Quirimba - island life

In addition to the coconut plantation, Quirimba Island is unique to many of the other Quirimba archipelago islands around because of its village feel. There are about 4,000 people--a large proportion of them children--on the island. Most live off the local natural resources like fish and agro/horticultural products.

Below-left a few men cutting a up a ray they just caught. Unfortunately the islanders have fished their waters somewhat destructively over the years, using methods like putting poison in the water, using explosives even. As a result, the reefs and other marine habitats have been damaged. With the government declaring it national park land, however, hopefully the situation will improve. Below-right, a dugout fishing canoe, usually carved out of a single tree trunk:










Like I said, there are a lot of children on the island. The population was only half what it was a decade or two ago, due largely to high birth rates as well as inreased immigration. Below are a couple brothers who were toting around some coconuts they had picked from (hopefully) one of their non-plantation palms, also called smallholder trees in the coconut biz. Unlike some of the adults who are sometimes a bit reserved or suspicious, just about every kid on the island is extremely curious and friendly. These two fellas wouldn't leave me alone once they spotted me on the beach, especially when they saw I had a camera:










More islander children below-left, this time in front of a schoolhouse that had just been built and actually looked in pretty good shape. I was told, however, that the government or outside agency that built it spent 3 or 4 times the amount that it should have cost. Unfortunately, inefficiency is a recurring theme in this part of the world. Below-right is a picture of a maternity ward that was gifted to the island by an wealthy hotel operator from a neighboring island, but if you look closely they only built about 2 feet of the structure before running out of the money because the funds ended up getting diverted to other things:










Below-left one of the many ruins left over from the Portuguese colonial days. This particular building I think was originally used for refrigeration--nowadays the locals just seem to kind of hang out in it for shade and gaze out the window at the water (look closely for kid gazing out window at water). Below-right, a group of woman hauling food from one part of the island to the other, by balancing it on their head...a common skill it seems of women in developing countries:

Quirimba Island - coconut plantation

Over half the island is coconut plantation. Most of it is currently going towards the production of copra, which is used to produce industrial coconut oils, which in turn are used in cooking oils, soaps, and other products. In this clip, Hans, who runs the day to day operation of the plantation, explains how they harvest, process and distribute their product:



A few pics below. The tree on the left has just one of the peculiar growth patterns, along with corkscrew shapes, that coconut palms are prone to exhibit. On the right a large African fish eagle taking flight from a palm on the side of the island containing the younger, more productive trees.

Finally, Hans and his staff manager, Massenga, here at the 'port' on the island, talking about the shipment of copra that they're loading onto the dhow (sailboat) behind them. It took this dhow and two others 21 days to sail from Zanzibar down to Quirimba because of the winds/currents, no stopping in between!! Should be less than half that going back, but even then I can't imagine having to deal with the waves, sun and cramped quarters for that long...

Quirimba Island - settling in

To get to Quirimba, we went on the client's boat. Most of us passed the 5 hours of bobbing up and down by snoozing in the cabin to try and forget about our sea sickness:

Once we arrived, we got a warm welcome from the client's family who has been on the island for over 70 years. Their home has a real laid back farm-living feel...

...and the home-cooked food was outstanding. Fresh caught, locally grown ingredients like grouper, crayfish and the quintessential Portuguese chili pepper, piri piri, which as many of you can imagine I loaded up on:

Pemba II

I'm back in Maputo, and back to a relatively not-horrible internet connection. My first trip to Pemba and Quirimba Island was a good one--a beautiful part of the country that I got to see, but also was able to make a lot of progress on my project. Over the next week I'll post some of the photos and videos I took while there, starting with these looking out from my back porch onto Wimbi Beach in Pemba:

Pemba -- last post for a while

Arrived today into Pemba, a beach town and capital of Mozambique's northernmost province, Cabo Delgado. Haven't had much chance to explore, but luckily the house I'm staying in is right on Wimbi Beach, so I do get some great views of the sea, sand and locals walking about from the back porch. Unfortunately the connection sucks so I can't upload any pictures. If I could they'd look something like this.

Tomorrow I'll head to Quirimba Island on a 5-hour boat ride with the local land owner to begin the real on-the-ground work of figuring out what the best opportunities are to develop the local economy. Tourism and coconut oil/biofuel will likely be at the top of the list.

No internet on the island, so next update probably not for another week - 10 days...

Kruger safari

As promised, some highlights from my day trip to Kruger Park just across the border in South Africa. Quite a welcome to the wild continent I must say. I didn't see all of the Big Five (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, buffalo), only the first two, but saw many others including the giraffe, zebra, hippo, baboon, warthog, impala, gazzelle, wildebeest and crocodile.


















Posted a few pics here, but make sure to also check out the video below of our close encounter with a flustered elephant. It may not do justice to just how nerve-racking it was at one point. In fact if it wasn't for another vehicle suddenly accelerating to the right of us and scaring the big bull back, it really looked like he was about to charge. Then again it could have easily been my hard, De Niro-esque stare down that made him retreat.



For the record,that Shaggy song in the background just happened to be playing on the car radio at the time--I didn't dub it in or anything. That said, my mind is now racing with possibilities for the audio on the next clip. Stay tuned.

Arrived and settled...

...into Maputo. The city is about how I expected actually--both the aura of past colonial/tropical charm as well as the realities of third world poverty. What I didn't expect was how relatively easily I could blend in here--lots of expats around, many also with NGOs, and quite a few Indians either living here or from South Africa. Not like Brazil or China, where they didn't know what the hell I was and where I'd often find myself in staring contests with curiuos locals (I always lost). Has been great getting to know the folks in the Technoserve Maputo office too--sharp, purposeful, professional people, but also laid back and friendly. Haven't taken any photos yet because I'm trying not to be too much of a conspicuous estrangeiro in my first week, but...

...I am getting ready for my first tourist thing tomorrow. Headed to Kruger National Park for a little safari daytrip. Will try to post some visuals from that in a few days--hoping the weather holds up and it's not too crowded on the holiday weekend.

Here goes...

...my first real foray into this whole blogging thing. Am writing this post in the middle of my 10 hour layover in Frankfurt, which is in between my two redeye flights to get to Johannesburg. Once in Joburg, will have still another 6 hour layover and then the last leg to get to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Yes I'm whining--the journey does suck right now--but in the grand scheme I have no reason to complain.

For those of you I haven't caught up with in a while, or those who don't even know me and just stumbled across this random blog, I'm headed to Mozambique to start a 10-week development project through an organization called Technoserve. I'll be focused on an island off the north coast called Quirimba, helping the local landowner surface and begin to implement opportunities in eco-tourism, biofuels and other potential areas for economic growth. I've heard many describe the raw beauty of the country and the island. I'm excited to see it for myself and get started on the work. That said, I'm sure it will be challenging--hopefully we can get some good things done down there.

Eventually I'd like to trick this thing out a bit more with photos/videos and all that. But you know...baby steps. In the meantime, google "Mozambique" and click on the images tab if you really want to see pretty pictures so bad.

Signing off from Deutscheland. Next post from Moz.