Gaza.

Wow this week has been crazy. We have been really busy. We have had some experiences, some good ones, and some bad ones. I'll leave it at that.

We took a trip up North. We stayed in a town called Chokwe. We went to investigate some cashew processing factories that we could possibly use and export cashews to the states. We also went to a little small processing center in little village. That was really cool to see. Here is a little video of our trip:

Cashew fruit looks like this:

The cashew nut is that brown thing hanging off the bottom. 

Why are Cashew Nuts so expensive? They take a lot of man power to get that nut out of the shell. The little brown thing that hangs down out of the fruit is what has the nut inside it. only 20% of the brown thing is the kernel nut that you eat (so in transporting the raw nut you loose 80% of what you transported!). The outer shell of the cashew nut is actually poisonous and harmful to the skin if the skin contacts it, so it must be burnt!

Cashews are delicious, right? They are kind of pricey though. My mom buys them every trip to Costco because she eats the nuts like candy, and I always thought they were expensive for how many nuts you are actually getting. But now I know why. The processing of the cashew nut is crazy, and there are so many steps.  Many people are employed around the world processing cashew nuts, I'm sure of it. It is not a easy task, and it has to be done the right way. Here in Mozambique there are more than 35 Cashew Processing factories, a third of them are "paralizado". Which means they are not running but could be if they had the capital. Banks here will not loan the processors money to buy the raw cashew to process when processing season comes. (Who knows if that is due to faulty banking or bad credit scores of the Processors). When the time comes to harvest raw Cashews Indians (form India) migrate to Mozambique on a 30 day TOURIST VISA and offer double what the Mozambican processing plants (that employ hundreds of Mozambicans throughout the country) per kilo for raw cashews, and then they export the raw, unprocessed product to India to be processed, (to boost their economy.) Thus, Mozambique breaks their own law in allowing unprocessed national cashew nuts be exported to other countries for processing. (You wouldn't believe what the Chinese have done to Mozambican Wood industry btw.)

Why are we looking into processing/exporting cashew nuts? Because we want to boost the economy in these rural areas where Cashews are processed and many would be employed. Money in their pockets is progression. The only thing that can cure the third world in my opinion is profit motive exercised thru ethical business venture.

The Process

1-So they take the nut from the fruit

2-There are two different methods of doing the second step- a)they can steam the nuts in these machine things in large quantities, or b) they can fill a barrel half full with water and allow the steam and heat to do the work. This makes it easier to get the nut out when it is cracked open and also takes the poison from the shell.

The steamer in the factory

The steaming process in the village

Look at all the nuts!

3- Then they crack open the shell to get the actual cashew nut goodness.

Cracking the shells in the village (they get a 20 cent bonus per kilo per day)

4- Then they take the nut and put it in a oven type closet to dry the nut. It dries the skin on the nut so it is easier to peel the skin off.

The oven they use in the village

5- The peeling of the nut. This has to be done by hand. It is very precise because do not want to ruin the quality of the nuts.

These are the tables the use in the factory to peel the skin from the nuts

All the skins from the nuts

Women peeling nuts in the village

6- The cashews are graded after all the steps for the quality and separated into different categories. The people work so fast while sorting because they are paid by the kilo, it was really cool to watch.

Sorting the nuts in the factory

More sorting (our friend Joao was being a smart alec)

The finished product of grading

All packed and ready to be shipped

 That was what we learned at the factories we saw on our trip up North. I sat outside a factory waiting to go inside to tour the place, and this kid was outside the factory wandering around. He eventually sat down in some shade and played with his wire that is sort of in the shape of a car. It was his "Hot Wheels". He kept smiling at me, we couldn't communicate because he spoke machangana (a dialect) and no portugues. He was waiting for his mom while she was inside the factory working. Long day for a 4 or 5 year old to watch his <1 year old brother in the hot sun by himself. Poor kid. Kids in Mozambique seem to grow up faster and become independent quicker.

Sunset

It was beautiful, nothing like dirty Maputo. People are a lot nicer when they have less.

Tchau.
Below are some more photos for ya'll:

nice bathing suits!

this is near the place where the 1st Mozambican President and
communist ruler with a 4th grade education was born.
(He did away with all religion in Mozambique which I think is
largely to blame for many cultural problems)

Those mounds are ant hills

We pulled over to stretch our legs

He was stretching a net out to catch some fish the old fashioned way

The Kingdom of Swaziland.

We took a short trip to Swaziland. We returned to Mozambique yesterday.

From Maputo, Mozambique to Manzini, Swaziland took about a 2h 30m drive. Our friend Joao drove us. He is a good driver, but he is a Mozambican driver. I almost had a heart attack a few times in the back seat, afraid we were about to have a head on collision on the freeway while passing a car. But it didn't happen, thank goodness.

Swaziland is a totally different story from Mozambique. It is tiny, to be honest I didn't even know it existed until a few weeks before we came to Mozambique. Swaziland is beautiful. The city is clean! There was no trash plastered in the gutters, I didn't see one person peeing off the side of the road, and the buildings weren't even falling apart. I even saw a legit golf course, the grass was cut perfectly. There were small mountains (if I can even call them mountains) everything was so green, and when I took a deep breath, I wanted to keep breathing deep breaths because the air felt fresh. It kind of felt like we were in a small town in Idaho. It was beautiful.

Swaziland is nice, but there are some definite downsides. First of all the King of Swaziland has 13 wives. Here is a side story about the King of Swaziland. Mswati III banned girls younger than 18 years old from having sex in efforts to prevent AIDS from spreading. Only 2 months after putting this ban on the girls, he married his 13th wife who is 17 years old. He broke his own law. He got fined a whole cow as a punishment. I have to give the guy credit though, 13 wives is good compared to his own father who had 70 wives. Another downside to Swaziland is the roads are WAY to narrow. When we were driving on the freeway, whenever a wider car (like a bus or semi) was coming on the other side of the road, we would have to move off the road to make room. Also they had a lot of speed bumps on the freeway. The speed limit would be 120 km/hr and then less than a mile later, there would be a group of speed bumps. Who does that? One last downside to Swaziland is they speak Swazi. A lot of the people speak english as well, but we have never had such difficulty communicating with someone who speaks english.

It was a good time. We had to take the trip in order to get our new car. We got it yesterday finally. It is a toyota surf... or a toyota 4 runner. Gotta love the Japanese for making good cars. Now we don't have to ride with anymore Mozambican drivers, and I can feel safe while riding in a car :)

Here are some pictures from our trip to Swaziland.

Bus boys.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night to Alex laughing his head off in his sleep. He was laughing so hard, he could barely breathe.

I asked him what was so funny, and he responded saying "I was watching South Park, and there were bus boys going around to tables asking for tips! Bus boys don't get tips!"

I started laughing until I fell asleep until morning.

The funny things he will do and say in his sleep, it keeps me entertained.

Chinese Truck.

Its been a boring last two days. Our car broke down, we have spent hours and hours at the mechanic waiting for our car to be fixed, only for it to break down again.

  

We first went to the mechanic on Monday morning to have the suspension fixed. He told us it would be no problem to fix it. He told us he would have to go to the city to buy the parts and then come back and fix it. We don't have a lot of trust in the people here, so we told him we would go with him to buy the suspension parts. We had to make sure we were getting quality parts.

So we walk out to his car, and it is a two seater truck. So Alex gets to sit on the middle console in the truck, we thought it would be no problem, were just running to a store to buy parts and coming back, right? Wrong. This guy had a whole list of things to do. We were stuck with this dirty mechanic in a two seater truck for hours going from store to store running his errands in the hot sun. 

After 3 hours of running around town, we return back to the "mechanic shop" and he gets his teenager workers to put the parts on our car, and within an hour we were on the road again. All is well, right? Wrong again.

That night, the headlights don't work. Today were driving on the freeway and all of a sudden something explodes under the hood and water comes flying onto the windshield. We had two trips planned this week. We'll see what we actually get done this week without a car. 

Note to self: never buy a chinese made car.

One of the non-teenager mechanics eating lunch

On the bright side, we did happen to go to the mercado central with some time to waste. That was a good time. People sell fruit, fish, nuts, vegetables, eggs, honey, sauce, basically anything you can think of, they sell it in this mercado for cheap. It is awesome. We handed out 200+ flyers for a vaccination clinic that the church is putting on next week for the semana nacional de saude. Everyone wanted a flyer, it was easy to hand them all out. It was a good time! We love the mercado central.

Alex handing out flyers

Anyway, tchau!

Policia Encounter

Today we got pulled over by the cops for speeding. We were going 9 km over the speed limit. Give us a break! This is the 2nd time we have been pulled over since we've been here. We've been here 9 days.

9 km= 5.5 mph over the speed limit! 

They way the policia pull you over is interesting. They have a group of about 10 or 15 cops standing on the side of the road, and they have one radar gun. So were driving along and we see the group of cops, and we usually just expect to be pulled over considering our skin color. So the cop comes out in the middle of the road with his hand out telling us to stop. So we pull over. Alex always has some kind of plan worked up in his mind of what hes going to do to handle these Mozambican cops. This time he decides he is going to pretend like he doesn't speak portugues.

Cop: "Ola"
Alex: "Hello", he says in a loud, slow voice.
Cop: "Carta de conducao, faz favor"
Alex: "I am from the church." as he shows the cop a flyer of a vaccination clinic the church is putting on.
Cop: "License of driver"
Alex: "Listen, I don't speak portugues"

The cop then walks away for a few minutes. Another cop comes to our window.

Cop: "Hello, you were going 49 km and you can only go 40 km on this road.

Uh oh, his plan failed. One of the cops happened to speak english, what are the chances?

Alex: "Look, I am just here trying to help your poor children, and you are going to try to give me a speeding ticket. I don't have any Mozambican money, I only have 10 US dollars with me."
Cop: "I am sorry sir, we give everyone speeding tickets. Can I have your drivers license?"

Alex refused to give him his drivers license because they will keep your drivers license until you pay the ticket. He gave him a copy of the drivers license, the cop wouldn't have it. Things are getting heated up at this point between the cop and Alex.

Cop: "Ok, I will forgive you for the speeding for only the 10 US dollars."
Alex: "Here are the flyers for the vaccine clinic for your poor children."
Cop: "No sir, I am a cop, you are a man. I am going to write you a ticket, give me your drivers license!"
Alex: "You can write me a ticket, but you don't need my drivers license!"

Both voices are getting louder and louder as the conversation goes on. The cop takes Alex's drivers license out of his hands, and Alex picks up the phone.

Alex: "I am calling the US embassy right now!"
Cop: "Sir, the ticket is 1000 metecais, you must pay the ticket for speeding!"
Alex: "You cannot take my drivers license, it is government property in the US."
Cop: "If you continue to raise your voice, we are going to have problems"

At this point, I didn't know if Alex was putting on a show to get out of this, or if he was legitimately mad. What if he was taken to jail? I would be stuck here with a truck, I am too scared to drive on these crazy streets! It went on.

Alex: "Listen, you are breaking Mozambican law. You asked for a bribe. I am going to throw you in jail."

The man looks up from writing and pauses.

Cop: "I did not."
Alex: "I'm out of here!"

Alex grabs all of the papers off of the cops clipboard and drives away with screeching tires. Alex then shouts at the cop some bad words in portugues as were driving off. This is a very shortened version of the story, we were fighting with this cop for 15 minutes or so. I've never ran from the cops before, but he was breaking Mozambican law by asking for a bribe, so it is justified, I guess. 

 

Mulher Grande.

Ola! from Mozambique, We have had alot of business errands and meetings, but we have had a lot of fun in the mean time.

We had some Angolans stay with us in our house, Cordencio and his sister. They were here in Mozambique because Cordencio's wife died recently, so they had a funeral for her. It is a sad story. Tina  was his sisters name. She knew I was learning to speak portugues and that I don't understand that well. She spoke to me sooo fast. It really didn't sound like portugues at all. Sometimes when I didn't understand, I would look at Alex for translation and Alex wouldn't even know what she said. Pretty funny.  One night we were sitting in the kitchen chatting. She was telling me how my butt is big and that I will be fat one day. "Mulher Grande" those are the words she used. That was a confidence booster. I don't give it credit though because she also told me I will have twins next year... and then another set of twins the year after.  Lets just say all africans are not alike. Angolans are not equal to Mozambicans.

Yesterday we stopped into a pasteleria for some business and saw a guy sitting by himself with his guitar in the chair next to him. Of course, Alex stops to talk to this man once he saw the guitar. Turns out his name is Albino. He LOVES music. He told us how much he loves Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin, Bob Dylan, Etc. He showed us some of his skills on the guitar, as did Alex. We stayed and talked to him for 45 minutes or so, he turned out to be a really nice guy. We parted ways and that was that.

Albino and Alex in pasteleria

Albino playing "Stairway to Heaven"

Albino showing us his solo skills

Today we were driving in Maputo, and we pulled over to the side of the road to drop off Fernando (one of the workers) and Alex looks out the window to his right, and a man looks at him at the exact same time as he was walking past the car, and who could it be? ALBINO! He had his guitar in hand walking along the road. What are the chances in a city with 1.5 million people? It was awesome. We gave him a ride to where he was going, he has some kind of disorder where he has trouble walking. As we were driving we turned on some Manchester Orchestra (my favorite band) to show him our music. He loved it. "Manshesterd Orcheestraw" Thats how he said it. 

Ignore my face, I was trying to be discreet in taking this picture
Albino riding in our car

Albino walking with guitar in hand :)

Tonight we went over to a members house for dinner. They treated us so well. Laurinda was her house. She has a small little house made of cinder blocks  with metal material for a roof. She made us the dinner in the back yard. She taught me how to cook mozambican style. It was nice. They gave me a capulana as a gift. She is so poor and easily spent 1/10 of her monthly salary to feed us the meal. She has 8 kids to care for, most of them aren't hers, they are just homeless kids. They are so cute though! And they are so fun to play with. We sent the boys to catch the rooster, they were chasing that thing around the whole neighborhood. Sadly, they never caught it. 

Laurinda's House

The kitchen

Me and Felicidade

Cute kids

Bebe!

Me and Will doing "pedras" or "stones"
I taught him that. :)

Laurinda teaching me to pilar

Shredding the coconuts

I bet alot are wondering what we are actually doing over here with our internship. I think I'm going to have Alex write a little bit to explain that. He would know better since most the time I am in la la land while they are discussing the plan of action here.

Boa noite!!