A Day In The Life

Today after school, we set out on journey to find a good old fashioned sunset. Admittedly we could already see that it was going to be slightly cloudy, but what else is there to do on a Friday night in Mozambique? The answer is, not much, possibly drink, unless you have transport.

We also decided that on the way to this crap sunset, it would be a good idea to round up a few more kids for school on Monday. Since the turnout for the past week wasn't so good, it was time to speak to the parents. The school is completely free so they can't really say no. Oh, and when I say 'speak to the parents', what I really meant was, Francis would speak to the parents and Sue and I would stand there and look pretty…well I did anyway.

So, off we trotted towards the sunset. And what's this we should come across whilst walking along the main path, past the shacks and school children? Oh it's only a cow being tightly bound to tree by it's head, just about ready to have it's throat slit!!

Needless to say, we didn't stop for long. Apparently it had failed to give birth and the calf had died inside it 3 or so days ago. I'm not an expert but they didn't seem to think it had much chance of survival. 

Anyway, by the time we'd gone round the corner, on account of all the singing and shouting, we realised we'd just avoided the slaughter. Thankful and relieved we turned another corner and found a shit load of live cows. The fencing and the cows and their horns we like a work of art. I've attempted to do it justice in these pictures but I'm not sure you'll get the full picture.

Since there was no other way back, we had to walk past our favourite freshly slain carcass. Fortunately for my stomach, there wasn't much blood so naturally, I decided to take a picture!

It occurred to Sue and I that as well as dead african cows, we'd never seen cotton growing in a field either. Cue the next picture:

A few more cotton fields and shacks later I managed to find a genuine African cliché! This wasn't even set up or anything, even though I had to zoom in a bit, I'm pretty happy with it. Look at the colours and stuff!

Anyway, that's all really, the sunset wasn't too bad after all either. Just another day in Inhassune, Mozambique.

And if anyone wants a more accurate location of the village, it's exactly here. You can even see the football pitch and the well worn paths that cross it!

http://goo.gl/maps/Jd9Te

The Morning Workout

It seems the novelty of me hasn't worn off yet!

After breakfast I do a few exercises on the climbing frame and I take my music player out with me. There's always kids wanting to join in, they'll either do a bit of dancing - which is always funny to watch - or they'll try to copy what I do. Although I'm more than happy to help them and show them how do it properly, I'm not too sure how good exercises in general are for little kids.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share a few pictures of this morning's routine. You might notice that Fatty appears in all 3, I seem to have made a friend there. He also has a best friend (and I am disappointed that it's not me) who would usually be there, but I caught him red-handed pissing on the climbing frame!!!! He was still pissing when he was trying to put his boyhood back in his shorts!! So, naturally, I told him off and he ran away. He shouldn't be doing that again in a hurry. I have asked and I'm glad to learn that this isn't common occurrence. Today's lesson for all to take home with you: never piss on a climbing frame.

Winning!

We are winning the battle with the house rats!…we've also just found out that it's not just rats, we're fighting with mice too!

Francis gave me some rat poison to spread around, after a bit of trial and error, I found where they live and over a couple of days they've eaten a whole packet amongst them. 

Yesterday morning Sue came out of her room with a very dead mouse in her dust pan and brush - the first casualty of our offensive. Last night was pretty unusual, we were cooking dinner, minding our own business and out from one of the other rooms wanders a rather large and dazed looking rat! I've seen them in roof before but they're always pretty quick to run away. It was very strange to see one from this new perspective. This one was walking very slowly and not even trying to hide, just trudging across the middle of the floor across the rug.

I had no idea about this, but apparently they don't like to die where they live, so this one had probably said his last goodbyes and, as Francis said, was asking to die. We didn't quite oblige but the very nice guard did: Francis kicked it out the door and the guard came and dumped him in the septic tank (a good dead rat gets the decaying process going again)! 

I took a picture for posterities sake. Note the size of the shoes and rat. Serves him right anyway, his family kept me awake playing above my head most nights!

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.