Back in the States

We made it back and had a great time. I have posted pictures of the trip at the following address: http://picasaweb.google.com/clskinn/MozambiqueInternship

May 21, 2008

We finished teaching our business principles class today. Three of the students have attended all of the classes and worked with us in the field for the past week, I think they have potential to fit in nicely in the future. We have enjoyed our time here in Mozambique and enjoyed the working with great people. We feel we were able to develop a good business plan and start some of the implementation, we hope that the managers here will be able to carry it out and make it successful. Not only, is there a market for the product, but we feel this business will benefit the entrepreneurs and the gardeners on multiple levels.

I’ll have to admit that it took about two weeks to overcome the initial culture shock of Mozambique, but Dave and I have grown quite fond of some of the things. The crowded streets are great and the Vodacom cell phone ads make us laugh – the slang “bazza bazza”. One of the Vodacom ads has a picture of a Mr. T looking guy saying “bazza bazza” – we think we have the phrase figured out, but I prefer to just say it in a deep voice and let it mean whatever I want it to.

May 20, 2008

Today we held a meeting with the staff and reviewed some of the things in our business plan and talked about steps to implementing it. We have really enjoyed working with the staff here and hope that they are successful in the future as it will benefit the lives of many people in Mozambique.
After our meeting we went to the Care For Life facility to finish up the pump there with some of our potential entrepreneurs. It has been fun watching them develop and learn more. The ride home was particularly fun. We had to cram seven sweaty bodies into the car after a day of work. we piled into the car, which happened to be parked next to a chicken coup. The smell any one of those things was more than one could handle, but to have both the smelly bodies and the chicken smell was just too much. So Dave in all his brilliance and in an effort to not offend anyone decided to discretly do something about it... apply coconut scented, spray-on sunscreen. So we are not only packed INSIDE a car, but the sun was setting and there was Dave spraying on sunscreen. Needless to say, Dave got a few strange looks, but the smell in the car improved.

May 19, 2008

We taught our class this morning and that went well. This afternoon we had meeting with Ascend defining duties and roles for everyone here. It was a good meeting and I think will help get everyone on the same page here. Dave and I stayed up late tonight finishing our business plan and planning a meeting tomorrow with everyone to finalize everything and do some implementation. Tonight Jack whipped up a little shrimp bisque for dinner.

Each Sunday I have been impressed with the church here. The meetings have been quality meetings and the attendance is pretty higher, often better than I remember it in Brazil. We went to the chapel downtown, which is really nice, with AC, padded benches, a decent sound system, and a large cultural hall with a stage. It seemed nicer than many of the chapels I have seen in Brazil or Mexico. There was a miniature racecar race on the street in front of the chapel though so we could hear occasional cheers and loud music, but overall the meeting was very good and reverent. Sorry the pictures are so small, it takes a while to upload them with our slow, shared Internet connection.

May 17, 2008

Today we went to Gorongosa National Park (www.gorongosa.net). In the 1950’s and 1960’s Gorongosa was one of the biggest nature reserves around and was known for its big game; however, during the civil war a lot of the fighting occurred in the area and many of the animals were killed for food or for money to buy arms (the elephants and their ivory tusks especially). The park is now being restored.

We left at 5:30 this morning and arrived at about 8:30. We knew that would be a little late in the day and we didn’t see any lions or elephants like we were hoping to, but we wanted to make it a day trip. We had a fun time though and saw monkeys, baboons, gazelle, bushpigs, warthogs, and rhino. It was kind of like a do-it-yourself safari since we used our own 4X wheel drive vehicle in the park and we basically just cruised around the park looking for stuff. At the entrance I felt like we were entering Jurassic Park

You kind of need a telephoto lens to take any sort of picture that will do justice to the animals and the surroundings, but I promise one of these photos shows the... backside of an animal -- I'll let you figure out which one of the pictures that is ;-)

May 16, 2008

So I think there is a dead mouse somewhere in our kitchen. Efigenia put rat poison all over the kitchen and pantry and for the past few days we have noticed an interesting smell coming from the kitchen, however, today it is almost unbearable. Eric moved the fridge to look behind it and something went crazy with the wiring and the extension cord lit on fire. He replaced the extension cord and five minutes later the new one lit on fire again. The good news is that the smell of dead rat went away as it was replaced by the smell of burned electrical cords.

May 15, 2008

Today we stayed home to work on our business plan and put together a last minute funding request for Ascend. Jack took 4 potential entrepreneurs with him to install a pump at the Care For Life facility.

Here is a picture of the entrepreneurs receiving training from Jack at the Ascend facility and a picture of them in the classroom.

May 14, 2008

Today we went to the Care For Life facility to survey their farm for a pump. We were there at sundown and it was really quite pretty. As we were driving home looking across the green rice fields and tall coconut trees I thought to myself that Mozambique is kind of growing on me. I mentioned that to Dave and he said he had had that same thought earlier today as we were walking around downtown before teaching our class. There is a certain mystique that kind of grows on you and I guess that it just takes exactly 14 days to incubate. Earlier today we had fun teaching a class on marketing to potential pump entrepreneurs and the rest of the day was spent with them preparing a pump to install and evaluating the pump location at care For Life.

May 13, 2008

Today we had some of our potential employees come by the office for some hands-on training. The three who came stayed almost all day and seemed excited about the work. We are continuing with the classroom training tomorrow. As we were talking ot them in the morning Felipe was translating for Jack and Felipe said he wanted to tell them something. He wanted to tell them that one of the negative things about working here is that we don’t have “shima” for lunch and we usually have sandwiches. Shima is the main staple here and is kind of like a big ball of cream of wheat (without the sugar I usually put on it). He said it jokingly, but you could also tell he was kind of serious about it.

We went out to dinner tonight and received our food in record time… 55 minutes – they must have already had a chicken running around in the backyard to use.

May 12, 2008

Today, Dave and I led a training session on basic business principles with seven potential employees. We also invited them to join us tomorrow for some hands-on training actually building water pumps. Since the skillset required to be successful in this job is rather unique we plan to incorporate a mixture of hands-on training as well as classroom instruction in the employment selection/training process. Well, as you can tell I have been writing a business plan for the rest of the day and might of just slipped into b-plan writing mode there.

Other than that the only other interesting thing is that Eric has been busy pulling “matakenya” out of his feet. For those of you who are not familiar with “matakenya” you should stay that way -- they are little bugs that burrow into your skin to lay their eggs. No worries though Dave and I are matakenya free.

May 11, 2008

We went to church this morning. I’m impressed with the church here. The work seems to be going forward. We met another senior missionary couple, other than the couple we met last week, I really admire these couples for serving here. They said the language is a challenge and I know the conditions are not great.

After church we went to an orphanage by the beach and took some pictures by the beach. We drove by the LDS chapel in town and it is really nice. The ride in the “chapa” (the mini van) over there was interesting. We had 22 people piled in the van at one point, that includes the bodies that were mostly hanging outside the van though.

This fine little establishment on the side of the road has a sign outside that says “We repair and unlock cell phones here.” So if anyone wants their iPhone unlocked this is the place to do it.

May 10, 2008

Today was relatively laid back we stayed around the house since Felipe and Efigenia were off today. We ended up having materials delivered and worked around the house.
So here is my response to Dave’s posting about our visit to Shoprite last night. He considerately skipped a few of the details and jumped to “what eventually happened was…”. However, before our ingenious move that forced the girl to essentially choose between the two of us, which she obviously had a hard time doing and delayed just long enough for both of us to get away, the girl did kind of violate my personal space and got a little touchy feely. I was trying to forget the experience and Dave was thoughtful enough to leave that part out, but it’s is a piece of the story that needs to be told and I have decided to face that.

May 9, 2008

This picture was taken of Dave and me outside one of the stores where we buy supplies. The best part about this picture is the security guard coming out the door to stop us from taking pictures. He was very upset that we didn’t ask permission beforehand. The guard doesn’t have much to do and I heard one of the store owners call him “Oi Senhor Seguranca”, (Hey, Mr Security), But to make sure we weren’t upsetting anyone too much we talked to the owner and he laughed about us wanting to remember him in the U.S.

Before going to buy materials we went to visit some of the other pumps that have been installed and did a little quality control. We fixed a few things on some of them and made sure they all looked good. As far as marketing goes, we have found that word spreads like wildfire about these pumps and have received a number of requests at each pump that has been installed.

May 8, 2008

Today we went with the director of Care For Life (another NGO in the area) and Efigenia to visit some of the previously installed pumps. It is good to see how some of the people have really caught the vision of what they can do with this simple technology. Here are a few pictures. The first one is at Sergio’s garden and the second one is me in front of a chicken house at the Care For Life facility. I know people say a picture is worth a thousand words, but if you could only smell half the smell of the chicken house you would be in tears.