I hear you like water? Cause I put lots of rain in your Mozambique

Tonight's blog post, the first broadcast from Alto Molocue, is brought to you by:

Vodacom's Mobile Broadband USB Modem

Without it's support, I would still be internet-less at site

So Alto Molocue seems to never have Sprite

And it doesn't always have stable non-device-frying electricity

And it definitely doesn't have a public pool

But you know what it does have? Rain, and lots of it.

In the 16 days I've actually been in Alto Molocue out of 34 since becoming a volunteer (there's been alot of travelling), it has rained, correction, poured on 15 of them. Now this isn't me complaining, because, as with all things, there is the good, the bad and the ugly.

Out at a community farm with my site mate Dylan

Since I'm a glass half full type of person, we'll start with the good. This, obviously, is that there's a superfluous amount of water. When I visited James in Mabalane, Gaza for site visits, I remember being struck by how parched the land was. The beige and brown landscape was only broken by the occasional scrubby bush or grass and mud hut. But Zambezia, thanks to it's  superfluous amount of water (SAOW for short, it's Portuguese), is very different. Here the vista is a mix of dark green trees, light green fields, rich dark brown soil, shinny silver zinc roofs, grey cement block houses, and light brown brick walls. In the distance, mountain can be seen not in the long, connected ranges as I am used to, but as seemingly random peaks which jut out of the ground like they had been scattered as seeds. Winding in the resulting valleys are large, fast moving rivers, brown with all the nutritious silt they carry. I have never seen any of the many water pumps in town, which are always surrounded by people for what they provide in both water and social connectivity, seem to run dry or dirty. In my first week at site, I installed a gutter on my back porch's roof. Having it has given me the satisfyingly lazy experience of collecting almost all the water I need from my roof. Papaya, mango, banana, avocado, lemon, and coconut trees dot the landscape and are so numerous that all you have to do is walk around for 5 minutes and you'll be coming home with an armful of whatever's in season. And, much like the homes in Summit, I have a beautifully lush and green lawn. All this is thanks to the plentiful, dependable, and periodic rain that Zambezia has been blessed with.

My empregado Tojo and my awesome gutter

Of course, with all this water descending upon us, there are some downsides. Walking through the lower section of the market can become a challenging game of mud avoidance, much to everyone's delight when I fail. Equally challenging is trying to hear anything but the rain falling on your tin roof during a storm, which sounds similar to a room full of bubble wrap being used as a bouncy castle at a very popular 8 year old's birthday party if it is just drizzling, and living under Niagara Falls when it pours. Of course, water does drip, drizzle, mist, and seep into the house no matter how much time, energy, and money you spend on water proofing. But, similar to the countless hours I spent building water direction, retention, and prevention systems on the beaches of Belgium, the futility of the act in no way prevents you from trying. Just today I climbed up on my roof to cement closed some holes that were particularly annoying, we'll see just how long it holds. Beyond all these more trivial problems, there are also the increased rates of malaria, schisto, and other water born illnesses that we can thank the SAOW for as well.

Hope that no Mongolians get through the gap in the wall

Finally, the ugly, which presented itself yesterday as a loud crashing sound, loud enough to be heard over the world largest and most disorganized drum circle which had installed itself on my roof. Not knowing where it came from, and thinking that it had been a clap of thunder (trovoada in portugese)  from a recent bolt of lightning (relampago), I did not notice the source until after the storm had passed. The wall separating my garden from the yard of the palacio (governor of the province's house) had been pushed over by the massive amounts of water which had built up behind it. This water had then joined the stream coursing through my yard, and though I'm not sure, under my house. If I wake up one morning and I seem to be living at a slightly lower elevation than I do now, let it be known by all 8 people whoever read this blog that I called it.

So until the dry season comes, global warming floods this area, or a giant funnel is built above alto molkwe to collect all the rain and channel it into the worlds largest water tank, my love/dislike/awe relationship with the SAOW Zambezia will continue.

I'm singing in the rain

Just singing in the rain

What a glorious feeling

I'm happy again