The Road North

The end of training seemed very sudden. In one day, our group of now 53 volunteers had officially sworn in and were now spending our last night all together. Early the next morning, the 27 of us headed to sites in the northern region of Mozambique left our hotels in Maputo early in the morning to catch our flight to Nampula city.

Somebody miscalculated how much trailer space our luggage would take up so they just tossed the last ones on top- but even through all the twists and turns on the way to the airport they didn't fall off!

I didn't catch the name of these islands off the coast of central Mozambique, but dang, I wanna visit!!!

When we arrived in Nampula city, I was blown away by the crazy-awesome mountains that surround the area. One of the other volunteers, Scott, our resident geology expert having a masters degree in said subject, said the mountains here probably have their weird shapes due to having been formed by blobs of molten lava that bubbled up through the ground, and then over time these lava-blobs have been exposed and become mountains due to erosion wearing away the softer surrounding soil. (Lonely Planet has since confirmed this theory). It creates a kind of Dr. Seuss-landscape effect, with these wavy, blobby mountains popping up across the terrain, and it's totally freaking awesome.

View of some far-away mountains from the hotel balcony in Nampula

Look it's Pride Rock!

Nampula city was where we stayed for the next two days, for a 'supervisors' conference' at which we met our school directors (or a representative), and sat through sessions with them on info about Peace Corps and what our roles as volunteers are in our school and community. My director has turned out to be pretty good so far- he's been very friendly and takes his job seriously.

My director and me at the end of one of the conference info sessions

Finally though, it was time... early in the morning on December 6th, we all packed into Peace Corps cars and chapas to be dropped off at our sites.

Having a slightly stressed-out breakfast at 6am as we hang out with our fellow northern volunteers for the last time before heading to sites.

To get to Nauela, I rode in a Peace Corps jeep along with fellow volunteers Cathy and Katy, who would become my two nearest volunteers from group Moz 23; we and each of our directors would all be riding together for this trip. I squeezed awkwardly into the backseat along with the three directors; in Mozambique the actual intended allocation of people-per-car is rarely followed. Likewise, Katy and Cathy shared the front seat.

There were more great blob-mountain views as we left Nampula city, heading south to get to Zambezia province

 The views were amazing throughout the trip. Just over two hours south of Nampula we hit our first stop- Cathy's site in the town of Alto Molocue. It was surreal (and more so for her, obviously) to be dropping the first of us off at the place that would be her home for the next two years. And since Molocue is the nearest larger town to my site, it's a place I'll hopefully get to know well over the next couple years too. So at least saying goodbye to Cathy when we finally left to continue our road trip wasn't as sad as the goodbyes to other volunteers that morning in Nampula had been, since we'll actually see each other on a semi-regular basis.

Next came the moment of truth... my site, Nauela, was our next stop. Our driver, Peace Corps staff member Marcelino, left Molocue to follow a mango tree-lined dirt road headed into the mountains. On the way, Marcelino got a call from another staff member who had found out that another volunteer was having trouble getting to her site. Peace Corps, not having enough of their own vehicles, had rented a mini-bus to get her to her site in Cabo Delgado province. But the bus driver was "fazer-ing chapa", meaning, he kept stopping and trying to pick up more passengers along the way.

Marcelino had us call the volunteer, and asked to speak to the driver directly. We then got some entertainment out of listening to his side of the conversation. He started out with some typical polite introductions, "How are you? Oh, fine, thank you. How's the weather? Oh, good. I'm Marcelino, from the Peace Corps staff..." and so on. Then he got down to it.

"When I paid you to take a young lady to her site, I paid you the money to take one lady and her things to the site. You are forbidden to take any other people, or frighten this young lady and endanger her things, or to take any more money for the trip." He listened to the driver talk for a bit, who was apparently protesting this. Marcelino buckled down. "If you don't listen to me, I will tell my colleague to take your money back, and you will pay for the trip. If you don't-"

This went on for a few minutes, but eventually Marcelino seemed to win. He hung up the phone, shaking his head. "Mozambicans! This is how we are- that driver sees those people looking for a ride and he says to himself  'But I can't just leave that money lying on the road!', even though I told him, when I paid him, exactly what I was paying him to do-"

After a little less than an hour's drive, we arrived in Mugema, a small town but with a nice market and some shops where we stopped so I could buy some groceries. Another twenty minutes down the road, and suddenly as we drove up a slight incline there was a cluster of yellow and red buildings on the right side of the road with Escola Secundaria de Nauela painted in black along one wall. Literally seconds later we were already stopping in front of a house I realized I'd seen in pictures. It was my sitemate Gabriela's house, where I'd be staying at first while my own house was being finished up.

Arrived in Nauela! This is actually my sitemate's house- mine was still under construction. My host-mae Velosa is on the porch.

Just from a first glance I was already in love with the views surrounding the neighborhood- it was hard not to be. The street is on top of a hill, so both sides of the road have views to rolling green hills and mountains. I just couldn't believe yet that this is where I will get to live for the next two years. While we unloaded the car Katy and I had a few last moments to chat and absorb the surreal-ness before the jeep packed back up and continued on to Katy's site in Lioma, another few hours down the road.

Unfortunately all my good pics of the views are on my camera which I can't transfer pics from at this moment, so I'll have to leave y'all hanging on that until my next real post about Nauela, which deserves it's own post anyway. I'll try not to delay too much on it- depends on my electricity situation. Til next time!