Home Away From Home

I know, it has been a long time… The truth is life went insane just after I came back from holiday. First, the internet was not really in the mood for working in my last two days in Maputo, probably telling me that I better keep away from the computer and say goodbye to the city properly. And so I did, we had our leaving dinner, our leaving meeting and I guess our leaving moment, the one the tears let out the rage in me “I hate leaving this country”… The 11 hours flight took us to a crazy week in Lisbon. With the appearance on live national TV on Tuesday, the NGO phone, email and any contact method went totally insane. More than 150 people tried to reach us in the meantime. Yes, it is a good thing, but it is totally a killing as well. In the middle of trying to visit family and friends, buying flights in and out of home, figuring out what subjects to get in Harvard (once I get a loan) and worse than all saying goodbye to Bernardo, the week flew by with a feeling of being totally o...

It is my last day at work and my bag is packed to go on holiday. It is a weird feeling, leaving it all behind with a simple goodbye. The truth is I never thought I would like living in Maputo as much as I did, I never thought it would be this easy. It was not easy in the sense of being so far from the ones I love, but it was so easy to just settle in a new life, have a routine, make friends. I will miss Rosa and João, though I am pretty sure I will see them again soon and they will remain a part of my life. I will miss being a car ride away from Zezito, the Nuns and all the children but I guess one just can't be everywhere at all times. I will miss being able to get it all done within 24 hours and still get 8 hours of sleep. I will miss having a simple life but worrying about meaningful things. But I guess at the same time my heart pulls me back. I miss Portugal and the idea of spending a couple of days in the beach surrounded with old (and eternal) friends. I miss London a...

Yesterday was the first Startracker event in Mozambique. Startracker is a global talent network for Portuguese people. It is kind of like asmallworld but you have to be Portuguese and you have to have some kind of international experience. Cooler than facebook because it requires invitations, cooler than asmallworld because there is actually a sense of community. It is a place to show that Portugal is not that small and Portuguese people are doing great things around the world. A series of events have been happening in different cities and yesterday, Maputo was the place to be as a “Startracker”. João, an expat who seems to love organizing events (and is pretty good at it too) got Tiago, one of the founders, to stop by on his way to a family trip and gathered 90 of the 150 people Portuguese in Maputo that are Startrackers. He wants to make it to 500 by December, I think he can. But better than that, he wants to help me out! Well, not me maybe, but the NGO. He proposed Um Pequen...

The weekend was GREAT, full of animals and animation. We took off Friday afternoon and if it was not for an hour on the border we probably would have made it in an hour. Roads in South Africa are clearly better, and driving is not that full of unexpected events like the N1 to Xai-Xai. We stayed at a really nice B&B in Malelane, next to the Malelane gate, the Vila Langa, that I definitely recommend. Cheaper than the big lodges and really nice people. They organized everything for us and service was great and very familiar. The adventure of “where-on-earth-did-they-leave-the-service-concept” started early at dinner. We went to The Deck for dinner, a nice place by the river, amazing food, inexistent service. Just hard to believe… We had an early start on Saturday, at 4.30 and at 5.15 we were already by the Echo Safari office, ready to go in our adventure. At 5.45 we were queuing at the gate, led by Washington, our guide, in an open vehicle. The camera was not even out and a Hippo ran ...

My bag is packed and I am ready to go. Before that, I still want to get a draft Board Presentation off the way. Yes, I am back to that! Well, in fact I never left my beloved slides but these ones are aimed at Board and not just management as until now. What this means is that I am almost done with my internship, one more week to go. It makes me happy now (that I am working for 9 weeks and Bernardo drops me at work every morning) but I am sure I will be sad in a week as I realize my time here is ending. The balance will definitely be positive, despite the ups and downs. I have no doubt about that. Thanks for all the support on the items on the to do list, with help I can definitely get it done. The projects for 2009 are starting to get in shape so that means the Business Plan will follow, we managed to send the pictures out and are all set for the fundraising event on Monday, I decided to postpone the first edition of the newsletter to August 31st (help still welcome on this one) and...