Exploring the “No-Go Zone”

After some indecision, we decided to spend the weekend in Maputo with Muheti, rather than venturing to Inhaca. Maputo’s weekend was full of unexpected surprises, ranging from a beautiful sunset at Dhow on Saturday to a delicious street food meal on the highway, involving “cachorro” (A.K.A. hot dog), and a ginger-lemon-sugarcane drink made on the spot. Both Saturday and Sunday included a change of our headquarters, thus the mornings were slower than others, but we made sure to take advantage of the afternoons and evenings.

Our Saturday was a much needed lazy day of laying around in our hostel (for the last time) while planning the second half of our trip in Ponta D’Ouro, Nampula, Isla do Mozambique and Cabo Delgado. Once we decided to get active, we drove to Dhow to enjoy the sunset and spent an evening with plenty of Thai food and a few beers with Muheti, a friend of his and a friend we made in our hostel, Hamish.

Sunday, on the other hand, involved a lot more moving around, visiting the Polana Serena Hotel –a signature hotel of the city-, the Polana church, the Central Train Station, the Fortress and even driving past a “black market”, where apparently you could buy anything. In this tour, Muheti presented the city in an incredibly diverse and thrilling way, brimming with opportunities and potential. In the evening we went to a very popular Sunday evening bar/art gallery, Nucleo de Arte, where you could mingle with artists and musicians, as well as scientists and volunteers. There we had a few beers with a friend of Alberto’s who has been living in Maputo for a while and enjoyed a lovely night. The space was very alternative, covered in art works and had an odour that conversed between cigars and cigarettes.

On Monday we woke up ready to seize the week, having three meetings in the morning. Beginning with I-Tech, an affiliate of the University of Washington, with whom we had a productive chat, but because of different visions and approaches to development a collaboration would depend on many things, although we are both certainly very open to helping each other out. The second meeting of the day was with the Rome-based Faith-based Organization: Communidade Sant’Egidio (CSE), whom is running the Drug Resource Enhancement against AIDS and Malnutrition (DREAM) program. In this case, Jaime had to pull-off a full presentation with a broken Portuguese. Despite this, CSE showed interest in creating a partnership. CSE operates multiple clinics and laboratories across the country, and they have given us the opportunity to go visit one in Maputo later on in the week. Lastly, we had a meeting with Population Services International (PSI). PSI is an institution that works on a spectrum of issues ranging from HIV/AIDS to a water-treatment program. It was a very constructive meeting and we hope to create a partnership that will increment the number of projects PSI can tackle by getting students and academics involved.