Advertisement
Published: August 16th 2008
Edit Blog Post
View of Statue of Liberty
The view from Battery Park July 16
Okay, so I finally got access to some email. Whew! It took some finagling. The flights here sucked but no worse than expected. Actually, the leg to NYC was the worst. There was a guy in front of us snoring and it was just really uncomfortable as all get out. We got an hour or two worth of sleep each. When we landed in NY, I felt woozy but it wasn’t a rough flight at all. Turned out I had the flu. Neat. Shortly after we got our bags I all of a sudden needed to throw up. I was in the middle of a big old hall and just said a quick prayer so I wouldn’t have to spray everywhere. Lo! A bathroom appeared! I puked into it, thankful for the tender mercy of a porcelain receptacle. A couple hours of sitting around later, I had to puke again, so I went outside (no access to a bathroom at that point) and puked on the sidewalk. Super neat. It was early Sunday morning, most people probably just thought I drank too much the night before.
As we drove around that day, we were all exhausted. We saw
Ground zero
Now that is a serious hole. the World Trade Center (hole), church nearby where George Washington went to church, Empire State Building, Battery Park where you have a nice view of the Statue of Liberty, and a couple other things. I didn’t eat anything all day long, and by evening I was okay. I found a place to buy another photo card.
We were on the plane about 20 hours straight on the leg from New York to Johannesburg. The worst part was 1:45 on the ground in NYC. Hot, no a/c, etc. There were several stinky Africans on the plane near us. Eww. Tucker slept a very, very long time on the plane. After he’d been sleeping, the flight attendant said, “He sleeps a lot! That’s why he’s so big.” Several more hours later she was bringing meals through and said solemnly, “He must wake up! It is enough!” It was hilarious. When we landed in Johannesburg , everyone clapped. I’m not sure if it was endearing African tradition, or an indication that air travel in Africa is more dangerous than I had assumed.
The immigration line in South Africa was unfreakingbelievable, but eventually we made it through and got to our place to stay,
Serious view
Panorama shot from top of Empire State Bldg which was pretty reasonable. It was a bed and breakfast run by a guy who was born in Greece, then worked in Tanzania and Mozambique, then went back to Greece when they nationalized everything in Tanzania, then moved back to Africa because he missed the big open spaces and relaxed people. He was really interesting to talk to.
We arrived here in Beira on Tuesday morning. Upon exiting the airport we were immediately mobbed by tip-seeking youngsters who’d grab your bags and try to help you put them in the truck. When there are 15 kids trying to load your bags and each wanting a reward, things can get a bit hairy. Thankfully, my weeks of Portuguese study taught me how to say, “No thank you.” And my previous third-world skills gave me the experience to use the callous wave-off and escape trouble. But the 18-year old girls we were with were all ensnared in wretchedness.
As we came into Beira, there were burning fields everywhere. That’s how they clear the land here. The river is braided and muddy and slow-running. An arc of pink birds (I think flamingos, but we were too high for me to say for sure)
Sleeeeepy
You know you've slept a long time when the flight attendant is marveling at you. flew along under us, quite cool. The city was not as big as I expected. Downtown is pretty small, though I think that was mostly just the view out my window.
I wandered around outside the house during our free time, and one of the employees here took a shine to my pathetic Portuguese attempts and took me for a ride. We dropped off some fruit to his grandma and cousins, and I took a photo of them. We went out to a ranch that’s somehow affiliated with Care for Life and picked up some guys. Everywhere you go are people mashing corn, selling bananas and oranges and charcoal, sitting around, chasing kids, and whatnot. There are tons of people along the streets. It always smells like smoke from the cooking fires. There are tons of unsupervised kids everywhere. Pretty amazing poverty. I saw a family drawing water or washing in a big puddle that was maybe 10 feet across and a foot deep. I asked the guy I was with if they have water in their houses. He said about half the people here do.
We went to the baby orphanage last night. Apparently we’ll be doing that every weeknight. We’re not supposed to take photos till the last night, but I snuck a couple. Three of us were in a room with 10 babies aged 18-30 months. Once they figured out that you would pick them up and play with them, then they didn’t want to be put down. When you did, they’d usually holler. So it got pretty noisy in there. The conditions weren’t terrible, I guess but they were bad enough. The kids seemed like they had enough food, but not enough medical care or attention. We stayed about an hour. They just wanted to be held, and that’s all I could offer anyway.
This afternoon we’re going to an orphanage with older kids. I’m taking my photo printer and I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully it’ll be fun.
As for Tucker, I don’t think that he’s thought about any of us since we got here. I think he’s having a really good time. At the orphanage last night he was in the room with the older kids, and it sounds like they had a good time roughhousing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0698s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb