Stay tuned for more

Almost two years after the last posting it is time to pick up our blog again. 

So stay tuned for more...

As our sabbatical year comes to an end… Amsterdam, here we come!

Rein checking in -

"Well, the end of our journey, as far as our sabbatical is concerned, is here.

Next week Thursday I start my new job with Hay Group in Zeist, as part of the Dutch team that focuses on Executive Development and for a quarter of my time on the European team that looks after capability development within Hay Group. I am really excited about this new opportunity and look forward to start building on my sabbatical experience to continue to put my professional expertise and experience to use in a meaningful way to have a positive impact on the communities/organisations I form part of or interact with.

Areal view of our new neighbourhood 

Between now and Thursday, we will move into our new apartment in Amsterdam, which is a lovely two storey place, with lots of light, two bedrooms/bathrooms and a nice roof terrace, in the "Rivierenbuurt", a 1930'ies typical Amsterdam residential area, with lots of young couples, expats and the few original Amsterdammers thrown in for good measure. It's a lively quarter with lots of cafes, restaurants and specialty shops, so we're both sure we'll feel right at home here very soon.


[Interlude: I just got called away by Simon to help him order a new washer and dryer… We are definitely on our way to the domestic bliss we have so been longing for, for such a while ;-) ]


All in all the past few months have been an emotionally tumultuous roller-coaster, yet again, not knowing whether my work would be in Delhi, Mumbai, Brussels or Zeist.

Dining out in Gurgaon-city (" mall-heaven") with our good friends Tash & Colin

Our preferred mode of transport Gurgaon,
in this one there is room for three more passengers...

In October we had our reconnaissance trip to Mumbai and Delhi, where we were warmly and enthusiastically received by the Hay colleagues there. We got to discover a new city in Mumbai and had a wonderful time in Delhi, staying with our dear friends Tash & Colin in their serviced flat, having just moved there from Melbourne. Good times, doing some sight-seeing in old Delhi and catching up over lovely food together. On the professional side of this trip we had a chance to discover the business and work to inform us in our decision-making regarding a potential transfer. We left with a job offer for both Simon and myself, which alleviated the anxiety of having to find a solution for Simon's visa.


After we came back we had some time to think through all the pro's and con's and couldn't honestly say that we were all for a move to settle in Mumbai. While the offer was tempting, we both longed to be coming home after our year and Europe felt like just that. To cut a long story short, it then took another 4 weeks to finalise where I would be best placed in terms of location, either Brussels or Zeist, and obviously this prevented us from starting our search for a new home, until a decision was made. 


The decision to join Hay Group Zeist per the first of December was finally made less then two weeks ago and then the pressure was on to find suitable place to live. So these last two weeks Simon and I have been frantically contacting agents, reaching out in our network to get the word out and, in true twenty-teens' style the winning tip came to us through Facebook. A friend of my brother had spotted a Facebook posting through one of his friends that said that the writer was now putting their apartment, which had been for sale for a while, up for rent and if anybody knew of anybody who could interested.

Our new address: our apartment is on the top two
floors in the  corner of the building
(behind the left tree) 

After some discouraging house hunting visits into Amsterdam, Simon and I were just closing in on a potential place to rent in the provincial town of Gouda (yes, the one where the cheese comes from), but we decided to go for one more look to see this particular place. The following day we drove up to Amsterdam once again to meet Carlijn, one of the landlords and view the Molenbeekstraat 14 III. While I felt some reservations about the place (in my true style, I noticed all the things that weren't ideal and did not see the potential, which is more Simon's speciality) but Simon took an instant liking to the house. Before long, the Gouda apartment was no longer on his mind and all he could think of was the "Rivierenbuurt".


So the discussions on rent and conditions started, hurdles were overcome (what to do with the company car and no parking availability, how can we fit 42 cubic meter of furniture into an apartment, albeit spacious for Amsterdam standards but a third smaller than our Brussels place), final agreement reached and removalists booked for the move this coming Thursday.


Our time of waiting at my parents' place in the Antwerp forests (a huge thank you to mama and papa for their support and above all, their patience!) is almost over as Simon and I are finally "coming out of the woods" to start a new chapter of life!


The coming days will require focus and stamina to effectively organise an international move and all its associated bureaucracy (registrations, applications, convocations ;-) but we can rest assured that we now have our structural necessities sorted in a home and a steady income to settle down after a hectic and turbulent year and continue our lives' journey from a new base.


We look forward to seeing all of you, who have been so supporting to us by reading this blog and leaving your comments, again very soon and know that you will have a place to come and stay with us in our new home.


That's all for now. I'm sure this blog will continue to grow as we do, and I look forward to discover how our lives' story continues!


… to be continued"


- Rein checking out

And the journey continues...

Rein checking in -

"We are back in India! We are loving the familiarity of it all, even though the experience is vastly different  this time around. For starters, we're staying in a beautiful 5 star hotel in one of the most exciting cities in the world.

But the smells, the colours and the crowds are all there. As is the "Indian way", i.e. nothing goes as you had planned it...

As some of you know, we are in India this time to decide whether we could work and move here. There's an opportunity for me to join the Hay Group practice in India and this trip serves to meet my future colleagues and get a sense of how we would live in either Mumbai or Delhi. We arrived in Mumbai last Friday evening and have spent the weekend exploring this vast city. So far we've had a truly Mumbaiker experience, including a city tour, several Bollywood film shoots, lunch at the Cafe Leopold, a car accident and a mugging attempt, which saw me lying face down on the pavement, but thankfully nothing robbed due to my yelling out for help and undercover police being nearby. This city is INTENSE. But given the right accommodation and work conditions we can actually see ourselves living here!

And that's where the issue lies at the moment. We have been taken around yesterday for some apartment viewing and the rental cost here is astronomical. All we could get for our current budget was some crummy flats of roughly 80 m2 with old and dirty bathrooms. This afternoon we'll be shown what's available on the market for double our budget amount just to get an idea. Hopefully it'll be more in style of our Indian dream...

Tomorrow morning we're off to Delhi. We'll be staying with our good friends Tash & Colin and be doing the same thing regarding my getting to know the colleagues and viewing potential living accommodation.

In any case we'll have a lot to reflect on again after we return to Belgium on Monday. Watch this space for an update!"

- Rein checking out

Leaving Mozambique...

Rein checking in -

"I can't believe it's taken me two whole weeks to finally complete my last entry. So here it is, picking up directly from where I'd left off two weeks ago; recounting our trip to the Inhambane peninsula where we found ourselves wanting to get out of Barra lodge after spending three wonderful days at Tofo.

I continue the story:

We got our shuttle back from Barra to Tofo directly after breakfast and made a beeline back to the Casa, only to hear upon arrival that all rooms were occupied for that night. Our hearts sank to our stomachs of disappointment with the prospects of being left with no option but to return home after all. But, Aurella, whom had just shot back to the casa to get something from her room, suggested we come with her to our friends at the diving school (where Adam was doing his open-water exams) as she thought they would surely be able to help us find a room for the night. So we all lugged our luggage over to the school where indeed Nicola, the master diver on our discovery dive earlier that week, came up with several options through her network, offering the centre’s phone for us to ring around.

We settled on Turtle Cove, a wellness centre located in Tofinho, on the cliffs “next door” to Tofo beach. We rang them up to book a cabin and arrange a pick-up and settled in on the roof terrace of the diving school to wait for the driver to arrive. We chatted with some of the staff and almost felt at home, with so many familiar faces around in otherwise foreign place. Before long an old, rusty truck stopped in front of the building and I called Simon over. He took one look at the mangy vehicle and instantly dismissed it as one of the locals stopping by, but sure enough when I yelled out “Turtle Cove?” the driver looked up at us and nodded his head with a big toothless grin…

We made our way downstairs, threw our luggage onto the truck and squeezed onto the passenger seat next to driver in the front cabin. I could see the sunbeams coming through the rust holes in the roof and instantly tried not to think of the car’s safety record, as the driver tried to get the truck started. It took him several manipulations under the car’s hood to get the engine going and finally we were on our way out of town and on to the surrounding dunes towards Tofinho.

I was relieved we made it to Turtle Cove without any further incidents and pleasantly surprised with the set-up of the place. The wellness centre consisted of a main building in arabesque style with lots of loungy areas and a restaurant, giving onto a lush garden with pool, a yoga hall and fringed by individual cottages, each with a bed- and bathroom.

While checking in we ran into Alex, the centre’s yoga and wellness instructor, and her friend and business partner, Sam, who gives massages and healings at the centre. We had met Alex a few days before at the dive centre in Tofo, where she was taking a plunge with Aurella while Simon, Adam and I were doing our refresher/discovery dive. The four of us started chatting and before we knew it we had settled in one of the sofa’s over coffees, chatting away the afternoon. We told them about our project with TechnoServe and our concerns with it all and agreed to meet again the following morning over breakfast to hear about all the plans and good things that Sam and some other locals were undertaking to improve the life of the local people.

That evening we headed back into Tofo town for dinner and a party! We were invited to a joint birthday and farewell party for one of the resident South African restauranteurs. We arrived at the restaurant at seven o’clock and instantly ran into all the nice people we had met in Tofo over the past 4 days. Jenny and Gill from the Chilli Deli were there as the whole crew of Diversity Dive Centre and Alex and Sam. It was a strange experience to be at a party where we seemed to know pretty much everybody or were introduced to them by our new friends, after only four days. We realised just what a small close-knit community Tofo really is and were happily chatting away with our new acquaintances when Aurella and Adam arrived to meet us there as agreed. They join in in the fun and we all had the most wonderful night!

The following morning we met Sam for breakfast. In spite of the nice evening before, or maybe exactly because of it, Simon and I had both woken up feeling a bit down about our prospect of having to return to Maxixe that day after such a wonderful stay on the peninsula and we were seriously questioning the reasonability of us staying in Mozambique when we could be restarting our lives given the invitation I had received from Hay Group in India. We had a long discussion with Sam about it all and made up our mind that it was time to go.

When we came back to Maxixe, that evening, we wrote an email to the country director and got an almost immediate response from him saying he understood (and that it may not even have been such a good idea to start the project in the first place… :-s )

Driving into Maxixe on National Highway One

Our street in Maxixe

Our building with our apartment on the top floor

We then spent the following two full days locked up in our apartment compiling our final report and prepare for our final project review meeting in Maputo. We of course also tried to secure our flights back, but as this required working through TechnoServe’s Washington based travel agent, this wasn't easy; particularly with Monday being a holiday in the US and Wednesday a holiday in Mozambique. And on top of that, the colleagues in Maputo couldn't find a hotel room for us there either, due to the African games...

Our "neighbours"

Some local kids playing in our street

So on Wednesday we packed all our bags in Maxixe and drove down to Maputo, with a hotel room for only two nights and no return tickets to Europe yet. So you can imagine Simon and I were a bit nervous. But then I kept thinking about what Sam had said at Turtle Cove, about when you really wish for something you can make it happen.

The town market in Maxixe

The project meeting with the full TechnoServe team in Maputo went really well. They were pleased with how far Simon and I had come on the “Marketing Inhambane” project and the ensuing discussion resulted in a new strategy to move forward on the initiative. We felt happy with how our engagement with TechnoServe came to an end, feeling we had delivered a worthy outcome.

That last day in the office ended frantically with us not knowing until just before closing time whether we’d be on our way the following day or not, but finally leaving the office with a confirmed booking in hand for a flight out the following morning. In the end, we couldn't change our existing ticket with South African Airlines and had to get a cheap new ticket with Egypt Air (ugh) with a 10-hour stopover at Jo'burg airport (double ugh) and another one the following morning from 5 am to 10 am at Cairo Airport. BUT, we would be back home by Saturday afternoon (YEAH!).

And the rest is history. We had a long, exhausting but otherwise uneventful journey back to Brussels.

In the meantime we have caught up with some friends back in Belgium, spent a week at my parents’ place in the South of France and have made arrangements to have “meet and greet” interviews with my colleagues of Hay Group India in two weeks’ time.

If all goes according to plan I will resume work by mid-November and we will be living in India.

Stay tuned….”

- Rein checking out

Inhambane - Tofo, a corner of paradise in Moçambique

Rein checking in –

“I am sitting in the SA Airways Club Lounge at Maputo Int’l Airport as I write this belated blog post. We’re on our way out of Moçambique to Johannesburg and for the second time on our sabbatical journey we have been upgraded to Business Class. We must have been collecting a lot of good karma this year to be pampered like this each time we travel J!

A lot has happened since the last time we wrote on our blog.

After spending our first couple of days in our new home in Maxixe, we ventured out across the bay to discover the beautiful town of Inhambane. Getting there is an African adventure in itself. We decided to not wait for the big ferry, which runs every hour, but instead to hitch a ride on one of the private little boats that run across the bay and back as soon as they fill up. As we walked to the end of the peer we saw the boat waiting there was filled to the brim with passengers and life stock, so we thought we’d have to wait for the following boat to arrive and fill up. But no, to the captain the boat wasn’t full at all and we were piled on top of the other travellers to set off across the bay to Inhambane.

The cathedral

Inhambane is a beautiful little town, provincial capital in fact and appears to be frozen in time in the 50’ies. It is only a 20 min ferry ride from Maxixe, but a world apart. Where Maxixe is the region’s business hub on National Highway 1, Inhambane is a laid back, charming place, filled with historical buildings in various stages of disrepair. We visited the markets, had lunch in a beautiful art deco restaurant and just wandered around town before heading back home across the bay at the end of the day, where reality hit us again.

The town markets

Communist souvenirs: Karl Marx street

Inhambane's colourful architecture

Restaurant Verdelho in a stunning Art Deco building

We really weren’t feeling at ease with our bare apartment above the office in Maxixe. Of course for local standards, the apartment was outright luxurious with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a view across the bay. But without hot water and only the barest of furniture we couldn’t see how to turn it into a cosy home for ourselves. We had just arrived a few days before, but felt deserted and left to our own devices in an alien place, where we didn’t speak the language and people couldn’t really understand us. On top of that, our colleagues at the TNS office, were off for the whole week after the weekend so we would be on our own without really knowing what we were supposed to be doing on our project here.

We resolved to have a discussion with them before they would leave for the week. So the next morning, at 8 am we set down to have a heart-to-heart about the situation and our frustration with not having any clarity on our project. The outcome of this meeting was that Simon and I were to go and explore the region as if we were tourists. To try out the beach resorts, the villages and to basically be tourist in this holiday paradise for a week to get to know the “product” we were supposed to develop a marketing strategy for. Obviously, we jumped at the opportunity to go on a holiday, trading in our depressing apartment in Maxixe for a beach hut in Tofo!

After this discussion our colleagues set off for their trip up north for the week and Simon and I went to the local coffee shop to plan our week. As we were sitting at the cafe, starved for some (western) people to chat with in English, Simon struck up a conversation with a couple of tourists sitting at the other table.

Our lovely new friends: Adam & Aurella, just married!

And so we met Aurella and Adam, honeymooners from London. They had spent a week on a beautiful five star resort further up on the north on the coast and were now planning to "rough" it backpacking down the coast of Moçambique. They had just been dropped off at Maxixe to get the ferry across to Inhambane and onwards to Tofo.

We told them that they must stop at Inhambane town and gave them tips on where to get the best coffee, lunch and well, why not stay the night in this lovely B&B we spotted there. In fact Simon and I had been walking around Inhambane town the day before to see if we could find somewhere for us to stay as an alternative to our bland apartment in Maxixe. We said goodbye with the vague intention to maybe catch up again some time at Tofo when we’d get there later in the week. We walked home after that and Simon prepared our first meal in the flat; no mean feat if you have a kitchen with a stove and a fridge, a pot, two knives and no bench or table top to prepare things on. Of course Simon’s wasn’t deterred by any of this and rustled up a delicious salad and bread meal.

The following day we asked the office driver to take us around the Inhambane peninsula to check out the famous beaches that everybody had been talking about. We drove around the bay, through Inhambane town and onwards to the tip of the peninsula through some stunning scenery to arrive at a wonderful little beach side village centred around a small local fruit and vegetable market. We had arrived at Tofo and instantly loved it.

We stopped there for lunch on the town square with a view of a stunning white beach and an azure blue ocean. This was bliss, as we dug into our local fish curries. After lunch we wondered around town and walked onto the beach and found a pretty little white cottage at the far end of the town beach, overlooking the bay. This was Casa Azul, and turned out to be the loveliest little B&B you could imagine. A white little beach cottage with four tiny rooms, each individually styled and decorated in a bright melange of sunny colours, a beautiful, shady terrace in front, decked out with cosy sitting areas, for the guests to enjoy sunset drinks. The place was so warm and light, we instantly felt at home. We spoke with the housekeeper and booked a room for us to spent a few nights on the beach, the following day.

The cliffs of Tofinho, just around the corner of Tofo are a great place for whale spotting

Much lighter of heart than we had been feeling since days, we returned homewards to Maxixe with the knowledge of having a sunny stay at Casa Azul ahead of us. As we drove through Inhambane on the way home we spotted Aurella and Adam walking on the streets and indicated the driver to stop. We hopped out to say hello, feeling good about running into fresh acquaintances in our new hometown, and smiled as they told us they had followed our advice, booked into our recommended B&B in town and had spent the day checking out all the sites we had recommended. They said they’d make their way over to Tofo the following day so we told them about our recent “trouvaille”, the Casa Azul.  They said they’d check it out and we all agreed in any case to meet up for drinks the following evening at a Tofo bar, mentioned in the guide book.

That evening we came home with a renewed sense of excitement with the recent turn of events and the prospect of a mini holiday at the beach and a nice evening with our new friends.

The following morning we made our way to Tofo where, upon arrival at the Casa we were told by Laura, the owner that “our friends” had already checked in. We deduced from this that Aurella and Adam had found the place, liked it and taken a room. And sure enough, a little while later they strolled up from the beach and we all settled in for drinks on the terrace.

Tofo Beach

Our B&B, Casa Azul

The view from Casa Azul

The terrace with Laura, the B&B owner

The next three days were just pure bliss and relaxation. I would wake up early morning as the sun shine streamed in through the window, jump out of bed and onto the beach for a refreshing dive into the ocean. After my swim, breakfast of fresh fruit salad, Italian coffee and omelettes was served on the terrace. By mid-morning we’d be lounging out on the hammocks to read a book, or go for a stroll along the quiet beach, followed by lunch of fresh seafood. Then back to the hammock for some more reading and by sunset, drinks on the terrace and dinner somewhere in town with the four of us.

Our beduin tent like room 

Preparation for the reef dive in the afternoon,
skills practice in the pool

One day we dedicated fully to Simon’s maiden dive (plus a refresher course for me). Practice in the pool in the morning and then out with the boat to the reefs in the afternoon. We were under for over an hour, which is pretty impressive for anyone, but even more so for a first-time diver like Simon. He loved it and I was delighted to be back down. We saw an incredible variety of fish, including clown fish, moraines, trumpet fish, etc. and we could hear the calls of the whales swimming by in the distance. I think it got Simon hooked so now we’ll need to get him to complete his open water accreditation so that we will be able to make deeper dives together in future as well.

In short, we had an incredible time in Tofo and before we knew it, it was time to move on to our next destination on our tourist reconnaissance trip. This was a resort just around the northern tip of the peninsula, known for its deserted beaches and quiet solitude. To be honest, we were so happy staying at the Casa in Tofo that we really had no desire to move on at all. But “duty” called and so we organised a shuttle service to Barra Lodge on the Friday.

The charming visitors at Barra...

It felt like a completely different world there. The lodge was a huge complex of cabins, restaurants, beach club, swimming pool and a big new development of apartments blocking the ocean view of all the rest. We checked into our cabana and decided to check out the beach club for lunch. The beach itself was beautiful, wide and continuing south as far as the eye could reach. But the club was run over by Afrikaners lunching on whole chickens and buckets of fries, washing it all down with litres of beer. The atmosphere was a far cry from the quirkiness and local fun of Tofo.

After lunch we went for a long walk along the beach and were shocked to see all the development going on along the shore. We could only imagine the hordes of tourists from South Africa that would flock the beach during the holiday season and we felt sad to have left our little piece of heaven behind in Tofo.

We stayed the night at Barra because we really had nowhere else to go, but the next morning after breakfast asked for a shuttle straight back to Tofo in the hope we could spend one more night at the Casa, before having to go back to Maxixe.

(to be continued)

Our first week in Moçambique

Rein checking in –

“It’s been exactly a week since we arrived in our new home country, Moçambique. During that time we have been through a lot.

To be honest, it isn’t easy to arrive in a completely new destination, to make it your home, for the third time in one year. We are getting a bit jaded with the discovery of new destinations, the challenge of creating a home base out of whatever you can bring in two big back packs and the struggle that comes with finding your way around unchartered territory.

And just when we felt that we were getting there in Maputo, we had to repack our bags again yesterday morning to head out to, what we hope is our final destination: Maxixe in Inhambane province; where we arrived last night after a long, long drive up north.

But let me start at the beginning.

Maputo City Hall

Simon already wrote about our first impressions of Maputo. Truth be told, we were a bit shell shocked by all the advance warning we had received about how dangerous Maputo could be. We were acting like two scared rabbits that have been frightened to death and barely dare to leave their cage. Once we did manage to venture out and do a bit of exploring we soon learned the city isn’t all as bad as the misfortune predictors had it made out to be. While remaining vigilant we started to enjoy the city for what it is; a multi-faceted capital of a country with a dramatic history undergoing rapid change. 

The Municipal Markets

The fish section

The city is scattered with buildings in various states of glory, or despair, from several by-gone areas: The imposing colonial buildings from the Portuguese oppression era, the colourful Art-Deco buildings from a period of hope and optimism, the depressive monstrosities of the communist episode and finally the glitz and glamour from the recent economic boom. And then of course there are the Moçambicans; ever smiling, always in a good mood and in for a good time.

Remnant from soviet times

A striking Art Deco building in the city centre

Costa do Sol restaurant,
a Maputo institution since the 1930'ies

The "Villa Algarve", former HQ of the Portuguese secret police

Thus we had a good first weekend, in which we explored and discovered and met new people.

Drinks with Becca and Sam

Then on Monday came the start of our first real working week in a very long time. The office of TechnoServe is located in Maputo’s central business district in an office building that could really be anywhere in the world. We started the day off very civilised, meeting with some colleagues over a cappuccino on the plaza of the office block, surrounded by people in business attire and it really felt like being back at work in Brussels, Melbourne or New York…

Those first days were filled with meetings with several people within the organisation to get our head around what it is exactly that we are expected to be doing for the next two-and-a-half months. Now we are 5 days ahead, have an equal number of meetings under our belt and things aren’t getting much clearer… It’s becoming very déjà-vu from our Indian volunteering experience.

In the meantime we travelled from Maputo to Maxixe by car, which was an adventure in itself. The ‘ute’-van was packed to the brim with our luggage in the back and 5 travellers in front, with my being lucky to get the front passenger seat, as Simon sacrificed himself for what turned out to be a 7 hour trip, to be squeezed into the middle seat – which, without any leg room, strictly speaking wasn’t even a seat – between the two sisters Madeira, who were hitching the ride with us.

After waiting for an hour to be picked up from our hotel, the moment we set off, the driver and the sisters entered into a heated discussion in Portuguese with a crescendo that we are starting to associate with the passionate locals here. Simon and I just settled in for what we knew was going to be a long and animated drive. Once we left the city the food containers came out and the sisters started preparing sandwiches from the back seat and passing them around to all of us. Soon we were contently munching on delicious home cooked Mozambican food while enjoying the passing scenery.

Street vendors catering to the travelling public everywhere

While the driver was speeding at 140 k/h (!), we passed through lovely country villages, with a striking mix of traditional African huts and Portuguese colonial architecture from the 30’ies through the 50’ies, in faded pastels.  Along the road we saw thousands of uniformed school kids marching back home and at intersections of the road, colourful clusters of women trading local produce, such as cashews and tangerines. The moment the driver would pull the car over for a short brake locals selling food, drinks and trinkets surrounded us.

A colourful mural on-the-road

A roadside bar along the way

A colourful village where we stopped so the Madeira sisters could stock up

The moment it became known they were in the market for goods,
they were surrounded by vendors!

By the fall of evening we arrived in Maxixe at the TechnoServe office, cum guesthouse. The guidebook had warned us that there is not much reason to stop in Maxixe, other than to fuel up on the way further north. After our first day here, we are afraid the guidebook might be right. Maxixe is a provincial town along National Highway One, with one restaurant and two shops… The guesthouse is located two streets back opposite the local school. It is in fact a three-bedroom apartment located above the office. While it is very spacious, with its three bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen and living area, it is also very bare and scarcely decorated and a far cry from our comfy little hotel room in Maputo. It will take a lot of creativity and imagination to turn this place into a “home” for us for the time to come. It is at times like these that I irrationally despair if we will ever be able to rebuild the home we so carelessly gave up last December.

Tomorrow one of our local colleagues will take us across the bay to Inhambane town, the capital of the province. According to the guidebook, this is one of Mozambique’s prettiest coastal towns, so we hope it can serve as a place of respite for us to soak up on some atmosphere and colour as an antidote to the grey drabness that is Maxixe… After all it is only a short ferry ride away and an important part of the reason we are here in the first place: to help promote the region as a tourist destination of choice. Let’s hope that Inhambane provides some good “material” for us to work with…”

- Rein checking out.

Mozambique - Maputo

Simon signing in:

Well, Rein and I finally got our wish to be on our way after waiting patiently with my parents in Perth.

With our contracts arriving and flights being scheduled, here we were heading to Mozambique.

The lead up in the past few days was not too frantic, as we had slowly gotten ourselves ready for the trip. Items we needed were purchased and good-byes to family and friends were said.

One thing that caught our attention during our preparation was in the Lonely Planet guidebook. In several places it mentions the dangers to be aware of and things we should NOT do (such as to not wearing flashy items, like a watches, jewelry or cameras. Surely these are things we wear every day and can’t be considered flashy, especially a camera, we are tourists after all.). This started to plant some small concerns in my mind.

TechnoServe (TNS) also provided us with our membership number for International SOS. They are an international emergency organisation that can help if the need arises. As per TNS policy, we were required to call ISOS for a security briefing on Mozambique before we leave.

It is funny really. Rein and I have travelled quite relaxed to some great places (Moscow, Marrakech, India, Perth Trains and New York); places that can be seen to some as dangerous, and we just enjoy the fact we are travelling. Nothing appears to faze us, except maybe bad service in a local restaurant!

But these early warnings were starting to get us shit scared. Perhaps me more than Rein, but I wasn’t helping the situation with my constant concerns.

The brief given by ISOS was always going to be the ‘worst case scenario’, but listening to it I felt more and more uneasy about where we were about to head. My mind was telling me, ‘this place is going to be the most dangerous place I have ever been!’

ISOS repeated the messages in the guide and also suggested the concept of a ‘decoy’ wallet, in case we get mugged. They used the mugger term so loosely as to suggest that they show up like a local banana vendor! And then the local police, we were told not think they will be much help, they too want something from you and well, who are you going to scream for when they are in front of you, no one! To appease the local police, we have been instructed to take copies of our passport and have them certified. This is to show to the police when they stop us, which apparently will also happen often. I guess they and the muggers are sharing a schedule for tourist attacks??

And to top of the above for me, I speak NO PORTUGUESE. El problemo por meo! (I do not state that what I have written is Portuguese, but this represents the best that comes out of my mouth when I try to communicate with someone here).

So, with our decoy wallets in hand, filled with my mother’s loyalty cards to help with the act, and all the well-meant advice from the experts, we felt as prepared as we could be. We had a final "thank you" lunch with mum and dad and then we were on our way.

We boarded our South African Airlines flight to Johannesburg, a flight of 11 hours. I never realized it was so long! We of course did not do our homework, on this as the seats we had were in the back of the plane, and well, next time you’re in a plane, see for yourself. The plane narrows near the back, as do the seats!

This flight produced the worst night’s sleep I had had in a long time. Rein on the other hand managed to sneak into Business Class (where over 30 sleeper beds lay empty) and got in a couple hours sleep before being woken by the staff and kicked back into cattle class!

Arriving into Johannesburg, we found a place to rest for our next scheduled flight to Maputo, a wait of 5 hours. Johannesburg Airport must have been the COLDEST airport I have EVER been in. True, it was 1° on arrival into Johannesburg, but the airport must not have insulation! It was crazy!

Our flight to Maputo had finally arrived and we boarded for the last leg to our new home for a couple of months. Mozambique.

Locals relaxing in the morning sun 

Arriving into Maputo, you could instantly see that this country was a poorer cousin of South Africa, yet with a brand spanking new airport terminal! This we have been told was for the Rugby World Cup a year or two ago, when Mozambique was hoping to score some spillover from South Africa. It will of course also be beneficial with dealing with visitors for the upcoming 10^thAfrican Games being held here in two weeks’ time.

Maputo Train Station.
Said to be one of the world's
most beautiful. Designed by Gustav
Eiffel (yes, the same Eiffel) though he
never set foot in the country!

Arriving into Mozambique, everyone must complete visa formalities before entering into the country. This was not new to us, and the rush of everyone trying to have it done and working out where to take which form too was not new (Marrakech memories). The thing which made my heart sink though, was that they wanted CASH for the visa and they only excepted Mozambican Meticais, EURO, USD or South African Rand. None of which we had! My head shot around this barren building to see no cash machine. We were in trouble. My heart pounded so much I thought I would collapse on the ground. I also felt this was a sign of things to come.

We approached the counter and handed over our passports and visa forms. He then proceeded to ask for the cash. ‘We have VISA card’ (big smiles on faces, stomach in typhoon motions). ‘No, cash only!’, he demanded. ‘We do not have cash’, we kindly responded. He then pointed in the direction of the exit. ‘Machine’. He wanted us to enter the country, get money, than re-enter the customs area? This was new. Rein and I walked quickly to get the cash just outside. The first worry I was having at the time was that they had our passports! I should have waited with the passport whilst Rein got cash! First mistake! We were done for! Then I panicked that now we were both outside the customs area, they would not let us back in! No passports, no luggage! (I need a toilet) Then, the machine won’t give us any money! NOOOO!

Incredibly, we found a machine that produced enough cash and we ran back towards those customs exit doors like we were running out of oxygen. Naturally they won’t open as they are only made to go one direction. Finally someone wandered out allowing us to re-enter. Passports found, paid and visa photos taken, we could collect our luggage, the last two remaining bags on the belt. I made a quick dash for the exit and left our troubles behind. Rein, on the other hand, got stopped and told to do something. NOOOO! Not now. He had been asked to pass the bags through the x-ray machine before leaving the building. ‘What, I just exited and no one stopped me!’ I did not want to leave Rein alone so I went back into the hall of hell voluntarily. I followed suit and put my bags through the scanner. Now, a second time we both made the exit into Mozambique.

We were greeted by a driver of TechnoServe and were glad to meet our first member of TNS. He drove us to our hotel where we will be staying for the next few days.

Rein in front of the Hotel Terminus, our hotel in Maputo

Both Rein and I were offered separate rooms. We kindly asked for one room. “You want twin?”, the lady at reception asked. ‘No, a double please’, we smiled. ‘Okay’, she responded. Okay, I thought, that was not too bad. (NOTE: you have to remember that being gay is a crime in Mozambique, for which we could be arrested, though reading on this before we left, they state no one has been arrested in a long time. ‘In a long time’ could soon be changed…eeek).

Shown to our room I instantly start to process my concerns over our safety here. The hour is only 11am and it is best that we get out and about in the sun after so many flights, which will aid in our jetlag. I cannot go anywhere.  I lie on the bed for 20 minutes and decide for myself that I have to accept where I am. It cannot be that bad! We leave the hotel with our tiny map provided by the hotel, as I am paranoid about taking the guide, as to not show that we are ‘new to town’. I also leave my wallet and camera behind and strap on a money belt. Here we go.

We decide to walk to the Botanical Garden, a walk around 3km away and work out the most direct route so we can remember the path without taking out the map. Exiting the hotel, I demand we take the busiest side of the street so as to not be on ‘isolated’ terrain as ISOS recommended. I trust no one walking the streets and only see the people who want to mug me. I am going insane on the street and cannot stop grinding my teeth. The walk went well and we started to head back to the hotel.

All in all, I started to realize that I just cannot let such concerns scare me. Yes, this place can be dangerous, but so can many other places. It is just about being vigilant and smart about where and when you walk down streets and how you carry yourself in public. Stick to busy places and only be out on the streets during the day.

This first day in Maputo ends for us with dinner at a local Thai restaurant and bed at 6pm where we are now ready to crash and get up for our first day working with TechnoServe.

Simon signing out for now. Back soon for the second leg of our Maputo stay!

PS; I later learnt that the Thai restaurant we ate at on our first night was held up only a week earlier. They burst in with a few men carrying machine guns. Now who is overacting!?