ONP Professional Development Program
Lichinga and Pemba, Mozambique
July 22 – August 14, 2010
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Thursday July 22
Rebecca, Charlie the Min Pin and I leave for the airport around 1600. I’m away to Mozambique by way of London and an overnight stop in Lisbon. Rebecca and Charlie are flying to Edmonton to meet up with Galien, who has been teaching at Debra Morgan’s ballet school for the past two weeks, and Ms Mae. They will all drive home tomorrow in Galien’s car—Rebecca and Charlie occupying Mae’s attention on the drive.
Friday, July 23
My flights are straightforward, luggage is within allowances and I arrive in Lisbon in good form, although my checked bag is not on the conveyor. A delay occurs while I try to track it down. A very helpful young woman at TAP believes she knows where it is, leaves her desk and returns ten minutes later with the bag in tow. My Lisbon flight was delayed for an hour at the gate in London and apparently the bag was put on an earlier flight and got to Lisbon before me.
At the Lisbon Radisson Blu Hotel, a short drive from the airport, I meet up with my colleagues Carol Bacaio and Adilia Fernandes. Carol was born in Portugal and has spent the past few days visiting family in the north of the country. Adilia spent the early part of this month teaching an adult art class for York University in Florence, Italy. Also of Portuguese descent, Adilia spent a few days in Lisbon as well.
Our stay in Lisbon is to be brief and after supper we head to our rooms. Our TAP flight to Maputo leaves at 0630, which means arrival at the airport at 0430 and an early rise tomorrow at 0330.
Saturday, July 24
We leave the hotel at 0400 for the short drive to the airport. The hotel kindly provides their Mercedes Benz van, so space for all of our luggage and us is not a problem. We take along a young man returning on the same flight to his Mozambique home. Gabrielle Viegas has been studying agriculture in Spain and he is part of Mozambique’s bright future.
A long flight follows lift off in an Airbus A340, built in 1993, the year of my first visit to Mozambique. It has likely been routinely assigned to this flight ever since. My friends are seated near me and I’m seated by a window with a lovely young Italian woman who is on her way to visit her fiancé, working on two-year transportation engineering contract.
Our arrival in Maputo gets interesting when our bags are x-rayed by the customs inspector. Both Carol and Adilia have brought a lot of material for the workshops and their suitcases are packed with pencils, calculators, paints, games, pins and more. The young inspector wants payment, as he believes all of this stuff is for resale within his country. An older officer is summoned, listens to Carol’s explanation, and waves us all on.
David Chinavane and Nazare are here to meet us and help get us loaded into two cars. Our next stop is the Hotel Mocambicano for an overnight stay. The hotel is a disappointment—the public areas are quite nice, including the restaurant, but the rooms are something else—dilapidated and very low end, but cheap, I guess, for a Maputo inn.
Sunday, July 24
Another early morning in order to catch our flight to Lichinga. We are all worried about our luggage—Adilia had to pay 100 Euros to get her bag onto the flight from Lisbon. We pile all of our luggage, including David’s, onto the scale and the overage comes to $120. The limit within Mozambique is lower than for international flights and all together we will make four flights inside the country on LAM. Carry-on luggage is also weighed and my two items are each over the ten-pound limit which means they should go into the cargo hold. The agent relents when she learns one bag contains a computer and printer and the other a camera system. The terminal is very busy, with people wrapping luggage in what appears to be Saran Wrap and just to get us boarded, I pay for the overweight luggage for all of us. The plastic wrap, I learn, is meant to prevent pilfering by ground handlers. Where all that stuff goes once people get home is something to be concerned about.
We eventually board one of LAM’s older aircraft, a Boeing 727-200 that has lots of stiffeners riveted onto its fuselage. Newer equipment includes Embrier EMB 190’s and Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400’s, the latter being good news for Canada’s exports. Samples of all three aircraft are on the ramp awaiting their first passengers of the day. Across the field, twin-engine Russian Antonov transports wait with drooping wings for calls to military duty.
Our route takes us north for two hours to Nampula, where, upon landing, everyone exits the aircraft during the station stop. We then head northwest to Lichinga, arriving after a 40-minute flight. The service on both flights is prompt and generous—juice boxes, chips and peanuts, even on the short leg of the flight.
In Lichinga, we collect our luggage and head out to the vehicles that await us. The drive into town is pleasant, following streets and roads first laid out by the Portuguese. The Girassol Hotel is to be our home for the next two weeks and it is a very pleasant surprise after Maputo’s dim experience. We lug our bags upstairs to our large rooms (the lift stays inoperable for the duration of our stay).
Carol, Adilia and I meet at 1700 with David Chinavane (ONP), Manuel Guru (INDE) and Cardosa Machemba, ONP’s director of professional development programs. I have been anxious, to say the least, to see what has been organized for the content and flow of the first workshop, that for the facilitators. An agenda was distributed to us while we were still in Canada and copies appear here as well. It contains a lot of topics but not much direction in terms of who’s doing what when.
We are meeting in the second floor lobby of the hotel and we are pretty widely spread out. I decide to move into the centre of the area to hopefully get the group focused and to start building an agenda for the week that we can reasonably expect to carry out. There are no movable chairs available so I empty a wooden trash container, tip it upside down and plant myself gently upon it in the middle of our little gathering. Looking at the breadth of material in the handout, I check off and give a sequence value to several of the items listed. Then, through discussion and input from everyone, and particularly helpful views from Carol and Adilia, we construct what I name “modules,” give them a place on the agenda and assign people to lead them. After a lengthy meeting, we adjourn, the trash container’s shape firmly imprinted on my bottom, but we have a clear view forward for the next four days. I go to my room to input the revised agenda into my laptop and then print several copies on the new Canon portable printer that accompanied me to Africa. Carol and Adilia work next door on lesson planning for tomorrow. I hear Adilia leave Carol’s room after midnight, ending a very full, well-travelled and productive day.
Monday, July 25
David meets us at the hotel while we are having breakfast and then we are driven a short distance to the Senior Institute for Public Administration, where the workshops will be held. Between the Institute and our hotel is the governor’s office building, complete with his white Mercedes Benz C-240. As we drive into the yard, we see several of the facilitators visiting just outside our classroom. In we all go and the sessions get underway exactly on time. First, lots of welcomes and introductions. The hosting province welcomes us and then the national anthem is sung in many harmonizing voices. The teachers then pray, after which I’m invited to speak. With David’s assistance interpreting, I mention my own ONP history, the CTF-ONP partnership development, and the importance of these workshops to teachers who attend and the students they teach. All of this takes most of the morning and we adjourn for lunch, served by a little restaurant attached to the back of the Institute. The meal service will be laid on each day, for refreshment breaks morning and afternoon, as well as for lunches. We will only need to buy suppers at the hotel.
After lunch, teachers report on their professional lives—difficulties and opportunities—and later on take part in a workshop to confront and deal with some of the problems. It is helpful to have Manuel Guru here to hear the teachers and to take part in the workshop session. Guru, as he refers to himself, being essentially a staff member of the ministry, seems rather aloof at first. Carol learns from conversation with him that he really didn’t want to be here for a week, away from his family and office, to work with teachers from the field.
We end our first day at 1730 and return to the hotel. Supper is at 1900 after which I work on revisions to the agenda and Carol and Adilia work on planning for tomorrow’s sessions. We try the Internet in the hotel lobby but learn that service to the entire town is out for the time being. Nevertheless, the workshop is proceeding well and the pressures of the unknown on the first day are now well behind us.
The weather merits comment: it is cool and mainly overcast today and I’m glad I brought along a jacket and a light sweater. This is, after all, Mozambique’s winter and here in the northwest highlands, there can be a noticeable chill in the air. The temperature makes for a pleasant classroom environment, however.
More revisions to the agenda tonight and more copies produced on the wonderful little Canon printer.
Tuesday, July 27
Following a report on yesterday’s activities, we head into a session concerning desired outcomes generated by a national meeting on reading and writing. Participants talk about their approaches to teaching beginning reading and writing and then Carol and Adilia give a demonstration lesson on their approaches. This takes us to the refreshment break after which my two Toronto friends really get the show into high gear.
A little poem, “O Livro” (The Book) is placed before the participants, beautifully inked on chart paper by Adilia. The reading lesson highlights phonetic sounds related to the poem and lists words used frequently in the poem. Then, oh my, the things we can do with a little poem—read it very loudly, then very softly. Read one line standing up and the next line sitting down (quickly, now). Read it backwards. Now have half of the participants put the poem to dance and the other half put it to music. Have performances. Child-centred learning is active learning and a lot of fun to boot, as we all discover.
The day continues with an introduction to writing using different types of poems. We see acrostics, lists and shapes as the basis for involving children in writing. A complete lesson is presented on writing list poems and acrostic poems after which participants write their own. A success criteria chart is shown based on the shape poem “The Rainbow.” The poem then merges into a science and visual arts lesson on colors. Participants using the art sticks brought by Adilia produce color wheels. The day is a model of how to integrate curriculum using good planning, simple materials, and an approach that is centred on the natural interests and instincts of children everywhere.
I photograph the activities, filling up the 4G card, and enjoy every minute of the day—as much as any of the participants and perhaps more. I’m tremendously proud of Carol and Adilia for what they contributed today—simply brilliant. The afternoon refreshment break occurs at 1700, a change from mid-afternoon and a most suitable way to end today’s sessions.
At night, I revise the agenda yet again, adjusting for the time the sessions really take. Carol and Adilia return to their evening planning for tomorrow’s events.
Wednesday, July 28
Back at it this morning, the participants eager to be part of this continuing experience. One of the facilitators gives a presentation on the teaching of mother tongues that is well received. Then the Toronto teachers start off with a primary math lesson using favorite colors as the basis for different types of graphs. Success criteria for the math lesson are presented and a math problem is role modeled. Participants work on provided math problems in small groups then report their results to the group using the success criteria model. A place value lesson using little sticks found in the courtyard is given. Carol and Adilia then demonstrate three forms of lesson planning—daily, web plan and a two-week unit plan. Participants work in groups to plan their own lessons that they then demonstrate to the group.
Meanwhile, I’m photographing quite a bit. A lot of the activities provided by Carol and Adilia in their focus on child-centred learning lend themselves to photographs. This morning’s icebreaker had everyone adding machine sounds and movements to those started by Carol and Adilia. Great fun. After the morning break, a special kind of ball game in the centre square. These are good events, modeled by two caring teachers and in considerable contrast to the lecture format used by our co-tutors. Not knowing anything about what is being said, I read instead the faces, postures and attentiveness of the participants and try to capture this in digital memories.
I make the group photograph this afternoon and have copies made up at the local photo finisher. These will be presented at the closing event later this week.
I stay with the group until 1600 when I return to the hotel. I have a meeting with David and Manuel at 1800 and I have some preparations to make. My guests arrive exactly on time and we settle into chairs in the hotel lobby. We look through the planning program developed by ONP as well as the notes that Nicole provided to me. As we talk and review parts of the documents, other ideas and questions arise in my mind. First off, the training of facilitators: we have these 19 folk for a full week after which two from Niassa Province will work with the teachers who will be attending next week’s workshop. Two others are scheduled to help staff the teachers’ workshop in Pemba. The others, all of whom will have experienced a rich and involving workshop, have nothing planned that will enable them to share their learning with classroom teachers. Most of the facilitators work as staff in teacher training institutions and are not classroom teachers. I wonder how the benefits of their experience will ever get to working teachers who could really use some help. Hopefully they will pass some of this on to their student teachers.
I ask about the utilization of the facilitators. Manuel mentions zones of pedagogy, clusters of schools around the country that can have the services of staff members from INDE. I wonder if the ONP facilitators could be used to support and enhance the work of the INDE field staff. Guru believes this is possible but it would depend on negotiations with ONP and the ministry as to who would be responsible for their costs and how their time could be accessed. David mentions that teachers are supposed to have a day of in-school planning each month and that the facilitators might be used there. Spreading 19 trainers over the vast number of schools seems unlikely, however. Otherwise, ideas for the use of facilitators seem sketchy at best.
Next week’s workshop with classroom teachers will be interesting to observe. These folk will receive pretty much the same program as the facilitators but will take their newfound skills directly back to their classrooms and their students.
So what to do? I think the best approach for now may be to keep the facilitators’ group together but stop running workshops exclusively for their benefit. There may come a time when they are needed and there may be a way to have trained facilitators in 11 of the country’s provinces. But I believe that is in the somewhat distant future. For the next five years of the program, I’m thinking that workshops should be planned for teachers but with room for perhaps 20 per cent of the existing facilitators (or new ones, for that matter) to attend on a cyclical schedule—16 teachers, four facilitators per workshop. Attending facilitators could work as co-tutors with Canadian teachers. As opportunities arise to put facilitators to useful work supporting local teachers, then workshops exclusively for them could be reinstated.
The three of us cover other details required by CTF. Outcomes of our conversations will be included in the program report. But I note three things here: Guru will not speak to me in English, although he understands what I say in my language. It is also difficult to find time to make plans of any substantial nature concerning the participation of INDE in the workshops. And finally, Guru has become completely engaged with what he sees happening in the workshops. He participates fully in the sessions, questions Carol and Adilia constantly, and provides a lot of good information to the teachers during his times “before the class.” He has confided to Carol and Adilia that he is delighted that he decided to attend and that he is learning a great deal from being exposed to the ways of his new Canadian colleagues. He is far less aloof and much more a colleague of everyone at the session.
Tonight, more planning for tomorrow. Adilia hand-letters the certificates that will be issued at the end of the workshop and I package up the group photographs for the participants.
Thursday, July 29
Today will be the last day of classroom work for the facilitators. Carol and Adilia have proposed a field trip experience for tomorrow (and have undertaken to pay for the excursion). Another full day is put in, including a visit from VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas). These are researchers from London interested in the kinds of training experiences received by those who teach in teacher colleges. Our participants form a unique study group for their purpose and they agree to be interviewed. Carol and Adilia present lessons on drama and movement, mathematical calculation activities and spelling. Participants play charades to act out an integrated vocabulary and spell out words.
Near 1700, we begin the formal closing exercises. The national anthem is sung once again, short speeches are provided, Cardosa oversees the handing out of certificates, and I hand out photographs. It has been a memorable week so far and I look forward to what tomorrow may bring.
Friday, July 30
We gather at the Centre at 0800 and await the bus hired by Carol and Adilia to take us on our field trip. Our destination is the village of Metangula on the east shore of Lake Nyassa, a distance of approximately 100 kilometres and two hours en route. My colleagues have prepared a field trip lesson integrating science and art and provide packages of art supplies for each of us. The idea for the field trip came about as Carol and Adilia listened to the stories of some of the teachers concerning difficulties they encountered during their travels to the Lichinga workshop. They felt that a field trip to the lake, which only one of the participants has seen, would be a welcome treat and an opportunity to model yet another student-centred teaching strategy. When they announced the trip on Wednesday, there was great appreciation, ululation and pleasure.
We leave Lichinga in a little Mitsubishi bus and pick up speed on the paved highway. As always, an African vehicle has the right of way and our progress is aided by the driver’s constant use of the horn. All scatter before us, some with less dignity than others. We rise higher as we proceed west winding through valleys, over passes in the low mountains and through vast swaths of pine forest plantations. It is beautiful country, reminiscent of the high foothills on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.
I photograph from the bus, capturing scenes of villages and countryside as well as my fellow passengers. I spot a large baboon in the ditch by the road but we are past before I can raise my camera. Approaching the lake, the road winds down from the heights to the lakeshore. This is an enormous body of water and it stretches out of sight to the west and to the north. According to Wikipedia, the lake is the eighth largest in the world, third largest in Africa and contains more species of fish than that of any other body of water on earth. It is also very deep at over 2,000 feet in places.
We enter Metangula, pass a lot of abandoned Portuguese buildings and come to the office of the district school administrator. He welcomes us into his office and then sends us off to visit the local school, where eight teachers have been rounded up to meet us (this is their vacation time). On leaving his office, Adilia asks to use the facilities, having spotted a WC just outside the entrance to the administrator’s office. She is escorted outside to the back of the building where she gets up close and personal with her first African squatter toilet. A bit of culture shock ensues.
The school visit is most cordial and the teachers seem pleased to meet their Mozambique and Canadian colleagues. We have a little welcoming ceremony inside and then step out for photographs and more informal visits. Just beside the cinderblock school is another one with stick walls and thatched roof that serves as the primary school. Two little boys peer in over the low wall and I photograph them. They turn to see me and the smaller one instantly strikes a Ninja pose, complete with big grin. As we load up the bus to press on to the beach, we find the eight local teachers already on-board and seated. So several of us remain standing for the short drive.
The sandy beach welcomes us and the young men who came along from the Institute restaurant quickly remove the hot serving trays from the rear of the bus and set up a serving area under an awning near the shore. The rest of us acquaint ourselves with the beautiful surf and the superb shoreline. Before long, shoes come off, pants get rolled up and dresses are tucked into waistbands as folk venture into the warm waters as far as they dare. There is universal enjoyment and this is going to be a remarkable way to end our first workshop.
After some beach time, the food is served and folk gather around to eat and visit. I have been photographing along the shore, visiting little kids and fishermen, and fully enjoying this fabulous place. Eventually I get a plate of rice and chicken and go to sit along the wall of a beach hut with Carol and Adilia. Just beyond us, children from the village who have been playing on the shore start gathering, watching us eat. I nibble some rice then put my plate down on the sand where it is quickly collected by some of the children. “I can’t eat,” Adilia says, and soon more food finds its way to a growing group of children.
Adilia then takes her sketch book and some colors and goes down the beach a little way, settling in to draw. Soon a little boy comes to watch and is invited to sit down and try his hand. In very short order the one little boy is joined by several of his chums who gather to see the art creation in progress.
Adilia recognizes that this is one of those wonderful “teachable moments” and abandons thoughts and plans about teaching the teachers. She distributes all of the art supplies and paper to the children and leads them through viewing, thinking about and drawing what they see before them. As she works with the children, other teachers join her and her posse of artists. This becomes a serious and focused session for the children and they diligently experiment with their sticks of colors, interpreting what they see. The remainder of the food, still in the serving dishes, is now brought over to the group and the children nourish their tummies as well as their intellects.
After about an hour, the art pieces are voluntarily presented to Adilia who thanks each artist in turn and rewards them all by asking them to keep and use the art supplies she gave out. We then assemble for a little ceremony marking the end of the workshop. David is given a bottle of champagne, which he opens and shares with everyone. As little speeches are made, I watch one of the little boys from the art session take the now-empty champagne bottle out into the surf. I go nearer the water to photograph him as he comes out with the now filled bottle. Just then someone pulls something over my head, to the sound of laughter behind me. I turn around to find that I have missed the little speeches of thanks and presentations of gifts to the Canadians. Around my neck is a colorful jersey. Around Carol and Adilia’s hips are wraps of locally dyed fabric.
We walk back to the bus to begin our journey home. One of Adilia’s young artists stops her and, with serious demeanor, presents her with a rock from the shore of Lake Nyassa in thanks for sharing her time and talents with him. Adilia thanks him and gives him a marker pen to print his name on the rock. “Vincente,” prints the little boy on a keepsake from Africa unlike any other.
The return to Lichinga retraces our route, this time with me viewing the opposite side of the road. Scenes of village life flash past—little stacks of firewood for sale, bicycle repair shops, and, unfortunately, the destruction of someone’s home, fully engulfed in flame—set in the ever-changing countryside in all of its considerable splendor.
At the hotel, I have a quick shower and light meal then join David and Manuel for our second meeting concerning details of the ongoing program. We progress through the intricacies of Nicole’s planning then adjourn for the evening. I join Carol and Adilia at their supper and then turn in.
Saturday, July 31
David comes for us at 1000 to take us for a little drive to the hills after which Lichinga gets its name. Away we go, driven in the truck that has been retained for the two workshops. Only a short way out of town we come to a stop and the truck turns around. I spot a girl’s pink bicycle parked carefully on its kickstand on the verge above the road, a rather incongruous scene in my mind. I photograph it then follow a path into the tall grass to get a better view of the hills. When I come back to the road three women approach, each carrying a large bundle of firewood on her head. I make another photograph of the pink bicycle, including the women, and we head back to town.
The driver drops us at a very modern little supermarket where we stock up on things like cookies (for me) and lots of bags of candy (for Carol and Adilia). We return to the hotel on foot, have lunch and then go to our rooms. Carol and Adilia work on presentations for Monday’s teachers’ workshop and I download photographs from yesterday and today’s excursions into the MacBook Pro. After supper we have a slide show of all of my photographs to date.
Sunday, August 1
The reason for the bags of candy can now be revealed. David collects us at 0930 in a new Toyota truck driven by his cousin. We are on our way to Mosteiro Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church and Orphanage where we will attend the church service, visit the orphanage and have lunch with the children. David’s cousin is one of the nuns and he stays at their guest residence when he is in Lichinga.
We arrive in front of the church where we are greeted by a group of the older children who sing for us and scatter flower petals in our path. The children then escort us to the orphanage buildings, a distance of about 500 meters, where they proudly show off their home and tour us through its rooms. It is a nice building, quite new, and well appointed for the 40 children who live here. One thing it lacks, however, is electricity, something that is really needed but is still on the orphanage’s wish list. Then we all return to the church.
Two little ones take my hands on the walk back. They are beautiful children and well cared for here but I think of the loss each one has suffered—parents and family—and I wonder what they dream.
We enter the church, take seats and wait for the service to begin. The church door opens behind us and in come two parallel lines of children, all dressed alike, and singing and dancing in slow rhythm. They take their places around the front of the altar and the service begins. The little children are also present, sitting on benches with the housemother or with some of the older children. All the elements of the service include the children as key players. They sing, read lessons, greet everyone and add luster to what could otherwise be a rather staid experience.
After the service, we are shown around the church grounds, the nearby gardens and the church farm. There are turkeys and pigs and a new building that will house a chicken/egg operation. The six nuns are proud (bad choice of word?) of what they have accomplished and they deserve a lot of credit for the safe and loving home they have created for these children.
Then it’s lunchtime. We are invited in to a bountiful buffet in an adjoining building. Chairs for honoured guests are arranged behind a table at the front of the room but all of us opt to take our full plates and sit among the children. Later, we are entertained with imaginative skits and singing.
At the end of the entertainment, all of the bags of candy are opened and emptied onto the front table. The children come forward, youngest first, to receive their second blessing of the day. Then I receive mine—a special Bundt cake baked and presented just for me. The children form up once again and, in full voice, sing us goodbye, walking past and shaking hands with each of us.
Our ride back to town is noisier than the ride out—about 15 of the children and their housemother pile into the truck box and sing us back to the hotel. They entertain not only us but also every passerby with their singing, eliciting smiles and waves along the road. As we go by the hospital and morgue, they fall silent, lighting up again only after we are well past.
In the evening, we have a planning meeting with the two facilitators who will carry on with us and the teachers starting on Monday. Fabiao Bendane and Iracema Manuel join Carol, Adilia, Cardosa, David and me for our second “Modulation Meeting,” the descriptor applied after our first meeting last Sunday in which we developed what I called modules as the basis for the workshop content. I let this meeting get started on its own, looking to see what initiative the local facilitators and ONP staff will take. Between all of us, we build a program for the teachers’ workshop. David undertakes to write up our notes this evening and I will print out the results tomorrow morning on the little Canon printer.
Monday, August 2
David arrives at the hotel and hands me a memory stick containing the program for this week. I print off seven copies and we then head for the opening session of the Lichinga teachers’ workshop. We have the usual opening events during which I speak and then hand out Alberta pins. Fabiao and Iracema start out fairly well and Carol and Adilia stand by to lend support as needed. The day progresses and the workshop wraps up at 1730. A quiet evening and then to bed.
Tuesday, August 3
A much busier day today with good leadership by Fabiao and Iracema and more participation by Carol and Adilia. My two Canadians bring such expertise to these sessions and share their knowledge, good humor and empathy so generously. Quite a lot of focus today on effective lesson planning and lots of time allowed for the participants to practice. Games are played outdoors and ice breakers introduced to help demonstrate ways that teachers can involve their students, have fun and support the desire for more child-centred learning.
At 1700 we have our afternoon snack before leaving. This has proven to be a popular practice as the snacks are substantial and help tide everyone over until supper. We then leave in the little blue Toyota truck, 15 teachers in the box and us in the cab. We drop the teachers off downtown and then the driver takes us out to the orphanage. Adilia has arranged with David to have an art workshop for the children this evening. Carol will help and I will photograph (and try my best to get the kids laughing). We have a great session with the children welcoming us back, literally with open arms. They are beautiful young people, yearning for human contact and interaction. The sisters and housemother provide a lot of this but any contact with others seems appreciated. All children just need to be loved.
The art lesson proceeds first with tempera sticks and then with watercolors. Each child has a package of art supplies, lots of paper, mixing trays and stickers. The results are heart-warming and I photograph the progress of the young artists. Pieces are taped to the wall as they are finished, with a good deal of observation of each by the others. As the time passes and the painting comes to an end, we prepare to take our leave. But first, tea is served to us along with fresh mini-doughnuts made in the kitchen by the older girls. Before eating, some of the girls bring around a kettle of warm water, a small basin and towels for us to wash our hands.
Our farewell follows, with the children and sisters escorting us to the little blue truck. The truck was left running all evening because the battery has very little charge. This afternoon, when the driver was to take me to the hotel, the truck wouldn’t start. A team of teachers quickly assembled to provide a push start in reverse gear. Didn’t happen. I got out and helped push forward and finally we got the truck started. I don’t think it was turned off all day after that.
We have supper at the hotel, I go to download photographs and Carol and Adilia carry on with planning for tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 4
We arrive at the Centre at 0755 and most of the teachers are already here. Our facilitators are not. We get underway on time with David and Cardosa welcoming the participants and asking for the summary of the previous day’s happenings. One of the three women participants (out of 20 in total) provides the recap. Carol and Adilia then take over. Iracema arrives 15 minutes later and Fabiao comes in 45 minutes late—not good form and I point this out to David on our way to the morning break.
The morning rolls on and after the break, David and I walk to the local LAM office to confirm our flights to Pemba this weekend. We encounter Noemia, our young waitress at the Girossol Hotel, on her way to open a savings account at the bank. She walks with us to the LAM office where we ask when training programs for LAM aircrew take place. Thought I’d just plant an optional idea in Noemia’s mind about what her future might be. She has become a favorite of ours. She is a lovely young woman, very beautiful, most polite but with a quick wit beneath her calm exterior, and we three Canadians are very fond of her. Back at the Centre, David and I make some progress on the information from Nicole and plan to return to the task after lunch. Lunch, however, is postponed until later so our extra time together gets blown away.
During lunch, I walk to the little supermarket to stock up on in-room munchies but find the gate to the yard locked. I forgot about siesta time. As I walk away, two cars approach and the guard opens the gate. I recognize the owners and they signal for me to come in.
I shop in solitary splendor. Returning to the hotel, I pass by the governor’s house. Carol and Adilia walked here yesterday and, when approaching the house, were confronted by an armed guard in a little blockhouse who ordered them to cross the street and proceed along on the other side. “Pralac!” was the order given and, in recounting the confrontation, Carol embroidered the word and the bizarre situation into my emerging (but only slightly) Portuguese vocabulary. The entire street is closed at 1800 each day to ensure that the governor is not disturbed by any outside noise. Along with the fender flag on his white Mercedes Benz, this is just another example of “silly-buggery” found from time-to-time in the upper realms of officialdom.
It’s group photograph day today and I photograph our friends at the end of the session. I will make prints on the Canon printer this evening.
As we arrive at the hotel, a tall stately man approaches and asks if he can speak with us for a moment. We sit together in the lobby and he introduces himself—Fazal Carino Laca, vice-president of the provincial assembly of Niassa. He deals out his business cards. Carol interprets his remarks concerning his interest in having someone come to Niassa to instruct on how municipal governments ought to work. He describes corruption and inefficiency in local government here and seems quite sincere in his questions. He also seems oddly interested in my two companions. “Perhaps we could all go out tomorrow evening,” he proposes. “There are lots of interesting places in Lichinga, beyond the hotel.” We demur, stating our days and evenings are very full with our work commitments and we won’t know if we will be available until tomorrow. I assure him that I will contact the Alberta government office that deals with exporting provincial expertise and I also advise him to contact the Canadian embassy in Maputo.
We three meet for supper at 1900 after which Carol and Adilia go to their rooms to continue planning. I join two other Canadian women who are here on another project. I show them Sr Laca’s card and ask if he has been part of their meeting group. They confirm this and tell me he is who he says he is and a successful businessman as well. They also mention that our local politician made very clear advances to them that they found inappropriate and uncomfortable. One of them “shot him down” saying their schedule was very busy and further that she was happily married. If we see the fellow again tomorrow evening, we will also bid him goodbye. Carol and Adilia are getting some interesting experiences concerning the behavior of some African males, especially the apparent sense of entitlement to approach women in ways that are inappropriate in a North American context. Adilia, particularly, has received such attentions from one of the facilitators who was always “hovering” and one of the teachers who posed rather amorously with her in the group photograph and who composed and read out a poem especially for her.
After the conversation I go to my room to print the group photographs and do a tub full of quick-dry laundry.
Thursday, August 5
The day starts with breakfast and then a walk to the Institute where we find our co-tutors already there, along with all of the teachers. Good. We start with the daily recap and questions and then Carol and Adilia hand out the Ontario pins that they brought with them. The facilitators received Alberta pins from me last week. While the pins are being distributed, I go to the blackboard and draw a rough map of Canada, placing Calgary and Toronto in their respective places. My little impromptu lesson on “teachable moments” follows, using the pins and the map as starters. Fun to be in front of the class but I rely on Carol for interpretation.
The morning proceeds with Carol and Adilia delivering a session on integrating curriculum. At noon, we three walk back to the hotel, passing through the parking area of the governor’s office on our way. A large Toyota Land Cruiser stops in front of us, the front passenger jumps out and opens the rear door for Mr Vice President. Once again, Sr Laca entreats us to join him Friday evening for drinks. He is quite insistent, especially in front of his several retainers who wait attentively. Through Carol, I explain that we are far too busy to take timeout to accompany him on an “outing.” He seems rebuffed and I offer to buy him a beer at the hotel tomorrow. He tells us he is off to a meeting with the governor right now and may come by to see us on Friday. Maybe not, if we are lucky. The governor’s office building is surrounded by shiny new pick-up trucks that have brought functionaries to a meeting. Inside the trucks are their drivers, many staring absently at cell phones.
I work from 1730 to 1930 on reporting matters for CTF then join Carol and Adilia for supper. They are working on a lesson plan template for tomorrow, something I’m pretty sure our fellow teachers will find useful.
Friday, August 6
The workshop ends today at noon. We begin with the daily recap and then proceed to the lesson plans that teachers worked on yesterday. The presentations are interesting in that the teachers role-play the lessons, including entering the classroom and taking attendance. They then proceed to act out their lesson. I’m not sure they got the assignment quite right but they each get through the lessons with help and some teasing from their “students.” Carol and Adilia then present the template they developed, capturing the attention of the participants. Dr Dionisio Tumbo of the Pedagogical University then speaks. He joined us yesterday to see how we were working to develop the skills of local teachers. He tells us how impressed he is with what he has seen being modeled at this workshop. We conclude just before the refreshment break by having participants complete an evaluation sheet. I will photograph these later and the originals will be given to David for consideration during planning for upcoming workshops.
We gather after the break for the closing event. There are certificates for everyone, with names hand-scripted by Adilia, and Cardosa hands me the first one to present to Odete Martinho. Odete can best be described as “a traditionally built African woman,” after the term used by Alexander McCall Smith in his novels about The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I hand the certificate to her but she reaches across the table to me for a traditional double cheek kiss, with lots of encouragement and laughter from the other participants. Cardosa and others distribute the remainder of the certificates and then I hand out envelopes containing the group photographs. When I come to the envelope with Odete’s name, I reach across the table to her for another double cheek kiss before giving it to her. Great fun. We then go for lunch in the little café behind the centre and farewells to a wonderful class of teachers.
Carol, Adilia and I walk back to the hotel in expectation of a free afternoon. Iracema comes to collect us at 1400 in her Hyundi Santa Fe for a little drive into the nearby countryside. We drive out on the road toward the orphanage then turn east, going parallel to the railway track and along to the site of the new university. We cross the track and it occurs to me that we may be nearing the Boeing 737 that I had spotted on Google Earth when I was first looking at Lichinga on my computer at home. Our destination is Belo Horizonte Lagoa (beautiful horizon lagoon) where the 737 does, indeed, repose. I spot its tail above the trees as we approach the little resort.
Hohan Nair, the director of a Mozambique NGO, who stays at our hotel when he visits his office here, recounted the story of the wayward Boeing to me. The aircraft belonged to LAM and on landing at Lichinga one day in 1989 or 1990, overshot the runway. LAM stripped it of everything salvageable and sold the shell to the owner of the Belo resort. His intention was to build a restaurant inside the aircraft but his plans never came to fruition. The hulk now rests on two cement pads with braces under each wing. There is nothing left inside—even the floor has been removed—and timber beams have been placed in anticipation of a new floor some day. There is a lot of brickwork on the ground outside outlining what the owner hoped would be sidewalks leading to his lucrative new business. Now only goats and donkeys graze the area, keeping the grass at a respectable height. The entire fuselage echoes with the sound of thousands of bees that have taken up residence in the tail fin, which must contain a very large hive. We have soft drinks in the little café then return to town.
Before supper, I try to pay our hotel bill. There are difficulties—the clerks can’t get the card reader to work. The machine’s plug needs to be held in by hand and when the clerk tries to swipe my card, he can’t get it all the way through and still keep the plug in place. Even when it does connect, error messages pop up on the little panel. No success tonight. I worry about this all night, finally getting up to count out the American dollars I carry with me and trying to figure out how much we actually owe. Sleep is not helped by the music and drumming coming from the Institute. The Prime Minister is in town (his home is near Lichinga) and the party rolls on until nearly 0500. At that point, the local mullah chimes in with his usual morning call to worship, piped across the neighborhood by the loudspeakers on top of the mosque. At 0700 I go down for breakfast and stop by to speak with the morning desk clerk. He takes my Visa card, makes two entries splitting the bill and presto!—we are all paid up. What a relief. I had $1,500 US in my pocket to make a down payment with the intention of paying the balance at the Hotel Girassol in Nampula, where we will stay tonight.
Saturday, August 7
Our driver from the local ONP was to collect us this morning to take us to the airport. After breakfast, we wait in the lobby but as time goes by and no one shows up, I start to worry. Then Adriano, one of the local ONP teachers, stops by on his trusty motor scooter, says hello, then leaves to find the driver. More time goes by but finally a truck belonging to the ministry arrives, complete with Adriano and Bernardo, another ONP local. My guess is that the battery in the little blue Toyota may have given up the ghost and a new conveyance needed to be found. Baggage is piled in the box, along with our two friends, and off we go, with an intermediate stop at the office of the director of education who welcomes us heartily.
There are no x-ray machines at the Lichinga airport so baggage is inspected visually. We then check in, pay the airport improvement tax ($10 US each) and wait to board our flight to Nampula. As we wait, we are joined by Adriano, Bernardo and Carolina, the ONP treasurer, and Iracema stops by briefly with her two little children to say goodbye. Iracema and the children live here but her husband has been posted to the Maputo office of customs and immigration. She hopes to join him there soon. A new EMB 190 taxis to the ramp and we are airborne in short order, leaving the vivid red earth of Lichinga behind. Forty minutes later we taxi in to the Nampula terminal, collect our luggage and are met by the Nampula ONP secretary José João. Our hotel is the Girassol Nampula, an establishment that occupies the fourth floor of a downtown office building. The accommodations are very nice and after checking in we explore up and down some of the nearby streets.
A large Catholic church sits kitty-corner from the hotel. We enter and I photograph some of the lovely features of the interior. Carol and Adilia decide to return for mass later in the evening. I think about joining them but decide instead on a power nap. I’m tired after last night’s restless sleep. We have dinner at 1900 then to our rooms for the evening. I make a few last photographs of the solitary rock hills that cover the surrounding area. My fourth floor vantage point gives a clear view of these interesting features and the 200 mm lens pulls them in nice and close.
Sunday, August 8
We are in the lobby at 0700 in order to get to the airport for our flight to Pemba. We miss breakfast, however, as the dining room doesn’t open until the time we leave the hotel. We flag a cab outside and load everything into a little Toyota. We are the first to arrive at the terminal and after running our luggage through the x-ray machine we line it all up at the LAM counter. And wait. Eventually we check in and receive hand-written boarding passes (“The system is down”) that allow us to pass through into the departure lounge. This is a nice area and Adilia discovers a set of stairs that lead up to a little cafeteria and an outdoor viewing area. We have Cokes and wait some more. My colleagues comment on how much they admire my wonderful timing of airport arrivals.
We watch the loading of another EMB 190 and a 737 and then our flight is called. As the seats are not assigned (“The system is down”) I decide to settle in to a single seat in the business class cabin. The cabin crew smile at me and pass on. Carol and Adilia try to come up from coach but are sent back by one of the stewards (“Pralac!”).
Pemba is reached after a 30-minute flight that takes us in a giant arc high through a beautiful cloudscape and down again. There is no one to meet us so we get a cab and ask the driver to take us to the Wimbi Sun Resort where rooms have been booked for us by ONP. We check in and go to our rooms. Then I drop by to see how Carol and Adilia are settling in and find two very unhappy campers. Their room, like mine, is very run down and decrepit. We decide to look a bit further to see if anything better is available in the neighborhood. We cross the road to a casino and resort and then travel further down the road to the Kauri Resort. This place seems new and is very clean and modern. I book two rooms for us and then have the taxi take us back to the Wimbi to collect our luggage and return us to our new abode.
We settle in to our ocean front rooms and then go to breakfast/lunch at the open-air hotel restaurant. The rest of the day is for resting—our first in two weeks. The scene is beautiful: the Indian Ocean at high tide surging ashore, fishers in little boats harvesting the sea and a spectacular sky.
I am inspired to take a walk along the shore and with Nikon slung around my neck I set off. Several small dogs converge on me as I walk but find me less than curious. A bit further along, a large dog watches me from someone’s yard then bounds down to me, leaping up in greeting. We become friends and he accompanies me on my explorations.
I photograph the sea, the shore, seaweed, rocks and the ancient remains of a partially sunken iron vessel. I go out onto a rocky reef where egrets nest and photograph the strange erosion of the rocks. My faithful four footed friend stays with me throughout, stopping at interesting scents, chasing spider shrimp across opens swaths of the shore and digging madly at what appear to me to be random areas of sand. Heading back, the dog stops and sniffs at an area near where the small dogs came down to see me. I wonder what he has found and then I learn—he cocks his leg and lets out a mighty stream of pee, thus marking the boundary of his territory where it abuts that of the small dogs. I continue on to the hotel and my sandy colored friend returns to his yard.
Later, we start looking at photographs. Carol and Adilia haven’t seen any of my images since just after our first visit to the orphanage. As we are paging through them on my laptop, a porter comes to announce the arrival of David, Alipio Siquisse and Jeremias Cussambe, the latter being one of the facilitators who will work with the Pemba teachers. We have a pleasant visit and a formal welcome by Alipio. This is the first time I have met the ONP general secretary. I order tea and soft drinks and we carry on initial planning for the start of tomorrow’s workshop. They then leave for their hotel downtown and Adilia and I go for a bit of supper. Carol is feeling a bit off and stays behind. After supper, we head for our rooms and the day draws to a close. Pemba is quite a lovely place and we are enjoying the setting and the warm sea-moistened air, quite a change from the climate in Lichinga.
Monday, August 9
We go for breakfast on the covered patio at 0700. I have been up since 0530, awakened by the lightening sky, and knowing that the ocean will have vistas for my camera. In pajamas and shoes, I photographed from the lawn area in front of my room. Local fishers were already at work, many setting out nets on the far sandbar exposed by the low tide.
The front desk phones the taxi driver from yesterday but his phone is off. Another car is summoned and I am pleasantly surprised. It is very clean, inside and out, with all the glass intact, descent tires on the rims, an air conditioner that works and even doilies on the seat backs. It is about a 15-minute drive from our lodgings to the site of the workshop at the new Pemba Secondary School. The taxi fare is 250M each way. I ask the driver, through Carol, if he can drive us each day, to and from the school, and he assures me with the comment “no problem,” that part, at least, in English. I pay him 500M for today’s ride and tomorrow’s and we step out of the cab in the grounds of the school, next to a car containing David.
The workshop starts in a newly appointed meeting room in the school. The anthem is sung and speeches of greetings are given by Alipio, the local deputy director of education, and me. We then move to the teachers’ lounge where the workshop will be conducted for the rest of the week.
We encounter a snag. There were to be two facilitators for this workshop, Jeremias and Geraldina Soares. Only Jeremias is in attendance and I learn that Geraldina has cancelled out. I don’t know the reason for this but I detect that David is quietly upset with this turn of events. I gather Carol, Adilia, Jeremias, David and Alipio for a quick conference and we all agree that we can carry on without Geraldina but with additional sessional leadership from David and Alipio. Carol and Adilia, of course, are ready for anything and I know they will be a big part of this workshop as they were with the previous two. By leaving Geraldina out of the picture, Alipio is freed of the need to write a pleading letter to Geraldina’s supervisor asking permission for her to take part.
Jeremias gets us underway efficiently and directs the commencement of the day’s work. This amounts to pretty much a full day of group work for the participants as they determine obstacles and opportunities in their teaching lives. Group reports begin after lunch and run to 1600 with active interplay between the teachers and a fair bit of criticizing of some of the reports by some individuals. Jeremias then presents a lecture, stern in tone, accompanied by lots of gestures and expressions.
I find I’m having difficulty staying involved today, even without considering the language barrier. Eventually I leave for a walk around this beautiful new school building. Lots of thought and money have gone into this place but it is not yet in full use. The rooms are all finished and equipped with modern blackboards but there are no desks in most of the rooms. In the field behind this building is another one constructed of reed walls and a tin roof. This is the old school, still in use, with its glassless window openings and mud brick room dividers. What a contrast and what a statement about the importance the country is placing on the education of its youth. The old school runs three shifts daily and soon all of its denizens will be taking classes in the new structure.
After 1600 and a short break, we begin again with Alipio delivering a lecture on professionalism. His use of a little twig as a pointer reminds me that he is a university lecturer in his other life. After sessions today Carol, Adilia and I meet with David to see about fitting some Canadian content into the remainder of the workshop. Carol and Adilia sat at the back of the room all day today working on fine-tuning lessons they have developed based on the Mozambique school workbooks. We should be in for a highly interactive day tomorrow.
Another snag. David tells me there is a problem concerning the bank. Apparently the system has failed and money cannot be withdrawn to pay today’s per diem for the participants. I offer to provide the funds and give 3,800 M to David to tide everyone over until the bank gets back on line. This cleans out my wallet and I ask David to walk with me to the bank and its outdoor ATM.
The session ends quite late at 1800 with Alipio lecturing on professionalism and the organization. These folk have had a long day of work and no play—it seems so hard to get the presenters away from lecturing. We head home in the dark, finding a taxi along the street to take us to a hotel near ours for supper. Ours is closed today and so we need to “eat out.” We stop at the Nautilus Resort and Casino where we have Internet access and we all check email messages over dinner.
Another taxi is called to drive us the two miles along the road to our hotel. The car that arrives is the most beaten vehicle I have ever encountered on a public road. At the end of the ride, which I wonder if the car will ever complete, the driver asks for 500 M for his service. My colleagues figuratively beat the shit out of him in Portuguese. I give him 100 M and the remains of my pizza dinner. We do some work on the agenda for this week, based on what we did at the teachers’ workshop in Lichinga and produce copies on the Canon printer. Having this bit of technology along on this trip has been very helpful. Some photographs are downloaded and we call it a day.
Tuesday, August 10
The surf pounding just beyond my window wakens me at 0500. In pajamas and with the Nikon I venture out to photograph the sea and its subtle changes in motion, light and activity. Then I shower and dress, pack up for the day and do a light load of laundry. Carol and Adilia knock as they pass by to the restaurant and I follow them over. On the way, I detour down to the very edge of the receding water to photograph a bit more.
Our driver from yesterday morning arrives exactly on time and we speed into the city, stopping to buy a ball along the way. We need some action today and Carol and Adilia are ready to provide it. These two are such sterling teachers and I believe they are completely enjoying the experience of teaching in these unique settings.
Jeremias heads off the morning session and as the group works, David and I get some serious work done on Nicole’s requirements. After lunch my Toronto colleagues take over and things start to heat up. I photograph a lot in the early afternoon, hopefully capturing images useful for CTF and certainly for my own enjoyment as well. Alipio arrives at the session bringing beautiful basket weave purses for Carol and Adilia and a tray for me. Then David and I return to our focused work until just before 1700 when he leads a wrap-up session on how participants assess the workshop so far. Just before we break for the day, David repays me for the loan of yesterday.
We leave for our lodgings at 1715, early for Pemba. Our usual driver takes us home in his well-kept Toyota and we arrange for him to provide all of our transportation for the remainder of the week. At the Kauri, I have a beer on my patio and Adilia has a glass of wine. Carol just drinks in the surroundings. We then go for supper and some unexpected events that range from me trying to order coffee on my own to feeding a stray dog ice cream from a spoon.
The latter nearly results in my expulsion from the restaurant, if not the country. A couple sitting near us see me feed the dog and complain to the manager. The dog, meanwhile, goes off and lies by another table of diners. Groundsmen are summoned to try to entice the dog away from the restaurant, without success. The manager then tries leaving a trail of food to temp the dog to leave. The dog eats all of the goodies then returns to his napping place. Shortly thereafter, the effects of all the rich food make themselves known to the dog who chucks up all the goodies in full view of our now distressed diners. Groundsmen are summoned once again to restore the floor to its usual pristine condition. The dog observes all of this and, perhaps thinking he has had enough entertainment for one day, gets up and ambles off into the night.
A slide show of today’s photographs and a check of email by all of us concludes our day and I sleep to the sound of the incoming tide.
Wednesday, August 11
I’m first in for breakfast this morning. My waiter approaches and asks “Camera?” and gestures as though focusing a zoom lens. “Yes,” I say. He then leads me to the edge of the patio and points toward Pemba beach. “Baleia.” Apparently a whale beached last night and died. Word about this unusual event is out and we see evidence of this as we drive into town later on. At the beach, hundreds of people are gathered with yet more streaming out from town to see the great mammal. During the day, a decision is made to allow the carcass to be cut up for food. The crowd is still there as we drive home in the evening.
We are back at the Pemba Secondary School by 0800. This is going to be a busy day for teachers and for Carol and Adilia in particular. The morning is devoted to math exercises and games and includes graphing, geometric shape construction, using calculators (provided by Adilia), and card games and dice games for simple math problem solving. The folk are fully engaged. At the break I set up for the group photograph, causing some wonder as I stack one table on top of another, and then add a chair on top of that. Further refinements to my “quadrapod” include two saucers and the bag for my flash unit upon all of which the camera is perched. I fire off some shots of the stairwell while my friends start to line up alongside of me. When I have the framing I want, I get down and place people on the stairs for the actual photographs. A group “Ahah” experience sweeps the crowd.
David and I have spent most of the morning working on my assignments from Nicole. We have covered a lot of material and I have taken lots of notes. These will form the basis of my report for Nicole. We still need a meeting with Alipio to get his general impressions and ideas noted for the final document. His time in Pemba this week has been parceled out between meetings with ONP officials in the Pemba area, overseeing the distribution of ONP membership cards, our workshop, and staying in touch with his office and university by cell phone.
The workshop ends at 1700 and we have a soda with our friends then depart in our waiting taxi. At the hotel, I download today’s photographs, including the group shots, then select one of the latter for printing. A little bit of Aperture II manipulation and I have a version ready to print. The little Canon printer spits out 27 4 x 6 glossy color prints and the job is done. I’ll package these tomorrow morning during the workshop.
A nice supper follows. We all behave ourselves and spend quite a bit of time with the manager of the restaurant, Vanda Gonçalves. She is an interesting person with striking features. Born in Mozambique of Portuguese and Brazilian forebears she has lived in Switzerland, Germany and Portugal and is now back in Mozambique with her German boyfriend. She seems somehow unhappy under her outgoing exterior and I think she has enjoyed spending time with us.
The Internet wireless hub is located in the restaurant and the reception here is very good. All of us check for messages from home.
Thursday, August 12
We start our day later this morning, leaving the hotel at 0800. We are taking an hour to visit a craft market before joining the workshop. Our driver collects us and takes us to a market near the airport where we buy some pieces made of wood. I buy spoons for family households. As my companions shop, I walk over to a nearby shelter in which a man is shaping ebony bracelets on an improvised lathe. In the shelter with him are logs of ebony, each about five feet long. He lifts one up for me to feel its weight then proceeds to split it in two. I help steady the log as he drives in a metal chisel and then wedges of hardwood. It’s fun to spend a bit of time in the woodshop with the artisans.
In to town we go, with a stop at a stationer’s for envelopes. We join the workshop and Carol and Adilia help me arrange photographs in envelopes complete with little Canada flags attached. Watching the session this morning I’m interested to note the attention and involvement of the teachers. They have developed lesson plans for presentation to the group after which David and Jeremais provide commentary and suggestions. I feel the balance we have achieved over the past three weeks has worked well—Sunday “modulation meetings;” local ONP logistical support; presentations by David (and Manuel Guru at the first workshop); good facilitation by our co-tutors; and excellent teaching demonstrated by Carol and Adilia.
Carol and Adilia have worked literally day and night to provide content of direct relevance and applicability to workshop participants, content that meets the over-arching goals of integrated curriculum and child-centred, active learning and teaching.
Today is the end of the Pemba workshop. Because our flight to Maputo leaves at mid-day we decided that we would compress the content into four days of longer duration than in Lichinga. The final session of the day ends at 1700 and David and Alipio rejoin us. They have spent most of the afternoon with local ONP functionaries in a separate meeting. The closing event then gets underway. I’m a bit worried about the taxi driver who will arrive for us in 15 minutes.
David opens the session and mentions everyone who has helped make the workshop a success. He then introduces the principal of the school after which I am asked to make a few comments. Mainly I thank the teachers for their hard work during the workshop and for the incredible commitment they have toward ensuring the success of their students. I also thank Jeremias for his leadership and present him with the last of the Cross pens that I brought as official gifts. Then the participation certificates are handed out with Jeremias doing the honors. Afterward I distribute the envelopes containing the group photographs. Alipio speaks and provides a motivational message for the teachers to continue their good work and to support their national organization.
I ask to speak once again, first to allow Carol and Adilia to say a few words, and then to make an unscheduled presentation. Early in the workshop, one of the participants went out into the yard to find a narrow branch that he could use as a pointer. The little twig served throughout the week for most of the teachers who made presentations in front of the group, including Alipio. I hold up the twig and say that it has served many of the teachers and that it is a symbol of our profession. “It is only right that this humble twig be presented to the headmaster of ONP,” I say, and with that, I present the twig to Alipio with both hands and a deep bow. The response from Alipio and everyone else is quite wonderful—laughter and applause. Alipio thanks me for the gift, gives me a hug, and tucks the twig between the pages of his notebook.
Carol and Adilia say farewell and we adjourn at 1800. We say goodbyes to everyone but then David tells us that it has been arranged for us to attend a special supper with the ONP folk with whom he and Alipio have been visiting. We adjust and ask the taxi driver to first, take us to the Red Cross building where the supper will be held and second, to please return for us at 2000. We join our colleagues for a nice dinner and then catch our taxi home at the appointed hour. Coffee in the restaurant together and we call it a day.
Friday, August 13
The surf, nature’s alarm clock, awakens me at 0500. I snooze until just before 0600 then get up and go for a walk along the shore. I photograph for half an hour then go in to get ready for the day. Breakfast is at 0700 during which I send an email home then spend a little more time packing up. I pay our hotel bill at 0800 then photograph the evaluations provided by the folk at this week’s workshop and work a little more on the journal. We will leave at 1100 for the airport where I expect to have a final meeting with David and Alipio after we check in for our flight to Maputo.
Our morning is spent in casual relaxation, waiting for the time of departure in the faithful taxi that has served us all week. Vanda Gonçalves, manager of the restaurant, comes by to say farewell and seems genuinely sad to see us go. She tears up a little as I photograph her alone and with my colleagues. The taxi arrives exactly on time and delivers us to the airport where I settle our weekly account with him. After check-in I meet in the upstairs café with David and Alipio while Carol and Adilia read a little apart from us. This is not the best place to hold a final meeting but it’s the only time and place that remains to us.
I’m interested in Alipio’s assessment of this week’s workshop and I note in my student scribbler his observations and answers to questions that I pose through David. The scribbler holds a lot of information that will form the basis of my report to CTF while this journal holds a number of observations as well. Alipio concludes by saying these have been the best workshops to date and he praises Carol and Adilia as “magnificent” and, indeed, that would be my assessment of their participation as well.
Our flight to Maputo is called and we head out onto the tarmac to another of LAM’s new EMB190’s. This little national airline is really quite exceptional and the equipment and service is provided on a very professional level. The cost of overweight baggage, of course, is still a sore point. I have a nice meal on the two-hour flight, enjoy the legroom and take in the views of the sky, sea and land as we proceed south.
In Maputo, we collect baggage once again and head out to the taxi stands. There to greet us is one of the ONP staff whom I met on my first trip to Mozambique in 1993. He recalls the infamous bus that was given to ONP by CTF as a revenue generator and remembers the photograph of the staff that I made with the bus as centerpiece. He now works with David in the international programs area of ONP. We need two taxis for the four of us and our luggage. The fare is bargained down to 800 M and we head away to the Terminus Hotel in the hope that they have rooms available. None of us want another night in the miserable Mocambicano. Two rooms are available and I take them. Carol and Adilia are pleasantly surprised at our new Maputo lodgings and dinner tonight just confirms that a good decision has been made. We check email on the MacBook then head to our rooms. I’m asleep by 2200.
Saturday, August 14
0600 finds me awake and ready to do some final packing before meeting my colleagues for breakfast. We have a pleasant meal and linger over coffee, recounting our experiences and the many highlights of the journey. David appears to see how we are faring and confirms the pickup time for tea at his home this afternoon. He then telephones a taxi that ONP uses frequently in Maputo and arranges for a trip for us to the market and a bit of a tour of the city.
The taxi arrives and we head out. So many landmarks are recalled, many of the buildings rebuilt and refurbished. The round hotel that I found in such a decrepit state on my first visit is now the recently reopened Girassol Maputo, sister hotel of the ones we stayed in at Lichinga and Nampula. The Polana Hotel is as beautiful as ever and the Hotel Cardosa, the first headquarters of the Renamo guerillas after the peace treaty, proudly displays four stars on its front entrance.
The driver drops us off at the Executive Hotel, a place I once inspected for a meeting of ONP folk on an earlier visit, and promises to return in two hours time. We walk into the market, amazed at the variety of hand-made artifacts that are available. The hawkers are very persistent but I just walk along slowly, looking for items I may want to take home. And I spot them—a beautiful wooden bowl, hand carved and painted with splashes of vivid colors and a serving platter of similar construct with the outlines of two fishes carved and colored on the surface (Pisces, I realize as I write this entry on the jet to Lisbon). I purchase these for $65 US as well as some other small items from other vendors for my grandchildren—carved ebony hair combs for Mae and Tiga and little cups with the names of Zev and Tristan carved into them. We return to the Executive Hotel, past the old fort and await the return of our taxi.
Before we left the Terminus this morning, I gave up my room but paid for a second night for Carol and Adilia’s room. All of my belongings were transferred there and so we now have a base of operations until our departure for the airport later this evening. We have lunch at the hotel—delicious chicken broth with a slice of lemon at the bottom of the bowl. As we talk, I recognize a man walking up to the front door. It is Rosario Quive, an old friend from my early ONP visits, who has come to see me. I introduce him to Carol and Adilia and then the two of us sit down at an outdoor table. Rosario buys us beer and provides a very interesting perspective on the current workings of ONP in its quest to become the recognized national teachers’ organization. He believes the current leadership is not doing enough to advance teachers’ interests with the government and gives as an example a teacher who had been fired by a provincial official and who came to Maputo and lived in the ONP office for nearly half a year with ONP being apparently powerless to do anything for the fellow. We discuss the plans CTF has for a Thompson Fellowship program in Mozambique and I express my belief that such an event needs to have organization advocacy as its central theme. Perhaps speakers from EI, GNAT, PATC and selected Canadian organizations could provide some of the sessions that would help empower ONP to tackle some thorny issues with government.
I ask Rosario if he knows the whereabouts of Francisco de Assis, the former ONP staff member who visited me in Canada. Rosario promptly takes out his cell phone, dials Francisco’s number, and hands the phone to me. Francisco answers and I say that I want to enquire about becoming the Alberta, Canada representative for 2 M beer. He responds that he is no longer associated with ONP (Rosario’s phone must have given him this clue). Then I tell him “It’s Tim,” and he is completely surprised and, judging from his voice, happy to hear from me. We chat briefly and he says he will come around to the hotel for a visit. David comes by about then, however, to take us to his home for tea and I fear that I will miss Francisco’s visit.
Carol, Adilia and I leave the hotel with David and his brother Castro who provides the car. We make a photo stop at the ONP building then drive across town to David’s apartment. David’s home is on the third floor of a small apartment block, reached by a dark set of stairs. We are welcomed in and enter into the midst of a birthday party for David’s grandson, turning five today. The apartment is packed with little neighborhood children, all of David’s five children and accompanying spouses, lots of other friends and neighbors and now us. There must be at least 30 souls crowded in and all enjoying the birthday celebrations and the chance to visit and socialize. We have a plate of food and some drink and visit, play with the children and photograph the guests. Then at 1800 we take our leave, thanking David and his wife for their thoughtful hospitality and return to the Terminus with Castro.
At the hotel, we take turns using the room to shower and change for the night flight to Lisbon and then leave for the airport at 2000. Check-in is fairly straight-forward (I have one carry-on too many, which Carol adopts for me) and we depart Maputo and Mozambique at midnight.
Sunday, August 15
Eleven hours later, we arrive in Lisbon where I say farewell to my travel mates and thank them once again for their generous contribution to the workshops and for being such outstanding individuals with whom to work. They then head for London and onward to Toronto while I head for the Radisson Blu Hotel for a rest before heading home to Calgary.
The Mozambique summer program for 2010 has concluded.
Lichinga and Pemba, Mozambique
July 22 – August 14, 2010
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Thursday July 22
Rebecca, Charlie the Min Pin and I leave for the airport around 1600. I’m away to Mozambique by way of London and an overnight stop in Lisbon. Rebecca and Charlie are flying to Edmonton to meet up with Galien, who has been teaching at Debra Morgan’s ballet school for the past two weeks, and Ms Mae. They will all drive home tomorrow in Galien’s car—Rebecca and Charlie occupying Mae’s attention on the drive.
Friday, July 23
My flights are straightforward, luggage is within allowances and I arrive in Lisbon in good form, although my checked bag is not on the conveyor. A delay occurs while I try to track it down. A very helpful young woman at TAP believes she knows where it is, leaves her desk and returns ten minutes later with the bag in tow. My Lisbon flight was delayed for an hour at the gate in London and apparently the bag was put on an earlier flight and got to Lisbon before me.
At the Lisbon Radisson Blu Hotel, a short drive from the airport, I meet up with my colleagues Carol Bacaio and Adilia Fernandes. Carol was born in Portugal and has spent the past few days visiting family in the north of the country. Adilia spent the early part of this month teaching an adult art class for York University in Florence, Italy. Also of Portuguese descent, Adilia spent a few days in Lisbon as well.
Our stay in Lisbon is to be brief and after supper we head to our rooms. Our TAP flight to Maputo leaves at 0630, which means arrival at the airport at 0430 and an early rise tomorrow at 0330.
Saturday, July 24
We leave the hotel at 0400 for the short drive to the airport. The hotel kindly provides their Mercedes Benz van, so space for all of our luggage and us is not a problem. We take along a young man returning on the same flight to his Mozambique home. Gabrielle Viegas has been studying agriculture in Spain and he is part of Mozambique’s bright future.
A long flight follows lift off in an Airbus A340, built in 1993, the year of my first visit to Mozambique. It has likely been routinely assigned to this flight ever since. My friends are seated near me and I’m seated by a window with a lovely young Italian woman who is on her way to visit her fiancé, working on two-year transportation engineering contract.
Our arrival in Maputo gets interesting when our bags are x-rayed by the customs inspector. Both Carol and Adilia have brought a lot of material for the workshops and their suitcases are packed with pencils, calculators, paints, games, pins and more. The young inspector wants payment, as he believes all of this stuff is for resale within his country. An older officer is summoned, listens to Carol’s explanation, and waves us all on.
David Chinavane and Nazare are here to meet us and help get us loaded into two cars. Our next stop is the Hotel Mocambicano for an overnight stay. The hotel is a disappointment—the public areas are quite nice, including the restaurant, but the rooms are something else—dilapidated and very low end, but cheap, I guess, for a Maputo inn.
Sunday, July 24
Another early morning in order to catch our flight to Lichinga. We are all worried about our luggage—Adilia had to pay 100 Euros to get her bag onto the flight from Lisbon. We pile all of our luggage, including David’s, onto the scale and the overage comes to $120. The limit within Mozambique is lower than for international flights and all together we will make four flights inside the country on LAM. Carry-on luggage is also weighed and my two items are each over the ten-pound limit which means they should go into the cargo hold. The agent relents when she learns one bag contains a computer and printer and the other a camera system. The terminal is very busy, with people wrapping luggage in what appears to be Saran Wrap and just to get us boarded, I pay for the overweight luggage for all of us. The plastic wrap, I learn, is meant to prevent pilfering by ground handlers. Where all that stuff goes once people get home is something to be concerned about.
We eventually board one of LAM’s older aircraft, a Boeing 727-200 that has lots of stiffeners riveted onto its fuselage. Newer equipment includes Embrier EMB 190’s and Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400’s, the latter being good news for Canada’s exports. Samples of all three aircraft are on the ramp awaiting their first passengers of the day. Across the field, twin-engine Russian Antonov transports wait with drooping wings for calls to military duty.
Our route takes us north for two hours to Nampula, where, upon landing, everyone exits the aircraft during the station stop. We then head northwest to Lichinga, arriving after a 40-minute flight. The service on both flights is prompt and generous—juice boxes, chips and peanuts, even on the short leg of the flight.
In Lichinga, we collect our luggage and head out to the vehicles that await us. The drive into town is pleasant, following streets and roads first laid out by the Portuguese. The Girassol Hotel is to be our home for the next two weeks and it is a very pleasant surprise after Maputo’s dim experience. We lug our bags upstairs to our large rooms (the lift stays inoperable for the duration of our stay).
Carol, Adilia and I meet at 1700 with David Chinavane (ONP), Manuel Guru (INDE) and Cardosa Machemba, ONP’s director of professional development programs. I have been anxious, to say the least, to see what has been organized for the content and flow of the first workshop, that for the facilitators. An agenda was distributed to us while we were still in Canada and copies appear here as well. It contains a lot of topics but not much direction in terms of who’s doing what when.
We are meeting in the second floor lobby of the hotel and we are pretty widely spread out. I decide to move into the centre of the area to hopefully get the group focused and to start building an agenda for the week that we can reasonably expect to carry out. There are no movable chairs available so I empty a wooden trash container, tip it upside down and plant myself gently upon it in the middle of our little gathering. Looking at the breadth of material in the handout, I check off and give a sequence value to several of the items listed. Then, through discussion and input from everyone, and particularly helpful views from Carol and Adilia, we construct what I name “modules,” give them a place on the agenda and assign people to lead them. After a lengthy meeting, we adjourn, the trash container’s shape firmly imprinted on my bottom, but we have a clear view forward for the next four days. I go to my room to input the revised agenda into my laptop and then print several copies on the new Canon portable printer that accompanied me to Africa. Carol and Adilia work next door on lesson planning for tomorrow. I hear Adilia leave Carol’s room after midnight, ending a very full, well-travelled and productive day.
Monday, July 25
David meets us at the hotel while we are having breakfast and then we are driven a short distance to the Senior Institute for Public Administration, where the workshops will be held. Between the Institute and our hotel is the governor’s office building, complete with his white Mercedes Benz C-240. As we drive into the yard, we see several of the facilitators visiting just outside our classroom. In we all go and the sessions get underway exactly on time. First, lots of welcomes and introductions. The hosting province welcomes us and then the national anthem is sung in many harmonizing voices. The teachers then pray, after which I’m invited to speak. With David’s assistance interpreting, I mention my own ONP history, the CTF-ONP partnership development, and the importance of these workshops to teachers who attend and the students they teach. All of this takes most of the morning and we adjourn for lunch, served by a little restaurant attached to the back of the Institute. The meal service will be laid on each day, for refreshment breaks morning and afternoon, as well as for lunches. We will only need to buy suppers at the hotel.
After lunch, teachers report on their professional lives—difficulties and opportunities—and later on take part in a workshop to confront and deal with some of the problems. It is helpful to have Manuel Guru here to hear the teachers and to take part in the workshop session. Guru, as he refers to himself, being essentially a staff member of the ministry, seems rather aloof at first. Carol learns from conversation with him that he really didn’t want to be here for a week, away from his family and office, to work with teachers from the field.
We end our first day at 1730 and return to the hotel. Supper is at 1900 after which I work on revisions to the agenda and Carol and Adilia work on planning for tomorrow’s sessions. We try the Internet in the hotel lobby but learn that service to the entire town is out for the time being. Nevertheless, the workshop is proceeding well and the pressures of the unknown on the first day are now well behind us.
The weather merits comment: it is cool and mainly overcast today and I’m glad I brought along a jacket and a light sweater. This is, after all, Mozambique’s winter and here in the northwest highlands, there can be a noticeable chill in the air. The temperature makes for a pleasant classroom environment, however.
More revisions to the agenda tonight and more copies produced on the wonderful little Canon printer.
Tuesday, July 27
Following a report on yesterday’s activities, we head into a session concerning desired outcomes generated by a national meeting on reading and writing. Participants talk about their approaches to teaching beginning reading and writing and then Carol and Adilia give a demonstration lesson on their approaches. This takes us to the refreshment break after which my two Toronto friends really get the show into high gear.
A little poem, “O Livro” (The Book) is placed before the participants, beautifully inked on chart paper by Adilia. The reading lesson highlights phonetic sounds related to the poem and lists words used frequently in the poem. Then, oh my, the things we can do with a little poem—read it very loudly, then very softly. Read one line standing up and the next line sitting down (quickly, now). Read it backwards. Now have half of the participants put the poem to dance and the other half put it to music. Have performances. Child-centred learning is active learning and a lot of fun to boot, as we all discover.
The day continues with an introduction to writing using different types of poems. We see acrostics, lists and shapes as the basis for involving children in writing. A complete lesson is presented on writing list poems and acrostic poems after which participants write their own. A success criteria chart is shown based on the shape poem “The Rainbow.” The poem then merges into a science and visual arts lesson on colors. Participants using the art sticks brought by Adilia produce color wheels. The day is a model of how to integrate curriculum using good planning, simple materials, and an approach that is centred on the natural interests and instincts of children everywhere.
I photograph the activities, filling up the 4G card, and enjoy every minute of the day—as much as any of the participants and perhaps more. I’m tremendously proud of Carol and Adilia for what they contributed today—simply brilliant. The afternoon refreshment break occurs at 1700, a change from mid-afternoon and a most suitable way to end today’s sessions.
At night, I revise the agenda yet again, adjusting for the time the sessions really take. Carol and Adilia return to their evening planning for tomorrow’s events.
Wednesday, July 28
Back at it this morning, the participants eager to be part of this continuing experience. One of the facilitators gives a presentation on the teaching of mother tongues that is well received. Then the Toronto teachers start off with a primary math lesson using favorite colors as the basis for different types of graphs. Success criteria for the math lesson are presented and a math problem is role modeled. Participants work on provided math problems in small groups then report their results to the group using the success criteria model. A place value lesson using little sticks found in the courtyard is given. Carol and Adilia then demonstrate three forms of lesson planning—daily, web plan and a two-week unit plan. Participants work in groups to plan their own lessons that they then demonstrate to the group.
Meanwhile, I’m photographing quite a bit. A lot of the activities provided by Carol and Adilia in their focus on child-centred learning lend themselves to photographs. This morning’s icebreaker had everyone adding machine sounds and movements to those started by Carol and Adilia. Great fun. After the morning break, a special kind of ball game in the centre square. These are good events, modeled by two caring teachers and in considerable contrast to the lecture format used by our co-tutors. Not knowing anything about what is being said, I read instead the faces, postures and attentiveness of the participants and try to capture this in digital memories.
I make the group photograph this afternoon and have copies made up at the local photo finisher. These will be presented at the closing event later this week.
I stay with the group until 1600 when I return to the hotel. I have a meeting with David and Manuel at 1800 and I have some preparations to make. My guests arrive exactly on time and we settle into chairs in the hotel lobby. We look through the planning program developed by ONP as well as the notes that Nicole provided to me. As we talk and review parts of the documents, other ideas and questions arise in my mind. First off, the training of facilitators: we have these 19 folk for a full week after which two from Niassa Province will work with the teachers who will be attending next week’s workshop. Two others are scheduled to help staff the teachers’ workshop in Pemba. The others, all of whom will have experienced a rich and involving workshop, have nothing planned that will enable them to share their learning with classroom teachers. Most of the facilitators work as staff in teacher training institutions and are not classroom teachers. I wonder how the benefits of their experience will ever get to working teachers who could really use some help. Hopefully they will pass some of this on to their student teachers.
I ask about the utilization of the facilitators. Manuel mentions zones of pedagogy, clusters of schools around the country that can have the services of staff members from INDE. I wonder if the ONP facilitators could be used to support and enhance the work of the INDE field staff. Guru believes this is possible but it would depend on negotiations with ONP and the ministry as to who would be responsible for their costs and how their time could be accessed. David mentions that teachers are supposed to have a day of in-school planning each month and that the facilitators might be used there. Spreading 19 trainers over the vast number of schools seems unlikely, however. Otherwise, ideas for the use of facilitators seem sketchy at best.
Next week’s workshop with classroom teachers will be interesting to observe. These folk will receive pretty much the same program as the facilitators but will take their newfound skills directly back to their classrooms and their students.
So what to do? I think the best approach for now may be to keep the facilitators’ group together but stop running workshops exclusively for their benefit. There may come a time when they are needed and there may be a way to have trained facilitators in 11 of the country’s provinces. But I believe that is in the somewhat distant future. For the next five years of the program, I’m thinking that workshops should be planned for teachers but with room for perhaps 20 per cent of the existing facilitators (or new ones, for that matter) to attend on a cyclical schedule—16 teachers, four facilitators per workshop. Attending facilitators could work as co-tutors with Canadian teachers. As opportunities arise to put facilitators to useful work supporting local teachers, then workshops exclusively for them could be reinstated.
The three of us cover other details required by CTF. Outcomes of our conversations will be included in the program report. But I note three things here: Guru will not speak to me in English, although he understands what I say in my language. It is also difficult to find time to make plans of any substantial nature concerning the participation of INDE in the workshops. And finally, Guru has become completely engaged with what he sees happening in the workshops. He participates fully in the sessions, questions Carol and Adilia constantly, and provides a lot of good information to the teachers during his times “before the class.” He has confided to Carol and Adilia that he is delighted that he decided to attend and that he is learning a great deal from being exposed to the ways of his new Canadian colleagues. He is far less aloof and much more a colleague of everyone at the session.
Tonight, more planning for tomorrow. Adilia hand-letters the certificates that will be issued at the end of the workshop and I package up the group photographs for the participants.
Thursday, July 29
Today will be the last day of classroom work for the facilitators. Carol and Adilia have proposed a field trip experience for tomorrow (and have undertaken to pay for the excursion). Another full day is put in, including a visit from VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas). These are researchers from London interested in the kinds of training experiences received by those who teach in teacher colleges. Our participants form a unique study group for their purpose and they agree to be interviewed. Carol and Adilia present lessons on drama and movement, mathematical calculation activities and spelling. Participants play charades to act out an integrated vocabulary and spell out words.
Near 1700, we begin the formal closing exercises. The national anthem is sung once again, short speeches are provided, Cardosa oversees the handing out of certificates, and I hand out photographs. It has been a memorable week so far and I look forward to what tomorrow may bring.
Friday, July 30
We gather at the Centre at 0800 and await the bus hired by Carol and Adilia to take us on our field trip. Our destination is the village of Metangula on the east shore of Lake Nyassa, a distance of approximately 100 kilometres and two hours en route. My colleagues have prepared a field trip lesson integrating science and art and provide packages of art supplies for each of us. The idea for the field trip came about as Carol and Adilia listened to the stories of some of the teachers concerning difficulties they encountered during their travels to the Lichinga workshop. They felt that a field trip to the lake, which only one of the participants has seen, would be a welcome treat and an opportunity to model yet another student-centred teaching strategy. When they announced the trip on Wednesday, there was great appreciation, ululation and pleasure.
We leave Lichinga in a little Mitsubishi bus and pick up speed on the paved highway. As always, an African vehicle has the right of way and our progress is aided by the driver’s constant use of the horn. All scatter before us, some with less dignity than others. We rise higher as we proceed west winding through valleys, over passes in the low mountains and through vast swaths of pine forest plantations. It is beautiful country, reminiscent of the high foothills on the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies.
I photograph from the bus, capturing scenes of villages and countryside as well as my fellow passengers. I spot a large baboon in the ditch by the road but we are past before I can raise my camera. Approaching the lake, the road winds down from the heights to the lakeshore. This is an enormous body of water and it stretches out of sight to the west and to the north. According to Wikipedia, the lake is the eighth largest in the world, third largest in Africa and contains more species of fish than that of any other body of water on earth. It is also very deep at over 2,000 feet in places.
We enter Metangula, pass a lot of abandoned Portuguese buildings and come to the office of the district school administrator. He welcomes us into his office and then sends us off to visit the local school, where eight teachers have been rounded up to meet us (this is their vacation time). On leaving his office, Adilia asks to use the facilities, having spotted a WC just outside the entrance to the administrator’s office. She is escorted outside to the back of the building where she gets up close and personal with her first African squatter toilet. A bit of culture shock ensues.
The school visit is most cordial and the teachers seem pleased to meet their Mozambique and Canadian colleagues. We have a little welcoming ceremony inside and then step out for photographs and more informal visits. Just beside the cinderblock school is another one with stick walls and thatched roof that serves as the primary school. Two little boys peer in over the low wall and I photograph them. They turn to see me and the smaller one instantly strikes a Ninja pose, complete with big grin. As we load up the bus to press on to the beach, we find the eight local teachers already on-board and seated. So several of us remain standing for the short drive.
The sandy beach welcomes us and the young men who came along from the Institute restaurant quickly remove the hot serving trays from the rear of the bus and set up a serving area under an awning near the shore. The rest of us acquaint ourselves with the beautiful surf and the superb shoreline. Before long, shoes come off, pants get rolled up and dresses are tucked into waistbands as folk venture into the warm waters as far as they dare. There is universal enjoyment and this is going to be a remarkable way to end our first workshop.
After some beach time, the food is served and folk gather around to eat and visit. I have been photographing along the shore, visiting little kids and fishermen, and fully enjoying this fabulous place. Eventually I get a plate of rice and chicken and go to sit along the wall of a beach hut with Carol and Adilia. Just beyond us, children from the village who have been playing on the shore start gathering, watching us eat. I nibble some rice then put my plate down on the sand where it is quickly collected by some of the children. “I can’t eat,” Adilia says, and soon more food finds its way to a growing group of children.
Adilia then takes her sketch book and some colors and goes down the beach a little way, settling in to draw. Soon a little boy comes to watch and is invited to sit down and try his hand. In very short order the one little boy is joined by several of his chums who gather to see the art creation in progress.
Adilia recognizes that this is one of those wonderful “teachable moments” and abandons thoughts and plans about teaching the teachers. She distributes all of the art supplies and paper to the children and leads them through viewing, thinking about and drawing what they see before them. As she works with the children, other teachers join her and her posse of artists. This becomes a serious and focused session for the children and they diligently experiment with their sticks of colors, interpreting what they see. The remainder of the food, still in the serving dishes, is now brought over to the group and the children nourish their tummies as well as their intellects.
After about an hour, the art pieces are voluntarily presented to Adilia who thanks each artist in turn and rewards them all by asking them to keep and use the art supplies she gave out. We then assemble for a little ceremony marking the end of the workshop. David is given a bottle of champagne, which he opens and shares with everyone. As little speeches are made, I watch one of the little boys from the art session take the now-empty champagne bottle out into the surf. I go nearer the water to photograph him as he comes out with the now filled bottle. Just then someone pulls something over my head, to the sound of laughter behind me. I turn around to find that I have missed the little speeches of thanks and presentations of gifts to the Canadians. Around my neck is a colorful jersey. Around Carol and Adilia’s hips are wraps of locally dyed fabric.
We walk back to the bus to begin our journey home. One of Adilia’s young artists stops her and, with serious demeanor, presents her with a rock from the shore of Lake Nyassa in thanks for sharing her time and talents with him. Adilia thanks him and gives him a marker pen to print his name on the rock. “Vincente,” prints the little boy on a keepsake from Africa unlike any other.
The return to Lichinga retraces our route, this time with me viewing the opposite side of the road. Scenes of village life flash past—little stacks of firewood for sale, bicycle repair shops, and, unfortunately, the destruction of someone’s home, fully engulfed in flame—set in the ever-changing countryside in all of its considerable splendor.
At the hotel, I have a quick shower and light meal then join David and Manuel for our second meeting concerning details of the ongoing program. We progress through the intricacies of Nicole’s planning then adjourn for the evening. I join Carol and Adilia at their supper and then turn in.
Saturday, July 31
David comes for us at 1000 to take us for a little drive to the hills after which Lichinga gets its name. Away we go, driven in the truck that has been retained for the two workshops. Only a short way out of town we come to a stop and the truck turns around. I spot a girl’s pink bicycle parked carefully on its kickstand on the verge above the road, a rather incongruous scene in my mind. I photograph it then follow a path into the tall grass to get a better view of the hills. When I come back to the road three women approach, each carrying a large bundle of firewood on her head. I make another photograph of the pink bicycle, including the women, and we head back to town.
The driver drops us at a very modern little supermarket where we stock up on things like cookies (for me) and lots of bags of candy (for Carol and Adilia). We return to the hotel on foot, have lunch and then go to our rooms. Carol and Adilia work on presentations for Monday’s teachers’ workshop and I download photographs from yesterday and today’s excursions into the MacBook Pro. After supper we have a slide show of all of my photographs to date.
Sunday, August 1
The reason for the bags of candy can now be revealed. David collects us at 0930 in a new Toyota truck driven by his cousin. We are on our way to Mosteiro Mater Dolorosa Catholic Church and Orphanage where we will attend the church service, visit the orphanage and have lunch with the children. David’s cousin is one of the nuns and he stays at their guest residence when he is in Lichinga.
We arrive in front of the church where we are greeted by a group of the older children who sing for us and scatter flower petals in our path. The children then escort us to the orphanage buildings, a distance of about 500 meters, where they proudly show off their home and tour us through its rooms. It is a nice building, quite new, and well appointed for the 40 children who live here. One thing it lacks, however, is electricity, something that is really needed but is still on the orphanage’s wish list. Then we all return to the church.
Two little ones take my hands on the walk back. They are beautiful children and well cared for here but I think of the loss each one has suffered—parents and family—and I wonder what they dream.
We enter the church, take seats and wait for the service to begin. The church door opens behind us and in come two parallel lines of children, all dressed alike, and singing and dancing in slow rhythm. They take their places around the front of the altar and the service begins. The little children are also present, sitting on benches with the housemother or with some of the older children. All the elements of the service include the children as key players. They sing, read lessons, greet everyone and add luster to what could otherwise be a rather staid experience.
After the service, we are shown around the church grounds, the nearby gardens and the church farm. There are turkeys and pigs and a new building that will house a chicken/egg operation. The six nuns are proud (bad choice of word?) of what they have accomplished and they deserve a lot of credit for the safe and loving home they have created for these children.
Then it’s lunchtime. We are invited in to a bountiful buffet in an adjoining building. Chairs for honoured guests are arranged behind a table at the front of the room but all of us opt to take our full plates and sit among the children. Later, we are entertained with imaginative skits and singing.
At the end of the entertainment, all of the bags of candy are opened and emptied onto the front table. The children come forward, youngest first, to receive their second blessing of the day. Then I receive mine—a special Bundt cake baked and presented just for me. The children form up once again and, in full voice, sing us goodbye, walking past and shaking hands with each of us.
Our ride back to town is noisier than the ride out—about 15 of the children and their housemother pile into the truck box and sing us back to the hotel. They entertain not only us but also every passerby with their singing, eliciting smiles and waves along the road. As we go by the hospital and morgue, they fall silent, lighting up again only after we are well past.
In the evening, we have a planning meeting with the two facilitators who will carry on with us and the teachers starting on Monday. Fabiao Bendane and Iracema Manuel join Carol, Adilia, Cardosa, David and me for our second “Modulation Meeting,” the descriptor applied after our first meeting last Sunday in which we developed what I called modules as the basis for the workshop content. I let this meeting get started on its own, looking to see what initiative the local facilitators and ONP staff will take. Between all of us, we build a program for the teachers’ workshop. David undertakes to write up our notes this evening and I will print out the results tomorrow morning on the little Canon printer.
Monday, August 2
David arrives at the hotel and hands me a memory stick containing the program for this week. I print off seven copies and we then head for the opening session of the Lichinga teachers’ workshop. We have the usual opening events during which I speak and then hand out Alberta pins. Fabiao and Iracema start out fairly well and Carol and Adilia stand by to lend support as needed. The day progresses and the workshop wraps up at 1730. A quiet evening and then to bed.
Tuesday, August 3
A much busier day today with good leadership by Fabiao and Iracema and more participation by Carol and Adilia. My two Canadians bring such expertise to these sessions and share their knowledge, good humor and empathy so generously. Quite a lot of focus today on effective lesson planning and lots of time allowed for the participants to practice. Games are played outdoors and ice breakers introduced to help demonstrate ways that teachers can involve their students, have fun and support the desire for more child-centred learning.
At 1700 we have our afternoon snack before leaving. This has proven to be a popular practice as the snacks are substantial and help tide everyone over until supper. We then leave in the little blue Toyota truck, 15 teachers in the box and us in the cab. We drop the teachers off downtown and then the driver takes us out to the orphanage. Adilia has arranged with David to have an art workshop for the children this evening. Carol will help and I will photograph (and try my best to get the kids laughing). We have a great session with the children welcoming us back, literally with open arms. They are beautiful young people, yearning for human contact and interaction. The sisters and housemother provide a lot of this but any contact with others seems appreciated. All children just need to be loved.
The art lesson proceeds first with tempera sticks and then with watercolors. Each child has a package of art supplies, lots of paper, mixing trays and stickers. The results are heart-warming and I photograph the progress of the young artists. Pieces are taped to the wall as they are finished, with a good deal of observation of each by the others. As the time passes and the painting comes to an end, we prepare to take our leave. But first, tea is served to us along with fresh mini-doughnuts made in the kitchen by the older girls. Before eating, some of the girls bring around a kettle of warm water, a small basin and towels for us to wash our hands.
Our farewell follows, with the children and sisters escorting us to the little blue truck. The truck was left running all evening because the battery has very little charge. This afternoon, when the driver was to take me to the hotel, the truck wouldn’t start. A team of teachers quickly assembled to provide a push start in reverse gear. Didn’t happen. I got out and helped push forward and finally we got the truck started. I don’t think it was turned off all day after that.
We have supper at the hotel, I go to download photographs and Carol and Adilia carry on with planning for tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 4
We arrive at the Centre at 0755 and most of the teachers are already here. Our facilitators are not. We get underway on time with David and Cardosa welcoming the participants and asking for the summary of the previous day’s happenings. One of the three women participants (out of 20 in total) provides the recap. Carol and Adilia then take over. Iracema arrives 15 minutes later and Fabiao comes in 45 minutes late—not good form and I point this out to David on our way to the morning break.
The morning rolls on and after the break, David and I walk to the local LAM office to confirm our flights to Pemba this weekend. We encounter Noemia, our young waitress at the Girossol Hotel, on her way to open a savings account at the bank. She walks with us to the LAM office where we ask when training programs for LAM aircrew take place. Thought I’d just plant an optional idea in Noemia’s mind about what her future might be. She has become a favorite of ours. She is a lovely young woman, very beautiful, most polite but with a quick wit beneath her calm exterior, and we three Canadians are very fond of her. Back at the Centre, David and I make some progress on the information from Nicole and plan to return to the task after lunch. Lunch, however, is postponed until later so our extra time together gets blown away.
During lunch, I walk to the little supermarket to stock up on in-room munchies but find the gate to the yard locked. I forgot about siesta time. As I walk away, two cars approach and the guard opens the gate. I recognize the owners and they signal for me to come in.
I shop in solitary splendor. Returning to the hotel, I pass by the governor’s house. Carol and Adilia walked here yesterday and, when approaching the house, were confronted by an armed guard in a little blockhouse who ordered them to cross the street and proceed along on the other side. “Pralac!” was the order given and, in recounting the confrontation, Carol embroidered the word and the bizarre situation into my emerging (but only slightly) Portuguese vocabulary. The entire street is closed at 1800 each day to ensure that the governor is not disturbed by any outside noise. Along with the fender flag on his white Mercedes Benz, this is just another example of “silly-buggery” found from time-to-time in the upper realms of officialdom.
It’s group photograph day today and I photograph our friends at the end of the session. I will make prints on the Canon printer this evening.
As we arrive at the hotel, a tall stately man approaches and asks if he can speak with us for a moment. We sit together in the lobby and he introduces himself—Fazal Carino Laca, vice-president of the provincial assembly of Niassa. He deals out his business cards. Carol interprets his remarks concerning his interest in having someone come to Niassa to instruct on how municipal governments ought to work. He describes corruption and inefficiency in local government here and seems quite sincere in his questions. He also seems oddly interested in my two companions. “Perhaps we could all go out tomorrow evening,” he proposes. “There are lots of interesting places in Lichinga, beyond the hotel.” We demur, stating our days and evenings are very full with our work commitments and we won’t know if we will be available until tomorrow. I assure him that I will contact the Alberta government office that deals with exporting provincial expertise and I also advise him to contact the Canadian embassy in Maputo.
We three meet for supper at 1900 after which Carol and Adilia go to their rooms to continue planning. I join two other Canadian women who are here on another project. I show them Sr Laca’s card and ask if he has been part of their meeting group. They confirm this and tell me he is who he says he is and a successful businessman as well. They also mention that our local politician made very clear advances to them that they found inappropriate and uncomfortable. One of them “shot him down” saying their schedule was very busy and further that she was happily married. If we see the fellow again tomorrow evening, we will also bid him goodbye. Carol and Adilia are getting some interesting experiences concerning the behavior of some African males, especially the apparent sense of entitlement to approach women in ways that are inappropriate in a North American context. Adilia, particularly, has received such attentions from one of the facilitators who was always “hovering” and one of the teachers who posed rather amorously with her in the group photograph and who composed and read out a poem especially for her.
After the conversation I go to my room to print the group photographs and do a tub full of quick-dry laundry.
Thursday, August 5
The day starts with breakfast and then a walk to the Institute where we find our co-tutors already there, along with all of the teachers. Good. We start with the daily recap and questions and then Carol and Adilia hand out the Ontario pins that they brought with them. The facilitators received Alberta pins from me last week. While the pins are being distributed, I go to the blackboard and draw a rough map of Canada, placing Calgary and Toronto in their respective places. My little impromptu lesson on “teachable moments” follows, using the pins and the map as starters. Fun to be in front of the class but I rely on Carol for interpretation.
The morning proceeds with Carol and Adilia delivering a session on integrating curriculum. At noon, we three walk back to the hotel, passing through the parking area of the governor’s office on our way. A large Toyota Land Cruiser stops in front of us, the front passenger jumps out and opens the rear door for Mr Vice President. Once again, Sr Laca entreats us to join him Friday evening for drinks. He is quite insistent, especially in front of his several retainers who wait attentively. Through Carol, I explain that we are far too busy to take timeout to accompany him on an “outing.” He seems rebuffed and I offer to buy him a beer at the hotel tomorrow. He tells us he is off to a meeting with the governor right now and may come by to see us on Friday. Maybe not, if we are lucky. The governor’s office building is surrounded by shiny new pick-up trucks that have brought functionaries to a meeting. Inside the trucks are their drivers, many staring absently at cell phones.
I work from 1730 to 1930 on reporting matters for CTF then join Carol and Adilia for supper. They are working on a lesson plan template for tomorrow, something I’m pretty sure our fellow teachers will find useful.
Friday, August 6
The workshop ends today at noon. We begin with the daily recap and then proceed to the lesson plans that teachers worked on yesterday. The presentations are interesting in that the teachers role-play the lessons, including entering the classroom and taking attendance. They then proceed to act out their lesson. I’m not sure they got the assignment quite right but they each get through the lessons with help and some teasing from their “students.” Carol and Adilia then present the template they developed, capturing the attention of the participants. Dr Dionisio Tumbo of the Pedagogical University then speaks. He joined us yesterday to see how we were working to develop the skills of local teachers. He tells us how impressed he is with what he has seen being modeled at this workshop. We conclude just before the refreshment break by having participants complete an evaluation sheet. I will photograph these later and the originals will be given to David for consideration during planning for upcoming workshops.
We gather after the break for the closing event. There are certificates for everyone, with names hand-scripted by Adilia, and Cardosa hands me the first one to present to Odete Martinho. Odete can best be described as “a traditionally built African woman,” after the term used by Alexander McCall Smith in his novels about The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. I hand the certificate to her but she reaches across the table to me for a traditional double cheek kiss, with lots of encouragement and laughter from the other participants. Cardosa and others distribute the remainder of the certificates and then I hand out envelopes containing the group photographs. When I come to the envelope with Odete’s name, I reach across the table to her for another double cheek kiss before giving it to her. Great fun. We then go for lunch in the little café behind the centre and farewells to a wonderful class of teachers.
Carol, Adilia and I walk back to the hotel in expectation of a free afternoon. Iracema comes to collect us at 1400 in her Hyundi Santa Fe for a little drive into the nearby countryside. We drive out on the road toward the orphanage then turn east, going parallel to the railway track and along to the site of the new university. We cross the track and it occurs to me that we may be nearing the Boeing 737 that I had spotted on Google Earth when I was first looking at Lichinga on my computer at home. Our destination is Belo Horizonte Lagoa (beautiful horizon lagoon) where the 737 does, indeed, repose. I spot its tail above the trees as we approach the little resort.
Hohan Nair, the director of a Mozambique NGO, who stays at our hotel when he visits his office here, recounted the story of the wayward Boeing to me. The aircraft belonged to LAM and on landing at Lichinga one day in 1989 or 1990, overshot the runway. LAM stripped it of everything salvageable and sold the shell to the owner of the Belo resort. His intention was to build a restaurant inside the aircraft but his plans never came to fruition. The hulk now rests on two cement pads with braces under each wing. There is nothing left inside—even the floor has been removed—and timber beams have been placed in anticipation of a new floor some day. There is a lot of brickwork on the ground outside outlining what the owner hoped would be sidewalks leading to his lucrative new business. Now only goats and donkeys graze the area, keeping the grass at a respectable height. The entire fuselage echoes with the sound of thousands of bees that have taken up residence in the tail fin, which must contain a very large hive. We have soft drinks in the little café then return to town.
Before supper, I try to pay our hotel bill. There are difficulties—the clerks can’t get the card reader to work. The machine’s plug needs to be held in by hand and when the clerk tries to swipe my card, he can’t get it all the way through and still keep the plug in place. Even when it does connect, error messages pop up on the little panel. No success tonight. I worry about this all night, finally getting up to count out the American dollars I carry with me and trying to figure out how much we actually owe. Sleep is not helped by the music and drumming coming from the Institute. The Prime Minister is in town (his home is near Lichinga) and the party rolls on until nearly 0500. At that point, the local mullah chimes in with his usual morning call to worship, piped across the neighborhood by the loudspeakers on top of the mosque. At 0700 I go down for breakfast and stop by to speak with the morning desk clerk. He takes my Visa card, makes two entries splitting the bill and presto!—we are all paid up. What a relief. I had $1,500 US in my pocket to make a down payment with the intention of paying the balance at the Hotel Girassol in Nampula, where we will stay tonight.
Saturday, August 7
Our driver from the local ONP was to collect us this morning to take us to the airport. After breakfast, we wait in the lobby but as time goes by and no one shows up, I start to worry. Then Adriano, one of the local ONP teachers, stops by on his trusty motor scooter, says hello, then leaves to find the driver. More time goes by but finally a truck belonging to the ministry arrives, complete with Adriano and Bernardo, another ONP local. My guess is that the battery in the little blue Toyota may have given up the ghost and a new conveyance needed to be found. Baggage is piled in the box, along with our two friends, and off we go, with an intermediate stop at the office of the director of education who welcomes us heartily.
There are no x-ray machines at the Lichinga airport so baggage is inspected visually. We then check in, pay the airport improvement tax ($10 US each) and wait to board our flight to Nampula. As we wait, we are joined by Adriano, Bernardo and Carolina, the ONP treasurer, and Iracema stops by briefly with her two little children to say goodbye. Iracema and the children live here but her husband has been posted to the Maputo office of customs and immigration. She hopes to join him there soon. A new EMB 190 taxis to the ramp and we are airborne in short order, leaving the vivid red earth of Lichinga behind. Forty minutes later we taxi in to the Nampula terminal, collect our luggage and are met by the Nampula ONP secretary José João. Our hotel is the Girassol Nampula, an establishment that occupies the fourth floor of a downtown office building. The accommodations are very nice and after checking in we explore up and down some of the nearby streets.
A large Catholic church sits kitty-corner from the hotel. We enter and I photograph some of the lovely features of the interior. Carol and Adilia decide to return for mass later in the evening. I think about joining them but decide instead on a power nap. I’m tired after last night’s restless sleep. We have dinner at 1900 then to our rooms for the evening. I make a few last photographs of the solitary rock hills that cover the surrounding area. My fourth floor vantage point gives a clear view of these interesting features and the 200 mm lens pulls them in nice and close.
Sunday, August 8
We are in the lobby at 0700 in order to get to the airport for our flight to Pemba. We miss breakfast, however, as the dining room doesn’t open until the time we leave the hotel. We flag a cab outside and load everything into a little Toyota. We are the first to arrive at the terminal and after running our luggage through the x-ray machine we line it all up at the LAM counter. And wait. Eventually we check in and receive hand-written boarding passes (“The system is down”) that allow us to pass through into the departure lounge. This is a nice area and Adilia discovers a set of stairs that lead up to a little cafeteria and an outdoor viewing area. We have Cokes and wait some more. My colleagues comment on how much they admire my wonderful timing of airport arrivals.
We watch the loading of another EMB 190 and a 737 and then our flight is called. As the seats are not assigned (“The system is down”) I decide to settle in to a single seat in the business class cabin. The cabin crew smile at me and pass on. Carol and Adilia try to come up from coach but are sent back by one of the stewards (“Pralac!”).
Pemba is reached after a 30-minute flight that takes us in a giant arc high through a beautiful cloudscape and down again. There is no one to meet us so we get a cab and ask the driver to take us to the Wimbi Sun Resort where rooms have been booked for us by ONP. We check in and go to our rooms. Then I drop by to see how Carol and Adilia are settling in and find two very unhappy campers. Their room, like mine, is very run down and decrepit. We decide to look a bit further to see if anything better is available in the neighborhood. We cross the road to a casino and resort and then travel further down the road to the Kauri Resort. This place seems new and is very clean and modern. I book two rooms for us and then have the taxi take us back to the Wimbi to collect our luggage and return us to our new abode.
We settle in to our ocean front rooms and then go to breakfast/lunch at the open-air hotel restaurant. The rest of the day is for resting—our first in two weeks. The scene is beautiful: the Indian Ocean at high tide surging ashore, fishers in little boats harvesting the sea and a spectacular sky.
I am inspired to take a walk along the shore and with Nikon slung around my neck I set off. Several small dogs converge on me as I walk but find me less than curious. A bit further along, a large dog watches me from someone’s yard then bounds down to me, leaping up in greeting. We become friends and he accompanies me on my explorations.
I photograph the sea, the shore, seaweed, rocks and the ancient remains of a partially sunken iron vessel. I go out onto a rocky reef where egrets nest and photograph the strange erosion of the rocks. My faithful four footed friend stays with me throughout, stopping at interesting scents, chasing spider shrimp across opens swaths of the shore and digging madly at what appear to me to be random areas of sand. Heading back, the dog stops and sniffs at an area near where the small dogs came down to see me. I wonder what he has found and then I learn—he cocks his leg and lets out a mighty stream of pee, thus marking the boundary of his territory where it abuts that of the small dogs. I continue on to the hotel and my sandy colored friend returns to his yard.
Later, we start looking at photographs. Carol and Adilia haven’t seen any of my images since just after our first visit to the orphanage. As we are paging through them on my laptop, a porter comes to announce the arrival of David, Alipio Siquisse and Jeremias Cussambe, the latter being one of the facilitators who will work with the Pemba teachers. We have a pleasant visit and a formal welcome by Alipio. This is the first time I have met the ONP general secretary. I order tea and soft drinks and we carry on initial planning for the start of tomorrow’s workshop. They then leave for their hotel downtown and Adilia and I go for a bit of supper. Carol is feeling a bit off and stays behind. After supper, we head for our rooms and the day draws to a close. Pemba is quite a lovely place and we are enjoying the setting and the warm sea-moistened air, quite a change from the climate in Lichinga.
Monday, August 9
We go for breakfast on the covered patio at 0700. I have been up since 0530, awakened by the lightening sky, and knowing that the ocean will have vistas for my camera. In pajamas and shoes, I photographed from the lawn area in front of my room. Local fishers were already at work, many setting out nets on the far sandbar exposed by the low tide.
The front desk phones the taxi driver from yesterday but his phone is off. Another car is summoned and I am pleasantly surprised. It is very clean, inside and out, with all the glass intact, descent tires on the rims, an air conditioner that works and even doilies on the seat backs. It is about a 15-minute drive from our lodgings to the site of the workshop at the new Pemba Secondary School. The taxi fare is 250M each way. I ask the driver, through Carol, if he can drive us each day, to and from the school, and he assures me with the comment “no problem,” that part, at least, in English. I pay him 500M for today’s ride and tomorrow’s and we step out of the cab in the grounds of the school, next to a car containing David.
The workshop starts in a newly appointed meeting room in the school. The anthem is sung and speeches of greetings are given by Alipio, the local deputy director of education, and me. We then move to the teachers’ lounge where the workshop will be conducted for the rest of the week.
We encounter a snag. There were to be two facilitators for this workshop, Jeremias and Geraldina Soares. Only Jeremias is in attendance and I learn that Geraldina has cancelled out. I don’t know the reason for this but I detect that David is quietly upset with this turn of events. I gather Carol, Adilia, Jeremias, David and Alipio for a quick conference and we all agree that we can carry on without Geraldina but with additional sessional leadership from David and Alipio. Carol and Adilia, of course, are ready for anything and I know they will be a big part of this workshop as they were with the previous two. By leaving Geraldina out of the picture, Alipio is freed of the need to write a pleading letter to Geraldina’s supervisor asking permission for her to take part.
Jeremias gets us underway efficiently and directs the commencement of the day’s work. This amounts to pretty much a full day of group work for the participants as they determine obstacles and opportunities in their teaching lives. Group reports begin after lunch and run to 1600 with active interplay between the teachers and a fair bit of criticizing of some of the reports by some individuals. Jeremias then presents a lecture, stern in tone, accompanied by lots of gestures and expressions.
I find I’m having difficulty staying involved today, even without considering the language barrier. Eventually I leave for a walk around this beautiful new school building. Lots of thought and money have gone into this place but it is not yet in full use. The rooms are all finished and equipped with modern blackboards but there are no desks in most of the rooms. In the field behind this building is another one constructed of reed walls and a tin roof. This is the old school, still in use, with its glassless window openings and mud brick room dividers. What a contrast and what a statement about the importance the country is placing on the education of its youth. The old school runs three shifts daily and soon all of its denizens will be taking classes in the new structure.
After 1600 and a short break, we begin again with Alipio delivering a lecture on professionalism. His use of a little twig as a pointer reminds me that he is a university lecturer in his other life. After sessions today Carol, Adilia and I meet with David to see about fitting some Canadian content into the remainder of the workshop. Carol and Adilia sat at the back of the room all day today working on fine-tuning lessons they have developed based on the Mozambique school workbooks. We should be in for a highly interactive day tomorrow.
Another snag. David tells me there is a problem concerning the bank. Apparently the system has failed and money cannot be withdrawn to pay today’s per diem for the participants. I offer to provide the funds and give 3,800 M to David to tide everyone over until the bank gets back on line. This cleans out my wallet and I ask David to walk with me to the bank and its outdoor ATM.
The session ends quite late at 1800 with Alipio lecturing on professionalism and the organization. These folk have had a long day of work and no play—it seems so hard to get the presenters away from lecturing. We head home in the dark, finding a taxi along the street to take us to a hotel near ours for supper. Ours is closed today and so we need to “eat out.” We stop at the Nautilus Resort and Casino where we have Internet access and we all check email messages over dinner.
Another taxi is called to drive us the two miles along the road to our hotel. The car that arrives is the most beaten vehicle I have ever encountered on a public road. At the end of the ride, which I wonder if the car will ever complete, the driver asks for 500 M for his service. My colleagues figuratively beat the shit out of him in Portuguese. I give him 100 M and the remains of my pizza dinner. We do some work on the agenda for this week, based on what we did at the teachers’ workshop in Lichinga and produce copies on the Canon printer. Having this bit of technology along on this trip has been very helpful. Some photographs are downloaded and we call it a day.
Tuesday, August 10
The surf pounding just beyond my window wakens me at 0500. In pajamas and with the Nikon I venture out to photograph the sea and its subtle changes in motion, light and activity. Then I shower and dress, pack up for the day and do a light load of laundry. Carol and Adilia knock as they pass by to the restaurant and I follow them over. On the way, I detour down to the very edge of the receding water to photograph a bit more.
Our driver from yesterday morning arrives exactly on time and we speed into the city, stopping to buy a ball along the way. We need some action today and Carol and Adilia are ready to provide it. These two are such sterling teachers and I believe they are completely enjoying the experience of teaching in these unique settings.
Jeremias heads off the morning session and as the group works, David and I get some serious work done on Nicole’s requirements. After lunch my Toronto colleagues take over and things start to heat up. I photograph a lot in the early afternoon, hopefully capturing images useful for CTF and certainly for my own enjoyment as well. Alipio arrives at the session bringing beautiful basket weave purses for Carol and Adilia and a tray for me. Then David and I return to our focused work until just before 1700 when he leads a wrap-up session on how participants assess the workshop so far. Just before we break for the day, David repays me for the loan of yesterday.
We leave for our lodgings at 1715, early for Pemba. Our usual driver takes us home in his well-kept Toyota and we arrange for him to provide all of our transportation for the remainder of the week. At the Kauri, I have a beer on my patio and Adilia has a glass of wine. Carol just drinks in the surroundings. We then go for supper and some unexpected events that range from me trying to order coffee on my own to feeding a stray dog ice cream from a spoon.
The latter nearly results in my expulsion from the restaurant, if not the country. A couple sitting near us see me feed the dog and complain to the manager. The dog, meanwhile, goes off and lies by another table of diners. Groundsmen are summoned to try to entice the dog away from the restaurant, without success. The manager then tries leaving a trail of food to temp the dog to leave. The dog eats all of the goodies then returns to his napping place. Shortly thereafter, the effects of all the rich food make themselves known to the dog who chucks up all the goodies in full view of our now distressed diners. Groundsmen are summoned once again to restore the floor to its usual pristine condition. The dog observes all of this and, perhaps thinking he has had enough entertainment for one day, gets up and ambles off into the night.
A slide show of today’s photographs and a check of email by all of us concludes our day and I sleep to the sound of the incoming tide.
Wednesday, August 11
I’m first in for breakfast this morning. My waiter approaches and asks “Camera?” and gestures as though focusing a zoom lens. “Yes,” I say. He then leads me to the edge of the patio and points toward Pemba beach. “Baleia.” Apparently a whale beached last night and died. Word about this unusual event is out and we see evidence of this as we drive into town later on. At the beach, hundreds of people are gathered with yet more streaming out from town to see the great mammal. During the day, a decision is made to allow the carcass to be cut up for food. The crowd is still there as we drive home in the evening.
We are back at the Pemba Secondary School by 0800. This is going to be a busy day for teachers and for Carol and Adilia in particular. The morning is devoted to math exercises and games and includes graphing, geometric shape construction, using calculators (provided by Adilia), and card games and dice games for simple math problem solving. The folk are fully engaged. At the break I set up for the group photograph, causing some wonder as I stack one table on top of another, and then add a chair on top of that. Further refinements to my “quadrapod” include two saucers and the bag for my flash unit upon all of which the camera is perched. I fire off some shots of the stairwell while my friends start to line up alongside of me. When I have the framing I want, I get down and place people on the stairs for the actual photographs. A group “Ahah” experience sweeps the crowd.
David and I have spent most of the morning working on my assignments from Nicole. We have covered a lot of material and I have taken lots of notes. These will form the basis of my report for Nicole. We still need a meeting with Alipio to get his general impressions and ideas noted for the final document. His time in Pemba this week has been parceled out between meetings with ONP officials in the Pemba area, overseeing the distribution of ONP membership cards, our workshop, and staying in touch with his office and university by cell phone.
The workshop ends at 1700 and we have a soda with our friends then depart in our waiting taxi. At the hotel, I download today’s photographs, including the group shots, then select one of the latter for printing. A little bit of Aperture II manipulation and I have a version ready to print. The little Canon printer spits out 27 4 x 6 glossy color prints and the job is done. I’ll package these tomorrow morning during the workshop.
A nice supper follows. We all behave ourselves and spend quite a bit of time with the manager of the restaurant, Vanda Gonçalves. She is an interesting person with striking features. Born in Mozambique of Portuguese and Brazilian forebears she has lived in Switzerland, Germany and Portugal and is now back in Mozambique with her German boyfriend. She seems somehow unhappy under her outgoing exterior and I think she has enjoyed spending time with us.
The Internet wireless hub is located in the restaurant and the reception here is very good. All of us check for messages from home.
Thursday, August 12
We start our day later this morning, leaving the hotel at 0800. We are taking an hour to visit a craft market before joining the workshop. Our driver collects us and takes us to a market near the airport where we buy some pieces made of wood. I buy spoons for family households. As my companions shop, I walk over to a nearby shelter in which a man is shaping ebony bracelets on an improvised lathe. In the shelter with him are logs of ebony, each about five feet long. He lifts one up for me to feel its weight then proceeds to split it in two. I help steady the log as he drives in a metal chisel and then wedges of hardwood. It’s fun to spend a bit of time in the woodshop with the artisans.
In to town we go, with a stop at a stationer’s for envelopes. We join the workshop and Carol and Adilia help me arrange photographs in envelopes complete with little Canada flags attached. Watching the session this morning I’m interested to note the attention and involvement of the teachers. They have developed lesson plans for presentation to the group after which David and Jeremais provide commentary and suggestions. I feel the balance we have achieved over the past three weeks has worked well—Sunday “modulation meetings;” local ONP logistical support; presentations by David (and Manuel Guru at the first workshop); good facilitation by our co-tutors; and excellent teaching demonstrated by Carol and Adilia.
Carol and Adilia have worked literally day and night to provide content of direct relevance and applicability to workshop participants, content that meets the over-arching goals of integrated curriculum and child-centred, active learning and teaching.
Today is the end of the Pemba workshop. Because our flight to Maputo leaves at mid-day we decided that we would compress the content into four days of longer duration than in Lichinga. The final session of the day ends at 1700 and David and Alipio rejoin us. They have spent most of the afternoon with local ONP functionaries in a separate meeting. The closing event then gets underway. I’m a bit worried about the taxi driver who will arrive for us in 15 minutes.
David opens the session and mentions everyone who has helped make the workshop a success. He then introduces the principal of the school after which I am asked to make a few comments. Mainly I thank the teachers for their hard work during the workshop and for the incredible commitment they have toward ensuring the success of their students. I also thank Jeremias for his leadership and present him with the last of the Cross pens that I brought as official gifts. Then the participation certificates are handed out with Jeremias doing the honors. Afterward I distribute the envelopes containing the group photographs. Alipio speaks and provides a motivational message for the teachers to continue their good work and to support their national organization.
I ask to speak once again, first to allow Carol and Adilia to say a few words, and then to make an unscheduled presentation. Early in the workshop, one of the participants went out into the yard to find a narrow branch that he could use as a pointer. The little twig served throughout the week for most of the teachers who made presentations in front of the group, including Alipio. I hold up the twig and say that it has served many of the teachers and that it is a symbol of our profession. “It is only right that this humble twig be presented to the headmaster of ONP,” I say, and with that, I present the twig to Alipio with both hands and a deep bow. The response from Alipio and everyone else is quite wonderful—laughter and applause. Alipio thanks me for the gift, gives me a hug, and tucks the twig between the pages of his notebook.
Carol and Adilia say farewell and we adjourn at 1800. We say goodbyes to everyone but then David tells us that it has been arranged for us to attend a special supper with the ONP folk with whom he and Alipio have been visiting. We adjust and ask the taxi driver to first, take us to the Red Cross building where the supper will be held and second, to please return for us at 2000. We join our colleagues for a nice dinner and then catch our taxi home at the appointed hour. Coffee in the restaurant together and we call it a day.
Friday, August 13
The surf, nature’s alarm clock, awakens me at 0500. I snooze until just before 0600 then get up and go for a walk along the shore. I photograph for half an hour then go in to get ready for the day. Breakfast is at 0700 during which I send an email home then spend a little more time packing up. I pay our hotel bill at 0800 then photograph the evaluations provided by the folk at this week’s workshop and work a little more on the journal. We will leave at 1100 for the airport where I expect to have a final meeting with David and Alipio after we check in for our flight to Maputo.
Our morning is spent in casual relaxation, waiting for the time of departure in the faithful taxi that has served us all week. Vanda Gonçalves, manager of the restaurant, comes by to say farewell and seems genuinely sad to see us go. She tears up a little as I photograph her alone and with my colleagues. The taxi arrives exactly on time and delivers us to the airport where I settle our weekly account with him. After check-in I meet in the upstairs café with David and Alipio while Carol and Adilia read a little apart from us. This is not the best place to hold a final meeting but it’s the only time and place that remains to us.
I’m interested in Alipio’s assessment of this week’s workshop and I note in my student scribbler his observations and answers to questions that I pose through David. The scribbler holds a lot of information that will form the basis of my report to CTF while this journal holds a number of observations as well. Alipio concludes by saying these have been the best workshops to date and he praises Carol and Adilia as “magnificent” and, indeed, that would be my assessment of their participation as well.
Our flight to Maputo is called and we head out onto the tarmac to another of LAM’s new EMB190’s. This little national airline is really quite exceptional and the equipment and service is provided on a very professional level. The cost of overweight baggage, of course, is still a sore point. I have a nice meal on the two-hour flight, enjoy the legroom and take in the views of the sky, sea and land as we proceed south.
In Maputo, we collect baggage once again and head out to the taxi stands. There to greet us is one of the ONP staff whom I met on my first trip to Mozambique in 1993. He recalls the infamous bus that was given to ONP by CTF as a revenue generator and remembers the photograph of the staff that I made with the bus as centerpiece. He now works with David in the international programs area of ONP. We need two taxis for the four of us and our luggage. The fare is bargained down to 800 M and we head away to the Terminus Hotel in the hope that they have rooms available. None of us want another night in the miserable Mocambicano. Two rooms are available and I take them. Carol and Adilia are pleasantly surprised at our new Maputo lodgings and dinner tonight just confirms that a good decision has been made. We check email on the MacBook then head to our rooms. I’m asleep by 2200.
Saturday, August 14
0600 finds me awake and ready to do some final packing before meeting my colleagues for breakfast. We have a pleasant meal and linger over coffee, recounting our experiences and the many highlights of the journey. David appears to see how we are faring and confirms the pickup time for tea at his home this afternoon. He then telephones a taxi that ONP uses frequently in Maputo and arranges for a trip for us to the market and a bit of a tour of the city.
The taxi arrives and we head out. So many landmarks are recalled, many of the buildings rebuilt and refurbished. The round hotel that I found in such a decrepit state on my first visit is now the recently reopened Girassol Maputo, sister hotel of the ones we stayed in at Lichinga and Nampula. The Polana Hotel is as beautiful as ever and the Hotel Cardosa, the first headquarters of the Renamo guerillas after the peace treaty, proudly displays four stars on its front entrance.
The driver drops us off at the Executive Hotel, a place I once inspected for a meeting of ONP folk on an earlier visit, and promises to return in two hours time. We walk into the market, amazed at the variety of hand-made artifacts that are available. The hawkers are very persistent but I just walk along slowly, looking for items I may want to take home. And I spot them—a beautiful wooden bowl, hand carved and painted with splashes of vivid colors and a serving platter of similar construct with the outlines of two fishes carved and colored on the surface (Pisces, I realize as I write this entry on the jet to Lisbon). I purchase these for $65 US as well as some other small items from other vendors for my grandchildren—carved ebony hair combs for Mae and Tiga and little cups with the names of Zev and Tristan carved into them. We return to the Executive Hotel, past the old fort and await the return of our taxi.
Before we left the Terminus this morning, I gave up my room but paid for a second night for Carol and Adilia’s room. All of my belongings were transferred there and so we now have a base of operations until our departure for the airport later this evening. We have lunch at the hotel—delicious chicken broth with a slice of lemon at the bottom of the bowl. As we talk, I recognize a man walking up to the front door. It is Rosario Quive, an old friend from my early ONP visits, who has come to see me. I introduce him to Carol and Adilia and then the two of us sit down at an outdoor table. Rosario buys us beer and provides a very interesting perspective on the current workings of ONP in its quest to become the recognized national teachers’ organization. He believes the current leadership is not doing enough to advance teachers’ interests with the government and gives as an example a teacher who had been fired by a provincial official and who came to Maputo and lived in the ONP office for nearly half a year with ONP being apparently powerless to do anything for the fellow. We discuss the plans CTF has for a Thompson Fellowship program in Mozambique and I express my belief that such an event needs to have organization advocacy as its central theme. Perhaps speakers from EI, GNAT, PATC and selected Canadian organizations could provide some of the sessions that would help empower ONP to tackle some thorny issues with government.
I ask Rosario if he knows the whereabouts of Francisco de Assis, the former ONP staff member who visited me in Canada. Rosario promptly takes out his cell phone, dials Francisco’s number, and hands the phone to me. Francisco answers and I say that I want to enquire about becoming the Alberta, Canada representative for 2 M beer. He responds that he is no longer associated with ONP (Rosario’s phone must have given him this clue). Then I tell him “It’s Tim,” and he is completely surprised and, judging from his voice, happy to hear from me. We chat briefly and he says he will come around to the hotel for a visit. David comes by about then, however, to take us to his home for tea and I fear that I will miss Francisco’s visit.
Carol, Adilia and I leave the hotel with David and his brother Castro who provides the car. We make a photo stop at the ONP building then drive across town to David’s apartment. David’s home is on the third floor of a small apartment block, reached by a dark set of stairs. We are welcomed in and enter into the midst of a birthday party for David’s grandson, turning five today. The apartment is packed with little neighborhood children, all of David’s five children and accompanying spouses, lots of other friends and neighbors and now us. There must be at least 30 souls crowded in and all enjoying the birthday celebrations and the chance to visit and socialize. We have a plate of food and some drink and visit, play with the children and photograph the guests. Then at 1800 we take our leave, thanking David and his wife for their thoughtful hospitality and return to the Terminus with Castro.
At the hotel, we take turns using the room to shower and change for the night flight to Lisbon and then leave for the airport at 2000. Check-in is fairly straight-forward (I have one carry-on too many, which Carol adopts for me) and we depart Maputo and Mozambique at midnight.
Sunday, August 15
Eleven hours later, we arrive in Lisbon where I say farewell to my travel mates and thank them once again for their generous contribution to the workshops and for being such outstanding individuals with whom to work. They then head for London and onward to Toronto while I head for the Radisson Blu Hotel for a rest before heading home to Calgary.
The Mozambique summer program for 2010 has concluded.