An update.. Walking to Work

Someone wrote and asked me some specific questions about what I saw and smelled and felt like on my way to work so, in the interest of not typing all night long, I am going to use my reply to keep my blog somewhat up to date. I am, for the next few weeks, going to be going to both the VSO office and their "guest house." I have In Country Training at the office and will start Portuguese training at the guest house tomorrow at 8 AM - 12 PM. It is about a 15 minute walk to the VSO office and I am not sure where the guest house is so I am not sure how long it will take to get there. It will be a lengthy walk to the CNJ office which is where I will eventually be going. I think about a good 25 to 30 minutes. I haven’t taken any other means of transport besides getting rides from someone from the VSO office. I walk by myself to work. Today I started out and got very sick so I turned around and came home and stayed home in bed all day. I am feeling better - ate some rice - kept that down - so will go in tomorrow if this holds up. The other day that I walked - I start out going down a stairwell of my apartment house. They just call it flats. It smells like people use it a lot. Not like a bad New York stairwell but maybe like a close alleyway.

Once I get out of doors there is a very large courtyard area surrounded by buildings like mine all connected. There are balconies filled with clothes drying and some plants and stuff. All very lived in. The paint is peeling and the buildings look well used. The courtyard surface is quite rough asphalt and dirt. There are many cars parked every which way. Mostly 4x4s of some sort. People prefer the larger vehicles because many roads are rough, even impassable, without them. They are not big trucks but small SUV type cars. There is dirt and gravely rocks and so if I have my sandals on I need to be sure to pick up my feet. I walk through this area and down a very very short road just like it out onto a street called Avenida de Maguiguana (don’t know what that looks like on Google Earth but you can try). If I look to the left there is a stand that sells telephone minutes. Across the street is a fruit vegetable stand and there is another just down the road but opposite the way I walk to work.

Ave de Maguiguana is a pretty well kept road with trees and nice buildings. There are cars parked on the sides of the road and on the sidewalks. That is the case in a lot of places. Cars park where ever they want. There are a lot of house guards by a lot of the houses. There is a mosque just off this street too and so you can hear the muezzin apparently but I have not yet heard his calling and they do it 5 times a day so maybe there is just too much other noise. A lot of the guards have uniforms but some of them are just regular looking people so you can't really tell the difference. There are police that stand around too, but you can tell who they are because they have guns.

So then I walk along a series of small roads and come to a major street, Eduardo Mondlan, which has a lot of shops and restaurants and cafes and also the Ministry of Health and the major hospital in the country. There is not so much traffic on the weekends but during the week it is crazy busy and I have to be careful because I tend to look the wrong direction for traffic as it is opposite from the US. I turn again - my road mark, as Rica, my flat-mate says, is a KFC, the only fastfood chain in the country, and I travel about two more blocks down a very nice street to another major road in the city, 24 de Julho, and the VSO office is right there. There are two or three guards there by a large gate. There are some pretty tiles on the front of the building too, blue and white, very middle eastern looking.

The air doesn't really smell like something specific. There has been a breeze every day. Maybe when it is more hot and humid, which is in October or November, it will feel more close and have more smells. I am not so comfortable walking yet. When I go out of my flat, I am not sure whether it is proper to look at people I don’t know and smile or engage in any way so I try not to so much right now. When I see the kids, and there are some that play out in that courtyard, I will say hello and they will say hello. On my longer walk I try to remember to be on the left side of the sidewalk and for some reason that takes concentration but makes passing by people LOTS easier. The sidewalks tend to be narrow, and not in good shape so I have to watch that also or I trip. I haven't been out much by myself. Also walking to work is early and there is not so much traffic and people yet. I do pass by groups of people hanging out and talking. Street vendors. Guys trying to sell everything from electrical plug adapters to necklaces to cloths.

So there you go. A lengthy walk in Maputo with me on my way to work.