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.