Corps desires

I wouldn't describe most of my days in Mozambique as leisurely, but I did get to stroll along the shore of the Indian Ocean this morning. Yesterday I came into Maputo for a Habitat lunch at the fish market and have stayed for the weekend to get a feel for ex-pat life here.

Juliet, a former Peace Corps volunteer who lived with the family with which I now live, is putting me up. This equates luxurious living: a hot shower, Internet access and Nutella. This also means a chance to meet more former Peace Core volunteers who can't seem to return to the U.S. Their stories are better than any pirated DVD we could buy on the streets.

Africa has surprised me in many ways, not the least of which is the ex-pat community, come to save the world, or at least their little corner of it. Relief and development organizations and agencies abound, and batches of globally minded, college graduates rotate through. Landing here feels like checking into a backpackers' hostel - a common ground to swap stories and be inspired, educated and warned about the beauties and hazards of such a life.

Divisions exist within this community of acronyms and good intentions. Highbrow office jobs and rural overcrowded school rooms lead to differing perceptions of the people of Mozambique. Considering the vast majority of the country is rural, the fast-paced Latino-African feel in Maputo is not necessarily an accurate representation of the country as a whole.

City life brings a mixture of relief and tension, a reprieve from latrines and copious amounts of reddish dust, but an eye-squeezed-shut-tight fear riding shot-gun in a chapa. I think I will be good and ready to return to Massaca tomorrow. Until then, I am off to a good-bye party for a Peace Corps volunteer who actually is going home. And I am looking forward to hearing a few more tales.

Trendy

It's all the rage. When I started telling people of my good fortune to go to Mozambique a friend replied, "I can't believe how popular Africa is right now." Another friend said she thought Africa was just taking its rightful place on our radar.

Perhaps I am here partly because Africa has become trendy. But without the trend of my twenty-something, thirty-something-year-old friends shipping off to this mysterious land I doubt I would have thought of going myself.

We tend to notice life when it touches us directly. I'd seen others' power point slides from Liberia and Ghana and read stories about people in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Rwanda, people I'd not met. I wanted to do away with the degrees of separation.

For better or worse I seem to do my best learning when I can see it for myself: the undeveloped coastline, the gender gap, the ready supply of fresh grapefruit, the thinness of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS. Surely if I see it with my own eyes I will have a better understanding. What I am gaining is a better grasp of how little I know.