A Search for Buckets Changes the Day

I never cease to be amazed at the timidity and naivety of the people in developing countries. I have seen this anomaly more since I have been here in Mozambique than any other place I have been so far. Now that I am once again absorbed into the society, activities and challenges of working here I find myself getting temporarily frustrated, wondering how much I am causing what I see and checking out ways that I might prevent these seemingly debilitating incidents that I casually cause. It has occurred to me that much of why countries like Mozambique have not progressed beyond the point that they are currently at is because of their gentle accepting attitude, and most important the naivety of the people in general. Day after day I see examples that make me wonder how they have even gotten as far as they are now in development and modernization. The example that I will feature in today’s blog to make this point is just a simple one, but is one that is so indicative of every day activities that I see and so frequently shake my head at that I have to surrender and let be. Here’s what happened most yesterday (Saturday, 29 March 2008):

Our Director came to the office early Saturday morning. She had told me on Friday that she had some work to do on the books and was going to organize the tool shed. She had brought the local consultant who does the accounting for Ascend and it was my expectation that they were going to do the work on the books that she had been talking about on Friday. It was near the end of the month and so it made sense that this was the goal. I, too, had a goal for the day, but its priority was very low, but I did want to get it done during some part of the day. So I mentioned it to the Director and said that we needed to do this sometime that day. The task I wanted to do was to meet with a local merchant in the city (Beira) who had promised to get some information on costs of PVC pipe from a manufacturer in Johannesburg. We had missed seeing this man on Friday as planned, as we had worked too late to get back into the city to see him, so I thought since his shop would be open, it would be logical to do it on Saturday.

The Director asked me when I wanted to do this (she speaks only a few words of English, but understands much more), and I told her that anytime during the day would do for me. She asked if I wanted to do it right them and I said it didn’t matter to me, but if she wanted to we could go right then. She said yes that she wanted to go right then, so I didn’t argue. She said something to the consultant, and in just a few moments we were loading into the vehicle for the ride to town. I was sure it would not take too long, so I didn’t oppose the idea since it seemed to me that her response to me that it would be best if we went right then was really what she wanted to do. At first I thought it was strange that the accountant was going with us, but I knew he spoke a few more words of English than she and he was going along to interpret. As we loaded up, on of the guards, a young man who also cleans the house and does my laundry got into the car with us. On the Director’s instructions he loaded some things in the car (packages and a box) and we were off for the trip to town.

There was only the conversation between the Director and the accountant as we went to town and the guard said nothing all the way in. When we arrived in the city in a few minutes and instead of going to the merchant’s shop she went to another part of the city and dropped the accountant off. He got out of the car as if his work was done, and I thought maybe he was going to take care of some business and meet us later. In a few minutes more of weaving through the streets of Beira, we suddenly arrived in front of the place where the Director lives. She said something to me that I didn’t understand, but figured she needed something from her house that she had forgotten. Instead, the guard got out, took the packages he had loaded into the car and disappeared into the corridor of the apartment. We drove off.

Our next stop was the Portuguese merchant’s shop where we spent a few minutes with the man only to find out that his contact in South Africa had been out of town the previous week and he was unable to get the information I needed. I would have to wait until Wednesday and come back to see him then. Okay, we could now pick up the accountant and go back to the office. I was through with the things I had to do. But no. Instead, the Director said, “We go lookey for buckets now,” and off we went.

I had been talking all week about the need to find some buckets for our water purification project, but I wanted a special kind of bucket that I had not seen in any of the hardware stores we had visited previously. She explained to me in more broken English that she knew this place and we would go there now. We hadn’t taken too long at the merchant’s shop, so I thought she was killing time before going back to pick up the accountant. I just went along. So in a few moments we were parking and walking to an Indian shop (most of the shops in the city are run by East Indians) that featured all kinds of Chinese-made buckets, basins, water cans and everything else that people use for their domestic needs that are made from plastic. There were buckets there, just like we had seen at many of the other places. In fact, they were exactly like all the ones we had passed over on previous trips. I tried to explain to the Director that these were not adequate because they were too flimsy, but she just took that as a challenge and soon we were going to another place. I kept my eyes open for a place that might have a bucket like I wanted, but didn’t see any quite yet. Over the next half hour, we must have gone to at least six of these same Indian shops but every one had the same kind of bucketa that the Director kept picking up and showing me, as if they were different than the last. But unfortunately, it was obvious to me that they were all made by the same Chinese manufacturer, and were only different colors or sizes. When we were walking to one of these places, we passed a vendor who was selling eggs. I mentioned that I needed eggs and wanted to buy some, but the Director said, “No good!! We go another place.” Now, suddenly, it seemed we were on another track not related to buckets or getting back to the office, so I just followed along after she refused to let me convince her that I didn’t really need the eggs right then.

We weren’t far from the egg shop, but on the way, there was a soft ice cream vendor on the sidewalk that had two of the kind of buckets I wanted sitting right my his machine, I guessed full of the mixture they were using in the machine. I stopped her and showed her the buckets, and she waved her finger at me telling me by showing me some paint on a post nearby that these were paint buckets, and that they were not what I wanted. It was what I wanted, but she insisted she knew another place that sold the buckets I really wanted. We got the eggs around the corner, and coming back as we passed the ice cream vendor, I stopped to look at the buckets again and tried to get her attention, but she was off to her own place. I followed and soon we were in another part of the city getting out of the parked car walking to another place to look for buckets.

This few minute stride took us through an open market place that was shop after shop of used car parts, bolts, tires, telephone parts, electrical things and every other used object one could imagine. It was a long way as I was walking without my hat and trying not to hit my head on the low hanging shades that prevailed along the narrow crowded path we were following. I had not known we were going to a market place when I got out of the car, so I didn’t bother to pick up my head protection. Finally, however, I figured out that we were in fact going to another plastic vendor (not the Indian shop kind, as all the shops in these open market places are always operated by Mozambique natives--another thing about this country that gets me—that only the lowest level of marketing is being done by Mozambique people. What a shame that the Indians have grabbed up all the good jobs in the country).

The plastic vendor, not to my surprise, had the same buckets as we had been seeing everywhere else we went. The Director tried her best to convince me that they were different and stronger (I guessed that since this shop was owned by a native, that it made the buckets stronger—I don’t know). We made our way through the maze, I was guessing, on the way back to the car, when suddenly I saw a young boy carrying a bucket just like the one I needed. I stopped the Director and pointed to the bucket and attempted to show her the difference between the buckets we had been looking for and reaffirmed that we needed to find this kind of bucket, not the others that were hanging all around our heads in the various shops nearby. She talked to the boy briefly and I was certain she was asking him where he bought it. I was relieved that we may now finally be on the right track as she left urgently heading back to the car. The next stop was at yet another Indian shop with the same Chinese buckets we had been seeing for the previous hour or more. Once again the Director tried to convince me that these buckets were different, but they weren’t. I guess the boy didn’t know where he bought the bucket or told the Director the wrong place. Well, anyway we didn’t get the bucket, and the Director seemed like she was anxious to go pick up the accountant and get back to the office to do her work, so she sort of ended the search for the day by saying that she would Sunday for a bucket for me. I thought at the time that she will for sure find buckets, but they will be the same old ones we had been seeing all along. I wouldn’t be surprised if she buys one of the Chinese buckets that she finds.

We found the car and instead of picking up the accountant, we were soon on the main street that takes us back to the office. The Director’s agenda had obviously changed by then as I was not really surprised when we got back to the office that she said she was going to organize the tool shed (a task she had mentioned before that she was going to do on Saturday along with working on the books).

You know, this is what I would label as a funny but sad story. But it is so typical of the day to day routines that go on as we attempt to get things done here in this country. The frustrations are never ending, and one thing that I have come to believe, is that I have to be very careful how I exert my own influence on these people when a simple statement like I made on Saturday that I wanted sometime during the day to go to this merchant’s shop, that turns into an agenda change that puts everything that was planned in the trash can. I haven’t as yet quite figured out how to avoid these things happening, but I have noticed that the same is true everywhere I have been. Somehow simple statements coming from me tend to carry a lot of weight with these naïve and inexperience people and I have to be very careful how I use that “hidden authority.”

This Is Mozambique

March 21, 2008

This whole area including the town where I live, a suburb of Beira, has its own character and ambience that grabs at me every time I walk down its streets or take rides along its roads. Take yesterday, for example, me and Filipe (the Program Coordinator for Ascend here in Beira) were working in the office in the morning, so just after noon, me and him decided to walk down the street about a half mile and have lunch. This restaurant had been pointed out to us on occasion and even Tim Evans and I, when he was here, ventured down there for dinner one Saturday night, but it was too crowded, so we left. I asked Filipe if he had ever eaten there, and he had not, but we decided to give it a try anyway.

It was a hot sultry afternoon as we headed toward the restaurant (I have yet to discover directions here, as there are no landmarks like towers or mountains, so I am continually confused). A mongrel male dog walked across our path, looked at us and continued. Its tongue was hanging out and it looked as hot as I felt, so I suggested to Filipe that we walk on the other side of the street where there was more shade. The street was still wet from the recent flooding and here and there, puddles still remained--breeding places for the many mosquitoes that infest this area. The sun, almost exactly over our heads was bright making the colors of the day, the beautiful greens of all shades that abound here stand out and look even brighter.

Every puddle that we passed that was hidden in the brush or under some trees rang with the sound of frogs. I have never seen any of these creatures, but there must be millions of them by there sounds. There are many people walking along this same road going both way; where I can’t imagine. A lady passed us; greeting us with a nod and the local greeting which sounded like “beun dia” but means good day. Two young men, maybe in their late teens or early twenties, were standing on the side of the road as we passed. I thought to myself, these young men don’t look any different than any college kid I might see in the U.S. They are dressed in very fashionable clothing and the one boy’s hair is made into some sort of special knots, like small braids. I commented to Filipe after we passed them that I thought these boys looked like they might be college students. He nodded uninterestingly, and made no answer.

Further on we passed a little shop and I looked in seeing only what appeared to be a small bar or counter with a few things on the shelf behind. There were two young women sitting at a table outside. They watched us as we passed by and I thought, as I have many times before, that many of the women in this country, like it was in Ethiopia, are very beautiful. These two women like many others I have seen here were attractive and well dressed. The table where they were sitting was empty of glasses or food. I asked Filipe if this was a restaurant, and his comment was that this was a place where people come to drink, like a Coke or Fanta, but that it was not a restaurant.

I noticed that the sand along the dirt road we were on was still wet and that we were making tracks like many people before us had made. A lot of people walk bare feet here as so many of the tracks are shaped like the bare feet that made them. I wondered how they do this, as I have seen people everywhere in all kinds of conditions underfoot, walking without shoes—many even carrying their shoes with them. It isn’t like they don’t have shoes. I just think that shoes must be optional.

It was a long way to the restaurant and my legs were feeling it. My old bum knee was bothering me and distracting me from enjoying the stride along the road. Filipe wasn’t talking much, so I broke the silence and told him about reading an article on the Internet the night before about mice used in Mozambique to identify buried land mines. He and Adolpho (a local volunteer working with us) had told me about this the day before when we passed this compound where a lot of people were waiting at the gate and I had asked what that was about. At first I thought he was joking, but both he and Filipe insisted that this was true; that an American company was using mice to detect old buried land mines. I couldn’t hold back from investigating this story, so that night I got on the Internet and sure enough, rats, not mice, and in fact, special giant African rats are trained to sniff out the nitro glycerin in the mines believing it is food, and thus with 100% accuracy, they can clean up an entire mine field in hours what might take days or weeks with other mean. So as we trekked along a little further, I told Filipe about the rats and some of the things the article mentioned. He said he knew where this place was that was mentioned in the Internet and had some more comments, but the discussion was soon lost as we continued along the road.

As we got nearer the restaurant, I noticed a large building to the one side of the road that appeared to be a movie house. I asked Filipe about it and if it was still operating, thinking it would be nice to go to a movie sometime. But he said the building was taken over by some church, but he didn’t think it was being used. The building is in pretty bad shape like most of the buildings in this city, and I thought maybe it was condemned and is not in use. But as we passed, Filipe remarked that it was being used after all. There was a makeshift sign where the ticket booth had been advertizing the church. As we continued, I was again distracted by another thousand frogs peeping in the bushes in some hidden pond they were occupying.

Just a little further a woman, perhaps in her forties came kitty-corner across the road in our direction carrying what looked like a heavy bag of potatoes or oranges. I couldn’t see what was in the bag, but it was obviously round, large objects. She was dressed very nicely and was an attractive lady but she was walking bare footed. When she got near us, she greeted us and said something to Filipe that I didn’t understand and then she continued on her way. I thought, as I had many times before, that the people here are very friendly and greet me and others warmly even when they don’t know us.

As we continued, a car passed us quite close and swung around the corner making some pedestrians who had started across the street jump back out of the way or be run over. I commented to Filipe about the drivers here in Mozambique and how I have come to the conclusion that most drivers when they are on the road it is as if they own the road and that they are the only ones on it. Pedestrians seem to have no rights; and like the people we just saw, they have to get out of the way or get run over. I was reminded of a ride down to the city we took the other day when our driver, Jenny, who is the Director of the Ascend programs over here, seemed to be in an extraordinary hurry for some reason. It was evening and people were everywhere along this divided main road that leads from our community into the city. I noticed from the back seat that Jenny was going 90 km/hr (almost 60 mph) when suddenly I saw this man in our lane on foot just standing there. Jenny didn’t slow down. It was as if she hadn’t seen the man. I shouted at her to stop, but she just swung into the next lane to the left, crowding a car out of the way, not slowing down any and then buzzed around the guy who by then was jumping to the curb. She only missed the man by inches. Filipe was with me at the time, so I asked him to tell Jenny that she should slow down so as not to run over anyone. He did and I told her through him that I was not trying to be mean, but that I just wanted us to be safe and not crash into a pedestrian or get into an accident. She nodded her agreement and slowed down some, but later it was back to the same old offensive driving as before. As Filipe and I crossed the main road leading to the restaurant, I was not surprised when we had to hurry up to beat two cars that were approaching us from the left at a high speed when I knew we would be the victims if we didn’t get across quick enough.

The “restaurant” is really a bar and restaurant—mostly bar, as I would soon learn as the majority of people who were there and came later were drinking rather than eating. At first we went inside and sat at one of the empty tables, but it was too hot inside, so I suggested that we go outside. We did and were soon greeted by the waitress who took our orders. The special for the day was chicken with either rice or potatoes, or we could look at the menu. We ordered the chicken and two Cokes, but the lady said they didn’t have any Cokes but we could have a Fanta or Sprite.

The outside along the street was cooler by far the inside. A nice breeze and the shade made it very comfortable. The table was surprisingly clean and soon we were drinking our sodas with, believe it or not, ice in our glasses. It’s a rare thing to find ice here, and as we started to drink, I commented to Filipe that I was taking a chance that the ice was made from filtered water rather than simple tap water. But it was cold and refreshing, so I took the chance. Filipe soon complained that his glass was dirty and called over the waitress to tell her. She took his glass, poured out the contents and either gave him a new glass or cleaned the other one returning it empty. She didn’t attempt to give him another Sprite as he had lost most of his, but he didn’t complain or ask for it. Once more I was seeing the timidity of these gentle people in action. At home I would have asked for another drink or the waitress would have apologized and given me another one. This waitress just seemed disgusted that she had to make another trip outside for his clean glass.

Our lunch was long in coming. I guess we were there more than one half hour after we placed the order. In the meantime a small boy sat on the veranda by us continually asking for money and food. Everything about the boy spoke well-to-do or at least better than average for this town. He was well dressed, was clean and didn’t look at all emaciated. But yet he kept on begging and even when Filipe told him to leave on several occasions, he would persist and move only a few feet away and then he would be back. The waitresses coming in and out of the building to serve other customers never said anything to the boy. Later he was joined by another boy who did look hungry and wore ragged clothing, but this boy did not beg, nor was he a nuisance. A bit later I watched the boy with renewed interest when he was joined by another boy who insisted that he move away from us. While they talked, I noticed this other boy who was bigger and likely older, take out a paper from his pocket that was rolled up like a stick and hit the boy repeatedly on the head until the younger boy was crying. The other boy soon left, and as I watched him leave, he looked at me with a smirk that communicated something like; I’m still the boss here.

Our meal finally came and it looked and tasted good. The chicken was over cooked, but I had expected that it would be. I haven’t tasted chicken here or in South America that was not over cooked and dry, but people don’t seem to mind. We chatted as we ate and the boy continued to bother us. About half way though our meal a woman came down the street from behind me and entered the restaurant as if she was going to be a customer. She was well dressed, was not dirty or slovenly, but I noticed right away that she began going around to all the people in the restaurant begging for something. She finally came to our table and did the same. Filipe spoke to her nicely and she finally went away down the stairs and along the street. I noticed that to everyone she passed she held out her hand. This woman appeared to be about 45 or 50, but I have a hard time telling age here as people don’t really look as old as they really are.

We had finished eating and had paid for our meal when Filipe received a call on his mobile. It was Jenny who was at the office and was soon going to join us. We had planned to meet her for a meeting with the Board of Education at 2:00 P.M. so I wasn’t surprised that she was there a little early and I believed we would be going right away when she came to pick us up as it was about 1:15 P.M. when she called. In about ten minutes she arrived, joined us at the table, said something to Filipe who told me that she was hungry and would be eating before we left. I was surprised at that as it was almost 1:30 P.M. by then and I knew it took at least 15 minutes to get downtown.

Jenny ordered minutes after she arrived and as we talked I asked Filipe if there was some change in the time of the meeting, as I knew we would never be through before 2:00 P.M. He said there was no problem, but didn’t explain. I asked again if the meeting time was changed and he said no, that it would be alright if we were late. I just surrendered to the fact that time is no factor here, and continued to observe the goings-on in the restaurant while we waited for Jenny’s meal to come. Most of the people were gone by then, but inside a man who had been standing at the counter all the time we were there drinking beer kept grabbing the young woman who was waiting on tables and cleaning up after customers who had left. At first I thought he might be the manager, but later I realized he was quite drunk when he came out briefly to the door of the restaurant and did a wobbly thumbs-up to me for some reason. When he staggered back to the counter, it was obvious that he was pretty drunk.

The woman who was being grabbed by the man every time she passed the counter displayed an ambience of sex in her behaviors and dress, which was likely the reason the drunk was so attracted to her. Her tight-fitting jeans, her makeup and blouse that revealed her large bosoms were quite stylish and she was very attractive and would be one of the women I spoke of earlier who ranked as some of the most beautiful women I have seen in Africa. But her attitude, even with us, was somehow seductive for some reason. When she would come to our table, I noticed her looking at Filipe, who is a handsome young man anyway, with more than what seemed to me a “regular” look. I noticed too that when she served the man who was sitting alone in the next table to us that she seemed to do the same with him. Oh well, I concluded, being old, I guess I notice those things more than others, as neither of the men (Filipe or the other man) paid any attention to her. It was only the drunk who seemed determined to grab her each time she passed that had more than a passing interest in her—except me, of course.

Jenny finished her meal about 2:05 P.M. I had already paid for it, and to my surprise, she called the little boy over who had been pestering us continually even after she came to our table. And then she invited him to take her chicken bones and one piece she hadn’t eaten which he did, and disappeared around the corner of the building to eat it, I guessed, or to give it to someone there. Suddenly, however, I noticed that there was an urgency in our leaving that surprised me. We all rushed to the vehicle, and in seconds were speeding down the road to the meeting we were already late for. I asked Filipe on the way what was the general attitude about keeping your word around here and mentioned to him that I personally had a thing about being on time and keeping my word. I know he understood what I said but did no more than nod his head at my critique that I had attempted to make very diplomatic. Nevertheless, we raced into town like there was a fire to go to, dodging pedestrians and swinging in and out of lanes as Jenny, I guessed, tried to make up the time we had lost at the restaurant.

When we arrived at the education office, I was not surprised that the office was on the fifth floor and that the elevator was broken. Was I back in Ethiopia, I wondered? That’s the way it was there all the time. Every government office I went to during my long stay in Ethiopia seemed always to be on the third floor, and the elevator was always broken. I commented about this to Filipe on the way up the stairs and asked if we were in the right office. He said we were and not to worry, that we would not miss meeting the fellow we had planned to meet. I looked at my watch and it was 2:30 P.M. when we arrived on the fifth floor.

Jenny and I sat down, as in all occasions when I enter any office I am forced to sit down, while Filipe took an inordinately long time, it seemed, in another office. I guessed he was apologizing that we were late, but I didn’t know. He finally came back in and said we would be going to another room to wait for the man we would be meeting. We did, where we found three large couches and a coffee table and were offered to sit and wait. In a few minutes a woman joined us shaking hands, but saying no more than a few quiet words to Filipe. He mentioned that she said we were waiting for the man we were supposed to meet at 2:00 P.M. and that he had been delayed unexpectedly. When the man we were to meet finally arrived with long apologies at 3:15 P.M. I now had a better idea of how this all works in Mozambique. It had been a long an tiring day for me when we finally arrived back at the office at 4:20 P.M. ourselves late 20 minutes for a meeting on Skype with the Salt Lake Home office.

Cetilia's Story

Some of the stories we uncover here are born of sadness and stifling traditions that seem to be the underpinning of much of what is wrong with this country and why it is taking so long to recover and progress. This particular story is, I am sure, not unlike many others that we shall never hear, but I am sure are there to be told. This is Cetilia Rodrigues’ story. She is a woman of about 48 years who lives in the village of Tchonja, 25 km north of Beira.

We discovered the District where Cetilia lives after visiting a farm nearby owned by a man named Adolpho Dauda. Tim Evans met this man in church while he was here and found out about his farm. Adolpho suggested that the district north of his farm and particularly the village of Tchonja would be a good candidate location for some rope and washer pumps as he knew some of the people in the village and could direct us to a location where we might have some good recipient candidates for our program. The next day we drove to Tchonja and established contact with Cetilia and two of her neighbors who after hearing about our pumps were interested in having us come to their village and installed these pumps.

Over the next week we purchased materials and made plans to install pumps in the three village homes that were contiguous to each other understanding at the time that the other two families were relatives of Cetilia. We did not meet Cetilia’s husband. She said he was gone. It turned out that the other families were not “relatives” as we know them, but people who all came from the same ethnic background and “homeland” as they called it.

On Monday, March 10 we carried materials for three pumps and deposited them at Cetilia’s home where she said she would keep an eye on them for us until we were able to come back to work on the installations. We still never saw her husband. We left her place without doing any work, and by way of keeping the government official of the village informed of our intentions, we stopped by the Tchonja Village’s Secretary’s office and had a discussion with him about the pumps we hoped to install. While he was very enthusiastic about our project, he said to make it official, we had to clear it with the Administrator of the Nhangua District who was located about 11 km to the south of us in the village of Nhangua. He also recommended that to keep other villagers from being jealous of having three pumps with the same family group (sort of relatives), that we place the pumps in three separate locations in his village. He said also that he could assist us in finding two more qualifying recipients but was okay that we install a pump for Cetilia.

We left the Secretary without starting any work in Tchonja and drove to the Administrator’s office in the village of Nhangua. On arriving there we were soon ushered into the Administrator’s office, a Mrs. Lauina Brito Simmongo, who greeted us warmly and listened enthusiastically to our presentation. Her concluding remarks after approving our program was to place only two of the pumps in Tchonja and one in her village at a location she would appoint later when we got to her area. We agreed and returned to Tchonja to begin our first pump project on Cetilia’s farm.

By Thursday we had completed Cetilia’s pump except for placing a concrete pad around the base that we will do later. It was only after we returned to Cetilia’s house to pick up our materials to take to the second and third pump locations that we learned her story.

Cetilia told us that she was now living alone in the house that she has lived in with her first husband for over 19 years. This husband was a nice man who took care of her, had a successful farm with many goats, pigs and chickens and had a productive farm that kept them out of poverty. Her first husband, she told us died a few years ago.

Some time after her husband died, she was courted by another man who eventually married her, and then shortly after began to abuse her because she was unable to bear him any children. She said this man (whom she has never divorced) left her some time ago taking with him to his new girlfriend’s home all the animals she and her first husband had cared for. Cetilia now takes care of her farm alone but with an injury to her left shoulder is somewhat restricted in what she can do. She has a few young chickens now, but no other animals. She lives in her home with two nieces who help her on the farm. Her only income since her second husband left her is from sale of bananas from a few trees she has on her farm.

Before we knew her story on the few days that we worked around her house assembling the pump components, Cetilia was with us most of the time laughing and smiling and on one day had several ladies with her who seemed to be there all day watching us work and helping when they could. Her young niece and older nephew and another niece were there too off and on. The day we completed her pump and started it for the first time, she and her two nieces were there smiling and laughing, drinking the water, washing their hands and showing their amazement and appreciation for what we had accomplished in a just a few days.

It is obvious that the woman now lives in abject poverty with a few chickens young running around her home and a farm that needs more care. She has worn the same rags every day we have seen her but has still been a gracious host bringing us water to wash our hands at lunch time and offering us fruit from her avocado tree.

Before we leave her to her new pump and farm we will get her started with a small hotbed with new seeds that she can start and later transplant when the gardening team of interns comes to Mozambique to work with us. I think there is a good chance that this woman’s life will be permanently changed for the better if her husband doesn’t return and take her gains away. When we asked her about her husband, she said she didn’t know if he would be returning or not. But as we know in these villages where information travels fast and far, he may hear about the pump and return to see what more he can take from this woman. Tradition will rule, I am sure, and she will be beaten and abused again if he returns.

Beira City

When I came to Beira I had read a lot about the city and the effects upon the city that the civil war had during the nineties. There were many discussion articles that I read which said the city was left in shambles after the war and it has never recovered. There were more stories I heard from people who had been here who talked a lot about the devastation of the buildings in the city by fire and gun shot pock marks. In the last few days that I have spent shopping for materials for the pumps we are building in the region I have been on almost all of the streets of the city, in some cases many times over. And sure, the awful state of the city is very apparent. But having been in Germany after the end of World War II where destruction was very apparent including bombed out buildings, pock marks on many of the buildings left standing and many gutted from fires, I was surprised that I have seen none of this in Beira. Sure the buildings are in very bad shape, and some look like they are about to fall down, and many are blackened, not from fire, I believe, but from lack of paint and general repair. So seeing what I have seen, I thought I would ask someone who lived in the city during the war who could tell me first hand what the conditions were really like. Here’s a sample of what he told me:

First, he said that there was no fighting in the city at all during the war and that all the fighting took place in the regions outside the city. He said there was much destruction everywhere around the city, and especially in some of the villages where the rebels marched through burning village homes and driving the people out of the villages. He said there was plenty of effort by the rebels to try to capture the city, but that the government forces that were fighting the rebels held them off. Most of the problems with the city’s debilitation came not from the war per se, but from the influx of village refugees who were fleeing from the rebels with hopes of finding sanctuary. Many of the villagers, my source told me stayed after the war and have never left the city because their homes were destroyed and in many cases they had no place to return to. Because of that, he said, the city has remained almost like a slum because so many of the people have taken up residence in hotels that were taken over by them and from temporary residences they have built from tin and scrap wood they found.

The second part of my source’s story that makes this account so interesting is that the government that was in place at that time needed money and resources, so everything that was within reach of the city, including factories, businesses and even the large fishing fleet was commandeered by the government and the products they made or caught (in the case of the fishermen) were sold to buy guns. So because of this, many of the factories and businesses that I see driving around the city that are empty and not functioning were brought to their knees and finally had to fold up as they had no way to make a profit. I was told that even the catches of fish and prawns from the huge fishing fleet were taken to buy guns and ammunition and that they too were never able to recover.

Now throughout the city there is little evidence of large factories or big business anywhere. Rather most of the economy is driven by small businesses that have their goods for sale in small crowded shops. Furthermore, almost all of them are being run by East Indians who have capitalized on the mass of simple peasants who now live in the city to function as their employees. These people, I am told will work for practically nothing and tolerate being treated like slaves. The lack of entrepreneurial spirit among the more educated or capable Mozambicans further exacerbates the problem, so they remain out of work as all the businesses that they potentially could own and operate are fully captured by the Indians.

One other interesting facet of this story from my source was the answer I got from him when I asked how the rebels got so much money to keep fighting as long as they did. His answer was that most of it came from Europe and the United States and other developed countries that were supporting the rebels with guns and funding because most of the outside world believed that the government of Mozambique at that time was corrupt and needed to be changed. The sad part of the entire story, however, was that no one won the war. It just died out when resources failed to be maintained and a new government was finally put in place.

I have published 14 photos of Downtown Beira on another site that can be accessed throught he following link: http://picasaweb.google.com/ascendphoto/JackSQuestMozambique2008?authkey=kfAV_OgeGk0

I mentioned in my last blog the difficulty I was having purchasing things for the projects, and now it makes a lot more sense as I see one person’s version of the reasons for so many failures in the system here. Even at home here where I live the problems are evident. We had heard before coming over that we would likely have to install a large water tank that could be filled when the water from the city was on. But the first week of my stay, the water was on every day so we thought maybe we didn’t need a tank after all. Now, however, things are really as they said they were with the water being turned off most of the time and only on, if at all, a few hours of the day. Power is a problem too. There have been days when the power was off for hours or even one and off several times of the day. Internet is the same, and while they do offer DSL as a service here, it is not strong enough to run some programs, especially those that require streaming, like music or videos. I even have trouble with staying connected using Skype, and as an example of the typical, last night I spoke to my daughter using Skype and had to redial at least five times during a 30 minute conversation I was trying to have with her. In the house here making things even more trying sometimes is the lack of repair this old house has had over its many years. Light switches, for example sometimes work and sometimes don’t, and the sink in the kitchen leaked water up until today when I found a new drain and installed it. The toilet now flushes, but water leaks out of the back where I have a bucket to catch most of it before it spills all over the floor. Then the shower heater only works on boiling hot, that is if there is enough water pressure to make it even operate. Oh well, so what do I have to do anyway on a weekend but play on my computer and fix broken appliances and utilities? Luckily I have the tools and the knowhow, so if I can find materials, “This Old House” will be different when I leave, I promise.

Well, this is Africa for sure. I am spending my first weekend here after my Tuesday arrival last week. Yes, Africa where the power goes on and off, the water works some of the time, where there are many shops, but few that carry what you want. The weather this week has been like Saudi Arabia—in the 90’s and above, humidity ranging from 90% to 100% with relatively little wind to cool off when we are outside. Inside is another nightmare where the only relief is two fans that we continually move from one place to another. I haven’t been counting for sure, but I think my water intake is over 3 liters a day and perhaps even a gallon. I like to think that maybe it will cool off now that the dry season is about to start.

A note about the photos is necessary and can will be in context as you follow the special notes starting below:


1st Photo--Sergio, Owner of the Garden


As far as my time here, it has been very productive and on Saturday, we finished one well with a rope and washer pump. On this well, we went to the village of Mbatwe, met with a farmer called Sergio, assessed his small garden that he had prepared and was in the process of planting some lettuce-type vegetable. The location looked good, so we discussed the option of digging a well for him, installing a pump and giving the operation over to him. He was agreeable, so we set to work drilling the bore hole for his well. For this operation we used one of the augers we brought over on the plane with several extensions our local staff had made earlier. The digging was easy, as it was all sand, so before he had dug one meter, water started flowing down the well. The sandy aquifer went another meter or so, and then the sand became quite heavy and saturated with clay. The workers who had showed up (Sergio’s neighbors) pitched in on all the digging, and soon the six inch diameter hole was four meters deep. We stopped there, left the site for the day to buy the materials we needed with plans to show up the next morning at 8:00 o’clock.

2nd Photo--Starting of our First Small Diameter Well

That afternoon we traveled from shop to shop and it was the typical shopping. This shop had one piece that we needed, the other did not have the other one, and the shopping goes on. And when it is possible to find something, the time it takes to get it on a piece of paper so the East Indian woman or man (all the shops are run by Indians) can look at it and decide if the worker has added the figures correctly and is not being cheated.

The next day and the next were not much different, but on the third day on the job at this one farm, we lost our one and only workable pipe wrench and had to leave in the morning to find replacements. We started at the one Indian shop and all he had was Chinese (low quality) that I refused to buy, so off we went to another, and another and another, finally finding two small ones that said the word Oxford Germany, which I interpreted as Chinese with a German name. But I took them anyway as they looked slightly better than all the rest we had seen up to that point, and it was getting late.

We did finish the job at Sergio’s and after pumping all the mud out of the hole we finally got some clear water to the great excitement of Tim especially and even more from Sergio and the villagers who came by to see and use the pump. It was a great afternoon with our first success.

3rd Photo--Pumping Mud out of the Well
4th Photo--Chrystal Clear Water at Last

Going back a little, I was mentioning the frustrations of trying to find things. On the afternoon of the first day when we went out shopping, we were looking for posts, as the design I had come up with called for four posts to be buried in the ground for the crank frame of the pump to rest on. Frustration in this case lead me to begin some creative thinking that if we used some of the lumber we had seen in one of the stores (long 2” by 7” planks (yes, not your normal 2 by 6 or 2 by 8—this is Africa, after all) and redesigned the frame we could get on with building the pump and all would be well. I got busy with my small note pad, and in minutes had a new design and how much of this 2 by 7 we needed. They didn’t have a saw at the lumber yard, so we took our handy battery-operated Dewalt circular saw, but the boards the length we needed and we were soon on our way back to the farm to begin out work. As it turned out, all the previous design schemes we had for this pump suddenly became obsolete with this new design, and when we were finished as saw it in action, we realized that this design was the “next generation” frame for all of our pumps (we are planning 100 of these around the area).

So far, heat aside, it has been a grand experience so far with our successful first pump, and our association with the people in the village where we have been working. I am favorably impressed with their enthusiasm, and will be looking forward to our continued success hereabouts.

5th Photo--Sergio’s Wife Drawing Water