HOME SWEET HOME

We are safely back in Ghana. We arrived late last night a very long line at Immigration. Dan and I have both been fighting food poisoning for the last day or two so we were both pretty exhausted by the time we landed. Dan got stopped by the "Ebola police" because he had a slight fever. So he had to sit and wait and get checked again. Thankfully he passed. Never a dull moment.

We got our luggage and got a taxi home. We walked into our apartment and turned on the air conditioners, lights, etc. Then we noticed these three cards on the table from Hannah and Robin:

One is a 30th birthday card for me, one is a card welcoming us home and saying how much we were missed (and yes, Hannah has drawn four gators on it cheers-ing with beers). The most incredible was the note from Robin saying that our place had changed to an ECG (Electic Company Ghana) meter and was now a prepaid thing. He said where we go to top up the credit but that he put 100GHS on it to get us through the weekend. Then he says our sheets have been freshly washed and he hopes our trip was good.

Ok, seriously who has friends this good? I mean we've all been lucky enough to have the friend/excellent neighbor who grabs your mail or feeds your goldfish/cat/dog. But to prepay our electricity and wash our sheets?! These two are amazing. I've never been so grateful as I was that moment after a long day of travel while not feeling well to know that my AC will stay on all night and my sheets aren't filled with the must of an idle three months.

We slept well in our own bed and got up this morning to start cleaning the house and getting the laundry caught up. We're only here for about 6 days before we go on vacation but after that we should be here for awhile so may as well get things back in working order. I'm off to throw a new load in the washing machine, then we're going to go attempt to eat some lunch and pick up some groceries.

Hooray for tonight being the first home cooked meal we've had in months!

Last Weekend in Maputo... for now at least...

Last weekend was our last in Maputo for this three month assignment. We started off the Friday night by going to one of our favorite restaurants, Zambi. They have probably the best seafood and a really nice outdoor patio just across the street from the water. Dan got two different salads with crab and a seafood medley. I got salmon with vegetables.

Dinner was really nice except for a drunk guy behind us who was unnecessarily rude to the staff. There's a "thing" here in Africa... excuse my generalization but this happens in Ghana too so I'm going to extend my assumption to an entire continent... how American of me. A patron who wants the attention of a server makes this really loud sound pushing air through their teeth in what comes out as a "tsist" sound. I now cringe whenever I hear it. However, this gentlemen decided to do it pretty much every time a server was within 10 yards of him. It was clear that he thought he was more important than everyone else dining that evening. Luckily, he eventually got up from his wimpy cocktail, almost fell over and then proceeded to drive his loudly painted vehicle home. Sigh.

On Saturday, we lounged around after breakfast and eventually headed over to the craft market to finally purchase the obligatory Christmas tree ornament. We did a full walk of the place and settled on a little African house that says Mozambique. The seller offered to carve a name on it for us so we requested the year.

After completing our purchase, we went over to Mundos sports bar to have some lunch and watch the Manchester City match. Headed back to the hotel for a bit with the intention of trying a new place for dinner that night. We've heard about how good (and expensive) this Portuguese place called Taverna is. It's one of few places we haven't yet tried here and figured our last Saturday night would be as good a time as any. Well, joke's on us because they aren't open on Saturday. Yes, you read that correctly. A nice restaurant that is not open on Saturday. We agreed that was utterly ridiculous and defaulted to our favorite wine and tapas bar. Had some good conversation, thanked the manager for a consistently good restaurant experience (since we don't know if we'll ever be back) and headed back to go to sleep.

Sunday was the epitome of laziness. We watched a bunch of movies and ate dinner at the hotel while watching some of the NCAA basketball tournament via Slingbox. So now we are in the home stretch in Maputo. We expected a pretty calm week leading up to our departure on Saturday... until I came upstairs yesterday to find our bathroom flooded under half an inch of water. Never a dull moment in this place haha. Dan came home to check it out and have lunch with me as we expected to have to change to the fourth room of this trip. However, to our shock, they actually were fixing it when we returned from lunch. Amazing! Dan made a great point that we think the hotel is actually full so there was nowhere to move us. As a result, they actually had to do something about this issue.

Fair warning that our flight lands pretty late on Saturday night in Ghana. I suspect we will sleep pretty well in our own home, so I apologize if my Sunday blog post is a bit late. Consider yourselves warned :)

VIP Fancypants Dinner

They say life is all about who you know... well, we know the Food and Beverage Director. We were in the lobby a few weeks ago waiting on the ever temperamental elevator when a guy extended his hand and said he had seen us around quite a bit. Turns out, he is Roy, the Food and Beverage Director at the hotel. We chatted for a bit and parted ways.

We saw him again (and again, and again) and he said that he really wanted to plan some sort of dinner for us his "special guests". Now I'm pretty sure he meant "special" in a good way. Not the way that your mom says "you're special" when you've just done something really stupid. Anyway, he insisted on making this occasion a surprise for me and sort of a birthday dinner. In an effort to keep this a surprise, he and Dan had several phone chats and text messages to sort this whole thing out.

Last Sunday was the big day. Roy told us to be downstairs by the bar at 8pm. We had just come back on the ferry from Inhaca so we got showered and watched some soccer before we headed down. We exit the elevator to find Roy in workout gear having just come back from a jog. He clearly was flustered that it was already 8 and had us sit at the bar while he ran to get a shower (funny point: He's in the room next to ours). He had Nelson, the bartender, make us a pina colada and a manhattan. We laughed having no clue what this evening was going to entail.

After drinks, we were ushered out to the pool where they had set up a table with candles. The candles were a nice touch but it was a particularly windy night so they didn't seem to want to stay lit. Roy presented Dan with a rolled up paper that had a nice note about how much they appreciate us as guests and whatnot and explained the evening's menu.

Now, let's backtrack a bit. Roy's previous engagements include the Hyatt in Miami and a Sandals resort in Jamaica, although his wife and kids are still in Portugal. Coming from those hotels, wining and dining patrons is somewhat easy and what he really enjoys doing. This makes his current hotel much more difficult since it is 99% business people and convention attendees. Almost no one is here on vacation with their spouse. So when he saw us (and kept seeing us) it was clear we were an anomaly. Hence why he practically begged to put something together for us. Anyway back to the food....

The first course was spicy shrimp with mango and a delicious sauce of some sort. Quite possibly the best plate we've had here. The main was a juicy, perfectly cooked chicken breast with a vegetable tart-like thing in puff pastry. (I just made a point of saying how well cooked a chicken breast was. I think that pretty well describes the barometer of food we've had for the last three months, although we have had some very nice meals.) Dessert was a custard in a cup that my best description is that it would be listed on a San Francisco dessert menu entitled something like "deconstructed custard tart". The custard was in the glass topped with some fruit and some graham cracker crumble thing. Everything was delicious. We had some wine and the chef, a very nice Swiss gentleman, came out and chatted with us.

 Shrimp Appetizer

Empty Dessert Glass

Did you notice there is no picture of the chicken? Yeah. About that.

All in all it was a lovely evening. Good food, good company, and it was free! All because we know a guy... Guess it really is true.

Holy Crap, I'm 30.

I survived my 30th birthday in Maputo. I woke up to an endless chain of Facebook messages, phone calls, texts, emails of people sending me birthday wishes. Certainly eases the blow of being so far away when you wake up to such a rush of love.

I started off the day with a workout and then headed to Hotel Polana to go to the spa. I had a two hour massage and facial combo and then got a nice sushi lunch at one of the hotel's restaurants. The couple we met last weekend on the ferry to Inhaca came to have lunch with me. So nice of them given that they just met us but they wanted to make sure they came by for my birthday.

After lunch, I headed back to our hotel to work for the rest of the day (womp womp). Work has been quite busy lately so most of my evenings are trying to juggle projects and Dan's arrival home after work so we can go to dinner without me missing anything work-related. Oh well, there are certainly worse problems to have.

We decided on dinner at Bom Garfo, which is a rodizio restaurant. A rodizio is the Portuguese version of a churrascuria. Essentially, it's a prix fixe restaurant where they bring out different grilled meats on long knives and shave off pieces for you. You have a little coaster looking thing that is green on one side and red on the other. If green is up, the meats keep coming, when you're full, you flip it over and they stop. They also give you beans and rice, sauteed greens, grilled bananas and a small buffet table of different salads as starters (ex. Greek salad, pasta salad, a bean salad with chickpeas etc.).

Dinner was me, Dan, Driaan, his wife, Carolina, and Arthi and Andrew came a bit later and just got drinks. We got some salads and some wine and prepared ourselves for the impending food-baby. We got some chicken and a few types of beef, then some garlic bread, more beef, some grilled pineapple with cinnamon that was delicious and, surprise, more beef. Granted, you get maybe one slice of each one so it's not as daunting as I've made it sound.

Driaan and Dan were determined to make the full round as they were convinced there was an "end" to the meat train. They were clearly struggling when the guy came out and said the name of the meat he was offering. Dan excitedly said "We've already had that!" He and Driaan looked incredibly relieved and shared a high five over their conquering of the revolving door of meats.

Some had dessert, others had coffee or after dinner cocktails and we had a nice evening. It really meant a lot to me that some of our friends came to dinner. We had some great conversation and  enjoyed the company.

Here's a post-dinner photo to prove our survival (and evidence the tans we are developing after a few months in Mozambique):

Watch for Falling Coconuts

Sorry I'm late on this post. We just returned about an hour ago from a weekend excursion to Ilha da Inhaca. Yesterday morning, we took a ferry over to the island, which is about 35km East of Maputo. We walked to the ferry station and met some fellow Americans while we tried to locate the place to pay for tickets. They are here for a month or so as part of the wife's, Arthi's, doctoral residency. We sat with her and her husband, Andrew, and quickly learned they were also staying at the Pestana on the island. Off we went with new friends in tow!

The ferry ride was... rough. There was a storm that we had to go through and it was touch and go there for awhile. Lots of swaying and bouncing and the occasional sick person. Luckily, we all were okay, some with dramamine, some just taking some fresh air. When we finally arrived at the island, the weather was clearing and we went to check into our hotel. Dan and I went to our room to drop off our stuff and went straight to the pool. We spent a couple hours lounging by the pool. I read a book, and Dan took a nap, resulting in an excellent tan line from his earbud cord that goes across his chest.

We went back to the room and rested, watching some soccer before dinner. Met up with Arthi and Andrew for dinner and conversation. Really enjoyed their company and they are also having a hard time meeting friends. Invited them to get together for dinner later this week which they seemed eager to accept. We certainly understand the challenge of meeting similar personalities here in Maputo so I was more than pleased that they accepted.

We retired fairly early last night after a day of rocking the boat and a hearty dose of sunshine. Woke up this morning and had some breakfast and went for a walk on the beach. We found several boats washed up on the shore, one of which looked in perfect working order and was freshly painted. Dan wanted a picture of him on the boat, so without further ado...

We wandered into a little town... and little is probably an overstatement. There were maybe two shops and two or three restaurants with seafood. We had some snacks and watched a dance troop perform with a group of drummers. Afterwards, we went back to the room to pack up our things and check out. We spent the rest of our afternoon by the pool again before heading back to the ferry to come back home.

Luckily, the ride home was significantly smoother. We chatted with our new friends on the ride back to town and then the four of us went by the mall to grab a quick bite. We introduced them to our favorite shawarma place! Afterwards, we said our "see you later's" and parted ways.

I'll leave you with a quick word of wisdom: Watch for falling coconuts (a sign from our hotel).

Less than one week left...

...of my 20's.

It's been a wild, unexpected, fulfilling, incredible decade. If you had told 20-year old Jen that she'd be spending her 30th birthday in Maputo, Mozambique as a resident of the Republic of Ghana, I am quite certain she would have laughed so hard that green beer came out her nose. I do love that my birthday is St. Patricks Day, though it is tough to live in an area of the world that has no idea what that is. That said, I've had my fair share of enjoyable green moments over the years starting from when my parents would take me to Bennigan's and tell me that everyone was celebrating my birthday. I later learned this was a hoax and just an easy way to keep me occupied with a claw machine and free XL tshirts while they enjoyed a cold beer or two. Kudos to them for a genius idea.

It's been an eventful decade. I graduated college debt-free, went on study abroad, met my future husband, bought a house, left said house to move to San Francisco, met more amazing people, reunited with old friends. Went to lots of college football games, NFL games, college basketball games, baseball games, hockey games. Went on numerous college football roadtrips with some of my best friends in the whole world. Slept outside countless nights through rain and hurricane force winds to sit front row, midcourt for four years of college basketball games. Witnessed 4 Florida Gator national championships, a Tampa Bay Lightning Stanley Cup, 2 (should have been 3) Pittsburgh Steelers Super Bowls and 3 San Francisco Giants World Series. Went to a MLB All Star Game and a Final Four. Traveled to about 20 countries around the world with school, family and/or my husband.

I started college as an incredibly picky eater. Now I'm willing to explore food options and developed a palate for red wine. I suppose much of this was kindled by the foodie population of San Francisco and its proximity to some of the best wine in the world. It also doesn't hurt that now I get menus written in Portuguese so sometimes "winging it" is the only option.

I met, was wooed by, moved across the US for, said yes to, and married my best friend. I celebrated with many of our friends as they did the same. I've laughed and cried and laughed til I cried and loved and lost and all the other feelings that go into 10 years of your life.

I have been beyond blessed with what I have accomplished, experienced, felt, tasted, photographed, etc in my 30 years of life. I certainly don't take it for granted. As weird as it is to be halfway around the world from my home country, it feels like it's exactly where I'm meant to be as I step into a new decade.

Here's to all the new adventures that my 30's bring and to Dan for being my partner in crime and the one who keeps me grounded as I continue to "type A" myself through life. Thanks for being by my side as my other, more relaxed half. Oh, and thanks for letting me beat you in fantasy football. That always helps too.

One more weekend til 30... Bring it on.

Weekend Happenings

Friday night after work, Dan and some team members had a happy hour at Mundo’s (the sports bar). Dan invited me to tag along for which I was quite grateful. I met them at the restaurant and was introduced to most of the team with the exception of Driaan and Ana whom I had met previously. We had some beers and pizzas and watched some cricket on the TVs. It was nice to go out with some people.

Saturday morning, we slept in and had a lazy morning. We finally worked out and got moving around lunchtime. I had been interested in a place called Dhow, but the location seemed to be really inconvenient to the part of town where we are staying. Come to find out, I was mistaken. The place is on Rua da Marracuene but what I didn’t realize is that there are two Rua da Marracuene’s in Mozambique. The other one is actually not far at all. So we took a taxi over there around 1pm, deciding to risk table availability during prime weekend lunch hours.

There is no signage outside for the place so I could see how people miss it all the time. Luckily, there was a guy sitting outside who confirmed that was the place. The restaurant has a shop with some really cool furniture, light fixtures and trinkets. I figured I should go through to the restaurant part in case we were going to have to wait for a table. Luckily, we were sat right away which was excellent considering I didn’t eat breakfast and was quickly approaching a level of hunger that made my left arm look mighty appetizing.

We got some chicken samussas to start, and then ordered some lunch. Dan ordered a sandwich called the Leonardo “sim queijo” (without cheese). It was carne asada, which is pork here rather than beef, lettuce, tomato and mustard on really fresh bread that he thought they might even make on site. I got the chicken souvlaki, which was roasted chicken, onions, tzaiziki, and grilled tomatoes on what might be the most delicious pita bread I’ve ever had in my life. We hung out for a while and enjoyed the scenery. I now understand why everyone loves the place.

We browsed the products for a bit. The light fixtures were really nice and there were some pieces in the shop that we liked but everything was quite expensive. It was very clear that the “targeted audience” is tourists and expats. There was a wood statue that I really liked but it was 3500MT. The guy was really trying to sell it to me and I said it was too expensive. He said it’s only 3500 mets! I said yeah that’s like 100 dollars. He said yes but Americans are rich. I said “not this one”. I took note that the item I liked is actually from Cameroon. Good thing we know two Cameroonians in Ghana!

All in all, the food was great, the view was great, and the company was great (insert obligatory sappy “awwww” here). After lunch, we returned to the hotel to relax and watch some soccer.

Hotel Living

Looking back on the last handful of posts, life seems to be very exciting and full of adventure. That's certainly accurate; however, we haven't been without our struggles. When we first were told we would be coming to Mozambique and where we would stay, I remember thinking: Ah, what it would be like to live in a hotel... I pictured Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman listening to a Walkman in the bubble bath. That sounds like something I might be interested in.

The hotel we are staying in has been, in a word, challenging. The staff doesn't seem to care about a thing, nor does management. We are normally pretty easy going but we are staying here for a couple of months so you'd like to think a bit of effort from the staff has been more than earned by the cost of this reservation. We've had some interesting experiences: the elevators stop working and trap guests frequently, laundry is expensive but seems to have arbitrary rules as to when it will be picked up and when it won't, and, my personal favorite, the breakfast staff women seem to have a crush on me (this is Jen, not Dan). I even got a handwritten love note in broken English one day. They fight over who gets to take my plate and pour my coffee.

When we got here, our first room was perfectly fine. We did notice that the commode seemed to rock when you sat on it but didn't think much of it. Over time, it became evident that the toilet was not properly attached to the pipe behind it and the pipe was leaking water onto the floor. We were okay with it for awhile but at some point, stale toilet water smells "not so fresh". We told the staff and got a new room. We did notice later, though, that they didn't seem to fix it, just mopped up the water and called it a day.

The new room was also fine. Had it's wear and tear. The bathroom door didn't hang correctly so you had to lift up the door to get it to fit into the frame. The air conditioner was quite loud when it turned on and off (which was just often enough to wake me up mid-slumber as I'm a light sleeper). I had taken to wearing ear plugs to bed each night. The closet slider door was never in its tracks. But this was the second room so we were pleased just not to have a leak in the bathroom... until we did.

We reported the ceiling leak but no one came to look at it. About a week and a half later, the ceiling collapsed and a chunk of plaster hit the floor. I went downstairs, told them and several hours later the maintenance man came... to fix the lightbulb. Hmmm. You do see the hole in the roof, right? I'm not imagining this due to sleep deprivation, am I? Alas the following day, I called again when water was dripping through the hole and that managed to succeed in getting us moved.

So now we are on lucky number 3. No problems yet to speak of. Still excitement and adventure but figured we should share some of the not-so-glamorous moments as well. Here's to hoping nothing else breaks and we have no bathroom leaks for the next four weeks until we go back home to Ghana!

Our First African Safari

It was approaching that time again... that time when our 30 days would expire and we'd have to get out of Mozambique just to turn around and come back. While Cape Town was amazing last month, we decided to do something a little closer to home and a bit easier on the pocketbook. In doing some research, I came upon a day trip to Hlane Royal National Park in Swaziland. The trip included pick up and drop off to our hotel, game park fees, a bush walk, a game drive, as well as lunch and bottled water throughout the day. Sold! Sign us up!

Worst part of the day was probably when the alarm went off at 5am on a Saturday and we both groaned. Dan pulled the sheets up over his head, but alas, we were functional enough to get some breakfast and meet our driver at 6am downstairs at the hotel. It was a 1 hour trip to the border, where we had to get out, present our passports and get stamped for exiting Mozambique. We then drove maybe 100 yards, got out again, presented our passports... again, and got stamped to enter Swaziland. Once clearing Immigration, it was maybe an hour to the park (not including multiple stops by corrupt policemen trying to get money from our driver... good to know it's not just us! haha!)

We arrived and went on a 2 hour bush walk... which turned into more like 3 hours. But it was neat to walk through the park and learn about some of the things the animals do and the various purposes of different trees and insects within this ecosystem. We started out on the track that the cars drive on and we were thinking "oh, this is fine". We ended up literally trekking through the "bush" through high grass and trees. While walking through we saw lots of impala (aka antelopes) as well as some in inyala, another type of antelope native to southern Africa.

 Impala (left: female, right: male)

 Female Inyalas (Males are more black/grey)

After our bush walk, we returned to the camp and had some lunch. There was an oddly long break at this point but we were never provided with the day's schedule so I suppose we didn't know what we were in for, anyway. After eating, we sat on some benches along a fenced in watering hole and watched the hippos do pretty much nothing. Eventually, a family of elephants came over to get some water so that was pretty cool. Dan's quite sure that he woo'ed them by pulling out some cashews. I'm not sure whether the circus-planted idea that elephants like nuts is accurate but it was, at the very least, a coincidence.

 Lazy Hippo

Elephant family at the watering hole

Around 2pm, we got to go on our first game drive. We piled into an open air, covered jeep-like thing that had three rows of stadium seating in the back. There were 8 of us and 9 seats, so naturally Dan and I took up the entire top row. (Side note for anyone considering a safari: this was the wrong seat choice. You absolutely should sit in the front row behind the driver. Not because the pictures are better, that really makes no difference. But if the driver sees something in the bushes, he stops the vehicle so that people can look. Problem is that the driver stopped the car where he could see it. We're probably 6-8 feet behind him blocked by trees.)

We drove through the park for about 2.5 hours. We saw several elephants, some turtles, monitor lizards (which are HUGE lizards), a lioness, warthogs, and two giraffes from a distance. We were unsuccessful on the rhino and the male lion. Game drives are understandably unpredictable. The roads are where they are and you are not always lucky with every animal.

The lion was by far the hardest to find. We drove and drove in their section of the park (they are separated from the rhinos because awhile back the park lost 90% of the their rhino population to poachers so they are trying to keep them safe from predators both internal and external to the park). They tend to sit in the tall grass, making them difficult to find. We did eventually find a lioness. She came out and was maybe 6 feet from the car. She was equal parts beautiful and powerful and much larger than we expected... and only slightly terrifying :)

 Lioness and a few elephants on the road

 We also found Pumbaa from The Lion King (warthog), and giraffes

At one point, we were stuck behind an elephant. He was in the road and did not seem to care that we were patiently waiting for him to move. He eventually stopped, stood in the road and decided to have some grass. He could definitely see our vehicle but just didn't have any interest in moving. It was actually funny to see him just go about his ways with little regard for the car.

After the game drive, we were driven back to the hotel where we promptly showered, watched a movie and crashed.

(Photos courtesy of super awesome camera that my Aunt Kristi sent me a couple years ago. Thanks, Zalich Family!)