The Drive - Beira to Sena

I am trying to post as much as I can here in Sena to get up to date. I am still about a day and a half off between real life time and these posts...

We have been in the village of Sena for 2 days now. It is 9:26 in the morning as I type this, and already about 80 degrees and very humid. Last night was my first full night of sleep, which I am very thankful for. Prior to this I had woken up both at 3 and 5am, and not been able to fall back asleep. Stupid jet lag.

Anyway, after staying the night in Hotel Mozambique, we embarked on the 8 hour drive to Sena (regarding distance, it should only be about 5 or so hours, but the roads are so bad that it takes 8 including two stops for gas and food). *Little did I know, but the reason my upper back has been in so much pain these last few days was because of being cramped in the back of a pickup truck with my shoulders hunched over driving through potholes for 8 hours*

The drive through the countryside (if you could call it that) was absolutely beautiful. Green plains littered with thatch roofed huts for miles.

My favorite part was the shopping we did along the way. This was the coolest thing ever: Ryan was driving with Laura van Vuuren in the front seat, and Perpetua and Grace (two unbelievable African women from the Kuwangisana program) and I were sitting in the back. Anyway, every once in awhile Grace and Perpetua would announce that "The coconuts are coming up"or, "the prawn kids are up here," or "Here come the cashew nuts," etc... So we would stop alongside the road and these kids would come sprinting up to the car and start shoving their wares in our faces. Every stop was different. We bought coconuts, cashews, assorted fruits, prawns, tomatoes, potatoes, charcoal etc all by stopping on the side of the road whenever we saw these street vendors.

Essentially, what they do is set up their produce along the road, and go wait underneath the shade of a tree (or some just stand there waving their arms about with their produce in hand). But then we would stop and they would go crazy - cause "Mizungo" although it directly translates to "white skinned", might as well just translate into "Money". Everywhere we would go, village people would look at us in hopes of receiving money.

You might as well have a nice big target on your forehead that reads "$$." Most of these photos are the vendors we encountered along the way - who were more than happy to pose with their products. Everyone loves a white kid with a camera here.