Miss Vicious with a rash gets two shots in the a**
The ride back to Maputo wasn’t too bad; it was impressively fast, in fact. As we got into Maputo, I asked some of the local passengers the best way to get to the center of town (where the hostel is). As one lady directed me out of the chapa, another one told me to stay on just a little bit further, so I stuck with her. We pulled into the same chapa yard where I protested people giving up their seats just a week and a half earlier (had so much time already passed?) As I got off the chapa, someone carried my bag away and put it in the trunk of a nice car. “Get in. Get in.” I got in. “This is my father. We’ll drive you to your hotel.” The woman was a doctor in the region where I had just come from, and her father did indeed drive me right to the hotel – such a nice gesture. They gave me their phone numbers in case I needed anything while in Maputo, and we said our goodbyes.
The next two days I spent running some errands around the city (including dropping off my passport for the Tanzanian visa, a process which normally takes 24 hours but due to a holiday – Saba Saba Day – and a weekend, took 4 days). On Friday night, I went to hear some live Afro-Jazz music live at a local venue. On Saturday, one of the guys from the hostel (Oscar) had a friend (Connor) visiting Maputo just for the day. The three of us headed out to the city fishmarket, where you select your fish (or other seafood) from the market, and then bring it to one of the restaurants, where they cook it for you.
We first walked around, just looking at all the fish, squid, and all sorts of other stuff they had. Someone brought out a crab (still alive), so I went over to have a look. He was a big crab, all covered in sand. His leg caught my shirt, and at first I thought he was going for it with his claws. And then, well, I can’t exactly explain my next series of thoughts or actions. Perhaps curiosity; maybe I thought it a challange, but I went and stuck my finger right in his claw. He didn’t react to it immediately, though he slowly started to close his claw – very slowly, deliberately, with a constant increase in pressure. I kept my finger there…not bad…getting a little stronger…that’s impressive for a little guy…AAAHHH! They guys turned around to look what I had gotten myself into; the guy holding the crab told me to stand still; I jerked my finger right out of that damn thing’s claw, which drew a bit of blood and cracked my nail.
I don’t think it needs to be said that I never lived that one down for the day, or perhaps still yet.
For eats, I boycotted crab and opted for the Barracuda; I had tried a piece of someone else’s and thought it was pretty good. We also bought some prawns for the three of us to share. As we sat down at our table, Oscar made sure we all agreed: “OK. We all know we’re going to get ripped off here, right?” We were all on the same page, ordered a bottle of wine, and enjoyed our meal.
We headed back to town and out for the night. After watching a World Cup match at a cute little bar, we headed out to hear some music. There’s a few good places in Maputo to check out live music; at this place, one guy came out and sang the Blues…I closed my eyes and thought there was nothing to tell me I couldn’t be sitting somewhere in Chicago. It was great. We stayed until the karaoke came on, and headed out to a local club. It was a good time – the boys learned the finer art of African dancing while I played the role of a Jewish lesbian for the night to defer marriage proposals.
The next day was a day of rest before watching the World Cup Final game – Viva Italia! Next day – more errands (transferring the passport from the Tanzania counsulate to the Mozambican immigration office to get my stay extended. This is a new logistical issue with traveling in Africa – visas. Sometimes you can get visas at the border, but a lot of times you need to get them in advance or get your time extended…I pretty much didn’t have to deal with this is Central and/or South America.) That night I took Jan out to celebrate his 4 year(!) travel birthday, and enjoyed a few beers while he fended off prostitutes sitting at the table behind me.
The next day I woke up and my eye was swollen. I had noticed a bit of a rash on my face the day or two before, but hadn’t thought much about it until then. It seemed to be spreading a little now to my eye, enough to swell it up a bit. On top of that, Raul (the Portuguese Muslim scholar) and I got kicked out of the hostel for a few days due to overbooking. To cheapen the costs, we moved to the hotel across the street and shared a room. As the day went on, the swelling in my eye went down, so it became less of an issue. We went to hear some more live music that night, but despite no swelling, life was getting more miserable on my side of the table as my eyes really started to itch.
The next morning, Raul brought me breakfast to the room from the buffet downstairs. “You don’t know what I had to do for this…I looked at the guy like this” (he scowled a bit) “and said ‘My wife is sick!'”. Very nice. Thanks, Raul. I have to go to the clinic – my eye is huge. Raul had spent a lot of time in Maputo, so he told me where to go, and I headed over.
“Yes, I have this irritation on my face and my eye is very big” I said in Portuguese. I paid the clinic fee (something like $20), and was soon called in. They sat me in a small room, and took my blood pressure, temperature (under the arm), and weight, then moved me in to see the doctor. “Did you eat anything strange?” Some barracuda and prawns (shrimp), but I always eat prawns. “Maybe you ate a bad one. We’ll give you an injection.” She was giving me pretty much very strong Benadryl, or whatever the active ingredient of that is. I was moved to the room I had just come from, but behind a curtain onto a bed. The woman prepared the shot and came behind the curtain. “Ready?” Ready. I looked at her, and she looked at me. Uh, where? I asked…she patted her butt. Really?! Yup. I laid on my stomach and took it, right in the left ass cheek.
I went straight back to the hotel. Raul was there. “I got a shot in the ass” I told him and laid down; I slept the rest of the day. At 6pm, Raul came back to the room and I woke up. “Your eye is worse” he told me. He called the doctor for me, who said I should go back to the clinic, so Raul went with me this time. I saw a new doctor who prescribed for me another shot, something different – Prednisone. I followed routine and laid down on the bed. It was a guy this time; as he went for the left cheek, he saw the band-aid, still there from this morning. “Yeah, I already got one today.” he went for the right one, and jabbed it in. Oooh, mannn.
“I got another shot in the ass” I told Raul as we left. He asked if I wanted to get some dinner. “Uh, no. I’m just gonna go back to bed.” I sat and watched the one Portuguese channel on TV, and Raul brought me a chicken shawarma and a beer. I do want to send a big shout-out to Raul for those few days we lived together in that room: Thanks for the beer, the Amarula (an African fruit/cream liquour), the music, and jokes about “every time I left the house today, I got a shot in the ass” and “Miss Vicious with a rash.” It made life a bit better.
Tags: Mozambique, Mozambique, Tag Index
Tania
August 2nd, 2006 at 5:48 am
Just to tell you “Love you” and “Miss You”, Miss Vicious without a Rash now!
Hope to see you up north.
Amarulla Kiss.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Hola amigaaa
Me encantan tus realatos sobre Africa , espero ver muchos mas publicados asî cuando viaje voy a los mismlos lugares.
Regresa por la Argentina queremos verte. Muchos Besos