Mozambique

Hey all,
I realize it has been a bit since my last entry, and I'll try to keep this quick, since I am spending a fortune for this internet by my increasingly frugal standards.

I arrived in Mozambique last Friday after a wonderful sejour in Mozambique and spent a fascinating weekend exploring the surprisingly modern, with a south-american flavor capital of Maputo. The place is an odd mixture of Stalinist-era buildings, fresh modern Afro-Portuguese villas and as always the imposing American embassy complete with 20 foot razor-wired wall and signs warning of doing anything around the place except walk away. Repping America, the best we can. Even the streets are odes to some of the weirdest collection of despots and communist leaders of all time: Karl Marx Ave, Ho Chi Minh St, Robert Mugabe Park or Friedrich Engels Boulevard. But you would sometimes hardly know you are in Africa with all the ex-pats wondering out of chic cafes and watching soccer over a draft beer, looking out into the pictueresque Mozambican channel. It is a stunning, confusing and well-groomed ode to different thoughts and times.

My hostel was of particular interest. It was a collection of dirty hippies from around the globe (Literally 8 dudes with waist long dreadlocks) in a funky party atmosphere. There was also this one very peculiar Chinese fellow in a trucker hat, dress pants and a shirt that read "I want more Sesame Avenue" (He didn't change for three days). He took control over the only TV (with satellite reception) and refused to switch it from his beloved Kung-Fu channel, or Learn-Chinese soap operas. Whenever someone asked if they could watch the news or sports, or they even got up and changed it. he would produce a remote and switch it back ignoring all protests.

Everyone here in Mozambique is extremely pleasant and I have headed north to look at some power plants, interview a couple of mercenary fellows and meet up with a geologist and a friend for a true tour into the bush.

Expect more soon,
Steven