A Mudança VII

We're getting close to wrapping up the kid's essays on the mudanças (changes) they want to see happen. In this, the penultimate post, we hear from another 8th grader, Manuel. Manuel is one of the brightest kids we have here and, aside from having one of the best articulated essays I read, also mentioned a personal change that he wants to make. And just for mentioning that personal change he winds up in the winners circle.

      The change I want to see is a change in the attitude of the government of Mozambique. I say this because I see that they aren't running this country well and how they ought to and I see that they are very corrupt and steal money that would be able to help this country develop and stop ruining itself. I would like to see a change of the president of Mozambique. Why do I say this? Because he also is corrupt and doesn't want to see our country develop. If he truly wanted to see our country develop he would have been doing everything in his power to strengthen this country instead of destroy it from within. What's more is that he is always saying we have to fight against poverty, knowing that he himself never fought to reduce poverty among Mozambicans and in fact contributes to it.

     I would also like to see a change in the attitude of the teachers in Mozambique. Specifically, the teachers that seem to only want to hurt students without reason. I say this because there are teachers that harm students without reason and lower their grades, treat them unfairly, and never listen or acknowledge the smallest complaint against them. They only wish to be given money in exchange for preferred treatment, restoring or getting better grades, or for selfish ambition. It is these actions that I would like to see change.

      I would like to see a change from parents that force their kids to marry young. I say this because there are many parents that force their kids to marry only because they themselves don't have any way to provide for themselves. I see this as very confusing because the parents left school in order to marry young because it was the will of their parents, and now they are facing the same difficulties and will be condemning their children to the same conditions in the future.

      Lastly, there is my life. Why would I like to see my life change? Because it is for the better and sometimes I am weak and will think bad thoughts or other times lose patience when I am provoked to anger. I would like to see myself changed to be a person that leads well and knows how to act upright in the midst of other people.

 

A Mudança VI

Now we get to the winner's circle of our portion. I told the kids there would be a prize for the best essays. However, I did not tell them what constituted having the best essay. Heck, I didn't even tell them what kind of change to write about. My criteria was that anyone who wrote something personal that truly meant it would win the prize. I wanted to read about a change they can make. Sure, theoretically they have the power to change the country or a system of corruption or kick out all the chinese, but they have even more power over their own actions and behaviors.

What I secretly wanted was to see the kids write about a change they have the power to make and I wanted them to mean it. I also watched the kids over a week before announcing the winners to see if they indeed meant what they said or just wanted to write something profound in hopes of gaining favor with me. Our first winner is Mauricio. He's not especially a profound writer, but he's an honest one. Not the sharpest tool in the shed either, but far from the dullest, very middle of the road. He also failed 8th grade this year in school. Keep that in mind reading what he has to say.

     I would like to see the teachers of Mozambique not continue to receive money from students in exchange for passing classes. Many students pass when they don't understand anything and others than understand are failing because they can't pay money. I would also like to see in school only studying one subject per day. Each day now we have five subjects and students complain that it is hard to concentrate and learn.

     I would like the president of Mozambique to not allow the entrance of so many foreigners because they use up all our resources and exploit our trees and forests. The chinese are exploiting the wood in Mozambique and it is destroying our country.

      I want for myself and others to obey and stop climbing up in the mango trees to eat mangos. We are hurting and taking from those that aren't able to climb trees and this isn't good for us or them. With this I would like to stop fighting because nobody is helped by fighting. Furthermore God does not like it, and people don't like it. I can stop fighting and if my brother [or sister in Christ] is provoking me I need to forgive them. In the orphanage, more people would be happy and get along and God would bless us in this. The changes I want to see are these.

A Mudança V

We're continuing our look at the kid's essays. The topic what what is the mudança(change) you want to see. This time we get to hear a different side of issues. For this group of kids, they're worried about a little bit of everything--- crime, public health, teen marriage, embezzlement of state funds, about what fancy-pants refer to as new economic colonialism. These kids refer to it mainly as China stealing our trees and selling us their crap.

     I want for the police to start controlling things well because of what is happening. They are paid by thieves with money after crimes so they don't go to jail. Also the traffic police. They see something wrong and later ask for money before they will let you pass. Also I want to see the numbers of thieves reduced because it is very normal for you to buy something and the next moment are robbed of it. So I want the government to find someway that the people can stop committing these errors.

      I also want to see the government construct streets, schools, hospitals, houses, bridges and to clean up the trash that fills the streets. I want for all Mozambicans to study so that our country can develop. Also, we can't be in relationships when we are young because many children get pregnant and marry and their lives becomes only farming and children. So first we need to finish school and studying and then we can marry. Also, many families force children to marry or to work instead of going to school. We need to force them to go to school and not marry or work.

-A very chivalrous sixth grade boy

      I would like to se my country change the style of corruption. Corruption has been happening all the time, and not only in Mozambique but in the whole world. As for Mozambicans and their government, corruption easily happens in the form of robbing state funds. This, I see, faults the payment of salaries of government works and contributes to the poverty of our country. I feel that the government doesn't know how to lead because they rob money and think they are the recipients and not the people of my country.

      In the case of the police there is lots of corruption because the police sometimes don't get their salary on time and get angry and plot with thieves to rob people in the city and suburbs and afterwards share the money. For this, the people themselves are corrupt too and need to change to develop as a country.

      Outside of robbing money there is the problem of robbing trees in our country. We have lots of trees and wood, but as for where it has gone, nobody knows. For example, in the province of Nampula we have schools without desks and chairs and classrooms. All of these need wood. The ministry of education also contributes to this problem.

-An eight grader

      In the first place I would like if we can change the president that is ruling my country. For me, he is not doing good as the ruler of the people. Because of this I see whichever foreigner arriving in my country. For example, the Chinese come here to Mozambique and rob our trees, sell bad computers, and make other crimes. For this reason I say that I want to change these, because every day it hurts my heart to watch them steal trees.

-This writer is in fifth grade and really likes trees

Merry Christmas 2011

"The sacrifice is great for a heart which tenderly loves his parents, family, religious brothers, and the land where he was  born. But the voice which invites us, which has called us to make the offering of everything we have, is the voice of God Himself. It is our Divine Savior who says to us as to his first apostles, 'Go, teach all nations,instructing them to observe all my commandments.' "

     - Father Damien of Molokai (1840-1889)

All The News That's Fit To Blog

Time for a break from the kids' letters for a look at current events. I post these from time to time, and they usually tend to raise a few eyebrows. Please be assured that I am not cherry-picking stories to make a point. There are so few news sources, and I'm taking all I can get.

The ones aren't here are all the news stories full of political rhetoric and telling people to just hold on a little longer because it will get better. Some people think that I pick the news to make it look like everybody involved has the intellect of Barney Fife, but these are about the only stories that are about anything at all.

Witchcraft Killings in Sofala Province – 16 women were killed having been accused of witchcraft. Often times when literally anything happens people will accuse one (or all) of their grandparents of cursing them. This could be their wife leaving them, a child dying, a car accident, or crop disease. You laugh, but people here really do witchcraft for bad things to happen, and then those bad things happen. This story reminds me of another one I posted earlier where the village chief was lamenting that there had been 12 lynchings last year in his village. He only authorized 7 of them and wanted to know who was responsible for the other 5.

The Republic of South Africa has announced it will be looking into the death of Mozambican President Samora Machel and is prepared to fully cooperate with Mozambican officials. President Machel died when his plane crashed in South Africa near the border with Mozambique. In 1986. Yes, he crashed in 1986. Thank you for your quick and timely response, South Africa.

A Mudança IV

Apparently several of our workers overheard the essay prompt and decided they wanted to get in with it.They too wrote about the change they wanted to see, but went in completely different directions.

The first letter is from Carlos, one of our construction workers. He wrote on what he sees happening at the orphanage. It was by far the most entertaining letter of all of them I received.

      From my point of view, I would like if we could change our attitudes because it they are strange. I say they are strange because when our leaders ask something, sometimes the children get angry for no reason. For example: the tell us to go to devotional and for some of us it is very likely that we won't participate. This demonstrates that we don't love the people that our leading and guiding us with respect to our God.

      Another thing is that children* should have the right to travel to other countries to be able to know and visit other people and places in the rest of the world. Also to see how things are there in comparison with here. Another thing is that here in the orphanage we don't have somebody in charge of physical education. There exist several boys and girls don't want to work or carry water and tell others to do it for them because they are lazy.

      Other ideas is that there is no swimming pool here. Not only for swimming but for activities and games. Mainly, on days that there is a party, this would play a big part in the festivities.

     I would also like that we would be able to change from eating porridge for breakfast to eating cake [muffins]. The porridge makes me sleepy and lazy. But when breakfast is cake I have much more energy during the day for work. If we would be able to eat cake it would bring us more energy and the will to work hard.

      It is these things that I have to contribute to the changes in our center. Thanks.

*[Carlos is in his early twenties and sees himself more as a kid here than as a worker. He was mad that he was left out of the church trip to the conference in Zimbabwe. He failed to understand that the conference was for leaders in our church an not construction workers at the orphanage.]

A Mudança III

This edition's letter  comes from a boy in eleventh grade. He had some particularly insightful observations about how things work and what needs changing and how to do it. If he had stopped after the first sentence and written nothing more I would have been please with his essay all the same.

This young man hits on a variety of topics, and even manages to squeeze in his Christmas list, so bonus points for sneakiness. This is the change that he wants to see:

      As for my country, the change depends on us ourselves. The government of Mozambique, on the subject of education, has to decide, when a student finishes school and job training, that the student has a right to work. Some of them bribe for spots and steal it over those who have education and training. Having finished with studies, the government is responsible for each of them to fill a vacancy. As it is now, the government thinks that they are capable of making a living, not realizing that there are no opportunity that exist. Therefore, I would like to see all of this change, starting with the corruption.

      It is very normal for a student today to be intelligent and smart, have good grades, but the teacher wants that student's money and will decrease his grade if he doesn't get it. At the same time, students that don't know anything are passing because they have given the teacher a bribe. I would like to see this end.

      As for here at Evanjafrica, there are a few things I would like to see change. I would like to find a place (perhaps a library) that would have different types of books and resources and put up a schedule for us to have access to more information. This will also help with the ability to read. Here we could also have a place for several computers to help us with our studies.

      I would like [for us to have a TV and have] a staff member in charge of controlling a TV for us. Turning it on when there is news or telejournals, and soccer, because this would help us also to know what is happening in our country and in other countries. At the end of the program, the staff member responsible for the TV would turn it off and put it away.

      We also have people with problems of being lazy and arriving late. They are also slow to arrive when they are called to a certain place. For example, if you are called for dinner and the person is late in arriving it is because they don't value eating and they need to have a punishment. It is not because they don't like eating though, it is because they don't like obey. This is one thing that must change.

On the next installment, we'll hear from some of our construction workers who also did essays. Unfortunately, their ideas involve building a swimming pool.

A Mudança II

Today is the second post in our series of “The change I want to see”. As the kids turned in their essay, I was surprised at how not surprising their choice of topic was. About half of them chose to write about topics concerning school and the leadership of the country. A common complaint among people, especially here in the north.

Today we have two essays that come from two brothers. Not surprisingly, they are both very opinionated. One caveat is that I have trimmed down the letter and taken out quite a bit of content because if you voice your discontent with certain members of the government you are liable for libel. And it gets prosecuted quite a bit. Or rather not prosecuted, but maybe beaten during the middle of the night or assassinated quite a bit. Anyways, here's what they had to say:

Brother one; just completed grade 9.

      I want to see a change in the corruption. I would like to see a change in teachers primarily. In my country, teachers want you to offer them money to pass a class. Even if you may be intelligent you have to offer money to the teachers to pass. In the case of girls who aren't intelligent, if you want to pass all she has to do is have sex with the teacher, but it a boy is not smart and doesn't have money he will immediately fail the class.

      Also I would like to change the principal of my high school because when the government sends money to pay the utilities like water and electricity he takes the money for himself instead of paying these things and immediately goes out drinking and it harms the students. They go weeks without water to drink and those that study at night go weeks without lessons because of the electricity.

      Ultimately I would like if the doctors and nurses could change. In my country when a patient appears at the hospital for an emergency they don't attend them immediately because they are not present or they wait for the patient to die so they can rob them before sending them to the morgue.

Brother two; just completed grade 11. Also very opinionated.

      About the change that I want to see: I want to see a change in corruption, bribes, lies, racism and greed here in Africa but foremost in the country of Mozambique.

I, being Mozambican, get very sad with this way of corruption in my country because it is corruption that is inviting criminals and thieves from the midst of our people. But all of this is because of the government that doesn't know how to run or lead its own people. They invite corruption by robbing the money of the people and later those same people start to imitate this manner because they see it happening with their leaders. They will rob cell phones, power lines, anything.

      Also I would like if we could end this way of the bribe. because with bribes the people are becoming stupid, illiterate, and poorly educated because they have become accustomed to a life of giving money to teachers in order to pass a class without knowing anything. Later, it is a great harm to the people to grow up knowing nothing. This life is full of prejudice and for this it must change.

      Another cause is racism and greed. In our country there is great value in being the son or daughter of somebody important. For example, presidents, ministers, governors, wealthy foreigners, etc. This choice of preference is something very ugly and sad because all of us are equal without discrimination of color or race or religion and we all have the same rights. The greed is a thing that is very ugly and destroys the life of of people across the world.

Our country is changing, but it is going backwards. I think it will take the work of all Mozambicans to change our country for the better. It is this that I have to say about the change I want to see.

A mudança

We're officially at the end of the year here in Nampula. No, the time zones are not such that here it is Dec 31st, but things have all winded down. School is all over and exams have all finished and now we wait til Jan/Feb to start that all over again. Its also time that we get some rest and relaxation here on the staff. Victor made a good point to most of the kids the other day that, of the guy we have working in the office with finances and the construction workers and cooks, there's really only Me, Marta, and Victor that work with the kids, and it's pretty dang tiring. 40+ of them versus 3 of us. Heck, my parents only raised us three boys, and while we turned out fine and are making them very proud, they'll admit at times that we made their lives a torment. And that was 3-vs-2. Our kids are mostly great also, but man, those numbers...

As a result, we're scaling back and taking things slow now until Christmas. As a result, I've decided to scale back writing. But have no fear. Instead of having nothing, I'm giving you a chance to hear from the kids.

A little over two weeks ago, I gave them assignment. We do extracurricular work quite often here, so it was not a surprise to them. The assignment was to write an essay of which the them was, “A mudança que quero ver é ____” (The change that I want to see is ________). I gave no further detail or explanation, only the length and the due date. I left it purposefully open because I wanted to see was was weighing most on minds.

For the first group of kids we'll hear from today either feel really guilty or now exactly what to say for every situation. The week I assigned the essays, we had a little incident involving mawowo. I'm guessing there are two of you reading this that know what mawowo is, so I'll tell you. Its basically the word for the burnt, crusty part of whatever it is you were cooking. Most often here we cook rice, and cooking twenty pounds of rice at a time is bound to burn some on the bottom of the pan. And for some reason the kids love eating this burnt rice stuff that literally tastes like you left hard tack in the toaster for twenty minutes.

Well, the incident involved a group of about four kids fighting in the kitchen over who would get the biggest share of mawowo. There was punishment doled out for fighting, and the kids had this to say in their letter about what they want to see change.

“I want to see my behavior change. I also want to see the behavior of Isac Pequeno and Muaparato [the other boys fighting] change. I want them to learn how to read and write. When people tell us to not steal mawowo we need to obey and we need to change.”

-Belson; Grade 4.

“The change I would like to see is stop eating mawowo because it hurts my health. I would like to see us forgive because it doesn't help to not forgive. I want to stop playing bad because it doesn't help to play bad. I would like to start to forgive people because the Bible says to forgive because if I forgive I will increase in wisdom and in knowledge of God's word.”

-Riquito; Grade 2.

“A change of how we carry ourselves in the orphanage. I would like to see the patio [of the boy's dormitory] clean every day and for us to not throw mango peels there because this is dirty and will make us sick. I want to stop the fighting between us because it will bring us a hard life if we fight. I like that I they stopped me from eating mawowo because it was harming my stomach and my health and I wasn't growing up good.”

-Muaparato; Grade 4.

Our Heathen Church

Our church has some problems, but I bet so does yours. After you move past reasons like “organ vs. drums,” or ”too many/too few potlucks,” or “serving communion on Youth Sunday with coca-cola and doritos” problems with churches will boil down to two points. 1) People are sinners and, 2) your church is full of sinners. If you were not aware of those two points it is time to stop going to your church. It has failed you badly.

“Pastor's teeth are too shiny” is not a valid reason to not like your church. Though “Pastor is too creepy,” however, is entirely valid.

And let me tell you, no place is full of more sinners than our church, good old Evangelical Church Peace of Christ Nampula. (Warning: time to fasten your sarcasm seatbelt). Several weeks ago about 8 different churches from our denomination (the Evangalical Peace and so on church) got together to mark the end of a pastors conference, in which over thirty pastors from all over the province were gathered for service Sunday morning.

Things were going fine until at the end of service, the lead pastor got up for announcements. The first and only announcement was that this year, Christmas falls on a Sunday. In lieu of meeting in church that morning, he continued, all the churches would be shut for people to spend the day with their families.

Keeping Perspective

Transparency International recently released their Corruption Index report for 2011. If you are a nerd like me or interested in those things you can discover more here (http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011). While it's not quite as expansive as the Mo Ibrahim Foundation lists (nerds will know what that is) it focusses only on the perception of corruption.

Basically, in terms of corrpution, I think Mozambique is pretty dang bad. Mozambique ranks 120th worldwide for corruption out of 170 or so ranked countries. The bigger the number the more corrupt you are. One-hundred and twenty is a big number. That made me sad.

But that's a lot like comparing apples to oranges to put us on the same scale as Sweden or China. Mozamique ranks in 28th place out of 50 for African Countries. That's right in them middle. That made me happy. But fifty is still kind of a big number.

Comparing just Southern African countries---more like apples to apples--- Mozambique ranks 12th out of 15, ahead of only Ziimbabwe, Angola, and the country formerly known as Leopoldville (Democratic Republic of Congo). This is a low ranking. That made me sad.

Than I looked at the rankings and saw the Mozambique was tied with Iran and only one step above Syria and three about Pakistan. This made me sadder. Then I quit reading the report. But I think I got most the essentials.

Prayer Requests Dec 5th

Hey everybody. Hope you're enjoying the start to December. A nice short post today for those who like short posts, but also super important one for those who like super important posts. This one is about Little Victor.

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Seen here looking about three years younger than he is today (in a three year-old picture).

I have mentioned little Victor before. He's a kid at the orphanage (thus little Victor and not big Victor, da boss). He's not so little anymore. He's fifteen and almost taller than I am. He came to us after being our neighbor and participating in devotionals and going to church and when his family moved away they asked if he could stay. He was about 11 at the time. Unfortunately, there was one thing that was going to be a major obstacle for Victor's future: school.

Victor had never been allowed to go to school. Because of timing of when he came here had to wait for the next school year to roll around (can't enroll in the middle of the year) and start first grade (can't skip grades easily). Surprisingly, he was not the oldest first grader at school, but as he and I have talked he has said it was and is struggle for him, mainly because of  the shame involved.

Well, Victor has worked his tail off, is reading great (for learning a year ago) and about halfway through the year we decided that he would take the national exams for seventh grade at the end of the year. This would allow him to enter eighth grade next year if he passed. He would still be pretty unprepared for eight grade, but we've done this a time or two before with kids and they usually pass eight grade on the second try (which is better than being stuck in third grade as a 16 year-old).


Victor and I have been studying intensely for the exam, and he's been working with a leader from our church who is a teacher to prepare for the grade seven exams. He will be taking the exams in a testing center with lots of other older folks/ adults that are trying to pass school. Fortunately, maybe, we've heard a rumor that the department of education is just going to pass any adult (including Victor) that can read because the country is lagging in improving adult literacy numbers, and this is a benchmark they need to meet, so they're going to pad their numbers.


The short story is that, even though we've been studying for 4 months, Victor is woefully unprepared. He's highly capable, but covering 5 more years of info in four months is really hard. And the exams start today and go till Thursday.

You can say that it is a horrible injustice that he wasn't allowed to go to school. In my opinion, don't pray for justice, because what is just is for Victor to fail the test because he is woefully unprepared. PRAY FOR GRACE on behalf of Victor, the test proctors, the people grading the test, and this crazy rumor that everybody will pass. Our God is big and merciful and can make this happen. Thanks for your prayers.

The High Cost of Livin'

Sorry about gaps in content. I'm busy, okay!? But really, I've been managing construction on the girls dorm the last two weeks and man is that thing finally going up fast! I've had a little bit of time to write but most of it has been drafting a ridiculously long post essay article tome about the socio-psychological underpinnings of culture in Mozambique. I'm so busy in fact that I'm outsourcing the writing to the kids. Look for their content to be popping up next week or so. But for now, on the meat of the post. Or should I say the bread, or the peanut butter (huh?).

I live in Mozambique. That's in Africa. The city I live in is called Nampula. It is hot, inland, and is seen by the rest of the country as a illiterate, backwoood, redneck truck stop for goods moving overland to Malawi that is home to about a half-million people. Life isn't great in Malawi either, but the fact that many goods are destined for there and not here tells you something. My city is poor. It has no port. The biggest “industry” we have is the coca-cola bottling plant. Cashews are a cash-crop that get sold and processed overseas. Fruit grows everywhere here and the growing seasons vary that if you just wait two months something else will come around.

On average, people here live on about $1.50 a day. That statistic is highly localalized to our city, but also about three years old. I'll be optimistic and say that nowadays people live on $2.00 a day. But, I'll also say that the amount of money that a wealthy person makes (shop-owner, car-driver, businessman, Indian) is highly disproportionate to what an “average” person makes. So much so that about 75% of the people here live on less than a dollar a day.

Most people hear that and have a set of reactions which are all very valid and very true---Wow, that sucks; Things must be really cheap then for $1 a day; People must have absolutely nothing for $1 a day; If people farm you just barter and don't use money; I'm reading this on a smartphone with a $100/month contract.

Some things are really cheap. Things made in Mozambique are really cheap. Things made in China are almost as cheap but always break after two days because, after China makes foolproof products for the U.S., Chinese engineers try to reverse engineer the factory and sell knock-off products to third-world markets at a fractions of the price. But I'm not here to bash China, even though it would be really easy and fun.

Things made in Mozambique are food. Actually, food is grown, not made, but you know what I mean. I wish I had some size comparison, but just remember when you buy stuff in the grocery back in the states, things that are 16 oz size is the same as a pound. Here a rundown of what grown is Nampula (or other parts of Mozambique) and a quick little comparison to a price you might pay. Granted, these are not a blue light special, bulk, everything-must-go-now sale prices. Just average ones.

Peanuts – 90¢ per pound. Unroasted. Cost in America: $3.99 (roasted)

Coca-cola  - $3.99 for a 12-pack. Cost in America: $6.99

Eggs – Here they are $2.75 for a dozen very tiny eggs. Price in America: $1.59 for large eggs.

Oranges – 4¢ each. There is no price comparison here because it would just make you cry.

Mangos – 4¢ each. There are so many of these that you can't give them away in season. Also, no comparison.

Bananas – Again, 4¢ each banana. Also, 4¢ is the minimum denomination we have here for money. If we had a coin that was 2¢, oranges and mangos and bananas would be 2¢.

Tangerines – 8¢ each. That would make then two coins apeice, not just one. A little rarer.

Vegetable Oil – Bottle of vegetable oil: $1.40. Price in America: $4.29.

Peanut Butter – I have a friend that makes his own at $9 for a 16oz jar. Imported it is $10. Price in America: $3.49.

Cashews – If you have a tree, they're free. Otherwise they're about about $1.70 a jar. Super cheap American price: $7.

Sugar (unrefined/brown) – 60¢ per pound. Price in America: $0.99

Sugar (refined/white) – 80¢ per pound. Price in America: $1.69.

Ground Beef: Okay, there are a few cows here, but they don't do milk. Cheapest stuff you can get from the butcher is $4.50 per pound. In America: $3.59.

Goat: Maybe about $50 for one that will feed close to 50 kids. And yes, everything is included. No kidding (pun intended).

Chicken: For a big chicken, its about $2 per pound. Oh, and that includes bones, heart, neck, liver. No such thing as buying boneless chicken breast here. Our chickens have bones. For a nice, boneless chicken breast in the states, no legs, thighs wings, just meat, is $2.39 a pound


But for stuff that doesn't come from here, it is a little bit of a different story. Fortunately, because if people were faced with paying the real price nobody would be able to afford it, the government subsidizes off the top certain staples items. That means they help with the cost so the buyer can afford it. Subsidized items appear in italic. Most all of these imported items come from South Africa.

Milk (powdered): $4.90 per gallon. Yes, powdered milk.

Milk (real): $9-13.50 depending on how good you want your milk to be. All milk is long-life and imported. There are no cows here. Price in America: $3.39.

Butter: $5.80 per pound. Again, cows. Price in America: $3.69.

Diesel: $5.90 per gallon. Really subsidized. At levels bankrupting the country. In Seattle, USA: $4.09.

Gasoline: $7.50 per gallon. Also really subsidized, but not as highly used as diesel is. Price in Seattle, USA: $3.59.

Loaf of bread: 50¢. Also subsidized at levels bankrupting the country. Bread should costs 4x what we actually pay for it.

Flour: If you are a baker you can buy the super subsidized flour for your bread and sell loaves for 50¢. If you are just buying not-so-extremely-yet-still-subsidized flour for yourself it is $4.00 for a five-pound sack. In America: $4.19.

These are just the edibles. I don't have time to go into things like toothpaste, batteries, lightbulbs. Although I will say that a 110lb bag of portland cement is $12. Very comparable to American prices. It is imported, from Pakistan, at super cheap prices because the legitimate cement import is a front an expansive drug running operating that uses Mozambican ports as a midpoint for moving the drugs on to Europe and Asia.