Overdue Update

No posts for a long time. Sorry about that. Things have been happening but nothing very big or new. That and I have been a little lazy to write. So, here’s my chance to catch up a bit.

Tomorrow we will be sending our very first Mozambican on exchange! Ivan from UEM will be spending two months in Brazil (and during the world cup too!). He is very excited and we are very happy to finally be sending someone abroad. We have a few other matching right now, so hopefully they will be following him soon.

Speaking of the World Cup, the fever has pretty much invaded Mozambique. This is not as visual as they were in Brazil in 2006, where there were decorations of green and yellow on every street and people everywhere wearing Brazil jerseys. Here things seems quieter, but once the games start, small crowds of people can be seen gathering almost anywhere – in a bar, in a restaurant, in a driveway, on the sidewalk, in the chapa – watching or listening to the games.

If you ask, most Mozambicans will tell you they sheering for Brazil and Portugal and all the African teams. So they are pretty flexible on who to cheer for. A few have even told me they will cheer for whoever is winning the game.

Lilian and Daudo are both going to see games, but not the same one. Daudo is going next weekend for Brazil vs Ivory Coast. Our CEEDer Orlando will be there as well, with his family from Botswana.

Orlando will be leaving us on Thursday after being here for almost a month already. It went by fast! I have been working with him a lot on TM stuff and he has been participating in a lot of our activities. We had a cultural presentation last Saturday and I actually learned quite a bit. What do you call a person from Botswana? Boswanian? Botswanan? A Botswanite? Nope, all wrong. The person is called a Motswana. Their currency is stronger that the rand and is called pula, which means rain in the local language because rain is so important for them (70% of the land is desert).

Last week we also had the first ever LC meeting for AIESEC in UEM. It went really well and all of the members who were present participated a lot and stayed for almost 2.5 hours. The TM team led the meeting and I was really proud of them. It was nice to just sit and participate rather than have to manage everything. They are becoming more and more independent!

Just this afternoon, we had the first session of the Learning Program, which is a series of sessions where we discuss different world issues and share ideas and opinions. Today’s topic was three of the millennium development goals. On the topic of universal primary education, pretty much everyone agreed that it was important and that quality was also needed, not just numbers. However, the topic of gender equality launched an interesting debate, with some of the guys arguing that a working women is neglecting her job or raising the children, or that it is the wife’s job to take care of the home, the children and the husband, with the girls arguing back that this was not true and that they should have the same opportunities. Some of the guys agreed with the girls and some remained neutral, but some strongly defended their opinion about the woman’s role.

In the reception booklet for our interns (which I wrote a few months ago), I put a note in the culture section that Mozambican men tend to be old fashioned in terms of gender equality. One of the (male) VPs asked me a couple weeks ago “Jess, why did you write that? Old fashioned? That’s not true”. I think anyone who attended the discussion today would agree with me. Maybe they just don’t see it because they haven’t seen it any other way.

I am very curious to see how the same discussion will play out at ISCTEM, where the students are generally well travelled and have more exposure to other ideas. But we will have to wait a few weeks as their session was postponed due to exams.

We have started transition now with the new team who will be taking over in July. My successor is from Brazil, but speaks good English and has a lot of really good experience so I am really excited. I think she will do a great job and bring some different ideas and fresh energy.

This Thursday we have an information session for people interested in going on exchange, so hopefully by next week we will have more applicants for the program and more people to send on exchange.

It is now officially winter here in Mozambique, which means the days are still fairly warm but not hot (20-25 degrees) but the nights are quite cool to cold and it is impossible to sleep without a warm blanket.

Well, I think that brings you pretty much up to date. I’ll try to write again sooner this time!

P.S. I will try to upload some pictures for this post when I have open internet.