Day 2 (12 November 2010)
Wow, today really brought out all the emotions out of the whole team. Things started off amazingly, we woke up at 6 o’clock in our partly freezing air conditioned room and started packing up. Once we were all kitted out in Books uniform we started with the faculty tour of the university of Eduardo Mondlane (I.e the university of maputo) ,their campus was a true experience when compared to our university back home. The facilities where not the greatest with a lack of microscopes, computers, books and Internet being the main problems students mentioned to us but the system which these students work at was incredible with every resource being used to its optimum.
After a short tour from a now close friend Osvaldo, we did our official hand over of the books to the university. Our speeches where of course lead by our very own Luca Mendes with his amazing language barrier breaking skills, after the hand over we separated into groups and did divided tours. I personally was assigned to poultry which I must admit was extremely interesting, which is saying allot coming from me since I find chickens to be almost completely useless unless its on a braai! Lastly before leaving we had an amazing lunch with the students who were some of the most friendly, kind and generous people I have ever met.
After leaving the university things started to slightly slide away from the amazing example the university had set towards something a little more depressing. Its started with one fine and ended with us getting three fines in less than 4 hours with the last taking substantial time due to a completely unreasonable police officer. Come on, who doesn’t except a bribe! Anyway after hours outside the garage at Xia-Xia (so nice you gotta say it twice) we were finally ready to leave for Vista Bonnita a mere 4 hours drive in the darkness of one starless night.
Finally we arrived at 11:30 pm where the people at Casa Bonnita where completely accommodating and provided us with the most spectacular sea food buffet known to man with a couple of beers to finish off an extremely lengthy day. All in all we have discovered that things in Africa take long, always expect the unexpected and eventually everything turns out amazing.
With day two done and dusted I think we all went to sleep extremely excited to see what unforeseeable events tomorrow might have.
Adam
