Saturday 17 May 2008
Pictures
I apologise for not putting any pictures here yet. The internet cafe has a slow connection (probably around 2 bit/s) and doesn't really allow uploading of pictures. I have to make them smaller and try again when I can connect again next time (maybe next weekend). Until then, cherio.
First days of work
The main task for the May team is to complete the foundations. We have dug out trenches and filled them with concrete. We have also put in steel as reinforcement and loads of cement blocks. The concrete mixing is done manually in a pit using spades and the work does not become easier of the size of the stones. The stones for the foundation concrete are almost the size of my fist.
We are working together with six local workers and the relationship between the two groups has been interesting in the beginning. They were a bit shy to start off with but we have started to attempt exchanging some thoughts. None of us (except the boss and the team leaders) speak any Portuguese and they do of course not know any English other than a few basic words. I have been helped by some limited knowledge of Spanish.
Here, the locals have never seen white people work so this must be some sort of a shock for them. But they are enjoying it and have already asked if they can be involved in more projects like this. They are particularly impressed by the women. They could never believe women could work on a building site. Here, the society is very different from Europe and men and women have different roles. Maybe the children at the school will take some impression of the European women on site and this may help them improve equity.
The work is very hard. We wake up before 6:00 every morning, walk three kilometres to the building site and have breakfast and lunch on site. We finish at around 16:00, walk back, have a shower, clean the gear (boots, shirts etc) and at around 18:00 it gets dark and you can not do much. However, after a hard days work with concrete mixing, you would like to do as little as possible. At 19:30 dinner is served and many go to bed straight after, knackered.
We are working together with six local workers and the relationship between the two groups has been interesting in the beginning. They were a bit shy to start off with but we have started to attempt exchanging some thoughts. None of us (except the boss and the team leaders) speak any Portuguese and they do of course not know any English other than a few basic words. I have been helped by some limited knowledge of Spanish.
Here, the locals have never seen white people work so this must be some sort of a shock for them. But they are enjoying it and have already asked if they can be involved in more projects like this. They are particularly impressed by the women. They could never believe women could work on a building site. Here, the society is very different from Europe and men and women have different roles. Maybe the children at the school will take some impression of the European women on site and this may help them improve equity.
The work is very hard. We wake up before 6:00 every morning, walk three kilometres to the building site and have breakfast and lunch on site. We finish at around 16:00, walk back, have a shower, clean the gear (boots, shirts etc) and at around 18:00 it gets dark and you can not do much. However, after a hard days work with concrete mixing, you would like to do as little as possible. At 19:30 dinner is served and many go to bed straight after, knackered.
Tofo School Project background
The Tofo School project came about as a partnership between the Scott Wilson Millennium Project (a registered charity) and Quest, an organisation who already operates in the village. The purpose is to build a school for around 250 children in a village outside Tofo. Three teams of volunteers will work with the school during three months (one month each) in May, June and July. The project has now just started.
We have started the school building from scratch. There is now a temporary school in place and tuition is located to three straw huts packed with children. The children are sitting on the floor and learn writing partly by writing in the sand. The new school will be built on the same piece of land and we have lots of curious children around on their breaks. The walls in the straw huts have large gaps in order to not make it too dark for a classroom so they will not be suitable for tuition during the rain period. However, they should work fine until we have completed the new building.
We have started the school building from scratch. There is now a temporary school in place and tuition is located to three straw huts packed with children. The children are sitting on the floor and learn writing partly by writing in the sand. The new school will be built on the same piece of land and we have lots of curious children around on their breaks. The walls in the straw huts have large gaps in order to not make it too dark for a classroom so they will not be suitable for tuition during the rain period. However, they should work fine until we have completed the new building.
Tofo School Project Reports
During my stay in Tofo, I may post some stories here on the blog but the main focus will be my Tofo School Blog www.tofoskola.blogspot.com [in Swedish]. Updates from the project can otherwise be found on the team blog www.tofoschool.blogspot.com [in English]. Blog entries will also be sporadic since Mango Beach (the lodge where the team is staying) is located off the beaten track four kilometres from the town (Tofo). Here we only have electricity in the evenings from a diesel generator and Internet is of course not available at any time. In some weekends, I may be able to visit the town, which have one internet café, to update the blogs.
First bad luck, then luck
Time for departure to Mozambique. The trip started bad and I thought everything should go pete tong. Since I was unable to find the Mozambique consulate and apply for the visa, the bus company said that I could not buy a ticket to Maputo. You can easily get a visa at the border but this may sometimes take some time and buses are not keen on waiting for this since they can get delayed. Plan B was to buy a ticket to the border control (Komatipoort), cross the border on foot and after having obtained the visa, take a ‘chapa’ (minibus taxi) the last hour into the capital.
The departure was at eight in the morning and I managed to get to the terminal in time. Unfortunately, my trip coincided with a long weekend (first of May) and in this part of the world, it was like a Christmas rush on the public transport system. The bus arrived to the terminal over an hour late and as this wasn’t enough, everyone had loads of luggage with them. Africans seem to like travelling around with big bags or cartons with all sorts of things; household articles, bananas, food and even toilet paper. It all led to that there was about 20 people, me included, that didn’t get onto the bus because it was full. I arrived a bit late and was quite far back in the queue. After a bit of confusion, they decided to call in another bus and this arrived another hour later.
My nicely worked out plan of arriving at the border 14:35 and to Maputo before dusk had to be changed. A road accident along the way also caused a standstill and I finally arrived at the border around eightish and it was pitch black.
I was a bit worried that it should be hard to find anywhere to sleep in Maputo that late and it would perhaps not be too good to be out walking in the middle of the night with all luggage. That’s when the back luck turned into luck.
Since the bus didn’t have an official bus stop at the border, I negotiated with the bus driver to drop me off there. When he understood that I would cross the border he asked why I didn’t go further with the bus. I explained the visa issue and the driver just went “nonsense” and let me go with the bus all the way to Maputo even without ticket. My visa was even finished before the police had finished searching the bus so I didn’t even cause a delay.
In Maputo, there were taxis waiting for the bus. As I was the only white person on board (obviously a stupid tourist) they almost fought to get through the crowd to offer me a ride. I jumped into a car and was dropped off at a backpackers. I probably paid a price three times as much as the standard price but as it was so late, I couldn’t even be bothered trying to bargain.
The backpackers had also organised a pickup in the morning for three guests going to Inhambane, the same town as I was going to, so after a few hours of sleep it was just to hang on to them. This bus trip went smoother and except for sitting like a tinned sill for seven hours between luggage and a bunch of Africans, damaging half of the remaining hearing due to extremely loud music, I arrived in time and even had time for lunch in town before going to the airport to meet the others.
In the evening, everyone had arrived to Mango Beach, a lodge which was to be the home for the following four weeks.
The departure was at eight in the morning and I managed to get to the terminal in time. Unfortunately, my trip coincided with a long weekend (first of May) and in this part of the world, it was like a Christmas rush on the public transport system. The bus arrived to the terminal over an hour late and as this wasn’t enough, everyone had loads of luggage with them. Africans seem to like travelling around with big bags or cartons with all sorts of things; household articles, bananas, food and even toilet paper. It all led to that there was about 20 people, me included, that didn’t get onto the bus because it was full. I arrived a bit late and was quite far back in the queue. After a bit of confusion, they decided to call in another bus and this arrived another hour later.
My nicely worked out plan of arriving at the border 14:35 and to Maputo before dusk had to be changed. A road accident along the way also caused a standstill and I finally arrived at the border around eightish and it was pitch black.
I was a bit worried that it should be hard to find anywhere to sleep in Maputo that late and it would perhaps not be too good to be out walking in the middle of the night with all luggage. That’s when the back luck turned into luck.
Since the bus didn’t have an official bus stop at the border, I negotiated with the bus driver to drop me off there. When he understood that I would cross the border he asked why I didn’t go further with the bus. I explained the visa issue and the driver just went “nonsense” and let me go with the bus all the way to Maputo even without ticket. My visa was even finished before the police had finished searching the bus so I didn’t even cause a delay.
In Maputo, there were taxis waiting for the bus. As I was the only white person on board (obviously a stupid tourist) they almost fought to get through the crowd to offer me a ride. I jumped into a car and was dropped off at a backpackers. I probably paid a price three times as much as the standard price but as it was so late, I couldn’t even be bothered trying to bargain.
The backpackers had also organised a pickup in the morning for three guests going to Inhambane, the same town as I was going to, so after a few hours of sleep it was just to hang on to them. This bus trip went smoother and except for sitting like a tinned sill for seven hours between luggage and a bunch of Africans, damaging half of the remaining hearing due to extremely loud music, I arrived in time and even had time for lunch in town before going to the airport to meet the others.
In the evening, everyone had arrived to Mango Beach, a lodge which was to be the home for the following four weeks.
Lonely Planet
Someone said that the one who wrote the 2004 edition of Lonely Planet (LP) Colombia had never visited the country. Nevertheless, I bought that particular book and enjoyed it a lot. Without knowing this, I thought it was remarkably accurate and informative. If you want to read a shit-LP, buy South Africa 2006 edition instead. I have so far tried to use it for two things and here is how it went:
According to LP, there should be municipal buses for R80 and an airport shuttle for around R100 from Johannesburg airport to the centre. After running around like a chicken and argued with the most persistent taxi drivers and information ladies, I had to conclude that there were none. Apparently the only way to get from the airport is to stay at a mid-top range hotel that got its own shuttle service for their customers or have a friend here who can pick you up. Or a taxi for R300+ of course. Backpackers can normally organise a pick-up for lower price than flat rate taxis but for this, one has to call and organise with the hostel days in advance. And LP does of course not mention that.
After paying a horrendous amount for the taxi, I wanted to find the Mozambique consulate to apply for a visa. Fortunately, the LP map had the consulate marked with a little flag. I walked around on all the deserted streets in the area of the flag (the maps are not very detailed and have an arbitrary selection of roads in them so it took a while to be sure) but there was no consulate. After being extremely annoyed, I tried to find the exact address. This was written in the consular section in the back of the book and referred to Jeppe Street (no number!) which I later relocated on a map on a completely different page. Jeppe Street was more central and after having walked it up and down on both sides, the consulate was not there either. At least there was no visible sign from it. But it doesn’t matter as by that time, it would have been too late to apply for a same-day visa anyway.
I am thinking if maybe the consulate applies the same strategy as the Inland Revenue offices in England; remove all signs and make them impossible to find in order to not be bombed, or it is simply located somewhere else.
Fortunately it’s a library book so I have not paid for the junk. I am considering never returning it because this book does not deserve to be read by anyone. A good way to up the value of this issue could be to bleach all the ink in it, then it could at least be used for notes or drawings.
Todays task: Find the Mozambique consulate in Jo’burg and send me a Googlemap-link.
According to LP, there should be municipal buses for R80 and an airport shuttle for around R100 from Johannesburg airport to the centre. After running around like a chicken and argued with the most persistent taxi drivers and information ladies, I had to conclude that there were none. Apparently the only way to get from the airport is to stay at a mid-top range hotel that got its own shuttle service for their customers or have a friend here who can pick you up. Or a taxi for R300+ of course. Backpackers can normally organise a pick-up for lower price than flat rate taxis but for this, one has to call and organise with the hostel days in advance. And LP does of course not mention that.
After paying a horrendous amount for the taxi, I wanted to find the Mozambique consulate to apply for a visa. Fortunately, the LP map had the consulate marked with a little flag. I walked around on all the deserted streets in the area of the flag (the maps are not very detailed and have an arbitrary selection of roads in them so it took a while to be sure) but there was no consulate. After being extremely annoyed, I tried to find the exact address. This was written in the consular section in the back of the book and referred to Jeppe Street (no number!) which I later relocated on a map on a completely different page. Jeppe Street was more central and after having walked it up and down on both sides, the consulate was not there either. At least there was no visible sign from it. But it doesn’t matter as by that time, it would have been too late to apply for a same-day visa anyway.
I am thinking if maybe the consulate applies the same strategy as the Inland Revenue offices in England; remove all signs and make them impossible to find in order to not be bombed, or it is simply located somewhere else.
Fortunately it’s a library book so I have not paid for the junk. I am considering never returning it because this book does not deserve to be read by anyone. A good way to up the value of this issue could be to bleach all the ink in it, then it could at least be used for notes or drawings.
Todays task: Find the Mozambique consulate in Jo’burg and send me a Googlemap-link.
Rain in Jo’burg
Jo’burg is neither the nicest city in South Africa, nor the safest. My two days here became no better of a never-ending rainfall, clouds, fog and cold weather. I’m also surprised of how expensive it is to be here. I now wish to leave South Africa.
My first day as a backpacker
No matter how far I was walking on Sicily or any other place, this beats everything. Today my feet seriously hurt and after 11 active hours and over 30 km in one day. I think I need to calm down if I don’t want to apply for sick-leave during the time in Mozambique. I did however see a lot of things in Johannesburg and should not complain. Here are a few pictures of the place, (in order: View from Jan Smuts Avenue, Nelson Mandela bridge, Park Station and street stalls.
Departure
Some days are your “lucky day” and on some days, you should never have woken up. The departure-day could in many respects have been better. When I booked the ticket, I forgot that 1st May is a bank holiday in Sweden and the train operator runs limited services. This resulted in that there was no train that could take me to Stockholm-Arlanda airport in time and I had to get my parents to drive me. Very popular as the day before (30th April) is “Valborg”, an old Nordic tradition/festival that is one of the few days each year that everyone has to be recklessly drunk.
Anyway, after less than five hours sleep due to lots of last-minute packing and waking up even earlier than when I had to go to London with Philippe for work (which still is one of the dark moments in my life), the day continued. I nearly forgot my mobile phone and had to turn back after 10 km, I got a terrible headache which prevented me to feast on the free beer/wine on the BA flight and also, the flight was fully booked and passengers were offered to take a three hour later flight and be compensated with €250. I was of course the first one at the counter (as I had a 4 hour wait on Heathrow anyway) but that would involve a 40 minute transit, which the BA bitches didn’t allow and the fat guy with the beard behind me got the €250 instead.
Fortunately, my mood was saved by the HSBC adverts at Heathrow Airport. These clever ads play with different viewpoints and conclude that everyone sees the world differently (which certainly is true).
In fact, I got to the airport although it was 1st May, I didn’t miss the flight, I arrived to Johannesburg in time, I had my phone with me and I didn’t pay a penny more for the flights than I agreed to at the time of booking. And I didn’t arrive drunk and all the headache was gone after a night of sleep. All-in-all, a quite good day.
Anyway, after less than five hours sleep due to lots of last-minute packing and waking up even earlier than when I had to go to London with Philippe for work (which still is one of the dark moments in my life), the day continued. I nearly forgot my mobile phone and had to turn back after 10 km, I got a terrible headache which prevented me to feast on the free beer/wine on the BA flight and also, the flight was fully booked and passengers were offered to take a three hour later flight and be compensated with €250. I was of course the first one at the counter (as I had a 4 hour wait on Heathrow anyway) but that would involve a 40 minute transit, which the BA bitches didn’t allow and the fat guy with the beard behind me got the €250 instead.
Fortunately, my mood was saved by the HSBC adverts at Heathrow Airport. These clever ads play with different viewpoints and conclude that everyone sees the world differently (which certainly is true).
In fact, I got to the airport although it was 1st May, I didn’t miss the flight, I arrived to Johannesburg in time, I had my phone with me and I didn’t pay a penny more for the flights than I agreed to at the time of booking. And I didn’t arrive drunk and all the headache was gone after a night of sleep. All-in-all, a quite good day.
Departure
Some days are your “lucky day” and on some days, you should never have woken up. The departure-day could in many respects have been better. When I booked the ticket, I forgot that 1st May is a bank holiday in Sweden and the train operator runs limited services. This resulted in that there was no train that could take me to Stockholm-Arlanda airport in time and I had to get my parents to drive me. Very popular as the day before (30th April) is “Valborg”, an old Nordic tradition/festival that is one of the few days each year that everyone has to be recklessly drunk.
Anyway, after less than five hours sleep due to lots of last-minute packing and waking up even earlier than when I had to go to London with Philippe for work (which still is one of the dark moments in my life), the day continued. I nearly forgot my mobile phone and had to turn back after 10 km, I got a terrible headache which prevented me to feast on the free beer/wine on the BA flight and also, the flight was fully booked and passengers were offered to take a three hour later flight and be compensated with €250. I was of course the first one at the counter (as I had a 4 hour wait on Heathrow anyway) but that would involve a 40 minute transit, which the BA bitches didn’t allow and the fat guy with the beard behind me got the €250 instead.
Fortunately, my mood was saved by the HSBC adverts at Heathrow Airport. These clever ads play with different viewpoints and conclude that everyone sees the world differently (which certainly is true).
In fact, I got to the airport although it was 1st May, I didn’t miss the flight, I arrived to Johannesburg in time, I had my phone with me and I didn’t pay a penny more for the flights than I agreed to at the time of booking. And I didn’t arrive drunk and all the headache was gone after a night of sleep. All-in-all, a quite good day.
Anyway, after less than five hours sleep due to lots of last-minute packing and waking up even earlier than when I had to go to London with Philippe for work (which still is one of the dark moments in my life), the day continued. I nearly forgot my mobile phone and had to turn back after 10 km, I got a terrible headache which prevented me to feast on the free beer/wine on the BA flight and also, the flight was fully booked and passengers were offered to take a three hour later flight and be compensated with €250. I was of course the first one at the counter (as I had a 4 hour wait on Heathrow anyway) but that would involve a 40 minute transit, which the BA bitches didn’t allow and the fat guy with the beard behind me got the €250 instead.
Fortunately, my mood was saved by the HSBC adverts at Heathrow Airport. These clever ads play with different viewpoints and conclude that everyone sees the world differently (which certainly is true).
In fact, I got to the airport although it was 1st May, I didn’t miss the flight, I arrived to Johannesburg in time, I had my phone with me and I didn’t pay a penny more for the flights than I agreed to at the time of booking. And I didn’t arrive drunk and all the headache was gone after a night of sleep. All-in-all, a quite good day.
Engineering Works
I had about a week at home before departure. Most of this time was spent re-organising my stuff from the very well packed car and sorting the items to be included in the baggage.
Also, a surprising development at the house was carried out. For several years, dad had a hot-water tank that was supposed to be installed in the basement but it had been left outside on the yard ever since. However, I suddenly decided that it should be carried down to the furnace room before I left and on the last evening it was successfully completed. It was nonetheless far from a straightforward task as the tank was 4.5 cm too wide for one of the basement door frames. We therefore had to knock the frame down and create an awful mess in the basement. The most boring stage in the works (tidying up and trying to get the doorframe up again) is now left for dad alone, which worked out quite perfectly for me. I hope to see some photos of the installed and working tank very soon.
Does it sound stressful? Not really. Compared to being bullied by Philippe and Kenny, it was like heaven on earth.
Also, a surprising development at the house was carried out. For several years, dad had a hot-water tank that was supposed to be installed in the basement but it had been left outside on the yard ever since. However, I suddenly decided that it should be carried down to the furnace room before I left and on the last evening it was successfully completed. It was nonetheless far from a straightforward task as the tank was 4.5 cm too wide for one of the basement door frames. We therefore had to knock the frame down and create an awful mess in the basement. The most boring stage in the works (tidying up and trying to get the doorframe up again) is now left for dad alone, which worked out quite perfectly for me. I hope to see some photos of the installed and working tank very soon.
Does it sound stressful? Not really. Compared to being bullied by Philippe and Kenny, it was like heaven on earth.
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