After a two hour flight from Maputo we touched down at the airport for Manica Province around 9:00am. Now when you think of an airport, you probably think of hundreds of planes, massive terminals and hordes of people busy to get to their destination. The airport we landed at, however, was essentially a landing strip seemingly in the middle of nowhere averaging about a flight a day, with a small building with some chairs in it for people to sit and wait for their flight. I was holding out hope that there might be a pizza vending machine in that small building like there had been in the South Africa airport, but much to my dismay, shockkkkingly it was to no avail.
My counterpart and I were greeted at the airport by a Peace Corps staff member who proceeded to drive us to the city of Chimoio. As we made our way into town, I found it hard to hold back a grin as I realized I was finally in the place that would be my home for the next two years. The 3 months of training had been necessary as a transition phase and we certainly learned a lot of useful information, but I must say I was glad it was finally over. Now I was an official Peace Corps Volunteer. I had arrived in Chimoio. This would be my town, my work, my community, my life for the next two years.
Before heading to the home I’d be staying in, the 1st priority was buying a mattress so I had something to sleep on that night and buying a hotplate so I could cook food. The Peace Corps staff member was clearly pretty anxious as he had to bring other Volunteers from my group to their sites today as well. We rushed into a small store that sold mattresses and unfortunately, though unsurprisingly the mattress selection was pretty poor. I asked if there were any other stores, but the staff member seemed annoyed. I guess there really is no sense in being choosy actually, and I ended up purchasing the only one that was in my pricerange. It’s essentially just a big piece of foam... oh and my favorite part is that it looks like it belongs in a little girl’s princess room since it is neon colored and has little flowers all over it. Ah well, guess I can handle having a cheap, emasculating mattress if it means I can afford to buy food and a hotplate to cook it on!
We walked down the street and found a place where they sold hotplates and I again bought the cheapest one I could find. Afterwards, we stopped at a market and I bought some basic food items: rice, beans, bread, eggs, peanut butter, salt, etc. and then we drove back outside of town to get to the home I’d be living in. Chimoio is a much larger site than what I anticipated. When I joined the Peace Corps, I expected to be in a very small village out in “the bush” with little chance of access to electricity or running water. While the city center itself may only be a few blocks with one main paved street, the neighborhoods surrounding it go for miles… or kilometers(guess I should get used to saying that). There are over 100 thousand people that live in Chimoio and the general areas surrounding it, so it by no means is the small village I envisioned. You could consider it, however, to be a series of small villages surrounding a small city center. In addition, many people have access to electricity and running water, although the electricity is notoriously erratic. It is indeed a prime example of a developing city in a developing nation. 
As we passed a row of trees on the main street, I noticed all of the trees had white paint on their trunks so I asked my Counterpart why that was. She looked at me like it was an absurd question and responded in Portuguese “To make them look pretty. Isn’t that obvious?” Oh of courseeeee, my bad.I should’ve known that all trees should be painted to make them pretty. How silly of me.
As we arrived at my home, again I was surprised at how modern it looked. It’s a relatively nice cement structure and I live on the same plot of land as and rent from a lady who was a former member of the Mozambican Parliament so she made sure to have it repainted and done-up recently. I quickly discovered that the house was not originally intended to be a house, considering none of the 3 rooms attached to one another and the electrical outlets were only recently installed. Before I moved in, it had been used as storage for the woman’s family. The electrician also did a questionable job installing the outlets considering the wall outlets don’t work unless the light bulb lighting the room is off. So essentially at night, you can’t use the outlet unless you want to sit in the dark. I think needless to say, it’s a work in progress but I look forward to the opportunity of fixing it up.
I put down the suitcase I’d brought from the States and the trunk of resource books that Peace Corps gave to us and started unpacking. I essentially ghetto-rigged my mosquito net to a beam on my sheet metal ceiling to keep the mosquitoes out and put the mattress underneath. By this time, I was feeling pretty hungry so I pulled the hotplate out of the box ready to cook up some dinner and realized it had a South African outlet plug on it... fail. Looks like it’s a bread and peanut butter kinda night. After my peanut butter sandwich dinner, I worked on arranging my new home some more before getting ready for bed . As I turned off the lights(so I could plug in my phone to the wall to charge it of course) I got under my mosquito net onto my lovely neon flowery mattress and stared at the ceiling for a while before falling asleep. It was quite a remarkable feeling as I closed my eyes to fall asleep, recognizing this is Africa and for a considerable amount of time, this is home...
The paint on the trunks keeps ants, and other crawling insects, from moving up the trunk and eating the fruit. Not sure why your counterpart didn't know that, or maybe the comment about pretty trees was sarcastic.
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