What a wonderful spent Saturday – a day in good company on a catamaran between Maputo and some of the surrounding islands. 
Our entire purpose was simply to relax, swim a bit around the boat, visit Ilha Portuguesa, and barbeque our brought food and freshly caught fish. We had a fantastic “Prodigal Son” for appetizer and we caught a couple of Barracudas on our way back to Maputo.
Worth to be repeated and another day in my southern life!
Somehow I had the expectation that moving to Maputo and working with a bigger and more structured or organised organisation would mean that we would be working more professionally.
Well, I got surprised there!
Here I am sitting in the office after 4 days out of office and I am having one person walking around yelling this and that and in particular bad-mouthing other organisations on how incompetent they all are, whilst in reality the man says nothing, knows little else that to make noise, and has repeatedly shown his own incompetence while formulating and implementing projects.
In the office just next door the executive director sits trying to finalize a proposal for the EU where the deadline was yesterday, and has apparently sent the proposal to another organisation asking them to sign the document as implementing co-partner without this organisation having been part of any discussion, formulation or elaboration leading up to the proposal. Surprisingly enough this leaves the requested partner organisation rather taken aback having received the project proposal where they are to participate and to sign as co-partner.
In a case like this I often end up being dragged into the mess (being the advisor often also means being some kind of quality stamp) and thus I receive a phone call asking what is this all about? And what can I say; I have no f.... idea. The proposal was elaborated while I was out of office and in spite of my last advice before leaving (asking my partner organisation to finalise the project proposal without involving any partners as there was no time to discuss the proposal with anyone else) they nevertheless decided to create some paper partnerships....
And this kind of frustration does not only go for my local partner organisation, I could easily point my finger at my international back organisation MS – why is it that they insist on partner organisations submitting a long (15 pages) project document each year explaining the “common” activities for the year and the programme officer repeatedly insist on only reading the last 3 pages (the logical framework) and the budget, where after he does not hesitate to comment on the document, to question the proposed activities, and ask background question which are all explained in the document – WHY?
For sure working with a bigger organisation does not necessarily mean that the work is done more professionally, with more clarity, with more structure and organisation, and with clear aims and strategies. It just simply means being better in bullshitting.... - and maybe even getting away with it!
Just another day at work....
MS Annual Meeting took place in Chidenguele about 350km north of Maputo from the 4th to the 7th of March. I choose to end the long meeting with another night at a lodge another 100km north of Chidenguele – Závora beach Lodge to go for a long waited dive (I have not had an opportunity to 
dive since I left Pemba).
The meetings which are usually a rather long and boring affaire were organised in a more dynamic way than usual and generally we had good discussions with interesting presentations and a nice atmosphere with good and diversified intervention such as forum theatre about anti-corruption, a film about local governance, and open space discussions.
I will not bore anyone here with the actual content of the meetings just mention that local governance, civil society participation, education, employment, and the link to poverty reduction were the main issues discussed with point of departure in the reports from MS and partner organisations and presentations made by special invited representatives.
Závora lodge was my little retreat after 3 days with people all around me at all times; I decided to drive up (a little further north from Chidenguele) to yet another unspoiled beach and a newly opened lodge which according to the rumours was to have really good diving.
I was unlucky with the weather (as can be seen on the picture then I was not unlucky during my stay...), which in the days before I arrived had course quite a bit of disturbance in the water leaving it with very little visibility, but nevertheless I could still see the potential of the dive sites and having seen 2 white tipped reef sharks and 4 big turtles in the first little dive I guess one cannot complain too much. The dive sites though are to have some amazing cleansing stations for manta rays, and should generally be frequented by lots of mantas. This time though we didn’t see any.
The place itself still had a fair bit of renovation to do, and several things looked a bit rundown, but there was a good chilled atmosphere, though it was lacking some hammocks or a nice chilling area for proper chilling and maybe a volleyball court or so for alternative recreation activity. The place furthermore seemed super safe (not even a lock on the door) and had a completely undisturbed beach with little more than a few fishermen passing by, catching
what could be yours, if you want to do self-catering in one of the many barbeque places scattered around the place. The menu card in the restaurant was in desperate need for a helping hand, as it was very basic and fast-food like. The dive centre was nice with a very relaxed and low-key atmosphere and with a very nice team of well experienced divers as well as good equipment. And lastly the place was extremely cheap; I ended up paying around 5USD for a night and about 40USD for each dive!
In other words very good value for money, in no way fancy, but a good place to chill and a very good place to dive, - and absolutely a place I will return to, it might end up being my favourite diving place in the southern Mozambique!
Unfortunately Závora lodge does not have a website as such featuring all their facilities, but one can read about the diving on this site: http://www.themozambiqueexperience.com/ and the former owner of the place had the following homepage (not quite representative for today but anyway...): http://www.zavoralodge.com
Our visit to Australia started with 2 days shopping in Dubai – fantastic, but what a mad city and what an architectonical mixture. The whole city seemed to be under construction and I have never seen so many building cranes in my life. We stayed with some of Russell’s friends, a lovely couple with a nice house just outside Dubai centre. But Dubai was just a stopover for the real holiday, and I was looking very much forward to visit Australia for the first time and to meet friends and family of Russell.
We arrived in Sydney in the late afternoon and by the time we had reach downtown and the harbour, where we were to catch a ferry to Manly (on the other side of Sydney harbour, where we were to stay with Russell’s brother and his
girlfriend) it was dark. We crossed the harbour looking at Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House with all the lights glowing – and I was sold!
I loved Sydney from the beginning, a city I would love to live in. The atmosphere was super trendy and super casual at the same time and 
there were so many cultural and gastronomic offers and things to do and to see that we did not even get to do half of the things we wanted. But it is not a cheap place to live....
From Sydney we flew up to the Gold Coast to visit friends and to have curry.... We rented a little car and were able to drive around seeing the Gold Coast, Surfers’ Paradise, and visit friends of Russell. The Gold Coast is heavily developed and very busy, with some nice surfer beaches and lots of tourism infrastructure. We stayed with 
some friends in their little palace on a little island covered with mansions each and one of them all worth way more than 5 million USD and many with yachts half as big as the houses to a little more than half the prices of the houses. What a weird place, but the company was great, the food fantastic, there was time to relax, to laugh, to have a G&T, and there was time to a cruise around in the Ferrari!!! ;)
From the Gold Coast we continued to Brisbane in our little rented red Hyundai and to a few days company with another lovely couple and old friends of Russell’s. With all the nice food we ate and all the wine we drank it is no wonder, we felt quite a bit heavier by the end of our stay than when we arrived! And barbeque seems to be the thing in Oz...!
Brisbane was somehow not quite as interesting as I had expected, and though it had lots of nice places, I somehow did not really catch the atmosphere here. But I did get a change to stroll around visiting some of the many great galleries and bookstores with Russell’s sister one day, drinking coffee, and buying nuts, berries, and tea, which was a lovely day in the city and also a change to get to know it a bit better.
One thing I got to learn about Brisbane and the architecture was the Queensland houses – wooden houses in different colours and with verandas around them – I loved them! They reminded me a bit about Sweden, though in Sweden they are mainly in dark red and do not always have a veranda around them (giving the much cooler weather I guess).
We left our little red car in Brisbane and got a lift with some friends driving north to the Sunshine Coast. The Sunshine Coast is where most of Russell’s family lives. The Sunshine Coast was less developed than the Gold Coast and in my opinion it had a much nicer atmosphere, not as hectic as
the Gold Coast. Though in reality we were far less at the beach than I expected we would be – I did not even succeed in finding myself a new bikini I liked in spite of the many bikini shops......!
We stayed a few nights with Russell’s parents in Coloundra, a couple of nights further up north on the coast (close to Noosa) with some really nice friends and their little lovely son with whom we went to some of the weekend markets, and unfortunately 
only one night with Russell’s sister and her husband a bit in land from the coast on their lemon farm. They had the most wonderful house hidden away in the green hills, so quiet, so relaxing and so peaceful. The house was oozing of the same calmness and hospitality the owners had and one felt at home immediately. I would have loved to have had the time to go for a good long walk on the land and stayed with my book on the veranda for another day or two!
One thing stroked me, which was that it is so easy to live healthy in Australia. There is such an awareness of what is healthy food, non-dairy products, non-gluten products and so many small markets with all sorts of homemade goodies, organic products and the like. We visited a few of these markets on the Sunshine Coast and of course I had to buy a little of it all. I loved the market atmosphere and in particular all the homemade products, which my suitcase was heavy with coming back, I had it all from gooseberry jam, date and chilli chutney, to roasted pumpkin seeds, and macadamia nuts roasted and unroasted and macadamia oil..... etc.
All the people I (we) met was incredible hospitable, open and friendly, but Australia is such a huge
country and we had no time to see anything, but most disappointing was it that I didn’t even get to see a kangaroo....! (We did give it a try though but unfortunately no luck...) The kangaroo in the picture is from Brisbane and is about as close as I got to any of them!
We flew back to Sydney from the Sunshine Coast and had another 2 nights in Sydney, to indulge ourselves in the lovely city and of course to visit the Opera House and see Madame Butterfly on our last night in Australia.
And then 3 weeks had passed (way too little time) and we were back on the African continent....
We arrived well in Maputo on the 3rd of January, moved into my wonderful new flat on the third floor with a view above the acacia tree tops in the street in the middle of the town. Unfortunately we caught rain on the road which means that most of the things packed on the back of the Hilux were rather wet and in a sad condition..... :(
But having arrived in Maputo also means that a new chapter is beginning, which I am looking very much forward to.
My work in Pemba and with my partner organisation FOCADE (the provincial forum of civil society organisations in Cabo Delgado – the northernmost province of Mozambique) ended by the end of the year 2008 and together with MS (my employer) I decided to extend my contract with a year and with a new portfolio and a new geographic placement being in Maputo (the southernmost province of Mozambique).
My new portfolio is Anti-Corruption. Anti-corruption is a new topic for MS Mozambique as well as for my partner organisation AMOPROC (an advocacy and citizen rights organisation based in Maputo) and we will try to introduce anti-corruption activities, a curriculum for training at lower levels, a campaign for access to information and not the least introduce a code of conduct for MS partners and their organisations.
Quite a challenge for a year!
The car is packed, I have said goodbye to colleagues and friends and we are hitting the road early morning. It is a long drive down (about 3000km of deviating road quality), but also a beautiful one and with lots of stops in new and old, known as well as unknown places.
As we don’t know where we will be for New Year, I wish you all a great party and a fantastic new year full of joy and good surprises!
Happy New Year!
Well, really nothing as the rain came early and with such strength that it became impossible to get there, though we had together with friends working there planned to visit Niassa Game Reserve and some of the luxurious hunting camps normally reserved for rich American tourist wanting to shoot the first game they lay their eyes on, but this as so many other great excursions will have to wait to another time due to the poor infrastructure and lack of accessibility.
But of course I would have been hunting the ultimate shot – photo shot that is - if such exists!
Another excursion that will have to wait is a visit to Lichinga and Lago Niassa (better known as Lake Malawi) and a little hidden luxurious lodge at the lake shore which has been on my wish list for a long time – Nkwichi Lodge. There will be no way around it, a unique little eco lodge only accessible by foot or more common by boat. Nkwichi lodge just won the prize as the best small scale hotel at the travel fair in London in the end of 2008 – and absolutely a must on the travel list for 2009 (with a couple of other places such as a road trip to Namibia and Botswana), but firstly we are off to Australia in January, which will be my first visit to that part of the world.
Goats, sheep, dogs and what have we not - they are everywhere and always wandering around without any obvious control or looking after, and constantly to the danger for everyone else in the traffic, as they seem to know little about traffic rules (which goes for most here anyway). And sometime one finds them in slightly unexpected places as one day as I drove home from work I found a herd of sheep grassing on the lawn in front of the (only) 5 star hotel in Pemba – Pemba Beach Hotel, – or last when I was in Nangade and a goat suddenly showed its face in the door of the back yard drop toilet looking OUT on me as to say – sorry, but this loo is occupied...! - Where was my camera?????
Of the more exotic animals we encounter here, I had a visit by a green mamba that had sneaked its way into my garden one day – guess it wanted to sunbath in the lovely green grass (which my guards are fighting to keep fresh, green and crisp). Unfortunately a green mamba is not only a very beautiful snake (grass green with a yellow belly) but also a rather dangerous and aggressive snake, so my guard freaked and there we had one piece of dead green mamba – that should teach everyone about sunbathing!
Something like that a friend of mine asked me this Wednesday and off 
we were on a girls trip in a private helicopter (paid by her husbond employer/company I have to say - one of the oil companies, which has just finished the work for this year) 
and arriving 30 minutes later at Matemo Island Lodge about 150km north of Pemba for lunch and a quick dip in the ocean!
What a great life!
The 19th of November was Election Day for the 43 municipalities in Mozambique
There were queues all through the morning and several poll stations had to keep open much longer than the announced voting hours as the queues were still prominent. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures at the local polling station though I would have liked to take pictures of people casting their votes. Maybe I get a second chance next year for the provincial and national elections, where I think I will sign up as election observer if possible.
46% was the voter turnout for the municipality elections this year in Mozambique’s 43 municipalities where 10 municipalities were new and had their first election. It was a significant increase from the election in 2003, where the turnout was reported to be 23%.
The results of the municipality election was quite clear, Frelimo the old independency party and the dominating party at the political stage in Mozambique won an overwhelming victory by winning the presidency (or the seat of mayor) in 41 of the 43 municipalities – and won a majority in 42 of the 43 municipality assemblies.
At the end of the day Renamo (the second biggest party in Mozambique) had no representative in the assemblies of 9 municipalities and in 8 municipalities they are left with only one representative.
Four small parties and three citizens’ lists won assembly seats, but in general the small players lost ground everywhere except in Beira.
In Beira an independent candidate won the seat as mayor, – the previous Renamo mayor Daviz Simango who, as the central office of the party chose not to have him running for office again, Daviz chose to run as an independent candidate and won.
In Nacala neither mayoral candidate had a majority – present Renamo mayor Manuel dos Santos has 47.8% and Frelimo challenger Chale Ossufo has 49.8%, so there will be a second round contest between the two in January. The city election commission had given Ossufo just above 50%, but the parallel count conducted by the Electoral Observatory and results sheets (editais) provided by Renamo, both showed under 50%.
There have been some reports on frauds from different municipalities which show the importance of the system of parallel counts and of giving copies of the result sheets to the political parties and observers. City elections commissions tend to bent under strong political pressure, but the CNE (the National Election Commission with independent observers in the municipalities) does not.
Frelimo lost in Beira, and races were close in Nacala, Gurué, Quelimane and Marromeu – indicating the presence of an active opposition but nevertheless still a very weak opposition with poor overall support in the country and in the population, and a political stage that still resembles more a one-party political system than a full multi-party democracy.
Rain, rain and rain – way too early for Cabo Delgado and very heavy for 2-3 days due to a cyclone in Madagascar and here we have the roads all shattered again just as we are on our way to the districts... but luckily there is now an oil company working in the region and they need the road too, so it was repaired within a few days – fantastic!
We were off to Palma and Nangade again – probably the last visit this time – to see if we or our programme have made a difference, whether we have changed anything at all.
We had meetings in different villages and in the district ‘capitals’, with the government administration, local leaders, women groups, and representatives for the communities and we found both encouraging and disappointing facts. - And though there was a certain danger of having a meeting in the shade of the mango trees, we never the less had our meetings there while mangos dropping all around us threatening to give one of us a serious headache.
There was a notable higher knowledge on local grant funds – kind of microcredit loans given to local development projects by the government with several criteria as to which kind of project that can be supported – that what we witness a year ago, but there still seem to be very little dissemination as to what the local councils are doing and very little transparency as to how decisions are made and in particular how projects are approved.
We have during the last year conducted training workshops and open public debates. And as to the training programme very little information seem to have trickled from the participants on to other community members or in other words very little multiplication of the information given in the training sessions had taken place. The open debates on the other hand seemed to have a more widespread effect and the information together with the small pamphlets we distributed seem to have circulated.
The recommendations are many and there are lots of work still to be done in particular with literacy programmes for local leaders, local council members, and the community at large, but other helpful tools could be notice boards centrally located in the neighbourhoods where information from the local councils can be displaced, and then it seem to be that in the future there need to be an increased focus on multiplication of information or maybe directly targeting this by using local activists and having public debates in the villages.
On a more economic development note, I cannot help noting that things are happening in Nangade and this is without the oil companies that are bringing lots of changes to Palma..... The road to Nangade is widening, and the administration building is being completely renovated – the building previously looked mostly like 
some kind of storehouse with no proper roof or ceiling, no windows, and a big open space with spotted and dirty walls and some old typewriters in front of a few civil servants. The little guesthouse though is still the same - the picture to the left is from the backyard of the guesthouse with the kitchen and the loos.
Furthermore mobile reception is due to arrive this year (though the Tanzanian network is expanding already) and thereby connecting Nangade with the rest of the country. And because of the cashew nut industry one notice how people are getting more money, the houses are improving dramatically and are now being constructed with bricks and tin roofs instead of mud walls and grass roofs. But there is still no bank in Nangade a woman mentioned..... Development is definitely coming to Nangade, this forgotten odd little place!
So there I was in Olumbi, a little fishing village not far from Palma in the north of Mozambique, and to facilitate my work and show respect in general in a predominantly Muslim area I was wearing a long skirt, which made a group of women in the local market nodd approvingly and comment loudly on my apparently very well shaped bottom, saying something like We are enjoying seeing your kind wear something like our clothes and have a proper bottom to show –NICE BOTTOM!!! :) – all in local language translated to me by my colleagues and all said with a big smile.
But of course with my western background I cannot help thinking UHH..... if African women are giving me compliments for my bottom then I really most be gaining weight – no wonder my jeans are getting tighter every day!!!!! :)
There is a lot of talk about the importance of attracting tourists to the northern Mozambique, about the beauty of the country and the most beautiful beaches - but what does one see at first glance when arriving – RUBBISH! It is laying everywhere, people throw their rubbish as they wish, it is polluting the beaches, and even the public rubbish bins seem to have surrendered (those that exist) and are used for other purposes such as storage.
Blackboard of Quotes
“Without justice today no peace tomorrow”
Heard at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda
“A working child is a future denied“
Heard in relation to child workers in the mines of Tanzania
What a wonderful spent Saturday – a day in good company on a catamaran between Maputo and some of the surrounding islands. 
dive since I left Pemba).
I was unlucky with the weather (as can be seen on the picture then I was not unlucky during my stay...), which in the days before I arrived had course quite a bit of disturbance in the water leaving it with very little visibility, but nevertheless I could still see the potential of the dive sites and having seen 2 white tipped reef sharks and 4 big turtles in the first little dive I guess one cannot complain too much. The dive sites though are to have some amazing cleansing stations for manta rays, and should generally be frequented by lots of mantas. This time though we didn’t see any.
what could be yours, if you want to do self-catering in one of the many barbeque places scattered around the place. The menu card in the restaurant was in desperate need for a helping hand, as it was very basic and fast-food like. The dive centre was nice with a very relaxed and low-key atmosphere and with a very nice team of well experienced divers as well as good equipment. And lastly the place was extremely cheap; I ended up paying around 5USD for a night and about 40USD for each dive!
We arrived in Sydney in the late afternoon and by the time we had reach downtown and the harbour, where we were to catch a ferry to Manly (on the other side of Sydney harbour, where we were to stay with Russell’s brother and his
girlfriend) it was dark. We crossed the harbour looking at Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House with all the lights glowing – and I was sold!
there were so many cultural and gastronomic offers and things to do and to see that we did not even get to do half of the things we wanted. But it is not a cheap place to live....
some friends in their little palace on a little island covered with mansions each and one of them all worth way more than 5 million USD and many with yachts half as big as the houses to a little more than half the prices of the houses. What a weird place, but the company was great, the food fantastic, there was time to relax, to laugh, to have a G&T, and there was time to a cruise around in the Ferrari!!! ;)
the Gold Coast. Though in reality we were far less at the beach than I expected we would be – I did not even succeed in finding myself a new bikini I liked in spite of the many bikini shops......!
only one night with Russell’s sister and her husband a bit in land from the coast on their lemon farm. They had the most wonderful house hidden away in the green hills, so quiet, so relaxing and so peaceful. The house was oozing of the same calmness and hospitality the owners had and one felt at home immediately. I would have loved to have had the time to go for a good long walk on the land and stayed with my book on the veranda for another day or two!
country and we had no time to see anything, but most disappointing was it that I didn’t even get to see a kangaroo....! (We did give it a try though but unfortunately no luck...) The kangaroo in the picture is from Brisbane and is about as close as I got to any of them!
We flew back to Sydney from the Sunshine Coast and had another 2 nights in Sydney, to indulge ourselves in the lovely city and of course to visit the Opera House and see Madame Butterfly on our last night in Australia.
we were on a girls trip in a private helicopter (paid by her husbond employer/company I have to say - one of the oil companies, which has just finished the work for this year) 
and arriving 30 minutes later at Matemo Island Lodge about 150km north of Pemba for lunch and a quick dip in the ocean!
ut nevertheless the experiences from the two countries were very encouraging for our work and the programme that will begin next year in Mozambique.
Though it was also a week with a lot of hard work and lots of highly interesting discussions there was also time for a cup of wine to celebrate as our draft of the policy paper was presented and a training curriculum was developed!
We were off to Palma and Nangade again – probably the last visit this time – to see if we or our programme have made a difference, whether we have changed anything at all.
some kind of storehouse with no proper roof or ceiling, no windows, and a big open space with spotted and dirty walls and some old typewriters in front of a few civil servants. The little guesthouse though is still the same - the picture to the left is from the backyard of the guesthouse with the kitchen and the loos. 
