Afr-IKEA

Since my site here in Chitima only had one previous volunteer before me and Drew’s arrival, and Drew got the spoils of the previous volunteer’s room over a intense 5 OT rock, paper, scissors game in Chimoio prior to our trip up here.  My room was bare bones state.  A cement room and floor with one dangling light bulb, only a bed and frame in it after my arrival.   Although the green paint job it came with is quite nice and I find it a decent up grade from my room in Namaacha during training; not that I didn’t appreciate the what my host family provided me.  That room had character ,with my host brother’s name carved into the wood of the bed frame/night stand combo or the only picture hanging when I arrived and throughout training, a calendar photo of mountains in east Oregon without the calendar dates.  That picture was surprisingly comforting during some struggles in training.  Plus the added sentimental value of my first personal space in Africa helped make it a place I won’t soon forget. 

                                                    (First go at the bug net wasn't so great)    

Though I was back to square 1 with my new quarters in Chitima, but with so much to explore about the town, neighbors to attempt to meet, and SO much more Portuguese to learn, the room and nesting projects kind of took a halt for a little while.  I was content for the time being to live out of my retro blue leather suitcase I picked up at goodwill the night before leaving and the rest of my clothes laid out on cardboard and hanging all over any spot I had to keep em off the dusty floor. 

Which lasted a good while until the apparent rainy season of Tete decided to just show up all of a sudden and make up for all the lost time.  Water coming down in buckets, creating quite the moat around the front and back side of our house that put our first step of the porch under water.  Mean while in my room water was being blown in sideways through both of my bedroom windows.  The liters of water coming in were hitting my bug net and spraying all over my mattress from one window and the other flowing right into my row of clothes on cardboard, soaked.   Switching into damage control mode I quickly grabbed two capulanas I had (Mozambican cloth used for everything, literally EVERYthang) and a handful of nails and started hammering those bad boys up as the best barrier available at the time.  They didn’t stop all the water but enough to keep it from drenching my bed more.  After that ordeal I needed to change some stuff up as living of the ground 24/7 wasn’t going to be cutting it anymore.

So you might ask, “Where do you go to get all and anything furniture wise you need for your house in Mozambique?”  Well you could shell out a decent chuck of change at the local carpenter - though PC doesn’t pay that well to furnish my room with all custom made digs.  You could buy some prefab stuff in the larger cities with superstores - but lugging all that back on a chappa (public transport, I’ll talk about these in another post later) would be damn near impossible and total pain.  OR you could go to the awesome place I will refer to as AfrIKEA.

Let me explain, right outside my house about ¼ km away from the school the area becomes straight up mato (African bush land).  With a saw and a decent idea and plan about what you are wanting for furniture you can pretty much find every thing you need.  And in my mind it’s about the closest thing to IKEA that you’ll find in Chitima.  You can even be choosey about what time of wood you want your stuff made from; rough wood, smooth wood, wood with a few thorns, and bamboo!  After taking a walk down the dried up river bed and having my pick of litter with the local timber, hacking down a few solid and straight saplings and a bamboo tree I was set on lumber.  A quick trip into town to the ‘Home Depot’ lojas picking up some nails and the hammer of Thor, all the materials I needed were in hand. 

Now AfrIKEA doesn’t come with instructions, but be honest who reads those instructions you actually get anyway?  I know I don’t, so just like an IKEA project in the States I jump right in, winging the whole thing.  I’m thorough with my work though, measure twice and cut once, cross beams, side supports, and               re-enforcing I know.  Do it right and do it once, hopefully, is the motto.  So after some blood (nicked myself splitting a branch), sweat (it’s Tete, I sweat when I take a leak), and tears (that hammer of Thor pounds nails and thumbs) I had fashioned myself a decent clothing rack and hanging area with room for my trunk underneath, able to keep all clothes dry during any rainy season storm.  And since I was feeling sentimental and missing all you family, friends, and hooligans back there.  I made a couple of picture holders out of bamboo for all those Kodak moments we’ve had together.

And although it ain’t the real IKEA and there are no Swedish meatballs, we still had delicious balls of food.  We call em stuffed xima balls.  Xima (very thick grits) stuffed with sautéed onions, peppers, black beans, and then fried with piri piri sauce on top.  BOMB