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Paddy McKenna in Mozambique with Trocaire
By 2FM Moderator, 2011-03-04 12:32:08
Diary 1.
It has taken four flights, two boat rides and several hours spent on the road but we have finally arrived. Our travelling party left Dublin on Saturday afternoon to travel almost 10,000km to Mozambique. It's my first time in Africa and the experience has surpassed even most my excited expectations. From the moment we touched down in Maputo on Sunday morning, the vibrant colours and scenes of teeming humanity have been unlike anything I have witnessed before.
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and it's a quite a modern and trendy city. We overnight-ed there on Sunday and got a chance to mingle with some city-dwelling Mozambicans. Almost everyone we spoke to had perfect English and were friendly and polite. They are also quite playful with their stories and ready smiles - not unlike the Irish at their best.
It was a brief stay because the purpose of our trip and final destination lay 400km north of the capital in the province of Sofala. We caught a flight to the nearest airport in Vilcanculos and from there we travelled by road for 200km to the town of Nova Mambone, where we're based for the rest of our trip. It's quite a rural place but thanks to a recent gas line it has electricity and the roads are constructed from asphalt.
After almost three days of travelling, we were nearing our reason for being in Africa and we woke up at 5am to take a riverboat from Nova Mambone across the River Save to the community of Beia Peia. I should at this stage point out that the Save is crocodile-infested and we were later informed that just 7km from our crossing, a child had been taken by a crocodile as he'd bathed in the shallows. An early reminder of the different stakes people in this region live their daily lives by.
We reached Beia Peia in the Sofala province and spent the day in the company of Antonio Macanige , his wife Helena and their ten children. Their home has been constructed with money and materials given to them by Trocaire. It's worth pointing out at this stage that Trocaire carry out their the work in conjunction with local partners. In this case, the partner organisation is called AJOAGO. They are a group of young people who are badly affected by the cyclones that have struck Mozambique three times since 2000. They established their group to assist in food and seed distribution, water management and cyclone warning systems. They help to identify communities in need and together with Trocaire work to make their lives better.
Helena told us about the 2008 cyclone, which ripped the roof off her old thatched home leaving the family exposed to 140km winds for 3 full days. Encouraged to move from the flood plains by Trocaire/AJOAGO, they now live in a cyclone-resistant home, which is made from concrete blocks and has a corrugated iron roof. The most important part of their new dwelling-place is the water pump Trocaire money has helped to install. Water is life in this area of the world, and Helena told us that a clean reliable source means the family no longer get diarrhea.
Later in the day Helena took us to see the maize crop she and 28 other locals oversee. They simply call their group 'the association' and their aim is to eradicate poverty in their community. The group is comprised almost completely of women and it treated us to over an hour of amazing African song and dance as the women walked through the maize fields. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life. The beat was hypnotic and they literally led us a merry dance around their maize plantation as they explained how their new water irrigation scheme, powered by a windmill, has led to good crops. The association, led by Helena, is incredibly ambitious. It began life in 2006 with just a couple of hectares but the plot is now 4 times that and they spoke about planting tomatoes, onions and peppers too.
As we walked back to our bus, the women followed close behind singing and dancing. It was fairly clear that they wouldn't mind if we got involved, so myself and Irish Mirror journalist, Sarah Bardon sashayed into the middle of the group who generously cheered our efforts. I'm not sure what moves Sarah was breaking out, but I was mixing a bit of the 'h-aon-do-tri's' with a few of my finest Saturday night steps. Strictly Come Dancing it was not, but with the African drums driving the beat and surrounded by these incredible women, we cared less.
Diary 2.
Today we visited the home of Louisa-Maria and her 6 kids. Her story is a heartbreaking one. Her husband passed away recently and she cannot afford to send any of her children to school because she has little or no income. She also told us she needed her ten-year-old daughter, Anita to mind her youngest child when she and the other children went to the fields to work. Almost all of her problems though, stem from the fact that she has no access to clean water. There are no supply points for over 10km and she has no choice other than to use the nearby River Save as a source. This water is not clean. In fact it's brown and filthy which is unsurprising as she and all her neighbours use the river to bathe themselves and wash their clothes. Domestic animals, like cattle, also use the river for drinking and bathing.
After all the smiles and vibrancy of the Trocaire-assisted family yesterday - who have a clean water supply 40 feet from their house - this was a hard story to hear. Her children, ranging in age from 1 to 25, seemed listless and they had less than healthy appearances. Brenda, who is from the capital Maputo and works for Trocaire, told me that this was 'the real Mozambique'. She also said that a big challenge for Trocaire was simply getting this sort of family to accept assistance. We watched as Sergio and Mucote from Ajoago, Trocaire's local partner in Machanga, implored the family to move to Beia Peia, where we met much healthier, happier families yesterday. There, they would have ready access to clean water giving them the chance to grow better crops, thereby enabling Louisa-Maria to make money and possibly send some of her children to school. But she seemed reluctant to leave her home and made reference to rumours that she'd heard that the land there was 'infertile'. Brenda told me that she was confident Trocaire/Ajoago could change her mind soon.
We left behind Louisa-Maria and her family with heavy hearts and travelled to the local primary school, Escola Primaria Completa de Mupini where were we were greeted with a much happier scene. The school has 735 students and 24 teachers and it is bright, airy and full of smiling faces. The children are involved in a reforestation scheme where they tend to Acacia and Cashew trees before transplanting to locations along the river and elsewhere. They told us the trees are important weapons against cyclones. They act as wind barriers, whilst they also slow down the spread of flooding. I was curious to see if the children knew anything about Ireland, but whilst England drew nods and 'sim's' of recognition, none had heard of Ireland. Since we've arrived in Mozambique, we've witnessed loads of dance and song, so I asked them from what age they began to learn the tradition. They told us they are introduced to this culture from a very early age and we were soon treated to a dance called 'Chiquema' by two pupils, accompanied by the entire class chanting and clapping. In return, I sang one verse of 'Raglan Road' as part of the Mozambique-Ireland cultural exchange, whilst Ian from Trocaire told them Patrick Kavanagh, who wrote the poem, had been educated in a schoolroom just like their own.
Diary 3.
I've worked in radio for almost four years, but it was only today in the Radio Save studio that I fully realised the power of the medium. Myself and DJ Emma Fitzpatrick from Citybeat in Belfast, were fortunate enough to be a part of the station's morning chat-show with presenters Manuel and Theresa. In my work I take landlines and phone systems for granted but there are no telephone wires in Nova Mambone. The DJs in Radio Save use a single mobile phone for callers to ring in. Calls came thick and fast and once the screen began to flash, Manuel would open his mic and put the phone on loudspeaker. He would immediately clasp his hands around the handset leaving a gap for the speaker. This would lessen the interference with the microphone and both he and caller go to air on the same mic. If people want to talk and be heard, they will find a way of making it happen!
The chat-show was in the local Ndau language and the topic was on the importance of the radio to its 70,000 listeners. The station was only established in 2005 and every caller wanted to passionately state that the service was literally a lifesaver. The regular early warnings of cylcones meant they had a chance to move to higher ground, secure lifestock and be ready for the worst. It's worth pointing out that the cyclone in 2000 killed over 8,000 Mozambicans. One man even rang in to say he spent almost his entire day in a tree because it was the only place he could get a good signal!
We then moved into the town of Nova Mambone to meet their Disaster Risk Management Committee. We encountered a group of articulate, focused people who had devised a simple system of alerting people to approaching cyclones. In brief, designated 'listeners' were assigned to listen to the radio all day (our friend in the tree!). Once a warning was broadcast, they supplied this information to the 'alerters' who used bicycles, loudhalers and designated flags to spread the message far and wide. Further committee members were responsible for evacuation, rescue and damage assessment. All the materials for the operation had been supplied by Trocaire. The president of the committee was Gina Antonio Mandima who spoke passionately about their work. She had a twinkle in her eye and boldly asked Ian from Trocaire could they please supply more radios as soon as possible. She said that some of the listeners had to work in the fields and would miss crucial broadcasts. A good transistor could be brought into the field and nothing would go unheard.
As an Irish man working in radio, it was amazing to think that money from Irish donors, invested in something as simple as transistor radios could make such a huge difference in peoples' lives in Mozambique 10,000km away.
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