A milestone

I forgot to mention something important that happened over the weekend. On Saturday morning I met my friend Anna Julia for breakfast at a café in Maputo (I won't mention the name, as I doubt Anna or I shall be returning there, after finding bichinhos (insects) in Anna's muesli, and getting old-style customer service when we tried to rectify the situation). Anyway, in between negotiations with the manager and a lengthy discussion of diving, I gave Anna a large bundle of rand, representing the deposit she'd paid on my behalf for a birding safari in Kruger Park in a couple of weekends' time. And the result of that exchange is: I am now DEBT FREE, after all the financial transtornos of last year.

One of my resolutions for this year is to remember how financial strain felt, every time I'm struggling with a career decision.

Unwelcome guest

This photo represents bad news, because it was taken from the window of my spare bedroom. That's a bit of mango the little pest has in its paw. I can only assume it was stolen from one of my downstairs neighbours; if there's a mango tree up here in the highveld, it's nowhere near this house.

Why I wasn't in the mood on Monday

The hiatus on this blog represents a trip to Maputo. I planned to return on Sunday, but on Saturday morning I discovered that the bank account from which my health insurance will be paid had been unaccountably blocked, and decided to sort out the problem first thing Monday morning. That errand went smoothly enough, by Mozambican banking standards - which is to say that the bank's air conditioning had broken down over the fiercely hot weekend, and conditions inside the branch were such that normal operations had to be suspended - but three account managers bravely escorted me inside, frowned together at the computer for the few minutes before it overheated, and quickly decided it had all been a mistake. By 9.00 I was at the chapa station looking for a ride back to Swaziland, and by 10.15 we were off (a reasonable enough wait, by cross-border bus standards). By 11.00 or so we'd been caught in the middle of a three-vehicle nose-to-tail (two chapas and a battered old truck), and maybe a half-hour later we blew out a tyre, at enough speed that the chapa wove all over the (fortunately empty) road and set the kids on board to screaming. I have to allow that the driver maintained a more moderate speed after that.

Nonetheless, no more Mozambican buses for me. My next trip to Maputo shall take place by private car.

My apartment

Before I returned to Swaziland, I promised my father I would post a photo of the place I lived. Since returning, it's rained so much I haven't been able to take the postcard-perfect view of the house from the road. So here's a rather everyday sort of interior instead.

It looks like blazing sunlight outside those windows, but obviously that's the camera loving the light. In fact that lovely view I posted two days ago has been replaced by a solid wall of grey.

Philosophy behind the wheel

I had my first driving lesson today - and I didn't stall the car. My instructor Banele was sufficiently pleased with my cautious circuits of the practice field that he stopped advising me about the pedals and instead asked if I were a Christian - a normal enough question in this part of the world. I explained that I was not a churchgoer and that I followed my own path. He then asked why I had chosen to leave my comfortable homeland for Africa - another common question. Being absorbed in the intricacies of clutch application, I had to give him a simplified version. I told him my home town in Australia was a centre for weapons design, and after I received my degree, I found that all prospective employers handled defence contracts, which I wasn't willing to work on - so I applied for a volunteer job in Mozambique instead. That seemed to be something of a revelation to him. If I wasn't a Christian, he asked, how could I have made a decision on moral grounds? He agreed with me that people of all religions could be moral, but the notion of morality without religion plainly puzzled him.

Mist

The view from my balcony at about 5.30 this morning.


I was in a slough of despond at the time, wondering why I had troubled to return to a place that still doesn't feel right for me. I suppose there are compensations.