Blog 10 - Malawi up high and down low

While being slightly at risk of this blog digressing any further into a travel brochure, I am still going to start off by noting that Malawi is truly a jewel of a country. Travelling overland from here to there may leave you with a little something to be desired, but it is all an experience and you just have to keep this in mind as you make your way.
So many highlights I have to revert to point form.

- Being on a bus so overloaded, both inside and on top that rainwater collected in the load of charcoal on top, made its way through the cracks in the roof to rain on the only white guy in the bus. I especially liked everyone’s concern about a situation with no possible resolution. Packed like sardines we were!
- “I’m fine, how are you?” With English and Chichewa as the official languages you can be sure that everyone, kids especially know these 5 words… some don’t know it is a question, more of a pleasant thing to say to someone, so you can go back and forth for some time, to their great delight. Cutest kids I have seen to date, in terms of National title of course!
- Strolling through the fern gardens in the clouds rolling over mount Mulanje, so lush.
- Drinking cold water directly from the mountain stream
- Arriving at 330am in Nkhata bay, being handed a broken machete by a complete stranger “for my security”, and subsequently receiving an escort to my lodge! In hindsight I am pretty sure being a full foot taller than most everyone in Malawi would have sufficed, but the care for others is always a good thing.
- Fish markets of all variety of fresh water fish, dried, fried, and fresh!
- Bannana pancakes, specifically watching each ingredient as it arrived from the market following our order! Talk about building anticipation!
- Swimming in a lake full of what we consider exotic aquarium fish. Very cool!
- 30l Buckets of mangos for 2.40 CDN on the side of the road, and the ensuing mess made tying into them.
- Evening with Aggy, the public phone operator at the Salima bus stop, again more random kindness as she elected to wait around an extra 3 hours after work to keep me company and see me onto my night bus to the North, to her home town as it turned out.
- Hitching a ride with Malawian transport truck drivers, complete with late night beers, nsima and chicken, before crashing in the back of the cab with Kenan, a traditional healer by trade. Best part was pre-sleep stories of traditional diagnosis techniques, witch doctors, gold divining…

So while that is only a sampling of the experience hopefully it paints a picture of the trip. Full of awesome scenery, beautiful people, and a great vibe, so much luck and kindness along the way it is easy to be grateful. An excellent conclusion to, and start of a new year.

Since then I have returned to retraining week, created an operator training session conducted in Portuguese none the less (thanks to their patience and abilities of perception!), completed with a test largely to ensure the handout materials had been read and understood. Just working on some budgeting exercises for the new years acquisitions and activities now.

Spent the weekend enjoying my last full moon party on Saturday night following an early morning retraining wrap up session on Saturday morning. Good times, once again, crowds are starting to subside so some of the mellower vibe is returning but still with enough folks around for it to be considered a party!

Sunday I finally got around to an ocean surfari, where you go snorkeling off a massive Zodiac. Cruise around until you spot the shadow of a whale shark or manta ray and then hop in and cruise around in complete awe of these creatures. Must have seen 15 to 20 different whale sharks, ranging form 8 feet to 20 feet long, mouths big enough to slip into like a pair of pants, but as they are filter feeders so no real danger. I am told there are approximately 1000 in the world with 300 or so hanging around Tofo which makes 15 to 20 a pretty amazing score! Manta rays are pretty amazing too, a little faster and more skittish, but so graceful, so cool. Anyways, it was an especially prolific surfari I am told, maybe because the water was so thick with their plankton lunch. Took some pictures and video and have posted them to Picasa, kinda fuzzy, so you will have to visit here for yourself.

Also look for Malawi parts 1 and 2, and as always enjoy! T-minus 19 days now, which seems all too soon.

Take care until then, Nathan

Blog 9 – Feliz Natal e Properos 2009!

So you may have been wondering where I have been as of late.
A couple things combined that reduced my propensity to blog. First off I was on the road for a bit with a week in JoBurg attempting to source some common mechanical components directly, as well as renew my visa for Mozambique. The trip was not as successful as I had hoped but did afford me a week of fine dining catching up on all the culinary wonders of the rest of the world. I haven’t managed to tire of Mangos and Shrimp yet, but variety is truly the spice of life!
I also travelled up to Beira to check out the new HI office/compound facility to determine what will be required in order to have a functional mechanical department there. With the National demining plan shifting our focus north in the coming years we needed to adjust our assets accordingly. So that had me in an air conditions accommodation for a week which was a treat given that the temperatures have been mid 30’s and up with “Windsor in July” style humidity! Ocean is a beautiful temperature now, just barely fresh near shore on a calm day but if you swim out and down a few meters you are still in for a truly refreshing experience.
Found an amazing kiting spot locally here, in a lagoon not far from Flamingo Bay resort. Flat water paradise, the kind they put on magazine covers! No Flamingos though, but that is the only drawback I assure you!
You may wonder why I don’t have much to say about work these days, or photos of it for that matter. Well in truth I have been working on Standard Operating Procedures and a revision of some of the maintenance paper work. So short of taking photos of me at my desk, in a shirt soaked through with sweat, there really isn’t much to document as of late. The cows have come home to roost now (so to speak!), as the field teams began there end of year holidays so that means a busy week for the maintenance department. With this heat, motivation runs pretty low, it really takes it out of you….
As for me I have a bus ticket for the morning heading for Tete in the Northwest corner of Mozambique. From there I will cross into Malawi to meet up with two friends and spend a handful of nights up on Mount Mulanje, hopefully getting a chance to summit Sapitwa peak weather permitting, at 3001m it is the highest point south of Mount Kenya and north of the Drakensburgs, also perhaps more importantly it is likely the coolest place without AC!
Planning on coming down Christmas morning or thereabout, and then heading North on a solo mission to Lake Malawi for some kayaking, snorkeling, reading, and hopefully some merry-making with new found friends for New Years. So far the rainy season has been delaying its start locally but I have heard I am in for a lush experience in the north.
Miss you all dearly, but thankfully have not had to endure too much holiday style music or festivities so it is easy to pretend it is July or thereabouts and just soak up the sun. Cheers to all and have a safe, fun, cheerful, relaxing, snowy!, family-filled holiday break.
Signing off until 2009,
Nathan
Ps another handful of photos are up, random collection of sights and scenes form the past couple weeks. Enjoy!

Blog 8 - Vermin and Destruction

So a natural succession to be a tourist would I guess to be very busy with work no? So the other morning I found myself driving a 6x6 ambulance back from its break down in the field, with our electrician on leave we had to recruit the other very competent electrician (Inhambane has two I am told, our Phillipe and Daniel) to join us for the morning and sort out a small issue of a contact in the starter circuit.
Electrical things remain a bit of a mystery to me, but I was helping where I could. Word to the wise here when driving a left hand drive truck on the left side of the road it is extremely important to attempt to pass stopped chapas with extreme caution!! As line of sight is greatly reduced from the far left.
With all of our mechanics also trying to use up there accrued annual leave before the year end I find myself a little short staffed. The switch to applied work instead of inventory and sourcing issues is a welcome change though.
Monday morning for example I was elbows deep in engine grease pulling a leaking water pump from a 1974 Steyr transport truck (big whites ones in the photos). Felt good to be distracted with a manual task and useful again. Currently the Inhambane’s resident scrap parts man, Barroosh in retro-fitting a new pressure seal into place. So far he has proved competent bordering on ingenious so I have high hopes we are back in business for redeployment next Monday.
The weekend was interesting as well, as I received an emergency call late in the day on Friday that one of the Tempests had found a mine in a bad way and was currently out of commission 2 hours up the road. This meant a first thing Saturday deployment, and two hours actually meant 4. It was in an area I had been meaning to visit as the coast there hosts a large lagoon, more snorkeling and some amazing kiting potential if we ever get some more wind. Pomene resort if anyone is looking for a honeymoon or week in paradise, I haven’t actually made it there yet but if it is in keeping with the rest of the coast it wouldn’t be a disappointment.
Anyway I tried to photo-doc the sequence of events as best I could, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking. I will say that as this was my first time really witnessing the destructive power of an anti-personnel mine it was pretty sobering. I find myself quite conscious of every footfall again the same as when I first was around a mine field. The background story on the site as explained to me in Portuguese (I am at about 50% comprehension now, and maybe 66% expressive ability, stuck in the present tense, so this might not be exactly the skinny) was that previously the area was a Renamo encampment with a hospital and school nearby and associated villages, communities etc. When Renamo had to make there exit they collected all the domestic type items which where too cumbersome to take with and deposited them in this fairly dense forest surrounding them with a ring of mines. Regrettably this meant that a stash of bicycles and the like was left in the woods in a place where a bicycle would be quite a score to stumble upon. It was actually possible to see other “potholes’ left behind in the forest floor and have a similar pit form in your stomach while contemplating the history of each pock mark.
To make a long story short, the Tempest was fine other than requiring the last of our spare tracks, actually scavenged off the newly broken tempest sitting here in the workshop, so when the 2 spares finally arrive they actually won’t be spares at all, and the lack of spares situation looks primed to repeat itself. Current negotiations with a supplier in SA will hopefully sort this out in short order though.
Now to find some funding so the project can actually continue… Apparently bordering on global recession makes for tight times in the developing world as well. (in case you haven’t been following the news)
In others news I dropped in on Apopo’s operations a couple weeks back now to see how the use giant pouched rats in place of mine detecting dogs. Pretty neat animals, which come with there own set of benefits and challenges to work with. Apopo is currently in the process of scaling up their operations to complete Gaza province as assigned to them under the national clearance plan. I think it will be interesting to see how the costs play out on a m^2 cleared basis but with all the unexpectedness of a demining program I have doubts that one could ever draw a rigid conclusion between dogs or rats. Both need land preparation teams, both have potential health issues (tropic heat for dogs, and tropic sun for normally nocturnal rats). Certainly start up costs for a “fleet” of rats seems cheaper, so I guess it would come down to efficiency on the ground. More photos attached on this topic too.
I also added my Kruger park photo collection a while back, visited the park with a few friends from town and despite a grey weekend the animals made up for it. Still making time for fun, and with yesterday being a holiday for provincial elections I got a chance to read a book in the dunes for the morning, rent a surf board for the afternoon, and take in a yoga class in the evening and generally chill out a bit. Hope this finds you all well.

Blog 7 - On being a tourist...

Started to feel like I have been here for a long while over the last couple of weeks. Long enough to feel routine, but prooving to be anything but that.
Have had to recharge a bit, kiting at sunset with flying fish the other night went a long way towards that, they can do about 20 feet at a time, and then skip another 20 to about 5 feet in the air if they hit the wave right. Didn’t see any grabs, or much rotation for that matter but still the coolest thing I have seen in years. They are a little over 2 feet long, shiny silver, and with salt in your eyes kinda look like mini league bats darting out of the gin.
Have been playing a lot of pool as of late, all the tables are a bit crooked or tight in a couple of the corners, but you adapt to it. If you scratch your opponent gets two shots, which can make for some funny business towards the end of the game, we would call it cheap pool at home, but it’s just the nature of the game here.
Planning a long weekend to Kruger park this weekend which is supposed to be some of the best game viewing south of Kenya (in case that means anything to you), then return via Limpopo park, which is formed around the Limpopo flood plains in southern Mozambique. The two are actually connected as the trans-frontier park which will be pretty impressive if the animals can make a come back.
It’s pretty warm as of late, lots of weather rolling through, and even on the dry calm nights one expects at least a temporary blackout. Still no laptop battery, but the internet has been installed in my castle, so all in all we are on the up and up.
Did the “tourist thing” around town the other day, practicing perspective I guess, lots of photos to prove it. It is pretty stunning here when you look at it right.
I discovered my emprigada’s (Rosita) coconut shrimp curry the other night, I may propose to her later this week.
Dinner time now, but thanks to everybody for reading and the notes and comments, glad you are enjoying it.
And yes, between the above I sometimes find myself working.

Blog 6 - To find a home, a place to sleep, and something to eat.

So the last couple weeks have been interesting, the heat has come, the rain has come and gone and come again. We moved to a new house just outside of town in the “neighbourhoods”. I met the move with mixed emotions as I enjoyed the convenience of the old place, but did not enjoy the life in a fishbowl experience of having the owner and his extended family inhabiting the dependencies surrounding the house.
The new house is entirely out of place in a neighbourhood of otherwise traditional construction, but is newly built and has secure parking which means easier access to a vehicle. So far my favorite aspect is that the front fence is at the perfect height to create the illusion of floating firewood, coolers, and assorted packages making there way along the street in typical African “handsfree” fashion.
I had another opportunity to visit the field earlier this week, this time to the southern extent of operations about 3 hours south from Inhambane. I really enjoy these trips for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the quiet of the camp at night and finally getting a full nights sleep, even if it means getting up with the sun. Working with the crew and gaining insights into the reality of operations also helps to understand the difficulties faced. It is hot, dirty and painfully slow work which really makes you enjoy the little perks, like salad on a bun, a broken Portuguese heart to heart with a coworker over evenings dinner, or the hospitality of the people you meet along the way. With out fail, in my experience, if you make the effort to get to know the people of Mozambique you get all your efforts back in full.
This post again comes with another set of pictures which is more descriptive than I will ever be so I will again keep it short. Note that while they are the same photos as the micro slide show, if you visit the link to Picasa they come with short descriptions to help explain what you are looking at. Have also posted some highlights from some snorkeling a while back, enjoy!

Blog 5 - A random smattering of thoughts

Interesting times these days watching the markets slip, I am especially enjoying the coverage of the various CEO and executive staff of the now failed investment and insurance companies testifying in front of the congressional oversight committee. I certainly don’t claim to understand it all, but I stand amazed at the compensation packages that seemed continue right on until bankruptcy. I guess I missed that boat though. The not so entertaining bit is that with the falling dollar, so goes my spending power, so far we have gone from 24:1 to 21:1, but it has only been a month and a half!
In a lot of ways I feel like I am in the best of company for not having a lot of money though. Unfortunately at some point I will have to hatch a plan for continued employment in moving forward.
For now I suppose I will just keep on keeping on. Having just about completed the repairs to the first broken Tempest (the valves coming by boat from Cambodia didn’t help things) it seemed fitting that a second machine would snap its rubber track, and be left waiting for the new sprocket and track set due here in four weeks time. For now we play the part swapping game with plans to deploy the first in the seconds place sometime over the weekend. My main focus of late has been working on a new inventory system which will hopefully see the stocking of such spares in a more pro-active fashion, it remains to be seen if we will have the capital to pull this off but following a recent long range planning meeting with the National Demining Institute it seems we are here for at least another 5 and therefore should be making plans and acquisitions accordingly.
All this inventorying has provided some uptake of some additional Portuguese, and I can now make my way around the workshop in a half useful fashion!
Last weekend I participated in a trip organized by the students of Inhambane’s Tourism University. It was actually their long term project, and I would say it went well all things considered. As with most things here the challenge lay in getting to the destination, which ment two sailboats trips with a half hour chapa ride down the highway mixed in. The destination was the peninsula of Linga Linga which is just north of Inhambane and is formed by a large lagoon/mangrove forest on the inside. I may have to make a return visit to this idyllic location on account of the lagoon being home to both dolphins, sea horses and dugongs but the visibility is terrible except at slack tide, which I was not around to observe. Another day I suppose.
Last couple days have seen some weather rolling through causing frequent power cuts and resulting in more showering from bucket. My recent re-discovery of cream cheese and tomato sandwiches has largely offset this recent hardship though. Both pedals have now broken on my bicycle aka “the Chinese wonder” on account of how wonderful it looks, and wondering why it doesn’t work near as well. Clearly not best 3000 mets I have spent, but with two steel posts for pedals I have feeling that I have a little more street cred as I roll around town. If I can just find a chicken, or other assorted livestock to affix to it I am pretty sure I would be indistinguishable.

Caia and back

So I am going to try to keep this one a little more brief as their are lots of captioned pictures which tell the story just as well as I could. The last weeks took me up to the northern extent of our operations where we are currently clearing a suspected hazardous area residing in the "back forty" of a secondary school. Some issues with one of our equipment transportation vehicles, and valves on the third tempest were my main interest but I also had some time while there to see a controlled demolition of an explosive remnant, as well as soak up the sights, sounds, and smells (some better than others).
It is about a 1000km to get there which isn't so bad in an air conditioned CRV... the return trip on a bus where they sold the standing room of the isle and everyone carried all of their recent purchases/luggage/weeping coolers etcetera which made those tens hours pretty exhausting. I finished my book, and sweated through my clothes to keep entertained for most of the time.
Highlights of the north include: washing in a pail of cold water mainly to provide contrast to the hot shower three days later, total portuguese immersion with the travelling maintenance team (my dictionary rarely left my side), and a chance to see Mozambique beyond the palm trees of Inhambane province.
For the final leg we sailed home which totally made up for the previous 10 hours travel, and this past weekend included a Festival fo the sea celebrating the marine resources of the area and intending to give the Mozambican Nationals a chance to see why all these toursits flock to the beach in Tofo. Unfortunately the weather was less than cooperative for the ocean based activities but the reception on shore I think largely made up for that. Again the pictures paint a better picture.
As for me, having toured the majority of the operations I have a much better sense of the work to be done and have begun sketching out required training refreshers as well as visiting the spare parts system for opporunities to increase our odds of keeping everything running. That trip also reinforced the need for foresight as it is no minor task to get a team and spare on site as required.
An if it all didnt sound entertaining enough, the winds have been great as of late and now equipped with tide tables I am able to plan my recreation with ease. The locals in Inhambane seem to get a real kick out of my trips around the bay and I have enjoyed some more entertaining conversation trying to explain the equipment upon returning to shore.