this is me

Coffee makes the morning OK : " Coffee makes the morning OK"

The chefes das brigadas (brigade chiefs - the ones in charge of the hundreds of locals working in the field) at training on how to effectively spray the insecticide:

things i'd like to remember from the past couple days: getting to see the faces of the people who go out to the field and ensure that the hundreds of people hired for the spray season get the money they deserve. it's a thankless job, arriving on-site by 5am and dealing with argumentative and dishonest people. i'm really impressed. sitting in the kitchen at lunch time, being given the seat of 'honor' and choosing my food first, observing the camaraderie among the staff. dinner poolside at the municipal pool - it's an amazingly well kept restaurant with gorgeous food presentation. wish i had brought my camera to dinner. not super excited that the red wine they brought me was chilled, but the stuffed pork i ordered for dinner and the fried banana with amarula and ice cream for dessert were awesome. watching Juno on TV after dinner and marveling at the power of cable tv to bring things i'd never expect to Africa one of the office helpers going out looking for ...

Monday morning began with a hotel breakfast promptly at 7am and a stop at the office before we headed out on the road. We rent the first floor of a house and all the necessary equipment and technology for about 5 months out of the year. There are 4 full-time staff that stay primarily at the office – an admin assistant, an office manager, a cook, and a cleaner. There is also an office for the finance staff, one for logistics staff, and one for visitors. Everyone was very gracious and I was happy to recognize most of their names since I manage the budget that has their salaries included! We then headed out to Mocuba, one of the 6 districts where we are responsible for paying the local staff hired throughout the spray season, which was about a two hour drive. A car and driver have been hired for the office staff throughout the season and he drove myself and two colleagues to various construction sites throughout the region. The driver looks like he can’t be a day over 20 (alt...

(wrote this Sunday night when I didn't have internet access...more soon. I've also uploaded more pics to Picasa which I'll label sooner or later.) Quelimane is such a beautiful and sad city. It was the first “big” city in Mozambique , but all the local factories shut down after the civil war following independence in 1975 and there is literally no industry here. Ten or fifteen abandoned ships line the shoreline, and the 19 th century church shown in so many pictures of this town has also been long abandoned, with everything inside stolen, including the altar. My colleague took me on a walk around the city soon after we arrived, and showed me where he saw his first movie, and told me that when he had his appendix removed as a teenager, this was the town where his family came, because it was the main city in this region. We sat for a beer at a restaurant right on the river that made Quelimane the main port in northern Mozambique , and he told me how the owner of the est...

with very limited access to email so for now just wanted to say i got to Quelimane just fine, things are good, and i´ll write more soon!

amazing what some quality drapes can do. i should invest in some for my apartment! in any case, I did go to Costa do Sol for lunch, and had more prawns (i may have reached my limit) and enjoyed the view of the water. The taxi driver on the way back played Celine Dion in his car. When I got back to my hotel, I grabbed a book and sat by the pool while the sun went down. I noticed on Thursday when I was exploring a bit that there seemed to be a small stadium next door, and I could hear a lot of cheering and general fun being had this afternoon. Tomorrow I fly up to Quelimane , where the field work of my program in Mozambique occurs. I'm looking forward to meeting more colleagues, visiting some of the work sites, and getting a better sense of the value of the work I do. Uploaded more pictures - the best ones should come next week: Mozambique

to a restaurant called Mundo's that has good pizza and was rumored to have a good wine selection by the glass, but turns out you can't choose what kind of wine you want by the glass, and i couldn't totally understand what the waitress said...so i ended up with something red and half decent. random guy who knew enough English to tell me that I should stay and talk to him and ask for my number followed me to my taxi...and a cop chastised me for only carrying a copy of my passport at a checkpoint about 2 blocks from my hotel. fun times. tomorrow I plan to head to this market and this hotel .

1. slept in. glorious. 2. did some work. 3. ventured out for a couple hours. had my first Mozambican beer (a Laurentina) and took some pictures. got doused with dust thanks to some strong wind. Mozambique 4. came back to do some more work. 5. got in bed to take a nap. all in all, not bad so far.

not a whole lot to report today - i seem to have caught a cold on my way over and am too sniffly tonight to want to do anything after work. lunch was great today, though - the country manager for our office here took me to Marisqueira Sagres , which is the restaurant attached to the only waterfront hotel in Maputo. (there's a road between my hotel and the bay, so that doesn't count.) more prawns and some yummy chicken and absolutely perfect weather. it's winter and their dry season, so every day is about 85 and sunny, with no humidity. The sun sets at 5pm, though, which is not super fun. tomorrow is Mozambique's Independence Day, so the office is closed and I'll have some time to explore. looking forward to not setting an alarm and wandering through downtown - there are a lot of pretty buildings within walking distance of my hotel, and I think I'll save the visit to the Costa do Sol restaurant on the water for Saturday.

not only did i order a plate of prawns for dinner, but i didn't even hesitate when they came served with eyes and tentacles still attached. (do prawns have tentacles? I'm not sure what those feeler things are called...) they were pretty yummy. and this hotel apparently pours glasses of wine to the tippy top. my dinner music included piano versions of From a Distance, Tears in Heaven, With or Without You, and other fine tunes.

Yep - you read that right. There's a KFC on the ground floor of the office complex. Who knew? I'll get more adventurous soon, but right now I just need some sustenance after 4 airplane meals, a granola bar, and some peanut butter crackers. The trip out here was long but not too difficult. I was ready and packed with 20 minutes to spare, and met some interesting people on the SuperShuttle that took me to the airport – a man flying to Paris to work with International Energy Agency and an Australian couple who had spent the last 6 weeks traveling through eastern Canada , then to NYC and DC and were on their way to San Francisco before heading home. No problems at the airport, and when I boarded the South African Airways flight, I found that my seat assignment was right next to Ed, the man my company recently hired for a new project in Namibia . Our tickets were booked through the same travel agency, but it still seemed like a crazy coincidence! It was nice to have a travel compan...

I think I will like this hotel... View Larger Map