A few of us young volunteer/lowly-paid NGOers met up in the new café in town, enjoying my first kebab of the trip and the first hamburger in Lichinga’s short history (they’ll even have pizza once the head chef gets over malaria)?! Then, grabbing some pastries before the bakery closed, we ran home in the rain and spent the night talking about what on earth we planned to do with our lives next.
One was heading off to London to look for NGO work there, another one going back to, another had signed up to do water/AIDS work here until 2007 (!?!), and there was me, heading back to Australia.
We then spent the rest of the night transferring Simpsons movies off my laptop on CDs to those remaining behind (“You’re a lifesaver!”, they said). This was to prevent them from re-watching their selection of DVD movies for a 7th time on “lonely rainy Lichinga nights” …
What will I mss about Lichinga? Well, there’s a few things I WON’T miss. 2 hours of electricity a day (sometimes less), a lack of running water most of the time (again unpredictable), days with the entire mobile network not working, unusable land telephones, lots of people roaming the streets looking for work (someone tried to sell me a monkey for $15 before I left! I couldn't believe it. For starters, I could get them for $10 at the markets ...).
But it was nice there. Lots of interesting missionaries to talk to, nice sunsets, young people, no traffic lights, kids playing soccer in the fields, hectares upon hectares of unspoiled forrest ... this was innocent Africa, the real Africa at last?
Goodbye Lichinga. Until next time (Somehow, I don’t think there’ll be a next time …!).
Blessings
John
Postlude: pictures that summarise Lichinga
An etching on a wall I found in the middle of Niassa on a house …
A dunny for a house next to Lake Niassa – my tribute to Lichinga, “the forgotten armpit of Mozambique”, as someone said
1 comment:
when are you coming back?! you're coming back?!
sorry i'm confused, i thought you weren't coming back for ages. either way hurry home, DIGJC is missing your jokes and the other day at GG we were playing celebrity heads and someone had ruth from ruth and naomi and julz mentioned... oh what's that word now...kingsman redeemer! that's it!
anyhow yes, take care.
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