Lamego, 26.6.2006

Getting social in Mozambique...

Thanks to hitch-hiking (don't worry, it's like everywhere else, wether you meet the right people or not, we so far have, and if we wouldn't hitch-hike, we wouldn't be able to go anywhere at all, because we would just spend our time waiting for the transport that never comes...) me and Barbara have got to know some rather high society of Mozambique such as lawyers and government workers etc. In short, very different people from the ones we know in Lamego. And thanks to these new aquintances, our lives here have changed quite a lot, we have finally become social, we've gone out and we've even travelled a little bit! We've also had talks that we imagine would be not possible to have in this country, normal, normal, normal talks with normal, normal, normal people. Ok, just to make it clear, I'm not saying that the only normal people here are these “ high class wealthy ones” (high class in African scale, not in the European one), but I must admit that I've felt happy and free spending time with folks that don't want to talk to me only because I'm white, folks who know what is Estonia and even about it's history, folks who have maybe travelled to the same places is Europe or South America that I have etc... It's just that their horizonts are so much wider than the ones “normal” Mozambiquians have that it's just much easier to relate to them and find a common tongue. And having been in Lamego where the biggest entertainment is football in the village’s one and only TV, we were really longing for something different…

Anyway, here's some points I've picked up from few of the get-togethers we've had with our new friends (or they friends or friends' friends or...). And these are not the points that I admire, in fact I just bring up the things that are strange or funny or stupid, all the rest has been just too normal to talk about!:)

So, imagine a garden barbeque party with about 30 people. There's a huge house 5 minute walk from the ocean that is basically empty and used only for garden parties (!). Imagine a pool, and a huge backyard, and a dozen expensive cars. Drinks and a barbeque. Guys are commenting on the last match in the World Cup, and enjoying their drinks. Girls – there are not too many of them – just hang about, talking only among themselves, almost never among men. I saw one girl standing in a circle of guys for about an hour, without saying ANYthing at all, just nodding along the music and looking a bit sad through her model-smile. Some other girls were setting up the meat for the barbeque and taking care of it for the rest of the night. Guys had the task of eating. We got a bit more attention (at least in the beginning) in obvious reasons, but were soon left behind as well. It's truth though, people were a lot more concerned wether we have our drinks and if we feel fine etc.

I must say, this was not one of our usual parties, we kind of ended up there for a while. We had a barbeque just a week before that one among our new friends with less people in a normal sized backyard with no faaaancy or fancy wannabe bunch of people who didn't even know each other, and it was great! Even though, also there, we were the most social girls, the local beauties just ate the meat and stayed on their own. (To answer the question on , some minds, I had fish.)

I guess the Mozambique girls (in spite of their stunning looks) feel a bit uneasy when two whities are around as they become slightly like overprotective over their territory. Haha. I got my second racial assault (first one was a small boy showing the middle finger by the road while we drove past, if you can call it a racial assault) during last 4 months at that fancy barbeque. One cheeky lady walked in on Barbara in the toilet (even though I had repeated like 3 times that it's occupied) and said to me afterwards (as if talking to an idiot) that they cannot understand my Portuguese. Heh, I repeated one word only. And that's what I told her (in perfect enough Portuguese): Which part of ocupada you did not get? Grrrrr

And this last weekend as we were driving back from Beira to Lamego Junior, our really nice friend from Chimoio, stopped in a gas station to greet his friends who among their friends were having a crazy party just right there, in the gas station! It was so funny, 3-4 cars pulled over and totally blocking the entrance of the station shop, doors and trunks open and serving drinks, loud music etc... Well, it was Mozambique's 31st Independence Day, and they all seemed very happy. We didn't stay, though, had to get back to beautiful Lamego and Junior to Chimoio (workoholic as he is)...

I don't know if I've made any sense. It's kind of hard to explain all these things going on here, but I can tell, for the first time, me and Barbara are thinking that it would be nice actually to stay a little bit longer in Moz....


PS! Oh, and the work's great as well. Well, more-less at least. We're organizing Olimpic Games for 900 people next weekend... Hehe, I'll let you know how it turned out!

Examinothing in Mozambique…

Yesterday the students of Teacher Training College had an English exam and it was the worse exam I’ve ever seen in my life. Well, we all have cheated in our lives, but in my case, I at least try to hide it as I’m doing it… oh well.

As I teach the first level (the Very beginners), I was watching their exam. They have the biggest number of students, 90, and they were all in a school’s dining hall. Of course, due to lack of space, it was impossible to have them sit totally separately, they were still rather squeezed. So, when the exam finally started, you did not need eyes of an eagle to spot people doing a group work rather than an exam. It felt logical for me to remove one of the people in the middle and put her to sit in another place. I tried it. They r e f u s e d. Well, as I explained the situation to one of the few teachers present, all I got was being laughed out. “Why do you bother?” they seemed to ask.

And it got just worse. Soon, most of the teachers took off and left 90 students for me and one other guy (their actual English teacher). The other guy was not too concerned how the exam is done as long as it’s done on the paper and so I was literally running around the dining hall, trying to keep an even minimal order. All useless. All of them were constantly talking, sometimes checking their note books or little papers hidden in their pockets. When they were spotted, they laughed and continued exactly the same as before (Just to reming you, I am not talking about kindergarden kids, the students are 20-40 years old.). The worse cases were the ones who, in spite of me stearing at their eyes, stare back and then copy the neighbour’s work without any second thought. It was awful.

I tried to get teacher’s attention to the fact that what’s currently happening is no exam but a simple group work, but he just told me not to care and notice! I guess among these 90 people were almost none who did not cheat. I hope there were some, but they were just too unnoticable…

After the “exam”, I was walking towards the DI house and met the project leader and the school director who was having a conversation with some important guy whom I didn’t know. He asked me how I am and I briefly described what had just happened. He seemed really upset (or at least acted upset) and said something must be done about the issue. After about 5-10 minutes when I was lively describing me running around the dining hall for my fellow volunteers, the English teacher I told you about appeared at our door and asked me in a rather angry way: “Why did you tell the principle that the students were cheating at the exam?” I must have looked puzzled and asked him: “Well, didn’t they?” And then he gave me the most amazing answer: “No, I didn’t see anything and didn’t hear anything. Anyway, all our big w o r k with the exam is now nothing, because the director might make them have an oral exam instead and anyway, now we are in trouble because of you…” Well, what can I say? My guess is even if this happens, it’s just this one time and then this thing continues just as it has until now. I’ve heard of unbelieavable stories of students buying their second chances with 100,000 Meticais (50 EEK, about 2,5 pounds) and stuff like that. I don’t know what can I do about it.

The mentality of corruption and simple, constant lying is the thing that disgusts me most about Africa. And they don’t even consider it wrong. Coming back to the beautiful “exam”, about 20 times I was quietly asked by some student to “help” them. Help – it means to give the correct answer. When I later asked them do they even know the concept of exam: to do it with your own head, without any outside help, they looked kind of confused. “But teacher, if you would have to take a Portuguese exam, you surely wouldn’t know all the answers and you also would cheat.” The simple thought of leaving an empty gap or guessing the answer didn’t really occur their minds.

The other sad truth is that probably, if these 90 people wouldn’t have had the chance to copy as much as they want, most of them would not even pass. And that would be rather bad for the school’s reputation. And unfortunately, this is most likely not only happening in EPF Lamego, but in every single “normal” school in Mozambique.

Lamego,
10. 06. 06

International Children's Day in Mozambique

As I wrote last time, me and Barbara have been really busy last two weeks working to organize the Children’s Day and Olympic Games between 5 local schools (due to happen in 2 weeks time). The main thing we did was trying to find financial support for it (which means we’ve been visiting countless number of companies and factories in 100 km radius) and also some media attention. We managed more than 200 sweets for the children as prizes and I even gave an interview in Radio Mozambique which was on air twice (not that I would have heard it, but there were people who did). For the near future, we might get a big phone company as a main sponsor for the Olympic Games and also some prizes for it. Actually, we’ve become some of a partnership professionals as we also got a supermarket to sponsor “our” orphanage in Nhamatanda (first few hundred puddings have been handed over already) and hopefully more connections are on our way.

The Children’s Day itself was rather crazy. We had prepared a puppet theatre with 3 dolls and a big clown head with soft balls to throw to it’s mouth (you know the game) plus plenty of other sport games. About 36 hours before the event our project EPF got also involved and we got help from about 10 students. Finally, it turned out quite great. After all the local children had finished their common lunch that their families had prepared for them just for the special event, we prepared our games and competitions and other entertainment in the local primary school’s yard, about 300 (maybe more) kids rushed out and learning that we had sweet prizes and I was carrying the backpack with them, almost crushed and squeesed me. Somehow we managed to organize several games and competitions at the same time and more less distribute the sweets to the winners. I heard that nothing like this had ever been organized in the area so no wonder that the kids were so excited about throwing a few balls or racing to fill the bucket with water. It was rather sad to experience hundred small begging hands around me, hundred small mouths shouting “Me too, me too” and myself in the middle of it all, just having no other option than just to push the poor kids aside in order not be totally ran over by them. The whole thing lasted maybe maximum 2 hours, but I felt like I had been in a war afterwards.

Lamego, 1. June 2006

Happily in Mozambique, finally...

This is gonna be a lot different report from the last one. I feel really good now about the job, about the other volunteers, about almost everything (well, there’s always some things to whine about, like weather – we have winter now, and sometimes it’s bloody cold, meaning like 12C at nights etc) and can finally write something really positive. About the workstuff in the next email, now I just comment a bit on the last weekend that we spent in a paradise called Savane. Us, meaning me, my project-mate Barbara (Czeck republic) and Mariana (Portugal) and Felix (Germany) from TCE (HIV-awareness project).

Savane is a peninsula about 45 minutes drive North from Beira on a dirtroad which does not feel that uncomfortable in a Jeep that allowed 4 hitch-hikers on its fancy backseat (the journey from Lamego to the Savane road was less comfortable, on a open truck full of empty beer bottles). As the rainy season is ending (should be already finished, but this year is strange and the rains even continue sometimes), the overall green has turned to brownish-golden-yellow. We cross the Savane river on a big boat with well-off Mozambiquians and confront the white sand and blue waters, high coconut-palms and dreamlike bamboo huts...

In the first afternoon, the wind is rather chilly, so we use the beach just for a 1 km walk to a nearby fishermens’ village. The high tide is in it’s peak, and wetting everyone who does not pay full attention while looking for shells or watching thousands of small crabs. The fishermen clean their nets and we buy some bread. It’s expensive, as the village is so remote and hard to access. Suprisingly, the only bar has even Fanta. I used to drink this kind of drinks like twice a year or so, now, a soda is part of almost every day (sometimes 2-3 times a day).

We sleep on a cement floor in our sleeping bags. The sea is not quiet and the palm-trees seem to have something to say. In order to hear, I don’t sleep too much.

The next morning is lazy and slow in a ever hottening sunshine. We cannot see a piece of cloud as far as our eyes can see. By 10 o’clock we’re on the beach. The following can just be described as a paradise: reading in the waaaaaaaarm sunshine, having fresh papaya for a snack, “swimming” in a nice and cool (rather not-see-through, though) Indian ocean, then laying on the border of waves and sand, just forgetting everything and doing nothing but... oh, you know. Wishing the volunteer-project could be moved and stuff like that.

We dine in a only restaurant in Savane (not the village, but the camping-site with nice showers and decent enough toilets) and the fish and coconut-rice are just amazing. As well as the clams we have at night with the owners (not to mention the drinks). It’s nice to be the only guests and get the full attention (and, the free treats).

The second night we get up at five to see the sunrise. The air is white with mist and coconuts are falling EVERYWHERE! It mysterious, charming, beautiful and a bit scary to walk to the beach in almost darkness, wait for the sun to come up, hear the waves but not quite see them yet, get your feet wet from the dew and then awfully sandy from, obviously, sand. Then, realising that it’s actually too misty to see any sunrise, everybody else went back to bed, and I witnessed as one by one, wooden boats, built from one single tree by the teachings of ancestors, drift silently from the mist on the low waves, the early fishermen saying quietly something to each other and the air clearing slowly, as the invisible sun gets higher and higher.

Very soon, half of my time is over here in Mozambique. The time is flying, and it will fly even quicker from now on as in June we are buuuuuuuuuuusy! Then, it’s just two months, but we still have our “investigation” trip for 3 weeks coming up, so hopefully we’ll see a lot and my positivness will continue. I am happy to be here, get to know this BEAUTIFUL country and its beautiful people (even though they have some hard sides, which I will come to later on). And in September, South Africa, here I come!:)