Back From The Dead

I'm 30, it's 2013 and I'm in my 2nd year of a Master's Program at SIT Graduate Institute.

Every aspect of that sentence has made me realize how quickly time has gone by.  Many times, when I am talking about Peace Corps, I'll say,  "Oh yes, I just got back...." four years ago.  I realized quickly, I had to rectify that.  Four years away from Africa is just too much time for me. 

Since I have been back, there has been alot going on, but I'm not going to bore you with that.  I'll just start in 2012.  I've been working with the marketing department at my school as an intern for the past 6 months.  The title of my job has been SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR and I've learned alot.  Most of my day is spent monitoring social media feeds and what not online.  It's proven fun and difficult.  Fun because I am learning new things and meeting many people online.  The difficult part is that I am online all day, so when I get home I don't want to be connected and don't do school work.  Thankfully that has changed.

December and the month of January up until yesterday were rough times here.  Long story short, my body realized I am going back to Africa so the thyroid and some skin on my back decided to act up.  I guess it is my way of saying that I can't do anything lightly and really had to ramp up the stress level before I left.  So, with a benign thyroid goiter and a scar from a remove melanoma on my back, I'm leaving for Windhoek, Namibia on January 31st.

I'll be living in Windhoek for 10 weeks and hopefully be getting back to Mozambique before I leave to come back to America.  I've decided to start up this blog again because I'm going back to Africa.  Also, my brother Noel is currently working in Barbuda down in the Caribbean.  So please follow him at www.noelhefele.com/blog as well.

Ate breve,

Ian

My drug habit

Lariam has struck again! Let me first preface it with some back story. My dog has been in heat. Dogs get that twice a year and it lasts for about two weeks, according to vet.com. So I've been keeping her inside at night. Mainly because I don't want to have to deal with puppies as I'm leaving in December. Last night, she woke me up at 3 in the morning whining like the dog in heat that she is. I let her out which requires me to be fully awake getting through 3 dead bolt locks and two doors. I'm saying this so you know the state of mind I was in.

Yesterday I was supposed to wait for the new print cartridge coming up from Maputo. Like everything in this country though, you don't know where its coming in or when. I think the bus driver thought I was stalking him. I don't really care though. :) But anyway, this cold got so bad yesterday that I just had to go home. I'm glad I did because I got to go to sleep really early. I missed the print cartridge though. My friend muhurube went to pick it up and he said he was going to leave it at his sister's shop in the central market but I never heard from him. So when I went back to sleep this morning, I was worried what would happen.

I went to the central market and the guy at the shop said I couldn't pick up the ink until I paid 1000 MT or $40. I didn't have it so he drained the ink and put it into this giant clear plastic container kind of like what you find from the container store. I couldn't lift the container to bring it back so magically some wheels showed up on it like you see on luggage at the airport. I spent the whole walk through the city worrying about not splashing too much of the ink and then wondering how I was going to get it into my printer....

then I woke up.

Oh my god.....99

I remember when I first joined the Peace Corps, I thought 27 months was an eternity. As of right now, I'm at 34 months. But the freak out now is I only have 99 days left!

AH!!!

The trip from HELL

Tuesday this week was my trip back from Maputo. Now let me just explain how it is. I'm not ranting here, I just want everyone to understand what pure hell traveling is in this country. Nothing enjoyable about it like the train journeys of America and Europe.

Anyway, I was getting nervous the night before and had taken my lariam. So, between the anxiousness from the drug and the anxiety of the travel, I didn't get much sleep. 2 hours to be exact. I wasn't in a good mood when I set out. :O( My taxi was an hour late. I had two big bags to get on the bus and new one or both of them would be on my lap. Luckily only one of them was on my lap. The bus had a trailer, so I put the less valuable bag into the back. All of this took place at 8 o'clock in the morning. I paid my 300 meticais to go where I needed to go, took out my book and just tried to read. I fell asleep FAST! But that didn't last long because this music started blaring. Africa is a very LOUD continent. Most of the speakers are broken because the buses here are old school buses from Japan which does not make for pleasant listening. We get going an hour after I get on the bus. Time is not an issue in Africa. But I've learned not to get too excited because this usually just means we will be going to one of the two gas stations that are on the road out of town. Whichever one has the least amount of people and the most amount of gas I guess! So after all of this we finally get going at 9:30 in the morning.

Now I've never experienced blatant physical harassment in my life, until I moved to Africa. Normally I just shrug it off, but after two hours of sleep, I couldn't take it. There were these two Mozambican girls were fondling me through the seat back. I just started swatting them away and trying to make sure they didn't steal anything from me. I fell asleep. I get woken up by a poke poke poke into the ribs. That's never nice so I was not very pleased waking up. They wanted me to by them some cans of soda. It was annoying!!! I asked them for the money and they started laughing hysterically and announced to the bus that the mulungo (white man) didn't have 30 meticais, $1.25 to buy them soda. I turned up the volume on my iPod and tried to ignore them.

Little time had passed before we got stopped at a road block. I noticed that it wasn't the regular transport police who were doing the stopping - it was the army. My heart jumped a little bit because I realized that if they wanted to mess with me, they could. I pulled out my passport and hoped for the best. I got it. Everyone was ordered out of the bus, bags and persons were searched... except for me. It was wonderful yet aggravating at the same time. Why am I any different!?!?!?!

I get back on the bus and promptly fall asleep. Not less than 30 minutes later the freaks behind me wake me up my massaging my head and SNIFFING MY HAIR! I flipped. (Honestly though, I was stanky! Didn't have time to shower that morning) I'm so sick of this "do white people do/have...." Besides being woken up by having your hair pulled is not pleasant. So I grabbed her hair and pulled. IT CAME OFF IN MY HAND!!! I yelled at her and raised a ruckus. I think I got my point across and promptly went back to sleep undisturbed for the rest of my trip.

I think I scared the bus....