Arrived!

It has only been 3 days ... Maputo is like any major bustling city in the world: noisy, eventful, and challenging sidewalks. Although it is walkable, which is great for us to explore and get to know the place.

Early morning view out of our apartment over looking
Av. 24 de Julho.

Our travels were long, also 3 days, but was fairly smooth. We were met by Katia, a member of the VSO Mozambique office staff who was great in helping us get oriented, even though we were quite disoriented ourselves. The guest house is nicely situated: it's about 6 blocks from the VSO office and conveniently for me, next door to the Ministry of Education! Next week we'll start our in-country training and get as much stuff sorted out, primarily our living and work arrangements. But as the city goes, its ok. The sidew

Other volunteers had heard of our arrival, but did not know the details. Although we happened to meet one of the volunteers when we stopped by "Livro abierto" (open book), an NGO working to improve literacy amongst primary school children. As it turns out there was a get together of volunteers in Maputo to celebrate a birthday and the departure. There are about 15 or so volunteers in Maputo out of 35 in Mozambique. All working in rural livelihoods, education, or health. A new volunteer from the UK arrived a day after us, will be stationed in Manica working on assessing micro-dams for generating electricity.

Saturday we went walking around the south end of our corner of Maputo, stopping by the Casa do Ferro (Iron House). Yes, it's a house made out of iron plates, designed by the guy who did the Tour d'Eiffel, Gustav Eiffel. And yes, it is quite inhabitable without a crazy amount of air conditioning in this part of the planet. From there we made our way to handicraft market and stopping by the Brazilian Embassy that was hosting a "Portuguese Day" event, got treated to quite a bit of poetry and music. We then made our way home to then head out to the volunteer's party, which was a great party and included a lively bunch of drummers, thanks so much!

Hmmmm ... foood!

Hello :) Drummming!

I've recorded a bit of the Portuguese Day event, the capoeira, and the drum circle, and compiled it into a podcast. For sure, there's lots of room for improvement so any suggestions are welcome :)