Feliz Natal!

Happy holidays everyone. I trust you all had a well deserved, relaxing holiday? Well I did too (though you could legitimately argue the well deserved part). Anyway, I had a pretty interesting holiday and did some cool things. Some things so cool, in fact, that I will proceed to tell you all about them. Starting now.
I spent chirstmas with a predominantly european contingency so the majority of the celebrating was done on the 24th. We had this big feast consisting of Portuguese fish, French beer meat (with fries) and this Brazilian fruit salad topped with sweet and condensed milk, boiled in its container to form a caramelized syrup type thing. My god. Infrequent are the occasions when I regret the amount of food that I eat. Eating too much need not necessarily include regret. However, on this night, the seeds of regret were sowed deep. soooooo deep.
The next day I made for the beach to lounge off the food (and guilt). Did you know the best way to get rid of guilt is through sloth?
At the beach I met up with a german who I had been hanging out with on and off for about a week as well as a few new comers to the Tofo beach scene. There was a woman, born in Tanzania and now living in Botswana and her 17 year old daughter. The german, who actually looks more like a columbian coffee farmer (well, probably more like a columbian coffee plantation owner) had taken a shining to the younger of the Botswans and was not being at all discrete about gazing at her with his coffee coloured eyes.
At one point, when both the german and the Botswan daughter were off somewhere, the mother asked me, "Does he thing he is going to get with my daughter or something?"
Having observed this particular 'german' for a few days, and having recognized somewhat of a pattern in his behaviour, I reassured her, "I think he is pretty harmless, he just likes the attention."
This seemed to solidify my reputation with the elder Botswan (ok, so Im not exactly sure what you call someone from botswana....) and for the rest of the night, she declared herself my surrogate christmas mother, and her and her daughter my surrogate christmas family. They even took me out for dinner. It was pretty great. The german, and a spaniard and a few americans came along too.
My plan all along was to hitch hike a ride home from the beach that night, and I didnt actually attempt to implement my plan until about 11:30 pm. This is a bad time and a bad day to try and find a ride from the beach it would seem. I walked for a bout two hours and covered maybe just over a third of the 25 km to my home.

Incidentally I had found myself in a similar situation two days earlier on my birthday, only this time I was with a few friends, and it was a full moon and there was faint drumming in the back ground that helped make it a pretty magical experience.

The fact that I had done this walk a mere two days before did nothing to contribute to its mysticism. Basically I was tired and wanted to go to bed. Just then I happened across a merry band of Mozambican youth singing African Pop songs. When I got close to them, the stopped singing and just sort of started at me. They asked me with sort of a disbelief where I was going. I replied with quite as much disbelief, "to Inhambane?"
They then launched into some explanation about why this was a terrible idea. I am going to have to say I tended to agree with them despite the fact I couldn't really understand what they were saying. They suggested I stay at their house, and then the next day I could get a ride home. I thought this was a great idea and off we went. They were drinking straight gin out of a pop bottle, which the passed to me and insisted I finish.
I got to one of the boys homes about half an hour later and crawled into bed, which is to say, laid down on a blanket on the sand. The house was one of those palm frond affairs. I think the family must have had some money though, cause he didn't live in the same building as his parents. This is where is spent christmas night.
I woke up the next morning and moved, blinking, into the bright morning sun. My presence was met with a lot of confused stares from this boys family, completely unsure as to why this white boy was emerging from their sons hut. There was a flurry of Bitonga and all was sorted. The father then climbed a coconut tree and hacked down a couple of coconuts. We all ate one and then they gave me another one for the road and I carried along my way.
I don't think I could find that place again if I had to.

Now is the part where the blog switches from reading to looking.

A few days later, I went via Maputo to Swaziland for New Years and what not. I'll let the photos do most of the talking from here on out.

Here is a quick view from the bus on the way to Maputo

Some buildings in Maputo. Some great things about Maputo. I am liking it more and more every time I go.

Mozambicans are pretty religious people, from Muslim in the north to Catholic. Now I know why. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Portuguese legacy. I think it is still used...barely....but now it is the home of several bars and is one of Maputo's live music venues.
They haven't bothered to get rid off all the old equipment that they used during the stations operating days. But it is pretty antiquated and neat.

Christmas in Maputo. This is about one million times as extravagant as anything that they had up in Inhambane. I think there was one store with a few lights in the window. and the store was run by an indian guy who was obviously just cashing in on the holiday. it was a refreshing dose on non christmas. but then Im a grinch.
This is my first shot of Swaziland. Green and English with no pollution. pretty refreshing. The juxtaposition here was too much to pass up.


Here is the main bus terminal in the city...whose name I cant seem to remember....somewhere in Swaziland.....I think its so busy because they actually enforce the suggested maximum capacities of the mini buses....


Now into the animal action shots. The next two are of a weird type of bird that builds these wicker type nests that dangle like.....hmmmm....a suitable analogy escapes me, but they dangle, none the less, from the tree branches.

An Ostrich! The most hilarious of all animals. A german I was hanging out with at the time around the ostrich learned the word hilarious....I think as a result of so many people using it to describe this silly bird. It could be a coincidence though.


Insert your own witty quote for this one....I just cant bring myself to use the one that we are all thinking.

Its weird to see zebras in the wild and not in photos or zoos like you are used to. The overwhelming temptation is to take thousands upon thousands of photos of them...there by putting them back in their rightful place I suppose.

I ate some of one of these for dinner! Delicious!


More Zebra. How can I resist your striped allure??

This bird is ORANGE

beautiful lil pond

HOWEVER!!!! beneath its calm exterior is lurks not one but 12 crocodiles. Apparently a few days before, one of them bagged a cow that was getting a drink. The word is crocodiles like to let meat get nice and rancid before they actually eat it.....well, the cow looked like it was ready to explode.....t'was ripe for the eating.

The next couple of photos are from this sunset safari thing I did.


This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. However, even beauty gets boring after awhile. To put everything in nice sharp contrast, the next place I went to visit in Swaziland.....an abandoned asbestos mining town! What a place!
There are the quarters where all the miners lived.
This is an abandoned toilet in an abandoned factory in an abandoned asbestos mining town


As it turns our the town wasn't all ugly. We stayed in the former quarters of the Imperial Overlord (ie. Mine Manager). The Stable:
The House:
Later maybe drinks in the garden:
This was pretty much my swazi experience in a nutshell. But I will leave you with one final terrifying fact I learned in my last day in swaziland....

In swaziland.......

THEY EAT RUSSIANS!!!!

Jesse goes to Malawi - see things and wonders about them!

HEY HEY!
So, as promised here is my Malawi post - complete with photos galore. Some of these photos will be familiar to my facebook friends, but here you will find insights (or speculation) into the nature of the photos - hopefully making them more than just purdy pictures.

The first leg of my journey to Malawi was in the back of a Land Rover owned by Handicap. They were heading north and I hitched a ride. Most of Mozambique, it seems, is really really rural. Along the major highway were mud huts and thatched roofs. Occasionally we would travel through a mid-sized town and these would be replaced by the familiar mcel and vodocom motifs. Unfortunately, as we didnt stop in any of these mud hut villages, I dont have any photos of those huts, so you will have to use your imagination.

The capital of Mozambique (Maputo), despite having only about 25% percent of the countries people, generates about 80% of its income. Hence the disparity between them and the remaining 13 million people.

I spent my first night in Chomoio, a lovely town in the high lands, and got up at 3 am the next morning to catch a bus to tete. I dont think the bus originated in Chomoio, as it was already filled with people when I got on. A pretty hilarious thing happened shortly after I got on. Right before we were about to leave, a lady showed up out side with bus with a platform of bananas on her head. I guess the people on the bus hadnt eaten (for days??) because absolute bedlam ensued. There was the chaotic waving of money and calling for bananas, which flowed in through the bus windows like....ohhh...I dunno.....water?

Anyway, this lasted for a good ten minutes while 50 hungry Mozambicans secured their banana fix, and then we were on our way. Here is the inside of the bus. My camera captured it much more clearly than my bleary eyes.

A lifetime later, we ended up in Tete and crossed this cool bridge on the Zambezi river. The Zambezi river is the same one that goes over Victoria Falls in Zambia - the largest falls in the world. It was also traveled on by Dr. Livingstone during his African Adventure.


I then took a minibus to the border where I got ripped off by a money changer for 8$. I was furious. He took my money, thrust some bills into my hands and ran. I was left there with my backpack on counting the money with a look of increasing anger on my face.

From the border, it was a quick (Hah) bus ride to Blantyre. Malawi's financial capital was an interesting mix of busy city and subsistence farming. My hostel was right next to a water pump, or as I affectionately call it, the watering hole.

I have said this before, but the strongest creature in the world is an African woman. Here is a photo of a woman coming back from the watering hole. Note the baby on her back.
The difference between men's and woman's rights in horrendous. Women are the bread and butter of country and seem to do much of the manual labor. I was at a friends house the other day and mentioned I was hungry. He said, "no problem, my sister will make you lunch." At which point he called her from what she was doing and she made me lunch. I asked him if he knew how to cook - HAH!
In Mozambique, another word for Friday is "Dia de Homem". MANS DAY!!! This is when men relax from their hard weeks work and get drunk off their faces while the woman stays home and...takes care of the family. On any given night, in any given bar, 90% of the people there will be men.

Alcoholism. Im just going to go ahead and say it. People drink to much here. At first I thought it was funny. But now I realize that it is a problem. Maybe its to forget how uncomfortable their lives are. There was a group of guys under this tree, hammered. It was 11 am and they were drinking some weird home made beer that looks like grule.

Mozambique and Malawi are both crisscrossed with these unused train tracks that were build by their respective colonizers. My very own suburb has tracks who's causeway is now used as a market. Nate! Imagine the possibilities!

Here is a real life witchdoctor! This is in a field in the middle of the city and a short walk from the Malawi Stock Exchange.
A view from a distance of a humble little market close to where I stayed. Malawi is noticeably poorer than Mozambique - and this was reflected in the marketplaces. Not a lot of options. potato samosas, french fries, pop, cigarettes.
This is an iguana!
These are hilariously overstuffed couches for sale all over Malawi. The Mozambican counterparts are made of vinyl - which is probably worse.
One really great thing about Africa is how easy it is to make friends. I was telling a buddy of mine here (mozambican) about some of the difficulties I am facing; Missing my family, getting sick, language barrier frustrations etc. He then said that if he came to Canada, it probably wouldn't be as hard for him as me coming here. It was then that I realized that it would be way harder...way lonelier. Canadians are friendly, but not really very outgoing. Check the next time a random stranger starts a conversation with you - are they an immigrant? Anyway, I cant walk down the street here with out people wanting to by my friend. When I walk home from work every day...EVERY DAY...some one comes up to me and wants to talk. About half of the time its someone I have met before, and they want to talk again, and the rest of the time its someone new. I was at a cafe the other day having a beer, and some guy my age came up to me and asked me if I wanted another one. I said sure. So he bought me a beer and then left. He didn't have time to share it with me but he still wanted to buy me a drink. Small, random acts of kindness happen to me all the time here. Its wonderful. But this sort of thing wouldn't happen to an immigrant in Canada. Can you imagine, moving to Canada, not being able to speak the language, and building a solid group of friends and a even larger group of people who just look out for you (because you are clearly confused by most of what goes on around you), not to mention securing a spot in a kick ass reggae band all within two months of arriving?
anyway....These next couple of photos are of this guy, Dixon, (and of his family) who came up to me in Blantyre and wanted to chat. He took me to me to his family's restaurant and fed me breakfast. I took some photos of him and his family and found a place in town to get them printed. They were stoked.

The woman in the last photo is making nsima, the staple in Malawi and made from corn flower. You roll it up into a little ball and dip it in sauce. I always ended up with sauce all over my hands and face, but you should have seen Danny do it! Man, that guy is a fiend for nsima!

It doesn't happen very often anymore, but occasionally, while I am traveling and even when I'm not I spose, I see something so mind blowingly amazing that it almost makes me want to cry. Something that is so beautiful that it almost seems unreal. This is how I felt about this guy. He just rambled out of nowhere caring his guitar and a box that he sat on and doubled as a bass drum. His kick pedal was made out of a make shift spring and mallet. He belted this beautiful African melody (I have yet to encounter someone who cannot sing). It was amazing.....so amazing

Malawi was fun because they speak english there, so I could chat with everyone. This guy came up to me and asked the standard questions...where are you from, what do you do. He is a minister at a chuch (Malawians are devoutly religious).
He then looked at me and said, "I will likely never see you again will I?"
I told him, "no, we will never see one another again."
This was a bit different as people usually try and give you their address or phone number in the hopes that you will remain friends. Anyway, here he is.

This is a shot of Danny and I waiting for our minibus to take off. They leave when they are full - but until then.....
you can buy hard boiled eggs if you like, or maybe bbqd corn on the cob (its somewhere between normal corn on the cob and pop corn....delicious) or check out the entertainment...

Danny and I, like we do when we see one another - sought adventure. We decided to climb the tallest mountain in southern Africa, Mount Mulanje (Kilimanjaro is in east Africa....jeez).

Upon arriving at the town from which we would mount our assault on Mulanje, we were ourselves assaulted by this incredibly enthusiastic dude claiming both that his name was Edmonton and that he was a guide.

Danny and I discussed the wisdom of having a guide versus, ya know, just given' 'er. Thankfully, reasonable heads prevailed and we hired Edmonton. Here is Edmonton and Danny in front of some brightly painted shop.

Ok, so after this we began our way up the mountain. here it is...


Some ways up the mountain, danny and I found a bug. a sweet bug no less. and played with it for round 'bout half an hour. We asked Edmonton if we could eat it, but he said it was not a grass hopper and was poisonous. good call on getting the guide.


Shortly after our bug adventure, we arrived at the hut. They VERY HUT FROM WHICH WE WERE TO MAKE OUR SUMMIT ATTEMPT THE NEXT MORNING! rad. The summit is 3002m high, and apparently on a clear day you can see the indian ocean. Which is amazing. That means you are looking clear across malawi and tanzania. geez. and apparently on a rainy, foggy day the summit attempt is excessively dangerous as it gets real slippery like...
and then...
and then...
and then...
needless to say it was too foggy to attempt the summit, which as it turns out was a good thing.
So we made our way back down the mountain.

A day or two later I made my way back to Mozambique.


This is the main highway in Mozambique taking me back home to Inhambane.
I have been discovering some really neat little treasures in Inhambane lately and am going to embark on a mini photo adventure next week to trap them forever in my camera! and when I do, I will release them through the internet tubes to Canada, so that you too may enjoy them.

All the very best everyone.
Jesse