To get a care package...

One Monday morning. Emily was soon leaving for world cup so I was trying to spend as much time with her as possible before she left. She’d been waiting a pretty long time for a care package and she wanted to get her package before she left moz. So, I decided to accompany her.


We got to the post office around 7:30 a.m. The box arrived. But we had to wait for some guys from customs to come to open the box and make sure there’s not anything like cocaine inside. As soon as we got there the post office ladies called them and they said they would be there “soon.”

So, Em and I sat our happy, patient selves in the park next to the post office. We were pretty hungry. One of the great things about Mozambique/Africa is that there’s no fast food restaurants like in the states but fast food comes directly to you. We were chillin on a bench and saw this kid from across the street that had a bucket that looked full of bread and bujias. Bujias are fried bean patties and they are delicious. So we whistled at the kid and he looked around like whose calling me? We whistled again and he looked at us like “what, these 2 mulungus want my street food?” heck yes we do. So he ran over and we got some of that. Ten minutes later this girl came up to us selling samussas. Samussas are like empanadas which are like fried triangles filled with meat or veggies. Her samussas were special because they were filled with fish. So we got some of those too. Some time later this lady came by with a bucket full of oranges that she was selling. Got some of those. By this time it’s about 11. Still no customs guys. Some kids later walked by with cookies. Yup, got some of those too. We then went out for lunch after asking the post office ladies to call the customs guys to come.

Mozambique has a mobile market. It’s just a matter of time before what you need/want walks past you. And time doesn’t really matter here so why not just wait for it, like waiting for the customs people to show up. We saw people selling all sorts of stuff walk by. Selling stuff like: pillows, jewelry, cell phone chargers, cell phones, plastic bags, kapulanas, dvds, music…you name it it probably came by. Even 2 other pcvs from a different district walked by!

Emily eventually got her box. After 8 hours of waiting. Patience is a virtue!