Tete and South

Final Phase of the Trip.  We took a bus into Tete City (Which, I wish I had more energy to write about right now.  It seems like an awesome place with a humongous suspension bridge spanning Mozambique's Mississippi. Except this river has hippos), and then another one from Tete City into Chamoio, Anna's Site. I spent a few days hanging out with her and exploring before taking a chapa up to Messica with another Anna (if you're keeping track, this is Anna #3, she lives in Messica, outside of Chamoio).  She had surprised me (sort of) right when we arrived in Chamoio and I was completely ecstatic to see her.  She was my next door neighbor during training and she's one of my closet friends here. She like my Lauren in Africa.

Here's some pictures!

Walking across the Zambezi on Tete City's Bridge.

Old Church in Manica overlooking the city.

Manica, just down the road from Messica towards the border with Zimbabwe, is famous for the Chinhamapere Rock Paintings.  But, because it's so off the beaten track, visitors seem to be rare.  There's no tour center, or even a little info station.  There's no Park Ranger, no sign, and no advertisements along the way.  There is absolutely nothing that says these drawings are where they are except for a little blurb in the lonely planet we had

You gotta pay to get in though, whih I thought was kinda funny.  But this experience is a little difference.  To get to see the drawings, you need to go with a guide.  The locals think the drawings are sacred, so someone needs to take you in order to perform the proper rituals required before you can see the drawings.Sure enough, when we got to the house of the overseer or owner, a older woman came out with acarved wood try asking for a donation.  It was only something like 200 mts for everyone, so we happily paid it.

Sure enough, a small ceremony followed before our shoeless guide started hiking us up the side of the mountain overlooking all of Manica. You could tell this woman's done this before.  A few times.  She was in great shape for someone who looked as old as she did.  Still, she kick our ass's getting up that mountain, performed another ceremony and than sat and waited for us as we basked in the moment, perched on the top of a historical mountain, overlooking the entire valley, and staring into Zimbabwe just over the chain of mountains in the distance.

The drawings are up there!

Infrastructure.

Following our shoeless tree-carrying woman.

Anna and her Director.

Ancient History, bro.

The View from the top.  Zimbabwe's those big mountains on the Left Side.

Chamoio Anna and I parted ways the next day.  School was starting up again for her, so she needed to get back to work. Messica Anna, however was still free. So we went to Beira.

Beira is a confusing city. It makes you think that it's developing and evolving as good as of them, but it's also a marvelous liar.  Beira shoes progression, but it's got some pretty horrific poverty too.  One thing that stands out is the Grande Hotel.  Anthony Bourdain talks about on his show "No Reservations" during the Mozambique episode.  Well, we went there.  Nothing he says is exaggerated.  A place that was once one of the nicest 5-star hotels in the world is now hell on earth.

Thousands of people living in what must be one of the most densely populated placed anywhere.  It makes me think about the Kowloon Walled City. Rooms, closets, bathrooms, balconies, stairwells, and every single corner had already been claimed. People how had claimed space in the Grande Lobby brought in their own bricks and rocks in an attempt to put up small walls in order to create even a little privacy.  Capulana's served as walls for others.

The entire hotel has been stripped raw.  The marble was torn of the walls, the metal bannisters in stairways have been stolen, the gates along the concrete bridges  connecting the buildings is gone, and in some places it looks like people even tried to pry the rebar reinforcement out from inside the concrete walls.  The structure itself is failing on a catastrophic level; Support columns are crumbling due to ignorance as a result of there having been no upkeep or maintenance since being abandoned by the company that ran it.

Today, the building has such a large population that it now has it's own localized market in the front of the complex. I bought a snack there, and while talking with some girls selling the bread cakes, I got made fun of for accidentally saying a terrible word in their local language while mispronouncing the expression "Do you live here?"  Good ice breaker I guess.

They told me that the building had no electricity and no running water.  Wouldn't matter even if there was anyways because all the wiring and piping has already been torn out and stolen. To get water, all the residents must take their old plastic gasoline canister across the street and pay some guy to use his tap. All three or four thousand of them.

But still, even in all it's shitty glory, and probably because they have no other options, people still call the Grande Hotel home. Scary.

Grande Hotel, Beira, Mozambique

Grande Hotel, Beira, Mozambique

Grande Hotel, Beira, Mozambique

Someone drying fish on the sidewalk outside of the Grande Hotel, Beira, Mozambique.

And then we got Chinese food for the first time in a year.

Beria Architecture.

Beira Church

Some guys attaches this to his truck and makes pizza's with it around the city.

This is Africa?

Part 2: Malawi

Our objective was Cape McClear, a quiety little village on the very end of a peninsula that jets out from the southern point of the lake. A little further down the peninsula, behind Cape McClear and a couple mountains, was Monkey Bay, a well known tourist destination on the lake.  We made it to Monkey Bay late in the afternoon, and knew that even though it was only something like 17km away, getting to Cape McClear would be a challenge.Chapas were available, but they were rare and densely packed with anything and everything that needed to get there.  We ended up finding some space on the bed of a pick-up truck.  I spent the entire ride dangling off the back corner.  On the bright side though, I was probably in the best position if we needed to abandon ship somewhere along the windy road that cut through the mountains.

We spent three days fighting with an unhappy British  disc jokey, exploring the town, enjoying the beach, and watching a sunset each night that lit fire to the sky.

Here are my thoughts on Malawi in short:

• English is the National Language, but no one knows any.
• If you are white and in a tourist area, you might as well paint a target on your back.
• Chapa drivers and Cobradores in Malawi just want your money.  They'll tell you they are going your way just to get you on board.  If you want to know where a chapa is going, then ask one of the passengers.
• Once you get out of touristy areas, Malawi is actually pretty awesome.  Easier said than done though.
• Don't stay at the french guys place in Blantyre. He sucks.
• Malawi...meh.  I don't ever wanna go back.

After Malawi, we headed back into Mozambique.

Amsterdam, Disneyland, Tel Aviv...

Our first glimpse of the lake. And then there were monkeys in the road and it was so cool.  Then we had to stop again for monkeys.  Still kinda cool.  The third time though, those monkey started getting on my nerves.

REBECCA LOOK AT THIS PICTURE

I've got my corner on the back of this fully stocked and filled pick-up truck.  And it's uncomfortable.

Early morning swim.

It's a touristy place, but that doesn't mean the women aren't still gonna flock to the lake in the morning to do their laundry.

Making a dugout Canoe. 

The Hostel Manager where we stayed was a great guy, he offered to cook for us one night, and we ended up getting what was probably the best meal of the trip out of it.  We asked for something standard in Malawi.  Like, something his mom used to make for him when he was a kid.  Something special and delicious.  His eyes lite up, and this feast is what we got.

Pretty good dinner at the psychotic French guy's place, but also, pretty psychotic frenchmen.

Balama - The Start of the Bush Trip

It’s early in the morning, I’m outside looking around and enjoying the scenery, excited and cold.  The feeling is familiar, and all of a sudden I’m back in 2nd grade waiting on the corner for my bus to arrive.  My lunch box and supplies are packed away in my book bag, and as usual, I’m underdressed for the surprisingly cold weather.  No matter, I’m still happy to be young and carefree.  Flash forward 20 years, and I’m back in my body again.  Back to reality.  The reality is that although I'm still cold, my backpack now weighs close to 40 pounds, and I'm far from the smooth streets and yellow schools buses of Bethesda.  We’re just outside of Balama, where there isn’t a paved road for nearly 100 kilometers in any direction.  Only dirt.  I’m standing under a blossoming mango tree, who’s sweet but subtle fragrance whofts through my nose as again I wait for a ride.  My lunchbox is now a variety of plastic bags holding a small stock of fruits, some bread and some homemade peanut butter we made the night before. It’s all we’ve got, but it’s more than enough to keep our stomachs satisfied as we begin an adventure traversing what I’ve been told is one of the more matu (read: backwoods) roads in all of Mozambique.  Our goal is Marrupa, in the province of Niassa, and we’re praying that we’ll make it in one day. 

We set out early, uncertain of what we’ll encounter in terms of a ride, but still excited to see what we are getting ourselves into.  We start walking west, in the direction of Niassa, and then after a few kilometers, we rest.  After a peanut butter and banana sandwich, we start walking again.  The air is crisp and the scenery is breathtaking.  Cabo Delgado’s tallest mountain appears in the distance as we pass by fields of tall grass helplessly swaying in the wind.  We pass rivers, small ponds, and all sorts of colorful flora as we venture further and further into the bush.  Minutes pass like seconds, and it feels like no time at all has past when we finally catch a break after about an hour and a half of walking.

Our break came in the form of two large 18-Wheelers loaded up with bags of cement and headed into Niassa along the infamous dirt road.  Each truck was being driven by a Chinese man who spoke little to no Portuguese and looked like he was from an equally matu part of China.  Fortunately for us, their cabins were empty and they were feeling generous, so Anna and I hopped into the second truck.

After a flat tire in the middle of nowhere and nearly 6 hours of never going over 30 kilometers per hour, we got dropped off about 30km from Marrupa.  This was the end of the road for our new foreign friends.  We said our goodbyes (or tried to), and then started walking again.  After just a little while, we end up getting picked up by some more Chinese roads guys in a really nice range rover, but this time group was a bunch of engineers. They gladly moved some stuff around so that we could squeeze into the bench seat with them.  As we drove, they gave us a tour of their newly constructed road that was in the midst of being paved.  The progress they were making was outstanding.  Work crews out in full force, active machinery, supplies, direction and results.  It was quite the difference from what we encountered on the other side.  During the ride, I learned from the driver that his company had been contracted to build and pave the road between Marrupa and the border with Cabo Delgado. The government has long wanted to build and east-west road across the two provinces in order to connect Lichinga, the largest city in Niassa, to Pemba, the largest city and closet port.  The Chinese company was about a month away from completing their portion of the assignment, while the Italian Engineering firm that was hired to do the same thing on the other side between Montepuez and the border of Niassa hadn’t even started.  The Cabo Delgado portion of the road was still nothing more than dirt and sand flanked by tall grass. 

The engineers took us all the way to the Marrupa Airport where they lived about 7k outside of town. So again, we resorted to walking.  Along the way, we talked with a Mozambican laborer who worked with the Chinese Crew.  He told us about his job and how his day started at 5am and went until 5pm.  For his efforts he was paid a nominal fee between 3000-4000 Meticais per month ($100-$130). 

We walked a little more before catching a boleia in the back of a National Power Company Pick-Up Truck into town.  That’s when we caught our first glimpse of the city.  Marrupa is a gorgeous and mysterious oasis perched on top of a long hill with bairros (neighborhoods) crawling down the sides. The main street is paved and lined with street lamps.  The city’s clean and the buildings aren’t falling apart at the seams.  The first time you pass through, you almost forget that you’re in Mozambique. 

To conclude an exhausting day of traveling, we found a pensão, explored a little bit, satiated Anna's capulana craving, found a restaurant, ate, and then went to bed in preparation for a very early morning chapa ride to Cuamba.

Here are some picture of the first leg of the Journey.


Balama:

We started walking out of town one day to try and climb a mountain and slowly, over the course of the four hours we walked our group expanded exponentially until we have an army of like 25 criancas haning off of us.

The Sunset off of Raf's Veranda.

Making Peanut Butter Raf's way.  Roast the peanuts, peel the peanuts, smash the peanuts and add some sugar, salt and cinnamon.  The whole process is easier if you make kids do it for you. It's not child labor if you make a game out of it and pay them in Peanut Butter.

Leaving Balama:

The Road from Balama towards Niassa.

Walking out of Balama...

Catching our Boleia in the Chinese Guy's 18-Wheeler.  This is the view along the way.

Whomp, whomp.  Getting a flat Tire in the middle of no-where.

Back at it after a quick repair.  Still running through cabo.

Leaving the District of Balama, the last district in Cabo Delgado before the boarder with Niassa.  Next Year there is supposed to be a huge bridge here. Me?  I'm not so optimistic about that happening... An Italian Engineering Firm was contracted to do it.  And also they are supposed to pave the road up until Montepuez. But apparently, they aren't doing anything because nobody's paying them.

Our first glimpse of Niassa and we're slapped in the face with a huge infrastructure project.  The provincial government is building horizontal highway across the entire province of Niassa in an attempt to connect Lake Malawi with the Indian Ocean.  The section of road between Marrupa and the border with Cabo Delgado is being built by a Chinese Engineering Firm.  This road will be paved the following week and the road will be open before the rainy season comes in November.  This, I'm way more optimistic about.

New road off to the right.  Can't drive on it because they put big branches on it. Some nice scenery too.

Looking Victorian in the back of a pick-up truck on the way to Marrupa.

Next day on the Chapa ride from Marrupa to Cuamba.  We lucked out and managed to get the two seats inside the cabin of a 3am open-back chapa.  6 hours later, we were in Cuamba. We used Cuamba as a hub for the night, visiting some of our Colleagues who are stationed at a university for primary school teachers.  We left Cuamba early the next morning with Malawi in mind as our destination.  A private chapa took us to Mandimba, a sketchy border town and our entry port into Malawi.  We actually have a colleague who lives there too, so we stopped in to see her.  At her house we ran into Matt, who lives in northern Niassa.  Ten minutes later, we had a third member of our party heading into Malawi. Getting the 7km from Mandimba to the Border was a trip in itself.

Mandimba has an entire industry that's pretty unique to it's location: Bike Taxi's.  Ton's of men, young and old, earn their living putting people on the backs of their bikes and taking them to the border in style, sort of.  It's pretty awesome.

Matt told the taxi driver that he wanted to drive, so this guy got paid to take his own taxi.  Matt did a hell of a job, the last 4 km's are up a huge hill.

Malawi.............

Two Down, Four to Go.

Africa is full of frustrations.  Take for example: the widespread and obvious corruption; numerous failed international aid projects whose remnants now litter the town and countryside (I should start photographing and mapping all the broken wells…actually, that’s not a bad idea…); the neo-colonialism being practiced by countries who are looking to exploit natural resources here because they’ve already tapped all theirs at home; or maybe the binge drinking that goes one by men and woman who could have used that money to buy their kid a meal; the unfortunately ingrained expectation by some Mozambicans that things will be given to them rather than the knowledge that in a free-market society, you work so that you can provide these things yourself; or, what about the frustration caused by my 16 year-old punk of a neighbor who just picked my tiny cilantro plant clean even though I explicitly told him not to.  I was gonna make pico dude.  But this post isn’t about that stuff, or how much I miss Mexican food.  It’s about testing.

Anyways, we just concluded the second trimester (which means I only have four more to go!) and now the students have a week of trimester exams.  These tests suck.  Here’s why:  Rather than allowing each teacher to write his or her own exam for their classes specifically, the tests are put together by officials in the Provincial Government.  Early in the trimester, the officials ask four schools from around the province to write two versions of a trimester exam for each subject being taught to each grade level.  The Government then gathers these tests for each grade level and discipline, and picks out the questions they like and refines them to form their own super test which they call a Provincial Exam.  In doing so, they try to include only the questions that match up with their expectation of where each teacher should be in the curriculum at that point in time.  Therefore, each class is being tested on material they may or may not have learned up to this point.  Once the Ministry has written their ideal test, they photocopy it about a bajillion times and send it to every school in the province.  Every student enrolled in a physics course from 8th to 12th grade, for example would then take the specific exam that was compiled by the Ministry for their grade level.  And the best part is, it’s supposed to factor heavily into each student’s grade for the trimester. 

So you’re thinking, “Oh cool, Will didn’t even have to write his own exam.  Shiiiiiit, life is easy out there.  Probably gave him a chance to relax and read a book.”  Not really.  I actually recently started an attempt at a secondary project which has been keeping me nice and busy.  More on that some other time though, when things start to pan out. But yeah, I wasn’t even allowed to edit or see the test prior to it being given.   I’m not even allowed to proctor the exam!  Not only did I have no idea what to design a review around, but I was also stressing out because there was a good chance that because we are behind on the curriculum, these kids would get tested on material we hadn’t even gone over yet!

What’s funny about all this though, is how someone actually thought this was a good idea at some point in time; comparable to when they used to say smoking cigarettes was good for you, or that lead-based paint would make your walls (and your organs) pop!  The reality is that this is a horrible idea, and I’m actually fairly confident that they’ll soon recognize this and make a change.  According to some of my colleagues who I’ve asked about it, the current testing system has been in place less than 5 years, so they are still working out the kinks.  There are a lot of smart Mozambicans, my school’s Director being one of them, who will eventually be responsible for this change.  He is now slowly creeping his way up the ranks, and into a position with the Government where he, as well as all the other hard working school teachers who seek change, will soon become the new members of the ministry and thus be able to influence policy. 

The fact of the matter is that every single person in this country, anyone doing anything at all, is a student.  I need to start reminding myself of that.  Could be the kids in school, the Chefe’s working in the Ministry, and even the President himself.  Everyone here is learning, because a peaceful and malleable version of this country has only been in existence for 20 years, and there is a lot of learning to do.

But, unfortunately, these changes take time, and that means that the students now are the ones who will pay the price for the steep learning curve.

A Visit to the Hospital.

There’s a hospital (correction, there is a clinic) right around the corner from my house, and although I could probably throw a rock and hit it, I’ve never been closer that about 50 meters.  Kinda bad because one of the first things we were supposed to do upon arriving to site was introduce ourselves to the local doctors.  It’s wasn’t a matter of laziness that kept me from going, it was more so sheer terror.  (Side note – I just won a staring contest with the rooster that was crowing right outside my front door…cock.)

It’s not that I hate hospitals; in fact, every experience I’ve ever had in one has actually been pretty pleasant.  I just have a bad feeling about the hospitals here and would prefer to avoid them for as long as possible.  In other words, I’m absolutely terrified of healthcare in Mozambique.  Scaly, bleeding rashes that cover kids head to toe, broken bones that never healed correctly, battle scars from knives and bullet holes (though not many, most of the people that were nicked by a bullet died due to a lack of treatment), crazy deformities (I know a guy who is missing a shoulder!), and festering open wounds covered in flies are all a pretty common site around these parts.  On a regular basis I see people with some pretty horrible looking medical problems, and unfortunately, I’ve let that have an influence on my feeling about the local doctors. 

Well, today was apparently that day that I would have to go.  I got home from a particularly hectic day (and sleepless week) only wanting to sit and eat.  I was helping my neighbors pick some beans off one of my bushes when a friend of mine, a 12 year-old named Elizio, appeared in front of my house and waved at me to come over to him.  I was about to shout for him to come to me instead, but I saw this as a opportunity to stop with the beans and make a quick exit.  I walked over to him and saw his typical ear to ear smile.  This kid is great, and I’ve grown to really love him.  He comes over all the time to hang out, draw, drink water and help out around my house.  I asked him “tudo bem?” a common greeting to see how everything was going (literally, “All good?”).  He said, as he always does while continuing to flash his enormous smile, “Yeah amigo, tudo bem!”  But it wasn’t.  He was carrying a used motorcycle tire, and told me he was going to buy cell phone credit for one of his neighbors.  The lack of actual toys here has forced kids to become pretty resourceful when it comes to finding things to play with.  Anything and everything is a toy, and at this point, the site of a kid with anything in their hands (even a blown-up condom) doesn’t really faze me as strange.  Still, just to make conversation, I asked him what the tire was for.  “For walking, I had a bike accident yesterday.  Look at this…” As he finished his sentence, he lifted his leg up to show me a foot that was covered in dirt and swollen to about twice its normal size.  I asked him like three more questions before putting him on my back and carting him off the the clinc down the street.

Now if there was ever a place that would challenge my streak of pleasant hospital visits, it’s Mozambique.  One of the poorest and underdeveloped countries in the entire world, according to the WHO, Moz only has 889 Medical doctors.  That’s a ratio of 1 doctor to every 30,000 people (recommended ratio by WHO is 1:1,000).  In the words of my sister:  Woof.

Expecting to see something that was more like a dungeon than medical office, I was surprised to find what was actually a modestly clean place.  The nurse took us in immediately, and got right to work.  She began talking to Elizio in Macua, the local language up here, knowing that he’d be able to explain what had happened a lot easier in his native tongue.  There were a few questions, some even shorter responses, and then a few giggles by her and Elizio before the nurse said something I couldn’t understand but was probably something like: “Thanks for the info kid, now prep yourself good cause this is gonna hurt.  A lot.” 

First came the cleaning.  When I was inspecting the kid initially while in front of my house, I had asked him about pain.  I very gently probed a few spots on his foot to get a good judgment and when I reached his toes, he was on the verge of tears.  Now this woman was not nearly as gentle as I was.  In fact, I’m pretty certain the word gentle doesn’t even have a place in her vocabulary.  She went to town, driving that sponge like it was an 18-Wheeler with a snow plow on front.  I watched as the poor kid squirmed in his chair trying to fight the pain.  After the foot was clean, she dried it off with some gauze.  Again, she just went at it.  It was almost like she was trying to show me what rough actually meant.  And then, all of a sudden, she brought out a razor blade and my entire world turned upside down. Holy shit, is that a used razor blade?  Why does she have that, I don’t remember seeing a cut.  What the hell is she gonna use that for?!

It took all my strength to stop myself from pinning the woman against the wall and yelling for Elizio to make an escape through the window, but then I reminded myself that I’m not in America, and I’m not a doctor.  She’s gonna do what she has to do and it’ll all be over soon.  Right before she started slicing up the space in between his toes (You read that correctly...), I said those exact words to Elizio to try and make him feel better.  In reality, it was more likely I was saying it to make myself feel better.

She spent a good 4 minutes cutting out something invasive she had seen that entered his foot in one of the most vulnerable of spaces.  I cringed. He cringed.  She cringed.  We all cringed for the obvious excruciatingly intense amount of pain the little malnourished kid was probably feeling.  As she cut, she also ripped tiny pieces of something out.  I never actually saw what it was, but I can take a guess.  With all the broken glass, ripped up tin cans, tiny pieces of metal and other horrible things lining the dirt street here, I have no doubt that this kid had managed to puncture himself with something miserable while spending most of his time walking barefoot around town.

After she was done, she wrapped his foot up, and sent us to get counseled – or what is essentially just the Mozambican version of check-out.  The guy working the table wrote down the kid’s info, put some pills in a bag, and told him to return in a few days to have the gauze changed.  Then, right as we were getting up to leave, the nurse came back and gave Elizio a going away present: a rough injection, coarsely jammed right into his arm.  They us we were free to go, and feeling confused because the entire procedure was done for free, I put the kid on my back, and we walked out.

As we walked away, I couldn’t stop thinking to myself.  Mission complete and job well done.  Well, maybe.  This kid is either going to get better, or e now has a horrible case of HIV because I took him to a bush hospital with doctors I know nothing about.  I’m gonna try and be optimistic though and believe everything is good.  I think that’s better.  I gave the kid a piggyback ride home where I left to try and keep himself out of trouble.  Sure enough, he showed up at my house not two hours later shoeless and smiling as usual.  At least he had a sock on the wounded foot, albeit a dusty one.   Oh Mozambique, you’re starting to get a little predictable…

UPDATE:  Took the kid to get a checkup today (July 8th) and everything appears to be fine.  He managed to actually keep the wound clean (amazing, I’m not sure how), and they changed the bandages and gave him a new one.  The process was a whole lot more pain free this time around as the nurse changing his bandages was much gentler.  For some reason though, rather than put on some rubber gloves which he had in a box next to him, he decided to perform the entire process using a pair of large tweezers.  Literally, every step.  Meh. At least the kid’s foot hasn’t fallen of yet.  

The Strangest 4th of July I’ve Ever Had.

4th of July’s are usually pretty standard events.  One time I was on a plane for the 4th, but aside from that one instance, every other time has been pretty much a day devoted to celebrating the American dream.  My typical 4th of July has usually involved all, or some combination of sunburns, hamburgers, baseball, fireworks, friends, family, potato salad, cheap beer and a day off work.  Hell, last year, my sister somehow got me into the State Department party where I taste-tested apple pie with foreign emissaries and watched the fireworks over the monuments in Downtown DC with former President Bill Clinton and at the time, current Secretary of State Hilary Clinton just a few feet away.  It was pretty freakin’ American if you ask me.  But then there was this year, which, as a result of my geographic location among other things, strayed from the norm and turned out to be what was probably my most un-American 4th of July ever.  There was no beach, and there were no fireworks.  No national anthem, no BBQ, and no sweltering heat.  I think the closest baseball game was something like 10,000 miles away.  Oddly enough, there were still Presidents though.

Today, I had my first “official” meeting with a variety of representatives from the communities that I will be assisting with the Bridge Project. The meeting took place in a village called Bandari, the closet village to the potential bridge site, under a big Alpendra (sort of like an open-air gazebo, but with a roof made of capin and an architecture style that was far from Victorian).  Nearly 50 villagers sat in the shanty’s shade on wooden benches, bamboo stools, rope beds, straw mats and piles of dirt.  Among the attendees were village Presidents, Kings, Chiefs and other elders.  They all sat in a big circle on one end of the alpendra, and behind them, occupying random ground-space inside and out of the shoddy structure were intrigued farmers, unoccupied villagers, and curious children. All of them had come to learn more about the project, and I, using my shitty Portuguese (which most of them don’t even speak anyway), would have to be the one to explain it to them.

I had previously visited Bandari a few weeks before to start the ball rolling on a feasibility study, trying to answer the question of whether this was something they actually needed.  More importantly though, I was out to find out if this was something they actually wanted as well.  I’d done a fair amount of research inspecting the river, looking at current crossings, talking to villagers and recognizing how dependent they were on the river, so I had a pretty good feeling I had already answered both questions.  After the meeting today though, both answers were definitive “Yes’s.” 

The meeting itself went pretty smoothly.  Like I said, people outside of the city don’t really know all that much Portuguese, but I was lucky enough to have my two counter-parts (Alan, the missionary and Armindo, my former-Portuguese tutor turned English student) with me to help translate all the technical mumbo-jumbo into the local language (Macua, and both of them speak it perfectly).  The night before the meeting, I produced a nice little PowerPoint presentation on my computer full of pictures to help illustrate some of the stuff I had planned to talk about.  That aspect couldn’t have gone better. The pictures needed no translation as the grandiose images of completed bridges spoke for themselves, inspiring thoughts in the heads of each attendee of crossing a similar bridge that they could call their own.  To watch their reactions to these pictures was truly magnificent. 

The whole thing ended up going really well, but in the reality of things, this was only really a small step in the right direction.  I still have a ways to go, and many, many more hurdles (most of which will be much, much bigger) to overcome. My cousin Jay once gave me some advice about tackling big projects, a mentality I’ve been trying to apply to this one as well.  “How do you eat an elephant?” he asked.  As I pondered the question, trying to come up with a witty response, he, with an uplifting smile and his renowned sense of humor, beat me to it.  “One bite at a time.”