Nacala is a really nice natural arbor in the north of Mozambique, and the biggest of this region. Not a really interesting city… but with nice beaches (unluckily my camera run out of battery on the way) with special life during the night! Was night, completely dark, was one of those days that the moon decides take one day off and sleep!! Time to go swim, the water was amazing, at the right temperature, but the best was still to come. When I jumped to the water and started swimming I discovered the magic of that place, at every movement that was doing at the water thousands of plankton was getting lighted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn’t believe it was so amazing! All that life blinking around you and following your movements… looked like a fiction dream… but l I was really awake!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
One day in Itoculo!
For you to have one idea how have been my last days, let’s make a short description of last Wednesday…Wake up at 5 A.M., It’s day and there is already lot of people around my house making noise, including the births that have nests at the tree close to the house. Time for “shower”, Eurico, that is our guard already had one backed of 20l of rain water ready at the “bath room” for me to take a shower. The water is cold but you don’t fill it, the air is already worm and we sweat all night…Breakfast: There was hot water at the thermo from the night before to make some coffee, there was also a piece of bread form the day before but no nothing to put on it! There were some “goiabas” that with sugar are really tasty!!Let’s go to work, “the Office” is 30min walking from home. It is at ADPP caju center. I arrived around 8 o’clock and there was motorcycle waiting for me :p I had a meeting with the works of TAZAMO, in 7, 2 were sick, Felismina with diaria (all is family is sick) and Silverio with malaria. I was spouse to go with him to the field… lets change the planes… He when to Monapo to do the malaria test (1h and 30min by motorcycle, 1h in mad road yep he as malaria) and I decided to go with Abudo to the field, we left around 9 A.M. the son was already burning… we visited some communities to inform them to come to the next seminary about malaria and for me to see the field problems and also the problems of our field workers. To get to some villages we need t go thru the jangle, I was completely lost, there no roads or similar things only jangle…The water from the Abdudo’s motorcycle radiator started boiling, lets wait a bit for ti to cool down and tray to take it back. The only shadow at that spot was some corn plants we were in the middle of one “machanba” (garden). The water that I took with me to drink was really worm, but there was the only one that I could drink, forget to drink water that is not the one that you take with you to the field even if you are really thirsty… Time to get back to the center and have lunch, matapa with rice was the menu that our cooker had for us, I Had the opportunity to relax a bit at look at me… full of dirt and completely burned from the soon… Afternoon I diced to go to the area of Altovino, he does work close to Itoculo village, he also leaves over there. He takes 2h by bike to get there, for me was 30min by motorbike. When I got at “casa da mama”, the meeting point, he was not there yet. Casa da mama is the biggest shop of the place, doesn’t have more than 20 different products, what is a lot for the local standards, and has fresh drinks Yuppie!! They got electricity at village recently… As fresh drink they only had beer, half liter bottles, what a pity, I didn’t have a fresh drink for 4 days, everything is hot here… Finally Altovino arrived, the sky was getting clothy, but there was work to be done, we went to a village again into the jangle… we got a flat tire, no problem, we were lucky the “mestre” that could help us with some tools was quite close 2Km far away, lets pull the motorcycle to is place under a tropical rain. During the time that the mestre was fixing the motorcycle we walked to the village… few Km walking , the rain was fresh, so good… the rain didn’t want to stop… After coming back from the village the rain was gone… I need to hope that the made road was not too bad to get home and I could make before night… the light of the motorcycle doesn’t work. I made it, I arrive home was till day! With a strange sensation, in the same day I burned my skin and I was full of mud… my house mates were kidding with me, the mud was gift of god to protect my skin! heheThe 20l bucket was already waiting for me full of water, so sweet!! But first lets go to sue the latrine and after the shower! Feels so go after a day like this in the middle of nowhere to have some clean water to take a shower!! Fills better then take a shower in a nice shower place…Time to talk a bit with the roommates (Francesca and Ioana) and change experiences about the daily experiences, min while we were having for dinner the left over from lunch…Nonani passed by to charge his mobile, we have some energy from a solar penal… not always depends of the days… we are the lucky ones at the villages our hose is the most fancy one at the village (one of this days I will make a description of my house… but don’t expect too much!) There are always people passing by our house to sell things, asking help to solve problems, having lessons of different staff and some people just to say hi!!Time for a movie, we had enough battery to watch a movie, 2h of battery just enough… 8 o ‘clock I was feeling like midnight, I was completely done… Before to sleep I went outside to brush my teed under a beautiful sky, the most beautiful sky that I ever saw!!! Lets to sleep under the mosquito net, that is not only protect from the mosquito but also for all the , if that is going around at our house! I was so tiered… but couldn’t sleep… thinking of all day and so pour people, that I saw in a day… soundly Francesca started making lot of noise… she was going to the latrine and was there as snake… Cesar that was the guard that night went there to help her!! Let’s sleep … tomorrow there is another day with more challenges and more things to learn.
where and doing what!
For one week that i have been leaving in this small village called Nicane, in Mozambique! Nicane is situated at Itoculo district, Nampula region. For the most interested these are the coordinates: S 14º44.800 E040º15.382 (at least is what is written in paper fixed at the wall). If everything goes alright the plan is to stay here for the next 6 months. During this time I’m going to work with local staff from TAZAMO. TAZAMO is a community development program, which is taking place in 3 different African countries, TAnzania, ZAnbia and MOzambique. This program is mainly founded by Connect International (http://www.connectinternational.nl/) for how I work as volunteer. In each of the 3 countries there is a local organization that leads the work, in the case of Mozambique is ADPP (Ajuda De Povo para Povo). In Mozambique the work is concentrated in the region of Itoculo where ADPP has the caju center and a bit in the surroundings of Monapo. We are talking of 56 villages and 130.000 beneficiaries. The work is manly focused on water, held and pre-schools. At the day by day I talk about water, water filters, wells, rope pumps, mechanical pumps, garbage pits, tipe-tape, diaria, colera, malaria, schools under a tree, tooth brush mad of a tree branch…. When I arrived here and looked to this reality with my eyes I got shocked, did read reports, watched movies, saw pictures and heard stories about this… Every minute is time to discover something new, can be good or bad we never know… The TAZAMO staff has big expectation about me I hope to don’t disappoint them and to help them!!! Seeing this reality is not so easy to use the famous expression: “is tricky but we will manage!” But let’s work and see what happen, I will do my best to manage it :P
Thursday, February 12, 2009
I'm in Africa!
No… I’m not in Mozambique yet, I’m having a short stay in Johannesburg! I did arrived yesterday morning and I will leave to Maputo tomorrow morning by bus! But for now I’m just with some friends that live here so there are not really bit adventures… yesterday I had the opportunity to drive around with the car and is not so challenging to drive with lefts side steering wheel… only once I was going on the wrong side of the road :P
Hi hope that soon I can post some more exciting stories… this morning I got one email with this sentence: “For your information we have a lot of heavy rains, if it doesn´t stop it looks like the road to Itoculo will be impossible to pass!”
Hi hope that soon I can post some more exciting stories… this morning I got one email with this sentence: “For your information we have a lot of heavy rains, if it doesn´t stop it looks like the road to Itoculo will be impossible to pass!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)