Africa

Sometimes it just hits me => I am in AFRICA!! Like yesterday when I was in “my” kitchen washing a pair of shorts I want to bring to Zanzibar (normally I don’t do my own laundry, but I’ll come back to that) and looked out the window at the palm trees and the Indian Ocean… Or earlier when I was at the market buying children’s books to learn Portuguese or on my way to the market when close to everybody greets me with a “bom dia senhora”. It’s strange how familiar everything is already and yet it feels kind of surreal when I think about it, I mean REALLY think about it. If things would have been “normal” I would have been at the office in Stockholm instead of trying to get a man at the market to understand what I wanted when I asked for “livro pour bebe!?!”

And the learning how to speak Portuguese is a chapter by itself. I’m usually throwing in French words (like above) when I don’t know the Portuguese ones, but sometimes also English or even Swedish – you never know, it might actually work :) And, as in lots of languages, there are similarities even with Swedish words. Spanish is closest to Portuguese, but it’s also helpful to know some French and Italian. I haven’t had any luck in finding a teacher, although someone promised to organize classes and get back to me some time ago. I have a new solution though and I’ll try to work that out when coming back from Zanzibar. Meanwhile I will bring my new books and study on the beach in Nungwi. I do study on my own still and are getting there slowly but surely; I can order food and buy children’s books, you know ;) And I do understand quite a bit already!

About me not doing my own laundry; I just give it to the day “guarda” in the morning and the same night I get it back ironed and very neatly folded. I pay approximately 40 SEK per wash, and wow, it is worth every öre! We also have Maria, who is the “embrigada”, she comes 3 times per week to clean and wash the dishes etc. That is luxury!

I was telling you yesterday about the wind and “winter” heading this way – today I was told that the next last rain came this morning… (I don't even know if you can say that in English - but I guess you know what I mean)


In and around Pemba:

Peeling

The wind has changed! It is quite strong and it feels refreshing and very nice! It also covered me with fine white sand at Murrebue beach yesterday. So when putting on sun protection lotion I got a really nice peeling! Much better than paying a fortune in the spa at Pemba Beach Hotel :) The humidity seems to have decreased a bit as well; I actually use my cover sheet in bed in the early hours now. It is a big relief that the worst heat seems to be gone by now and I hope “winter” will be like this and maybe even just a little bit cooler.

I have been a bit lazy with my running since I got well after the stomach thing. But I think I have a good reason; I ran one morning and got 3(!) blisters that took about a week to heal. And today I thought I would take a walk into to town and maybe run later in the afternoon to get started again. It’s approximately 6 km to town from where I live, and of course it gave me a new blister… I need to buy new running shoes to make this work – and that’s impossible to find in Pemba. Maybe (if I’m lucky) I’ll find some in Dar-es-Salaam. I have done some reading and planning for my trip and have decided to stay the first night in Dar. Then I will take the ferry to Stone Town and stay there a couple of nights before heading north to Nungwi Beach. That is if I don’t meet people with better tips, ideas and suggestions of course.

After what I’ve heard Zanzibar is heaven for a shopaholic like me (or maybe hell if on a tight budget…) so I am looking forward to buying all sorts of highly necessary things like shoes, beautiful capulanas (sarongs) and whatever else there is ;)

Have a great week you all!

Zanzibar

Today I booked my trip to Zanzibar. I’m leaving on Wednesday next week and will be gone one week. I have to leave Mozambique to renew my visa this time and I am really looking forward to see Zanzibar, everybody says it is very beautiful!

Earlier this week I met new friends, Don & Wendy, at Clube Naval. They are a South African couple (I would guess in their late 60’s) and very nice! We had lunch and chatted for a couple of hours and the next day I showed them Pemba. When they had asked at the hotel about sightseeing they were told there is nothing to see in town and they shouldn’t waste energy going there. I remember that’s the exact same thing they told me and Helena in November – which resulted in us not going there for more than 30 minutes or so. But of course you must see town when you’re here!! It is not a beautiful town (it probably was in the 1960’s or so) but it’s an African town with lots of small villages integrated and a stunning view. So we took a taxi around and about and visited the 2 markets before heading back to the hotel. We had a great morning and I hope I’ll see them again tomorrow. Don might go fishing so maybe I’ll just hang out with Wendy.

Wednesday night turned out to be an unplanned all-nighter with a sunrise swim before going to bed at 9.00 o’clock Thursday morning… Me, C and Jamie was just having a good time and talked, talked & talked until it was suddenly already morning. Now I really feel like I’m being on vacation and I am enjoying it! Soon enough I will have to start working again.

And now, when I’m ready to post this on the blog, Internet is not working – again… I’ll just have to try tomorrow or so I guess. Patience was the word.

And…now it’s up again :)

My room :)



And the view again

Settling in

I’ve had a couple of very good night’s sleep in my new room – even if they don’t last longer than until 5.00 am. That’s when the rooster next door starts his thing and wakes me up. I hope I’ll get used to it! And to have the room all to myself is really great! It has actually been ok to share, but to have some privacy is never wrong you know.

After arranging things and taking my clothes out of the suitcase to hang them in a closet (!), for the first time in 6 weeks, I head off into town on Thursday. Luckily for me C called and asked what I was up to and picked me up at the Pemba Beach Hotel. I had walked there and it was really hot, so I’m very glad she came by! That way I got very nice lunch and shopping company as well.

She is the best! She drove me around and helped me go to the shops with the best deals for my needs. And of course we ended up in a second hand store that had 50 % off… 3 tops and 1 pair of trousers for 50! SEK (USD 7!). You CAN'T not shop with prices like that!!!

Friday I was in town again and found a bag that is just big enough for daily things, I have been looking for one since I came here – my backpack is a little bit too big and the hand bags I brought are not really usable. Jutta passed me outside of PEP’s so after a quick stop there we went to Clube Naval for some lunch, sun and a swim in the ocean.

I must say I don’t mind this way of living AT ALL ;) I have been thinking of something Peter, my colleague Annika’s husband, said before I left: “You are doing what a lot of people sit at dinner talking and dreaming about”. And I’ve realized I am and I have only one thing to say to those of you that really want it => stop the talking and make it happen! It’s so worth it!! All the new experiences and interesting people you meet - both locals, ex-pat's and backpackers. It is just great!

One unfortunate consequence of me moving from Russell’s is that I don’t have daily Internet access anymore. I will try to connect somewhere every other day or so, but I’m not going to be online as much as I have until now.

But I don’t mean to complain – check out the view from my room:

C’s house

Last Saturday I went to C’s house for the first time. She lives in a little village called Nanhimbe, about 15 minutes walk from Russell’s Place, and she has the most wonderful little house you can ever imagine! It has 4 tiny rooms (including an open plan kitchen) on the ground floor. In the attic she has placed the bedroom in a totally open space under the roof top, with just a ladder to get up there. Both the front and back gardens are very green, with lemon grass and all sorts of plants I don’t know the name of. And in the back there is a little patio in the shadow under the extended roof. She has electricity (same terms as the rest of us you know => it comes and goes…) but no running water! And that works just as well – and since I now have tried the cup shower I understand that she doesn’t need running water :) Her house is really very picturesque and to me very much "Africa"!

PS. I have added some pictures to the “Paradise” post and the “Kifula” post if you want to see more.

I promise not to upload pics of all the clothes I buy ;) but I just have to show what you can get for 18 SEK here - and it's not even second hand!

Shopping day

It took me all day on Monday just to upload the pics for my blog. It’s really frustrating that it takes at least 1-2 hours for each picture, sometimes even longer! I took a break in the middle of the day and went to C. We walked to the market in her little village, Nanhimbi, and bought some crackers and buns. The buns were 1 Mts each and that equals approximately 25 öre in SEK. It’s really almost surreal – we don’t even have that small change anymore in Sweden and a bun like that could easily go for 5 SEK. A bottle of coke (300 ml) cost 3 SEK. And it just goes on like that. But then there is also a lot of things that are really expensive => mosquito repellant are at least 40 SEK for a stick and chips is 20 SEK for a small bag and if you need a 42˝ flat screen TV it’s about 21 000 SEK for brands like LG.

Yesterday I went into town to do some shopping for my new place. I had to get towels and bed linen. I also bought a blouse for 18 SEK. When things are that cheap it’s impossible for a shopaholic not to buy them. I still need a new torch though – the one I paid 65 Mts = ca 16 SEK (including the 3 batteries) didn’t last more than 24 hours… No surprise there I guess.

Today I’m moving to Jutta’s place so now I am going to start packing!

Kifula

Paradise

I came back to Pemba from Pangane last night after a couple of days in paradise. It actually felt like we spent the weekend in a postcard. It was so beautiful and relaxing!



Jutta, Frank, C and I took off at 6 o’clock Friday morning and hit the "highway" to Macomia.



After Macomia the dirt road started, but was ok all the way to Mucojo even if there were a lot of pot holes. After Mucojo it was more of a challenge, I can only imagine what it's like right after heavy rain!





Approaching Pangane with the Indian Ocean on both sides of the peninsula was fantastic. It is so beautiful and the villages are of course very picturesque to me.





When entering the camp we were a bit surprised (and a little disappointed I must admit) to find 10 campers from Zimbabwe already comfortably installed. We had thought we would be the only ones staying in this small camp with only 3 bungalows… But it turned out to be quite nice! They were very sociable and we could look out for each other’s stuff whenever we went on our small excursions. And even though there were all of us + the “guardas” someone managed to steel a pair of shorts from Frank.




There is no running water or electricity in Pangane. At 5.45 pm (20 minutes after sunset) it is pitch black. And the starlit sky seems to be so low it feels almost like a ceiling.



We played Yatzy and went to bed at nine o’clock Friday night. I wasn’t able to sleep well at all – it was too damned hot and I was sweating like never before! I got up at 5.30 to go to the bathroom and found the most amazing sunrise. It was really contemplating to just sit on the beach and enjoy it. And of course collect some shells... There were thousands of beautiful shells on the beaches! I have at least a couple of hundred with me back to Pemba :)





Jutta and I took a boat to Kifula island around 8 o’clock Saturday morning to see the lodge they are building there. Thomas met us and gave us the grande tour of the island (Kifula is just outside Pangane – at low tide it’s possible to walk over from the main land). It’s a beautiful little island and I wish I had the € 1,8 Million it takes to buy it!



In the evening we had a delicious grilled lobster dinner and camp fire on the beach. The stars seemed even closer when sitting on the beach. I saw "Karlavagnen" (upside down of course) and have now learnt how to recognize Mars as the red star next to Orion. Just beautiful!!



I slept a bit better that night and did catch the sunrise Sunday morning as well. Sunday was relaxing and nice, we collected shells all morning and after lunch we started to get ready to leave. The weekend was completed with a very nice dinner at Pieter’s Place when we got back in Pemba.

Sick

I’m not very ill, but I have some sort of stomach thing going on since yesterday morning. How typical is that when I finally am getting ready for my first trip outside of Pemba. Ironic – and not in a funny way! With that said I have to say I am grateful it’s not worse! Especially since my bathroom now is some 50 meters from my bedroom and it’s quite dark in the middle of the night if you need to make that trip… I have been kind of waiting for it; I would just have appreciated it to arrive at a more convenient time. I am so looking forward to the trip tomorrow and am a bit scared I can’t go if this gets worse.

Postponed trip

Our trip to Pangane has been postponed a couple of days and we’re leaving Friday morning at 5.00 am instead. So I spent the day on the beach – no complaints about that!

Tyrkisk Peber

Today I had the last pieces of my salty licorice candy I brought from Sweden, thank you Lise-Lotte & Berndt :) If you ever had Tyrkisk Peber in hot and humid weather you how it gets – kind of wet and half melted, but oh so good!

Swedish

Today the first Swedish couple came to the camp :) It was great to speak Swedish with them. Funny how it can be that way after only one month. They have been travelling from Kenya, through Tanzania the last 7 weeks and came to Moçambique yesterday. Apparently it’s wise to avoid crossing the border to Tanzania during rainy season; they had been in mud up to their knees in some parts.

Otherwise nothing much has happened today, we’ve had a quiet day at the camp and I have just been lurking around. Jutta, C and I are trying to figure out where to go next weekend – the roads to Pangane can be a little too wet at the moment. So we are thinking about Ilha de Moçambique as an alternative. Either one is ok for me since I haven’t seen any of those places.

Shoe market

Sunset from Jutta's balcony

New friends :)

Diving again

I went for my second scuba dive today! We practiced skills in shallow water. Visibilty was crappy, but the water was warm and nice. It was really good to learn that it’s no panic to lose the regulator underwater and understand how easy it is to find it again, or another one instead. I will practice again of course, but I feel more confident already. And it will definitely be much easier with better visibility!

One of C’s friends, Gerry came along today and we will probably finish the course together. It’s great to have a diving buddy! It will be a couple of weeks before I can dive again, which is good because that gives him time to catch up with the first dive I did a week ago. And then we plan to do 2 dives during the weekend two weeks from now. Looking forward to that!

Today I told Russell I will be moving out in the next couple of weeks, and then, of course, also stop working. Trying to see a little bit of the area around Pemba while working here is not happening. It’s just too hard to get away from the camp!

I will probably start giving massages instead. It’s the easiest way for me to make money and plan my own schedule at the same time. Hopefully I can get a carpenter to make a massage table without it costing me too much and then I’m all set to begin. I already have two possible clients, so that’s a good enough start for me :)

Moving day

Yesterday I had to move out from my bungalow into, what used to be, the reception bungalow. Which I now share with Gail and Krystyna. It’s a pretty big house but unfortunately no bathroom. I do enjoy the cup shower though!

When that was done Jutta picked me up and off we went to immigrations. And, yes, I did get the 30 days extension! So now I’m good for at least one more month.

When that was sorted we went to the market. I found two dresses and I paid 3 USD for the one in the photo. The other one was 5 USD, so I'm pretty happy. Good finds, right!?! Sorry Stefi - I didn't find any nice sarongs. But I'll keep looking for you! Didn't find any shoes either... This was not my last trip to the market :)

Today I went to Club Naval with two new friends in the camp; Heikki and Elise. I feel so bad for Jutta, she is in bed with fever, otherwise we would have gone to Murrebue with her. I hope she gets better fast – feeling sick in this heat is awful. So many people are sick here right now; yesterday Greg found out he has malaria. He has been very sick the last three days and finally he agreed to let Gail take him to the clinic for a test. And I just found out that Russell’s also sick in Malaria… Malaria is NASTY!!!




Note! I am not pregnant ;)