Global Poverty Monitor

What sort of things did you help out with over there? (specific examples please)

While we were in Maputo we played the part of tourists. We stayed in a nice hotel and did a lot of shopping and sightseeing. We went to some historically significant places in Maputo, and also drove through some slum areas, but we were not permitted to interact with local people as World Vision Ambassadors. It was very different in Tete, however. While we were there we stayed in traditional African huts, and wore World Vision shirts whenever we were out. We ate with the local people, danced with the kids, and slept with the bugs :-). I found that part of the study tour much more rewarding, and it felt great to interact with local people on a personal level after a few days of being a tourist. Even still, we didn’t do a lot to help out as such. We were treated like royalty wherever we went, which was nice in some ways but also made me feel quite uncomfortable. These are the people we are there to help, yet we sit in the chairs while they sit on the dusty floor, and we visit their homes and eat one of their goats that they have just killed, and bananas off their own trees. In honesty, we did a lot of looking and not a lot of helping, which was not what I had expected. I had to change my thinking while I was away, and use the trip as a ‘fact finding mission’, to work out for myself where the help really is needed.