still thinking about twothousandandnine

January.12.2010 at 3:17 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: 2009, domien, him, luca, me, us

there is no way i can keep writing in this blog, without really analyzing the last year of my life.

two thousand and nine started out strangely in a very warm country and you’ve been following every part of that year until my trip to Cape Town, which i will one day finish telling you about it i hope. a trip that in a way changed so much, for the better. one thing i never told you was how much i needed that trip. i would’ve gone anywhere at that point. i was fed up.

fed up with being here, not Maputo, i mean with being in the same place for so long. i have been all my life fortunate enough to as a child, student and as an architect always able to take time off from my usual life, go on holidays of at least one month or more than once a year… it has nothing to do with money, it just means that i have always felt that this was important for me. and by the time we drove to CT, aldo and i had been here in Maputo, without a holiday, just some sporadic long weekends around Maputo, for 1 year and 11 months… too long, too much.

CT was perfect to get away, the trip made us feel like explorers in Africa, but the city of Cape Town made us feel, and i think i speak for the fours of us, like we had suddenly gone home, or at least to europe where we sometimes hope to be. so, eventhough i haven’t told you about the last four days of that famous trip, i will i promise, that was the moment when i was so relaxed that things magically happened. i was full of energy and prepared to handle another hot summer in africa. i was ready.

that was the month of september.

the month of october started out with Aldo’s birthday which is probably the best way to start such a great month. Karen was still here in Maputo with us and we made sure we had all our friends, yes surprisingly we have a lot, for a great outdoor dinner at the best meat place in the city. but that dinner was only even better than what if could’ve been because we had two special people with us, Luca and Domien. i told you in one of my detail posts how happy i was to see Luca after so long and how happy it was to see Domien, my sweet Domien pop out of the car surprising me enough to make me scream/cry/laugh in one single moment! they made my day, my month in every way possible because i have always told them how i miss them in my life. they stayed for a few weeks making everything so much nicer and so much homier. we had lots of fun. the best part was noticing how Aldo was also so happy and how much friends really matter to us. specially friends like them.

after that wonderful time, of course we had to say goodbye, to them, and to Karen who had been with us in our place for 4 months now. it was strange. it hurt seeing them go… again in a way… this time it was them with the luggage. but it had to be done. the boys did leave with the first hint of wonderful news to come though ;)

aldo and i were able to enjoy a couple of days with total and utterly silence around us, almost uncomfortable in a way, kidding, and for a moment this were back to normal… until 3 days later… at the end of october aldo’s parents arrived. arrived with one bag full of italian delicacies, waiting for me to get my hands on them! i asked for PANDORO even if it was still two months until xmas, and they fulfilled my wish! i ate PANDORO in a couple of weeks and it felt like xmas in the north hemisphere.

it was delightful to have them here, to show them around, to enjoy Maputo with them. because we had to work they walked all over this town and even commented on how beautiful and so modern it was, indeed we didn’t live in huts ;), but they were to used to another africa, aldo’s sister has lived in Uganda, Congo and Senegal, so i’m sure Maputo is a loaf of fresh air from the real africa up north.

they even had the opportunity to hear our double good news live. they were here when we found out and they were to calm me down when i heard i wasn’t just one bean i had in me, but two! they were ecstatic and helped me get through it the best way possible… and these are people who already have 4 grandchildren i might add!!! so imagine my parents!

of course the ones who panicked were really me and him. i cried wondering how i was ever going to tell them apart… the twins i mean and aldo reacted so well the first and second day that on the third he came down with a fever of 39º and stayed in bed for a week. there are things that you just can’t predict!

that was the beginning of my second month of pregnancy… i was 7 weeks pregnant and enjoying a mixture of “oh my gosh!” and “jeeez” and eating perfectly well… until that 8th week kicked in. it all started to go a bit odd. things had different and weird smells, and the worse was looking at my coffee and realizing that there was no way i could drink that. it tasted aarrrggh and it smelled worse. all of a sudden i was exhausted just from going up the stairs and i would start falling asleep anytime i sat down.  i worked that second month but it became evident that i couldn’t do it for much longer. i need one hour to recuperate from the nauseousness in the morning and another after lunch and another after anything i ate. so… as soon as i entered my third month, being the mythical month of nauseous, i, together with my bosses/colleagues became aware that it would not be a good thing to drive every morning to work like this. so i spent 3 weeks working from home, enjoying the not driving part, eating healthily or trying, having my angel Edite to help around the house and i was able to work on my own rhythm and tranquility.

by the time my third month was ending, my office closed for xmas holidays and i entered my fourth month apprehensively, knowing that this could be the month when all bad morning sickness, which actually could be called “any time of the day sickness”, miraculously went away. let it be known that i am not lying when i say this, i spent my holidays in complete sickness-free mode.

we spent 4 days in Bilene with the hottest days ever, we did nothing except sleep, eat, get tans and we did one day go to the village of Maciene where they do handcrafts i have decided make great xmas/birthday presents. so look out. we drove back to Maputo in time for a lovely xmas dinner and drove away again for another 4 days in Port Edward ZA where my last post was from.

all of this with no sickness what so ever, just very sleepy but so serene.

until my first day of work, yesterday… i woke up feeling very well, ate breakfast, drove to work… and BAM! sickness all over again. ok, so it was less than a month ago, but still i wanted to spend my day in the bathroom. i held tight and focussed on work. but it was there… making my queasy and furious. and so i wonder… is it really the twins who are making me ill… or just the first day of work?

we’ll see…

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