I knew that Chessie, Andy and Jamie would be hard acts to follow in the travel writing front, but now I have to follow Dan too! I am not aiming for poetic here -- just words. It is 11 pm and we just got back from dinner in Nampula. We waited over an hour for our pizza, Zach asking and requesting several times during that span. Finally, when he asked if we should leave -- perhaps they could just bring the check if not the pizzas, we saw them carry the pale rounds to the grill. There is a different sense of time and urgency here. I have been super patient so far and do not mind the wait, but at 10:30 I was really getting hungry and tired.

I'm pooped, sweaty, sticky, slightly dehydrated and spaced out. I feel very far from home (in contrast to Dan's sense that his brother being here creates some sense of home). Actually, I feel very far from myself. That self that was a therapist back in Bozeman, who just completed grad school... all that seems like a story someone told me about some college friend. And it is not that some other self has come and replaced the me that I knew, rather, the Bozeman me just feels very far away and irrelevant. Perhaps untethered or uprooted are words that touch on what I feel like these days, but that doesn't really cover it. It feels like some form of amnesia. It is not a bad feeling persay (or a good one for that matter). It is what it is. I am wide-eyed, taking the sights and smells in, trying to order them, but finding no known catagories in which to place my experiences. At least Nampula has been less excessive in its stimulation than Maputo was -- broad boulevards, much less trash and street vendors, fewer people in general, less traffic -- a little more my pace regardless of the continent.

For those following our travels, we'll leave Nampula tomorrow morning for Mouseril and then to Isla de Mozambique. Sue and Peter leave to head back home on the 15th. At this point, Dan and I are not sure where we'll go next. Here is the general outline now: 15th-25th-ish -- travel in northern moz - the coast or the shore of lake malawi. Then meet up with Zach again in Malawi after x-mas. Meet up with Anna in Mazuzu, Malawi on the 7th of January. Leave Malawi on the 14th or so and go to Tanzania/Zanzibar for two weeks. Over to Madagascar for two weeks. Then back to Bozeman via Jo-burg/London/Chicago/Seattle.

I expect we'll be out of email contact for the next week.

The beginning

Touchdown in New York. And London. And Johannesburg. And finally Maputo, Mozambique. I don't know if traveling to southern Africa is ever quick and it certainly wasn't for us. Especially when you come from Bozeman, Montana. But we arrived and met my brother Zach (his superior blog is linked on the sidebar) . Home doesn't seem so far away when your brother is a local in this foreign land. He's calm and knowledgeable and speaks Portugese while I struggle to absorb the feeling of "other." I can't shake the fact or feeling of being a spectacle as a white man walking down the street. It doesn't help that we're a group of five white people with cameras and poorly hidden money pouches.

I've taken college classes and read many excellent books about Africa. I've talked in depth with people who have lived and traveled around the continent and yet I can't shake the movie version of Africa from my head. By which I mean the dark, dangerous, scary Africa. I find myself standing in a local coffee shop guarding my pockets against theft and nervously looking behind my back. I analyze people in the streets as potential pickpockets. This isn't how I want to act but it's hard to turn off the fear as I'm assaulted by new sights, sounds, and pungent smells.

After a few days I'm able to get into my "traveling head", where I feel more comfortable and relaxed walking through a chaotic city. I build a psychological shell to ward off the five men insistently selling me the same DVDs all at once or the man walking backwards while showing me infinite styles of sunglasses, despite the fact that I'm already wearing sunglasses. Responding to these overtures in even the slightest form, such as eye contact or saying "no" in my strong voice, only causes the vendors to redouble their efforts...for at least two more blocks. I wish I could build a physical shell to ward off the cars and chapas that drive at breakneck speed on the left side of the road, which is where they're supposed to be but where I'm still surprised to find them. I have a heightened awareness of my personal space (because security is certainly an issue, as evidenced by the private security guards outside every bank, hotel, and decent shop) but it isn't clouding my experiences as at first.

The city of Maputo is large and sprawling. I think it's fairly representative of cities in developing countries with lots of smelly trash, unpredictably ripped up streets and sidewalks, rundown buildings, and gleaming highrises. Women sit at tables on the side of the road brushing flies off the seafood they're selling and nobody ever has change for any bills, no matter how small. There's bustle and energy and I know that in five or ten years this city will have experienced a complete makeover. As I start to smile strangers smile back and sometimes poke fun at me gently. Language is a challenge since my Portugese is limited to the basics.