Annoyed.

I am getting annoyed with ants. They are so annoying.

Story 1: Tonight I was cooking some chicken with sauce on it. I had a spatula to stir the chicken. After I am finished stirring the chicken I set the spatula down on the counter. After a few minutes, I come back to stir the chicken again, pick up the spatula and proceed to stir. I set down the spatula on the counter, only to see hundreds of ants all over the counter! I look closer, they are all over the spatula! I look at our chicken, there are ants in our chicken! How annoying. I went through each chicken piece to try to find the ants. I only picked out about 20, who knows how many we ate.

Story 2: The other night I was sitting at my computer checking my email, when I feel an itch by my ear. I reach up to itch to find an ant trying to crawl into my ear. Leave me alone ants.

Story 3: The other week we were at one of the chicken houses we are helping with. We were walking around the outside of the house. As we were walking, I look down and see ants all over my legs, shoes, and feet. These were the big chunky ants too! I started jumping up & down, running in place, and tried to brush them all off. Alex finally came to the rescue. I don't know why, but the bugs always attack me. I think that might have happened to me when I was a young girl because somehow I vaguely remember this happening to me once before.

These are just a few of the many encounters I have with ants.

They are so annoying.

Drop the Mango and Run!

We took a three day trip up to Gaza this week. We had some progress with out crop project, finally! But just a little progress. We still have a long way to go.

We stayed in Bilene again since that is the only place that has decent accommodation. As we were driving on the skinny highway on our way to Chokwe (where our project is), we were going fast as there was no one on the road. Then we see an animal jump out of the bush. Not any animal, but a BABOON jumps out of a bush with a mango, he starts to cross the street with the mango in hand. We see his hair around his head, bare butt, everything you'd imagine Rafiki to look like in real life. Then he sees our car coming at 130 km/hr, so he shoves the mango in his mouth and books it into high gear. We couldn't slam on our brakes, we could've crashed. I scream, Alex holds the wheel tight...and phew. The monkey baboon BARELY got across the road without getting hit. I wouldn't be surprised if we nicked its tail. I would have been so sad if we hit the baboon. I mean, I ran over a squirrel once and I had tears in my eyes. But if we ran over a BABOON? I don't know what I would do. But we didn't. Thank goodness.

Friend Filipe

We took a group of irrigation and drainage experts with us to analyze our land. We drove all around the land looking at all the canals and drains. I guess I didn't realize how big 1,200 hectares actually is. It is huge! It took all day to drive around the land and take GPS coordinates, and having the experts look at the infrastructure. It was frustrating because the map we had wasn't sufficient to our needs, the government officials wouldn't give us their map. (They are overprotective of their maps). It was a big deal, but it worked out OK.

Working

After the day out on the land, we drove into the local village closest to our land to look around. We took pictures of their school, hospital, church, etc. The benefits from the crop project we are working on will go towards rehabilitating their village and such.  The people in these villages are different. They are so kind. The people in the city where we live aren't as friendly. Its refreshing to know there are kind people still in the world.

Village school

Village kids

Village Hospital

The Village Church

On the way home we stopped on the side of the road next to a village, and bought a 10 kilo bag full of maracuja AKA passion fruit for 100 meticais (3 bucks) what a steal! I love maracuja, its delicious. Tonight we cut and gutted all of them and put them into little baggies so we can freeze them so it doesn't go bad. We will have maracujá for months now! I'm excited to have it for breakfast in the morning!

The fruit sellers on the side of the road. That whole bag is full of our maracuja!

Yummy

other pictures:

A macala. This is the fruit Rafiki has in the Lion King. It looks so gross, but it tastes like a juicy fruit.

Man on the side of the road making sugar cane juice. Not as good as it sounds.

The dump. People spend all day there digging through the garbage. Gross.

Photos by Deb.

Today we went to a small photo shop to get a passport photo of Alex taken. For some reason the bank requires him to have a passport photo to open the business bank account. We have been trying to open the bank account for weeks, but its one thing after another. Business is not easy in a 3rd world country. Back to the story.

Anyways, so we walk into the photo shop and it's pretty crowded. People standing at counters waiting to be helped, people sitting waiting, people standing in lines. We noticed there were about 10 people working behind the counter. But were they really working? No, they were working the Mozambican way. They sit around and watch one person work until the boss tells them to do something. No joke. There was one Chinese man (probably the owner) helping everyone. Everyone who needed help was crowded around his part of the counter trying to get his attention. I see this everywhere. You drive past a construction site, you see one person with a shovel working with 15 other workers with their hard hats on sitting and watching the 1 man work. How many Mozambicans does it take to dig a hole? Apparently 16 Mozambicans can get the job done. This is besides my story.

So we are directed to walk behind the counter to get his passport photo taken. As I walked back I thought I was walking into the photos by deb studio. (You know? From Napoleon Dynamite?) It was so old fashioned with the back drops, and when we walked in the photographer had a Mozambican posed so awkwardly, and he would not move a muscle from the pose. (I crack up laughing just thinking about his facial expression.)

Finally, Alex is next in line. He sits down in front of the back drop. The photographer looks at him, flips the curtain to a different color, then goes to pose Alex. First, he tells Alex to take the things out of his pocket on his shirt. So Alex follows the direction, without problem. Second, he tells Alex to "sit good". Annoyed with the photographer, Alex sits up a little. Then, the photographer touches Alex's face, trying to position it the way he wants. and "SLAP!" Alex slaps his hand away and tells him to hurry and take the picture. (side note: Alex hates people touching his face) The photographer looks around at his co-workers, so offended that Alex won't follow his direction. He continues to try to position Alex without actually touching his face. I was standing by the line of people who were waiting, laughing outloud.

We have been busy running here and there trying to open bank accounts, getting the businesses registered, etc. Tomorrow we are taking a team of people with us up to Chokwe to analyze the land we are looking to use to grow rice. (note: we changed our crop from corn to rice.) We will be there a few days. I hope we have progress.

Missing these guys! Plus many more! I love America!

Sounds of Mozambique.

Sometimes I sit in our house and I listen.

The roof of our house is made of straw, so even the quietest sounds are heard. There are so many sounds outside that I will always remember and relate to our time here in Mozambique.

Every morning I wake up to the sound of a broom against the cement.

"tchshhhhh, tchshhhh, tchsshhhh...(pause)...tchshhh, tchshhhh, tchshhhh....(pause)....tchshhh, tchshhhhh, tchshhh"

Every single morning around 7:00 AM our guard sweeps the sidewalk outside our gate on the street, without doubt. When he sweeps he does it in intervals of three. I hear it every morning for a good 20 minutes or so.

Every night we fall asleep to barking. Across the street there are two "guard dogs", and they bark at everything. There is one deep, loud woof. Then there is a not so loud and not so deep bark. I have never been able to actually see the dogs, but today I finally saw the dogs through the fences. It turns out there is a huge great dane standing guard, with his sidekick the weiner dog. Now I can finally put a bark to a face.

Every day, all day, we hear cars. There is a speed bump right in front of our house. Mozambicans are hilarious with speed bumps. Mozambicans are fast drivers generally. So they go fast down the road, see a speed bump, SLAM on the breaks, basically stop right in front of the speed bump, then proceed to drive over the bump as slow as a car could possibly go, then floor it again, and down the road they go. So this is what we hear over and over again, all day, everyday. Sometimes we hear it and get up to look out the window because we think someone has stopped in front of our house. But we find out time after time that it is just someone taking on the speed bump.

Every Friday and Saturday nights we fall asleep to music blasting. Apparently our house is in the party central of Maputo, and these Mozambicans party hard! The music usually starts about 7:00 PM and plays until 7:00 or 8:00 AM the next morning. In fact I am listening to the music now, as I am writing this. It must be someones birthday because they have played the "Happy Birthday" song 5 or 6 times already. Anyways, one Saturday morning we got up around 5:00 AM, happened to drive by the clubs, and you better believe the party was still on. I noticed many women who had stayed up all night; not to party, but to sell beer on the side of the road. They all looked miserable; freezing, uncomfortable, and tired.

Every time it rains here, it storms. We hear the thunder as LOUD and clear as I have ever heard.  The lightning has to be close to our house, considering how loud the thunder is. I swear it shakes the house. I was afraid of our house being hit and it going up in flames (with our straw roof). Then the guard pointed out to us that we have a lightning pole in the back of our house. So that makes me feel a little better. I would not be surprised if the lightning actually hits that pole, because the lightning has been SO loud.

Sounds are fun.

Here is a video of what are drives are like here in Africa.

Pretty much just like home :)

Food Security

hello

On the left, you see Mozambique's unused land, on the right you see South Africa's land that is flourishing with oranges/sugar cane. These two pieces of land are 20 Kilometers away from each other. Why is Mozambique baron and South Africa Flourishing?!

I read a headline in the news paper the other day that made me laugh out loud, it said the following: "Guaranteed safety to feed Mozambique for the current year"
Or in my words: "We will still be net importers of food this year, meanwhile our agricultural potential as a country squanders"

The Department of Agriculture big-wigs in Mozambique that we have met with have made it very clear that the Mozimbican Government's number one goal is "Food Security". Especially after the food riots of 2010

Our project will be rice in Chókwè, Gaza, Moçambique; we want as many hectares as the government will give us! (The area we are looking at has 31,000 hectares that are not being used, however they can only get 1,250 available for us. The rest could produce much rice for Mozambicans consumption [186,000 tons per year!], but in 1985 the property was divided between families in the government [since Mozambique became a socialist satellite of the USSR everything belonged to the "state" hence if you were in the government you had a license to steal what the Portuguese colonizers developed with their sweat and blood and it was dubbed yours because it belonged to the "state" and you were the state] Anyway, what I am trying to say is HICEP, the government institution who is regulating the land won't give us land because there are many who have only set foot in Chókwè once in their lives who's parents were important government officials who would like to benefit off the transaction and could care less about the fact that their country is a net importer of rice (and every other cereal for that matter).

THAT SOUNDS LIKE FOOD SECURITY DOESN'T IT!!!

Aside from the difficulties we are having now I know the project will go forward, I am very hopeful that our project will do much good in Mozambique when it is in full swing, but that will not come without its difficulties. Chelsea and I are setting the foundation for our project in Chókwè, we are blessed with great supporters in the USA and a good team of South African and Swaziland Agronomists on the ground once Chelsea and I have done our work.

Other things that have happened in the last few weeks:

My heart is torn a bit; we had to throw a man in jail for allegedly stealing/mis managing $10,000 usd of company funds from the Cooperative that Chelsea and I are supervising. I went to see him in Jail today. Chelsea stayed in the car. The cop said "there are conditions to see him, give me 40 meticais ($1usd) so I paid him the bribe. I got to talk to him for a few minutes thru the window. All I could smell was smoke. There were 80 men piled in a 30 ft by 30 ft room with two hall ways and a bathroom. All the men inside acted and treated each other like animals. When I gave my friend in jail the treats and juice that we had bought at a local bakery he held them in his hand for minutes as we talked, I could see the handles of the plastic bag the pastries and juice were in from where I stood, then I saw a hand reach from behind him grab the bag, and my friend so naturally gave his bag to another prisoner. Goodness gracious. It doesn't feel good to have to throw someone in prison, justice just hurts some times I guess, in a way it is his mercy too.

We have done a lot of research in the last month since our focus shifted almost completely to this rice project. We have had to read a lot about the area where we are going to be investing. In 2000 there were some floods that absolutely destroyed the area (floods), so that was one aspect of risk analysis that we have had to study. As I was studying a few masters thesis' and searching for data and meeting with anyone who held a position of importance from the UN's agriculture department to the head of Maize in Mozambique that would talk to me; something very interesting happened. I found myself reading a book published in 1931 of wich I believe only exists a few copies in the world. It was a book that the portuguese wrote, a book of records of happenings in Mozambique, below is a page of the book I was reading:





As I was reading the book, It described the condition of the regadio in Chókwè, and it had a list of pro's and con's of the exact area that we are looking to get. My jaw dropped as I saw that 80 years ago the list that a Portuguese Engineer listed as pro's and con's of the area are the exact same today and all of the information that had been listed in this book written nearly 80 years ago was very relevant to our decision today.

Below are some pictures:

Chellie made me a cake on my b-day, Nutella/Vanilla frosting. Chel takes care of me :)

This is a picture of one of drainage ditches that we will have to rehabilitate in Chókwè. Before the flood of 2000 this thing was 6m wide and 3m deep. Farmers in this area get a yeild of 1.5 tons of rice per hectare, after we rehabilitate it that will be 6-10 tons! The beauty of irrigation.

Fishing boat in bilene. They dive and spear the fish then bring them to the boat; also they use nets.

Played a bit of Futebol after church, we had dinner at a friend's house who is also a member of the LDS Church and his son got mad at me saying 'dad doesn't let me play soccer on sunday'

Do you know your status? Picture taken at South African border entry point.

U-Turn.

We have been so busy lately.We are exhausted.

Yesterday, we went to South Africa to get our special 6 month visas, finally. Visas cause a lot of stress! We had to go to the Mozambican embassy in Nelspruit, which is the city closest to the Mozambican border, it is a whole different world over there. They have malls, grocery stores, and even McDonalds! We took advantage and got ourselves a big mac. We did a little shopping in the nice malls, took our time around the clean city. We left Nelspruit at the end of the day relieved- with our 6 month visas in hand. We cruised to the border only to find out they made a mistake with our visas. The validity dates say 13/6/11-13/12/11, which is correct. Then it says valid for only 30 DAYS. Ahhh... So frustrating. Looks like we have to take ANOTHER trip to South Africa to figure out our visas AGAIN. At least there is some good shopping in Nelspruit, right?

I got a kick out of this today. So today were driving in Maputo, when a police man comes out in the middle of the road with his hand up waving us to the side of the road. Great. So we pull over, roll down the window, and up comes the police man. He asks for the drivers license in a stern voice, so we hand it over. We have this down, they aren't as tough as they seem. We know the routine. He glances at the drivers license in silence for 20 seconds or so, then asks Alex to step out of the car. This was not part of the routine. So I stay in the car and watch him as they walk away and start talking a little ways away from the car. I couldn't hear what was being said. It was 3 cops with AK-47s hoisted on their backs vs. Alex. I see the policia point on the road, and I see them discussing. After a few minutes of them talking, I look over and I see Alex getting the cops phone number. They were laughing, slapping hands, it looked like they were best friends. Then Alex gets back into the car. 

"What happened?" I asked
"Were friends, he forgave me." He said

Apparently Alex made an illegal U-turn. Alex always has a way to get out of a ticket. Were 0/13 in traffic fines. Hopefully I don't jinx it.

Albinos.

Have you ever seen a white black person?

They are pretty common here. Mozambique has the highest percentage of albinos in the world. I see at least one albino per day, which i am pretty surprised with.

Why they are so much common here than any where else?

It is very interesting to me.

I've learned a couple interesting things about albinos. Here is one, 96% of albinos have eye problems. Ujembe (pictured below) has an eye problem called Nystagmus. His eyes are constantly moving involuntarily. Poor guy. Another interesting thing I've learned is that there are some crazy beliefs about albinos in Africa. A lot of them are killed by the people so the "witch doctors" can use their body parts for potions and/or remedies. Read this article.

Alex(on his mission) with a former missionary Elder Ujembe(albino)

Microfinance With Agriculture Works

Trinita and Zuculi at their monthly meeting where all see

the money change hands and together they do simple math

The Debits and Credits

Their Journal Entries

We've been supervising a small Agrifinance Loan program that has a portfolio of a little over $1000 and has done much good:

2 and a half months ago two 18,000 Meticais ($600 USD) loans were given to two women to establish a small chicken raising project in which each woman was to raise 200 chicks each, and then after raising the chicks to chickens in her home, would sell them on the local streets. One woman, Trinita, already knew how to raise chickens to sell, and the collateral for her loan was to teach another woman, Lurdes to do the same.

They are now raising their third flock, and have each paid back 5,400 Meticais ($180 USD,17.6% of their loan) in just two months time. (they chose to expedite paying it back, that is why they are paying it back so high).

They have made an average of 2,337 Meticais monthly monthly, ($80 USD, just above the countries minimum wage of $73/month.) Since the start of the project. This number will nearly double when Trinita and Lurdes do not have to make the loan payment.

In 5 months time the loan of 18,000 Meticais will be paid off, and these two women will be making 2.3 times the minimum wage of $73/month. Then Lurdes will have to pay her "interest rate" and teach another woman her newly found trade, and this new woman's business will be financed by the $180 that Lurdes and Trinita have paid back and the $820 outstanding.

Good Business is what will bring these people out of poverty, I am convinced.

The Corn Project.

Last week we spent the whole week looking for the land for a humanitarian corn project. The man that is funding the project is a very good business man, but he is a humanitarian at heart. He is willing to spend a lot of money on the project (by a lot I mean millions) and all the profits will go back to the communities. We will use the money to renovate their churches, schools, houses, etc. The corn will also be providing food security to the people in the communities. Which is well needed in Mozambique.

We drove around for hours looking for the right land to use. We had a map from the government officials to follow, but it was not a well written map. The people who wrote the map could hardly read the map themselves. I think everyone was confused at one point or another. It was frustrating at times, but we found the right piece of land, finally. There is so much land up for grabs in these areas of Mozambique, they are begging for people to invest in the land.

Looking at the map

Looking for the right land

The area on the map where the land is.
No he's not flipping you off.

It is going to be a very long and frustrating process to get this project started. We are going to have to work with government officials and tribal people to get the land. We have to do soil samples. We have to get contracts, licenses, permits, etc. We have to hire people to manage the land. We have to hire the right people to clear out the irrigation systems that are already established from 40 years earlier, plus build new irrigation systems. We have to have regular farm workers. Theres a lot to do. I don't even know all the steps, we've never started a farm in Africa, but we will find out the steps soon. I never thought we would become farmers. I went to school to be a nurse, not a farmer! I'm excited to learn though.

The land that we are planning to use is about 1,000 hectares, (1 hectare is 10,0000 square meters) We will plant only 250 hectares to start out with as a trial. If the first cycle of crops shows to be successful, we will plant the remaining of the hectares. Eventually we are looking to invest in more land to plant 5,000 hectares. That, my friend, is a lot of corn.

Who better to get the process started than the one and only Alex Spencer? No one is better. He is the only person for the job. The investor asked him (and me since were connected) to stay until the corn project is up, running and stable. So when are we going to come back to Utah? Who knows? We don't even know. I guess we'll see. It'll be an adventure.

Some village people walking after collecting wood.
The canal for the land is on the left.

Some local boys. They don't speak Portugues. Hard to communicate.
Some one gave them Big Red gum, you should have seen their faces, they were not expecting it to burn their mouths!

The sky was so big this day. It was amazingly beautiful.

Tchau.

The 4th of October School

We had the opportunity to travel near the South African border to the 4th of October school. (They name everything after dates here.) The school is secondary education for boys and girls with grades 8-12. The school has around 500 students attending, with classes running from 8 am to 9 pm.  The students in the particular school (different from other schools in Maputo) are good students from what we can tell. They really care about learning, and the teachers are able to control the classes of teenagers.

The organization that we are working for has raised funds for to support 24 girls who attend the 4th of October school in Mozambique from 8th grade all the way until graduation of 12th grade.  The girls are hand selected so they can support the girls who really need help. They supply new uniforms, books, tuition, and other extra things that are needed. It is really a great program they have set up for these girls.

The main reason for our visit was to set up a session of skype with a kindergarten class in Missouri who set up lemonade stands in their town to raise funds to donate to these girls in Mozambique so they can attend school. The skype session was so sweet. The mozambican girls were amazed with the technology. They prepared a song to sing as group to the girls, and it was beautiful. A few tears were shed during the song, it was so sweet. A few of the girls in the school were able to speak a little english to them, so questions were going back and forth. The answers to the questions were very different. Here are some examples:

Question 1: "What is your favorite thing to eat?"

       American girls: "Pizza, ribs, steak etc:"

       Mozambican girls: "leaves chopped up, rice, fruit, etc"

Question 2: "What do you do for fun?"

       American girls: "Swim, and ride horses"

       Mozambican girls: "Oh, we don't know how to swim, and we don't have horses. We like to walk around  with our friends"

Question 3: "What is your favorite thing to study in school?"

       American girls: "RECESS!"

       Mozambican girls: " Portugues, math, geography"

It was interesting to see the differences, its a whole different world from America.

After the skype session was over they had each written a thank you note to their sponsors, and they each read them out loud for us to hear. We handed out their uniforms for school. We also handed out new backpacks, shoes, and outfits as gifts to the girls in celebration of Children´s Day. They were all so excited and thankful. They all hurried to the bathroom to try on their outfits to show us. It was so fun to be able to see how grateful they are for the things that are given to them, even though it is not much.

As we were about to leave, the director sat us down and talked to us about a girl who is about to graduate from 12th grade who is brilliant. She is at the top of her class. The director has been supporting her financially to be able to attend school for the last year or so because the girl has a terrible situation. Both of her parents have recently died from AIDS. She lives with her stepdad who does not treat her well. She has big dreams of attending college and becoming a medical doctor. The director assured us she is capable. College in Mozambique costs about $1,200 per year. We were able to set her up with a scholarship to attend college. Isn`t it awesome that people in the world are willing to give up their own money to support people around the world who are in need? I love it, and I get to see the results first hand while I´m here and it is a great site to see.

No Poor Among Us is hoping to support 26 more girls next year in the school to make it 50 girls who are being supported. These girls need it, they are all in terrible situations, and it is really helping them and changing their lives. It is a HUGE deal if someone graduates from the 12th grade here. The people who get jobs in Mozambique are the people who make it to the 12th grade. They will have many opportunities in life because of this.

Everything is progressing here, its a good feeling.  If you would like to help sponsor a girl to attend school, please contact us at alexanderhspencer@gmail.com

Here are some pictures and videos from our visit:

All the girls in their new outfits, aren't they so beautiful?

Skyping

Girls receiving their new school uniforms

Reading her "Thank You" letter to Ed, her sponsor

Reading "Thank You" letters