Life Goals

Its funny how different people’s goals are here in rural Mozambique. Our fellow teachers have begun commenting on how lucky we are to have seen so much of Mozambique and the neighboring countries. At the same time, none of them have made any effort to explore their own region of the world. None of them have passports and only a few have ventured into Malawi beyond our immediate border town, all but the most ambitious never even having been to Blantyre, only two hours away, and none of them have seen the marvelous Lake Malawi, and definitely not the ocean or any of those beaches that grace Mozambique’s Indian Ocean shore. None of them have ever seen elephants or lions or any of the animals Africa is so famous for. Most of them have never been to the capital city, although that is more understandable since it would be about 40 hours of hard mini-bus travel. People here just aren’t that interested in what lies beyond the provincial borders. Occasionally people will make trips to neighboring provinces, but only to visit family. The other teachers always complain about how expensive it is to travel here in Mozambique, and it must be hard justifying scarce resources on something as seemingly inconsequential as traveling, but they always find a way to buy beer or new cell phones. The truth is, we make the same amount of money as our colleagues, and we have been able to stretch those meticals on some pretty amazing trips, but teachers here would just rather buy a TV or motorcycle or blow it all on a bender. We can’t say one way of spending money is better than the other, but we have really enjoyed getting to travel across this part of the continent, despite the physical discomforts, and really getting to know what it has to offer. Our neighbors seem content to invest their earnings in traditional beer and spending the afternoon gyrating drunkenly as close as possible to the giant speakers announcing the availability of alcohol.