The wonderful world of Tete

The seven of us bound for Tete, plus our supervisors, packed up our bus and headed out of Chimoio on Wednesday morning.  It took us about 5 hours just to get to Tete province – at which time we all perked up, wanting to see our new home.  The drive through the mato (bush) was unbelievable.  Maybe I’m just biased with my newfound Tete-pride, but this blew the mountains of Namaacha out of the water. For a while I was convinced that this stretch of land was the inspiration for “pride rock” in the Lion King. No joke. It’s breathtaking.  Every few minutes we’d pass a little village of round, thatched roof homes – usually circled around a giant tree. OK I can’t remember the name of this type of tree right now – but basically, the trunk of these trees are ginormous. I’m talking my bedroom in Louisville could fit inside. Huge.  So we drive, and drive and drive some more, all the while, no major signs of city life. Then BAM out of no where, we’re passing hundreds of semi-trucks and there are big industrial plants everywhere.  Hotels and gas stations.  Giant pieces of mining equipment.  Welcome to Tete City.

Tete City, and especially my new home (Moatize) are located right on top of a coal deposit.  Therefore, there are huge, international mining corporations.  There is a very strong Brazilian presence, as well as Australian and rumor has it that China will be here soon (jen zeng, get up here!).

OK back to the story… So even though we are essentially passing my drop off point, Chengadeia (who I am quickly becoming obsessed with) insists that we will accompany the rest of the volunteers to their sites first and then circle around and drop us off last. Because why wouldn’t we want to stay on the bus for another 6 hours to ride around and help move boxes?!  But, I’m so glad we did!  Every time we would pull up to a site, the entire bus got this weird adrenaline rush.  We were all just fixated on the windows, trying to see everyone’s new homes.  Then the bus would stop, and we would all get silent…and there was a kind of “are we really just gonna leave her out here?” moment.  All three sites we saw that day were pretty mato.  Two of the three don’t have any cell phone service.  They all live AT their little schools. There are no major markets.  Mato.  However, Mato sites (as I’m learning) make up for their lack of amenities with general charm.   They are quaint little villages nestled into beautiful, untouched mountains.  The people were friendly and welcoming –and naturally very interested as to why there was a bus full of Americans unloading boxes in their village.

So we dropped Derek, Eden and Hannah off at their sites –every moment captured on camera by our very own little paparazzi Changadeia. And surprisingly, I felt totally fine about leaving them their alone (sans cell phone service).  At this point, it’s dark. It has been raining for about 4 hours and we’ve been on this (not at all comfortable) bus for 11 hours now. And really, I was just ready to see MY site!

Apparently our house is not ready yet, so Chengadeia tells us that we will be staying at our school for a few days – which is fine.  All of the schools we had seen so far were pretty much just 2 rows of classrooms facing a courtyard, so when we pulled up in front of a huge gated campus complete with armed guard to escort us in, I was a little surprised.  We unloaded all of our boxes and bags – not entirely thrilled about having to do this again in a few days- and walked into the building where all of the Padres live.  Did I mention that this is a Catholic mission school?  So yes I live with 3 priests for the time being.  Anyways, this place blew my mind.  There’s a nice little zen, fountain room when you first walk in.  Next, there’s a little courtyard which is surround by 8 little bedrooms (each complete with a comfy bed, desk, and private bathroom/shower with running water).  We also have a chapel, an “entertainment” (?) room with a TV and lots of book shelves, a dining room and a kitchen.

Moral of the story is that Helen and I are about to be the “city folk” compared to our friends in the mato.  For the past 5 days, we’ve been having home-cooked, sit down meals with the Padres and trying to figure out what to do with the excessive amount of free time we have.  Showering in real live showers.  Reading.  Exploring our incredible school grounds and Tete city.  Reading.  Playing basketball.  Did you hear that?!  Playing basketball.  That’s how bored we are.  Ha!