in children can't do homework and have to walk to school, through the mountains before the sun even rises. And two days ago, I had to show my 12th graders a picture of astronauts in space on my blackberry phone. They were SHOCKED to see a space ship. They had no idea giant structures like this were circling, just outside Earth's reach. Watching the realization wash over their faces was amazing. These are kids graduating from high school, and they didn't know what a space ship, a space suit, or zero gravity looked like. THAT'S life without electricity and technology. My kids have a limited ability to experience the world. They don't have television or computers or internet or smart phones. They don't know what the ocean looks like as the waves hit the sand, or what a lion sounds like when it roars.

I'm not saying all the advancements of modern technology are positive, but I am saying that thinking that life without them is a noble act is naïve. It's not noble to die of freezing cold or to limit a child's education. My life here without electricity only approaches exciting and adventurous because I have enough money to afford heavy blankets and a gas heater- luxuries my Basotho friends and neighbors don't have.

So the next time you hear someone longingly dream of a "simpler way of life" or going "back to basics" remind yourself that there are people around the world living that way RIGHT now. And there is nothing "simple" about it.

With Love from Lesotho… Mary E.

A Day with the Naro San People

The highlight of Amanda  and my trip to northwestern Botswana was, without a doubt, our time with a group of Naro San bushmen at the D’Qae Qare Game Reserve. Early on our first day at the reserve, we were driven out to a little bushmen village on the reserve. The Naro no longer live in traditional villages, like the one where we spent our day… Since their removal from their ancestral lands in the central Kalahari Desert, most Naro San live in poverty in government designated settlements (such as the village of D’Kar, where Amanda and I later spent a day during our trip). But for our visit, a group of Naro San came out to join us in the village…

True to our Peace Corps roots, it didn’t take long for Amanda and I to feel right at home relaxing on burlap sacks around the ground. The San women immediately put us to work, learning how to make traditional beaded necklaces out of ostrich eggs…. And boy is it      a labor intensive process! To start, the women break the ostrich eggshells into pieces. Each piece then has a tiny hole drilled into it using a handmade drill (a nail in a wood stick). Afterwards, the pieces can be boiled/fried to give the eggshells darker colors of brown. The eggshell pieces with hand-drilled holes are then strung onto a piece of string and painstakingly shaved down against stones until all the pieces have the same round geometry and size. Afterwards, the San women demonstrate their true artistry by weaving these ostrich shell beads into elaborate designs, in the forms of beautiful necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and classic headbands.

As we sat around making necklaces, the women shared stories and bits of their cultural history- an incredible legacy that boasts being one of the most ancient cultures still surviving in the 21st century.       The Naro San, who are one of only many distinct tribal peoples that make up the “San” or “bushmen” of southern Africa, have their own distinct language, Naro. Despite my attempts at trying to learn even one or two of our companions’ names in Naro, I walked away utterly defeated. With more than 30 distinct click sounds, the language is absolutely baffling in it’s complexity and I spent much of my trip awestruck by it’s sounds. The San people put incredible emphasis on music and dance, and we were graced with much of it during our time there. The women especially LOVE to sing and do so during much of their work, or as an expression of thanks, joy, or other emotions. Their music has an almost hauntingly eerie, yet strong resilient quality to it… Throughout the night, from our bushmen hut on the other side of the reserve, we could hear the women continuing to call out to each other. It was a lovely form of music that I could never even begin to recreate or participate in myself. Most songs, and by association many dances, are associated with animals or pieces of nature. The San seem incredibly worshipful for everything that surrounds them- the sky, water, a tuber found beneath a bush, a leaf whose tea heals, an eland’s grace and beauty. Throughout the day, we would be out in the bush walking or sitting somewhere and the women would break into a complex harmony of calls and responses- When we asked our guide, Tomku what they were doing she would just laugh, “They’re happy!” she’d reply. “They’re giving thanks for the water in that pond!” It was an incredible gift to have the opportunity to witness a wholly different, and yet utterly joy-filled, form of worship in the form of dance and music.

If nothing else can be said about San culture, it’s that it’s people are story-tellers. Their stories are beautiful, creative, and have endured through millennia. In another testament to their utter devotion to nature and all it’s creatures, San stories are filled with narratives of humans becoming animal and animals becoming human. These trends seemed to permeate their story telling, both orally and through dance, where dancers often imitated animals stalking one another or a bird flying. In this way, San teach their children to deeply respect the spirit, essence, and rights of EVERY living thing. As hunters and gatherers, the San people traditionally relied heavily on the land and it’s animals, yet they never abused or took for granted this privilege. They viewed humans as animals, and animals as equal spirits to humans.

Traditionally, San lived as hunter gatherers (although this way of life has quickly disappeared due to seizure of San lands by governments and agriculturalists.) Thus, the highlight of our day was going on a bushwalk. During the several hours we spent in the bush with the women and men, Amanda and I were overwhelmed by the incredible wealth of knowledge held by these peoples.
Their intimate relationship with the land could not possibly be overstated. During the walk, our two male guides pointed out tracks from various animals- reading their prints like I might read a book, and easily translating the events of what    had happened to      which animals when. They could distinguish between clusters of animal prints and droppings, without the slightest hesitancy. It quickly became clear to us that EVERY plant and tree in the Kalahari Desert has a unique purpose for the San. With each step, the women would rapidly point out a plant that could poison a grown antelope with a single scratch of an arrow, a root that can be chewed to clean your teeth, a seed that when brewed relieves pain, a bug that is delicious when fried and ground into a paste, or a piece of bark that can be used as a knife to sever the umbilical cord after a woman has given birth. Their knowledge was absolutely overwhelming, and left me utterly in awe.
Midway through our walk, the men found two specific trees they’d been watching for… They swiftly broke off a  large piece of a soft wood, and used a fading knife to cut a thin notch in it. They then took a thin rod of hard wood from another tree and shaved it down to a smooth surface. They proceeded to gather three distinct types of grasses, and layer them carefully in a pile. On the pile of dried grasses, they placed the softer wood with the notch, and into the notch they placed the hard wood rod. With a fast rubbing motion they spun the hard wood against the soft. In less than 3 minutes, smoke began to unfurl from the lower soft wood, and it wasn’t long before they were blowing embers to life in a small fire. Amanda and I looked on in disbelief at the ultimate survival skill- making fire from rubbing two sticks together. As if we needed one more reason to feel utterly inferior to the San’s knowledge and prowess in the Kalahari Desert. Where we saw nothing but inhospitable desert that would likely kill us in less than 24 hours, the San saw a lush wonderland of resources and food. It was incredible to witness!

That evening, after the bush walk and a quiet dinner, we gathered around the fire. We women sat around the fire in the sand, or on burlap sacks, as the men prepared to perform a traditional San healing ritual… The ritual, commonly called a “trance dance” for the trance-like state the dancers assume, is traditionally performed by men… But as we saw that night, can also sometimes be performed by older female healers.

As the older women piled on logs to build the fire, one of the women started singing. She was quickly joined by all the women seated around the fire in a wide circle. The air filled with an almost discordant harmony, and their gentle clapping- a rhythm which I, at times, could hardly follow, yet everyone else present seemed to know by heart. The men approached the fire, dressed in traditional skins around their waists, brightly beaded headbands, and ropes of shell-shakers wrapped around their legs, such that each step added to the rhythmic music. They settled into a rhythm… Around and around the fire they circled, in a steady shuffling rhythm that drove deep divots into the sand where they danced. Their motions were hypnotic in their repetition, and I could see them and the circle of women around relax into the music. 
With each new song, Tomku would lean over and explain, “This one is for the Eland.” Or “this is like the flight of a bird.” I can’t say how many songs passed before I noticed a change… It was subtle, but eventually it was there. The elder of the two men shuffled now without looking- eyes closed. His motions became more erratic, less controlled, more drunken almost. His movements seemed to become more animal and less human, as he stumbled around the fire as if searching for something only he could sense. Finally, he would land on a person in the circle- one who required healing. In his trance state, he laid hands on the ailing person- seeking for the source of the unseen illness or pain. He might stand for several minutes there, manipulating the body with pushes and pulls- as if trying to align the body back into health. Or on occasion, he would reach right into the roaring fire behind him to fish out a red hot ember. He would then drop the ember into a tortoise shell that hung around his neck with thread, and wave the now smoking tortoise shell, and herbs within beneath the nose of the person being healed.

This went on for hours… Song after song. Person after person. The trance seemed to take a toll on the healers, for eventually they dripped with perspiration from the strain of their never-ending dancing. Again and again, the would return to the rhythm, as if to dance themselves back into a trance. At one point, an elderly woman who we’d been told was a healer, stood up and joined the dance. She also entered a trance state, that was so powerful we were told she had to be helped down from it when the night ended.
Long after Amanda and I headed back to our bushmen huts, I could hear the Naro women in different villages calling to each other through the night… Coming down from the high of the trance, or potentially sending messages of thanks out into the dark. I fell asleep to the lonely, beautiful sound… A peaceful end to a truly magnificent day of cultural immersion.
With Love from Botswana… Mary E.

That time I stuck a yowling cat in a box… :)

My cat, Pina, has now graced me with several litters of kittens. For all intensive purposes, she's a veritable feline-producing machine. Ha! And obviously, I can't complain... I mean who doesn't just LOVE the idea of having 3 fuzzy bundles of kitten nestled in your bed, and tumbling around your house. They've been delightful! Yet every time Pina has kittens, I have to face the stressful prospect of finding them homes.

And it's not a difficult task to find willing owners- many Basotho love cats and appreciate them for their "rat-killing" abilities. Finding a GOOD Basotho home, by American standards, is another thing. I want homes that I know will feed the kittens, and make sure they have shelter during freezing weather. And this is a tough request...
So when my dear friend Makabelo complained about having a mouse problem in her new house, and I had a house full of kittens, it seemed like an ideal match! Only one problem... Makabelo lives in Maseru, nearly 5 hours away from Botha-Bothe.

Yet as a testament to our friendship and my desire to find good homes for the kittens, I packed my bags, and stuffed a cat in a box. :)

It. Was. Miserable. From the moment, that kitty was stuffed in the cardboard box for the five-hr trip on PUBLIC transport, it yowled like I was trying to murder it. I'd say poor thing, but I honestly felt much more mortified for myself. I hate public displays and drawing attention- And this, in a country where I draw a considerable amount of attention by just STANDING on a roadside. Now add a yowling cat in a box, and I'm a walking lekhooa comedy act. I was in hell.
But I put on a smile and whipped out my Sesotho... As we sat on the village taxi, I apologized and attempted to laugh off my yowling feline friend with comedy... "Ke soabile, bo-Me! Motsoalle oa ka o batla catz, empa o lula Maseru! Pephi! Catz e lerata haholo! Tola! Tola, catz!" (I'm so sorry, mothers! My friend wants this cat but she lives in Maseru! Sorry! This cat is so loud! Shhh! Shhhn, cat!"

Bo-Me LOVED it. They ate it all up. They just laughed and laughed and laughed. And in that moment I found a new reason to love Basotho, just a little bit more. Not one person shot me an angry or irritated look. Despite my mortification, not one person judged me. Things happen. Noise happens. Akward situations with animals on public transport happen, and it's just a part of life. An American would have demanded I get off, bo-Me just chuckled and started asking me questions. In fact, when the taxi later got a flat tire on my dirt road and we all had to get out and start walking, bo-Me grabbed the box and merrily started juggling it between themselves- helping to carry my loud, obnoxious screaming box of cat. It was yet another testament to the spirit of community that is so special in this culture.

And once on the taxis- of which there were many between my little village in northern Lesotho and the capital- taxi drivers could not have been less concerned or troubled. Yowling cat? No problem! Just pump up the famu music! I never, in all of my years living in Lesotho, throught I would EVER be tolerant of, no less THANKFUL for blaring famu music. But in that moment, I was! Halleleujah for bo-Ntate and their famu music! :)

The cat made it to Maseru safely, and now lives a life of true luxury for a Basotho cat. Tumisang, Lily, and Kabelo named her Kitty, and she gets spoiled with milk, meat scraps, and living inside the house. So the trip turned out to be worth it in the end, and everyone lived happily ever after.

And I was given just a few more reason to be thankful for the small kindnesses of strangers. :)

With Love from Lesotho…. Mary E.

My Trip to Paradise… Also known as Mozambique!

In June 2014, several of my PCV friends, Will, Amanda, Jiggetts, and I, took off for a 10 day vacation in Mozambique. The trip there are back was trying, but oh-so-worth-it the moment we stepped foot in the crystal blue, lukewarm Indian Ocean!

The trip to the coast of Mozambique in south-eastern Africa took us through three countries. On the first morning, we rallied together in Maputsoe, to cross the Lesotho border together and take a taxi from Ficksburg. The trip to Johannesburg was typical, minus an infuriating run in with some corrupt S. African policemen along the way (see my blog-post on Discrimination for the full story)… We arrived in the ever-so-sketchy taxi rank in Johannesburg, where we hired a porter to make the terrifying 5-6 block walk through the dangerous streets of Joburg to the Central Bus Terminal. After a few hours of waiting, we were on an overnight bus to Maputo, Mozambique!

But as all world-travelers know… Nothing ever goes as planned. Our Intercape bus liner refused to wait for us at the border to Mozambique when the border crossing’s computer system went down and we were unable to get our Visa’s. So we stood and watched the giant bus leave, as we waited helplessly in line for a Visa. Luckily, Peace Corps Volunteers are nothing if not resourceful… Ha! We rallied our spirits for an adventure, marveled at our first glimpses of Mozambique as the sun started to rise, pulled on our hiking packs, and started walking! Not far down the road we found a taxi rank, where we used broken Spanish (which, just for the record, is NOTHING like Portuguese! But little did we know at the time… Ha!) to negotiate a driver to take us the final hour drive into Maputo!

Our one day stay in Maputo was brief, but after some quick cat-naps and hot showers at our hostel, we set out to explore the city! Coming from Lesotho, I was SO impressed with the level of infrastructure and architecture. While the Portuguese certainly left most of Mozambique in war-torn tatters when they left, they    

certainly also left behind a legacy of amazing architecture, food, and their language. It was such an incredibly interesting combination of European and African influences, all mixed into one beautiful, tropical country.

In City Hall in Maputo, Mozambique.

The next morning we were back to the road! Only this time instead of a comfortable bus it was a local taxi… But if there’s anything we know, it’s public transport! The taxi to the little beach town of Tofo left at 4:30am, and didn’t arrive until about 4pm that evening… So needless to say it was a LONG day. But we did get to see a lot of the Mozambiquan country-side… Scattered along the lush, tropical landscape were little family compounds and village clearings. Women in brightly colored African-print wrap skirts toted fire wood along the roads, and sold bananas and cassava roots out of giant baskets. The houses, made of sticks and woven grass seemed the antithesis of rondavals in Lesotho… They were built to be breezy and cool in the heat and humidity of this coastal climate. It was truly beautiful countryside.

At some point during the morning, a very old woman slowly boarded the taxi and took the seat next to me… Since I don’t speak Portuguese nor any of the MANY indigenous languages spoken by the people in the area, I simply gave her a smile and moved my giant pack out of her way. But a few miles down the road, I started to feel queasy. “Do you smell fish?!” I whispered to Will. “Something smells awful!” “Yeah… I definitely smell… something?” We started to search, glancing around the old woman crammed between us in the tightly packed taxi. Eventually, we gave up the search. But when the little old lady departed about an hour later, I looked down in horror. On the floor of the taxi sat a dead fish, that she’d apparently dropped and stepped on. The floor was covered in fish slime, that had spread to cover both of our hiking packs that sat in the aisle. Needless to say, it was a rather smelly trip from there on out… Ha!

And let me tell you… When travelling in Mozambique (or actually, just Africa in general) be cautious of your fluid intake, because one pee-break in 10 hours is simply not enough. Ha! About 6 hours into the trip, we all thought we were going to have a seriously embarrassing problem. But just when it was getting “critical”, the bus pulled to the side of the road, just outside a small village. “This is it!” we all rejoiced, as we watched all the locals on the taxi depart. Clearly the women knew where they were going, so Amanda, Jiggetts, and I fell in line and hoped they were going to a toilet! As it turns out they were, just not one like anything we’d ever seen! “What is this?! What do we do?!” Jiggetts exclaimed as we entered the one-room, cinder-block with a concrete trough running around the wall. “I have no idea, but I think bo-‘Me are about to show us!” I said, laughing. As we observed the women squat, right in front of each other, over the trough, we realized this was going to be a very public experience. Women lined up front-to-back up on the trough, squatted, and did their business. Afterwards, they picked up a ladle in a bucket of water near the wall and poured water over their waste to wash it down a drain in the corner… Now I should preface this by saying I have used a LOT of different toilets in my travels, but this was a TOTALLY new experience. But nothing motivates you to forge bravely into the unknown quite like a full bladder, with another 5-6 hours on the road still to come… So in we went! Yet another grand adventure to travelling!

We finally arrived in Tofo exhausted, hot, and convinced we’d never get on public transport again… But it was all worth it the moment we saw our little bungalow right ON the beach. The weather was gorgeous, a perfect antidote to the freezing cold winter we’d left behind in the mountains of Lesotho.

Our beach bungalows in Tofo.

  My lovely travelling companions… Dominique, Amanda, Will, Jiggetts, and I.

Tofo Beach

 

Families gathering food from the ocean in the early morning.

  

View from our beach bungalow… Talk about paradise, right?!

Each morning we woke up and gorged ourselves on fresh fruit and fresh baked baguettes, that women all over the village sold out of big baskets for nearly nothing. The fruit was amazing… I swear I think I never had a real banana until I went to Mozambique: half the size, but 10 times the flavor. There were mangos, papayas, oranges, nectarines, GIANT avocados, pineapples, bananas, passion fruit, and dozens of other fruits I didn’t even recognize. In the afternoons, as we sunbathed on the nearly empty beach, little boys would come buy selling fresh coconuts. The would take out their machetes and with two whacks crack the tops off for us… Then out with the local rum and pineapple! We added it right to the coconut juice in the shell: our version of a pina colada on the beach! We ate seafood for nearly every meal EVERY day… And the manager of our hotel, Beano, was absolutely phenomenal and tracked us down fresh fish for a braii one evening. The ladies and I spent WAY too much money craft and fabric shopping in the village, where I found an amazing hand-carved wooden mask from northern Mozambique. We spent one whole afternoon getting Swedish massages from a local ex-pat scuba-diving, yoga- teaching couple. The entire week was the definition of what a vacation  should be! Ha!

A beautiful little mosque in Inhambabane, Mozambique. 
 

We found these local men carving along the roadside outside Inhambabane.

  

The boys and I, ready for an afternoon of doing NOTHING. :)

 

The bread woman, who saw us every morning for fresh baguettes! Yum!

Ernesto and his sister worked at the lodge where we stayed, and joined us for a seafood braii one night! Fun!

Did I mention we ate a LOT of seafood?!

The highlight of the trip, however, was Ocean Safari and deep-water snorkeling in the Indian Ocean! A few days into our trip we arranged to go out with a guide to look for dolphins, giant manta-rays (which that region of Mozambique is famous for!), sharks, and whales. We spent several hours going up and down the coat on the dive boat, but saw NOTHING. So  we decided instead to detour to two shallow-dive sites for some snorkeling in the local reefs… I’ve never been snorkeling before, and it took me a few minutes of relaxing to get the hang of my breathing. But once I figured it out, I LOVED it. The reefs were absolutely gorgeous… Covered with bright coral, schools of fish, and other creatures. We had a great time, and really started to get the hang of snorkeling.

 

Shots from our guide’s underwater camera, while at the shallow-dive site.

Launching and landing the speed boat in the ocean surf was honestly the scariest part of the whole experience… They’d drag it in with the tractor, and then it was up to us to get it out, hop in, and then hold on for dear life! Ha!

But we were still disappointed… Our guide said it was nearly unheard of to see nothing, so we decided to give it one last shot… The next morning we got up bright and early, and hit the ocean just after sunrise. This time we got lucky almost immediately! We saw multiple pods of dolphins, and giant manta-rays! Each time we spotted something, our guide and driver would guide the boat as close as possible, without scaring the animals and then we’d flip overboard to try to catch glimpses of them while snorkeling. The dolphins were notoriously skittish, and would dive almost before we could even hit the water…. But one of the giant manta-ray was AMAZING. He stayed, swimming around us in giant circles. He was massive, and glided so effortlessly. I was thankful that we’d spent some time practicing snorkeling the day before, otherwise I don’t think I would have been comfortable enough with the mask and equipment to focus on him… But as it was, we climbed back in the boat with some amazing mental images .

The whole gang on Day 2:
Ready to swim with some giant manta-rays!

You can’t see it… But there’s a manta-ray swimming around us!

We saw multiple pods of dolphins VERY close to our boat!

As we travelled further down the coast on the boat, we had the real find of the day… A pod of three migrating Humpback Whales, two adults and one baby. I can’t even begin to described how amazing it was to watch them swim. They were MASSIVE, and beautiful. They moved so effortlessly, at times swimming close enough to our boat that I could have thrown a ball and hit them. We tailed them for more than an hour, mesmerized by them. Without a doubt, it was the coolest animal encounter of my time in Mozambique.

At the end of our seven day trip, I boarded the bus back to Maputo relaxed and rejuvenated. Our trip was exactly the reprieve I needed from winter in Lesotho, and I will always remember is as lush, green, and gorgeous. Truly an adventure in paradise…

With Love from Mozambique… –Mary E.