No More photos, and final thoughts on Mozambique

Unfortunately, things are wrapping up on a sour note with a series of thefts: my camera, my i-phone, Phillips' camera, and quantities of cash ranging from about $50-150 have disappeared sequentially. It looks like someone is getting into our apartment, and taking small items on a continuing basis.

Though not entirely unexpected event when travelling in places like this, it is disheartening. Most people here are desperately poor, and though most are honest, I am sure that to some we seem like fair targets. it is nevertheless unsettling and leaves me with a bad feeling, like I have been violated. Though the camera can be replaced, the photographs on the memory card cannot. And the iphone I had hoped to use as my backup camera, as well as calling home using Skype, and of course the many other things I use it for. One consolation is that I have nothing else of value left to be stolen.

There is plenty more I had hoped to write about: The medical students I’ve been working with, the “Medicina Verde” (green medicine) project which makes traditional herbal medications which we prescribe in the clinic (things like eucalyptus cough syrup, pepper based salves for joint pains). The severity of some of the illnesses I’ve seen people with here, and how long they go before they seek medical attention, the many wasted, broken bodies ravaged by HIV, tuberculosis, and cervical cancer, among others. How stoic and accepting of their fate many are. These will have to wait for another time.

Tomorrow I leave for South Africa: As I write this, Tia is flying south from Paris to meet me in Johannesburg tomorrow. We will travel for a couple of weeks, in Kwa Zulu Natal, and Capetown, before meeting Danny and Anelise in Boston.

Dinner with Arlindo and Joaqina and Emerson in his new house

Arlindo invited Peter and I over for dinner at his new house yesterday. (Arlindo is the medical student-minister-teacher-new father who I wrote about in an earlier posting) This is the house that we both gave him money so he could build it. It consists of two rooms and a bathroom, about 200 ft sq total. Cinder blocks, concrete floor, plumbing, lights, bathroom. It is basically an upgraded shed, in the corner of a lot on which sits a three story apartment building. He lives there with his wife, Joaqina, son Emerson, and currently his niece, Palmira is sleeping on a mattress on the floor.



Interestingly, they do have a maid, even though they had to borrow and beg money to complete the house, and there are only the three of them.

They splurged on sodas and beer for us, and we sat and chatted, playing with the baby while Joaquina and Palmira cooked dinner. They washed and shredded Kale into a big pile on a woven platter. They cracked open coconuts and used a little stool outfitted with a scraper to scrape out the white meet inside, and then proceeded to start cooking a curry with Kale, coconut and tangerine. It looked great, but it turned out to be for tomorrows dinner. Tonight we had chicken, salad, and rice. The rice was from Joaquin’s family machamba- they grow rice outside of town.

For desert: yogurt with cashews and tangerine.