Camarãos, Mosquitos & Frangos

After a plentiful night, plentiful of mosquitos that is, we rose at 6 AM in the “Sala Azul” (the nursery of the Khanimambo). We headed for a cold shower, then packed up and joined the children, volunteers and workers for a bread-and-tea breakfast. Prior to breakfast, we waited with the children in the courtyard, where we found them to be amazingly affectionate and energetic. Many of them would come and hug us, coyly asking us to lift them up, while they played with our glasses or asked for pictures. After breakfast, we joined the volunteers, captains and educators for a meeting regarding the issues encountered during the games that were played during the previous day. The main matter discussed was the involvement of sportsmanship during the games, and although this isn’t much of an engineering-based problem, it gave insight to a lot of the operations and living conditions that are encountered here in Mozambique.

Today (4/8/2017) was focused on understanding the experiences of the different human components that made the Fundação Khanimambo the institution that it is, as well as documenting the facilities that are found within the complex and gathering information on nearby resources and amenities. The first part of the day involved interviewing the Secretary of Education (whom was a local Mozambican), a medium-term NGO worker (whom was Spanish), a short-term volunteer (a Spanish dentist, to give insight into the medical and sanitary facilities) and a student that had grown through the ranks from age 9 to 17. Each one of these interviewees had their take and perspective on the foundation and what hurdles are encountered whilst working and studying at Khanimambo. The day continued with a digital logging of the facilities and their state. This data acquisition phase allowed us to get a first hand experience of what it would be like to record information on the ground and at the same time begin to better understand the functioning of an organisation from within.

Once, the exercise was finalised, we headed to the beach where we met with some of the volunteers and ate “Camarão” and “Frango” (although we had some maize mash and boiled fish at the children’s shelter). Then we returned to Khanimambo with 36 of us squashed in a small “chapa” to pack up and head to Tofo with the team. It was a 4-hour drive to Tofo, including 2 in the dark. Once at Tofo, we celebrated our arrival with a crab curry and beer, and a good night’s sleep.

August 5, 2017