Mozambique: Where it just can't possibly work

One area in Mozambique that needs a lot of work is the service industry. It is very obvious that the workers here don’t get any training and the expectations of them are very low. Things we take for granted in Canada, like waiters who bring you your food, people who serve you with a smile and staff who will actually help you if you need it, are rare here.

Often we have to repeat our order to waiters who forget or wave our hands wildly in the air to get the bill. The employees are usually cold, unfriendly and do as little work as they can. At restaurants and cafes, servers usually take ages to bring you your change, in the hopes that you will forget or give up and leave so that they can keep it (there is no or very little tipping here).

A good and rather humorous example of what I am talking about was shared by our intern who works in Tete, another province of Mozambique. He needed to attend a meeting at the head office here in Maputo, so the company flew him here and put him up in a hotel, along with a few other employees here for the same meeting.

He checked in and was given a key to him room. After opening the door, he discovered that there was a suitcase and clothes already lying on the bed. He went back to the front desk and explained that the room was already occupied and that he needed another room. After some time, they managed to find him another room. He got there and it was really hot, but the air conditioner didn’t work. He called the front desk:

“Hey, my air conditioner isn’t working”

“Oh…. Ok.”

“Are you going to fix it?”

“Um… we’ll call maintenance”

So he started unpacking and needed to get some shirts ironed for his meeting. He called the laundry service and they came and took the shirt. After a while he called the laundry service to see if it was done. The guy there said he had the shirt but wanted to iron it the next day. Our intern needed the shirt at 9:00. What time would the worker arrive tomorrow? 6:00am he said. OK, the shirt would definitely be ready by 9:00.

After a while longer and still no word about the air conditioner, he called the front desk again.

“Uh, sorry we couldn’t reach maintenance.”

Ok, no air conditioning then. He also said that he had sent a shirt to laundry and that the worker there had said he would have it ready in the morning. “That’s strange,” said the front desk, “because tomorrow is his day off.” Great. So our intern resolved to wake up at 6:00am when the new laundry guy came and ask him to iron the shirt before 9:00.

Just before going to sleep, he talked to a co-worker who told him he had ordered a wake-up call for 8:00 and also set his cell phone alarm just in case. When he met our intern the next morning, he said that he had received a call at 6:30 in the morning “Hello, this is your wake up call!” He had angrily explained that the call was supposed to be at 8:00 and went back to bed. At 8:00 his cell phone went off and he got up, showered, dressed and was just about to leave the room at 8:40 when the phone rang! “Hello this is your wake up call!”

So in one night they had the wrong room, no air conditioning, no ironed shirt and a wrong wake-up call. Oh, and did I mention this was a ***** 5 STAR hotel???

If you come to Mozambique expecting Canadian (or in general “Western”) standards, prepare to be disappointed! Just because you booked something or ordered something doesn’t mean it will be there. Adapt or be eternally frustrated!

Also, I found every kid's favourite store!