Christmas in Mozambique
We took a 1500 km road trip to the coast of Mozambique. The road was really bad in most sections. Our coworkers warned that it would be an adventure. I have never seen so many potholes in my life. Local kids would, sort of pretend, to fill the potholes as you approach by throwing dirt high in the air then put out their hand asking for money. A week later when we returned I think they were still by the same holes. The countryside was beautiful and there were tons of butterflies in some sections. From the state of my windshield I would have to predict that hurricanes next season in the Gulf of Mexico are going to be small and few in numbers. Driving in Mozambique is much different that Malawi. For starters, there are less: people, bikes, goats, cows on the road although we did see baboons. Next the police actually have cars and radar guns. This was evident when one waved me down for doing 95 in a 60 zone. Here you have to pay on the spot. The fine 1,000,000 Mozambicans dollars (meticas). That works out to be about $50 CDN.
Finally our first destination, Vilanculos where instead of five star hotels it was third world resorts which include such amenities as king size roaches, free malaria and diarrhea. One of the place we stayed had “Things to do in VILANCULOS” – “watch the local fisherman bring in their nets”. What we saw: the highly skilled technique of using an oar to shovel crabs, squid, 50 types of fish into buckets; boys playing with water balloons (actually puffer fish), and a man beat a sting ray until its babies came out. Highly disturbing. Another place we stayed was on a Island off the coast, which is a national park, called Gabriel’s. It is a quiet little hideaway with nice grass huts. One morning from there we went to the 2-mile reef by dhow. Tess was a little apprehensive as there were no life jackets and the fact that she can’t swim more than 25 m. However there were some heavily outfitted South Africans who lent us a lifejacket. Well the snorkeling was highly anticipated and it delivered. Tons of fish and coral (obviously). Bright sunny day so the visibility was great. It was better than FINDING NEMO. And on the way back to mainland we were accompanied a short ways by a school of dolphins.
As some may know we had the SEA, SUMMIT, and SAFARI planned for the break. Well… the SEA is all that we got to see, as Tess took advantage of the free malaria offered as it was too good to pass up. So we are back in Lilongwe, tess is talking gibberish, as she is on drugs, and will be fine just in time for work on Wednesday.
Happy New Years!!
Things that make you go hmmm....
Prices of all commodities are rising. Availability of maize (the staple food) is falling. People are becoming desperate, and it is starting to manifest itself in the form of crime. Last week, the CPAR office in Zomba was broken into by a gang of 21 men. They severely beat and tied up the two night security guards, and broke into the office. As even CPAR resources are quite lean, they must of been surprised to find only one computer, about 200$ in petty cash, and 3 motorcycle jackets. What was the result? On the one hand, the profits that could be made by selling the 3 jackets and one computer to be shared by 21 men would not even be enough for these men to feed their families for more than two weeks. On the other hand, it delayed all the input of data and processing required for CPAR to distribute 1,008.55 metric tons of maize to 20,177 starving households.
Today I was walking to the CPAR office in Lilongwe and was surprised to find an angry mob of people milling around the CPAR front gate. A thief had tried to climb over the wall at night and was apprehended by the night guard. It seems that people like to take justice into their own hands, as the thief was sitting slouched over in a pool of his own blood, with his hands roughly tied together by vines and pieces of rope. Apparently his buddies had made off with the neighbors car tires as well. One of my work colleagues, who lives next door to the office was thrilled that the thief was caught, as there was a break-in at his landlord's house a month ago, and he was unfairly suspected, and thrown into jail for 4 days, until CPAR could bail him out.
But dont worry about us. Jim and I live in a gated compound with other foreigners. We are surrounded by a high wall that has an electric fence on top (and the on/off switch is strangely in our unit, so it is our responsibility to turn it on every night haha). There are two very loud guard dogs, and security guards. Our flat locks up like fort knox, there are bars on all the windows and there is even an extra steel security gate to the bedroom that was installed by the previous tenant who worked for the UN. (may be useful if I ever fight with Jim haha). At first I didnt want to live with all the wazungus (foreigners), but now I am grateful that we have a very secure place.
Thinking about these break-in's makes me realize that the impacts of chronic poverty are more far reaching than I realized. It goes beyond the physical manifestations such as hunger, inadequate housing, unemployment, poor sanitation and health. After generations and generations are trapped in the cycle of poverty, it breeds dependency, insecurity, desperation, devaluation of self worth, and passiveness. While it is sad to see so many people burdened by physical poverty, it is most disheartening to see such actions taken out of desperation and hopelessness.
When I lived at Western with Stef and Charisse, we never locked the front door, not even at night. We were proud of our open door policy which allowed our friends in drop in anytime, and the inebriated ones to stumble in and crash on our coach (which was strangely in the kitchen haha) after a night out on the town (ahem Jesse). It just reminds me of how much I took for granted in Canada
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Food distributions. Famine coming. World Food Program (WFP) is predicting that 5 million will be starving in Malawi by Jan. (that's about 50% of the country). It's crazy. WFP has had to do emergency food distribution here for the last 3 years, although the severity has not been as bad as this year. Emergency food distributions are obviously necessary in the short term, but we at CPAR feel that it has to be partnered with longer term food security interventions. The frustrating thing is that it is so hard to get money from Donors to do food security programs, but easy to get money for emergencies like this. Too many handouts promote dependency. We really need to be implementing some longer term sustainable solutions!
Tess in the Village. I thought this woman wanted me to bring her a sweater because she was tapping me on the shoulder and shivering. Turned out she just wanted her photo taken. This is one of the villages outside Lilongwe where we run some of our programs. I really don't know these people, they just love the camera. haha.
This is a borehole. I had no ideas what it was either until I got here. Basically it is the village water pump. CPAR in partnership with UNICEF puts them up. Women walk roughly 2 or 3 kms a day to fetch water from a stream, and carry it home on their heads. I have running water in our apt, so I can't complain.
More work. This is a meeting with a bunch of women who have taken in orhpans (again alot of orphans as a result of the high rate of HIV/AIDS.) CPAR has built 31 orphan schools for the little kids, to provide relief to the women, but also to feed them, as most of these orphans are severly malnourished.
Yep, the rumours are true.... I actually do some work (just a little bit). This is a photo of my two colleagues (Ellen and Jimmy) holding a meeting with women that we have started a little micro credit scheme with. These women are all widows (i.e. thier husbands have died of HIV/AIDS) and we loan them some start up capital so they can start a small business...
A snapshot of our tiny one bedroom flat (with Paula and Ruth chillin' in the background). and YES, we have a house cleaner, security guard and gardener.... they all come with the complex...it's an ex-pat life!! (almost like living at home again hehe)
The long awaited CAR!!! After 1 month of searching for a vehicle, and 3 weeks of hassling with the car dealer / insurance / registration / malawi gov in general.... we are finally rollin'
