Gorongosiano

After we visited the school where the XOs are being rolled out, we headed to the EnviroTrade camp. A couple of South African families started this company that works helping the local communities move to more sustainable projects and also helps them with income generation through purchases of carbon offsets. The communities live in the restricted farming buffer zone that surrounds the Gorongosa National Park. The park's huge populations of all the popular African animals were decimated during the civil war when starving troops shot most of them for food. (Apparently some of the lions survived by eating people.)



These pictures are from the camp itself. They also raise guinea fowl and guinea pigs.

Before dinner, we went with some of the South African kids up to a ridge overlooking the valley, Boa Maria. I rode with two of the girls on a 4-wheeler.

Other methods of travel

Saturday night was spent packing to get ready for my next trip--Gorongosa and back. Gorongosa is a national park 400 km. from Quaelimane. The buses leave at 4 am for there. They gave me the front seat on a 16-person van, so I got an up-close view of our bus rocketing down the unlit road and swerving around the giant potholes. Our driver was extra enthusiastic about stopping for people flagging down the bus, so the journey took an extra long time. We had to cross the Zambeze River on a ferry, since the bridge still hasn't been completed. All foot passengers have to exit and stand behind the buses, trucks, and cars while the barge crosses the river. After the ferry crossing, we were almost halfway to Gorongosa. We kept stopping, this time for fruit, barbecued chicken, and fresh (i.e., live) chickens. (They sat in the back.)

After 7.5 hours, they told me to get out--we were at Gorongosa. Vodacom, my cellphone service, hasn't gotten to rural areas yet, so I found a payphone to call the group I was supposed to meet. While I was standing around waiting, a couple of Peace Corps volunteers walked up to me since I kind of stood out. They told me where to find the best bathroom in town while I waited. My ride came and recognized me (as I kind of stood out), and then, before we went back to the camp, we had a look around the local fish market. There were dried fish, fresh fish, salted fish of all sorts, and also charred, blackened mice. I'm not sure how exactly the charred mice are served.

More kids

Saturday I visited the office of a community-based organization that works with children on children's rights issues. A number of their child community leaders were there, and they tried the computers and gave feedback. When we were done, they sang a song to thank me for my visit.

The office (see picture) is in Quelimane proper, but isn't right downtown. To get to the office, my contact and I were given a lift by a truck that saw us about to get on bicycle taxis and was headed our direction. To get back, my contact had his bicycle at the office, so he gave me a ride back to the guesthouse on the back of his bicycle. The roads here have gigantic holes in them, so it was a kind of a jolting experience, but that's how everyone travels here.

Quelimane

I haven't been able to update recently as I've been without constant wireless access for the last week. I've been in Quelimane, the capital of Zambezia province in central Mozambique. I got in late on Thursday night and ate at "La Piscina". It's appropriately name, as it has a pool in the middle of the restaurant that's open to the public when it's not too cold. (It only gets up to 75 or so these days since it's winter.) I had curried prawns, one of Mozambique's well-known seafood dishes.

I had nonstop meetings the next day and afterwards went internet-hunting. The Catholic school across the street no longer has computers for public use, so they sent me to the post office. The post office internet was broekn, so they sent me to the other side of town. Five blocks later, I was at the other side of town, and I found someone who pointed out the Zambezia.com office (behind the meat shop). For dinner I had a very tasty, very spiny grilled fish. The stars are very bright here at night.


Run down church near the waterfront. The AIDS ribbon signs are everywhere.

American Music

It's probably our best export. One of the guys staying in the hostel when I was there said that they're huge 50 Cent fans here. He found this out from a kid he met in a marketplace who had a buttondown shirt featuring the artist. All the radio music I've heard has been American R&B. Well, mostly. The car that just drove by the guesthouse was blaring Guns'N'Roses.

In other news

Here's a post that doesn't feature a picture of the Meticais bills.

I wasn't able to get on the flight to Quelimane yesterday or today, so I'll be headed up there tomorrow and will probably stay there over the weekend. Though I'm missing out on the Zambezia action, I did get to see the German student protest again. A couple of weeks ago, I heard a bunch of noise and then saw a smattering of people parade past the guesthouse on the Avenida Kankhomba.



During the FRELIMA period here, when Mozambique was a communist country, a number of students studied in East Germany under a bilateral scholarship program. Part of the deal was that there would be funds transfered to the students' families back here, but governments being what they are, the families may not have gotten all the funds they expected. They haven't given up protesting in the couple of decades hence. It's kind of weird to see the German flag meandering down the street with bells and protests signs every week or so.

Finally

I guess this is the top of the food chain:

Forgot

This is what a 500 looks like. I forgot to post it before:

And I actually found an ATM that dispenses 1000's. I'll put those up next. I was also thinking of putting up a picture of the toilet flushing the wrong way.

Crafty

I went to the craft market again today with Liz (my friend from cross-country). I like a lot of the stuff there, but I have to leave after a while so I don't buy everything.

They have a lot of nice batiks...

They also have a variety of statues, some of which are kind of interesting-looking...

Besides various other knick-knacks (I got myself a pair of earrings shaped like Mozambique), they have a number of paintings.

Haggling is required, of course. Some of the nice stuff is still pretty cheap. I like the batiks the best.

In the Club

I went to my first school today. (My second if you count the Christian community school I visited, but I didn't interact with any students there, and it's got way nicer facilities than I expect most other schools.)

I went along with an NGO that works with youth clubs to promote children's rights and life skills. I'm going to see a number of schools with this group to better understand what kind of contextual factors related to computer use, HIV/AIDS, or the school setup in that area might make a pilot study easier or harder there.

The club meets in one of the classrooms:

The kids are between 10 and 16, and I had them try the computers without instruction and describe their thought process to help when I actually go and design the computer program.

They had some trouble with it--I couldn't even get the thing open until somebody showed me how. One of the kids had a computer at home, so he figured out relatively quickly how to get into a text program and was asking why he couldn't connect to websites. This girl hadn't seen a computer before, so she was shy about trying things. This will probably be even more the situation in rural areas.



After the club meeting and trying the computers, the club's president (the one helping the other girl with the computer) brought a cake she had made herself for everyone, and we had refrescos (sodas).

Keep a Lookout

Apparently the highest denomination of money is actually 1000 Mtn. but ATMs don't dispense them. Don't worry--I'll find one.

Communist Dictators and Going to Church

I haven't updated since I haven't been taking any pictures--mostly been doing meetings and writing documents from the confines of the missionary guesthouse. But perhaps I could describe a little about my current surroundings without the aid of interesting visuals.

All the streets in Maputo are named for prominent communists, Mozambican heroes, or African countries. I live near the intersection of Kim Il Sung and Mao Tse Tung. Sometimes I run on Frederich Engels.

It's really interesting staying at the missionary guesthouse. There are a lot of people coming through here to do some wonderful work. The two ladies who run the guesthouse have lived through an authoritarian government and civil war. We sing hymns before every meal (unless people have breakfast at different times). Often, though, the hymns are a little bit newer...so I kind of have to hum along...

On Sunday, I went with two of the younger girls I met here last week to a church nearby. It was called "Igreja Reformada", a Dutch Reformed church. We met in a kind of gymnasium where they had a piano and a guitar they used to accompany hymns. They put the hymns up on a screen in front with a transparency projector. Most of the hymns were in Portuguese, so I could follow along, but some were also in Changana, the local dialect, which was nice to hear.

Batty

I've moved over to the missionary guest house, and am online from the garden. No pictures since it's nighttime, but there's a strange sound emanating from the trees. I heard a monotonous, regular beeping sound the other night, and apparently it's the fruit bats that hang out here. I didn't know they made a sound something like the noise when you use a proximity card to get into a building.

Since I don't have a night vision camera, here's what wikipedia says about fruit bats (and see picture) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_bat].

Also, they appear to be some kind of Megabat. Coincidence? I think not.

Where in the world is Jennifer DeBoer?

This picture from Google Earth shows where Jennifer is while in Maputo. Look closely and you can see her waving to us right now.

The Perks

Besides the people who come in to the room randomly and spray it down with stinky bug spray, I'll miss out on the nightly muffins they give out at the hotel when I move over to the hostel.


I'll probably have enough money leftover, though, to buy a truckload of them.

More money

Started my slew of meetings today. Most of the work will be talking to people to figure out who to talk to who can tell me who to talk to the right person.

I'll probably be moving to a hostel tomorrow, so I won't have the courtyard view that one of my contacts compared to old Miami Beach.

Here's a denomination I haven't seen yet. Adam was wondering if there's some kind of food chain that's supposed to be represented.

The Train Station

I had dinner tonight with a girl I ran cross-country with at MIT. She's been here for a week already--she just started her year-long job with an NGO working with capacity building for small-scale farmers here. She leaves tomorrow to interview a group of coconut farmers.

After dinner (curry crab and rice), we went to this bar/music venue called The Train Station. It's located in a train station (see below). I'm not sure if the station still functions or not, but it was an interesting place for a night of jazz music.

Following Jennifer as she flies from Heathrow to Johannesburg

30 hours later

7 hours to London, 10 hours to Jo'burg, and 1 hour to Maputo. This is the courtyard of my hotel. There are a couple of kittens that apparently live here. I couldn't get wireless to work so they just gave me an internet hookup in my room, possibly for free.

It's winter here, which means it might get down to 60 degrees sometimes, and it's pretty dry.


The currency here might be the coolest I've seen:

testing 1..2..3..

I am currently checking in from London. I'm actually in the airport--this picture is from the last time I was here. Terminal three doesn't look like this. I have eight hours before my next flight.