Post 2

Apparently the keyboard I'm using does not have a number sign, so its Post 2 and not Post (number sign) 2.

I spent two days on very annoying bus rides to get to Blantyre, Malawi where I am now. The buses in Mozambique, as can probably be expected, are not great. They are old Toyata minivans that should have been replaced long ago. I think only one or two of my rides did not break down at some point. Mostly they just ran out of oil, at least thats what I could tell. Five guys would spend a good half hour and looking and talking, and they would tighten random screws and bolts, but the only thing effective ever done was adding more oil. I guess they only add for the days journey, for money reasons, and just have the same thing happen again every day. I also the aftermath of a fatal accident where a huge truck had overturned, and the bodies were laid out on the side of the road. They had been moved there and it was quite clear they were dead. Accidents are apparently a very big issue in Mozambique. There were a few other disturbing things I heard about while in Mozambique. Apparently sex trafficking is increasing with young mozambican girls being kidnapped or lured into South Africa where they are basically forced to be prostitutes. Some are told they will have educational opportunities to lure them, but a lot are kidnapped. Something in the range of hundreds a year.

AIDS too is obviously a huge deal in Africa, and Mozambique and now here in Malawi are no exceptions. Malawi, whose population is 12 million, has supposedly had over a million children orphaned by AIDS. In Mozambique I'm told that a lot of sexual abuse begins by teachers in more rural areas, but even in cities men are able to sleep with whom they want and spread it to their wives. I met a few people doing some AIDS awareness and prevention work near the capital Maputo, who were explaining to me their work. Of course the Bush administration is doing its best to fuck their work up to as now all US govt. grants in this area of work are given with the stipulation that the programs must teach absitenance only. So any programs to promote condom usage can't recieve US funding anymore.

Well...enough of the really bad stuff. I felt that in Mozambique it was very similar to Brazil in that there are both amazing and horrible things going on side by side. Amazing people, landscapes, food with all the mess mixed into it. Brazil has this more acutely, but there's some of it in Mozambique. Overall, I loved the country, and very much want to go back, especially to the north where I did not go, and because of the horrible road is probably easier to go through Tanzania.

Anyways, at the end of my first long day of buses I ended up in Chimoio, which is a nice enough place very close to the border with Zimbabwe. Very interesting to be here (africa and close to zimbabwe) with the elections having just happened. I want to go, but it'll have to wait for the end of my time here if it happens, if it'll happen at all. Things could get uglier there if Mugabe decides to not give up power. I stayed at a cool place called the Pink Papaya, where everything is pink. the light fixtures, everything. I made dinner that night and was joined by the new German owners, and a Dutch girled named Manom.

Manom has been travelling for almost three years now by tractor from Holland through Europe and Africa in her goal to get to the South Pole. She has a website, tractortractor.org if you want to check out her saga. Her idea is to "collect" people's dreams along the way and put them in a snowman she's going to build when she gets to the south pole. She estimates she has another year to go. Yes, it's nuts, but she's not that crazy. She's kind of normal if it wasn't for being on a tractor with a max. velocity of 20k/hour for the past three years. So that night I got to hear about some pretty amazing stories through Africa including being followed by teh Sudanese secret police, which is pretty funny when you think about it, because she is going literally slow slow it is impossible to hide that you're following her. I only wish her luck in the rest of her journey, and if I hadn't met her I would doubt whether she could make it, but if she's made it this far, it's tough for me to doubt now. I think she's planning on going through Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia on her way to Cape Town. From there she's got an icebreaker boat lined up to take her tractor to Antarctica. Apparently some guide has already agreed to go with her on the four month, there and back, trip to the south pole.

The next day I spent 14 hours on a variety of buses getting from Chimoio to Blantyre. The border crossing was easy, and they asked me how long I wanted a visa for in Malawi and than made it accordingly. I told him 90 days, which has shocked everyone i've met here in Blantyre, becasue everyone has one month visas despite appealing for longer. Apparently the limits are not pre-determined at my seldom used border crossing. Since i've been in Blantyre i've just relaxed, slept in past 4am (when all the buses leave in mozambique) and checked the internet a lot.

Everyone I've met here seems to be a volunteer, everyone. A lot of British kids done with high school who are here for half a year or people like Benjie and Tovi that came on their own and are volunteering for several months or longer. Nobody is just her for a week, like me, which I guess is cool. Blantyre is a city, for Malawian standards, and probably most places. I went looking for a tent, but the options were not good. I'll figure out my tent situation later I suppose. I also got a copy of the local paper, and I wanted to share a few headlines here. Oh, English is the official language here, hence I can understand the paper.

Headline 1: Man and woman, both married locked themselves up in the house for a marathon of sex

Headline 2: Marking territory with Urine

I took pictures of the article, so y'all can read it eventually. You couldn't make this stuff up, and I promise you this is supposedly a legit newspaper.

Tomorrow I've got another long bus ride, 10hrs, to a place on Lake Malawi called Nkhata Bay where several people I've met have told me to go. I'll be there two days(that's the plan at least) and than after one more day of bus rides Ill arrive in my destination of Mbeya, Tanzania. The lake is supposed to be gorgeous, relaxing, and you can dive. However, there's very little to see besides very colorful fish, so I'm not sure i'll put over the money to dive. in Tofo you see manta rays and whale sharks on top of very colorful fish, and i think i've been extremely spoiled by learning there.

I think this is the end of post 2 and I'm really hungry so I'm going to go find some food.

tchau, Ben