When living out of a hotel room loses its charm ...

Hey everyone,

well, I haven't written for aaaaaages. Two main reasons:

• I've been flat out. The project team have been all back in Maputo this week, and it's been hectic. Have spent my entire time inbetween managing our project sponsors and coaching and working with the team. My daily routine has been to get up: eat breakfast/read the bible, go to work, flat out the whole day, finish around six-ish, go to the gym, have dinner, then watch CNN.
  
  (on a side note - given how much fruitful time I've spent one-on-one with team members, I now understand why there was so much confusion in the first few weeks, when I was "remote managing". Doh!)
  
  
• Life has been, well ... a bit more boring (the real reason!). It's been 2 weeks since I returned to the capital since my 2-week tour of Nampula, Malawi and Chimoio, and I think the normality and routine has taken a bit of brightness out of the trip.

Africa gone from being an adventure to becoming ... work!

Don't get me wrong, I'm still meeting heaps of amazing people - having dinner with cool people in cool locations - and enjoying getting to develop deep relationships along with meet many. The work we've been doing is fantastic. It's really challenging me but also allowing me to coach others; we calculated today that a moderate impact from our project would result in tens of thousands of jobs for Mozambicans. We gave a mini presentation today to one of the Technoserve Board members (an ex-McKinsey director!) and he loved it - the best thing being that it was the team, not me, that did the majority of the talking (ok, I said a few words ... here and there). I'm enjoying learning all about chickens and technical stuff as well as being a better manager, upwards and downwards.

But the drudgery of being in an office non-stop, and dealing with endless people issues in trying to keep the team happy and productive; combined with coming back day after day to the same hotel room, has resulted in me having a number of days where I've been less than excited. Counting down the hours until my dinner date (or in today's case, the weekend). Stressed and frantic, running after deadlines. It's not many days, but it's been about 2 this week!

What to do? Life can't always be an adventure, and hey, I'm no longer a volunteer. Besides, roaming around Africa in a non-stop flight of fancy isn't what normal life is like, I think?!

Anyway, I'm off for dinner.

Blessings

john

The art of management … ugh!

Well, I haven’t been posting much or taking many photos this week. That’s because I’ve been absolutely flat out, managing this project – we had a big progress review presentation to the US Government Aid’s Agricultural division on Friday (which went really well – ah, sweet Powerpoint).

The last four weeks I have been managing a team of five – 2 Mozambicans, an Indian, and a Pom. Boy, it’s been really, really tough.

It’s funny when you become the manager – you start to see all the little tricks that you tried to pull on your manager; and how easily you can see through them. You also feel the frustration of having to cover for your team when their work doesn’t make the grade; and the feeling of wanting to throttle your team when they miss deadlines (and you have to chase them up about it … ugh!).

I always thought I was good at delegating: always someone who knew that investing time upfront in training someone to do something was a good investment. But I never realized how hard it is to delegate complex tasks – particularly with multiple components of research, analysis, and reporting – particularly when the team’s expectations are different to yours – and how much easier it is to just “do it yourself” rather than go through the hassle …

On a brighter note, I must say, I am really, really thankful for the opportunity to manage a team – and in Africa, too! I have learned much about myself as a leader – the balance of trying to be myself, but also a good and responsible manager; the difficulty of knowing when to compromise, and when to put my foot down. And to think, I’m getting paid for this! =)



Powerpoint … it always saves the day. Well, for consultants, anyway.

Healthcare at 1st world prices – a $44 (US dollars!) trip to the doctor

With my feet continuing to play up (they’re much better now at least!) I thought it would be wise to visit the local doctor and get it checked out.

Before I entered the doctor’s room, I thought I’d just ask how much it would cost. I nearly had a heart attack! $44 for one consultation (some $60 Australian dollars) was the cost, just to see a GP.

It’s amazing – when you have to pay for your own healthcare like this – how many additional questions you can generate to attempt to reduce the effective cost per minute. After the 3 minute inspection and solution ("there’s no big problem. Take these painkillers") I managed to ask a myriad of questions – blood pressure, pulse, breathing, weight, every gland to which I knew the name of! (The cheap/stingy part of me was almost half hoping she would find something wrong with me to make the visit worthwhile!)

But I’m all okay. Phew!

Blessings
John

About Adam

Well, I’ve been back in Maputo for a few days now – and one of the things you can’t miss about this place is the huge number of peddlers. That is, people walking around the street, trying to sell things.

What are people selling on the streets of Maputo?

Well, lots of different things. But a few things are sold absolutely en masse … (let me quote you the opening price, and then how cheap you can get it for)

1. "5 in 1” DVDs ($12.50 USD is the opening price, but I’ve got them down to $5.50)
2. Phone recharge cards (starts at $2.50, but no bargaining on these)
3. Cigarettes (standard rate is 50c per pack)
4. Bunches of roses at night ($12.50 opening price, could get down to $2.50 if I could actually find a use for them)
5. Sunglasses and watches ($25 opening price, can get down to $2 if you try)
6. Bags (similar kinds of opening/closing prices) \
7. Imported perfume and men’s cologne ($35 opening price, haven’t really found out their “walk away” price)
8. African crafts – these are everywhere. Many different kinds – from beautifully carved wooden elephants to paintings to etched clothes filled with colours. Prices range in the hundreds of US dollars, to as low as a few dollars for the etched paintings.

Here’s a close up of some guy trying to sell some imported cologne. I’ll stick to $2 deodorant thanks!

Why street sales? (aka I don't see them on the north shore!)

For a third world developing country, street peddlers are a natural alternative to full-time employment for many young people and budding entrepreneurs. For starters, it doesn’t take much skill to sell – to tourists, it is all pretty cheap, you just need to be at the right place at the right time (basically, walk around all day) and sell for more than your cost price. There are numerous wholesalers who will lend you stock to sell – African ports nowadays are flooded with cheap imports from China and Dubai.

Furthermore, the margins are huge. When a labourer earns US $1 for a day’s work, making between $2 and $10 profit for selling just one DVD is a much more attractive option – particularly for people who don’t like manual labour (like me for example!). If you sold just one DVD per hour, you might make $50 in a day – more than someone working in a farm would earn in an entire month.

The dark side of peddling* ...

Unfortunately, as with all economies, the pendulum has swung too far. Maputo is filled with literally tens of thousands of young men in their 20s who’ve come to make a buck, having done the basic maths above. Furthermore, ex-pats like me have wised up and realized it’s a buyers market. I used to stop and look at the piles of cheap DVDs every time I bumped into a peddler, hoping I could get away with buying for “only” $7.50. Now I know I drive them down to near-cost price for them - $5 - whenever I want (though I’m trying to give up DVD-watching!), easily finding sellers who will reluctantly sell for that little.

The net result? You have thousands of sellers who have caught the $1 bus in from the outer suburbs into the big smoke to sell their DVDs and crafts who don’t sell one item in an ENTIRE DAY of selling. This is the dark side of peddling: where peddling becomes begging – peddlers willing to sell anything at any price, just for their transport home, with no one who wants to buy. Around the area where I stay, you have young men standing for hours at night holding up paintings in the windows of restaurants, endlessly hoping one of us will think about buying one.

About Adam ...

I’m staying in a hotel in a great location – some 20 restaurants within 5 minutes’ walk (we had Thai tonight … oh, yum! Sweet Pad Thai …). With so much activity, the small section between my hotel and a large intersection 250 metres away contains tens, if not hundreds, of peddlers during the day, and a decent contingent at night.

I was walking home from the Thai restaurant tonight when I was confronted by a man who introduced himself as Adam. He was an artist who sold paintings etched into cloth – kind of like a hand painted tea towel.

Adam spoke good English. And he was desperate.

As he explained to me, since 6am until now (almost 11pm), he had sold NOTHING. He didn’t even have 50 cents to return that night to his home. He normally sold the cloth at USD $17.50, but he would give me a special price – only $10 – this beautiful hand cloth, made with 5 colours, as he explained.

Now I have no desire for hand cloths, so I followed my normal routine of just walking away. But Adam persisted, stubborn but ashamed. I began to explain to him that, whilst it was nice, I don’t want to buy crafts, at least not now. That only made Adam drop his price. $10 went to $7.50, $7.50 became $5 – without me even bargaining (side note: on this trip, I’ve learned the best bargaining technique is often feigning disinterest to a desperate seller).

$5 soon became $3.

$3 became $2.50.


My guilt-ridden response

I watched Adam with a combination of caution, pity and despair. He was so ashamed that he was essentially begging, he would not even look at me. My first instinct was to make sure I had a safe place to run in case I felt threatened. This caution rapidly turned to pity as I realized the utter economic helplessness of his situation – he is a small seller in an overcrowded commodity market – trying to sell the same thing thousands of his peers are trying to, a product very few people actually really want.

Pity soon became despair. Like Adam, I was trapped – but in a situation of a different kind. I read the other day Matthew 25, where Jesus urges “whatever you do for the least of men, you do for me”; or the Sermon on the Mount, where He commands us to “go the extra mile”, and give to those who are in need. But I know that handouts only make things worse (the story of foreign aid’s monumental failure in Africa!). Despite his assurances he would never do this again, I knew that, if he continued making craft, there would come another day where he sold nothing and was stranded, again. It was an economic certainty, a matter of time, a question of when, not if. What would Jesus do?

In the end, out of compassion or guilt – probably a mixture of both – I gave Adam $1 USD to get a ride home. He told me that if I gave him another $1.50 I could have the cloth painting, a comment I ignored as I walked into my hotel.

I had caved in, failed, perpetuated the problem. There would be other Adams who needed money – would I give to them all? Would I buy their craft out of pity so they can supply more, ending up in the same situation?

The face of poverty is heart-wrenching. I want to end it, to provide them with meaningful employment, the opportunity to save money and get an education, to stop peddling and start doing something valuable. What drives my desire to end it is both compassion for this race but also the avoidance of guilt: I don’t want to spend my time here in endless ethical dilemmas – damned if I give to the poor, damned if I don’t.

Unfortunately, for the millions of Adams in sub-Saharan Africa, there is no easy solution. They can’t sell craft very well, and they probably wouldn’t make very good farmers. There is little work for them to do, and little they can do about it. What on earth are they to do?

What are any of us to do?


On a side note: one of the more interesting things that was being sold to me – a whiskey bottle full of tiny fluorescent fish - $1 USD! (see if you can see some of the fish in corner)

*well done to anyone who picked up the gratiuitous reference to Episode III! Only one month to go!

One final night on the farm

Well, I’m currently on the plane from Chimoio back to Maputo via Villancoulis. Some quick maths tells me that this is actually the 21st journey I have flown since first arriving in Maputo some 3 months ago … and boy are my wings tired! (Maputo, Chimoio, Beira, Nampula, Lichinga, Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Villancoulis … and many times repeated – this will be my 6th time in Maputo!)

It was fun being back in Chimoio – but the highlight for me – apart from a guided tour through the local abattoir (I’ll never eat sausages again!) – was spending one last night back on the farm with the family whose business I was helping to build in my first project here. This was the seed company I spent three weeks working with – when they make their first profit they promised to fly me back to drink champagne! Or diet coke, one of the two.

I hadn’t seen the kids for almost 2 months now, and I really enjoyed hanging out with the family again, playing children’s board games (I won again! Uwa ha ha) and watching the cartoon network on cable TV. Furthermore, there were additions to the family – more dogs – and, would you believe it – chicks! (They’re everywhere!)

There were of course more beautiful African sunsets …



… A whole lot of new fruits and vegetables – check out this pineapple plant …



Bulls carrying tomatoes on the dirt road to the house … (maybe they were on the way to the abbatoir?)



Since I had last been here, they had installed a hot water shower! Making this hot water barrel which the guard used to keep warm for us and then carry in buckets not useful for anything except cooking corn …



… And to get water pressure, you need to have a water tank installed high like this!



I’ll miss my home away from home, Chimoio. Then again, who knows, maybe I’ll be back before I know it?

Blessings
john

Star Trek and Africa: together at last

A culture of theft ...

One thing that has become abundantly clear to me over the last few months and days is how much of a problem employee theft is in Africa. In my talks with the operations managers of some of the biggest manufacturing countries in Malawi, I remember some of the things they said …

• “Disease is a huge problem for Malawi agriculture. But there is one bigger problem: theft by employees. This is the reason so many businesses go bankrupt.”
  
• “These locals will steal anything they can: chickens, pens, fuel, phone air time. They are clever. They spend 8-9 hours a day thinking how they can steal from you so you cannot catch them.”

This was reinforced when I returned to Chimoio yesterday to have lunch with some old clients. We were at our favourite pub, and the owner was talking to us. My friends complained to the owner that – particularly when the patrons were drunk – the waiters had a habit of adding extra to the bill. The owner was shocked – disbelieving! – and encouraged us to tell her next time it happened.

It didn’t take long. Minutes later, when the waiter brought out the bill, he’d managed to “miscalculate” – doubling the total. She was furious – I can see why some say “hell hath no fury like a woman’s scorn”- and threatened to kill him with a knife when he wasn’t looking, amongst numerous other swear words in Portuguese! We walked away, justified in our judgment, shaking our heads; our negative generalisations about employee theft in Africa reinforced.


Star Trek: Nemesis – an unlikely avenue for inspiration

A few nights ago, in Malawi, I was watching the final round of the US Masters at some crazy hour in the morning (Go Tiger!). Now golf is a slow game, with numerous breaks – making it perfect for ‘co-watching’ another TV show at the same time. The only other thing worth watching at exactly that time was the latest Star Trek move – ‘Nemesis’ – starring everyone’s favourite bald guy, Patrick Stewart, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

In this movie, Picard’s enemy (aka his nemesis…!) was a young commander who has been designed with exactly the same DNA as Jean-Luc Picard himself, only years younger. Picard, a peaceful and compassionate captain, is disgusted by the violent and destructive nature of his nemesis – a wicked commander who has assassinated many and intended to do the same to Picard, not to mention planet earth.

In one of the most heated non-violent exchanges in the movie, Picard confronts his nemesis with how evil and wrong his plans are, appealing to his sense of moral decency. His enemy’s response is one of the classic quotes of the movie, provoking a philosophical dilemma for Picard …

“I am a mirror to you, Captain. If you had been through what I have been through – years of torture at the hands of my oppressors – you would be doing exactly the same thing.”

If I was an African, would I be doing exactly the same thing?

It is grossly unfair to say that all or even the majority of the sub-Saharan African workers are thieves. However, it is a true observation that employee theft is a massive problem here, and many poor African workers regularly engage in theft.

Before I had thought about this yesterday, it was just a business consideration, a cultural quirk which reduced the profitability of my clients; a risk to be managed. But now, as I reflect on this, like Jean-Luc Picard, it becomes a personally challenging question: if I was an African, earning less than 2 Australian dollars a day, without hope or ability to accelerate my career or start my own business, would I turn to opportunistic theft from my employer?

I am reminded of my own Australian ancestry – a colony of criminals who settled here some 200 years ago. No doubt some of them were violent thieves – but many we now view as victims of the poverty of their time. Hungry and impoverished in Britain, poverty had left them with no other option but to take the risk and steal to support their family. The question begs again: if I was a poor man with no job and a family to support, would I steal too? And, if I did, would this be wrong? My fault?

I don’t know what the answer is – and, unfair as this world is – I will probably never need to face that dilemma in a real way. Neither am I suggesting that truly malicious crooks and robbers don’t exist – Africa has many of them, as do all countries (regards to Rodney Adler if he’s reading this from jail). But understanding that many African beggars and thieves are simply acting in response to the circumstances destiny has imposed on them at least encourages me to be more compassionate and less judgmental …



A little kid in Malawi trying to figure out how to pump water against a backdrop of drought-ridden maize.
If that was me … what kind of person would I have turned out to be?

Pictures from Malawi – similar to Mozambique, yet altogether different!

I’ve spent the last few days in sunny (sample size: 3 days) Malawi. Here’s my photo-biographical extravaganza …

Like Mozambique, if not more so – Malawi is filled with minibuses galore, many boasting interesting logos. I’m not quite sure whether this religious-esque name makes me more or less ready to get in the bus ….



… Here’s one named after a famous Australian chocolate biscuit (kind of)



The chicken industry in Malawi is booming. Here are some day old chicks under lights, simulating being under the wings of a hen …



… On market day, there are heaps of guys are trying to sell brooms and mops on the streets (maybe Malawi is finally cleaning up its act! Sorry.)



… Plenty of fake jeans and tops are on sale in little makeshift wooden stores too.



Market day brings out all sorts. From girls in white dresses to big men carrying sticks …



Blessings
john

Random episodes with pianos

When you go away from home for a while (and I’m coming up to three months!), you start to realize what (and who) you really miss.

As for me, the list isn’t as long as I thought it would be (I’ll blog it soon!), but one of the most missed items for me is playing the piano and singing. Oh, how I miss the feel of my fingers literally tinkling the ivories, singing at the top of my voice, getting awkward looks from passers by, the whole deal.

Thus, whenever I have the good fortune to run into a piano that I’m allowed to play, it’s a cause for celebration. There haven’t been many places, but they include …

• Some stranger’s house in Lichinga
• In the bar of the most expensive hotel in Maputo
• Someone’s house in Zimbabwe who I met on the street
• At the café at Maputo international airport – this really is quite a random place to have a very expensive grand piano (see picture – honestly, the bar café was empty when I got there!)
  
  
  
  
• And today – at a Malawian church

I spent much of today at large African church in Blantyre, the biggest city in Malawi (where I’m currently staying). After the service, when everyone had left, I asked the guy who led the singing in the morning if I could play the piano. He obliged – only on the condition that he got to sing along …

… we spent the next one and half with some other random guys who tagged along singing at the top of our voices all the Christian hymns and songs we knew (which were quite a lot – and the 1980’s Christian music era feature quite heavily!). It was fantastic! And I was so blessed to be able to do this with a bunch of strangers in a foreign land ...

Blessings
john

Boyz and their Toyz – a trip to Nacala port

Token boring economic bit (read this only if you are a nerd and/or are bored)

I realized (and blogged) in my early weeks here how money and trade make the world go round. The pursuit of profit, combined with humanity’s insatiable desire for newer and more expensive stuff, has been the driver of economic growth, discovery and development throughout the ages.

Recently I’ve been realizing that shipping is literally the vehicle that enables trade to make the world go round. Many of the countries in the world were only discovered, then colonized, originally for their strategic positioning along trade routes (South Africa being a great example - Australia being an exception!). Hundreds of years later, despite the evolution of the plane, shipping is even more important. Each day, thousands of ships carry thousands of shipping containers each (each container weighing thousands of kilos) to and from the world’s ports to each other – the backbone of our global consumer society.

Seeing the project I’m leading has much to do with export possibilities and import threats, I thought I would grab a car (and a skillful driver – who unfortunately didn’t speak much English, but hey) and head from Nampula to check out Nacala port, the deepest port in the entire world!

(Note: if you (i) are impressed with that fact and (ii) have actually read this bit anyway, you really are a nerd ... welcome!) =)


Everyone else start reading here: 'My shady non-masculine background' (but I’m secure with that)

From an early age, girls have their dolls, boys have their toys: construction trucks, building equipment, cars, other things that move or do stuff. Whilst the cost and the size of the toys change as we get older, us boys (men!) will always have our toys.

However, I was never really like that. Having been given my first computer (an IBM-Compatible XT with 4 colour CGA monitor … oh yeah) at the age of 4, I was never really the “outdoorsy” type (or, in fact, into anything that involved physical exertion, let alone voluntary building construction. Sandpits never did it for me. At all).

As I got older, and the other guys got into fast cars and power tools, well, I didn't. With regards to cars - I didn’t mind what car I drove (I was struggling enough with the driving coordination part) as long as I could play 1980s love songs on a tape/CD player. And power tools and building things – ugh! I loathed every time we bought something from Ikea and I had to do something involving construction with my hands (a special note to my cousin Gonk who somehow managed to get called in to be the ‘foreman’ for most, if not all, of these projects. I love you man!).


But today, I became a man ... (of sorts)

So me being impressed at such a boorish thing as a shipping port might seem highly unlikely. Yet, as I posed as a dodgy Asian importer/exporter in order to get access to the port (complete with fake ID - the only pass we could get had a photo of a black man on it, but no one checked!), I was in awe as I gazed at the sheer size of the operation.

If you ever get to sneak into a port (difficult nowadays with terrorism and everything!), you’ll get an appreciation of just how small we are (even us, um, super sized people). Mazes of 20-ton shipping containers – thousands of them – lie stacked back to back for hundreds of metres, waiting for ships to arrive and pick them up. Enormous cranes carry them on and off.

And the ships! We watched a massive ship, the ‘British Liberty’, carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel, pull towards the port. The biggest ships span some 60 metres beneath sea level (hence the importance of deep ports) ... and this one was huge - 50,000 tonnes, well over a hundred metres long. Watching it slowly drift in was a bit like watching the start of the original Star Wars* - where the first 90 seconds is taken up with this big ship flying over the camera, to the amazement of all us nerds in the cinema ...

Whoa, dude.

Blessings
john

*depending on when you read this, only 42 days to go! =)

The streets of Nampula ...

Today, in the pursuit of visiting chicken farms as part of my latest project (ironic I know), we had to drive through a whole lot of back streets of Africa.

Intermingled with the paved roads of the "big towns" like Nampula are mazes of backstreets, humming with activity. This is the real Africa - well, the town version (see my entries on the lake for the real "rural" versions).

The first thing that hits you about these places is there really is a joyful atmosphere about the place. The sounds of children laughing resonate throughout. I went at evening, where the golden orange in the sun-setting sky compliments the colour of the well-worn road, white puffy clouds casting a contrasting sillouhette over the horizon.

As we drove along incredibly pot-holed roads (quite slowly indeed!), the odd village goat and chicken runs by. Children have set up make shift goal areas for mini soccer games, the socer balls made out of hundreds of plastic bags dutifully wrapped around each other.

These towns of a few hundred to a thousand people are little communities - complete with their own versions of Backyard Blitz and Home Improvement ... whilst everything is dusty and worn, you see those who have neglected their homes, and those who have tried to add touches of flair throughout - a new hay fence, a well placed makeshift roof made out of scrap metal.

You see those who have given up on acheivement - many lying there in the dust, sleeping, and you see the entrepreneurs - little makeshift stores selling cheap trinkets and chocolate eclairs to slowly build capital. You see teenage girls and young men modelling the semi-latest fashions - the classiest outfits they could pick up at the local market (2nd hand Western clothes for 50 cents each!) - you see them walking past many in holed and dishevelled clothes which have not been washed for weeks. You see children - laughing, playing soccer, crying, begging.

This is an African metropolis - joy, laughter, sadness and sorrow intertwined as one.

The same mixed emotions are brought out in me when I move through this place. In some ways they have my envy - a life of relatively little work, lots of soccer, nightly dancing and socialising. However, I cannot overcome the strong sense of pity - both a compassion and a stigma - that I continue to develop towards these Africans ...

blessings
john

ps sorry for no photos. Arghh the internet here ... why!!!!?!?

Evolution of a Mozambican dance party

The last 2 weekends, I thought I’d get “more culture” by visiting some Mozambican dance parties – one in Maputo, and one here.

Some strange facts about these dance parties …

• In Mozambique, dance parties are completely dead until about 1am. Even at midnight, they are deserted, and look very sad. But at 1am, people start streaming in, peaking at around 3am. Even at 4am, people are still walking in! (I don’t know what people do the entire night before 1am – maybe sleeping in anticipation?!)
• There is a great appetite for techno/boppy versions of Western 80s and 90s songs. My favourite from last night? “The look” by Roxette. Also note that Kenny G can be remixed to make dance music! (He is an amazing man, though … how can one man have so much talent?)
• Whilst there is a specific “dance floor”, Mozambicans (and probably Africans in general) are used to dancing anywhere, even if there’s no one else around them. If they’re queuing in the line for drinks, or walking to the bathroom, you’ll often see them jiggy-ing to the music …!

However, Mozambican dance parties have plenty in common with dance parties from other parts of the world …

• When the slow songs come on, just about everyone leaves the dance floor
• The music is so loud that it’s pretty hard to have a proper conversation, meaning that you either dance or sit at your seat sending SMSes
• The entry prices are pretty high – between 2-4 times the daily wage of most Mozambicans! (which, because of the high unemployment rate, is in turn twice the size of the average daily per capita earnings …)

Party on,
john

(it was a bit dark to photos at the dance party - but here's some women dancing in another part of mozambique - the guys in the middle beat the drums, whilst the women, um, dance!)

Nampula: 40+ degrees of heat, 6 degrees of separation

One the weekend I arrived in boiling hot Nampula, the 3rd largest city in Mozambique (just under half a million people). However, it is very different from Maputo, where I have spent the last week – hotter, much more “rural” and underdeveloped. That being said, it’s been good to get back to the “down to earth” side of Mozambique …

The interesting thing for me was how many people I bumped into here who I actually already knew from my other trips within Mozambique … all quite randomly!?

Inside a flower arranging shop: A consultant who I had met at a restaurant in Maputo 2 months ago (who I ended up going to an African dance party with)
On a home video I was watching at the place of one of the few people I actually knew in Nampula: One of my team members! At an Indian wedding!?
At an African dance party at 2:30am in the morning: A Scottish aid worker who I met in Lichinga – and at another dance party in Maputo one week earlier (!)
Watching the formula 1 race at a bar: A businessman from Chimoio that I was consulting to (who ironically is presently consulting to one of the members on my team! The consultant becomes ... the consulted.)

Despite the 20 million people here – and my relatively short time here (still less than 3 months!), I’m finding it’s a very small world after all for ex-pats in foreign countries.

Apart from that, spent the weekend poking my nose around Nampula. Went to the national museum – which was REALLY small (and a little scary! lots of weird masks) – and the markets – which were huge, but consisted almost entirely of 2nd hand clothing (at what I thought were exorbitant prices). Apart from that, spent far too long in an internet café, where about 10 people share what must be only a few dial up connections – 10 minutes to get into gmail = not fun. When I connected this morning on dial up internet in the office (about half the speed of normal dialup internet back home!) it felt like broadband! =)

Blessings
john