Help The Aged

Thursday mornings are for the elderly. Francis had a driving lesson so Sue and I had to do it alone. The large language barrier isn't too much of a problem since they've been coming for a while, they know the deal even if we don't. It seems that the order of proceedings goes something like: a bit of chat and singing amongst themselves, a cup o' tea, some kind of activity, something to eat, a bit more singing and then they all get up at once and shuffle home.

They turn up at around 10, though they don't have watches so I can't imagine how they know what 10 is. Once they all arrived 15 was the total head count. So once they're all sitting down, they have their chat, most sing and a few have a dance. They get lots maracas and other percussion from of one of the boxes around the edge of the classroom.

Meanwhile, Sue and I are simultaneously making lunch and tea; the former was some kind of rice, onion and tomato all-in-one thing. The latter was made with powdered milk. Both were made on the BBQ, apparently we don't use our one hob because it'll use all the gas up.

So after the tea, I provided the soundtrack whilst Sue gave them some very simple exercises to do: a bit of arm raising and foot stretching.

They're all very impressive for their ages, all are 70 and over. There's one man in the group and he's 84 and doing very well, thank you very much. There's a couple of the women who really are at a right angle when they're walking, it's from a lifetime of working in the fields bent over. One is completely blind but she's alright too, her friends help her out, even with Sue's exercises.

Whats more is that none of them stink!! Not one reeks of piss and not one is grumpy (well maybe one), they're all very happy and, if not running around, they're all coherent in body and mind. Maybe that's something to be said for keeping active in old age?

Anyway, I was very impressed with old fogeys and the point of this blog is to say that today I felt a bit like a lesser Paul Simon today. At the end, whilst they were doing they're singing, dancing and percussion thing, I grabbed the guitar and started playing. At first I couldn't find the key because I've never played with anyone like that before, but once found it's pretty easy (I, IV and V in various orders for those in the know). I think they enjoyed it and I very much did too.

Lost?

You remember that series 'Lost'? The one about the plane crash and the island and all that funny stuff happening? If you don't, what I'm about to talk about might not make too much sense. But today felt very much like a particular episode of that. 

There's this guy that Francis knows, his name is Blessing and he works as an accountant for one or both of the aforementioned Italian fuel companies. He also has a daughter, Nicole, who comes to our school. 

First of all, Blessing has a car, a nice white 4x4 - a relatively new and clean one, which is rare around here - which has already proven useful. Blessing, his wife, Nicole, Francis, Sue and I drove about 5 kilometres down the only road to three solitary tables by the side of the road, these tables manned by 3 elderly women. There wasn't much else but lots of tomatoes in bowls on display, and that was lucky because it's what we'd come for: good quality tomatoes! Now, do bear in mind that when I say 'good quality', it's all relative - less yellow and pockmarked but slightly more red is probably more of an accurate description.

Anyway, on the way back Blessing said he'd take us to his house, to which we agreed. It's in a small complex of about 10 large concrete box houses, apparently built by the company for it's more senior employees. I wasn't aware of anything other than huts in village so a nice car and proper houses was a bit of a surprise.

So you know that episode of Lost where they find the hatch? The one where they go inside and find that countdown clock thing that they have to enter some numbers into every so often? Well if you don't, I'll explain. As well as this weird clock thing, inside the hatch it's like a huge time capsule from the 70's. There's the obvious 70's decor, a vinyl player, canned food and condiments, a projector of sorts (or maybe it's an old TV), old computers, as well as 70's furniture, running water and all the usual household items. All things you wouldn't expect to find on a desert island.

I'm not saying that Blessing's house is like a time capsule form the 70's, but it turns out Blessing's house isn't too far off. He's got all the proper furniture you'd expect in a proper house, a large music system, loads of toys for Nicole, air conditioning, fast internet and one massive plasma screen TV with all the channels; sports, films, news etc.

It felt very, very strange to have come all the way to Mozambique to be sitting on a comfy sofa with cushions, in front of a (very loud) TV with everything around me that I have at my own home. It felt even stranger when you consider the juxtaposition between Blessing and the people who live so very basically just outside of his house. 

Dispute the obvious difference between Blessing and the majority of the village; both parties seem equally happy and content with the situation. Admittedly, one side doesn't have much of a choice, but whenever you go around the village, nobody looks unhappy, everyone just gets on with things. They have clothes, food, jobs and shelter, and with those few things, they seem to do just fine.

I'd maybe somewhat shortsightedly assumed that all I would find in this village would be quite a few unhappy people living in shacks and cooking on fires. Although they do live in shacks and cook on fires, I'm glad to find that rather than being starving and unhappy, they're doing very well on their own. So rather than even more clothes or more food handouts, all these people really could do with now is an education. And that's what this school is here help with.

The Local Wildlife

I had a wander around the village today, I thought it would be a good idea to show you some of the village pets, food and sights.

This is Francis' pig, he will meet his maker in December. Meanwhile, he's my pet, he loves a good stroke behind the ears.

A guard dog, on guard

And then the sun went down so I couldn't take anymore. No electricity for lights you see!

Into The 'Swing' Of Things

The sun wakes you up at around 630-7, this happens especially if you forget to close the curtains. The whole village is up by the time you've decided which boxers to wear again, eaten what little there is for breakfast and decided against the cold shower. It gets dark here at around 6 and so it's a good idea to make the most of the light, there isn't electricity except for some generators at the local stores. At a guess (because I can't see them), people tend to go to bed at around 8-9, there's no late night TV or news to keep them up, you see.

Every morning there's at least a couple of kids outside playing on the climbing frame, it's good fun to watch them while eating breakfast. The very occasional 'hey!' is necessary to restore order, but everyone is very well behaved otherwise. 

There's a kid with a big fat belly. Since I met him and from now on in this blog he is known as 'fatty'. I find him quite cute, probably just because of this though, but Sue doesn't so much, she says he's got "Idi Amin eyes"! But still, Fatty quite likes his belly being poked; he also seems to quite enjoy a football being bounced off his paunch. He's not great at football yet, so I think he's just glad to be included.

Oh and there's this one kid in an orange t-shirt and a big head who lives just opposite the house, he likes to pick on the smaller kids, he then runs off crying if he gets caught!! I witness this quite a lot, he usually does in by the climbing frame. He's not a discreet bully, possibly not a bright one. But I'm not impressed either way, so I'm working on a way to make him see the error of his ways. I've already got some dirt on him so I'm planning to use it against him somehow. Now before I say this, it's Francis' idea to use this information I have on him, so if this sounds weird, blame him. 

So, the other morning I was eating my strange paste-like porridge substitute and dried fruit for breakfast, minding my own business. I look up and what do I see? The orange t-shirt bully with no pants on, running/jiggling over to (what I now know as his regular patch of land) squat down and do an early morning dump! He hadn't seen me because he had turned the other way; therefore he was showing me all the gory details. But if that wasn't funny enough or enough to put me off my breakfast, bullyboy then proceeds to do the dog-with-itchy-bum shuffle!!! If you can't imagine this - or if you want to try this one at home - you need to put all your hands and feet on the floor; as if attempting the get into that crab position. But instead of arching your back drag your bum along the floor for as long as necessary. Bullyboy performs his shuffle in a large circle, I don't know if that's best, so I suggest you find out for yourself.

Francis says that this is a regular thing; he's suggested filming the act and showing it to his friends! 

I helped out in my first lessons today. They were smaller than usual today because there's a national holiday tomorrow. It seems that people like to have a bit of a rest day before the actual holiday day. Apparently, the whole week is affected by a Tuesday holiday, so I've been told that attendance won't be up to usual standards.

The morning lessons were with the younger kids, two classes of age 4 and 5. Today was a mix of the two because of the small numbers. Sue used to be some kind of schoolteacher and or an inspector of sorts, so she knows a lot about what to do with kids of those ages. I haven't got much of a clue. 

The overall theme of the lesson was identifying things. A story based around a lion, the sun and the trees. We did a bit of rhythms based on those characters with me on guitar and everyone else doing a bit of clapping. Then we coloured in pictures that us teachers had made of the characters. It ended with a story and dance-along to 'Here Comes The Sun' from my music library and speakers. In case you're wondering, the story and dance around were related, but it's possibly only interesting if you're of the target age. I'll spare you the details.

I had another look around the village and managed to find some kids doing the main job in the village: breaking big rocks into small rocks. This isn't as futile as it sounds or as I'd first thought. Apparently they break the rocks down for construction and they're a particular kind of rock that's highly sought after. 

The other profession in the village is working for a couple of Italian petrol companies - Secci and Api. As well as their normal petrol company duties, here they have something to do with researching and developing the Jetropha (probably not the correct spelling) plant. I think the plant has got some kind of oil they're interested in. Sue things it might be a tax dodge, because it's not very busy, but I like to believe they're genuinely trying to find renewable fuel sources.

I played some more football with the younger kids today; I ended up organising and refereeing a little kick around on the same pitch as before. They're not too bad either, maybe with just a bit less positional awareness!

In the evening it was party time! Everyone was getting drunk because it's a holiday tomorrow. They have a couple of pretty good beers here, one is called '2M' and the other tastes a bit like a fizzy Guinness, but is rather nice all the same.

There are people of every age milling around the market and shops. When you come out at night, you realise that there's actually quite a lot of people living in, what seems to be, a tiny village. It looks like there's about 3 very similar looking bars, all doubling up as shops during the day, all concrete box-like structures and all playing loud music powered by their own generators. I'm not sure why Francis and I chose the one we did to drink in, but it was well lit and that's a rarity! 

There were about 3 people I spoke to that had an understandable amount of English; one was another Francis - a nurse at the village hospital. He seems like a nice guy. We went to his house for a bit, it was another concrete box, a large one though. It had cockroaches, no furniture except for a bed, a table and a few chairs and motorbike inside. Despite all of this, he seems happy and content with what he's got. Maybe it's just my Western standards. Anyway, the other twos names of the English speakers I can't remember but one was the captain of the village football team, he said that he liked the way I played and asked me to come along to their practices - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! - to do a bit of coaching. I'll be glad to help out, even if this does risk a lot of sunburn. The kids’ football starts at 2:30 and the adults come along at around 4. Lots of football and sun!

So, back to the evening. It really was quite enjoyable, no drunkenness or dancing, mostly a lot of Draughts playing, with bottle caps. They have some very strange rules here, I loose every time I play. I've tried to explain the rules I know but they manage to creep in a rule from their version somehow.

Please excuse the poor picture quality, it seems that the iPhone's flash doesn't seem very good and isn't very good at night pictures in general.  

The First Morning

It seems that every new volunteer/teacher/white guy is quite a novelty!

Even though I was still knackered from the journey, I managed to wake up at 7ish. Sue, Francis and I had a wander over to the small amount of shops/shacks, so I had a chance to get my bearings and take a few pictures. The school and volunteer's house are lovely, even if a little rat infested - don't worry Mum there's poison down now.

The house is much better than I was expecting, rat problem aside, there's everything we need. We've got running water on tap, a western, flushing toilet and a little porch with seats for eating and relaxing. The power we have is through the solar panels on the roof, they work fine, but aren't what I'm used to. The evening lighting is dull at most, but it can charge things as well as powering the fridge at the same time! As we've found out, it's not a good idea to charge things before dark, nor is it a good idea to try to charge two things are the same time. One and a half nights of darkness have proven this.

And so, off to the shops. I tried to give you an idea of the layout of the school - the school at the front and volunteer's house behind the climbing frame - and my short journey to the market in these pictures.

The local market has some basics, but basics is all there is. You can buy onions, yellow-y tomatoes, some kind of local lettuce that Francis says tastes like paracetamol, the occasional green pepper, garlic, potatoes and a few spring onions. There is a distinct lack of anything fruity or meaty but everyone else here seems to be healthy so I'm sure I'll manage. Oh actually, we did buy some green bananas and they turned out to be as nice, if not better, than the yellow ones. 

In the surrounding shops close to the market, there are mainly tinned goods as well as rice and pasta. I've found some yoghurt that doesn't seem to need to be kept cold - though we do have a fridge - and it's actually rather good!

Cooking facilities are: one gas cylinder hob and a BBQ, so if anyone has any recipe ideas, I'd like to hear them...and no, there are no sauces...and yes, we have done tuna pasta. Maybe baked potatoes next!

Finally, after getting back to unpack what little shopping we picked up, hark! the familiar sound of a vuvezela (those annoying trumpet things from the World Cup)! I asked Francis and he said it was a football match. I also asked Francis if I could play, he was pretty sure I could! A quick change later and a minutes walk away, a football pitch of sorts and a crowd, people cheering!! The game is between our village Inhassune and another local team. Apparently there are only 5 or 6 teams that play each other. Francis called it social-soccer, no leagues, no prizes, just for fun. Even if it was for fun, it was great to see so many people getting involved, I had no idea if there was any sense of community here. 

The pitch is pretty big, bigger than the ones I usually play on, which is great. The ground is not so great, it's pretty bumpy with litter and potholes but the main issue/s are the three or four well-worn paths that cross the pitch at different angles. If the ball hits one of those you haven't got much chance of predicting it's flight. On every side of the pitch are peoples properties, so you can't really blame them for wanting to chose to the shortest path to their homes. I haven't thought of a solution to this one yet but I'm working on it. Francis suggested fencing off the pitch!

Well the good news is that I got on! They bought me on at half time and told me to be a striker, I've played in most positions and was happy to get on so I wasn't going to argue with any of it. 0-0 at half time, final score 1-0 to Inhassune!! They seemed to really like the way I played, I'd get a huge cheer everytime I did something good (which was suprisingly often!), I wouldn't say that I was mobbed at the end, more of a circle of gawping kids. But hey, like I always say; a circle of gawping kids is better than none!

Apparently I was the first ever white guy to play for the team. I'm proud of that and I'm glad they let me play.

I spoke to the captain at one of the bars the other day and they want me to coach them too. I'm not sure how I'm going to do that with two footballs and an extremely limited grasp of Portugese, but the captain speaks English quite well so I'm really looking forward to it. Inhassune football tactics, particularly formations, aren't the ones I'm used to, so I think they feel that I help them. I think I might be able to too!

Spot the white boy!...

Lots Of Travelling!

I've finally arrived! After leaving my house at around 4:30pm Reading time on the 20th, I arrived in the village at 7pm on the 22nd Inhassune time.

The plane journey was long, very long and even longer than I was expecting. A journey which included two flat tyres, tons of insistent roadside sellers, an equal amount of bartering, an infinite amount of rubbish, so far only one instance of bribery (I was expecting more) and some chickens in a washing basket, on a bus, restrained by plastic bags.

So back to the first part of the journey: Ethiopan Airline's planes seem to be all from the 70's - which is also when I'm assuming it was ok to smoke on a plane. In every toilet there's an ashtray on the back of the door, accompanied by a 'no smoking' sign. On it's own, this is absolutely fine, but then there's also the fact the there's no soap, which could be also fine. But finally the TV screens are also from the 70's, and the entertainment was terrible: the pick of the films was 'Wall Street', second to that was one I've not heard of yet, maybe it's coming to England soon 'Cowboys 'n Angles', looks good!

Anyway, I met a lovely lady named Rudo sitting next to me. Rudo was on her way to visit her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren in Harrare. She is now retired and lives in Farnborough thanks to 2002 the war in Zimbabwe. When I told her what I was off to do, she said 'thank you', she said something along the lines of 'thank you on behalf of Africa' and I was pretty shocked, I didn't know what to say to that. I've never really felt that I can make much of a difference on my own, but if Rudo thinks that I'm doing a good thing then I'm happy. She wants me to call her when I get back to tell her how I got on. I might do that.

I was with Rudo all the way to Ethiopia, which is where I took these:

On the second flight to Maputo, I met this guy:

I didn't get his name but we both very much enjoyed playing with his football M&M dispenser. When you pull it's arm down, an M&M comes out of his side. It was amusing at the time. Anyway, he was very excited to visit his grandmother in Maputo with his parents - he didn't ask where I was going.

So then I landed in Maputo. Everything was pretty smooth (honestly), with a small visa form, two very slow luggage handlers and a quick final x-ray and search of all my possessions and I was on my way. I met the hostel guy with his hostel sign coming to pick me up (it didn't have my name on, I thought it might). I was quite worried when what seemed like a random guy came up to me whilst my lift was fetching the car. I was being pretty cagey when he asked whether I speak Portuguese (I don't) and how my flight was. He turned out to be a friend of my lift, so we all got on ok in the end.

My first impression of Maputo is that it is kind of like the films, but with a lot more rubbish. Everywhere you look there is something happening, there's so many colours and contrasts. I tried to take a picture but unless I had some kind of 360° camera, it just wouldn't do it justice. Apparently people aren't educated in what to do with they're litter and so you can see them just drop it as soon they're done. They drop the cans they finish drinking from or just chuck things out as when they're driving along. Plastic things are everywhere. There are some huge metal bins on a few streets but they are completely full and there's rubbish at least a metre on every side. There's also quite a few people sifting through the rubbish, I don't know what for, but I'm assuming it's for food.

Fatima's Backpackers, or something like that, was the name of the hostel. It was alright, they had food, beer and hot-and-or-cold showers, what more could you ask for. Oh and they also had two Shar Pei dogs, both pretty crusty, one with a limp and the other with two cataracts. I did not touch them.

Fatima's is where I met Francis, I didn't know what he looked like, but he described himself as "black, but not black, black and kind of tall", he did turn out to be pretty close to that description, although I was after a little more detail at the time.

So after meeting Francis and having a half warm, piddly shower, we decided to go the 'fish market'. We hailed a tuk-tuk and headed off to find a cash point that took my card, on the third try we were successful. The tuk-tuk driver didn't seem to obey any normal rules, of which there clearly aren't many, but he obeyed less. Anyway, the fish market had shit loads of fish, squid and shellfish, all caught from the ocean literally just over the road. There were restaurants behind the market which is where we ate. Turns out it was cheaper to buy fish from the market for them to cook, than to buy them from the restaurant.

Day 2 of traveling was filled with mainly views of this:

We left at around 6:30am and left for the bus station - otherwise known as the Junta (junction apparently) - which is nothing of what you would expect from a normal bus station. It's packed full of buses at awkward angles to each other and is equally full and bustling with sellers of water, fizzy drinks, bread, phone cards, machetes and toilet rolls. They're pretty insistent and even if you say "no" five times, they'll still carry on, I took my cue from Francis and ended up ignoring them.

We sat in the bus until it was full, which was about 45 minutes to an hour. Buses don't leave until they've filled their buses, if they're going to drive for 6-7 hours then you can understand why they won't leave until it's overloaded - see below:

Although the journey was longer and more chicken-y than even Francis had anticipated, it wasn't until the 4th or 5th hour that I got fidgety. Up until then there were so many things to look at and take pictures of. There was a couple of elderly women behind who were singing a lot, they were good, harmonising and everything!

Francis is a huge asset (and the only one) to Sing With Me Happily. It wasn't until I got to village that I understood the things that he does. He really does do everything to do with running the school, teaching all ages, repairing, building, cooking, you name it, he does it. He lives in a small shack without windows and is happy. Francis is 27 and from Zimbabwe and talks a lot about the hunting and games they used to play. He's educated but that's all his own doing, he reads books a lot, has a laptop, downloads films, wants to learn my guitar, loves music and is more importantly well schooled in life. His parents died of HIV and I'm guessing he had to learn very quickly.

After eventually arrived in the local town of Inharrime and after having a brief look around - brief because it's small - we took a 45 minute ride in one of those overcrowded pickup trucks you see in films (they're called chappers around here). Luckily Francis negogiated us a free seat up front with the driver, so I'm yet to discover how much fun, if any, standing on the back of a pickup truck on bumpy road is.

So then I met Sue - the other volunteer - after a drag of the suitcases through the sand to house, I then sprayed my mosquito bed sheet stuff, got under the net and to bed.

Departure Lounge

Well, here I am. Heathrow, Terminal 3, departure lounge. I'm in some pub and food type of place that doesn't have a pool table, nor does have the time, an atmosphere or even a TV for the football! All the normal things that I've come to expect from a pub…what kind of airport terminal pub is this?!

Anyway, I'm just about to tuck into my last taste of England for a while. In case you're wondering, it looks like a dodgy fish and chips with a slightly less dodgy ale.

Otherwise, since we last spoke, it seems that I'm now quite ready to go. I've fully crammed and checked in my two (second one free!) hold bags with no problems. And am now sat here with my guitar for company, as one of the many other single men with laptops, magazines and looks of apprehension. 

At the moment I feel not quite excited, but at least not worried (due to my excessive packing). I think I'll only really get excited when I land in the country. For the moment, there's still a few things that can go wrong - plane delays, baggage loss etc etc.

So, I've had my 2nd cholera drink today, I've had 2 out of 3 hepatitis injections and have been taking malaria tablets since yesterday. Oh and of course I've also got the imodium on hand (thanks Ruth) if necessary. In terms of illness, if nothing else, I feel that I'm ready.

For those that have been asking, here's the link to school's website so you can find out a bit more (it seems a bit religious, but we're nobody's perfect!):

http://www.singwithmehappily.com/

Anyway, that's enough of an update for now, it's time to eat this food and catch a couple of flights outta here. See you in Mozambique!