Day 4 – Motel Bispo 1 & 2 (Manga, Beira, Moçambique)

The time here is starting to fly by. It seems like I was just sitting down here to blog yesterday. Today was not nearly as eventful as yesterday, but nonetheless very educational and enjoyable. We are continuing to go to more villages to learn more about the different areas where CFL works, as well as doing some kind of vocational training for the kids at each stop. I am loving it and it makes me super excited to get started with my health work next week. Our stops today were at two villages in the Motel Bispo  Zone. In the morning we spent quite a bit of time teaching the youth how to make brick molds to be used to construct latrines (or anything else made out of bricks. Research has shown that the use of a latrine is one of the biggest indicators for health in a third world setting. Who would have known? After doing this training with the kids, we split off with some of the field officers and headed house to house to meet some of the households that are working with CFL right now and more specifically to learn more about their working model here in Mozambique.

A very brief overview: CFL identifies villages based primarily on need and potential for impact. Once a village is identified, CFL enters and meets with each family to establish a list of 10 goals in 5 specific areas: health, education, income generation, agriculture, and child development. Once goals are set, incentives are also established to be received if the goals are met over a 6 month period. Some examples of goals include: drinking only treated water, sleeping under a mosquito net, starting a small business, planting a garden which can sustain the family alimentary needs, variety in food consumption, etc. Incentives, at first, always work toward the construction of a permanent, cement latrine (for the reason mentioned above,; see the picture below), and they are always based on helping the families achieve their loner-term goals. Once goals and incentives have been set, a field worker stops by every other week to check on the progress toward their goals. If goals are being met each week over the six month period, the family receives the incentive. A similar system is also established at the village level.

Before I came I read a book on the history of postcolonial Lusophone Africa that explained that one of Mozambique’s biggest hindrances to its development is its dependence on foreign aid and NGOs. This troubled me because I was about to spend a month of my life working for one of these NGOs on the basis of helping people, not hindering the development of the country. When I got here, I started looking for answers and speaking to the directors, both local and from the U.S., to see why CFL was different, why it was making a difference. I was once again comforted as I started to find answers that made sense to me. CFL is different because it’s focus is not just on “helping” (as is the case with every other NGO out there), but rather in promoting self-reliance and sustainability. CFL does this by requiring the people to work! It’s interesting to see that initially this is often met with quite a bit of resistance from the village people (no, not the band :) ) because they are so used to being given things without having to do anything to earn them. What’s even more interesting though is that after having been in a village for 32 months (the normal length of stay), a complete behavioral transformation occurs. When asked recently if given the option would he go back to their old way of living once CFL stopped working in the village, he answered, “Why would we ever go back?” It’s even more encouraging to see that not only do the people change while CFL is working in the village, but in follow-up research conducted in years after CFL had left the village, more people were doing the things implemented in the villages then when CFL had left. Pretty cool, huh? It’s so interesting to me that truly “helping” is often so different than what we initially assume.

Want to know something cool? As we were driving in the middle of NOWHERE, we saw this:

Cool (or scary???) to know that Justin Bieber has such a strong influence EVERYWHERE :)

Tonight we had the treat of having dinner Solomão’s, the local CFL director’s, house. Such a nice and humble family. One the way home, I spent a long time chatting with Tom and Christina, the president and program director for Esperança, one of CFLs sister organizations. Esperança has several programs worldwide focused almost entirely on health. Tom and Christina have the privilege of getting to travel to each of their program sites 1-2 times a year to evaluate the progress and impact. Pretty cool job, huh? Anyway, we talked for a long time about how each country, village, and individual has different attitudes toward health, different ways of expressing their needs and concerns. Consequently, it requires us to get to know them on that level to have any hope of truly helping them. Local solutions for local problems. I am so excited to be a part of a profession that requires me to get to know each person on such a level.

Sorry, I didn’t realize how long this is getting. I hope I haven’t put you to sleep! Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all! Thanks for reading.

Pics from today:

One family's goal was to establish a small business. Guess what their small business is? Making moonshine :)

The finished product.

The startings of a new latrine. 

This garden has helped this family to be 100% self-reliant for food. Pretty impressive.