To grandmother's house we go...

Last Thursday was a holiday so my school did not hold classes. I decided to take advantage of my 4 day weekend (I don't have classes on Fridays), and travel to visit some friends! I traveled about 2 hours south to visit my friend Mark at his school in Macia. In Macia he has a family there that he's close with and has meals with a couple times a week so he wanted me to meet them. The grandparents of this family live about an hour north of me in a town called Manjacaze and so the family invited Mark and I up to their grandparents house for the weekend, so we went!
On Friday morning we met the family on the main road and got on a mini-bus to go up to Xai-Xai. Apparently there is one open backed truck that leaves Xai-Xai once a day to go to the part of Manjacaze that we needed to go to so after finding the truck I went off with Mark's host mom, Graciette, to do some shopping! We bought lots of food and drinks to bring up to the house: a 25 kilo bag of rice, 10 kilos of potatoes, lots of soda, wine, bread, etc. Although we arrived in Xai-Xai at 9am, the truck wasn't leaving until noon so we had a while to hang out. Graciette also bought me a headband and a piece of cake as a present and held my hand the whole time we walked around the city. [Note: holding hands here in Mozambique is way more common in the US for everyone. Men hold hands all the time and it's not weird. If I'm walking somewhere with a colleague of mine, male or female, it's not uncommon to hold hands while walking.] Anyway, I knew right away that I was going to like this woman.
Graciette talked to the truck driver and arranged for a spot for me in the passenger's seat so I didnt have to ride in the back of the truck with everyone. I would have ridden in the back, but I never turn down a comfortable seat, especially when it prevents me from getting sunburned. Once we finally got going, a man handed me his baby to hold in the front seat while he rode in the back with his wife. The baby was so happy and so cute and I gladly would have taken care of it for the ride, but his wife squeezed into the front seat with me afterwards so she took the baby back.
We left Xai-Xai and after riding along the main road for a while turned off onto a dirt road. From there the road became smaller and smaller until it was basically a path and the truck just kept bushwacking its way through the jungle. We were really heading out into the middle of nowhere. We had to stop a couple of times because of trees or branches in the road and little kids either jumped out to clear the branches or the men in the truck got out with their machetes and cleared the way. Finally after about 2 hours of traveling we stopped in a clearing where there were a few houses and got out. We unpacked our things from the truck and got ready to head off to the grandmother's house. It was a lot of stuff and I thought to myself that we were each going to have to carry a lot, but of course Graciette pulls out her capulana, lays it on the ground, takes about 30 kilos worth of stuff and ties it up in a bundle to balance it on her head....no big deal...
The way the women here carry heavy loads on their head is unbelievable!
We walked about 20 minutes on a little path and finally reached the family's compound. The grandmother and grandfather greeted us and we promptly sat down for tea and lunch (rice and beans, yum!).
The property was amazing. They are really far out into the bush so they have no electricity and it's difficult to get into town to buy food and supplies, but it seems like they don't need it! The property had papaya trees, mango trees, cashew trees, coconut trees, lemon trees, sugar cane, pineapple plants, and so much more! And that's just the stuff that was on their property nearby! The grandmother took us to her machamba (crop fields) the next day and showed us all of her corn and sweet potato plants which are growing now. She also harvests peanuts and other foods at different times during the year. Anyway, it was amazing to me how self-sufficient this family was. The first day the family said that they would be killing a goat that weekend for all of us and brought us out to where they tie up the goats. There were two fully grown goats and the grandmother asked me to choose which one we should have for dinner, so I picked one (the meatier one I guess?) and she gave me it's rope to lead it back to the house.
We sat outside and hung out for the afternoon. I saw the goat killing (not as bad as the pig), and chatted with the family. I even got to help with dinner by peeling garlic cloves. Graciette then roasted some of the goat pieces on a stick over the fire and the grandmother cooked the rest of the goat in the kitchen hut. It was delicious!
The stars here in Mozambique are so cool and so bright, and since we were in an area far away from any electricity, the stars out there that night were SO beautiful and bright! I didn't go to bed until 11:30 and was very tired from all the traveling, but it was a great day. The next day we got to see the machamba and basically got our own nature tour of the area. We passed many many trees with fruit on it that Graciette picked for us and that we got to taste. We had massala and maracuja (passion fruit!) which was delicious, and then maybe 5 other fruits that don't even have names in English because they probably only exist in tropical areas. It was really cool to be so far away from civilization and to see how this family lived.
Mark and I left around noon, and the family was staying one more day, but one of the uncles and his family was heading out so they showed us where to go. We had to leave a different way from where we came in because we had to get to a busier road where we could hitchhike or find a chapa. We hiked for an hour and a half! Finally we arrived at a "main road", which was still a dirt road. Luckily, we only had to wait about 15 minutes until a pick-up truck passed and let us ride in the back. We rode on the truck for about 10 minutes until they decided that they wanted to buy some wood and kicked us out and sent us to get into a chapa that had come along.
The trip home was less eventful, but it was an awesome weekend and hopefully they'll have me back again sometime soon :)