Desperate housewife

Last time I told about Nicane to give you an idea of the place we are living at. This time I would like to talk about my work. Only, there is still no work. Erik is working with ADPP, better known to many as “Humana people to people”, which runs shops for second hand clothes in Europe. He is working with water and sanitation, mainly busy with water pumps. The idea is to create a sustainable network of demand for water pumps and production of low-cost pumps by trained locals who can earn (part of) their living with the production, installation and maintenance of pumps. Another part is creating awareness for the importance of clean water for consumption and the advantages of irrigation to student-preachers at a seminary, so that they can then divulgate and promote the knowledge in the communities.

The veggies and the studies
So far for Erik. In the meantime I am still a housewife. I started the veggie-garden together with Eurico. But actually he is doing most of the work, because I am to slow digging the earth. But I learn about gardening here (adapted too little water and too much sun) and the Rucola, cabbage, tomatoes etc. are starting to grow. And Isabel planted some Matapa: cassave plants of which she uses to leaves to make a spinach-like dish. Very tasty!
Jhunito comes twice a week for I get some Macua lessons. Macua is the language here in the 4 northern provinces of Mozambique. Many of the women do speak no or very little Portuguese. And if I eventually get a chance to work here, some Macua will be very helpful. And so I spent my days reading, studying Macua, watering the crops and that is about it.
It is terribly boring. The internet is so bad I cannot skype or chat with friends or family, and definitely too bad to follow a master study on-line, as I had in mind. There are only a few people in Nicane with whom I can have a more profound conversation than talking about the weather and the veggie gardens and Erik is out working all day long. Sitting around is nothing good for me. So I am looking for something useful to do.

Midwife in the middle of no-where
In the last blog I wrote that Beatriz, the midwife of the nearby hospital was to come to Nicane. But as she did not come, I decided to visit her at the hospital. Isabel gave me her phone number, I called her and she invited me to meet her at the hospital.
Well, Ramiane hospital is (I checked it on Google maps today) at about 7 kilometres distance. So I hit the road. It gained me some respect of the locals. The next day, the whole village was talking about the white girl that had been walking all the way to Ramiane and back. Some funny thing happened on the way. In Nampisa, a village half way, I did not know which road to take. So I asked a woman who was sitting in front of her house. She appeared not to speak Portuguese. My question for the way to Ramiane was too difficult. So I pointed the direction and asked: “Hospital?”. She asked back: “Beatriz?”. I nodded. She pointed in the direction I had to continue and that was it. All the women know Beatriz. If you ask for her, they know what you want.
Beatriz is the only midwife at Ramiane hospital. She would like to have some help. So she asked me to pass at the district health office to get my diploma legalized. According to her it was a simple, strait forward procedure. That was on a Wednesday. She was like: do it tomorrow or Friday and you can start working on Monday. We start at 7:30 am.

Global burocracy
Unfortunately, as I already suspected, at the health office it turned out that the whole thing is not that easy. I need to go to the ministry of health in Maputo first. There I might get my diploma legalized. Then it goes the whole administrative way back via the province to the district and the community administration. If it ever gets that far!
At the moment, we are near Maputo for a few days due to Erik’s work. And Monday I will see what I can do at the ministry. Maybe at least I get some information about the papers I need for the whole procedure.
People anywhere in the World claim their country to have the worst burocracy, but I think by now I have enough experience to conclude that burocracy is an international phenomenon.

At the preacher’s Seminary in Maputo
In the meantime, some other possibilities have risen. We stay at the compound of the preacher’s seminary of the protestant churches in Mozambique. And I had a chat with some people here. The seminary is willing to help me to get a better visa and a work permit and in change, I will give lectures on health care topics to the preacher-students and their wives. For those theology students this should be part of their curriculum but the seminary did not have a teacher fort this subject during the past two years. Now this will be my job. I will come twice per semester and give the classes. It sounds very interesting and at least I have something to do.
Another nice aspect of being here is the health centre next to the seminary. I went there to see if they have a midwife and met Genoveva. Actually she is a mother-child-nurse. It appears that since 1981 there are no midwives trained anymore in Mozambique. They have those mother-child-nurses, which are trained to do ante partum, intrapartum and postpartum care (pregnancy, birth and childbed), anticonception, infant and child follow ups until 5 years of age and part of the gynaecology (abortions, detection of breast cancer, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases…). It is a really interesting concept. Especially in a small health centre like this one, because it can create a close relationship between the midwife and the woman. And is suspect that it is also the reason all the women around Nicane know Beatriz and are very fond of her.
I pass at the health centre every now and then and ask Genoveva a lot of questions, and next week I will join her to see how she works. She is very proud that they do not use the gynaecological chair for deliveries anymore and let the woman be accompanied by family in the delivery room. They call the concept: humanized birth. It is not as far as we are in Europe, but it is something. And with the poor hygiene conditions in most houses here, a hospital birth, as long as it respects the rights if mother and child, is usually a better option than a home delivery without any assistance.
So the desperate housewife has regained some hope in the past days, that there might be useful things for me to do and I might even get a (paid) occupation at some point.
I’ll keep you up to date…
Big hug,
Anna
About the pictures: After the cute and the acceptable room-mates in Nicane, these spiders are some that I’d rather not have as room-mates, but I suppose I have no choice in the matter. But here in the south it is much less. So I can focus in nicer objects for my photographs, like the many paintings on houses and shops, the beautiful setting of the Seminary’s guesthouse and some of the people around: Corrie came to visit the Seminary and us and the last picture is how Silvério, who came with us from Nicane is explaining some details on rope pumps to the participants of the training. When he starts, he gets really enthusiastic and it is a pleasure to see him telling things.