Sunday, November 20, 2011

content by Joanne

 Lets all go to Xai Xai!

After a lovely night’s sleep and a nice breakfast of Portuguese bread, jam, cheese, and fruit, we awaited the arrival of the Maria just before noon who, through hard work and diligence, ended up earning a promotion to her status from ‘locationally-challenged’ to ‘luggage-challenged’. Some team members took the morning to catch up on (or start) their reading or check out a craft market, and others went wandering around the city of Maputo and trying their luck with one of the local three-wheeled taxis that we refer to as tuk-tuks.

Just before lunch we all piled into a van and made our 3.5 hour trip to Xai-Xai, passing lots of small settlements along the way, and stopping at a gas station complex for sandwiches, drinks, chips (including the very popular cheese chips as well as the not-so-popular smoked beef chips). The complex also offered ‘Clean Toilets’ for 5 MT (meticals) - which were judged ‘palatial’. One can only imagine that they were specifically listed as clean toilets - to distinguish them from the unclean toilets around the corner?

5 meticals = 20 cents - a bargain to be sure!

On the road there were a number of unique sight for our group of Canadians. There were plastic bags hung from trees, some empty, some half filled – which we learned were cashew nuts. Another was the liquid in bowls being sold by children along the highway, which was apparently a traditional alcoholic drink made from local trees. Another was a chest-high tall and relatively thin wrapped bundle with lacing to hold it together – we never did find out what that was…

Bridge over the 'great grey-green greasy Limpopo River' - view from our van

After getting settled in our rooms (much more luxurious than the ones in Maputo), we had an orientation session with Magaia. He taught us about Habitat in Mozambique, the OVC program, and some key words in the local dialect Changana, like Kanimambo (thank you), Dzi Xile (good morning) and Hambabine (good night). Tamara started using them immediately and will probably be voted as ‘most likely to interpret’ when we are done. We also learned various facts and figures about Mozambique, only a few of which I can remember. The facts that stuck in my head were a country-wide AIDS infection rate of 16.2 percent, and that the area around Xai-Xai had the highest infection rate of all. There are 1.4 million orphans in the country, the Gaza province has a plan to build 275 houses under the OVC plan, they have build 164 already, and we are the last Global Village group for this build season. Hopefully we will be able to complete 2 whole houses during our stay – helping 2 family groups to avoid the upcoming rainy season.

Our first meal at the Hotel Kaya Kaina was roast chicken, fries, rice and salad, after which we retired to our air-conditioned rooms. Build day tomorrow!