I thought I’d have lots of emotions to write eloquently, or not, about in this post, but the truth is I’m feeling quite emotionless at the moment with 1.5 days to go.
It’s been busy busy this week with 16 adeptos (field workers) here. I managed to give most of my teaching session on pumps in Portuguese and I think they understood! I was also interviewed/grilled as an example in a session on marriage and dating which I decided would be handled more delicately if I spoke English and Rebecca translated! It was an eye opening session, with so many issues coming up!
I am so in awe of the work that the Vida team have done in the Diocese. It’s been a real inspiration to me and so encouraging seeing how much is possible with a team of enthusiastic and community-centred people. The adeptos have spent the last 4 days solid filling in forms listing all the work that has been done in the last year in areas of agriculture, small animal farming, caring for orphaned children, advocacy, HIV prevention, wells, financial management and care of vulnerable people and more besides. These extraordinary people are improving hundreds of lives in Mozambique, though they don’t appear to realise it! The equipas de vida which exist to implement most of this work in the communities are volunteers giving up their free time to improve life in their village. It’s incredible and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of any other organisation which has 4 people in the office, reaching this number of people on such a level. It’s been a real privilege to work with Rebecca over the last 3 months and gain an appreciation of her endless dedication to her work and I have so much admiration for her.
Before I arrived current work on water supply was restricted to advising communities to hand dig wells if they needed water. In the last three months we’ve run a pilot project for digging boreholes and have trained a number of communities in the maintenance of existing pumps a number of which are now working after long periods of being dry, but all this has really come to fruition in the last few weeks so it’s hard for me to leave just as the project is taking off and I’m just praying that there will be someone who will run with it and build on the foundations of the last 3 months. It would be great for example if the maintenance work could be rolled out in many more communities and with a little more experience and some decent funding, boreholes could be dug in places where they currently have no clean water supply. Wouldn’t that be awesome!?
It’s also strange for me to be leaving but not going home, and although I’m excited about doing some travelling and seeing South Africa, it does feel like I should be going home, so I feel a bit unsettled about it all. On the other hand, it will hopefully be a good opportunity to have closure on my time in Mozambique before being hit with the realities of London! There’s also the preoccupation that I don’t actually know what I’m going to do once I get home and I’m currently struggling with what I want to do vs. what’s actually available as a job and not finding much of a correlation between the two.
My vague plans for the next month and a bit involve just over a week travelling to and spending time in Lesotho with Rebecca and Erin, a week of yet unknown travelling with Erin in South Africa, a week along the south coast with Erin and Andy and then spending the last week of February in Cape Town where we’ll be joined by Emily!
I’ve learnt so much over the last few months technically, spiritually, personally and culturally and I’ve been so grateful for the experience and the support from everyone back home. So, thank you!
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Pump Training at Lago Niassa
I always try to think of an original way of writing these blog entries, I try to avoid the “I did this and then I did this” style of writing, but prose has never been my forte. It’s been good for me to be forced to write and I’ve actually quite enjoyed it. Anyway, this week’s news is in the form of the highs and lows. I hope I can get everything across that I want to!+ The boat ride was beautiful – Lago Niassa really is amazing and it was a privilege to be travelling on it.
- It wasn’t that comfortable sitting amongst 160,000 condoms destined for the same location as us.
+ Arriving in Wikihi was like arriving at the end of the world and we arrived just as the sun was setting after an 8 hour boat journey. There were hundreds of fireflies around which made me feel like I was standing amongst stars – it was stunning.
- That night there was the most terrific storm and even though we’d pitched our tents under a roof I was the only one to stay dry!
+ For the rest of the week the weather was very good to us in terms of rain, we pitched our tents 10 metres from the lake on the beach every night and lit a fire to cook over.
- No rain, but the sun was soooo hot. I struggled quite a lot with it and it sapped my energy very quickly every day, particularly when standing in the sun at the pumps.
+ Gloria and Patricio are very quick learners and I soon didn’t need much energy to run the training sessions are they were extremely competent at doing it themselves – and much more efficient because they could deliver it straight into Nyanja rather than via
Portuguese. Their ability to now teach without me is sustainable practice in action – by the time I leave next week, I’ll no longer be needed :-)+ We trained 8 different communities along the lake and built up an inventory of the pumps which exist. We managed to solve many of the problems people had simply by teaching them to carry out basic maintenance and replace worn parts and people were so keen to learn. We based the sessions on the training manual I’d produced which worked really well.
- Most people we were training couldn’t read Portuguese so for the future the manual will hopefully be able to be translated into Nyanja, the local language of people in that area.
+ We were greeted very kindly at every place we stopped. 5 year olds would plonk my heavy bags on their heads to wherever we were going and I’d be lucky if I got to carry even my water bottle! Gloria is a good cook and I never had to worry about organising food as it was all under control.
- Unfortunately the food available is not all that varied and I began to lose my appetite for Nsima or rice with beans or fish by the end of the week and found it very difficult to eat at meal times, particularly when I was tired from the days work too.
+ We had small treats along the way: some mushrooms, fizzy drinks as we got nearer to civilisation, some chocolate éclairs from
Lichinga that I carried with me and spaghetti in Cobue.It’s nice to spend some days away from electricity, gas, running water (apart from pumps!!), roads, etc but I find it pretty tiring being in the field and definitely couldn’t survive without my head torch, a book and my diary which kept me sane in my tent in the evenings! There’s definitely a balance to strike between materialism and living with nothing but the world around you. I also find myself looking forward to receiving a phone call from England or being able to access the internet, both such foreign concepts to so many people!
I’m into the last week in Lichinga, which suddenly feels like it’s come all too quickly. It’s going to be a busy week too. All of the adeptos are coming on Wednesday for a week for training and reporting so there’ll be lots to do and also lots of fun people around.
It’s great to hear from people that have read my blog just to know who I’m writing to! Thank you to everyone who’s communicated in any way over the last few months – it’s really helped and kept me going.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Vonderful VonderRig
It’s been a great few days and I’m so chuffed with the result… granted we haven’t actually pumped it in its final state yet because we don’t want to put unnecessary tensions on the cement but it looks great and I love the VonderRig!
Let me take you through the process of one way of supplying drinking water to a Mozambican village, in this case, Ngogoti.
1) Set up the VonderRig. It’s a lot of equipment to transport but the set up is surprisingly easy. I’m pretty impressed with the design. It works by setting a drill bit with a diameter of about 200mm on the end of long poles and then putting weights ie. people on the drill and rotating it. You can only dig about 50cm at a time before the drill bit fills with mud and you have to lift it all out using a metal cable and then insert the drill again. As you get deeper you have to add more and more poles so that each 50cm section can take up to 40 minutes to complete! We were lucky as we hit water at around 7m of depth (it can sometimes be like 40m!) and we dug down to about 11 eventually. We were trying to get through the gooey sloppy mud (a technical term obviously) to the more sand like stuff below as the water would be cleaner there and the ground more secure. The first picture shows the drilling in action.
2) The second picture shows the group of people from the village plus my team which was 2 “Adeptos” who work for the Diocese, Carlos, the driver who is really good at all the technical stuff – he was our expert cementer! and a technician and assistant from Mandimba who had used the equipment before. Spot the only white person. Spot the only female. O wait, same person…I’ve been challenged this week in my role as a woman and a technical worker in a country where that is so against the norm.
3) When the hole is a desirable depth, a filter must be cut into long plastic tubes where the water will enter and then the tubes lowered into the hole, as seen in picture 3. The base of the pump has also be put over the tube. Gravel is then poured between the tubes and the hole to act as a water filter and to hold the tubes in place.
4) The apron around the pump helps to keep the area clean and to stop pollutants entering the borehole. This was marked out using string and good eyesight! Bricks formed the outside and were used to fill in a hole dug around the base to secure it. This hole was filled with big chunks of gravel in cement and then the whole thing covered with much finer cement.
5) This morning was installing the actual pump – the riser pipes caused some difficulty as as you can see 11 metres of pipe is quite long and the first time we did this our joints didn’t last the stress.
6) We finished the cement job last, and locked the pump so that it can’t be used until the cement has dried and we have put chlorine into the first batch of water. I’m excited about going back and being able to pump water out where there was just ground a week ago and I think the pump looks great.
It’s been a really fun week and I’ve learnt LOADS! I’m also a lot more confident with the Portuguese now and I felt ok leading the team which is such a blessing. I should really be in bed now as I leave tomorrow morning for a couple of weeks to run these pump maintenance training days along the lake shore. I’ll leave you with a cute picture I took whilst helping a team of people peel and pound maize whilst I wasn’t needed at the VonderRig. I got chatting to them all and a couple of days later they invited me to their house and gave me maize to take back to England to show people as I told them we didn’t grow it and that we didn’t eat Nsmina! I didn’t have the heart to tell them that that would be impossible on so many levels so I gratefully accepted the gift!
I tried to explain snow to the guys I was working with this week…”It’s snowing in England.” “I don’t know ‘snow’.” “It’s rain but cold.” “you mean ice”, “no, snow, it’s like rain, only white and very cold.” “yes, ice.” “no, ice is hard, snow is soft. It covers everything with white and you can build men.” (my Portuguese probably confused things at that point!). Luckily Carlos came to my rescue: “ah I have seen it in films and people have big cars and they have to go and take the snow away so that people can drive. Everything turns white.” “yes, exactly, well that’s what they have in England right now.” They didn’t seem as excited as I was! Thinking of you all!
Let me take you through the process of one way of supplying drinking water to a Mozambican village, in this case, Ngogoti.
1) Set up the VonderRig. It’s a lot of equipment to transport but the set up is surprisingly easy. I’m pretty impressed with the design. It works by setting a drill bit with a diameter of about 200mm on the end of long poles and then putting weights ie. people on the drill and rotating it. You can only dig about 50cm at a time before the drill bit fills with mud and you have to lift it all out using a metal cable and then insert the drill again. As you get deeper you have to add more and more poles so that each 50cm section can take up to 40 minutes to complete! We were lucky as we hit water at around 7m of depth (it can sometimes be like 40m!) and we dug down to about 11 eventually. We were trying to get through the gooey sloppy mud (a technical term obviously) to the more sand like stuff below as the water would be cleaner there and the ground more secure. The first picture shows the drilling in action. 
2) The second picture shows the group of people from the village plus my team which was 2 “Adeptos” who work for the Diocese, Carlos, the driver who is really good at all the technical stuff – he was our expert cementer! and a technician and assistant from Mandimba who had used the equipment before. Spot the only white person. Spot the only female. O wait, same person…I’ve been challenged this week in my role as a woman and a technical worker in a country where that is so against the norm. 
3) When the hole is a desirable depth, a filter must be cut into long plastic tubes where the water will enter and then the tubes lowered into the hole, as seen in picture 3. The base of the pump has also be put over the tube. Gravel is then poured between the tubes and the hole to act as a water filter and to hold the tubes in place.
4) The apron around the pump helps to keep the area clean and to stop pollutants entering the borehole. This was marked out using string and good eyesight! Bricks formed the outside and were used to fill in a hole dug around the base to secure it. This hole was filled with big chunks of gravel in cement and then the whole thing covered with much finer cement.
5) This morning was installing the actual pump – the riser pipes caused some difficulty as as you can see 11 metres of pipe is quite long and the first time we did this our joints didn’t last the stress.
6) We finished the cement job last, and locked the pump so that it can’t be used until the cement has dried and we have put chlorine into the first batch of water. I’m excited about going back and being able to pump water out where there was just ground a week ago and I think the pump looks great. 
It’s been a really fun week and I’ve learnt LOADS! I’m also a lot more confident with the Portuguese now and I felt ok leading the team which is such a blessing. I should really be in bed now as I leave tomorrow morning for a couple of weeks to run these pump maintenance training days along the lake shore. I’ll leave you with a cute picture I took whilst helping a team of people peel and pound maize whilst I wasn’t needed at the VonderRig. I got chatting to them all and a couple of days later they invited me to their house and gave me maize to take back to England to show people as I told them we didn’t grow it and that we didn’t eat Nsmina! I didn’t have the heart to tell them that that would be impossible on so many levels so I gratefully accepted the gift!I tried to explain snow to the guys I was working with this week…”It’s snowing in England.” “I don’t know ‘snow’.” “It’s rain but cold.” “you mean ice”, “no, snow, it’s like rain, only white and very cold.” “yes, ice.” “no, ice is hard, snow is soft. It covers everything with white and you can build men.” (my Portuguese probably confused things at that point!). Luckily Carlos came to my rescue: “ah I have seen it in films and people have big cars and they have to go and take the snow away so that people can drive. Everything turns white.” “yes, exactly, well that’s what they have in England right now.” They didn’t seem as excited as I was! Thinking of you all!
Monday, 4 January 2010
Amanhã
Amanhã (Portuguese) = tomorrow
This is when things seem to be happening at the moment but hopefully amanhã things are actually going to get going. Tomorrow I should finally be starting to drill a borehole in a community called Ngogoti about an hour from here. I will stay there for 3 nights and the dream is that we’ll be drinking the water on Thursday. Realistically, I’ll probably have to continue the project when I’m back from the lake.
Here are just a few of the reasons that the project has been delayed…
We’re borrowing a Vonder Rig (hand auger: easier than hand digging a well, not as easy as machine drilling one but a LOT cheaper) from Estamos (a local NGO) but the pieces were in a place called Mandimba. No problem, we have to drive through there on the way to Malawi which we did a couple of weeks ago, so we stopped and asked to collect it on our way back through – “sure!” On our way back, the boss decided then wasn’t actually such a good time but once back in Lichinga, Rebecca used her contacts to make sure it was brought the next day in a car coming this way. Meanwhile, we had been trying to get hold of a technician, also from Mandimba, to work with us the first time we used the equipment but he had no phone. We eventually got hold of him, basically by phoning various neighbours, and he agreed to come last Sunday. He didn’t turn up. He arrived late Monday night due to apparent problems with chapas (minibuses). Tuesday morning we went to collect the drill but discovered that lots of pieces were missing, and were back in Mandimba. We send Elias (the technician) back again. He was due to return again on Friday and we mobilised the community ready to start working on Saturday morning. He didn’t arrive – turns out the boss at Estamos was in Malawi and so couldn’t authorise the parts. We phoned the boss’s brother (luckily a friend of Rebecca’s!) and the boss later returned to Mandimba and the parts were released. Then Elias couldn’t find a chapa to bring them on. This morning therefore we sent a Diocesean car to p
ick him and the pieces up and bring them back. On the way they got a flat tyre, but that’s no big deal and they eventually arrived with the Vonder Rig this afternoon. BUT in collating the pieces here with the ones they brought we discovered there was still one piece missing. In the mean time, we visited Ngogoti on Saturday so that we wouldn’t have to change the plans with them AGAIN. It was actually a good meeting. We did some community mapping and spoke with the chief and the Equipa de Vida there to establish the best location for the pump. We took a tape measure and had an amusing time demonstrating what 30metres looked like as ideally a borehole has a 30m space around it with no buildings and particularly no latrines (see pic). We might manage 15m if we’re lucky. So, this missing piece, having told them we’ll start at 7am tomorrow, needs to be welded and we can’t do that till the welding people actually start work at 8am! Finally, we’ve ordered some small Afridev pieces, predominantly for my work at the lake next week, from Nampula but a couple are needed for this project, and they should’ve arrived on the plan over a week ago. Turns out there had been a problem with the bank transfer – it was registered on the computer but no money had turned up – or something – who knows! It’s all the more frustrating because communication is so difficult that it’s hard to re organise things and the community are ready to start work and are really excited and motivated about the project.
So, that’s where I am for the next week, then it’s a quick turn around and I’m off to the lake and up to Wikihi on the Tanzanian border to start the Afridev maintenance workshops. A test of my Portuguese and training abilities. The manual is almost finished.
In other news Peg, Rebecca and I went for a lovely walk on New Years Day (see pic) and we caught 4 mice in the last week! We had no electricity for most of last week which got pretty annoying – when you expect to have it it’s so much worse that when you’re in the field and know there isn’t any! O, and I have a flight booked to come home. I land on 2nd March.
I spent a lot of time reflecting on New Years Eve. It was a beautiful moonlit night and I sat outside between 10pm and midnight listening to drumming in the village. 2009 was an amazing year for me with lots of milestones. I also realised how many amazing people I’ve met in the last year or got to know better, so thanks!
Happy New Year x
This is when things seem to be happening at the moment but hopefully amanhã things are actually going to get going. Tomorrow I should finally be starting to drill a borehole in a community called Ngogoti about an hour from here. I will stay there for 3 nights and the dream is that we’ll be drinking the water on Thursday. Realistically, I’ll probably have to continue the project when I’m back from the lake.
Here are just a few of the reasons that the project has been delayed…
We’re borrowing a Vonder Rig (hand auger: easier than hand digging a well, not as easy as machine drilling one but a LOT cheaper) from Estamos (a local NGO) but the pieces were in a place called Mandimba. No problem, we have to drive through there on the way to Malawi which we did a couple of weeks ago, so we stopped and asked to collect it on our way back through – “sure!” On our way back, the boss decided then wasn’t actually such a good time but once back in Lichinga, Rebecca used her contacts to make sure it was brought the next day in a car coming this way. Meanwhile, we had been trying to get hold of a technician, also from Mandimba, to work with us the first time we used the equipment but he had no phone. We eventually got hold of him, basically by phoning various neighbours, and he agreed to come last Sunday. He didn’t turn up. He arrived late Monday night due to apparent problems with chapas (minibuses). Tuesday morning we went to collect the drill but discovered that lots of pieces were missing, and were back in Mandimba. We send Elias (the technician) back again. He was due to return again on Friday and we mobilised the community ready to start working on Saturday morning. He didn’t arrive – turns out the boss at Estamos was in Malawi and so couldn’t authorise the parts. We phoned the boss’s brother (luckily a friend of Rebecca’s!) and the boss later returned to Mandimba and the parts were released. Then Elias couldn’t find a chapa to bring them on. This morning therefore we sent a Diocesean car to p
ick him and the pieces up and bring them back. On the way they got a flat tyre, but that’s no big deal and they eventually arrived with the Vonder Rig this afternoon. BUT in collating the pieces here with the ones they brought we discovered there was still one piece missing. In the mean time, we visited Ngogoti on Saturday so that we wouldn’t have to change the plans with them AGAIN. It was actually a good meeting. We did some community mapping and spoke with the chief and the Equipa de Vida there to establish the best location for the pump. We took a tape measure and had an amusing time demonstrating what 30metres looked like as ideally a borehole has a 30m space around it with no buildings and particularly no latrines (see pic). We might manage 15m if we’re lucky. So, this missing piece, having told them we’ll start at 7am tomorrow, needs to be welded and we can’t do that till the welding people actually start work at 8am! Finally, we’ve ordered some small Afridev pieces, predominantly for my work at the lake next week, from Nampula but a couple are needed for this project, and they should’ve arrived on the plan over a week ago. Turns out there had been a problem with the bank transfer – it was registered on the computer but no money had turned up – or something – who knows! It’s all the more frustrating because communication is so difficult that it’s hard to re organise things and the community are ready to start work and are really excited and motivated about the project.So, that’s where I am for the next week, then it’s a quick turn around and I’m off to the lake and up to Wikihi on the Tanzanian border to start the Afridev maintenance workshops. A test of my Portuguese and training abilities. The manual is almost finished.
In other news Peg, Rebecca and I went for a lovely walk on New Years Day (see pic) and we caught 4 mice in the last week! We had no electricity for most of last week which got pretty annoying – when you expect to have it it’s so much worse that when you’re in the field and know there isn’t any! O, and I have a flight booked to come home. I land on 2nd March.
I spent a lot of time reflecting on New Years Eve. It was a beautiful moonlit night and I sat outside between 10pm and midnight listening to drumming in the village. 2009 was an amazing year for me with lots of milestones. I also realised how many amazing people I’ve met in the last year or got to know better, so thanks!
Happy New Year x
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Merry Christmas (or Emmanuel - God With Us)
As expected I suppose, this week has been hard for me in terms of missing home. I’m sad to be missing group meet ups, both friends and family. I’m going to miss waking up tomorrow to scrambled egg and smoked salmon with a glass of BucksFizz. I’m going to miss spending time with Mum, Dad and Louise. I’m going to miss watching Friends wi
th Lou after M+D have fallen asleep post Christmas dinner! I will be thinking more than ever this year of people who have no choice in being away from their families.
Christmas has not been evident at all here. There hasn't really been anything to hint that Christmas is coming and it was a bit of a shock when we travelled through Blantyre last week and the supermarket was full of tinsel and funked up Christmas songs! Ellie sent me a lovely advent calendar with stained glass windows and that’s currently our token Christmas decoration! I was going to post this this morning but the electricity was off and then the internet stopped working all day so in the mean time I've been to the market and we found some decorations for sale so there is a little sign of Christmas after all - see pic (and note that the banner says Happy Birthday!) The picture of me is the paper christmas tree I made this morning with the presents mum gave me to bring out "underneath" it and a couple of pressies between Rebecca and I.
We’ve been listening to Christmas songs and carols this morning. Have you ever listen
ed properly to the words of BandAid’s song: “There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas”? Well, that’s true but the whole continent is not “a world of dread and fear, where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.” I suppose we can forgive Bob Geldof for the slightly extreme lyrics given their time of writing during the 1984 famine in Ethiopa. Unfortunately things haven’t changed much and there are many problems with drought and famine particularly in East Africa this year, but if we’re going to focus on the sad state of the world at Christmas I prefer the lyrics to Delirious?’ song which instead of telling us to “thank God it’s them instead of you” they sing “Forgive us all, forgive us please, As we fight for this broken world on our knees.” It’s not a Christmas song but it speaks more to me about the true meaning of Christmas in the “freedom we have …in a man nailed to a tree”. It’s definitely easier in Lichinga to imagine the night that Jesus was born on, with everything carrying on as normal around the stable and most of the world oblivious to what was happening. It’s also a good time for me to reflect on one of the things that drives me to be here in the first place. When Jesus was on the earth he spent the majority of His time with the poor, eating with them, helping them and loving them and the bible talks about being parts of Christ’s body on earth today (1Cor12). For me, personally, my faith is not just about praying for the poor, it’s about trying to do the very small amount I can do, about it.
th Lou after M+D have fallen asleep post Christmas dinner! I will be thinking more than ever this year of people who have no choice in being away from their families.Christmas has not been evident at all here. There hasn't really been anything to hint that Christmas is coming and it was a bit of a shock when we travelled through Blantyre last week and the supermarket was full of tinsel and funked up Christmas songs! Ellie sent me a lovely advent calendar with stained glass windows and that’s currently our token Christmas decoration! I was going to post this this morning but the electricity was off and then the internet stopped working all day so in the mean time I've been to the market and we found some decorations for sale so there is a little sign of Christmas after all - see pic (and note that the banner says Happy Birthday!) The picture of me is the paper christmas tree I made this morning with the presents mum gave me to bring out "underneath" it and a couple of pressies between Rebecca and I.
We’ve been listening to Christmas songs and carols this morning. Have you ever listen
ed properly to the words of BandAid’s song: “There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas”? Well, that’s true but the whole continent is not “a world of dread and fear, where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears.” I suppose we can forgive Bob Geldof for the slightly extreme lyrics given their time of writing during the 1984 famine in Ethiopa. Unfortunately things haven’t changed much and there are many problems with drought and famine particularly in East Africa this year, but if we’re going to focus on the sad state of the world at Christmas I prefer the lyrics to Delirious?’ song which instead of telling us to “thank God it’s them instead of you” they sing “Forgive us all, forgive us please, As we fight for this broken world on our knees.” It’s not a Christmas song but it speaks more to me about the true meaning of Christmas in the “freedom we have …in a man nailed to a tree”. It’s definitely easier in Lichinga to imagine the night that Jesus was born on, with everything carrying on as normal around the stable and most of the world oblivious to what was happening. It’s also a good time for me to reflect on one of the things that drives me to be here in the first place. When Jesus was on the earth he spent the majority of His time with the poor, eating with them, helping them and loving them and the bible talks about being parts of Christ’s body on earth today (1Cor12). For me, personally, my faith is not just about praying for the poor, it’s about trying to do the very small amount I can do, about it. "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
(Matthew 25: 34-40)
Anyway, back to the original sentiment of this post. I hope that you all have a blessed and restful Christmas with friends and family. Eat lots and sing lots and as one version of We Wish You a Merry Christmas goes:
“Be near or be far, wherever you are, We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
Saturday, 19 December 2009
The flood plains of Zambezia
Wow where to start? It’s been an adventurous week in the province of Zambezia.
The work (Picture: Rebecca, Florinda and Evo talk to an Equipa de Vida in Chire about HIV)
I spent most of the week listening and learning. We went to the area to talk to people who are affected by the flooding of the Shire river and its tributaries and to find out whether there was anything we could do. It’s a really sad situation. The poorest people live on the flood plains and farm there, their only access to food being what they grow. We met families who have lost their farms already this year to the water and they have no other income. For the first time I was face to face with real hunger and desperate poverty and it was hard to walk away. The government have provided new huts with facilities such as water supply and schools in the dryer part of the area to encourage people to move out of their flood prone houses. This seems to have worked although we’re still unclear on the details and whether people really can move for free. This doesn’t solve the farming problem however. It also appears that the flooding has been getting worse over the last couple of years, an interesting week then to be doing this work alongside the negotiations at Copenhagen. (For those that are interested, the work I did on vulnerability of the least developed countries to climate change is now available online as a PDF publication here.) Although a desperately poor area, people were always very kind to us and we slept each night in our tent either within a straw church or in the chief’s grounds. They were also very generous with food and we ate well. We visited the flood plains and came across a kind of canoe city where people trade food from the other side of the river, it was a fascinating place. The whole area was also very flat and so also scenically quite different from other places I’ve seen.
So what can we do about this? One of the things that people have problems with is getting seeds to grow well on drier land so Rebecca is going to organise for some of the team to do some training there in agricultural methods. It’s funny… I’d always assumed that people who have lived off the land for years couldn’t be taught by a westerner how to grow crops but it really does seem that there are better techniques out there that people just aren’t aware of to maximise their harvest. There’s a possibility that one of the communities could extend a wall which was built by the Portuguese to keep the water back. Other than that it’s a case of continuing to show support and encouragement to those who choose to move to drier lands to the government provided houses and to try to understand the cases where people haven’t moved. Is it that they can’t or that they have chosen not to? Is the choice well-informed?
The Portuguese (Picture: A building from the colonial era)
In many of the areas we were working last week there are huge ruined buildings which were built by the Portuguese who dreamt of these remote rural areas becoming big centres. It’s such a stark contrast between these and the tiny huts which surround them. The Portuguese also linked these two places. We wanted to travel from a place called Megaza to Chire and there was a road on a map we had that none of the locals we were working with knew about. We asked around and it sounded like it was passable so we set off in the landcruiser as the route seemed very direct.
Direct it might have been but it took hours. If there ever was a road there it was a very long time ago. At times we found ourselves driving through bush land dodging trees and driving over 6ft plants as we went basically just following a compass (which there happened to be one of on the lid of Rebecca’s mosquito repellent!) It was the craziest driving I’ve ever seen. We passed through so many different terrains, came across a random shop in the middle of absolutely nowhere, saw plains with trees with no branches or leaves, met children who’d never seen a car, men who were dubious about our chances of making it through to Shire and we also got stuck. The “mud” we got stuck in was more like thick clay. You could mould with it and it stuck everywhere. We were about 70cm deep in it and it took 2 hours, help from 3 locals (as well as the 6 of us in the car), many branches and leaves, and everybody getting very muddy before we got out. We were still finding hardened clay under the car days later despite a thorough wash! We did eventually make it to Shire, a huge well built bridge appeared out of nowhere just before we got there, proving that there did used to be a road, or at least a dream of one at some point!
Whilst speaking of the Portuguese, my language is coming on… I can understand a lot of what’s going on and my vocabulary isn’t bad (although involves an unusual collection of words: firewood, pump rod, crocodile… you get the idea) but I need to practice speaking more than I do because it takes me a long time to form sentences. Slowly but surely!
Some treats (Picture: the canoes used for transporting food in Megaza)
We spent a couple of nights in Blantyre, Malawi on the journey and had some amazing meals out: 2 pizzas, a Chinese and an Indian. It was such a treat for the tastebuds! We also managed to get a tour of a tea factory in Mulanje which was fascinating (health and safety would’ve never allowed it in England). We did a lot of shopping in Blantyre for people back here: medicines, books, plastic sheeting, nice peanut butter, and coloured card!
Rebecca and I also spent a great night at a trout farm on Zomba plateau (also in Malawi) and where I’d spent my last night in Africa two and a half years ago. We had a lovely 3 hour walk the next morning before heading back home.
It’s been really really hot, and there’s a real lack of rain for the time of year. People are losing crops which they planted when the rains first seemed to start. It’s hard for me to imagine the snow in England (although I did get shown my back garden via Skype this morning!) as I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine what things are like here! I hope you are all well and it’s lovely to be hearing from you via email or Skype.
The work (Picture: Rebecca, Florinda and Evo talk to an Equipa de Vida in Chire about HIV)
I spent most of the week listening and learning. We went to the area to talk to people who are affected by the flooding of the Shire river and its tributaries and to find out whether there was anything we could do. It’s a really sad situation. The poorest people live on the flood plains and farm there, their only access to food being what they grow. We met families who have lost their farms already this year to the water and they have no other income. For the first time I was face to face with real hunger and desperate poverty and it was hard to walk away. The government have provided new huts with facilities such as water supply and schools in the dryer part of the area to encourage people to move out of their flood prone houses. This seems to have worked although we’re still unclear on the details and whether people really can move for free. This doesn’t solve the farming problem however. It also appears that the flooding has been getting worse over the last couple of years, an interesting week then to be doing this work alongside the negotiations at Copenhagen. (For those that are interested, the work I did on vulnerability of the least developed countries to climate change is now available online as a PDF publication here.) Although a desperately poor area, people were always very kind to us and we slept each night in our tent either within a straw church or in the chief’s grounds. They were also very generous with food and we ate well. We visited the flood plains and came across a kind of canoe city where people trade food from the other side of the river, it was a fascinating place. The whole area was also very flat and so also scenically quite different from other places I’ve seen.So what can we do about this? One of the things that people have problems with is getting seeds to grow well on drier land so Rebecca is going to organise for some of the team to do some training there in agricultural methods. It’s funny… I’d always assumed that people who have lived off the land for years couldn’t be taught by a westerner how to grow crops but it really does seem that there are better techniques out there that people just aren’t aware of to maximise their harvest. There’s a possibility that one of the communities could extend a wall which was built by the Portuguese to keep the water back. Other than that it’s a case of continuing to show support and encouragement to those who choose to move to drier lands to the government provided houses and to try to understand the cases where people haven’t moved. Is it that they can’t or that they have chosen not to? Is the choice well-informed?
The Portuguese (Picture: A building from the colonial era)
In many of the areas we were working last week there are huge ruined buildings which were built by the Portuguese who dreamt of these remote rural areas becoming big centres. It’s such a stark contrast between these and the tiny huts which surround them. The Portuguese also linked these two places. We wanted to travel from a place called Megaza to Chire and there was a road on a map we had that none of the locals we were working with knew about. We asked around and it sounded like it was passable so we set off in the landcruiser as the route seemed very direct.Direct it might have been but it took hours. If there ever was a road there it was a very long time ago. At times we found ourselves driving through bush land dodging trees and driving over 6ft plants as we went basically just following a compass (which there happened to be one of on the lid of Rebecca’s mosquito repellent!) It was the craziest driving I’ve ever seen. We passed through so many different terrains, came across a random shop in the middle of absolutely nowhere, saw plains with trees with no branches or leaves, met children who’d never seen a car, men who were dubious about our chances of making it through to Shire and we also got stuck. The “mud” we got stuck in was more like thick clay. You could mould with it and it stuck everywhere. We were about 70cm deep in it and it took 2 hours, help from 3 locals (as well as the 6 of us in the car), many branches and leaves, and everybody getting very muddy before we got out. We were still finding hardened clay under the car days later despite a thorough wash! We did eventually make it to Shire, a huge well built bridge appeared out of nowhere just before we got there, proving that there did used to be a road, or at least a dream of one at some point!
Whilst speaking of the Portuguese, my language is coming on… I can understand a lot of what’s going on and my vocabulary isn’t bad (although involves an unusual collection of words: firewood, pump rod, crocodile… you get the idea) but I need to practice speaking more than I do because it takes me a long time to form sentences. Slowly but surely!
Some treats (Picture: the canoes used for transporting food in Megaza)
We spent a couple of nights in Blantyre, Malawi on the journey and had some amazing meals out: 2 pizzas, a Chinese and an Indian. It was such a treat for the tastebuds! We also managed to get a tour of a tea factory in Mulanje which was fascinating (health and safety would’ve never allowed it in England). We did a lot of shopping in Blantyre for people back here: medicines, books, plastic sheeting, nice peanut butter, and coloured card!Rebecca and I also spent a great night at a trout farm on Zomba plateau (also in Malawi) and where I’d spent my last night in Africa two and a half years ago. We had a lovely 3 hour walk the next morning before heading back home.
It’s been really really hot, and there’s a real lack of rain for the time of year. People are losing crops which they planted when the rains first seemed to start. It’s hard for me to imagine the snow in England (although I did get shown my back garden via Skype this morning!) as I’m sure it’s hard for you to imagine what things are like here! I hope you are all well and it’s lovely to be hearing from you via email or Skype.
Monday, 7 December 2009
What I'm munching!
Picture to prove I'm alive and well (and vagually food related!)This is *almost* a work free entry. I don’t really know who’s reading this and therefore what you want to know about. So here’s one about food for the chefs of my fans! If you read it you also get to find out when I’m coming home!
I have encountered lots of new fruit and veg and new combinations of known foods since I’ve arrived and I’ve really been enjoying cooking.
So, in the manner of the game…. We went shopping in Lichinga market on Saturday and we bought:
• A 10 litre paint can of onions – these all make me weep A LOT! I have no idea why they’re so much worse than onions from Sainsbury’s!
• Okra – a new vegetable for me – but I like it!
• Chillies – I’m impressed – they’re so hot that we won’t even get through one in a week. We put some on the roof this morning to see if we can dry them!
• Garlic – pre peeled – the cloves are so small that they’re a real pain to peel so most market vendors sell them pre peeled.
• Carrots, Cabbage, lettuce and tomatoes
• Strawberries – this was very exciting – we perhaps got a bit too excited and bought too many because they’re all going squishy and we’ve still got loads left! They’re very yum though. I feel like I need to be on the backs of Cambridge with Pimms!
• Green beans
• Eggplant (Aubergine!) – lots of it!
• Zucchini (Courgette – I’m living with an American!) – we didn’t actually buy this, we were given it by some friends with a farm.
• Some amazing green peppers which actually look like Sainsbury’s ones! The ones you usually get are very thin and small.
• Summer squash (we also got given this!) – it’s yellow and more like courgette than butternut squash – good though.
• We have lots of mangoes stored up from our trip to the lake
• Guava
• Papaya
• A weird fruit that is called “Coração de boi” in Portuguese. Translates as cow’s heart but we think it’s maybe a custard apple in English, though it’s nothing like an apple!!? I haven’t tried it yet!
• Bananas
• Eggs
So, lots of fruit and veg.
In terms of protein I’m eating lots of peanuts and peanut butter. Rebecca made houmous which was yummy. Otherwise tuna or beans. Today as a special treat we defrosted some cheese Rebecca bought in South Africa! I’m enjoying natural yogurt too.
We had a lovely weekend including a film night with a couple of girls working with Iris Ministries with popcorn and “peanut butter candies” made by yours truly! We had dinner out at MGK in Nomba on Sunday after church which was lovely. On Friday we’re leaving for Morumbala which Rebecca says she thinks is the poorest area of Mozambique. We’re visiting communities along the River Shire which get flooded every year. We’re not sure what the situation is yet and whether the solution will be social or technical but this week involves some prep for that and more pump stuff!
Also, I’m waiting to hear back from the airline but I will probably be back in the UK at the end of February (27th ish). We’re delaying our Christmas break and are thinking of spending a week or so in Lesotho at the beginning of Feb and then I’m going to take the opportunity to have a wander round South Africa.
:-)
ps. Erin has described our trip up the lake last week slightly more eloquently here if you're interested!
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