Corona Chronicles: Attempt to re-create Mozambican holiday doesn’t go to plan
If it weren't for lockdown, community member Tracy Schloesser would be in Mozambique. In today's edition of her witty series, the Corona Chronicles, she shares her attempts to remedy her heartache that she isn't sipping gin on the beach.
– Opinion –
I woke up this morning with a tinge of sadness as we were due to leave early today for a two-week holiday at Club 15 in Inhasorro in Mozambique.
Fourteen days of drinking gin, swimming in warm seas, drinking gin, getting a tan, drinking gin and reading seventy ‘eleventy’ million books. (Did I mention drinking gin?) But some obnoxious virus sadly put a screeching stop to those plans. Which means there is nothing left to do, but find my ‘big girl broekies’ and pretend for today that I actually am in Moz. So I plan to ‘Bom dia’ and ‘Obrigado’ the total heck out of today – all while quaffing a delicious gin of course. The second part of my plan was to lie on my lounger in the sun with a heart stopping thriller of a book in one hand and perchance a gin in the other. But it appears that Mr Sun is not playing fair today and has no intention of sharing his golden rays so I might have to skip the bikini for winter woolies!
What I won’t be able to replicate are the beautiful women fruit sellers that arrive en masse at your back door in the morning before the first sparrow has even pooped. There are always so many of them that you feel you need to spread the love and end up buying one papwpaw from one person, one banana from the second and another banana from the third. You dare not buy more than that otherwise you stockpile fruit quicker than you can say ‘fruit salad’, plus you have to repeat the whole purchasing process again the next day and the next, and not buying anything from them at all would be harder than having a frontal lobotomy. It’s kinda like a man bun – you just don’t do it!
I could also venture into the kitchen today and make some delicious homemade Mozambican pao (bread). Normally it gets baked freshly every morning on a fire under the donkey (which gives you hot water) and you eat it hot at lunchtime, dripping with butter and served with fresh fried fish straight out of the sea. But then I remember that I couldn’t buy bread flour or yeast last week as all the “Stockpiling Suzies” out there bought up every last packet!
So it sounds like my ‘lets-create-a-pretend Mozambique-day’ choices are becoming limited, and I might have to just settle for drinking gin and reading books! The struggle is real I tell you.
Missed some of the other Corona Chronicles? Check them out here:
Corona Chronicles: Witty Joburg resident documents past five days of social distancing
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown makes Joburger confront gridlocked passage and a lipstick dilemma
Corona Chonicles: Are mops considered an ‘essential’ item?
Corona Chronicles: Chicken or beef?
Corona Chronicles: Worry over wine stock after husband accidentally breaks three bottles
Corona Chronicles: All dressed up and off to the shops she goes
Corona Chronicles: Does reading a book and drinking a gin while lying in the sun count as housework?
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown’s become a puzzle
Corona Chronicles: New dress sense during lockdown
Corona Chronicles: How to manage household chores during lockdown