So, this I am writing without knowing when I will post it. We've been in Chimoio for almost a week already, staying at a place with the inspiring name Pink Papaya. Chimoio could not be more different from Maputo. It is a typical small town in the middle of nowhere.There is a main street with the governor's house, some restaurants, people selling clothes they lay on the sidewalk, Vodacom commercials on all the walls (the national cellphone operator). Walking down the street you pass by maybe five or six banks. Why, we wonder, until we ask someone who tells us that it is because most of the time only one of them works. The Standard Bank is our saviour.
Another difference from Maputo is that people are out in the streets night time. We figured out it is because here people live in the centre and not only work there. And they play pool. At least the men. The women are at home. Taking care of the kids of course. What else to do when you get your first child at 17? I am not trying to be sarcastic here it is just that I am, as so many times before, amazed with how different our worlds can be. The more we learn about how people liver here the more unrealistic it gets that we could contribute by saying how things should be done here. We don't know anything.So we try to put up our humble side and take in what we hear to at least do as good as possible.
If you then walk ten minutes outside the town centre you are out on the countryside. Dirt roads, fruit vendors. Kids playing with tires, rolling them in front of them. All of a sudden comes a man in a suit on a motorbike rushing by. If I haven't said it before Mozambican people are stunningly well dressed. Suits, dresses, hairdos, shiny shoes, they have it all.
Here in Chimoio we've already run into some interesting people. Staying at a Backpacker's place we met our first real backpacker for this trip. Talking to this man, an Irish guy, made lots of memories come back to me from my previous travels. And, I realised I prefer this way of travelling. Having a goal with the trip makes it more fun, and just the fact being here as a student, opens up much more opportunities to meet interesting people and talk about things that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. It takes much more effort to talk about more than "Where have you been?" and "Where are you going next?" as a backpacker. You could, of course, but it's just not as common I guess. Could also be that I just like to think of myself as a bit important, haha.
We've also met a German-Portuguese girl who we hired as our very untrained interpreter and had our first interviews in Portuguese. It is a funny feeling talking when you have someone in between but it went better than expected.
During our interviews we always ask the respondents if they think that the conditions of the roads are influencing the potential of using small-scale hydro power. The aim of this kind of electrification is to reach the remote areas where the national grid haven't reached so you can't really expect an autobahn to the site where the power station should be. Quite the opposite actually. We have heard stories of people having to carry the equipment for tens of kilometres, people giving up and the respondents' heroic stories how they have continued walking even though it has been tough. They told us they bring an umbrella if it is raining. Clever people. And even though everyone we spoke to agree that it is a problem, they do not see it as a problem that can't be overcome. They take their umbrella and walk. And then, if it is a good site, well, then they build a road. I had one more intention telling you about these stories than that they are funny stories. And that is that we are actually going out in the field ourselves tomorrow. We are joining a company to a site where there is no power station yet to do measurements of head and flow. We have no idea how remote it will be, but I will be a bit disappointed if I can't share a heroic story of my own when I get back. If I can't I promise I will make one up. At least add some crocodiles to the real setup.
Oh, and we heard the president is coming here on Thursday. So then we expect everything to stop. We heard he is coming to uncover a statue in a park. The everyday job of a president, no?
No comments:
Post a Comment