Wow! It seems like a hundred years since I've blogged (give or take 99.9). I had planned to post at least once or twice while I was away, but I just never seemed to have the time or energy to do so. I had internet access about 2/3 of the time, but I was always so tired by the time I got back to my hotel at the end of each day, I just managed to check my work email, respond to the urgent stuff, and maybe read a few blogs. So here I am, trying to catch up.

I arrived home on Monday evening, 36 hours after leaving Maputo. I went to bed at 9ish, and slept straight through until 11am on Tuesday. That helped a lot! I went into the office on Wednesday, though my brain was still a wee bit on the foggy side. Since then I've been pretty much awake through the day, but by late afternoon my body is telling me it's sleepy time. My evenings have been quite unproductive this week.

I did get a lot of knitting time in, what with the long flights, long layovers and evenings alone in my hotel room. I had no problems taking my needles on the planes – I usually fly on the same airlines and through the same airports and I've never had a problem going through security, but I always fear getting an over zealous security agent who deems my knitting dangerous. I did have one flight attendant who told me I had to put my knitting away during takeoff and landing, because "you could poke someone's eye out with those things." At least I could knit during the rest of that 10 hour flight!

I took way more knitting than I would possibly ever have time to knit, but better too much than too little. Of course, I also needed a variety of stuff – from simple, mindless projects to stuff requiring concentration. As it turned out, I spent the bulk of my time on simple and mindless, so fortunately I had a lot of that. I only have 2 FOs to show, but I'll wait and show those tomorrow – one is currently blocking. I also have a couple of larger projects that I worked on – I'll talk about those tomorrow as well (and show WIP pictures).

Meanwhile, I thought I'd share a couple of travel stories.

One of the projects that I have is a Rural Water Supply and Sanitation project. As a result of that project, 250 communities now have access to safe, clean, accessible water, along with the capacity to manage, maintain and repair these water points. On this trip, I, along with representatives of the Government of Mozambique and the project staff, went to visit some of the beneficiary communities. We were greeted with songs and dances and speeches. We chatted with the communities and visited the water points. One of the communities expressed their appreciation by presenting us with a goat.

That was a first for me – being gifted a goat. When I saw that this was coming, I quickly asked for advice from the Mozambicans who were accompanying me. Was there a polite way to refuse this gift? Was there a way to accept the goat, and then return it to the community? I was advised that there was not. To refuse this gift, or to attempt to return it, would be a grave insult. There was nothing to do then but to accept the goat. So I did. I am now the proud owner of a goat, who I named Freddie.

Although I considered it, I did not bring the goat home. I did not think it would fit under the seat in front of me or in the overhead compartment (Be careful when opening the overhead compartment. Things may have shifted during the flight, and there may be a goat eating your clothes). I don't think I could have sneaked him past Canada Customs (Anything to declare? No <baaa> nothing at all.) And seeing as though I live in the city and have no yard, housing the goat might have been a bit problematic. It was suggested that he become that night's dinner. Now, I've eaten goat before, but I draw the line at being able to make a direct link between the food on my plate and a particular animal that I have seen alive and have named. So the goat was donated to a local orphanage. He has likely already become dinner, but at least he was eaten by people who need it so much more than I do.

One of the other communities that we visited was one of the early beneficiaries of the project. Their waterpoint was constructed 3-4 years ago (a borehole fitted with a handpump). At the time, they planted a banana tree at the edge of the water runoff area to take advantage of the runoff.

That tree is now bearing fruit, and we were presented with a bunch of bananas that were cut from that tree, with much ceremony.

 While I was in Inhambane Province, Tropical Cyclone Favio came to visit. Although we were in the warning zone for this Category 4 cyclone, we had a bit of rain and wind, though nothing abnormal for rainy season. We were quite fortunate, as only a couple of hundred kilometres north the storm hit Vilanculos quite severely and caused a lot of damage.

After the first week that I spent primarily in the field, I was back in Maputo (the capital city) for the duration of my trip. I was able to spend some time with my friend Suzan, who had recently arrived in Mozambique for a 7-month internship. We had dinner a few times and spent a day walking around Maputo and shopping at the craft market and the municipal market. Besides the fact that it was stinking hot, we had a great day! Her apartment is very close to my hotel, and has a spectacular view. The only drawback is that she's on the 14th floor and the elevator is like something out of a horror movie. I generally don't have a fear of elevators, but that one was pretty scary!

I've been travelling to Mozambique for four years now, and every time I go there is something new to see in Maputo. This time, it's the mosaic being constructed on the wall along the Marginale, which is the street that runs along the ocean. The mosaic is 800m long and very impressive. It was designed by a local artist and 25 of his students, and is still under construction – here are a few sample photos (I took dozens, all along the length). The first is to give a sense of the length of it. This was taken from about the half-way point – it stretches about the same length in the other direction as well.

 Here are a few close-ups of various points along the wall:

I hope you enjoyed these photos. At some point, I plan to put together a Flickr gallery of my travel pictures. When I do, I will put a link on my sidebar.