Week 29: From Gabs to Jo-Burg to Maputo to Tofo (and back)

We have arrived! And it is amazing! Tofo is a small beach town on the coast of Mozambique and it is complete with fresh coconuts, pineapples, cashews, and other such tropical delights. This is a world away from Botswana with its mostly desert like climate and land locked borders. However Mozambique also highlights the strides that Botswana has made in development.

Botswana has a population of just over 2million, which greatly effects what the government can do for its people. As a result shantytowns are not seen around Botswana and in most instances people are quite spread out. Driving from Gaborone to Johannesburg (the first leg of the trip) is a short 5-6 hour ride that involves beautiful countryside and the potential to see members of the big five. On our trip we saw zebras and elephants! Then entering the outskirts of Jo-burg there is immediately a different feel, according to our taxi driver there are about 5 million people in the city its self with the population of Soweto (South West townships) almost doubling the population. Although I have not been able to verify these numbers, what is important is that in this urban center there are more people then all of Botswana in fact at least three times as many people. We only had a brief layover in Jo-burg but it was time enough to eat dinner and for me to feel at home in a city. My favorite fact to share with people in my village is that I am from a city that has more people then their entire country (hoping this may help explain some of my seemingly odd behaviors, like wanting some personal space).

Highlights of Mozambique include practicing at an incredibly beautiful yoga studio, eating fresh avocadoes (all day every day), and meeting some incredible people who illustrated that there are many different ways to live your life. My favorite being this amazing South African woman I met before a yoga class who has had an extensive career working for the UN and other International aid organizations but is now focusing on her writing and moved to Tofo to do this. One day we went on a snorkeling trip with the hopes of seeing whale sharks, which are common in the area, unfortunately we did not see any but all was not lost since I had a lengthy conversation about HIV in South Africa with the South African man sitting next to me on the boat. You can take the Peace Corps Volunteer out of the village, but no matter where they are, they are still a Peace Corps Volunteer.