Blogs from Pemba, Northern, Mozambique, Africa

Resumo: Pessoas tentando passar a perna, 11hs em um caminhão de carga, dormindo no chão do hotel, quase 30hrs para chegar ao meu destino, estou bem. Vou comentar apenas o que ocorreu após cruzar a fronteira de Malawi para Moçambique. Comecei bem .. pessoas sorrindo, dizendo “Boa Tarde” “Boa Viagem” (Aqui as pessoas falam Portugues!), carona de moto da fronteira até próxima cidade. E daqui começou a ‘palhaçada’ (na sequencia): · * Em torno de 15 homens me cercaram ao tentar trocar o restante de Katcha (MWL-Malawi) para Meticais (MZN-Moçambique), a confusão era tanta que eles tentaram me dar MZN 1070 ao invés de 1700. Enquanto eu refazia a conta na calculadora, eles “sumiram” com 5,000 MWK e diziam que eu tinha que dar mais dinheiro. Sorte a minha que o meu “Nao vou dar mais ... read more

Eduardo, the taxi driver, claimed he was sick and couldn't show up at 08:00. Our hotel arranged for another driver, but at a much higher price than we'd arranged with Eduardo, yesterday. The most important thing was, we had to get to Pemba, as we fly out from Pemba to Dar-es-Salaam from where we head home to Doha. It was too late for the bus which had left at 05:00, and chapas would have been too much hassle for this distance (about 400 km). On the road, we realized this new driver was the friend Eduardo had taken the car jack from. Oh ... So, ... this made things interesting ... but, ... we had to get to Pemba. The road was being worked on in sections, but our driver was doing 120-130 km a lot ... read more

I was talking about, in our last blog, how we helped prepare 3 ½ tonnes of beans into 10kg sacks ready to be distributed; well maize and rice had also been sacked up in 5kg bags (before we had arrive) and were already to be given to the widows and disabled in the community. On Monday 9th of January, hundreds of men and women came to the Iris base, collected a ticket and queued up ready to collect their free food for the next 2 weeks. We had 4 stations ready to receive 1 person at a time, to load them up with food to take home to their families. They laid down their multipurpose material flat on the floor and we would poor rice in and then put a bag of beans and a bag ... read more

1st – 2nd November 2010 Kampala – Nairobi - Pemba Leaving Kampala.......Well most of the goodbyes had been said and the promises made to return to Kampala one day. Our last night in Lions Motel was heralded by the firing up of the generator outside my room which was left on for most of the night which meant that when the alarm went off early in the morning I’d had very little sleep. Our bus left at 7.15am so after managing to get a takeaway coffee from Café Javas we boarded our Queens Coach and actually left ON TIME!!! After getting over the shock Kath and I settled in for our 12 hour drive to Nairobi. The trip itself was only memorable for the fact that nothing happened and the drive was relatively smooth except for ... read more

So I know it had been a while since I last wrote, and maybe the one or two of you who read this are a little curious to know what the hell has been happening to me over the last month. I will get to that, but first, I want to tell you all a story of courage, bravery, and a person succeeding despite bumbs in the road, and against all odds. So, if you have skipped ahead to look at my pictures in true 1st grader fashion, you will already know that I shaved my hair into a mohawk style for our swearing in ceremony on December 7. I did it and a bunch of other guys did it as well. Make comments if you wish about it being a bit immature and something maybe ... read more