my first busy days in Mozambique

Hello World!
After a few days here in Mozambique, I think I am able to tell about my first impressions. Saturday I arrived in Nampula. Erik picked me up at the Airport. And we already had some hassle: Border control did not want to let me into the country and asked if I could bring Erik in to confirm my story. At the exit they did not want to let me out, so I took them back to the police guy who explained it. They let me out to find Erik, but then they did not want to let Erik into the building with me to confirm the story with the border control. SO first the security guy went back to the border control desk to confirm with them again and finally we got in, Erik told the police guy exactly the same I had told him before and within seconds I had my passport back and was allowed to go. Welcome to Mozambique!
Now we are still in Nampula and did not yet see my new home, but according to Erik there will have to repair some things and make it more cosy. I suppose that will be my task as a good house-wife :-).
On Sunday I met Erik’s boss from Holland who happened to be here as well and I learned much about Connect International and their projects and about Erik’s work. On Monday I went with them to meet people at the regional water department, the local SNV office, at the World Vision office and at CARE. Sounds a bit like I am already deeply into the world of development aid?! Well, at least I get an idea about Erik’s work and maybe I can create a sort of a “job” for myself that renders a voluntary contract at his organization or one of the others. Because without contract I won’t get a longer term visa.
During all those meetings I made myself useful by taking notes and I could help translating some English documents into Portuguese. That was worse than I had expected. Somehow, only Spanish worlds kept coming instead of the Portuguese ones and I had to ask Erik about all those development terms. I did not feel very helpful after all. But yeah, I did two pages and Erik did five.
And of course, it is nice to be together with Erik again. Yesterday we had almost all the day to ourselves. Only I still have to get used to it that I cannot just do what I want to do, but plan things together. And I feel somewhat dependent because I do not know the place well, I have no idea about prices and so on. I hope this will change once I am installed in Nicane, our village in the bush-bush :-). I brought seeds to have a garden and I want to have some chickens. So I will be busy anyway.
Today we will go shopping… Sounds good?! Well, we need some stuff for the house and Erik needs materials for the water pump installations. And hopefully by tomorrow we can hit the road because I am very curious about Nicane (and living in Nampula is expensive, even compared with Europe and considering our small purses… ;-0)
I do not yet have any photos (we do not have the cable for the camera here in Nampula). So I will post some of the pictures Erik took. They show one of the water pumps of Erik’s project, some views of the village (at the pump, and along the street; there are so many people because it was world water day), some of the workers having lunch: they eat Chima, some kind of corn-balls with sauce. I already had it as well. Quite boring taste, but definitely good if you are very hungry. And finally there we have Erik the Viking how he looked like when he came to pick me up at the airport after 2 months without female company :-).