Cocktails

Well it’s been quite the week so far, featuring not one but TWO cocktails that were both very interesting and very different.

The first was an event that we have been planning for an entire year. The idea was told hold a big event to march the official “launch” of AIESEC in Mozambique. The original plan was to do this in December, but it didn’t quite work out, so we waited. Of course, we have been running operations since October and have already realized 6 exchanges and several other projects and events, so it’s not really a “launch” so to speak, but an event to mark that AIESEC is here and established with a strong plan for the future. This wasn’t for the students of the universities - they already know us. This was more for the government and the business community to take us seriously and know how they can work with us.



So the date was finally set for June 30th, the last official day of our term on the national team. We invited more than 60 influential people from around the city, including government, student organizations, companies and organizations. We had three guest speakers – Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique and an honorary member of AIESEC, the CEO from Ernst & Young and The Minister of Education. Lilian was our moderator and Daudo also gave a short speech. Marco was in charge of the guest list and I was the official photographer.



We started a bit late, in true Mozambican fashion, but the event went pretty smoothly and we got good feedback at the end. We had a lot of our members there as well. The two major Mozambican TV stations (TVM and STV) both came and filmed the whole event and did interviews with Daudo and the other guests. The next day, STV showed a two-minute clip about the event on the evening news! We will see in the next few months if the event achieved its objectives.



After the event the four of us all went out to a traditional Portuguese restaurant for a fancy dinner. It was really nice and the food was incredible. It was a big weight off our shoulders. As Daudo said “Next week will be the first week since we arrived that we won’t have the Official Launch as a weekly priority”.



So now AIESEC in Mozambique is officially launched! The event has garnered us 12 appearances in the media in the last two days alone.

As the Official Launch was only June 30th, you can probably guess what the second was. Yes, the day after was Canada Day and I received and invitation to go to the Canadian High Commissioner’s house for another cocktail. I wasn’t expecting a large crowd – maybe 20 or 30 people – but there were more than 100! Not all of them were Canadian, some were guests and affiliates, but there were still a lot of Canadians there. The first lady I talked to was from…. Victoria! What are the chances!



They played all Canadian music and they had a group of school kids sing O Canada and the Mozambican national anthem. Then the High Commissioner gave a speech – all in Portuguese, which was a little odd. But it was nice and I understood most of it, especially since he spoke very slowly.




There were lots of snacks as well, starting with sausages, cheese with crackers and some sushi-like things. Then came dessert, featuring brownies, chocolate cups and… wait for it… maple leaf shaped sugar cookies and plates of mini pancakes with maple syrup dip!! It was very yummy!

Then, just to make us all feel more at home, it started to pour. Because I walked to the place, I ended up staying an extra half hour waiting for the rain to stop. At least tropical rain is intense but short-lived. And until that day, it had not rained for over 2 months! Mother Nature was saving up just for us!

Now that it’s July, we are just wrapping things up and finishing our transition with the new team. I am working on my plans for what comes next. Two more weeks until we are all done! Crazy!

Independance Day - 35 years

Some photos from Independance Day!

The City Hall, where the ceremony took place.



Some performers at the event, though I didn't see them performing


Looks it's Guebuza! Can you see him? In his nice comfy chair!

The torch!


Some kids getting ready to perform

35 years of Mozambique

This Friday (June 25th) marks the 35th anniversary of Mozambican independance from the Portuguese in 1975.

Mozambican history from the 60s through the 80s was not pretty, including the war of independance, followed by the civil war which finally ended in the early 90s. Eduardo Mondlane (who the university is named after) was the first leader of the independance movement, but died during the war and was succeeded by Mozambique's first president - Samora Machel.

There is a torch of independance which has been slowing making its way around the country over the last few months and will arrive in Maputo this week for a big celebration. Coverage of the torch has been shown regularly on the TV stations here. It's a national holiday as well, so hopefully I will be able to check out the celebrations.

Mozambican history has a number of interesting stories, including one that I have heard often about when the current president (at the time, the minister of the interior) famously declared the 24/20 rule. A large number of Portuguese residents had 24 hours to leave the country with a maximum of 20 kg of luggage. However, this exodus caused a huge leadership gap, since most of the Portuguese were the business owners and managers and there were no obvious replacements prepared. National leadership is still an issue here as even now a lot of the big businesses are owned and managed by foreigners, mostly Portuguese, Nigerians, Indians and South Africans.

Now with 35 years of independance and almost 20 years since the end of the civil war, it will be interesting to see where Mozambique is headed next.

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.

Two Celebrations

Hello again everyone. Today is a day of celebration!

Yesterday, we had a CEEDer arrive from Botswana, making him the very first CEEDer ever for AIESEC in Mozambique. Today he came with me to ISCTEM and attended the first ever ISCTEM LC meeting. He’ll be here for 3 weeks helping me in the TM area. So this is the first celebration!

Next, the Corporate Relations team (Daudo and Lilian) confirmed one more national partnership today meaning that in the month of May they have raised more than $20 000 USD for AIESEC in Mozambique!! This includes 4 new national partnerships.

We all went out to dinner to celebrate!!

An eXcellent Day

For the non-AIESECers reading this, we use a lot of acronyms and short forms. X stands for exchange, which is at the heart of what we do. It’s what connects all of the countries of AIESEC together. Sharing experiences, cultures, ideas, etc.

So when I say that today is an eXcellent day, now you know what I mean.

Today we had our fourth intern arrive here in Maputo. She is also from Brazil and will be working here for one year in a book company helping them to build and execute a strategic plan. This is the first reception that is planned by the LC members rather than us on the national team, so it is a significant event for them. Their first airport pick-up! Though it turned out to be a little less than ideal when one of her bags was lost and she got stuck in the airport waiting for it to arrive on the next flight. As I type she is still there, but they should arrive soon.

While the members were waiting at the airport I was at home online doing some work. I talked for a long while to a fellow Canadian AIESECer who I know from some conferences a couple years ago and who is interested in applying for a position we have open. We talked for a long time about living in Mozambique and about AIESEC here, and now she says she will definitely apply!

Meanwhile I was also tracking down one of our EPs (Mozambicans going abroad on exchange) to tell him about a really great opportunity I heard about by email yesterday afternoon. It’s a two month position and they are looking for someone who speaks Portuguese and has exactly the background of my EP. It took some doing, because he was a little reluctant and nervous at first, but I convinced him to apply and that this could be a really good opportunity for him. Now I am awaiting his resume and cover letter to send to the AIESECers in the other country. Of course there are other candidates and it’s not for sure that he will be selected, but I think he stands a good chance and I am glad that at least he won’t let the opportunity slip away without even trying. Even if he doesn’t get this position, I think he will be more motivated to look for other options.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with another of our EPs so perhaps the eXcellence will continue!

This is the first weekend I have had free in a very long time. Last weekend was the conference. Technically the weekend before that was free, but I was sick with a cold the whole weekend so I didn’t really get to enjoy it. The weekend before that was our Team Days (though we DID get to spend a day on the beach, so I can’t complain too much…)

I slept in late and then made my self a big stack of pancakes to start the day. Daudo is in South Africa for the weekend for an AIESEC meeting and Lilian went to the beach with some others. So it’s just Marco and me at home this weekend. We decided it would be a good day to hit up the Natural History Museum. I wasn’t sure when they are open, so I looked up their number in the phone book, only to find out they weren’t listed! Rather strange. But we called another museum (which is closed for renovations, too bad) and they told us it was open.

We hoped on chapa and head to Polana. The Museum itself is in a really nice colonial style building that is well maintained



It’s a decent size, filled mostly with exhibits on the animals native to the area. There was a whole room of reptiles, another of fish, another of mammals, you get the idea. They even had a whole room of bug (Bonnie would have DIED!)





At the end we finally made it to the ethnography room. I was not expecting, but hoping there would be some early hominid specimens, though I can’t remember ever learning about specimens from Mozambique. Well, there weren’t any but they did have a nice collection of ethnographic materials – pictures, pottery, musical instruments, basketry. It is rather funny actual, as Marco commented, that most of the things that were in the museum could be seen every day in use on the streets.



After the museum Marco had an appointment so I went for a walk around Polana. I wandered over to the waterfront where I found these benches. At least they are promoting awareness!


It reads: "Prove your love, take the HIV test with me"

I walked a bit more and stopped for an icecream cone, which proceeded to melt all over me, so I went to the mall to use the washroom. I stayed in the mall for a while. There was a nice store that had some very African style dresses. I asked how much they were – 1500MT (~$50) !! So I didn’t buy anything. The as I was walking back to the chapa stop, I saw some nice dresses and other clothes on the street. The lady who was selling them was really nice and we talked for quite a while. Of course she quoted me high prices, but in the end I bought a dress and a top for 600MT (~$20) which was probably still a bit overpriced but not a bad deal.

Overall a very nice day. Now I just have to make plans for Sunday!