By Ralph Wesseling (National Water Trainee, H2O-job)
On Friday the 30th we had a day filled with
fieldtrips ahead of us. It turned out to become a very interesting day.
Everyone
got up early in the morning and after breakfast we drove off to the rural areas
outside of Maputo. Since the visiting sites were far out of Maputo, nobody knew
exactly how to get there. At a parking lot/market near the highway we stopped
to get some directions and a couple of huge carrots for lunch. It turned out
that we were really close to our first visiting site!
First on
our schedule was a visit to the ‘Elephant pepper’ or ‘piri piri’ farm to learn
more about the irrigation systems that are being used. The farm is working on
multiple projects for drop irrigation techniques. A well was drilled for
pumping up ground water on the site. Growing crops with most of these
irrigation systems works pretty well. The only problem is selling the crops
because there is no market/demand for it yet. Leaving enough peppers for Ilja
and Iris to test. Too bad for them, there was nothing there to put out the
fire…
After leaving the farm we had to wait for our
Mozambican guide that would show us the way to the next irrigation site.
Unfortunately our guide was in a meeting which was delayed for about 2 hours.
This left us at the side of the road playing music, soccer with schoolchildren
and eating local sweets and more huge carrots.
Just as we were about to head
back home, our guide showed up. Towards our next destination we went off road, over
dirt roads with some interesting obstacles. While we were trying to avoid big
sandy holes without getting stuck in ditches, Teun noticed that donkey riders
can be even more wicked in traffic than Mozambicans in cars. The donkey riders
undisturbedly destroyed one of Teun’s side mirrors. We travelled on to a remote
area where there was nothing more than a couple of huts and a huge amount of
open space. There we found a small irrigation field. In the irrigation field we
saw an example of a water well that was being used for watering crops by
filling buckets.
During the last part of our fieldtrip, our
smelling senses would be challenged at the waste water dump of Maputo. For most
of us it was still unknown how the waste water in Maputo was treated. That
became clear pretty soon after we opened the doors of our car. We were told
that the waste water of one part of the city was dumped in the sea and the
other part of the city was connected to this waste water system. The treatment system
we visited consisted of four holes in the open air that were connected to each
other through pipes. Waste water from one part of Maputo is being dumped in
these holes through the sanitation pipes and sanitation trucks that dump their
loads. The waste is left there for water hyacinths to grow on. You can imagine
where the smell came from, since there hasn’t been any maintenance for more
than 10 years. At the end of the area we found a farmer who used the same waste
water for watering his crops. And so the cycle ´from your behind to your mouth´
was completed.
After a
long day of travelling and other activities we decided to see some more of the
night life of Mozambique. After a quick diner, our Mozambican friends took us
to the boulevard near the bay in Maputo. If you’re living in Maputo and have a reasonable
sound system in your car, you might be noticed in between the dozens of other
contestants. After the boulevard we visited a small beach and a club called the
‘Elvis Bar’. After that some of us started collapsing, so we decided to go home
for our well-earned 3 hours of sleep.
Lunch time was more fun for those who were tasting delicious cheap food that is sold in the cars on any street. The food car was parked in front of DNA with a long queue of people who burned with the radiating sun only to have pleasure to sample the food going. People standing in line to highlight Moniek, Iljia, Sander, Jurgen confessed that never had an experience identical where food is sold anywhere in the car without worrying about the municipal police.
After a long day of work we went to The Base where we waited a long time for dinner made by the third group that was totally amazing. Pankecas had as main course and fruit salad which usually dessert here in Mozambique.
After dessert "dinner" the baby Eelco was surprised with a cheerful weariness congratulating him for another year of life, and this in turn retribution gesture with a smile and tears of emotion that almost flooded the kitchen. Received hugs and hippo as a gift wrapped in a huge roll of toilet paper as a way to show him the true value of the reorganization and its future physical condition as a big man like the hippo.
