The Tea Field

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The grand homecoming meal I had planned for myself has not yet become a reality. This is due to both availability and prices of my dream items.  Chocolate is both relatively expensive and often completely melted in stores, and cheese has been definitively put on my “special occasions” grocery list (also known as the “what we will buy when other volunteers come to visit so we can split really expensive things many different ways” list).  In my town specifically, we can buy light bulbs, eggs, pasta, and random African plants – which perpetuates the aforementioned alimentation issue.  There is a “city” about 15 km away which has more veggie options and milk!  My roommate Amanda and I have been managing a relatively balanced diet given the circumstances and thus, I am happy to report, I have been advancing in the alimentation challenge.

The tea field itself is a one road town that has dorms for the male and female students who come from far away to study at the school.  The school is a mission run by an awesome nun – she runs a tight ship for everyone and so rumor has it that our school is less plagued by some of the common problems here in Mozambique – professors sleeping with students, accepting bribes for grades, or just changing the grades of students because they want to.  We live in the professor’s neighborhood so we have been able to meet our coworkers/neighbors as we have moved in.  They have all been very nice, although a few particularly stand out as Mozambican rock stars:

1.     Herminio, gym teacher and all around school handyman who walked with us to buy 30 eggs for our house one day and has since started showing up on our porch just to hang out. 

2.     Cristina, the wife of a professor who has brought us food, helped us light our charcoal stove, and generally been a fountain of Mozambican/tea field knowledge

3.     Daniel, a student who helps keep our house standing and helps us arrive at the cutting edge of Mozambican youth culture by teaching us how to say “Mohawk” (the hair style) in Portuguese. 

4.     Sancho, math teacher and owner of the chickens from which we get our eggs.  He has also taken it upon himself to be our Mozambican social coordinator, which means we have already seen his band play in the city.

For Christmas, Amanda and I found a wonderful group of expats from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil, and Portugal and feasted with them - we had absolutely fabulous meat and drinks and so Christmas 2012 is deemed a great success.  So far we’re settling in, and starting school matriculation this week, which is looking like it will usher in actual work and the start of the school year.  Happy 2013!