The story of the time I watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean

As many of you know, a couple weeks ago, on the 10^th of October, was my 24^th birthday. The 11^th happened to be my host brother’s second birthday, so we decided to celebrate both our birthdays on Saturday. They asked if I would like to make some Canadian food and make a Canadian cake on Saturday. I thought we were just having a small celebration with the 5-6 of us. However, Saturday morning arrived, and there were several chickens in the sink, and an entire bag of potatoes being peeled. I made my brownies, but then my host mother made two more cakes as well. People kept arriving, helping to prepare food. We were at it from 7 AM until 6PM. Most of that time I was just sitting there watching, but I probably spent at least 1 ½ hours throughout the morning peeling tiny cloves of garlic. By the time we ate, there were 30-40 people in the small apartment. The table was loaded with 4 different kinds of meat, homemade samosas, French fries, my spaghetti, rice and beans, salads, and, of course, cake. I was starving by the time we ate, having skipped lunch. There was a lot of people, a lot of noise, a lot of dancing, a lot of conversation I didn’t understand. I was ready for bed by the time people started leaving at 8:30!

The party was fun, but my actual birthday was not all that exciting. I spent the entire morning in the immigration office with a couple of the MCC staff trying to sort out the visa and residency process. Apparently I was mistakenly given a business visa instead of a residential one when I applied from Canada. To fix this problem, I’ll have to go across the border into Zimbabwe next week, re-apply for a visa, and then re-start the immigration process. We are not sure yet how this might affect when I get to go out to Machanga.  The pastor who took me to the immigration office commented that it is a birthday I’ll be sure to remember!

Despite the frustrations of the Thursday, I did, however, have a very nice evening on Friday. Jana, the MCC Mozambique country rep, took me to a café that sits on the beach. We sat there and watched the sun set over the ocean and had a really nice evening just chatting and getting to know one another. 

And so ended my second week in Mozambique; the sound of the waves and the smell of the sea carrying me forward as I look ahead to the next three years.