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!