Spare Change

Getting your money from into a form that is actually usable is often a challenge here, as I talked about last time. From the bank to the bairro, it is adventure to get a denomination that you can actually use. The exchange rate with the US dollar is about 30-to-1 (with the Euro I think it is around 40-to-1). So when you get your 500mt note from the ATM, you're not even getting $20.

But because of the scale that people charge for things here, your money goes further than you think. Want a mango, that'll be 1mt. An avocado, 5mt. Hot, fresh roasted corn-on-the-cob, 10mt.

On the other end, things that aren't food are often priced and packaged for you to buy only exactly what you need with as little money as possible. Need laundry detergent, for example? You will never have enough money sitting around to buy the family-super-saver jumbo size of laundry detergent that will last for six months. If you do, you'll be left with no money for food. You will buy an individual packet of laundry soap for 3mt that will wash maybe four or five day's worth of clothes (for a guy). Or you will buy a bar of laundry soap for 10mt and that will get your family through a week.

While twenty is the smallest bank note here, the coins in Mozambique are in the ten, five, two, one, and fifty-cent denominations. Fifty-cents because there are actually a lot of things that will cost 1.5 or 2.5 or 7.5. Past ten everything for sale is in whole numbers, and often really round, nice numbers. Nothing is going to cost 17. Or even 199. Just 200. There are no price wars here.

The fight for most people is to get their money from large bills down to these small coins. But thanks to a new law, once you get your money into coins, not all of it is usable.

When Mozambique devalued its currency nine years ago, things were a thousand times more expensive. After years of hyperinflation people were paying 500mt for a loaf of bread. The government decided to overhaul it's practices, stop printing money, and lop off a whole bunch of zeroes. That same bread that was 5000mt became five. With the changes came all new currency, notes, coins, and all. The coins they were minting at 500mt became 50 cents. 1000Mt became 1mt, and so on.

The notes were taken out of circulation but people were allowed to keep using the old coins, which were the same size and color and design as the new coins. The only difference was they were written 5mt instead of five-thousand and were about half as heavy because they were made from aluminum.

Most vendors in the market have piles of these coins after doing a full day of business selling rolls (2mt) or donuts and cookies(1mt). They were mixed in with the newer minted coins and everybody knows that even though the coin said 1000 that it really means 1.

Things were fine until last week when the government announced that after 9 years it was tired seeing the old coins in circulation and decreed that they were no longer valid legal tender. The next day people were bemoaning the fact that their piles of change would no longer be recognized as currency—bemoaning that is until they got wise and realized that they can use whatever they want to as currency.

The kids know that I hoard the old currency. I used them as souvenirs to give to people when I was back in the states. The only reason is I think foreign currencies are cool and it was funny handing people a coin marked as five thousand and telling its worth about 18 cents. They kids were laughing at me because my accumulated wealth of maybe 30mts (=$1) was now useless.

This prompted a mini lecture on the history of money, saying that anything you ascribe value to can be used as payment, be it coins, salt, shiny pots and smallpox blankets, gold, tulips, oil, land, or whatever.

The next day I set out to prove them wrong and headed to the market to buy donut holes. (Donut holes is really the best equivalent description I can think of. They're small, fried, and coated in sugar glaze and that's just about what they are. And they're on sale EVERYWHERE.)

As usual, there are a line of about five ladies with donut holes all in a row and all competing for your money. I started at one end and went to buy a single donut hole with the old money. The lady looked at it and then pronounced "This money is old," which meant I couldn't use it. I just kind of held the money in my hand as the gal next to her said, "I'll take it then," grabbed my money and gave me a donut.

It seems as if the old money was still working just as good. I went the third lady in the line, handed her the old money and asked for a donut. She also said that it wasn't valid. But that didn't stop the fourth lady from saying that the money is just as good to her. She took it and gave me a donut.

I returned to the orphanage with donuts in hand and the kids all applauded me.

Hope for Change

One of the hardest things to do in Mozambique is to get exact change. This is a problem that is exacerbated by an economy that ranges from legitimate points-of-sale, being stores or restaurants, and secondary markets and service oriented markets, being the kids selling ice cold coke out of a cooler on the street corner or a gratuity for the man with no hands that is watching your parked car making sure nobody steals the side-view mirrors.

For an example, try to go to the bank at ask for a hundred dollar bill. Don't write on a note to give to the teller that you need a hundred dollars and to not ask any questions, just withdraw it from your account like a normal person. Then go to work, or school, or the gym, or wherever it you you have acquaintances that is not a store. Start asking them for change to break your hundred. Chances are none of your friends carry cash any more, or that they don't have that much.

If asking your friends didn't work, try going to a convenience store. Your local 7-11 should do fine. Go ahead and buy a half-gallon of milk or something mildly healthy. Try to pay with your $100 bill. Just go right on and ignore the sign on the door that says they don't accept $50 bills. Yes, a hundred-dollar bill is NOT a fifty dollar bill, and while the employee there may appreciate your astounding level of logic, I have a feeling they won't and you'll be turned away.

Still no luck and that Benjamin is burning a whole in your pocket, huh? Try going to a car wash fundraiser. You know, the kind where the local high school debate team or the drama club or the mathletes are doing a car wash to raise awareness for...numbers? I don't know, I've been out of high school too long. The math club was the one with all the good looking girls, right?

Anyways, when you hand them a hundred-dollar bill to pay for a substandard car wash they'll start jumping up and down positively ecstatic because one-hundred is a lot of numbers, a fact of which you were already well aware. They won't hear you say that you only wanted to give ten over their shouts of joy as your cries for change are drowned out.

That's not a little bit of what it's like in Mozambique. That's exactly what it's like, except it's not cute math coeds washing your car but scruffy looking men using muddy rags. The point is that sometimes it's just impossible to get change.

The difficulty in obtaining change starts in the way people are paid. Anybody that works for the state (a huge portion) has automatic deposits set up for their bank account. There is not a system of electronic point-of-sales (credit/debit card) in Mozambique so everything has to be paid in cash. And when people's monthly expenses run about 120% of their income they just take it out from the bank in one fell swoop.

So many people needing to withdraw money causes a phenomenon every first of the month as people will take a whole day off work and sit in a line with their bank card to take out money for the handful of three dozen or so ATMs scattered across a town of a half-million people. Yes, everybody needs to take the money out on the first available day because waiting a week till there is no line would be too easy (sarcasm) and because there is no food left in the house.

The problem is, taking money out of the ATM leaves people with bank notes valued at 500 metical. This is not a problem when you go to buy a sack of rice (500) or a pile of beans (250). It does become a problem when you get thirsty from all the shopping and want to buy a coke (15) and then need to take the bus home (5) and then go to buy bread rolls for breakfast in the morning (2). It is impossible to ask for bread and hand a 500 note to somebody who will not even do 200 worth of business in a single day.

Folks that don't get paid through the bank will often be even unluckier, in a manner of speaking. If they have a minimum wage job and make 2,250. Their employer will hand then two-1000 notes (the largest denomination) a 200 note and a 50 note. Good luck getting change for those 1000 metical notes.

There are some tricks. Some people are able to just directly ask for change. Maybe take your 500 note down to five-100 notes. Other people take their large notes to church and try to make change in the offering plate. It is then just as embarrassing when they walk back from the offering with money still in their hand if there wasn't enough change. Other times, you figure out which stores always have change or which types of vendors always have change and you just always try to.

Downtown, most people selling prepaid phone credit (50 each) will have change change for a 500. They won't be happy about it, but they won't refuse your business. The bus back (5 one way) will have change for a 200 because of the high volume of travelers but only at busy times during the day, otherwise they may turn you down if you have a 50. The local market vendor selling sugar (30 a kilo) might have change for 200 near the end of the day, but definitely not at the beginning, and it's more likely for a 100.

The kid selling your cokes (15 each) will have change for a 50 at most. And your bread man never has change for more than a 20. The problem is also if you only want a single bread roll (2 each) or glazed donut hole (1 each) that is sold on the street corner in our village. They mostly have change, but when they don't I tricked into buying 5 donuts. Actually, come to think of it, I get tricked a lot.

More thoughts on corruption

In 2004 I got a check in the mail for $13.86. This was pretty unusual for me, who up till this time had only ever received info mailers from colleges and the occasional birthday card. The check was not the oddest thing I've ever gotten in the mail. That would be a razor from the US Army which delivered on my 18th birthday. Attached to the razor was a note saying, “Congratulations, you're a man now,” and a mail-in form to register with the draft board. But I'm getting sidetracked. Apart from the razor, the check was the weirdest thing I had ever received in the mail.

The check was part of a class-action lawsuit I was party to. It was the only class-action case I have been a part of. The suit alleged that the music industry forced retailers to fix higher prices for CDs and penalized them for going under the recommended retail price. These were the days when you would be expected to drop $18 dollars for a CD, and our AOL dial-up connection at home was too slow for Napster to work, so you had to play by their rules. After 3.48 million people signed up for the lawsuit, we each took home a whopping 13 bucks. What did I do when I got the check? I cashed it and bought a CD.

Why did I buy a CD instead of pocketing the money or using it for gas or slurpees or baseball cards or something else? Well, because at the end of day I just really want a new CD and was tired of waiting by the radio and hitting the record button on my tape deck every time a song came on the radio. 

OK, I'm obviously dating myself a little here. Some people reading this never saw the days the days of sitting by the radio waiting to record your favorite song as it came on. Others rejoiced when tape recorders were made available because they could record their LPs onto cassette and put them in their Sony Walkman to take wherever they wanted. Others yet know only of a time dominated by filesharing and playing music on demand from youtube or other places.

The point is as much as I complained back in the day about high CD prices and having no other alternative to getting my music, the fact was that you just shut up and paid 18 dollars because you needed to have not only Speakerboxxx but also The Love Below—I've made countless other purchases but mentioning them would only embarrass me as they haven't stood the test of time. Sometimes, $18 for a CD is just the price you pay to play the game.

And with that, allow me to talk about corruption.

The example of my class-action CD may be a little stretched. There were no riots in the streets in the early part of the last decade over CD prices. Me and the millions of others that got our $13.86 did not put our feet down, draw a line in the sand, and refuse to partake in a rigged system of strong-arming and over-charging. We just kept paying our money and listening to music because there were no (legal) alternatives. I know that nowadays people talk about artists losing millions due to filesharing, but consider the fact there are also more albums being made my more artists year after year in the digital age of "unprofitability" in the music world.

But I'm getting sidetracked. Lets take this back to my post yesterday about corruption. Not to sound defeatist, but many, many, many times in cases of corruption you, the citizen, just have to put up or shut up. Mozambicans have shown the last decades an incredible tolerance for corruption. It is denounced when found and hated in every corner of the country, but rarely does anger reach critical mass needed for policy-changing action. Mozambique has shown a desire to march (read: riot) but those have been in the occasions of raising the prices of bread or bus fares, never because parliament gave themselves a raise, elections were rigged, children undeservedly failed school, neighborhoods were deprived of water and electricity, nepotism, favors, and so forth.

The situations I've personally encountered can't really be mentioned for the sake of privacy, but I usually face two extremes when dealing with people. The first will be that people I come into contact with are so accommodating and helpful because they recognize that I am in Nampula working at an orphanage helping those who otherwise have no voice. There is a great amount of respect for that and they don't complicate things for me or in some cases move me to the front of the line, figuratively speaking. On the other end of the spectrum they assume that, though I may work at an orphanage, my main purpose in Mozambique is to earn money (if they only knew...) and therefore they want a cut of it. Sometime it's something as innocent as a bottle of coke, other times its several hundred dollars.

Several of the kids that have left the orphanage and gone out have come back and asked for a loan because they are trying to get a job and need a bribe in order to get it. There have been other cases where after getting a job they has been pressured by bosses to commit or look the other way from illegal actions or risk being fired for speaking up. Or after getting hired, their direct superior will try to extort bribes from them in exchange for preferential treatment or commendations.

The challenge that I face on my own, and in advising and supporting the kids, is to have a consistent moral ethic and to never draw a line and say, "A coke is OK, or up to ten dollars is OK, or up to $50 because it is something really important." There are some people I know that feel that bribing is OK, all though they usually refer to it as something like "greasing the wheels" or "opening doors". I think if their conscience allows them that, then who am I to say no. But for me, I also have the responsibility of projecting a set of values to the kids here. A bribe opens a revolving door that cycles the expectation of favors or gifts. It may take longer to get your documents or licenses, continue through police checkpoints, get a desired job—often complicating matters is the fact that the choice is not between two different jobs, but having and not having a job—but is it worth it to suffer righteously? That is the question I ask of myself and ask the kids to ask of themselves.

Corruption

People complain about corruption, but some say it is just the way things are done. Need a job, take a slice out to pay the guy who hired you. Need to pass school, pay your teacher. No books for school, buy them out of teachers' homes on the black market. Need medical treatment at the hospital, be prepared to pay a doctor to get to the front of the line.

There are plenty of statistics that pertain to corruption and Mozambique, but most of them are really depressing and really just grasp the "how much" without really addressing the "how". Furthermore, those measures of corruption usually only look at the prices payed by foreign companies or NGO's to get permits, licenses, taxes, importations, and everything else.

The National Anti-Corruption Task Force announced that corruption was down on the whole last year. In particular they highlighted the education system as showing a great drop in illegal or improper practices. The general response by the public was that if corruption dropped, it means they just weren't looking hard enough.

One caveat in understand corruption is that the generation in power now came of age on the tail end of communism in Mozambique when bribing was the only way to get anything accomplished. However, as I have seen others that have not experienced that lifestyle come to positions of influence and power, it is remarkable just how unprincipled people are when the shoe is on the other foot. I've talked with teachers that bemoan how hard it is to get a job at a certain school close to their home because all the openings are auctioned off by the administrators and they cry about how corrupt the system is. Then, they turn around and are selling passing grades or offer to give "special help" to kids in need, a phrase which now makes me cringe every time I hear it

Even for that person that may have been until now uncorrupted, when somebody comes with cash in hand it is a very difficult thing to turn town. Especially knowing that, as a cop for example, all you need is about eight or ten very simple modest traffic stops for running a red light, outdated licenses, or improper vehicle maintenance, and you've just matched your monthly salary. 

For the person that is oppressed, it's very easy to cry foul and lament how it is impossible to get a drivers license, pass a class, get a maintenance worker to fix the electricity in your neighborhood, get the government to approve a document, travel freely, or a myriad of other things. Once that person is put in a position of power—whether it be over a classroom, a patient, or an entire populace—the mantra changes from a how awful oppression is to how they have earned the right after having suffered.

Not to pontificate* but one of the observations I've had is the realization that, in many ways, the default position of the human heart is selfishness. In this way, all those who cry about fairness and preach the Golden Rule concern themselves about it most often when they are the offended party. When they (or I) are in the position of control, it is amazing how the attitude changes from, "This is totally unfair and unjust," to being one of, "I had to go through the same thing, it's time for you to pass through this as well."

*I realize that "pontificate" really means to act like the Pope, but let's just use it in the figurative sense. I will not be conferring sainthood upon anybody and I will not be beautifying anybody other than myself. 

Even among Jesus' disciples, there were issues. I'm not certain what kind of background he had, but as soon as Judas was put in charge of the money he started stealing from it. Now, clearly, Judas had some other problems as well, but it just illustrates that many people I see, when given a position of power, use it to solely to remind others they it is they who are in power and you who are inferior to them.

One of the hardest things for a person to do, whether they be a Christian or not, it to shift their attention from him or herself and focus it on Th Other. Biologists would say this goes against self-preservation instincts. Anthropologists would say it destroys the tribal/societal fabric. Psychologists would say it suppresses the ego. Christians would say it is sin, knowing the good to do and yet failing to do it. It is that mindset that is the basis of Good Samaritan laws. They are not "karmic principles". They are not "societal well-being guidelines". It is the principle that you treat others the way you would want to be treated by them, not according to how you have been treated or how others are treating you.

You would think there would be overwhelming empathy and support for kids who live in an orphanage, yet tragically there is not. There are those that actively oppress the orphanage and the kids here because they grew up in difficult conditions and were made to suffer or when their parents died nobody put them in an orphanage or God made them orphans and it is not for us to alleviate their plight. It is dishearteningly sad, but these are real opinions people have, all hearkening back to the idea that selfishness is the natural inclination of the heart.

On the other hand, I must say that I have been absolutely shocked by the generosity and kindheartedness of the people here. People that do help the kids or the orphanage or even me without any regard or thought to what others would do and are so far removed from many of the expectations that society has for who should help and who should be helped.

There is the story of one man that sticks with me. About a year ago he came up to the gate and was carrying a big box of toddlers clothes and toys. He had taken the bus and then walked about a kilometre to get her. He arrived and said he had some extra clothes and toys laying around and his first thought was in giving it to the orphanage for the kids here to wear and play with. I was thanking him and making small talk with him and asked if hid kids had outgrown the clothes or what the occasion was that inspired his offering. He replied that earlier in the week his three year-old son died and he decided to offer the clothes up because he saw it as the better use than holding on and waiting to see if he had another child. I was moved to tears by the fact that this man, his boy having died that same week, would immediately be thinking of others in such a personal and tragic moment such as this.

I'm not so foolish at to say there is a universal sentiment or make a boilerplate statement about attitudes or practices when it comes. But with that, I'm going to make a universal, boilerplate statement that corruption exists because selfishness prevails.

And even more "holidays"

As kind of an addendum to the school holidays, there is one more instance where kids will not go to school, and that's if a teacher dies.

The government has long bemoaned the problems of HIV/AIDS among public servants, especially in professions that are heavy on training and you can't just hire new folks whenever you want. Jobs like teachers and police are the most visibly effected by this epidemic.

It's hard to know just how much HIV is a factor because it never revealed is someone has the virus. If a teacher dies suddenly because they got hit by a car or their house collapses, everybody will know that it was obviously not HIV. However, if a teacher is sick, you will just hear that they died. It's never disclosed what the illness was or how long they suffered. The HIV rate is somewhat ambiguous and disputed here. (The gov't claims it is a remarkably low 5%. The UN claims it to be above 16% while other observers peg it as just over 20%. The true value is probably between the 16-20% figures. That is about one in every six people.)

Anecdotally, however, teachers are a philandering bunch and the rate of infection among them may be much higher. From what I hear from my teacher friends, it's not so much because teachers are involved with students, but because they are getting it on with each other—left and right and all over the place. It's that prominent.

When a teacher dies that same day is often given off for all the kids, along with the day of the funeral. In both the primary or secondary school in our area loses a teacher, the other will inevitably shut down also to allow the other teachers to attend the funeral. This happens about once a month.

I've touched on it before, but just to say again: Where there is a death of a teacher like this, it is sad. However, because of the high death rate (life expectancy is not even 50 years) there is also a sense that it is commonplace. It is not like a death in a western school or American school where grief counselors show up and it is talked about and there are memorials all through the year. When teachers die at a rate of about one a month, it starts to wear off after a while.

A Jolly Holiday

Well, first off. A hardy hello to you. I know, I've been a little bit absent as of late. Take heart knowing that it was not due to sickness or a national emergency or a fishing boat once again hooking the only fiber-optic line connected to the country and leaving everybody without internet and phone service. It was due to a horrid combination of me having quite a bit or work since getting back, and choosing my free time to finish a book I started reading rather then absorbed with writing, my former pastime. (Do not start "The Count of Monte Cristo" knowing that your flights are only 25 hours in total. It will take you waaaaay longer that that to finish it. Seriously.)

But, the good news is there should be pretty solid content up here about every other day or so for a couple weeks. I also have found the practice of writing 90% of a post thinking I'll finish the last ten percent another time resulted in about 12 unfinished stories, so those will be getting finished and put up here.

In the meantime, I thought today I would answer one of the most asked about questions I got. And that is how long the kids are in school. The easy answer would be "till it ends" which is both ambiguous, true, and shameful for those that understand how much kids are in school here. The school year run February to November. In that, there is one week after the first term and two weeks after the second term. We are in the final of three terms right now and it will end in about two weeks.

But apart from those breaks, we also have a variety of other days off during the year. Think of it this way.

Our Family

[Note: This is kind of a long post. In fact, it's a really long post. About four times longer than what I normally put up here. The reason is I worked a really long time on this one and believe it should be read as a continuous narrative, not broken up into little parts. With that in mind, I ask that you read it that way. If you don't have time now, come back to it later. Print it out to read it some evening. It might take you a little while to get through, but without understanding this, the rest of the stories here are just cheeky anecdotes and amusing tales. So please, read and enjoy, and maybe even pass it off to a friend when you're finished.]

 

You don't know what it's like.

Lets just start with that as the premise. You can't sympathize, you can't relate, you can't know how it feels. You simply don't know. You come from a life and a culture that is so foreign to the challenges and difficulties and the struggles that are part of the fabric of life here. But in understanding what goes on here there is no way to separate the individual threads from the whole tapestry. What I will be writing today I've already tried in the last several weeks to explain to the closest of family, to the best of friends, all the way to the strangest of strangers. The only way I have found to adequately explain it is by laying down the premise that you simply won't understand.

You don't know what it's like.

That is the admonition I have for you today. I want to warn you that this is not something that is intellectually out of reach as if I were explaining rocket science to you. It's not something like modern art that you either appreciate or think is unintelligible. It is as if I were asking you to hear colors, or draw with sounds. You have no adequate frame of reference for even understanding what that would mean. You're picturing yourself drawing with sounds right now, but I assure that you're doing it wrong.

Because you can't even begin to know what it's like.

The reason for this is that I'm going to tell you what our kids did for Christmas. Rest assured, it's nothing shocking. We weren't doing animal sacrifices or getting matching tattoos or something salacious. But at the same time, it should be absolutely puzzling and alarming: We sent the kids to be with their families. For the end of December and Christmas the kids got to spend two weeks with their mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins.

Did you hear that? I sure did. That was the sound of you brain saying, “What!?! I thought you ran an orphanage, not a boarding school or summer camp. What do you mean send then them to their families? Their parents?” Let me try to calm you down some.

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.

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.

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.

In Which TJ Tries To Tell More

Living in Mozambique invokes strong reactions. These circumstances often stem from circumstances as innumerable---the education system, illegal immigration, food prices, government social programs, tribal culture, church traditions, refugees, economic progress, mechanical difficulties, flood, drought, sport, disease, crime, water, travel, access of information, to mention a few---as they are varied.

While many things in my life here evoke strong emotional responses, none are stronger than those that stem from working with the kids---my Mozambican family. They can often swing in a matter of minutes. I have seen my emotions go from the most joyous of pride to the deepest sorrow and frustration all in a matter of minutes. Daily, in fact, it seems.

A week ago I went to school to meet with the kids' teachers to get their grades from the second trimester. For the most part, the grades were good and, more importantly, had improved. I was happy for this because I've been investing the majority of my time in supplementing their lessons and tutoring and running study hour here at the orphanage. The emotions ranged from relief to joy to pride as I got to share the good news with the kids when I got back with their report cards.

Within minutes, that overwhelming pride came falling down as I had to break up two kids fighting with each other. Those feelings quickly turned to anger, frustration, and ultimately sadness. Why on earth would these kids want to be treating each other this way? Surely my parents never had to put up with seeing their children go from being exemplary to acting dysfunctional in the span of 5 minutes (I can hear them laughing right now),

One example I like to use is whenever we go another function where there are other kids present (and more importantly, food) I always remind them of two simple rules: be polite, and don't complain. This is so true when there is food because any other kid in this country is going to fight tooth and nail to get his [plate of food, handful of cookies, pop bottle] because there is never enough food to go around for everybody. Our kids know that if we're at a function/party/event and there is food, if they don't receive anything they'll be fed as soon as we get back home. They also know that if we're somewhere and they give out pops or candy bars and they don't get any I'll make a stop on the way home and buy pops and candy for all our kids.

A story I like to about how easily our kids are blown by the wind is a Christmas party we went to with several other orphanages. It was hosted by another orphanage and when we saw dozens of kids pouring in from the street hoping to receive handout we knew the food might not make it to us. As it turns out, the food made it around to everybody, but the pops and cookies ran out. As this became apparent, our kids (who had already received their pops) took it upon themselves to offer their pops to some kids that had come from a Catholic mission that takes care of disable kids who weren't able to run up and receive pops. Our kids did this all unprompted. They just offered. Why? Because we teach them to live as Jesus lived, and those are the people Jesus helped, too.

But what was a moment of real happiness and joy for me to see our kids do this quickly turned into shame and disbelief when, as soon as we were in the truck and driving home, they all started yelling and complaining about how awful the party was and doing their best woe-is-me and how ungrateful the other kids were and how righteous they were.

As we passed by the pop-stand on the way home, the complaining got even louder as I reminded them that “Blessed are you who offer your pop and then complain about it for 20 minutes in the car ride home, for you shall inherit another pop later on” is nowhere to be found in the Bible and, thanks to all their belly-aching, they would not get a pop from me.

Why do I share this with you now? Primarily because I would like to say why I don't share anecdotes this this all that often. I don't want you to think that nothing personal never happens here, or that TJ is merely a casual observer relating detached, albeit humorous, reports of culture like a travelogue of sorts. Yes, I like telling about the stuff that goes on here. Stories about giant animals causing earthquakes, the moon fighting the sun during an eclipse, the boys playing soccer, and profiles of our staff members by describing them using only lyrics from hair metal songs (that got left on the cutting room floor) while amusing and informative are not about what really goes on here.

What goes on here is people. And while many, many, many things can't be described or understood without understanding the proper cultural or social context, many things just can't be described. That's not because my life is filled with so many see-it-to-believe-it moments. The reason many stories can't be told is because they can't be told.

Part of the problem in writing about what goes on here is that stories almost invariably involve other people. And some of those people are people that read this website. I've mentioned before that if you forget the site, you can just search any combination of “TJ” or “Africa” or “Mozambique” or “Michael Jackson” and this will come up as the top result. Word travels lightning fast here, so I can't tell a story about how the pastor did [this thing that caused an incredibly emotional reaction] at church last weekend because word will undoubtedly make it back to that person.

I would also love to just give more commentary on just how things are here in Mozambique. I think a big key to understanding the challenges and difficulties of life here are understanding how Mozambique is. Unfortunately for you, this is a little difficult. I can't always talk freely about how health care or education or road building or utilities or jobs creation or law enforcement are here because, essentially, they suck. And because all those things are run by the government, and because that same government told me earlier this year to stop writing bad stuff about them, I can't. Remember all those Mozambique 101 posts at the end of last year? Remember how at no point did I ever use use the words “Mozambique” and “on the right track” in the same sentence? Remember how those post just mysteriously stopped for no reason?

I'm sure that someday I'll be able to tell exactly everything that goes on here. Not that there are any skeletons in the closet, but its really for the sake of relationships and privacy of people here, not people there. I'm sure someday I'll be able to tell about ALL the things that really produce an emotional response, the things that matter most here. I'm sure someday I'll be able tell about the hurtful things the pastor said about the orphanage during church, working with refugees out at the camp, or about how that day at the Christmas party the reason the kids didn't get fed is because the workers at the other orphanage were stealing cases of cookies and pops and putting them in their cars to take home for themselves.

So I hope you understand. My life is fairly open, but for the sake of everybody here, its not an open book. I haven't written the book yet. This is what it is. As for the good stories that don't run the risk of offending anyone (or getting me in trouble) we'll try to keep those coming.

And for a story that hasn't been written yet, tune in next time to hear about my neighbor's big new speakers and subsequent 50+ hour ongoing, noise-fueled sleep deprivation study. This story and the non-stop party next door has two possible endings. 1) The neighbors get taken to jail for repeated noise violations or 2) TJ gets taken to jail for repeated manslaughter.

It's like one of those “choose your own adventure” stories.

In Which TJ discusses marriage. Wait... WHAT?!

No, this is not the marriage talk (although I am continually breaking hearts here of girls looking for a green card husband). This is more of a quick update to my book report from last week. Partly because I find the data fascinating, but mostly because there is some ceremony going on next door and I can't get to sleep with all the chanting and yelling and ritualing.

Some other facts have fallen out of the UNICEF report I mentioned last week. These facts, combined with the tidbits from last week, show two things. First, that the culture here is different, and while there are many things that are good about it (nobody is addicted to facebook) there are some things that are bad also, such as the conditions which girls are forced into by their families. The second things these facts show is why we try to be so protective of our girls here in the orphanage.

And now for the facts. They're not going to be happy at all, but that's kind of the situation in this country: there isn't always a lot of happy news.

• Almost 17% of girls will marry before they are 15 years old.
• Over 41% of girls ages 14-18 are pregnant.
• There are approximately 700,000 girls ages 12-14 that are married. A majority are forced.
• 70% of girls surveyed responded that they have had teachers proposition trading sex for a passing grade.

First, each of these stats must be explained, so let me go through one by one to explain some of the finer details. As for 17% of girls will marry before they are 15 years old, that pretty much stands on its own.

The fact that over 41% of girls ages 14-18 are pregnant is true and very likely. I would also like to to add that this stat is very specific. It does not refer to girls that have been pregnant or have given birth. It means that at the time they were surveyed they were eating for two.

The UNICEF report also states that 700,000 girls ages 12-14 that are married. After reading the report, this number is clearly handpicked and exaggerated. The real number is realistically closer to 300,000. Thats out of a total country-wide population of about 23 million. If the number still seems off, keep in mind that people only live till about the age of 45, and that half the population is age 15 and under.

The number of 700,000 is bad because what they did was to take the marriage rates from where I am in the rural north of the country and extrapolate it to match the rest of the nation. The rate is a lot higher here where that type of marriage is often required in the culture. They also had survey difficulties. In the north, they got good reliable data because everybody answered the questions. In the south and more populous end of the country, when they tried asking 12 years olds if they were married, their husbands shamefully intervened to take the girls away and they couldn't get honest answers.

Also, if you remember last week, we're defining marriage as between a man and a woman (and sometimes two or three more women on top of that). Polygamy is normal and widely accepted and you even have (non-mormon) churches here that permit it. And marriage itself is culturally defined as pregnant with his baby, living with him (cohabiting is the technical term), or recognized by the tribe/family/village/chief as being married. The younger the marriage is, the more likely it is that the family is arranging the marriage than it is a 12 year-old falling in love with a 40 year-old and becoming his 4th wife (and then probably getting HIV).

Lastly, the survey question that I believe was the most UNDERstated was that 70% of girls had teachers proposition sex. I want to say I was not shocked by this for two reasons (in fact, I think its higher). The first reason is because I was going through elementary school at the same time that two schools away the whole Mary Kay Letourneau debacle was unraveling, and so I just assumed that sort of thing was as common as rainy-day recess in Seattle. The second reason this does not surprise me is because we frequently check in with our girls to see if they are getting pressured from their teachers. Want to know what percentage of them have been pressured?

Survey says: All of them. 100% percent. And if its not the teachers, its their friends telling them to just sleep with the teachers in exchange for a good grade. Its shocking, its sad, and its the reality here.

Pretty soon here I'll give a post with some good news, and maybe some pictures. Who knows.

TJ's Book Report

Happy birthday, America! Hopefully all of you are recovering from your hangover, patching the craters in you front lawn, or reading a reply from that strongly worded letter you sent to your town councilman in which you described your city’s ban on fireworks as some combination of lame, misguided, fascist, communist, totalitarian, King George-esque, and un-American.

These last couple of days I’ve been fighting on oncoming cold and trying to rest up. This has involved lots of reading, a pastime of mine. So you can think of this as my book report to all of you. Or Cliffs Notes. How about we go with Cliffs Notes. You know, like how Snowball is Trotsky, the Old Major is Karl Marx, the cows are the subjected working class, “All animals are equal but some are more equal than others”… Sorry, that was from by book report on Animal Farm.

= = > UNICEF (something about the United Nation and Children) released a report of Mozambique this week. The “highlights” of the report include:
• 44% of children suffer from chronic malnutrition. This number can be as high as 59% in northern provinces where we are.
• 48% percent go through at least two life-threatening food disparities sometime during childhood.
• Over a third of deaths before the age 5 are caused by malaria.
• 11% of girls ages 11 to 15 years are infected with HIV
• 52% girls under the age of 18 are “married”. Being married is defined as being legitimately married, living with a guy, or being pregnant/having a child.

The official response by a government spokesman decried the UN as “apostles of doom”. As to the statistics, the spokesman said, “I don’t know the Mozambique they know. My Mozambique is strong and winning the fight against poverty.”

= = > Another report from here in our city lists that over 25,000 grade school students study outside, a majority of them under trees while sitting on the ground. Our city has a total of about 0.5m people, meaning that 5% of the total population are grade-schoolers studying outside because there’s not enough space in schools. The average class size across the whole country is over 68 children per class. That’s across all grades. Actual sizes can vary from 50 to 120. All our kids study with at least 70-80 other students.

= = > While I’m not sure how I come into possession of many things here (like my shower mat, which is really a rubber car floor mat that literally just showed up in my house one day) I recently got a Mozambican teachers handbook. The section on health awareness was particularly interesting.

The gov’t cites a 2009 survey of HIV/AIDS rates among pregnant females ages 18-49. In Niassa Province (the backwoods of Mozambique) the rate is about 8%. In our province it is reported as 11-14% depending on how rural or urban you are. In Maputo City, home to several million people, the rate of infection is 28-30%. Let that sink in. In the largest city in Mozambique, 30% of pregnant women are infected with HIV.

One thing the study does is show that much of the thinking done by the gov’t on combating HIV was wrong. For years the fear was that the rural areas would have huge rates because of lack of information/education whereas in the city, where everybody is well informed, rates would be low because people are always hearing the message to be safe, use protection, etc. What the data really shows is that in the sticks people just don’t get around that much while in the city people are apparently shacking up with everyone in sight.

= = > The municipal water company here announced that they have stopped expansion/development of the water grid. From now on they will only replace, rehabilitate, and repair the existing infrastructure. The reasons cited are that the city does not have enough water to expand the grid. As it is now, neighborhoods don’t all receive water at the same time, sometimes going days without. The utility company says further expansion will only worsen the problem.

= = > The city council in Tete has released a guidebook to police officers suggesting appropriate amounts of bribes to be collected from prostitutes in exchange for not fining them on prostitution.

= = > The Mozambique District Development Fund is a zero-interest loan program aimed at providing capital for rural economic development. Last week they lost $40,000 (yes, US dollars). In one district, the Fund gave monies to a group of farmers who apparently just drank away the money. When the Fund managers returned at the end of harvest, they discovered the farmers had not planted a single crop and were taking the year off living on all their free money.

The Fund possessed their land, I’m assuming, because that’s the penalty for defaulting (that, and the article referred to them as ex-farmers). Before you start thinking that these guys got taken advantage of, the story says they procured the loan to build a grain mill for their district. One of the (ex)farmers was quoted as saying, “After we received the money we were so happy, so we celebrated without stopping.” Apparently they did.

= = > The mayor of the second largest city in Mozambique, Beira, accused the president of rigging several recent foreign business investments by having them go to the capital city of Maputo. He claims the companies had had desired to go to Beira and the gov’t had forced them to go to Maputo or take nothing at all. The president responded in a press conference by saying he wished to remind the mayor that it’s a crime to defame the president.

Moz101 Hiatus

Hey guys, just letting you know that I'm going to be taking a little break from adding content for the "Mozambique 101" series. Basically, I am trying to put more effort into them than I have the time to devote to doing so while pumping them out on a weekly basis. While much of the information is wikipedia or awesome rumors that I hear, I'm also researching it a lot. Because I really want to do a good job at producing this particular series I'm going to hold off on posting until I have the rest of them written. This way they will continue to remain coherent and not repeat the same information all the time. If you want to read the old ones us the link at the top or click the Moz101 tag on the topic-sphere, knowledge-node, blog-blob, or as my mom would say, the spinny thingy over on the right.

Until then, I'll just be putting up anything I want to on Wednesdays. I can do this because its my site. Pretty convenient if you ask me. To keep the alliteration I'll just call it "Whatever Wednesdays" which will slowly slide into "Why I am still doing this on Wednesdays" will will eventually become "What?" when my rants become too blurred and incoherent to make sense.

Mozambique 101 - Economics Part 1

This is the next post in a series titled “Mozambique 101”. This one is all about the economy of Mozambique. Imagine this as a sort of brief and impersonal overview of just the facts. Its kind of like trying to read the license plate of a parked car when you’re going 60mph on the highway. This series is my attempt to answer many of the questions that I’ve been asked about Mozambique, other than the always popular “where’s THAT?” These articles should help you understand what things are like in Mozambique and just how they came to be that way.

Mozambique is one of the least developed countries on earth. There is really now way to soften that fact. Its about as third world as it gets, and Nampula is one of the most undeveloped parts of the country. In order to appreciate the gravity of just what it is like to be in one of the most undeveloped places in the world, you must first realize that much of the inability to develop is directly tied to the economic potential of the region. This frist post on economy is designed to tell you just what it looks like for most people in Nampula: where they live, what access they have, what they do for a living, what opportunites they have to spend their very hard earned dollars on, and just what the difficulties are from a purely economic standpoint.

To begin, I’m going to throw some slightly disjointed statistics at you. You may notice that this is the first time I’m directly stealing facts from Wikipedia (and even if I cited that Nampula is the Tatooine of the Empire it wouldn’t make a difference). The truth is for most of this I have a secret source. It is the “Strategic Plan for the development of the Province of of Mozambique”. Its an intra-governmental (emphasis on mental) memo that was circulated by the Provincial government here and was signed by the Governor himself. The only reason I have it is because I think one of the kids stole it from somewhere and gave it to me so they wouldn’t be caught with it. Consider that:

• Nampula is listed at 9th out of 11 provinces for Development. The two worse than us don’t have a city over 15,000 people.
• In our Province, 92% of people don’t have electricity, 78% don’t have a radio, 84% don’t have access to clean water.
• Six of the 18 districts of Nampula don’t have electricity at all.
• 85% of the Province practices agriculture for a living. Of these people, 2% are mechanized (tractors, combines, etc). The remaining 98% farm by hand without even the aid of animals.
• The Province declares that, “82% of roads and 88% of bridges are currently passable.”
• Half of cities don’t have a bank branch anywhere near them.
• There is one doctor for every 35,000.
• While unemployment it impossible to estimate, the Province does estimate than within Nampula City (pop. 1/2million) that 69% of people live in absolute poverty (less than $1 per day).
• The GDP (per capita) in our province is about $450USD per year. That number is an average weighted by the fact that there are a small amount of people that earn a ton of money. Still, it means that on average people earn about $1.25 per day.
• For the last 6 years, population growth has outpaced economic growth, and after accounting for inflation and population the economy of Nampula has been decreasing by about 2% per year.

Also, while the causality of the relationships between education and economics is very challenging to figure out, the problem is caused/exacerbated by the fact that the literacy rate is only 30% (85% and 55% of men don’t know how to read). To make matters worse, the university in our city is currently producing more lawyers than teachers.

Most people here are lucky if they can find a trade to practice or anyone to train them. People are reluctant to teach trades because once that person learns a skill (welding, mechanics, construction) they become a threat to take jobs from the person teaching them. Nobody has money to open a store and its impossible to get a loan for anything. Many people sell goods on the street (bread, fruit, coca-cola, counterfeit Chinese DVDs). The profit margin is so slim that a man selling ice cold coca-cola will earn only about $1.60 at the end of the day.

Many places (including the gov’t) pay people through direct deposit in order to eliminate corruption in the payment process. This results in every day lines being over 1hr long of people standing at the ATM to take out every last cent they have. It also results in most the ATMs in town running out of money frequently through the day.

I want people to appreciate that life here is tough, but there are regions exactly like Nampula all over the world. You can go to hundreds of towns in China, India, South Africa, middle-of-nowhere Mongolia and see that people live in the same or worse poverty that people in Nampula do. While places like the slums of India and a million people living in a garbage dump in Cairo and stone-age Aborigines in Australia get lots of attention, places like Mozambique are, on a regional scale (remember, twice the size of California), slightly unprecedented.

Next week we’ll look at how the government helps maintain the economy and put in places policies to promote growth and stability. And if you couldn’t tell, that last sentence was very sarcastic.

Shiny, Microwaved, DVD extras

I’m a little busy here and thus a little behind on writing the Moz 101 series. This week should have been about the economy, but it’s a little research intensive and it takes time I don’t have. So tune back next week to find out how exactly most people here make money (surprise! They don’t).

Until then, I’m just posting some stuff I edited out from the Government posts several weeks ago. Consider this the DVD extras of deleted scenes, or like your microwaved leftover meatloaf, or the good-looking produce on the top of the grocery aisle so you can’t see that the rest of the produce underneath is not super shiny and tasty, but just mediocre.

…But people don’t like the government just because it’s largely stupid. They don’t like it because Mozambique is the land of a billion rumors. I’ve heard that people don’t like president for these reasons: the president eats turkey every night for dinner, he sold Mozambique Island and kept all the money, he is outlawing cassava, he has a house in America and travels there once per week (presumably with the money he got from selling Mozambique Island), he’s secretly a muslim (he and Obama go to the same mosque) and he has two limousines which is crazy because he can only drive one at a time.

At the same time that they express their distaste for the government, they also revere their first president, Samora Machel, and place him slightly below God on the list of people they worship. I imagine it’s a little like all the hubbub surrounding George Washington back when America was starting up. Remember, that Mozambique has been independent for over 40 years and peaceful for about 20, so it’s a relatively new country. But while all the remains of George Washington today was he chopped down a cherry tree, said “I pity the fool that lie!” and carved wooden teeth out of the aforementioned cherry tree. I don’t have proof, but I think early Americans probably had stories about GW like he stood as tall as two men, he ripped a guys heart out with his teeth during the French Indian War, and spat in the face of Gen. Cornwallis.

But still, I find the level of rumors about the first president of Mozambique to be a little nauseating. Granted, the truth is a little blurred he by nature that rumors are much more interesting than fact. Which is fine, but people then MAKE the rumors fact. I’ve had three different people point out 4 different houses that the current President of Mozambique was raised in.

The two stories I hear all the time about President Machel both have to do with America (go figure). The first story is about how, despite not having more than a 5^th grade education, he was the smartest man in the world. He proved this by going to the United Nations after making himself the President of Mozambique. The kids tell me (and not 8 year old kids for bed time stories, but kids in high school) that when he was at the United Nations he was the only person able to communicate with all 450 countries there because he knew 450 different languages, whereas most the other Presidents can only talk with about 30-40. I don’t have the heart to tell them that the United Nations uses translators. I also don’t have the heart to tell them that there aren’t anywhere near 450 countries in the world.

The second story is about how the day after Samora Machel was made president he flew to America. The kids say he was going there to meet the first president of America (boy, was he out of luck). When he was there he was refused entry because he refused to surrender his sidearm. After he convinced the guards that he was an honorable gentleman (historically debatable) he came inside to meet the president of America. The American president was both extremely racist and scared of getting AIDS that he wore a glove to shake Samora Machel’s hand. Machel was so offended that he ripped the glove and, in President Machel’s own words, “Greeted him hand to hand, man to man.” And that’s the story of how in June 1975 the President of Mozambique became the first black man to enter the White House.

Mozambique 101 - Geography

This is the next post in a series titled “Mozambique 101”. This one is all about the geography of Mozambique. Find out how many people are, where they are, and what they don’t have. This series is my attempt to answer many of the questions that I’ve been asked about Mozambique, other than the always popular “where’s THAT?” These articles should help you understand what things are like in Mozambique and just how they came to be that way.

As a premise, geography usually includes a broader look at thinks more than just population, mountains and rivers. Geopgraphy is also a look at how environment affects all aspects of life, such as jobs, education, and health (hint: its not pretty). Much of that information, I think, is more relevant when expanded on, such as talking about agriculture, or family life. For this segment, we’re only going to look at the big picture aspect. And that picture starts with, well, a picture.

Click to see it bigger

Population

Mozambique is about 310 thousand sq miles (800 thousand sq km) making it about twice the size of California. A better analogy is to imagine for a moment that Mozambique is about the same size and layout of California, Oregon, and Washington put together. Now, aside from it being very big, it is home to about 28 million people. The capital city of Maputo (or San Diego, in our analogy) is home to over 3 million people. It is the largest city and the seat of power for the rest of the country. It is also the southernmost point of the country. This often creates regional tensions for people that live up north where we do. The next biggest city is Beira (like Sacramento, but on the coast). Beira is home to about 1.5m people and is the country’s largest trade port (like Mos Isley, if you’re still stuck on the Star Wars analogy from a couple weeks back). While the port in Maputo handles goods for just the city, Beira handles goods that are then sent inland to the other countries in Southern Africa.

North of Beira is the Zambezi river. This is the same Zambezi that Dr. Livingstone used when he ventured into Africa, so it has got some history. Unfortunately, all of that history occurs in Malawi and than further inland in Zimbabwe and Lake Victoria, so Mozambique generates zero tourism revenue from this. Also, the river cuts the country almost in half (imagine it’s a little north of Sacremento) and until about 8 months ago there was not even a bridge that went across it. The next major city we get to is the one where I live, Nampula (about where Eugene, OR would be). It’s the third largest city in the country ringing in at just over 0.5m people.

Maputo is the capitol, and Beira is the port. So what then is Nampula, you ask?

Nampula City

While I have not yet met anyone that officially classifies it as such, the city of Nampula is in many ways a refugee center. The economy here has zero manufacturing, near zero industry, and the service sector is so severely underdeveloped because of the fact that people don’t have money to spend. About ten years ago, the population of Nampula was about half of what it is today. In the years since, the regions experienced the worst flooding in a lifetime which was followed by several years of drought (there’s no middle ground here). The drought brought the hungry (even though everybody already here was hungry to begin with) and the floods brought the displaced (who were also very hungry).

Nampula Province

If you can add, you’ll notice that Maputo, Beira, and Nampula make up only about 5 of the estimated 28 million people in Mozambiqe. Well, that number is an estimate because the people in charge of this country figure that almost 60% of people live out in the country. I’m not talking in the country like the spend most of their time riding tractors, judging 4H fairs, and attending high school football games on Friday nights. When I say out in the country, I mean out in the country as in people that literally have nothing. Except for the clothes they are wearing and on rare occasions a motorbike, people live with nothing they can’t get themselves. Mud and bamboo huts, wooden handled tools, and homemade beer. No electricity, no water faucets, no tin roofing, not even mechanized farming. 98% of the farmers in our province perform all their work with hand tools, not even using animals.

In my province, an estimated 85% of people live out in the country, concentrated near villages of anywhere from 5 families, to 50 families. They live several days of walking from clinics or hospitals, often times even farther from schools or churches. Of the 18 districts our province, 6 don’t have electricity. 16% of the province has access to clean water.

Water

The government claims that it has ample supply, but no infrastructure to deliver clean water to everybody that needs it. I will vouch that indeed they do not have the infrastructure to do so because they can’t even do it here in the city. The government estimates that here in the city anywhere between 24-35% of people don’t have water. The estimate is such a broad range because the city knows how many people have water because they’re charging them, they just don’t know how many people are in the city. Here, people borrow water from their neighbors, or walk to community boreholes (deep drilled, hand pumped wells), or as a last case scenario go down to the river (its nasty, trust me).

As to the claim that the government has ample supply, that is blatantly false. For the last three months our city water has been shut off completely. It only returned about two weeks ago and won’t flow for more than 2 hours a day. It is only the grace of God that we have a well here instead of walking several km to get water.

Climate

Its pretty darn hot. Enough said. It has been over 95F since I arrived in September. It continues to get hotter (over 100F) will only cool down when it starts raining in December. Then it cools until April when everybody will be in sweaters when it’s a frigid 80F.

There is much more to cover for Geography, but it will get rolled into upcoming posts dealing with Health, Transportation, and how many species of fire ants are here (my count is at 6).

Mozambique 101 - Government Part Two

This is the next post in a series titled “Mozambique 101”. This post explains what happens when the government makes a decision nobody likes. This series is my attempt to answer many of the questions that I’ve been asked about Mozambique, other than the ever-popular “where’s THAT?” These articles should help you understand what things are like in Mozambique and just how they came to be that way.

Previously in this series we covered that Mozambique used to communist until about the time that the Berlin Wall fell and Soviet Union collapsed. Around that time, the President of Mozambique announced that he was making an enlightened decision and moving the country in the direction of capitalism and economic freedom. People would have appreciated this, if it had actually offered any change for the masses.

Because the country has such tight restrictions on foreign investment it means that foreigners don’t invest (they kind of do, but if you look at your syllabus you’ll see we don’t cover that until Economics Part 2). What foreign investment there is goes straight to the salaries for the government. About six months ago, France announced that it would be cutting portions of its foreign aid and was eliminating about $150million in aid to Mozambique. The response of Mozambique was to cry foul to the European Union and complain that if France pulled their support it would mean a 10% cut to their federal budget. That’s basically because there’s nothing in Mozambique that generates money except for European aid.

The threatened reduction of foreign aid can often lead to confusing policies. If you follow world commodities you’ll know that grain prices surged in August because Russia accidentally lit all their wheat fields on fire or something. As a result, world grain prices surged and suddenly bread costs more. Well, here in our nice, peaceful (read: walking on eggshells) corner of the world the government sets bread prices because it subsidizes the grain coming into the country. So when they announced there would be a 30% increase in the price of a loaf of bread the people responded with 4 days of riots.

Now, since news out of the country was mostly silent, I’ve managed to piece together that the bread riots were made up of one part European Football Game Riot (people lighting flares, turning over cars, setting garbage on fire) and two parts L.A. Race Riot (looting, tire fires, people hurling rocks at police, and the police firing rubber bullets into the crowd to disperse it). Its was nothing like the Seattle World Trade Organization Riots in 2000 because those weren’t people from Seattle, they were all hippies from Colorado and Canadians.

Back to the story. So, day three into the riots, the (formerly) communist government finds out that people have been organizing the riots using their cell phones. To find out why everybody in one of the ten poorest countries in the world has a cell phone you’ll need wait for the week on Urbanization. So the Government decides to shut down the phone networks in the entire country. They then later demanded that the cell companies (both of them) turn over all text messages in the last week. They then correlated numbers they knew with people who happen to be known members of the opposition party and threw them all in jail.

The problem is now that most cell phone users are anonymous. People buy a phone, a SIM card, and buy credit that you can find on pretty much any street corner. So the government is now demanding that these millions of anonymous users register their SIM card with the government. And this is how you have to register. Everybody in my city of 500k people is going to the only two stores in town that sells phones, paying for a piece of paper that they fill in their name, phone number, and national ID number. They then take that to a photocopy shot and have it photocopied with their national ID card and turn that in to the government. In an odd coincidence the price of a photocopy has tripled since two weeks ago when this started. But I’m sure that can be explained by the government reducing the subsidy for toner and size A4 paper. I think Christina said it best when she said, “For a country that can’t do a single thing right they’re putting bureaucracy in the one place they don’t need it.”

Back to those riots, the government was threatening to raise the price of bread by 30%. In the four days of riots (which took place in only two cities) a confirmed ten people died. This is because, supposedly, the police were using live ammunition to quell the rioters. I’m not saying that in the sense that countless people dies, but they found 10 people dead. And I bet only three of you reading this knew that any of this even happened. Meanwhile, France was in the top of the headlines because people are on strike because they are raising the retirement age by two years. In a country where people can’t afford bread and work till they die at the ripe old age of 45, France’s protest look pretty petty from where I'm sitting.

Next time on Mozambique 101 we’ll be discussing Geography. And for those of you that don’t like Geopgraphy, you probably still won’t so I’ll try to keep it short.