Epilogue

A full month has passed since I came home from Africa. Reverse culture shock went pretty well I'd say. I still get a little uncomfortable and anxious when I'm in a large group though. I attribute it to my brain tuning into so many conversations that I can understand versus before when 99% of talk was in various other languages. But other than that, I feel fairly OK.

The whole experience has taken on a very surreal quality though. I feel like I had some sort of a time warp on another planet. Not a single thing in my surroundings now is anything like it was there. And, nothing has really changed back in my usual world. I look at the pictures I took (quite often) and ask myself, "did that really happen?"

I think of my kids often...wondering how many of them are still in school, and hoping that they found a good math teacher. I should be getting the grade reports from the principal soon I hope.

I'm regularly getting the "what next?" question. For sake of completeness, you should know that Matt and I parted ways as friends at the end of the year. So now I'm without a job, place to live, or relationship. I'm about 95% sure that I want to spend some time sailing before I make any career commitments. In about a month I plan to fly down to either La Paz or Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. From there I will "walk the docks" and see about finding a boat headed across the Pacific in need of crew.

I will continue to maintain this blog if that adventure materializes........stay tuned...............

Private Game Reserve - Animal Roster!

In a whopping 3 short game drives, we spotted:

White Rhinos (12!)
Black Rhino (1)
Giraffes
Zebras
Warthogs
Tortoises
Kudu
Sables
Bushbucks
Nyalas
Impalas
Eland
Vulture
Roan Antelope
Hippos
Elephants

Mucho pictures online - link's on the left!

Driving in Mozambique

(Written on the road in Mozambique, ~Dec. 23, 2009)

Ehem, the aforementioned by-the-sea vacation still hasn't started yet, though I've been in Mozambique for 5 days. For starters, Moz is not a very friendly place if you don't have a vehicle. We arrived Saturday late afternoon and weren't picking up the truck until Tuesday. So, we were stuck footing it around Maputo. Maputo, while it does have some charm, is kind of a wreck of a city. It felt very Havana to me. Second, Moz is completely inundated right now with South Africans and backpackers on Christmas vacation. I mean absolutely crawling with them! Matt and I got scared off of stopping in Tofo as the whale sharks apparently don't hang out there these days (my 1 reason for going), and the campsites are literally full to the brim - tent to 4x4 to tent to 4x4. So we decided to drive straight from Maputo to Vilankulo. But due to a snafu with the truck we got a late start and had to camp for a night in Xai-Xai. Sure enough, the campsite was chock full of white, red-faced, pot-bellied Afrikaaners, complete with their air conditioned trailers. More on these thoughts later.

Today we will make it to Vilankulo, though the roads have only cooperated about 50% of the way so far. The bad stretches are unimaginably bad, with potholes so deep they should be called "canyonoles", plus long bits covered in sand. The last stretch we've been on is nice tar, so I'm actually writing this in the car!

Another little dash of salt that's making things more challenging in Moz is communication. The official language here is Portuguese, and very few people speak or even understand a word of English. Thankfully my limited Spanish is helping some, but we are often finding ourselves mostly in the dark.

I'll be honest, I'm kind of in a bad mood. And one of the reasons just dawned on me. In Namibia, I was a local, sort of. I was living there and working for the good of the community. In Zimbabwe, most of the second time I was there I had a connection to wherever I was at. Even without a connection it was still a little unusual that a white woman was there alone, so people were curious. But here in Moz, with Matt in our rented 4x4 truck with tent on top, I look *exactly* like the thousands of S. Africans that swoop into the beaches of this country for 2 weeks a year. And even at the risk of sounding like one myself, so many of them are asses! They are rude, obnoxious, presumptuous and racist. And Mozambicans look at me and assume I'm one of them and it's driving me nuts.

I kinda wish I had the time to wait somewhere else and come back around January 15. I think this would be a *lovely* country to explore, given the right time.

On "Travelling"

(I wrote this in transit from Swaziland to Maputo, Mozambique. ~December 19, 2009)

Now that I'm back on the backpackers trail, I can see quite a bit more clearly how artificial it can be. Nothing has really changed since my first big trip in 2001 for 9 months in the South Pacific. Big pack on back, small pack and valuables on front, food in a plastic bag. You waddle the shortest distances you can manage and dread climbing into crammed buses where everyone on board hates you. The Lonely Planet drops words like "charming" so you choose that hostel over "dated". Of course, everyone else does too. Your hostel will gladly book any activity you desire, while you peruse the wall of posters advertising white water rafting, safari camping, "authentic" village tours and of course, more hostels. Inevitably one bus company caters to the backpackers, offering door to door service (hostel to hostel) at exorbitant prices, but for those fresh off the boat (or plane in this case), it's convenient and safe.

Higher end tourists basically do the same thing; they go from hotel to hotel and venture out on hotel-prescribed activities.

Now please don't get the wrong idea. I'm not knocking this in the slightest. SOME travel is better than NO travel. But if you want to scratch the surface on anything "real", you really have to make an effort, because it's just too easy to fall into the groove of the beaten path.

Volunteering for a couple of weeks is a fantastic way to start to see a place and its people. I know it's gaining in popularity, "voluntourism" I think it's called.

Taking public transportation is also a good idea, though it is usually really uncomfortable and annoying. And, if you're feeling brave, take public transport out of the city and just get off somewhere random. Maybe strike up a conversation with someone on the bus and see where they are going. Bring a bag of sugar or some other cheap but useful commodity as a gift and see what happens.

Matt asked how "authentic" his experience will be. With our limited time and both of us being in need of a vacation, we're not getting too far off the proverbial beaten path. I'm really glad I talked him out of flying roundtrip to Vic Falls. While it's beautiful and will always be a definite highlight of my time outside of Namibia, it is a manufactured bubble. In Swaziland we got a good mix of upscale (safari lodge), activity (quad-biking) and real (combis!) In Mozambique though, I'm getting my long-time-coming by-the-sea vacation!

Home

A whirlwind of activity over the last couple of weeks, and poof, I'm home. I intend to write several more posts detailing the holiday as well as the dreaded "reverse culture shock".