Global Poverty Monitor

When it came time to board the plane to Maputo, it was also time to say goodbye to Alex. I think he is really going to miss us, and its just so great that he has been chosen to come to Australia for the GLCs later this year (and even better that he’ll be doing the tour that includes Perth!). I think he’s such a great guy – an amazing mix of Western technology with a great desire to learn new things, and a traditional African man who knows about natural remedies and bush food, with such a sad story, including living in a refugee camp and losing family members to HIV/AIDS. It seems there isn’t anything that you can’t talk to Alex about – he either knows everything there is to know about the topic, or is eager to learn. I think that Alex represents the future of the children in the communities – the children we sponsor. He is a so-called ‘lucky one’, a Mozambican man who has a stable job, a home with electricity, and a place in a correspondence university course. But compared to the average Australia, he is living in poverty.

He is 37 years old, and still always wonders when his next meal will be. He eats everything that is put in front of him, even though his small body surely could not hold very much food, because he has been conditioned by his past experiences to know that when food is offered, take it because you don’t know how long it will be before you get another chance. With the current situation left alone, this is the most that an African child could hope to achieve in their lifetime. To an African child, Alex would be seen as a very successful man. but to Australians, he lives in poverty. It is up to us to chance this, so that starting from this generation of children, every child can have a greater future to look forward to. Alex is a fantastic role model for children, Mozambican and indeed Australian children, because he has come from extreme poverty in a refugee camp to be a very successful man. But what I think needs to change is the definition of a successful person.

The issue of reverse culture shock still worries me, especially since I have had such an amazing time on this trip. It would be a lot easier to return home to my normal life if I hadn’t enjoyed my time away and had been counting down the time to go, as I suspected I would. I remember before I left, someone asked me how I was feeling about going on the trip. This was during one of the days when I was worrying about it a lot, and I said that I wanted the experience of the trip but didn’t actually want to go on the trip itself. I likened it to when you go shopping to buy a fridge. I said that when you want a fridge, you don’t go out and go through the hassle of choosing it and paying for it and bringing it home and setting it up for those experiences alone – but that you go through all that simply because you want the fridge. In other words, at the time if I could have woken up the next day with all the knowledge and understanding that I expected to bring home with me after the trip, but without having to do the trip itself, I would have done it.

But now I realize just how wrong my thinking was. In a lot of ways, this trip itself has been more beneficial to me than the knowledge and understanding that I got from it. I have learnt how to travel internationally, how to live out of a suitcase, how to live in a world where everyone speaks a different language to you, how to handle foreign currency with confidence, and all while living with 7 complete strangers. I have learnt how to look after myself, how to be by myself without alienating myself from the group.

We stopped off quickly at the World Vision office, where we said goodbye to Graca and some of the other World Vision staff. If was a short drive to the airport, and we waited there for about an hour before catching our flight from Tete back to Maputo. Over the last few days I have really been looking forward to coming back to Maputo and returning to the Holiday Inn. The last 5 days have been so great, and I’ve really enjoyed where we were staying, even just so we could see what it looks like inside a traditional Mozambican hut. It also felt good to rough it a bit, especially while we were experiencing rural Mozambique. But I also think that it will be easier on us all to return home via the Holiday Inn Maputo, rather than adjusting straight from the Lodge to our homes back in Australia.

We then found some markets, but they were closing up because of the rain from earlier, and with not many people around, it was pretty dangerous so we left quickly. We went to a restaurant called the Esplanada, which was quite nice. I have noticed that Mozambican people put less emphasis on time, and meals usually take a long time to arrive. Mozambique restaurants are also keen to remove plates from the table as soon as you are finished, whether other people are finished or not.

After the meal we went back to our hotel, I waited for everyone else to finish in the bathroom before I had my shower. The toilet was pretty foul, and there was no toilet paper either. The bathroom wasn’t much better – there was water all over the floor, and no where to put clothes that wasn’t soaking wet. It was quite scary in the room – I could hear shouting in the streets and occasionally in the hotel itself. The bed was comfortable and there were no bugs or mosquito nets, which was nice.

Or… more specifically… have a goat sent, in your name, to a family in Myanmar.

I’m running a competition for the next two weeks to hopefully get some more traffic to my blog. It’s simple - whoever earns the most points will win the goat!

What does the winner get?
World Vision runs a Gift Catalogue, where specific one-off gifts can be bought for people living in poverty in various parts of the world. After the competition is over, I will pay for 1 goat for a family in Myanmar. The winner will receive (in the mail) a card with a photo and description of the gift, as well as the original receipt. The goat costs $48 (Australian) - which is roughly $US45.

How do you win the competition?
The winner will be the person with the most points after two weeks. There are two ways to get points: comments and links.

Comments
Every new, unique, on-topic comment on one of my blog entries, will score one point. It doesn’t matter who leaves the comment, just make sure that your email address is contained somewhere in the comment and you’ll get a point.

Links
Just leave a link to my blog somewhere, and you’ll get a point. This can include linking from your blog, another website, a directory, anything (obviously as long as the link doesn’t constitute spam!). Just send me an email to stac@india.com with a list of the links you have created to my blog, and that’s one point per link!

One more thing
This isn’t a raffle, but an actual contest. The winner will NOT be drawn randomly from all entries received, but it will be the person who actually earned the most points.

Just one last thing
I’ll post updates on my blog every couple of days to show the top contenders. The winner will be showcased in a blog entry in 2 weeks time - that’s lots of free advertising!!

Contact me
Please feel free to contact me (either through the blog or my email address - stac@india.com) with any questions or anything else. I hope you all decide to participate - just think what a goat will do for a family struggling to make ends meet.