Life in Pemba

The first week has flown by. I arrived at my new home town last Tuesday afternoon to 26 degrees, hot and sunny. Ahhh. Nearly our whole office in Maputo flew up together to attend the AKF retreat in Pemba. There were 80 employees in attendance and we spent 3 days doing team building exercises. This meant 3 gloriously wasted days of various games, including sack races, volleyball and futebol (soccer) interspersed with various activities, which also resembled games. The retreat ended with everyone feeling happy, friendly and tired.
The first weekend was spent on the beach in front of Eliane and Lucas’ house. Eliane is the Entrepreneur Development Initiative Director (my new boss) and Lucas is the Communications Director. Me and many of my colleagues sunned, swam, ate, drank, and hung out all day long. I live across the street from Lili and Lucas, and across the street from the beach. Their house is like Cheers, the same friendly faces and everyone knows your name. There are always locals hanging out in front of the house on the beach and watching us. On Sundays, they play soccer on the beach in front of the house. Saturday afternoon, I introduced a group of kids to Frisbee and we spent about 3 hours throwing it around. They had never seen it before and were very excited to learn. Sunday morning when I was back at Lili’s, the kids asked me when we could play again. Cultivation of my ultimate frisbee team has begun.
Here, there is no option but to be with your friends all the time. You work all day together then spend every weekend together. Saturday morning I got out of bed and within half an hour 2 friends were over. Here, it is an open door policy and the door will open whether you want it to or not. Flexibility is a virtue here.

The first day settling into my new house, I met my new roommates; Biljana the Macedonian intern, the 2 bathroom cockroaches and the mini frog in the toilet. Biljana is the only roommate remaining at this point but I am sure someone or something else will move in soon enough. The bugs are everywhere, in my salad, in the vegetables, the bathroom, the veranda etc. You just have to get used to them. But the roaches I don’t know if I will ever get used to.
On Sunday we spent the afternoon cooking Mozambican dishes with a local restaurant owner, Dona Rema, who won a competition as the best cook in the country, and had a dinner party at Lili’s house. We seriously worked for our dinner; my fingernails are still yellow from the curry paste. We made about 8 different dishes with cassava, sweet potato, okra, chicken (that were killed and plucked in the back yard of course), coconut rice, curry, piri piri and local greens, and all delicious. Lucas is putting together a cookbook of Rema’s recipes, so he took pictures of everything before we ate it all. When I return to Canada I will make many of them for you all to try. It was such a nice weekend, spending so much time with the people I work with, it is really like a big family. Pemba brings people very close together, because without each other there really is nothing. There is the disco on the weekends and a handful of restaurants on the beach, and that’s it. There isn’t a cinema or video store for that matter. There really is only the beach and each other. Which is enough.
Pemba has a population of around 70,000 split into the city and the beach. The office is located in the city and many of us live on the beach which is about a 10 minute drive away, but out of the city proper. The AKF cars pick us up every day and take us home. It’s very isolated and underdeveloped. Our water at the house works only with a water pump that is run by a generator. Our clothes are washed by hand in the bathtub. Our stove is a propane hot plate that I am sure is slowly poisoning us. Power outages are common here and can last for days. Cost of living is very high. My rent is $500 USD and a box of corn flakes costs around $6-10. Did I mention the bugs everywhere? But when you walk across the street and swim in the clear blue ocean it really ceases to matter. Until you get stung by a jellyfish then it’s kind of annoying but only until the burning wears off and you continue cultivating that lovely caramel color. Pemba is the kind of place where you learn to live very simply.

Schooled by sardines

This past weekend I had the pleasure of joining my old team from CIDA Ottawa (L to R - John, Philip, Jonathan, Eliane, Bev, Leanne, me) on Inhaca Island, just a 15 minute flight from Maputo. The sturdy 19 seat plane landed at the huge, and prepared, Inhaca Airport without much excitement or need for safety equipment (thankfully). We stayed at the lovely Inhaca Lodge, although we had to watch for falling coconuts. It is winter here now and the temperatures have begun to drop, sometimes going down to 6-8 degrees at night. Mornings are cool, and I arrived wearing 3 layers including a fall jacket I bought to weather the cool Barcelona nights. I am the first to admit I have become a wuss to the cold, and my fellow Canadians were reminding me constantly that I am from Winterpeg and how could I possibly be cold when it's 18 degrees out. It doesn't make any sense I know, except that I have acclimatized to the lovely tropical weather. And I have always been more of a beach bunny than a ski bunny. Nevertheless the days warm up and I managed to stay warm. We spent the day off the island on another island Santa Maria about a 15 minute speed boat ride away. The boat dropped us off on the secluded, isolated beach where we had our own lagoon and a(n awful) picnic lunch. We spent the afternoon sunning and snorkelling around. It was my first time snorkeling and it was awesome. I saw angel fish, zebra fish, amazing coral, and other fish I have no idea what they were. The coolest part was being completely surrounded and circled by a huge (500+) school of sardines. I wish I had had an underwater camera. After a tiring day at the beach we headed back to the hotel to rest. I napped on the beach waiting for the sunset and was awakened by a friendly neighbourhood dog who looked and played exactly like Dambu. Dinner and breakfast were included on the room rate so we dined in the hotel restaurant where I had some traditional Mozambican dishes. Chima (sheema) looks like mashed potatoes but is basically like the paste we made in kindergarten. Its a mixture of water and maize flour and is one of the staples. Curries are a common dish as well, and they served a crab curry. My favorite Mozambican dish is matapa, a spread-like mixture made of pumpkin or young cassava leaves ground with garlic, flour and peanut and/or coconut oil. It's perfect with chima and one of my favorite meals.
Dinner was complemented by some hotel entertainment, a singing group that sang hotel commercials in Portuguese, and an awful keyboard/trumpet player who sang in his worst Louis Armstrong voice. I have videos if you want to experience the sheer horror of it. I feel a little bad that I took a video so that I may laugh at him far into the future, but he was happy I was so interested. The night was topped off with some wine back in Jon's room (my boss at CIDA) and a roaring game of South African Trivial Pursuit from which we learned a bundle of useless but entertaining party trivia.
The next morning we went off to the sorrily underfunded Marine Biology museum, which had a large collection of very old and now colourless fish, sea animals, coral, and island animals. We got a ride there through the bush of Inhaca, riding in the back of a local's truck and being bushwhacked the whole way. But that's one of the best thing about being here for me, riding in the back of trucks with the clear sky above you and I'm always the first to hop in the back. Even better if there's beer. On the return we walked back along the beach, about a 4km walk but a beautiful day and scouring the shore for new and unique shells. It was another awesome weekend spent discovering Mozambique. In a few days I move to Pemba where I can begin discovering the northern part of Mozambique and surrounding countries.

Close encounter of the elephant kind

A couple of weekends ago I went to Kruger National Park in South Africa with Luc, and Eliane, former colleagues at CIDA in Ottawa, and Luc's family. I had been before and seen a lot of animals but wasn't awed like this time. The day started out pretty well. We saw a rhino, water buffalo, tons of impala and some zebras and a bunch of birds. But then the animal sightings started getting more and more sporadic. May is winter here and it has been dry for months so the animals had moved on to greener pastures. So we went quite a long time without seeing anything except impalas galore. But eventually even the impalas were getting scarce. So we decided to go for lunch at one of the rest stops and entered the picnic area to find an elephant standing there about 50 feet away. Eliane and I whipped out our cameras and started snapping shots immediately. The elephant was quite calm, swishing his ears, eating some leaves, wasn't too excited about all us people hanging around. I was taking pictures like a maniac and trying to get as close as I could feel comfortable. But about 20 feet away I was getting nervous since I have learned a little bit about elephant behaviour like that they can run up to 50 km/h and can be aggressive if they are scared, so I was watching for the "bugger off" ear perk. I wondered if all the camera flashing in his eyes would make him mad, and my hands were shaking a bit, making photo taking difficult. But it was so freaking awesome, being crushed would have been worth it!! The whole episode lasted about 10 minutes and I must have taken about 100 pictures. Elephants are my favorite, so this was a dream. He made his way through the rest stop, eating some leaves, uprooting some trees, scratching his chin. He was big but they can get to be twice his size. He was calm and graceful as he made his way through the rest stop and parking lot and back into the bush. That was the coolest thing that has ever happened to me and it wouldn't have mattered to me if we saw nothing else.

But about a half hour later we came across a large group of giraffes feeding near the road. There were adults and babies and we stayed watching them for about 15 minutes, again taking pictures like mad. It's funny cuz people completely lose their minds when they see the animals and are so busy taking pictures that they don't really watch them. I am also guilty of this but I just really want to share this stuff with people and pictures are the only way. But the animals are really so amazing. Shortly after we came across another large herd of elephants standing under a tree. It was just so National Geographic, it was awesome. They were in a circle with the babies in the middle of the circle being protected by the grown-ups. There were probably a dozen of them and we watched them for another 15 minutes or so until they all moved off and walked off into the sunset. After this we saw some more impala, wild boar, warthogs and some crocs but the elephants and giraffes were the stars. We went back to the hotel to rest, watch the sunset and have dinner.
The hotel was beautiful and had a viewing dock that overlooked a river full of hippos. So we went to the dock to watch the sunset and wait for the hippos to come out (they come out after dark). Just as the sun was setting, a family of elephants (could have been the same ones but who knows really) came walking and feeding along the shore right below the viewing dock. Again another 15 minute frenzy of photo (and video)taking as the elephants casually made their way along. Throughout this the hippos would poke their heads out of the water, make their sounds, blow their water, but I never did see them come out of the river. It was an amazing day never to be repeated I am sure. Except the following morning when we were wowed again by another elephant show. I have yet to see any of the cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards) or dogs (hyenas) at Kruger but I was thrilled with this trip. (For more pictures see http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=685380014 or http://www2.snapfish.com/home/t_=86505527)

So many websites, so little time

Apparently my brain only has enough attention for 1 communication technology at a time. I, like so many others, have joined the Cult of Facebook. While it is entertaining and I have been able to connect with a lot of people, it means that the blog gets neglected. The blog also requires much more time than the Book, but I have resolved to end the month long blog silence tonight. What have I been up to you ask?
The past month I have been traveling. I was in Pemba again for 10 days, then went to Barcelona for 9 days, then spent a weekend at a beach side resort. Pemba was for work again and this time was not anywhere near as amazing as last time. For 10 days straight I worked 10 hour days, including weekends. My house was on the beach but I didn't touch sand once. I was so depressed except for the litter of puppies and the kittens outside the house.
After Pemba I spent a well earned 9 days in Barcelona visiting with Dave and sightseeing. It was an awesome week, it was so nice spending time with him again! And Barcelona has everything anyone could want. It was a week filled with art, music, architecture, cafe con leche, pastries, tapas, chocolate, paella, shopping....ahhh. Barcelona has an energy that you can feel in the air. We spent all day every day walking around and sight seeing. We saw so much I couldn't even try to tell all of it or include pictures.
I took over 300 pics and he took another 300 or so. We tried to siesta some days but there was too much to see! But man I was tired and my body ached. We went to the Olympic Stadium, an art gallery, a history museum, the aquarium, Sagrada Familia, Montjuic, an amazing hospital that the architect Gaudi designed. Barcelona has a HUGE Gaudi collection here. Many, many buildings were designed by him. It was an awesome week. On the flight to Barcelona I had an overnight in Lisbon that was also really great. I got to see my aunt and cousin who I havent seen in 20 years. They met me at the airport but I almost couldn't see them cuz my tiny little aunt was drowning in a sea of about 200 waiting people. Luckily she had her tiny little flag to match her tiny little frame, that had my name on it. I recognized her anyway but the flag was cute. My cousin now has a son who I met for the first time. We all went for dinner and a quick moonlight tour of the city as we drove back to my aunt's house. It made me so nostalgic of being there as a kid and now I must go back to Lisbon. This past weekend my buddy Bruno and I went to Zongoene Lodge, which Taciana's husband manages. It was amazing. The rooms themselves were quite nice and the food was awesome but the restaurant service was kinda bad, some of the worst I have had in Mozambique and there are a lot of bad servers here. I think one of the best things the country can do is to start a server school. And here, tipping isn't a custom so you can't even entice them to try harder. It can be quite frustrating. But I realize that service industries are still very, very new in Mozambique and the standards, well there are none.
Anyway the best thing about the Lodge was the beach. Mozambique has some of the most amazing beaches in the world, I will put money on it. 2500km of coastline makes it almost guaranteed, but they are desolate, untouched, beautiful beaches. My roommate says Mozambique is one of the most romantic places in the world and I think it could be true. If nothing else, you fall in love with the landscape. As if the awesome beach and clear water at your fingertips wasn't enough, there is a family of dolphins that make their home in a lagoon near the beach. Bruno and I walked over to try and see them but couldn't figure out where they were. The tide was going out and the beach has a huge sandbar that loops back around to Zongoene. We were going to take the sand bar back to the lodge but had to cross a channel between the ocean and the lagoon. We approached and my desperately sad fear of dying a horrible drowning death kicked in and I refused to cross the channel. With good reason: the tide was going out, the waves were huge and strong, and we couldn't tell how deep the channel was. This was enough for me but only later did I find out that sometimes there are sharks too. So much to Bruno's chagrin, we had to go back the way we came. It was starting to get dark and in the distance along the shoreline I could see a bunch of dark specks on the beach. I said to Bruno something like, "Umm, see those specks along the beach? That's the herd of cows we passed on the way here. Now they're all on the beach blocking our way back." He said something like, "No fucking way!" and began to panic. (Unfortunately the camera batteries had died by this point so I have no picture album for the cow story. boo) By this point I was more calm as I wasn't worried about the cows as much as I was the tide cuz I know nothing about tides and was certain it was going to come back in and wash me away. Bruno helped to ease my concerns a bit with his theatrical production of the movement of tides using a bunched up beach towel and a water bottle. But it was getting dark very quickly and this was also making me nervous. As we got closer to the cows we circled very wide, climbing a huge sand dune in the process, trying to steer clear of the steer. ha I was convinced that these cows, and bulls, were domesticated and wouldn't bother us at all, but Bruno wouldn't have any of it, keeping his eye on them at all times. Well, we managed to get around the cows and bulls and although we vowed never to speak of the incident again, Bruno spilled the story as soon as we got back to the Lodge where we learned that the cows and bulls are so tame that you just have to lift your hand and they start to move. Stupid Canadian city folk, that's what they were thinking about us. In fact, that's what I was thinking about us. But it was a lovely weekend overall and if I didn't have these stories then the blog would be sooo boring.
This weekend I am heading to Kruger Park again to see some wild animals. The weekend after I am going to Inhaca Island here in Moz to spend a weekend with my former CIDA colleagues whoa re all here on retreat. I left too soon. And the weekend after that, I am going to Johannesburg with Bruno to see his girlfriend Kat and my friend Gerhard. Once those trips are over, I am moving to Pemba for 3 months to work on a special project. Cuz I am here to work actually. Although the traveling is a MAJOR perk. From Pemba I can easily get to Tanzania, Zambia and Kenya as well as the northern sites in Moz that I want to get to.
Oh ya work. The project is the Entrepreneur Development Initiative that works to help entrepreneurs in northern Mozambique start and expand their businesses. I will be working with seaweed farmers and rural shop owners, reviewing and helping them to write business plans for their business expansion. Seaweed and rural shops are 2 areas that there is a lot of production so we want to help them grow as much as possible. It will be great work experience and I will get to travel to the communities and talk to the people that our project is trying to help to get a better perspective about development. I always wonder what people actually think about development agencies. Now is my chance to ask.
But I have to say I will miss Maputo. I am finally starting to feel comfortable, settled, with a circle of friends, a social life, a life in general and stuff to do. Pemba has nothing to do but it will still be great. I am downloading like a mofo these days so I can watch when I get there. Anyway, I've been at this for an hour. That's my past month in a nutshell. You all who were nagging me update my blog better leave a comment! Miss you all! See you on Facebook! :-)

A day at the beach

Now is not the best time to try and write a post. I am in Pemba again and we have a huge meeting on Sunday with some bigwigs from Geneva coming. But I know I am far behind as always and wanted to give you an idea of what I have been doing with my time that makes me unable to post more.
Weekday mornings, Taciana and I go for a walk at 6 am for an hour. It's tough getting up sometimes, but since I am old I usually am in bed by 10:30 so it's alright. I have also been taking a yoga class Monday and Wednesday evenings in a great spot. I will totally miss this when I go back to Canada. There's nothing like doing yoga outside with the sounds of the night and the breeze around you. I have also found an ultimate team. I brought my disc with me with full intentions of starting a team here but I was lucky to find one already established by another Winnipegger Jared who left shortly after I arrived. Good one Jared! Anyway, it's been a blast playing with the expats and Mozambicans. We are arranging a friendly tournament with the Swaziland team, one weekend they will come here to play and another weekend, we will go there. That will be awesome! I've also been hanging out with a new friend Chisa, a Japanese girl who has been living in Vancouver for the past 5 years with her husband and is here now for 6 months working with an NGO. I met her at ultimate. This is her doing the layout. I refuse to guard her because she is fast like the wind and I can admit that I can't keep up.
I've also been hanging out with another Canadian contingent, Bruno. I met Bruno for the first time about 2 weeks before I moved here through mutual friend. Like me, he lives in Ottawa, went to Carleton, was born to Portuguese parents, and is living and working in Maputo to boost the CV. This past weekend he and I went to Macanete beach about an hour and a half and a ferry ride away from Maputo. I burned a cd for the drive and off we went to explore the outskirts of Maputo and another deserted beach in Mozambique. There is no shortage of these. Driving out of Maputo there were many more outdoor markets with everything you can imagine. Leather chairs, lumber, doors, mattresses, balloons, bread, fruit etc...The countryside is beautiful, green in Africa just is not like any green I have seen before. Canada's forests are lush, but the green here is deep and glistening, and the leaves shine with the sun. We arrived at the ferry with no problems, squeezed the car onto the ferry which is basically a plank with a steering wheel. The tires were literally on the edge. But the ferry ride was only 5 minutes and we made it across fine. Once we arrived at the other side, we were informed the roads were inaccessible due to heavy rains and that we would have to take a detour. We would be guided by someone off the beaten path through farmers fields, livestock and mud. Bruno and I were a little worried since our companions had big 4x4 trucks and we were driving his little Toyota RAV4. But we had faith in the Japanese and the RAV did just fine. I was curious how we would find our way back but at that point I wanted to get to the beach.
And it didn't disappoint. It was beautiful and nearly deserted. There were some locals playing soccer and swimming but we otherwise had the beach nearly to ourselves. There was also a great little restaurant and lodge where we sat and had a drink and watched the water. We were approached by some locals who asked for a ride back to Maputo. At first we were hesitant, but we didn't want to perpetuate the "Africans are scary" mentality and we both want to get to know more locals so we agreed on the condition that they could show us the detour back since we weren't sure if we would find our way. They took us back along the way and we turned off the road onto the field, aka detour. Within 5 seconds we were completely stuck in the mud up to our axles. Isaac, Alberto and I (in my dress) got out of the car almost knee deep into the mud and assessed the situation. The boys pushed while I supervised until one point I tried to help but it was hopeless. The only way we could push it was backwards so we tried to push but ended up covered in mud as the tires spun. I noticed a tractor approaching and joked with Alberto that that was what we needed. Isaac quickly went over and talked to the man who agreed to help us as long as we gave him some "orientation" The orientation consisted of 200 meticais (about $10), with which Bruno was attempting to haggle but dammit I just wanted out. And really, what's $10? CAA sure doesn't charge $10, so I was quick to intervene and say "Just pay the man".So he hooked up the chain to the front of the RAV and away we went slipping and sliding behind the tractor through the mud back to the main road, the ferry and away back to Maputo as fast as we could. I was never so happy to see pavement. But these situations we encounter here are somewhat normal and you learn to go with the flow, no point in getting worked about things. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. As a South African I know said, "Africa isn't for sissies."

Loving the living

I know I'm way behind but I don't even remember half the things I wanted to write about on here. I'll just tell you about my recent work trip up north to Pemba in Cabo Delgado province. Pemba is where the programme office is and C.D. is where the programme operates, in 6 districts. Pemba is a small city of 70,000 on the coast and a mix of luxury and poverty. I stayed for 10 days at a house on the beach where I could wake up in the morning and walk 20 feet out the front door for a swim in the ocean where I was met by jellyfish and snakes in the water. This prairie girl knows nothing about ocean wildlife, so when I saw the translucent jellyfish I was rather intrigued. I could see their shadows in the sand (the water was that clear ahhh) at the bottom but had to look closely for them in the water. When I found one I poked it wondering what this gooey, transparent thing felt like. It felt like hard jello but I never knew jello that made my skin burn. Luckily I didn't poke the tentacles, just the smooth side but now I know about jellyfish. Sundays are a busy day on the beach, with a soccer game taking place right in front of the house every week and loads of locals walking around. I stayed with Eliane, a Brazilian who works at the office in Pemba and her little 3 month old Jackie who was hugely entertaining. Days were spent working, evenings enjoying dinners with colleagues at one of the half dozen restaurants overlooking the ocean. Weekends were spent dancing at the disco or parties, and lazing on the beach. Pemba is a paradise and I was amazingly relaxed. Another highlight of the trip was the field visit to Bilibiza, an Administrative post in Quissanga district. Because of large distances between villages, some towns are named as administrative posts where schools and health posts are located for surrounding villages. In many cases, villages are quite far from these services. One of the villages was about a 45 minute drive away at high speed with poor roads and generally a lack of transport, and that was the closest hospital and primary school. Bilibiza was obviously poor but not like the images we see on World Vision ads. People had housing, most of the houses were made of rocks, clay or straw with straw or zinc roofs. Wooden doors and zinc roofs are signs of well being. Everyone wore regular clothes although generally the women wear the traditional capulanas, , bright fabric wrapped around the body as a skirt of head wrap, I saw people wearing brand names like Sean John and Enyce in this community about 4 hours from the coast and really in the middle of the bush. About an hour of the drive was along unpaved road in elephant territory so it was an interesting drive trying to keep an eye out for elephants while manoeuvering the huge holes in the road. There were chickens and goats running around everwhere, but funnily, the odd thing was when I saw someone walking a dog on a leash. The people in Bilibiza were extremely friendly and warm, much more than in Maputo, but I suppose like any big city. The kids loved having us there, and were dying for us to take their pictures. They would call my name and ask me to play with them and take their picture or give them my bottled water. They have no water system, they collect rain water and water from the river. When it rained, kids would come running with baskets and bottles to collect the rain from the gutters of our building. But they seemed happy and found ways of having fun with whatever they were doing. That's the beauty of the simple life.
The purpose of the visit to Bilibiza was to attend a planning workshop for preschool teachers to plan what activities they would do with the kids in 2007. It was fully participatory, votes were taken on everything from the agenda of the day to what time to take a break. But this method sometimes proved challenging for the facilitators because often they would ask a question, and there would be no answer. They would rephrase the question and still silence. It would take some prodding to get the teachers to express their opinions, as the culture in many ways lacks confidence, has not allowed independent thought, and has not taught people how to think on their own. It was interesting and sad to see. This is partly why development takes time because culture is embedded and difficult to change after so many years of oppression. So by using a participatory method hopefully people will come to see their opinion matters. And people became more comfortable in speaking and were very comfortable sharing songs and dances. So after a day and a half of working with the teachers, who are all volunteers, some rudimentary planning had been done with many ideas being shared for activities for teachers to do with the children, like teaching songs and dances, building toys, and teaching issues such as health and nature.
It was my first visit to Pemba, and the first time to a rural community. It was an amazing experience. My next trip to Pemba is in a couple of weeks. I can't wait!