Day 12

Today was another day to learn more about the area.  The meeting with the local NGO which was supposed to happen yesterday afternoon did not happen today either.   Tomorrow morning... maybe.   Instead I was able to get a thorough tour of the facilities sponsored by the church in the compound where I am staying.  

These kids are pre-schoolers learning a little English, along with the alphabet, numbers and how to write their names.   There is very little opportunity for education for many of the people and over 40% of 7th graders are still illiterate.   This is a good service this group provides.   My dropshots site has a little video of the kids singing numbers 1 - 10 in English.

 

  

I like these paintings in the lobby of the guesthouse.







The church sponsors a wood shop. This is one of the priests who found this broken down electric saw in another city and thinks he can make it work.   No such thing as Home Depots here. 


tools are somewhat primitive

we left the shop

and visited a sewing center.   The machines are all manual (steady electricity is a problem here).  

 This is the woman who teaches some of the classes.

Below are murals on the outside walls 

at this location

 another mural








this is one of the sewing classes in session
and below this pic is a chart of dresses so customers can come in and show what they want made.

 

This young man is painting a mural on the wall in one of the sewing rooms. 

More preschoolers learning to write their letters.   The helping hands you see are the Portuguese volunteers.   The priest who took me to all of these sites would be very interested in finding out about possible contributions from other organizations.   If any of these readers have any ideas, let me know.   They could use some better tools for the shop, more books for the students (they get almost nothing in their regular schools - no blackboards, frequently no desks or chairs, thatched huts, etc), donated computers and even such simple things as paper, pencils, pens.

Adriano and I took a walk in the neighborhood. This woman is explaining that the structure you see is stacks of bricks that are heated up to cure them and make them last longer.   The various holes at the bottom are where they place wood to heat them.   Then they dismantle the structure and use the bricks.

 Local watering hole.   This is near a river and there is a hand dug well of sorts with a pipe coming out that delivers clear water.   I didn't see any kind of a pump mechanism.   Basically, people (mostly women) come down the hill with their 5 gallon and bigger containers, fill them up and walk back up the hill with the water buckets balanced on their heads.  

I enjoyed having the luxury of a day with no specific obligations tho I had to talk myself into it.   When I'm on an assignment like this, I feel like I should be busy every minute.   Tomorrow, we leave Altomoloque - sometime in the afternoon, preceded by the meeting that was supposed to happen Tuesday afternoon, sometime in the morning.   I will spend the night in Nampula, all day Friday in that city, with one meeting already scheduled (no time specific, just "morning"), then board a plane to Beira around 5 pm, spend the night in Beira, then head home on Saturday.