just a hot sweaty mess

Hey there, hi there, ho there.

Its another hot day here in Quelimane, fortunately most of the offices I’ve been working in have AC, and my new fan helps to keep me cool once I am home. Unfortunately I can’t speak too much for the disgusting sweaty mess I become in the interludes through these locations haha. Beads of sweat trickle down my spine, a sweat-stache is often quite common, as is my hair being pulled into a very high bun off my neck. The chill of the AC, cranked so low in the office today is at times uncomfortably cold. . the air blowing down the back of my neck, giving me goosebumps … but then I think about how much I would rather have goosebumps, than shin-sweat…. And that cold air becomes more of a refreshing breeze haha.

I don't know if the heat has been causing a lot of energy outages in and around the city, but for the past few days my apartment building has been without it during the day time. The other night, all apartments had it except mine. So I had to call the energy company and have someone come and check it all out. Of course that took a few hours for them to even show up. . . and when they did they poked one thing, threw a switch, and walked away… ahh the customer service in moz. Top notch I tell ya.

Also, this past weekend I discovered a dead rat in my kitchen. Well, not the rat so much, but the maggots that were consuming its decaying corpse. I screamed, promptly shut the cabinet door, and called my empregado (maid) to come early the next morning and help me clean it. I can deal with a lot of things; blood, guts, sick people etc. . . but I draw the line at decay and maggots. Sorry not sorry. People have their limits of disgusting tolerance – and that's mine haha. Long story short, my empregado came the next morning, cleaned it all up, sterilized the area, and we went about our day haha. Thank goodness for that man.

This past weekend was the big festival for Carnival/Mardi Gras. Having been in moz for so long, I have only ever heard good things about this big party- from both PCV’s and Mozambicans. Quelimane is supposed to be considered ‘pequeno brazil’ and that nowhere else in Mozambique do people celebrate it like they do here. So, my expectations were pretty high. LE WOMP. . . the governor of the town decided to switch the location this year of the festival to a far corner of the town, that was much smaller than where it usually happens, parades and everything that was carnival related didn't start until 23/24:00 hours so mostly it was just shitfaced drunk people rolling around making a huge mess. Not really the party of the year. Haha. I had a good time, and had some visiting volunteers stay with me, so we all made the best of it – but it did not live up to the hype. In the following days, my local Mozambican friends also agreed that this was not the carnival festivities that they know and love. Womp womp womp. Oh well.

the nights of carnival, spent at the barracas, and eating meat on a stick

the volunteers who came to visit

the view of the river from the top of hotel chuabo 

One of my visitors decided to stay a few extra days here in the city, so I jumped at the chance to show off the town and the fun spots that I’ve come to know. We did a good bit of exploring, some sight-seeing and basically did a gastronomical walking tour of the good food spots I’ve discovered here. Good times were had by all, though my stomach is still so full- and I’m looking forward to getting back to my normal eating habits haha.

exploring quelimane from above! 

some delicious steak and fries the other evening

the staircase in hotel chuabo that is really quite beautiful

Work continues on – I’ve made some good headway with the Nucleo (the people who oversee all HIV programs in the province), and have a meeting with my ICAP team today to discuss my/other volunteers job descriptions, and this afternoon I’m hoping to meet with my CDC contact. I’ll also hopefully be involved with site development/site identification for peace corps in the coming months. I’m trying to make plans for each month, to sort of give myself benchmarks to get through these last few months. Small trips here, a conference there, etc. So we will see where it all goes.

As always, I will keep you posted.

-t