Coffee and cakes in Maputo

My impressions of Maputo are that it feels like a proper city with its wide pavements, people busily hawking anything and everything, and markets full of fresh produce (lots fruit and vegetable varieties), which all means that as a capital Lusaka suffers terribly in comparison. There are pasteleria’s selling espresso coffee and small, sweet custard cream like pastries where you can sit outside and spend hours people watching. I am only a bit lost not knowing the Portuguese language; this means people are friendly but it is harder to access the open warmth of the Zambian people. The parts that I have seen showcase a city of contrasts. On one side of the street you can watch maids all dressed up walking the dogs of their rich owners or waiting to collect shopping bags from cars as the owners pass by. The other side has buildings in disrepair, homeless people sleeping on the street and the foul smell of piled up, rotting rubbish. There are beautiful colonial buildings and on the next road towering, 1960s, communist like structures. The warm weather is perfect for outdoor eating and fruit is everywhere with some of my favourite exotic ones like litchi and passion fruit easily available. I like the place.

Christmas in a stable

The title says it all really. We awoke on Christmas morning after spending the night in a stable that had been converted into a bunk bed style dormitory which could have slept another 30 or more people but we had the whole place to ourselves. The horses had been to another proper stable close-by. Christmas breakfast was taken outside in the warm morning sun, we were surrounded by fields and hills, and little much else. To prepare for our planned feast later on we walked and then walked some more, and returned to a tasty meal of roast beef and vegetables supported by a amusingly named red wine of Fat Bastard. Dessert consisted of an electric mix of freshly picked blackberries (which brought back childhood memories of clambering into blackberry bushes by the roadside), cheese and chocolates. Of course it still felt strange, like last year, to not be surrounded by the Wootton family but the good friends and the unusual location still made it a special and enjoyable Christmas.

Swaziland or is it somewhere back home?

The place is very green. There are hills, some look like mountains, very few people and it is drizzling. At first I was a bit confused as to where exactly we had ended up after crossing the border into Swaziland from South Africa. It looked like the Lake or Peak District back home and this view was reinforced over the next few days as we did plenty of walking in between sheltering indoors to avoid the rain and to keep warm. Because it was Christmas we had expected many more people, yet Swaziland felt fairly sparsely populated and as we discovered later on all the South African’s had moved en-mass to the coast of Mozambique. For a whole variety of connotations one pre-Christmas walk involved climbing a mountain called Sheba’s Breast and it did not fail to deliver some wonderful scenery.

Durban and Zinkwazi

The first stop on the three country Christmas tour was South Africa and Durban. It was hard to fairly judge Durban. On the one hand it was just good to be holiday, being away and enjoying some tasty food. We were only in the city for two nights, one full day, and spent that wandering around the city centre and beach front, which was packed with people enjoying the sea, sand and water parks. Live bands played away and there was a good feeling and friendly vibe about the place. The bits of the centre that we saw had obviously undergone a big facelift, mainly as a result of South Africa holding the 2012 World Cup, and had done much to make the city more accessible. Now to be unfair, it was simply not Cape Town, a city that I will happily visit again.

After Durban we headed to a small, seaside hamlet of a place called Zinkwaki, which is around 80kms north of Durban. We stayed with some English doctor friends who Marco had met in Zambia and who were very welcoming as we took over their rather large house for a few days. We walked to the beach which took about 2 minutes, did not move much whilst there and enjoyed nights of good food and wine (plus some peach sparkling wine on Kristin’s birthday – a not to be repeated drink!), and pleasingly did little much else.

New opportunity

Really by this date I should be writing something on this blog along the lines of almost time to pack my bags for returning back to the UK or I am off for a few months travelling, given that my two year placement with VSO will come to an end by February 2012. However, it looks like I will be in Zambia for a while yet, not in Mazabuka but instead in Lusaka.

For a number of months another VSO volunteer and myself have been working on a project proposal to help enable a better understanding of who is doing what on HIV and AIDS in Zambia, where the different organisations are working, the types of activities they are engaged in and how much of the actual activity is taking place. Now none of this is rocket science, yet a simple and coherent system for collecting and analysing this sort of information does not exist at the moment. The answers are not going to solve the problems faced by the country in terms of HIV and AIDS but if we do not have this basic information in the first place then Zambia is struggling to even get to first base.

Hopefully come January the funding for the project will be in place for the first phase of the work and we can get started. It will be a new challenge for me, working at the national level in Zambia but also providing training and support to people in districts like Mazabuka. I will write and explain more about the project (if you are interested) when we finally start. For now I am off on holiday with a few friends to explore the hills of Swaziland and relax on the beaches of Mozambique, which I am hoping will be as good as it sounds.

The Last Supper

There is little to say here. The Maz crowd gathered together at Marco’s spacious house for one last time – for our usual feast of good food, to be served drinks from his homemade bar and to play a few games of pool. We will all have many happy memories from nights at that house and the people we met there.

A New Boy in Town

Next door to my office is a local organisation working for people with disabilities and run by two friendly, charming women called Cristobel and Beauty. As far as I can whenever they have asked for my help and advice I have tried my best to support them, which is not easy given they have very little, if any, funding and people with disabilities remain a marginalised group within society. When Beauty became pregnant she confidently informed me that she would be having a boy and that she would name him Robert. I innocently thought that she was teasing me, just being kind or more likely to change her mind later on and choose a traditional name. Of course I was wrong and I struggle to think of a greater honour as when Beauty gave birth this week she did name him after me, which brought a larger than normal, beaming smile to my face. Pictures of baby Robert will follow soon.

HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy

Feeling exhausted after all the running around from and the chaos of World AIDS Day there was little time to rest as I travelled to Lusaka for a workshop on HIV and AIDS workplace policy. I honestly thought that the next two days would be tedious and not prove to be worthwhile; instead the interesting nature of the discussions and the people proved me wrong. The participants had been selected on the basis that we were all part of the consultations to help develop an overarching HIV and AIDS workplace policy for Zambia. We were now at the point of commenting on a draft policy which was meant to act as guiding principles for all sectors in the country to follow and to encourage them to develop their own HIV and AIDS workplace policy policies.

A lot of detailed and careful work had gone into the document which benefited our discussions as we rarely had to rewrite sections; instead we provided corrections, insertions or additions. The mix of contributions from participants covering Government Departments, Civil Society and the Private sector also helped. My main hope is that our comments and the good progress that has already been made in drafting such a policy is not lost. A genuine effort needs to be made to launch the policy, engage with the different sectors and then support to them so that the sectors, businesses, institutions and other organisations create their own HIV and AIDS workplace policies. What we do not need is another well written policy gathering dust on a shelf.

Photos from World AIDS Day 2011

World AIDS Day 2011

“My last commemoration event”, spoken with a mixture of relief and joy, mainly because so much of the work ends up being done at the last minute and as a result Judy and I end up shouldering too much of the organising burden. Oh to be a fly on the wall after we have gone and when the preparations start for the next event!

This event was no different aside from the added pressure of the Guest of Honour being the Honourable Professor Nkandu Luo MP and the Minister of Local Government, Housing, Early Education and Environmental Protection. There were a few hiccups along the way which always happens but in general the day, activities, marching and everything else went pretty much to plan. The Minister spoke eloquently and passionately (as we had hoped) and the testimonies by people with HIV were especially moving and powerful. The event was seen by most people as a success though a few nagging questions remain in my mind where we need to improve. Some examples:

• World AIDS Day is still seen as a one-off with the people effort and expense being great and all focused on one day. Then everyone returns to their day-to-day duties until we start banging the drum about the next event. Whereas what is needed is a continued focus and effort, not necessarily a World AIDS Day everyday, but the message must be reinforced everyday in a variety of different ways
• We need to understand whether these events actually work and make a difference. Most of the discussions and debates during the planning and then on the actual day concern t-shirts, food and drink, and how much of these things will be available. The self interest and what is in it for me takes over from thinking about we and the community
• Most of the people taking part of already part of the HIV service provider community – the workers, volunteers and activists. These people should know better (though this is not my point but many of these people are happy to preach one thing and then do the opposite). The actual members of the community are hard to encourage to attend the events and only participate in small numbers, particularly if there are no incentives, i.e. t-shirts, on offer. The events, therefore, end up being a commemoration for these people in the know.

Lastly I should highlight the theme for this year’s event which was all about “Getting to Zero New HIV Infections.” Linked to the theme the various messages that were promoted to reach the zero included:

• Sticking to one Sexual Partner to reduce risk of HIV infection
• Protecting your baby from HIV by going for Counselling and Testing during pregnancy
• Using a condom correctly and consistently every time you have sex.