The 2011 IKURU census, otherwise known as a tour of Nampula´s seediest hostels, like the epic Golden Anchor in Namialo or the Cave Negra (Black Cave) in Malema, was an immense job of about three weeks in the field (bush). We ran on fumes mostly, getting 4-6 hours of sleep, driving three to eight hours a day on terrible dirt roads/goat paths in a beat up Toyota Hillux that was more dead than alive. But we completed about 90% of the planned job, and are now hard at work organizing the massive amount of data to please the various interested parties.
It was great traveling with four Mozambicans. My Portuguese got much better, and I learned lots of Mozambican slang. Lisboa and Lagres are big conversationalists, so we had lively debates about politics, news, life, education, work. I learned a lot about Mozambican life, customs, beliefs. All of my colleagues believe in healers, witches, omens, spells, magic potions, and more. I learned a meal is not a meal without meat. We ate shrimp, dried and fresher than fresh, crab, rockfish, can after can of sardines, lots of chicken, goat, a suckling pig and an adult pig, and gazelle.
Our biggest problems were car-related. In Malema the mechanic first asked for 3,500mts ($100). We got him down to 1,500, still a rip-off, of which 500 he shared with the first “mechanic” called. We were 9 hours late to our meeting as a result of several occurrences, like taking forever to make French fries for breakfast, charging an already charged car battery, chasing down a mechanic, waiting for him to BS to earn more money and invent problems to solve, negotiating or rather begging him to lower the price and forget that the car has USAID plastered all over it and a white dude in the passenger seat. To top it off, he didn´t have a receipt, and said he would only get us one for 200mts, or about $6, which is absurd of course. We paid out of pocket for the work, knowing full well that without an official receipt a reimbursement is unlikely. These districts where we travel don´t have ATMs, but we don´t carry much money in case of theft, and we pay out of pocket hoping accounting will have paid our lodging and meal advances or reimbursements.
On the return trip from Iapaca, around 1900, after chasing a rabbit for dinner in the car, we saw sparks fly from under the hood. Lisboa stopped the car, popped the hood, and I saw that the bar normally screwed down to hold the battery popped loose and the fuse cover nowhere to be found. Not only did the mechanic screw us on price, which should have been 800-1,000mts, but he didn´t screw down the battery. As a consequence, the wire connected to the positive terminal was severed and the battery was bouncing around the engine compartment.
This is criminal negligence. A sparking battery could´ve set the engine aflame, and as there often aren´t gas stations in the districts, we had several 20L gas cans in the bed. As it was, we were hung out to dry in the middle of nowhere with no hope of a mechanic, and possibly with large animals roaming in the bushes.
Lagres cut some of the wire securing the grill and used it to wire the battery cable back together. The nut holding the bar in place was lost in the engine compartment, so Abel cut several lengths of the rope holding the tarp in the bed in place, which Lisboa and Lagres used to tie the battery in place, knowing full well that a plastic rope in a toasty engine compartment wrapped around an acidy battery isn´t a great solution. But graças a Deus (thank God) we made it to Malema, to continue limping along.
Traveling in rural Nampula made me forget to ask certain questions, like:
Is this towel clean?
Is this water safe to drink?
Did the cook wash his hands?
Can I go this way?
Is this a road?
Should I eat this?
Do you have soap/toilet paper?
Are these eggs cage-free?
Where´s the nearest WiFi hotspot?
Why?
Is there a gas station around here?
What is that smell?
What kind of meat is this?
Is this a urinal or a shower?
And finally some notable quotes from the IKURU survey:
Há um discurso sobre a ponte (There is a discussion about the bridge, ie “We don´t know if the bridge still exists.”
Esta discoteca cheira de peixe seco (This disco smells like dried fish)
28 April 2011
05 April 2011
Qual é a cena em Nampula?
The last few weeks have been extremely busy with work. My first assignment in Nampula is to co-supervise a survey of a 20,000 member farmers cooperative. The first week and a half a colleague and I ran between three offices editing the survey to the liking of various partners, all of which have different perspectives and goals for it. Eventually we whittled it down from seven pages to two surveys of two pages each, both much more focused and objective than the original.
In parallel we tried to work out logistics, like arranging a car, getting money in advance to pay food and lodging expenses, scheduling meetings with associations and forums (comprised of 5-15 associations), and coordinating with field technicians.
Finally on 29/03/11 we got into the field with our three survey takers. We traveled approximately 700km over six days almost entirely on awful dirt roads and what seemed to be goat trails. It can take two hours to go less than 50km. We have to hit nine districts (like counties) in three weeks, about 29 forums, 282 associations, and 30 women´s groups.
Travel takes a toll, driving sometimes six hours a day on jarring roads, sweating in 90-100º heat, sleeping 4-6 hours in whatever lodging is available, often not eating lunch. Once, before heading to Moma from Angoche, we asked a man we on the road which of two possible routes was better. Not accustomed to speaking Portuguese, and wanting to sound formal, he said, "There is a discussion about the bridge on that route," ie "We don´t know if the bridge still exists." We elected the other route, which involved one earthen bridge and crossing a stream.
On the other hand, it´s great talking to the farmers, seeing so much of rural Nampula Province, getting to know my four colleagues, speaking Portuguese almost exclusively, eating incredible seafood, going places foreigners or even most Mozambicans never go. The task is daunting, but it´s much better than sitting around at my last job wondering when I would next have something to do.
On Friday we head out again, for around 10 days, to hopefully finish the survey. After that analyzing the data and writing reports and catching up on work that should´ve been done but was over which the survey took precedence.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Osukuru!
In parallel we tried to work out logistics, like arranging a car, getting money in advance to pay food and lodging expenses, scheduling meetings with associations and forums (comprised of 5-15 associations), and coordinating with field technicians.
Finally on 29/03/11 we got into the field with our three survey takers. We traveled approximately 700km over six days almost entirely on awful dirt roads and what seemed to be goat trails. It can take two hours to go less than 50km. We have to hit nine districts (like counties) in three weeks, about 29 forums, 282 associations, and 30 women´s groups.
Travel takes a toll, driving sometimes six hours a day on jarring roads, sweating in 90-100º heat, sleeping 4-6 hours in whatever lodging is available, often not eating lunch. Once, before heading to Moma from Angoche, we asked a man we on the road which of two possible routes was better. Not accustomed to speaking Portuguese, and wanting to sound formal, he said, "There is a discussion about the bridge on that route," ie "We don´t know if the bridge still exists." We elected the other route, which involved one earthen bridge and crossing a stream.
On the other hand, it´s great talking to the farmers, seeing so much of rural Nampula Province, getting to know my four colleagues, speaking Portuguese almost exclusively, eating incredible seafood, going places foreigners or even most Mozambicans never go. The task is daunting, but it´s much better than sitting around at my last job wondering when I would next have something to do.
On Friday we head out again, for around 10 days, to hopefully finish the survey. After that analyzing the data and writing reports and catching up on work that should´ve been done but was over which the survey took precedence.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Osukuru!
09 March 2011
Updates, like a 1,100 km move...
Here are some things that happened recently:
-I celebrated a birthday and prepared to move to Nampula, in northern Mozambique. The other volunteers and our friends sent me off in style, though it was very hard leaving them after we´ve become so close in the last six months. Peace Corps really is the best America has to offer the world.
-I left my going away party to witness a caesarian section at a local hospital. The baby and mother were fine, and I was impressed by the doctors´ skill and professionalism. I returned less than an hour later to find my food ready.
-I tried to mail my grandparents a letter. It cost 92 meticais (singular: metical, MZN, or mt), about $3.00, to mail internationally. I had a 100 metical note and no coins, which have denominations of 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10 meticais. The smaller notes are 20, 50, 100, and 200 meticais. Anyway, the postal worker informed me the post office only accepted exact change, and after I admitted I didn´t have it, she gave me back the letter. Sorry Grandma and Grandpa!
-Driving approximately 200km to the airport to fly to Nampula, we were stopped twice by the police. My colleague, in a rush to leave Chimoio, forgot his identity card. You always need lots of documentation for official business: visas, bank accounts, ID cards, etc. The police are not equipped with computers to check your insurance status if you don´t have proof in the car.
To facilitate the continuation of our journey without identification and for not respecting the speed limit, it was strongly encouraged that we contribute 400 meticais at the first stop and 200 meticais at the second ($20 in total). Or the car could have been impounded and my colleague fined perhaps 10x as much.
At some point in this adventure, my colleague´s wife gave birth. Congratulations!
-I moved into a posh fully furnished apartment in Nampula, complete with such amenities as AC, hot running water, a refrigerator, microwave, Panini maker, gas oven, television, and maid.
While aside from the maid these things may seem mundane, for almost two years in Cape Verde I lived in a concrete box which featured a bed with moldy mattress, plastic table with four chairs, gas oven, 8,000 liter rainwater catchment tank which had to last ten months for three people, and no hope of electricity.
While I certainly appreciate the new digs, I still prefer the country to the city, at least in Africa, even if it means living in a concrete box with no electricity, running water, or internet access. I don´t anticipate moving to Webberville or Bath once back in Michigan, however.
Anyway thanks for reading. I´ll try to up my blogging in the few remaining months.
-I celebrated a birthday and prepared to move to Nampula, in northern Mozambique. The other volunteers and our friends sent me off in style, though it was very hard leaving them after we´ve become so close in the last six months. Peace Corps really is the best America has to offer the world.
-I left my going away party to witness a caesarian section at a local hospital. The baby and mother were fine, and I was impressed by the doctors´ skill and professionalism. I returned less than an hour later to find my food ready.
-I tried to mail my grandparents a letter. It cost 92 meticais (singular: metical, MZN, or mt), about $3.00, to mail internationally. I had a 100 metical note and no coins, which have denominations of 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10 meticais. The smaller notes are 20, 50, 100, and 200 meticais. Anyway, the postal worker informed me the post office only accepted exact change, and after I admitted I didn´t have it, she gave me back the letter. Sorry Grandma and Grandpa!
-Driving approximately 200km to the airport to fly to Nampula, we were stopped twice by the police. My colleague, in a rush to leave Chimoio, forgot his identity card. You always need lots of documentation for official business: visas, bank accounts, ID cards, etc. The police are not equipped with computers to check your insurance status if you don´t have proof in the car.
To facilitate the continuation of our journey without identification and for not respecting the speed limit, it was strongly encouraged that we contribute 400 meticais at the first stop and 200 meticais at the second ($20 in total). Or the car could have been impounded and my colleague fined perhaps 10x as much.
At some point in this adventure, my colleague´s wife gave birth. Congratulations!
-I moved into a posh fully furnished apartment in Nampula, complete with such amenities as AC, hot running water, a refrigerator, microwave, Panini maker, gas oven, television, and maid.
While aside from the maid these things may seem mundane, for almost two years in Cape Verde I lived in a concrete box which featured a bed with moldy mattress, plastic table with four chairs, gas oven, 8,000 liter rainwater catchment tank which had to last ten months for three people, and no hope of electricity.
While I certainly appreciate the new digs, I still prefer the country to the city, at least in Africa, even if it means living in a concrete box with no electricity, running water, or internet access. I don´t anticipate moving to Webberville or Bath once back in Michigan, however.
Anyway thanks for reading. I´ll try to up my blogging in the few remaining months.
15 February 2011
It only took 6 months!
I’ve received several requests for blog posts from Mozambique (Moz). The requesters clearly didn’t follow my questionably interesting blog from Cape Verde (CV). To reflect the change of location, I’ve changed the name from “Sunburned in Cape Verde,” to “Maningue Nice in Mozambique.” Maningue is kind of like “very” in Mozambican Portuguese. I´m still as susceptible to sunburns as ever. They can be maningue bad if you know what I´m saying...
To bring you up to date, I finished two years of service in CV as a Small Enterprise Development Peace Corps (SED) Volunteer (PCV), and then flew to Mozambique to serve as a Food Security Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV) for nine months, ending in May 2011. Both are Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking, like Anglophone or Francophone), though Mozambicans commonly speak Portuguese due to the myriad and often not mutually intelligible dialects.
I’ve been in Moz nearly 6 months. I´ve clearly been lazy about blogging but hope to turn over a new leaf and post shorter stuff once a week or so. I´m pretty much used to living in Mozambique, after two years in CV. There I lived in one of the most rural PCV sites. In Moz I live in one of the bigger cities, Manica Province capital Chimoio, larger than Praia the capital of CV. Maputo, the capital of Moz has about 2 million inhabitants, four times CV.
I found myself missing CV at lot at first. Living in a city I don’t get a great handle on Moz and Mozambicans. Chimoio could be any mid-sized African city. From what I`ve seen over the last few years, the heart of a developing country is in the rural areas. It makes sense, as these are mainly agrarian countries.
Living in a CV village of 800, I got to know the people, made friends, understood how they lived. People here seem serious about education and development of the country, which has immense potential. After decades of war, Moz wants to avoid conflict. It´s been through too much. Mozambicans are generally open and interested, though city folk in tend to be more inverted, whether in Moz, CV, or the US. I wish I lived in a rural area. Wherever I go, I attract attention as, like the Peace Corps Medical Officer in CV called me, “a very white man,” or “mzungu” in local dialect.
Everything I do, no matter how mundane, is strange and/or hilarious to some Mozambicans, as a mzungu. Running? Outrageous. Eating in the market with normal Mozambicans? Unexpected (“High risk of contamination,” according to my supervisor. “The shittiest place I´ve ever eaten,” according to another PCV who has traveled widely). Riding in a “chapa” (Toyota minivan with 30 people unbelievably crammed in)? Absurd. In general this doesn´t bother me much, though the assumption I´m rich does.
I work for an organization called AgriFUTURO which seeks to increase agricultural competitiveness in Moz through access to credit, “modern” farming techniques, technical assistance, access to markets, linking value chain stakeholders. USAID funds the project, implemented by several organizations.
The September food riots in Maputo and Chimoio highlighted the importance of food security, as the cost of living continues to rise. At least 10 protesters in Maputo and three in Chimoio were killed. I´d been in Moz two weeks. Luckily things calmed down after a few days.
I’ve noticed Moz is quieter than CV. Cape Verdeans are a vibrant and expressive people, always looking to celebrate. People look for excuses to dance or drink or play music. A child´s first birthday is reason to party until sunrise. CV is renowned for music. I could count on a concert every month or so in São Filipe, a town of 15,000. Chimoio, with 200,000, hasn´t had one yet. Chimoio has one discoteca (Coqueiro), São Filipe had at least eight (Alfredo´s, Faixa de Terra, Chaqrinha, Casa de Padja, Brava, Fogo em Chama, Casa Cinema, Mar Azul, and more). By the end of service, finally learning to dance well enough, I looked forward to nearly weekly discotecas or dances.
All right I´ll leave it at that. I just wanna dance! Thanks for reading and I´ll try to get better about posting.
To bring you up to date, I finished two years of service in CV as a Small Enterprise Development Peace Corps (SED) Volunteer (PCV), and then flew to Mozambique to serve as a Food Security Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV) for nine months, ending in May 2011. Both are Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking, like Anglophone or Francophone), though Mozambicans commonly speak Portuguese due to the myriad and often not mutually intelligible dialects.
I’ve been in Moz nearly 6 months. I´ve clearly been lazy about blogging but hope to turn over a new leaf and post shorter stuff once a week or so. I´m pretty much used to living in Mozambique, after two years in CV. There I lived in one of the most rural PCV sites. In Moz I live in one of the bigger cities, Manica Province capital Chimoio, larger than Praia the capital of CV. Maputo, the capital of Moz has about 2 million inhabitants, four times CV.
I found myself missing CV at lot at first. Living in a city I don’t get a great handle on Moz and Mozambicans. Chimoio could be any mid-sized African city. From what I`ve seen over the last few years, the heart of a developing country is in the rural areas. It makes sense, as these are mainly agrarian countries.
Living in a CV village of 800, I got to know the people, made friends, understood how they lived. People here seem serious about education and development of the country, which has immense potential. After decades of war, Moz wants to avoid conflict. It´s been through too much. Mozambicans are generally open and interested, though city folk in tend to be more inverted, whether in Moz, CV, or the US. I wish I lived in a rural area. Wherever I go, I attract attention as, like the Peace Corps Medical Officer in CV called me, “a very white man,” or “mzungu” in local dialect.
Everything I do, no matter how mundane, is strange and/or hilarious to some Mozambicans, as a mzungu. Running? Outrageous. Eating in the market with normal Mozambicans? Unexpected (“High risk of contamination,” according to my supervisor. “The shittiest place I´ve ever eaten,” according to another PCV who has traveled widely). Riding in a “chapa” (Toyota minivan with 30 people unbelievably crammed in)? Absurd. In general this doesn´t bother me much, though the assumption I´m rich does.
I work for an organization called AgriFUTURO which seeks to increase agricultural competitiveness in Moz through access to credit, “modern” farming techniques, technical assistance, access to markets, linking value chain stakeholders. USAID funds the project, implemented by several organizations.
The September food riots in Maputo and Chimoio highlighted the importance of food security, as the cost of living continues to rise. At least 10 protesters in Maputo and three in Chimoio were killed. I´d been in Moz two weeks. Luckily things calmed down after a few days.
I’ve noticed Moz is quieter than CV. Cape Verdeans are a vibrant and expressive people, always looking to celebrate. People look for excuses to dance or drink or play music. A child´s first birthday is reason to party until sunrise. CV is renowned for music. I could count on a concert every month or so in São Filipe, a town of 15,000. Chimoio, with 200,000, hasn´t had one yet. Chimoio has one discoteca (Coqueiro), São Filipe had at least eight (Alfredo´s, Faixa de Terra, Chaqrinha, Casa de Padja, Brava, Fogo em Chama, Casa Cinema, Mar Azul, and more). By the end of service, finally learning to dance well enough, I looked forward to nearly weekly discotecas or dances.
All right I´ll leave it at that. I just wanna dance! Thanks for reading and I´ll try to get better about posting.
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