Foi um fim de semana fantastica!

Foi um fim de semana que eu vou lembrar sempre.

Foi um fim de semana para todos... amigos juntos.

Foi um fim de semana muito especial pra mim.

On Saturday morning I wasn’t sure quite what to expect. Would they show up? Would they like the conference? Would it have as much impact on them as my first conference did for me so many years ago?

Our chair, Jeanne, arrived from South Africa on Wednesday night and we spent all day Thursday and Friday preparing. We had some challenges. The t-shirts were done wrong. The OC was a little bit lost with what they needed to do. We were running all over Maputo getting last minute things.



When we arrived at the hotel on Saturday morning there were already a group of members there waiting for us with big smiles on their faces. By the time we were ready to start, almost everyone had arrived (a big achievement for Mozambicans!) The LCs had prepared their roll calls. They were there, they were excited and they were ready.



The members of the LC had only met each other once or twice and the new members of the two LCs had never met before. During the opening ceremony we had ISCTEM on one side and UEM on the other. By the end of the morning, they were talking and laughing as if they had known each other for years.



They participated a lot in the sessions and asked a lot of good questions. They wanted to understand and to know more. While the new members were getting some training, the EBs went off with Daudo to discuss Gen 2010, a new initiative from AIESEC International. Francisco, the LCP, came back so excited! “We are Gen 2010” he said “we have so much to do!” Then in the afternoon Daudo took them to sit around the pool and just share their experiences as leaders so far and how they were feeling. I asked some of them later how it went and they said that they really enjoyed it and really appreciated the chance to share their thoughts with everyone else.



On Saturday afternoon we had two excellent externals come present. One spoke about the seven habits of effective people. This was completely new for the members and they loved it! Then we had Fernando Mendes, the AIESECer who tried to expand to Mozambique in 1999, come and talk to the members. I actually understood most of his speech and it was really amazing. He talked about what it really meant to be an AIESECer and I think even the facis left feeling inspired.



On Saturday night we had a Global Village where the members showed off the different regions of Mozambique and they dressed up in traditional clothes. It was a lot of fun and the first time for the members to interact in a truly social environment without sessions and content to worry about. Everyone was dancing Marrabenta and chatting and having a really good time.



On Sunday we worked in our functional teams and mapped out the projects and activities we would be starting in the coming months. After Daudo presented the projects, he asked the members what they thought, and they were all really excited and liked the ideas.

We also had Cindy, the Africa Director from AIESEC International, join us on Sunday and share some of her experiences. I think she and Jeanne really helped to make the members feel like they were part of a global organization. All the facis also had a chance to share their experiences and I talked a lot about Brazil and Kenya. The members asked me some really good questions as well, like how I have benefited personally from my experiences and what my biggest challenges have been. I remember participating in sessions like this when I was a new member, so it was really nice to be on the other side.

In the afternoon we did goal setting. In Canada, a lot of members don’t take this session very seriously because we spend our whole lives setting goals at school. Here it is something very new and they were really focused on filling out their forms and mapping out their futures.

During the closing everyone was sad that the conference was coming to and end. They were all frantically writing sugar cubes and dancing as many roll calls as we could queue up. Everyone was talking group pictures and it really struck me that people who had been complete strangers just a day before were now best friends. The members said they really learned a lot and enjoyed the weekend. They left the conference feeling motivated and empowered to achieve.



When Cindy arrived at the conference, she said “wow, this feels so AIESEC!” Considering that just 6 months ago, AIESEC didn’t exist here and now we had 40 people participating in the first National Conference, I think today we can be very happy :)

Ponto D'Ouro

So big long post is overdue I guess. Well here it is!

For Team Days last weekend we went to Ponto D’Ouro (lit. Gold Point) which is a beach on the border with South Africa. This means that there are a lot more South African tourists there than Mozambicans.

Maputo from Catembe in the morning


We left early on Friday morning, crossing on the ferry across the river to Catembe. The ferry itself holds around 10 cars, though there were only a few on with us. The foot passengers just stand in between the cars. Catembe is just across the river but it’s already a different world from Maputo. The buildings are all small shacks and a few small brick buildings. The road is dirt, which is rather ironic considering just after there is a ferry there is a big sign which states that the government is spending 16 million meticais to pave the road and the project will be finished in Dec 2008. Hmmm, I wonder where that money ended up?

I think the government skipped a step


There are chapas that run every day to Ponto D’Ouro but they don’t have any schedule. They just sit there until they are full. In our case, we had to wait about 40 minutes until we had enough people. Then we started off on the dirt highway to Ponto D’Ouro. The distance is not so great, maybe 150 km, but because the road is poor the trip takes between 3 and 4 hours on average. After about an hour on a two lane dirt superhighway, we turned onto a smaller sand road. We went through acres and acres of open savannah (though different from the savannah I saw in Kenya) but saw no animals at all, which surprised me. We even went through the Maputo reserve, which featured a sign warning of alligators, hippos and elephants, but saw none. Too bad. Eventually we came to the border with South Africa, though we didn’t cross it. It was rather funny that we were driving on the sand road and just across the border was dark pavement. There is a big different that you can easily see between the infrastructure of the two countries. After climbing a few sand dunes, we finally arrived at our destination.

Ponto D’Ouro was a bit smaller than I had envisioned. It has two decent sized hotels along the beach and around 7 or 8 restaurants scattered around. There is a gas station and a supermarket (that was quite bare). Then there are the houses of the permanent and long term residents. We were staying in the vacation house of a friend of Daudo’s family. It was a one story building with 4 bedrooms, running water, a shower and a working toilet. Who could ask for more!

The team!


Our main purpose there was to do our planning for the next three months, so for Friday and Saturday we were pretty much focused on this task, just going out to eat and drink “Doshem”. The most common Mozambican beer is Lauretina, which I have mentioned before (the one that tastes like coffee). The other common brand is called 2M. In Portuguese 2 is Dois and M is, well, M. So as you arrive in Ponto there is a sign that says, in English for the South Africans, “In Ponto D’Ouro, just ask for a “Doshem”. So we did!


Note: this is not my picture since the billboard is old and faded now. From the nets.

The service was really slow (as to be expected) but the servers were friendly. At dinner one night a lady asked me if I was Irish. On Saturday while we were waiting for lunch we made a trip to the beach. The sand there is ridiculously soft, and also very hot! The water is quite blue and the scenery is nice.

The beach!


We were supposed to stay at Ponto D’Ouro until Monday but on Friday Daudo received a call saying that his driving exam (written) had been scheduled for Monday morning and couldn’t be changed. So Daudo had to leave early Sunday to get back and study (I told him he could study my 15 steps to driving like a Mozambican), while the rest of us stayed for a relaxing last day. We spent some more time on the beach and then I wandered off to do some shopping.

I found a really interesting shop called Magenta Moon which had all sorts of odd things, from herbal soaps, to afghans to dream catchers. They did, however, have a small collection of books, so I picked up another crime novel for too high a price. Then I wandered over to the craft fair. There were a lot of stand with many different things, most very similar or identical to the things we saw in Maputo and Nampula, only at 3 or 10 times the price. I was looking at some shirts made from capulanas and the guy came over to me. How much? 500 MT. Hmm, I can get this for 100 MT in Maputo. The guy just walked away. He wasn’t going to even try. I was looking at some t-shirts later and the guy told me they were 600 MT. We were talking and I mentioned that I was living in Maputo and he said he was from there. So I told him “well, if you are from Maputo, you should know that I can get this exact t-shirt there for 200 or 300 MT” and he said “yes”! Needless to say I didn’t buy anything, but I saw a lot of South Africans who did. Actually, the original prices were quoted to me in Rands, since they deal with that currency more often.

Magenta Moon


In the afternoon we packed up and went to the chapa station. We ended up waiting for around an hour and a half before the driver decided to leave. We were doing pretty well for time, until all of a sudden one of the tires started making a rubbing noise. The driver got worried and started going much slower, so we crawled the rest of the way back to Catembe.

From the Chapa on the way back


When we arrived Catembe had no power and then just as we got on the boat it started raining. What luck! We managed to cross the river and get a chopela before it started absolutely pouring.

Overall it was a really good weekend. We managed to get a lot of work done and we also enjoyed Ponto D’Ouro and managed to escape Maputo for a few days. We had told Vera not to come until Tuesday, but she called Lilian on Sunday to see if we needed her. She missed us!

Maputo at night from Catembe on the way back


In other news, there is a magazine published here called TVZine and this months edition featured an interview with Daudo and two pictures, one of him and one of the whole team. So I got my picture in a Mozambican magazine! Woo! Except that they said I was Jessica Parker :P Why do people always do that? Lots of people have been calling Daudo to congratulate him, which is pretty cool.

You can read it here: http://www.tvcabo.co.mz/tvzine (Abril 2010, guy with a scarf)

I think the summer here is finally ending. It’s still warm, but it’s been raining like stink and this morning I woke up freezing! I had to dig out the turtlenecks I brought for the first time in months. It’s nice to have a little break from the heat though. It means you can actually go from place to place in the city without dripping sweat.

Less that two weeks left until the big conference! I am getting excited! We have 25 people registered already and we should have another 25 by the end of this week. Things are pretty much on track, though I think there will be a little scrambling next week to get the last things ready.

Ok, I think you are now officially up to date.

Still Here!

Ahhh, lack of updates! I have the usual excuses. I’ve been very busy. I haven’t had much to say.

But here I am. This last weekend we had the second new member training. This one wasn’t quite as impressive, because this one was with the weaker of the two LCs, but we had some very strong candidates come and I think the LC will benefit from some excellent new members.

On Sunday I was extremely tired and just wanted to relax, so I grabbed a book from our “library”. It’s called “The Impact of War on Children” and it’s written by Graca Machel, the former Mozambican Minister of Education and now a representative of the United Nations. It’s from 2001, so it’s a little our of date, but it’s very interesting and has quite a few interesting cases, including some more recent conflicts that occurred during my lifetime, but when I was too young to know about it (Rwanda, Kosovo, Burundi). She raises a lot of good points, about health, education, and reintegration. Right now I am reading the chapter on Education. She suggests that education should continue if at all possible, even in times of war, and if it can’t, it should be resumed as soon as possible once the conflict is over. It gives communities a sense of stability to know the school is running and bring people back into a normal routine after very abnormal events.

She also gives several examples from the Mozambican civil war, including the fact that 45% of primary schools were destroyed and child soldiers were being employed regularly. It made me realize that since I have been here, nobody has talked about the civil war. They talk often of their independence and fighting against the Portuguese and build statues and name roads after the leaders. Yet the civil war is never mentioned. It’s a subject I would like to learn more about, but I feel awkward bringing it up. Just like Mozambique’s Communist phase. If it weren’t for the street names, you wouldn’t ever know it happened.

Of course, most of the people I am working with were just bring born as the war was ending, but I would still like to hear about what happened and why. A lot of the people in power within the country are those who went through both the independence and the civil war, so it definitely influences the country, even today.

My babies are all growed up!

I went to an AIESEC conference a few years ago and one of the facilitators said that being VP Talent Management (TM) is like being VP Mom. You take care of the members and manage their learning, from their first introduction to the organization.

Today we had the New Member Training (Discover Day) for the students we selected at UEM. There, presenting, leading activities, managing information, coordinating activities, were the students that just five months ago were in the same seat as the new members there today. And they did great! I was so impressed with their confidence, their knowledge and their passion. Not only did they take what we did and repeat it well, they added their own touches, their own style. I was so proud of them! I spent most of the day smiling.

When we cleaned up after the delegates had left, we packed all the boxes into the car of an alumnus who was giving us a ride home. The Exec team all walked off together, talking and laughing and so very much a team. It’s a moment I will remember for a long time.

I was walking home from the university yesterday and a student started talking to me. He asked where I was from and I told him.

A little later I was asking him what he studied and then he asked me. Then he asked me "And how are the American schools?"

"I wouldn't know, I've never been to one."

"Oh?"

"No, I live in Canada."

"Oh... but isn't it, like, the same thing?"

Quick Notes

Sorry for the gap in writing. Things have been pretty focused on work this last week, and I know that that is a lot less interesting for you than it is for me.

A quick update. We did more than 30 interviews at UEM and came up with some very good people. Next weekend will be the new member training (Discovery Days). We started the interviews at ISCTEM and already have some good candidates, but we won’t finish until next week with them. I have focusing more on the conference as well. Today we selected our logo and slogan (you’ll have to wait and see) and we narrowed the possible venues down to three. One month till the conference, lets put it into the next year and get this thing going! We also started building the agenda and doing fundraising. I have a feeling that in April, my life will revolve around this conference.

I have a few more random things to share with you.

In Canada, when we want someone to come, we put our hand palm up and either curl our pointer finger with the others already curled, or we curl all of our fingers together. Are you with me? Here in Mozambique, it’s very different. When Vera first did it, I had no idea what she wanted. The put out their hand palm out with their fingers outstretched, and curl their fingers in as they pull their arm in to their body. I hope you understand what I mean. But to me it doesn’t look at all like “come here”. It looks more like a strange wave.

Here it is hard to find a gas station like you would find in Canada. The sidewalks here are wide (ideal for parking cars, as I have mentioned before). Instead of having a specific place for a gas station, they just build one or two meters into the wide sidewalk. The cars pull on to the sidewalk, like they do anyways, fill up and go.

If you want to take out money here, book off a whole morning or afternoon. In Canada, there might be a line of two or three people ahead of you and you wait perhaps 10 minutes to use the ATM. Here, the line-ups start early in the morning and can reach 20-25 people. Usually you have to wait an hour or more before you get to the machine.

In other news, Lilian’s Mom visited us for a week and brought me 1.5 kilos of doce de leite. Needless to say, there is a lot less than 1.5 kilos now.

Recruitment x2

So as most of you probably know, we are doing recruitment right now for the first members of AIESEC in Mozambique, since we already have the first EBs. We have been visiting classrooms and doing presentations, as well as putting up posters and handing our flyers. We also decided it would be good to host an event at each campus to raise awareness about AIESEC, engage the students and connect with our partners. Thus, the plan was set and the two events happened this week and last week.

The first was at UEM, the big public university. We had a good turnout and the presentations and workshops that we ran were good (according to the students). Almost too good I think, because we ended up with more than 100 applications to be members of AIESEC, even though we are only planning to select 20! The students are really interested in AIESEC, which is great! Now the hard part is deciding who to choose.



On Tuesday we had our event at ISCTEM, a smaller private university. It’s a tougher crowd to get excited about things, so we didn’t have quite as good a turnout, but we still ended up with more than 50 applications after two weeks of recruitment, which is good. Again, we will be selecting around 20.



Now the interviews are beginning and soon we will have 40 brand new AIESEC in Mozambique members! Very exciting! It’s my job to coordinate the recruitment at both universities, so this will be the payoff for several weeks of work (with a lot of help from Lilian as well). Of course things don’t end there. Once we have the new members, we have to teach them about the organization and what they can do. Part of this initiative will include our very first national conference, which I am also responsible for. We should have around 50-60 people at our 2 1/2 day conference at the beginning of May. I have an OC (Organizing Committee) working with me to plan everything. It’s going to be a big challenge, but I’m hoping that it will set the bar high for future conferences. As you might guess from my last blog entry, I’m a little concerned about the hotel we will be working with (which hasn’t been selected yet), but I think we will manage, in a Mozambican way, to pull it all together.