September 20

I have not had much of a chance to update this thing because the electricity in my house in Gondola was disconnected (but I will get to that later).

The end of August saw me in Maputo (Mozambique’s capital city) for the first time in nine months. Maputo is just a few hours from the South Africa border, and there are some aspects of the city that are relatively westernized (there are also many aspects that are very third-world). I have to admit that after living in central Mozambique for nine months I received a healthy dose of culture shock (which was not necessarily a bad thing). I relished experiences that I never thought I would (sitting in traffic, for instance) as well as experiences that have been absent from my life for quite some time (like eating ice cream and bacon – though not at the same time). A few days in the capital were a nice break from day-to-day life.

Following my time in Maputo my roommate and I (but mostly him) were graced with the presence of his girlfriend. It was nice to have a new person around and she injected some excitement into our lives (again mostly his). The presence of an American girl at site brought an onslaught of questions my way (in my experience, when it comes to asking questions Mozambicans generally are extremely intrusive and completely without tact) regarding my girlfriend and when she is coming to visit. I do not have a girlfriend, thus this line of questioning (which continues as I write this; three weeks later) made me feel bad about the current state of my personal life. Anyway, Gondola is not much of a tourist destination, so following a few days at site; David (my roommate) and his girlfriend went off traveling to the more tourist friendly parts of Mozambique.

Almost immediately following their exit I was greeted at the door by a worker for E.D.M - the national electricity company that provides power to most of Mozambique. This man informed me that my school had failed to pay the electric bill for five months and he was disconnecting my electricity. Needless to say this was extremely inconvenient, given that, among other things, I have an electric stove. Later that day I chatted with my school director and he claimed to have paid all of the energy bills. I have spent the last two weeks attempting (in vain) to get the energy in my house reconnected. I have been cooking with charcoal (or just eating uncooked food, because cooking with charcoal is a pain), taking cold showers, and reading by candlelight.

I am sure that the RPCVs (former PCVs) reading this are scoffing at my complaints about a lack of electricity, but in my defense: electricity is a very difficult thing to loose 1) in this day and age and 2) when you are supposed to have it.

In other news, the Presidential election campaign officially opened here in Mozambique about a week ago. This year will mark the 1st parliamentary election and 4th presidential election in the country’s history. Peace Corps forbid me from having an opinion about politics on this publicly accessible blog (I do however, have plenty of opinions). Mozambicans from various political parties tend to approach election season like a 24-hour-a-day college football tailgate (with rallies, parties and parades through the streets that keep me up at night). It is very different from our system, but exciting all the same.