Hi Hi Xai Xai

This weekend I went to Gaza. No… I didn’t make a surprise trip to Israel, don’t worry. Gaza is another province of Mozambique. (Amazingly enough, Maputo is in Maputo province!) Yes, that means that I took by first trip out of Maputo. And yes, that means you are in for a mega post. Prepare yourselves!

We (Lilian, Marco and I) were invited by two Portuguese friends to go to a place near Xai Xai (pronounced Shai Shai), the capital city of Gaza Province, about 3 hours drive from Maputo to the northeast. We headed off on Saturday morning, it the pouring rain. On the way there we saw truck loads of people wearing raincoats and huddling together. The road to Xai Xai was actually a lot better than I expected! On the way we passed a HUGE stadium being built by the Chinese. They have their own little village there for all the workers. We made good time to Xai Xai, but the get to the house we were staying we had to take a road that was more potholes than road. There were a lot of puddles on the road and sometimes we actually drove beside the road instead of on it because the dirt was flatter.

The effect of the rain on a local market



Every once and a while there was a tree covered in white plastic bags. I’m not certain what they are for, but I think they designate stall where people are selling food, usually vegetables or cashew nuts. Overall the landscape was greener than in Kenya. Kenya was definitely savannah. Here it is more like “light forest”. Not quite a forest, but more bushes and trees and grass than on the savannah. Once we finished with the pothole road we had another 15 min or so along a dirt road into the middle of nowhere. There were a lot of small farms and a bunch of HUGE anthills. Quite a few of the small farms were set up traditionally, with a small fence of bushes surrounding a compound of building made out of mud and with straw roofs. Most of them had a mixture of straw and metal roofs, and mud/brick buildings.

The Neighbours



The house we were staying in was made of concrete though. It belonged to a guy who had studied in Portugal and spoke English. He had a big piece of land and was in the process of developing the farm on it. He already had a huge variety of vegetables and fruits, plus pigs, cows and chickens. He was also trying to develop a business around rural tourism, where tourist would come for the weekend and work on his farm and experience rural Mozambique, but in a comfortable way (the house had running water, electricity and satellite TV). I guess we were the guinea pigs, because in exchange for staying at his house, we had to do some work around the farm. We couldn’t do much on Sat because of the rain, so we stayed inside and talked and one of the Portuguese guys played some guitar. That night we had a big dinner that included duck, so you can add that to the list of meats I have tried now, right after ostrich and crocodile. The next day we also had piglet, called leitao (or, as I like to call it, “big milk”… but I think only Celso will get that joke). Gito’s (the guy who owned the farm) neighbours had a super traditional setup, so I got some good pictures by sneaking over while they weren’t there. Also, we went out after dinner for a while and came back after day. As we were driving along the dirt road to the house, we could see frogs jumping every which way. I also found some really weird and huge beetles (I think they are beetles?) for Bonnie.

Mangos all in a row!



Did you know pineapples grow like this?



John, Paul, George or Ringo?



On the second day we did most of our work. Lilian and I were in charge of sanding down an old door to be repainted. The two Portuguese had to build a wall around a garden using bricks and cement. Marco was put on pig feeding duty and then weeding the garden. Once Lilian and I finished, we joined Marco and helped in the garden. After being FREEZING and wet on Saturday, Sunday was HOT!

After hard work in the morning and a big lunch, we decided to head to the beach. It was about am hours drive away, so we got there around 4pm. The beach was Gorgeous! I was in photography heaven, and took tons of pics. The sand was so nice and the waves were huge! We went to a small inlet and some of the others went swimming. I preferred to wander off in search of the best pictures. On my way I found was seemed to be some kind of archaeological site! Well… at least someone’s stuff had ended up buried in the sand. It was a strange collection of things… toys, plastic bottles, clothes. I took a bunch of pictures of that and the sun over the water.

The Beach!



We didn’t start back until about 6pm, which meant we were coming home in the dark. The girl driving told us this was dangerous not because of robbers or anything like that, but because Mozambicans like to cross the street with no warning, even across major highways at night. We did end up honking at quite a few people, hurrying them along. We also ran into some huge swarms of some fly/moth type things. Our windshield was well decorated by the time we got home.

Once we were back in Maputo we were starving, so we all went for Chinese food just to finish off the weekend. It was really good and not too expensive either!

Ok, I think 1000 words is enough for now. I’ll do my best to upload lots of pictures (since I took 124 in two days!)

Now, leave me comments!

More Beach Pics!





My very own Laetoli footprints.... or not



This is Lilian and I

Rain rain go away...

Today it is POURING!!! The streets are like rivers in some places and getting to UEM today was fun walking around giant puddles in the sand. I would have thought that sad would be more absorbant... I guess not! In some parts of downtown apparently there is some flooding, but I haven't been down there today.

This is our fourth staight day of rain and it's a little depressing. The city does not look beautiful in the rain, haha. Today we are annoucing the new EBs and for anyone in AIESEC, you know what that means. Except, instead of buckets of water, we will just need them to step outside for a moment. Too bad we couldn't have a nice sunny day to make the big announcement!

The funniest thing though, is the poor ladies we see when we are walking around. Normally they wear a cloth wrapped around their head. Usually colourful, with some tassles and such. But today, they are wearing them made out of plastic bags! It's looks pretty funny to see all these ladies with plastic bags on their heads, including our very own Vera!

And even when the rain is light everyone goes around with umbrellas. They are obviously not used to the rain here.

Here's what we walked through on the way to UEM this afternoon:

By request... more pictures!!






Also, the election results are official now. Guebuza won with more than 75% of the votes. Pretty much as expected. The opposition guys made a big fuss about it, but so far nothing has happened.

P.S. Zero Comments on my last post?? Come on people!

Discovery Days

Wow.

I haven’t had this feeling in TOO long! To many, it’s just another new member training weekend for AIESEC. The same sessions – AIESEC Way, AIESEC XP – but yet, something different. I had to stop and think for a moment… this new member training… is happening in Mozambique. It’s happening here, because of us. These members are discovering AIESEC, just as I did so many years ago, because of our work here. This is why I am here.

They came knowing almost nothing. Yet as soon as we started to dance, they joined. As soon as we cheered, they cheered. As they learned more about what we do, I could see the interest growing in them. When we talked about why AIESEC is relevant in Africa, the passion was clear. Was AIESEC relevant in Africa? YES! Do we want AIESEC in Mozambique to thrive? YES! What a feeling!

It’s a very special moment for Daudo too, after working for two years towards this goal, to see the first members of AIESEC in Mozambique at our first conference.

There is a long way to go yet, but I am very happy and excited about what we have achieved here so far. Our chair is an alumnus of AIESEC in Portugal. He wasn’t quite sure what to expect from us or from the delegates, but tonight after everyone was gone and we were going over the feedback forms filled with positive comments, he said he was really happy and excited with both the members and us.

I think these students have never experienced anything quite like AIESEC before. Even though the conference is small, with no fancy hotel, it has all that magic of a first conference, and then some. I saw one delegate listening to a session this afternoon and he was smiling. Not because someone said something funny, just because he was appreciating the ideas that were being presented to him. I just sat for several minutes and watched him smiling, and it made me feel so good.

I hope we are building a community here that will continue to produce those smiles.

*******

Now it’s Monday. Yesterday was another intense and emotional day. In the morning we ran the simulation which I was responsible for. It’s so nice seeing your hard work realized! Plus it was really great to see the members working together, doing their activities, trying to divide the tasks, make decisions, achieve the goals they had set. It was the first time we could really see how they work, how much they had learned the day before, and how committed they were to getting things done.
For part of the simulation they had to receive an intern. I wasn’t expecting much, because they hadn’t received any specific training on what they needed to do. Lilian and Daudo played the interns, and what a reception they had! Both of them were picked up at the “airport”, shown all around the “city”, given a nice place to stay, introduced to all the AIESECers, taken to their first day of work, and taken out for a Mozambican dinner. They were so caring for these “interns”!! I am already jealous of the first interns who will come here. They are in for a treat! And over all, they did really well in the simulation. What they didn’t know they asked or came up with creative solutions. Of course there were some disagreements within the teams, but I think it really showed them that working on a team is not easy and that they have a lot still to learn.

After the simulation we talked about working on teams and how the team should maximize the strengths of its members. Then we did some goal setting (which I don’t think they had ever done before) and wrapped up the weekend. Daudo gave a really emotional talk about the impact of AIESEC and the opportunities that these new members had. He also spoke a bit about how he felt, after two years of hard work to make AIESEC in Mozambique a reality and now seeing the members there in front of him.

I truly believe that this weekend we ignited a little bit of fire in these people. As everyone was leaving, several people thanked me for helping to bring AIESEC here. It was a really powerful moment. One guy told me that Mozambicans have been waiting for an opportunity like this, and now it was here. It makes me so proud to be a part of this. I know we are just at the beginning and there is a long, hard road ahead. We will have our problems and our challenges, but I believe in these people and I see a lot of positive things happening very soon!

And now, I would like to introduce to you for the first time ever….

AIESEC IN MOZAMBIQUE!!!!!!



P.S We got internet at home today!! That means I can be online in the evenings (morning PST), I'm looking forward to talking to you soon!

Another week closer to making AIESEC a reality!

Hey, sorry for not writing for a while. I was barely online at all last week because we were very busy with interviews.

On Tuesday we had our infosession at ISCTE and booked the interviews, 25 in total for 6 positions. We did interviews all day Wed and Fri, as well as Thurs morning. Thursday afternoon we hosted an event around global issues at the other university, UEM. It was a great success. We had about 50 people come and three great speakers, all AIESEC alumni. Since I couldn’t understand, it was my job to take picture, which was fine with me! So after a very long week we we glad to have our weekend break.

We had a pretty mellow weekend. I made shepherd’s pie and Yorkshire pudding for dinner last night. On Saturday night we did some dancing and I tried to learn some typical Mozambican styles. One is originally from Angola and another is more of a modern version.

Today we have to select the best candidates to form the two new executive boards of AIESEC in Mozambique! This week we will officially have the first members and this weekend is our new members training conference. I’m really excited. During some of the interviews, we met some amazing people and I was thinking to myself “I can’t wait to work with this person”.

This week is mostly planning the conference and starting to do EP recruitment with the graduating students. Next week I will have lots more to report.

A couple other things:

If anyone remembers way back to my Brazil blog, I mentioned that it is very common to have small cars. There were hardly any SUVs or trucks. Here is the opposite. The driving is crazy, so everyone wasn’t to have the bigger beast. SUVs and trucks are the norm and smaller cars are rare.

Mozambicans are also more patriotic than Kenyans. One guy told me this was because the current president, Guebuza, made an effort to increase patriotism among the people. But whereas Kenyans tend to identify themselves by tribe, I have not heard about any tribal groups here. Everyone says they are Mozambican. Mozambique is actually larger than Kenya (I think) and I think it is more nationally unified.

Sorry no pictures today. I need to download the latest ones but they are at home!

Saturday was pretty laid back. We went to a big supermarket to buy some groceries and things for the house. I bought some candy while we were there and made my teammates trick-or-treat for it. Somehow it wasn’t quite the same though :P

On Sunday we went to a park near our house and watched some sports. We saw some basketball, which was pretty good except the ref called way too many fouls. Then we moved next door to see some football (soccer). We watched a guys team, and then a girls team play. The girls game was better, and went to a shoot out! And on the way home we were attacked by a bat! Well… it kind of flew close to us…

Other than that we did some work and just relaxed a little. Now it’s back at the university. Yesterday I stayed home and worked on my computer because I had some documents I needed to finish. Today we have our infosession for students at ISCTEM. Hopefully a lot of people will show up! Today is the last day of interviews at UEM, so in a few more days we will have our EB selected! Exciting, our first members! I am in charge of planning the new member training weekend for them. Should be a lot of fun!

Wow a short update, something must be wrong with me today!

Have some pictures then:




Basketball!



Soccer!



Sunday breakfast!

Back again. Tell me if I am writing too much. These entries always seem to end up much longer than I expect them too.

I was thinking the other day that Mozambique is in the wrong time zone. Geographically, it is under Kenya, which is GMT+3, yet Mozambique is GMT+2. It might be so that the time is the same as South Africa, because Mozambique and South Africa do a lot of business together (in fact, most of the products we buy here are in English because they come from South Africa). Or, as Daudo suggested, it might be so that the time zone is closer to Portugal’s. Whatever the reason, it means that the sun rises really early here and also sets quite early. In Kenya the sun started going down at 7 and it was dark by 7:30. Here it’s closer 6 and 6:30. That means longer evenings with lights on and more electricity used. Oh well, they must have a good reason for it.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post, about the trip to Costa do Sol. While I was being squished on the way home, I noticed one of the ladies with a big bucket of fish untied a knot in the end of a cloth she had covering the bucket. Inside was some money – a bill and a few coins. She took it out, counted it, took out one coin for the chapa fare, and retied the rest back in a knot.

Today was the election. As far as I know it went smoothly. Marco watched the news today and he didn’t mention anything being wrong. Apparently the results won’t be announced for another 2 or so weeks though. I was surprised by that, but I guess it takes them a while to get all the votes in from some very rural places. There were UN reps in the country to observe everything. If there is any controversy, we won’t be hearing about it for a little while yet.

But because it was the election today, it was a holiday so last night we went out with some Portuguese people to a karaoke place. When we got there, they didn’t have any electricity, so we had to wait outside. Once they got it back it was quite nice. It was funny hearing some people trying to sing in English when obviously they didn’t understand it.

Last but not least, the milk they drink here is very creamy. The regular milk is called “leite gordo” which means “fat milk”. The “low fat” milk is 2%.

Tchau

P.S. This moring it is spitting a little, and everyone is going around in coats and with umbrellas :P


More Costa do Sol since it seemed popular last time.


The heart banana bread I mentioned last time.