Maputo

I'm in Maputo doing some work for ICEIDA, drafting their annual and biannual reports. My decision to come here was partly financial, but also was a way to prevent insanity. I didn't know how i would cope being in Maganja without Stebba, and thought breaking up the last couple of months would ensure i would have something to look forward to if it was difficult.

Although it really isn't the same without Stebba, I have had a nice time. I've made more of an effort to speak to other people (I tried talking to my shortwave radio, but it didn't really work). Subsequently, my portuguese has been improving. That said, it's still shocking - i don't know how to spell anything, and i can only speak in 1st & 3rd person singular.

Having been more sociable, I've finally been able to ask lots of personal questions we had been dying to ask since we arrived. They will need their own post to do them justice.



I've been in Maputo for over 10 days and still haven't begun on the reports as no one in the office has started their sections. Have been keeping myself busy with writing an information booklet on ICEIDA and Iceland to give ICEIDA's partners and journalists here in Mozambique. I don't know whether the locals care about iceland's average annual rainfall, but the fact they (we) supposedly eat hákarl (putrefied shark) and hrútspungar (pickeld ram's testicles) will probably amuse them.



On sunday I went with Jói Þ and his wife Marcelina to their 'summerhouse' in Matola, just outside maputo. This is Jói and his friend Adam (who happens to be the head of the Mozambican secret police and someone you don't want to mess around with.


Marcelina's grandmother lives there. No one knows how old she is, but she remembers the british leaving south africa. My SA history is non-existant, but it could be around 1902 if she was talking about the 2nd Boer War/Anglo Boer War... which makes her well over 100. She's still completely on the ball and has a dirty sense of humour - she told marcelina that jói wasn't coming home as he was going to sleep in her bed. She doesn't speak any portuguese, only shangaan - didn't stop her talking to me though. The picture is of her with her great-great grandaughter.

$1 a day update.

I mentioned back in december that i was planning to do a $1 a day challenge, which is what most people in Mozambique live on.

I did this experiment for 2 weeks. In a way, it wasn't too difficult. It took me a little while to save up a bag of coal ($2) and i was spending an average of 70cents, sometimes as little as 40 cents. However, the important thing to remember is that I have no dependents, i didn't need to go to Quelimane ($8 return) & i coped not eating meat/fish & drinking coke/beer because i knew it was a temporary thing.

Despite being possible, it is not a nice way to live. Fruit is a luxury, you need to fill yourself up on starch (mealie meal... rice is expensive) & clothes are something you can buy on rare occassions. You have no capital to start a small business or to buy seeds... this basically means these people who are living so far below the poverty line have no way to get themselves out of the situation.

Highlight of Maganja da Costa's social calender

The president of Mozambique, Armando Emílio Guebuza, came to Maganja today. He and his entourage arrived in five helicopters, landed at the football field (where I have never seen anyone play football) and went and greeted the movers and shakers of the town. I also managed to stick my hand in between Adelson (ActionAid Coordinator) and the Rainha of Bala (the local queen) so I could at least claim to have shaken the man's hand- made standing in 35 degree heat worthwhile.



Having arrived at 8.45, he received a flower garland, shook hands, saw some people dancing and singing, looked at the market, community radio station, spoke to some local government officials and at 12 went back to his helicopter and flew away. Adelson is one of the lucky few to have been invited to Mocubella to have lunch with him - although i don't know whether he will be able to get a word in edgewise. I told Adelson to please tell Guebuza to spend more money on education, and to please fix the roads. I hope he passes it on.



The thing that amazed/annoyed me, is that the local council, after sitting idly doing nothing for the last 6 months I've been here, last week suddenly decided to do some freshening up of the town. Rotting rubbish piled at the side of the road was cleared away, trees were pruned, buildings were given a lick of paint, the community radio (which broke a few weeks ago) suddenly started working yesterday. I personally think they should have left the town in its true state for the president to see.



This leads me to another point that has been upsetting me for a while. The Mozambican government, in a move to make districts responsible for their own development, has given them a big sum of money and told then to use it wisely, initiating projects to benefit the whole community... HA!!

In Maganja, benefiting the community has been interpreted as building big swanky houses for local government officials. Not only is this dishonest and not developing the community in any way, the houses are ugly and next door to mine. In Pebane, this money has been spent on painting the local government officials big residence and office, paving a 20 metre stretch of road outside it, and putting in flower beds.

A huge thunderstorm is underway, not sure what this means for the fleet of helicopters. Maybe Guebuza will have to drive in a car and see the true state of local roads. Shock horror.

Apologies ... christmas and new year.

My lack of blog writing has been hanging over me, i apologise. I haven´t been writing my diary either. I have been very busy in the last 3 months, and i don`t know where to start.

Christmas was memorable, especially killing christmas dinner - guinea fowl and chicken. Stebba and I had our own private as possible icelandic celebration on the 24th. We eventually ate our fried guinea fowl and dodgy sugar potatoes at 11pm, dressed up in 80´s party dresses and exchanged gifts bought from the local second hand market. The 25th was quite hectic, lots of invited and uninvited guests for the weirdest christmas supper i hope i'll ever have.

By the 30th we were desperate to get out of Maganja and set off to Pebane, 3 hours away on the coast, for lying on the beach with cold beer, and not having to deal with builders. We sat on the back of a truck in the burning sun with a Mozambican pop star and booked into a nice guesthouse we had been recommended.

The first disappointment was that there was no beach in pebane - it was quite a few km away and we had to get the guesthouse owner to drive us. Secondly, all the bars on the beach we had been promised didn´t exist, which kind of ruined the fantasy of drinking beer. The weather was pretty crummy and Stebba was eaten alive by something - she counted a total of 250 bites on her legs. We struggled to stay awake past 9pm on New Years Eve, and eventually saw in 2007 in the local disco, listening to phil collins with cheap fire crackers flying dangerously in all directions.

We decided to leave the next day to Nampula. We could have gone back to Maganja, then to Mocuba and taken the big, nice bus all the way to Nampula. We decided instead to go direct from Pebane up the coast. It was an epic, unforgettable trip.

The truck was meant to leave at 11pm and was going to pick us up from the guesthouse, where we were sleeping. Not the normal practise, but being white and paying extra to sit in the front they seemed to be happy to do this. The truck, already piled high with people and coconuts eventually arrived at 2.30. Half asleep, we climbed into the cab to begin our journey north. We both semi-slept until 5.30 when the truck rolled to a quiet stop, in the middle of nowhere. We had run out of petrol.

Fortunately, someone had a bicycle on the back of the truck, so the driver set off for the nearest town to remedy the situation, and we sat on the side of the road for a few hours until he came back. We arrived in Naburi and had to get to the 'river'... except in Naburi there is no organised transport as such, so we waited and waited and waited. Six hours later, having found no food, we were about to pay 2 motorbikes to take us to the elusive river, when a big blue open truck pulled up and we jumped in. The driver began debating with the passengers as to which the best route was (i always assumed that drivers would know these things).

The best route, apparently, was the one with lots of cashew trees, with rather low branches. Anyone familiar with cashew trees in central Mozambique will be aware of the large brown ants who nest in the branches. Every time the truck hit a branch... every 5 metres or so.... we were showered by dozens of these ants (which bite) and various other animals, including hairy caterpillars which leave huge puss filled blisters on your skin. Nice. The branches were sometimes so low, no amount of ducking would help, cue enormous scratches and bruises.

The 30 kilometres to the river took about 2 hours. A leaky canoe transported us to the other side (just), and we then walked to a dried fish warehouse. We got onto another truck, piled high with burlap sacks of dried fish, and headed north. We told people we were heading for Nampula, but no one could tell us distances or times. All we knew is that after the fish truck we needed to get one more chapa to Nampula. We estimated that we would be on the fish truck for about an hour and a half. The road was awful and i had to tie myself onto the truck i was so terrified of falling off. It wasn't comfortable.

Eight hours later we arrived in the seediest town in Mozambique, wet from a thunderstorm along the way, smelling of fish, bruised quite badly by branches, and having only eaten biscuits and cake since leaving Pebane. It was 11pm- Stebba went to find accommodation, the only place looked suspiciously like a brothel and was shut anyway. So we slept in the chapa, feeling slightly freaked out at how drunk the driver and his helper were, and that they didn't seem to be stopping drinking gin anytime soon. Thankfully, it wasn't the driver, they were both helpers 'looking after' the minibus. We arrived in Nampula the following morning, 29 hours after we left Pebane.

Unfortunately my photos from the trip were accidentally deleted, but I promise that it is all true. It certainly wasn't pretty.