Back home!

I’m back to Europe already for some time… Was nice to be back again, be with my family and friends! But is a weird sensation, being back and exploding telling to everybody how the poverty reality is over there, while the people complain that salaries are too low, so they can’t afford the mobile phone from the last generation with the new silly applications…
Lot of people asked me if in the end it was worth to abdicate from my previous life to go to there. Some others said that I should post a last message in this blog… The answer is that after all I want go again!! I don’t know when but soon I have the opportunity I will not think two times! If not just to visit all the good people that meet over there!
See you soon, I hope!

She was running around but in the end she did catch me!

Short tea holidays!

Some pictures....

Back to Mozambique!

The trip to Malawi to renew the visa was planed as an easy going thing but turned out as a challenging adventure!! Happened a bit of everything…really African experience but due to special reasons I will not write detail here on my blog… Maybe after leaving Mozambique…

Still alive!

For some time that I didn’t right anything! Sorry but I was quite busy to catch up with all the work! The things in Mozambique have been great, lot of new experiences, I’m getting some interesting results at work… but my visa was expiring so I need to jump out to get a another visa, which turned out as a kind of nightmare, but I have been take it in an fun way! At the moment I’m in Blantyre, Malawi. The visa to Mozambique was denied to me already two times... Tomorrow I will go to the consulate to ask for a visa… we will see!
Not too bad, Malawi is a really nice and peaceful country a good place for holidays. You can’t imagine how big is the shock from coming from 3 months in the bushes and get to here in Malawi! Btw… here I had the opportunity to take a shower with hot water… last time was 3 months ago!
To be continued…

Your turn!!

No worry I’m not going to ask money!!
Lot of you have been saying that some how would like to help, but you don’t know how… So now there is you chance, just a few minutes of your work can make the difference! Just let me know what you like to do or in what your on in and I will fin out something for you to do :P
To have one idea one of our dreams here is to start up one small news paper that we give for free to the people with local news, like one a month or every 2 months, health, and agriculture information! But for that we need some help… some one to do the edition, to do the design (for that I already got one offer :P) to check the text, to write some small articles, small games…
Like you can see are small tasks that can make the difference…

Half day of the work!

No words needed, but take it as really nice day!

Let’s try to live with same amount of money as my friends from Nicane!

No one at home, al my room mates where gone for one week, the right time for the experience! The minimum salary at the field is around 40 euros per month… divide by 4 weeks, 10 euros…with my age here I should have several kids and at least one wife, lets make 3 kids and 1 wife… 10 euros divided by 5 persons it’s 2 euros!! 2 euros to leave during one week!... My garden is not giving vegetables yet, the right simulation of hungry season :p
When you work for a company you have right of mata-bicho (breackfast) and lunch, ok, I would eat something for sure! For breakfast I had every day plain flour mush with sugar, of curse no cutlery… there are two options, take the plate and eat directly from it or go and get a leaf of cashew tree, I hade enough days to try both! Some of the days I had the opportunity to get some bbq maize at half of the morning, huuuuuum
Lunch, most of the days was “xima” that is kind of hard maize flour mush with something, beans, or some kind of carry… one day was some kind of carry with dry fish and we were lucky, one day we had rice!! To drink I took always the artemisa tea, is good for malaria prevention, but is the most disgusting thing that I dunk up to now…
For dinner… some mandioca, some bbq maize… I need to safe money to give food to Nico (the dog)… One day I was lucky again I was invited to have xima with chicken in one the villages that I was doing a field activity, normally I don’t accept, I know that is not polite but if I eat, I know that some one of the family will not eat… but this time was different, I eat with them, but I didn’t drink… the water as brown, no, was not hot chocolate…I forgot to say that during that week I didn’t use coal, I spend some time looking around fro wood… and no gel shower or shampoo, just normal soap… and no solar panel for the illumination… but... there are limits i used toilet paper...
During this time I hade a filter to filter the water that the normal price would be 6…7euros, I was not sleeping on the floor, on the mud and I didn’t need to thing about saving money for clothes, buying a radio, etc… Was steal hard, but end of the week I did know that was going to be hover, but there is people that spends one life like this…

Time to go to the hospital!

My birthday night I got a special gift… fever, diarrhea, sweat, head pain… ok, the normal symptoms of malaria… but was strange, the night before to celebrate I had quite some gin tonic… tonic water has quinine that is the most strong medicinal for malaria,

1st thought: maybe next time I should drink more :P
2nd thought: I’m at the city, let’s go to the hospital before going to the bushes…I’m the only lucky one of my work group that didn’t get malaria yet!
Most of the times the hospitals don’t have a doctor, only nurses… This one had one doctor but was on holidays… so I was cheeked by a nurse. We agreed that the best was to do the malaria test! The laboratorial technician was not there… but after one hour he showed up! The test was negative… is it good or bad!! I’m still a live and no diarrhea, no fever… I’m still the lucky one…

March the 24th, the special day…

The master plan was to leave the Ilha de Mocambique and go to Ilha de Goa in a traditional boat to do snorkeling at the coral rift that is over there… but the waves were to strong and Capitan Jamal was to afraid to get to the island and destroy is boat, so lets go to plan B… the plan B was “just” to go to the Mussuril bay by boat and have a nice time at the beach over there. Ups!!! I was forgetting the nice pike nick that “Mama Selma” cooked for us… nice chamussas and squid :P

Ilha de Mocambique

Ilha de Mocambique is a small island in the north of Mozambique, wish was the 1st capital of the country. The island is a small architectonic paradise full of mixture of old colonial buildings (stone city) and traditional houses (Makuti Town). Old times it was used as trading centre were slaves were one of the most important businesses… luckily that time is gone and now it’s just a city were we can fell free… maybe that is influence of island shorts story, the island didn’t suffer during the civil war, it was not invaded! It’s amazing in the entire city I only saw two guards, one at the bank and one at the telecommunications office! It’s amazing! There is no one looking at you as a strange!! So you can walk thro the market, the beach, the ship yards, have a meal at local huts, where you go with the cooker to the beach and pick the fish that comes strait from the sea… one of the things that that was funny but I like a lot, was the fact that to visit the museum you where invited to take off your shoes!!
But this small paradise is getting full of tourists… and bit by bit this will start getting fake… maybe it’s good or maybe not…

Nico the dog!

Ok! Let’s talk about my pets! As you can imagine here is not so common to have the pets… Ok, if you consider that pets are the animals that you have at home, in that case is another story, chickens, lams, leasers, scorpions, cockroach, rats, etc… I can’t consider the chickens and the lams as a pet, because I like to eat them, in the end it would to said to kill them, so I don’t have them at home… I will not explain wish ones I have at home place, otherwise someone could get shocked, I’m just gin to talk about “Nico”.
Nico is the volunteers’ dog! Lately I needed to start teaching him… he killed 2 chickens at the village, even having a nicer meals then lot of people around that bastard doesn’t learn… we hope that he will learner (it’s still young) otherwise we need to send him back :s Nico is one of the main reason to get dirty every were… some days is quite impossible to leave home without getting finger prints of Nico on the cloths…
But is our best guard! At night he stays lying in front of our door and at minimum movement the alarm is on!!
I’m going to share with you a secret of Nico, his favorite spot to go drink water is our 20l shower bucket!! It’s the only spot were there is kind of cold water during the day…

Market Februry the 7th

On Saturday there was a lot of movement at my street… I did see passing 5 “chapas” ( pick-ups, the local public transports) completely packed, which is not normal for regular day! Eurico told me that was the 7^th of april market…. Starnge! Here everything is delayed… we are just in March… the he told me that 7^th of April is one village close by where there is market every Sunday. But because is the event of the villages surroundings the people starts going the day before to get the best spot! On Sunday Eurico was spouse to guard my house during the day but instead we decide to go shopping at that famous market! Nico, our dog would be the guard for a bit! On Sunday at 7 o’clock Eurico was already calling me at the window form my room, I don’t have glass or such thing, only a net for the mosquito… “Mr Luis, awake? Lets go market?” we went by motorbike to make it easier… was already faking hot and the road full of people! Lots of them were bring things to seal over there, was nice to see all those diferente products but also the way that they carry and pack the things….But I really need to keep one eye on the road that more like a trial track!! Soon I got ther everybody was looking to me … I was the only “Mucunha” (the white . in macua) everybody was talking about the mucunha, really bad feeling… Eurico used is contacts to make sure that no one would still the motorbike or gasoline from it! The market… like in other markets of the world , there are several products for sale… this one was not different… fruit, dry fish, salt, flour, brad, cooking oil (in coca-cola bottles), cloths, wood, furniture, spear parts for bikes, snacks and “refrescos” (cold drinks). There were also services, sharpening tools like machetes, fixing bikes, fixing clothes… But something was intriguing… there were no vegetables… most of times I don’t see them here in normal markets for sail… according with Eurico vegetables don’t make your stomach full, and if your family don’t have so much to eat… Ups I forgot, I did see meat for sail! There was gout meet, the head was there to prove it! All the meat in the floor on top of a fabric… there also flies, lot of them, they were included in the price! There were also some chickens, the chickens for sale are always alive, but we never know… sometimes I do understand de vegetarians… There was also a cinema there… but I will leave it for another time, needed To Go home to make some lunch…