Swanepoels Mozambique Experience
The trek up through South Africa and Zimbabwe to Mocuba has been very interesting and exciting. Seeing the changes in landscape, people and culture from South Africa to Zimbabwe and then Mozambique is truly something unique to experience. One night here, two nights there and then 3 nights at the Gorongosa National Park was all with the end objective in mind: Osivela Wa Jesu in Mocuba. This is where Bernadette Jansen has been living for the last 14 years. What started as a piece of land with a caravan is now a 5 bedroom house, a 4 class-room building, a dining hall, a clinic and a school for 100 orphans.
Our aim was to assist in some small way, and to once again see how others live in order to realize how privileged we are. Debbie got into the swing of things in a big way by doing ball skills classes every day while at the same time training the teachers how to do the classes in future.
Rachael participated in all the classes with the kids. Katelyn (with Debbie’s help) did various art sessions with the kids, cutting and pasting pictures. In the afternoons Debbie assisted the sewing team on site with skills and techniques making dresses and hand bags. Debbie had them sew me a pair of pajama trousers, which we then bought from the ladies.
Because the kids get fed every day, a lot of food needs to be brought onto site. That, together with the fact that there are no vehicles on site, meant that the X-Trail was the bakkie and taxi of choice for the period of our stay there. One day I went into town (they are 6km outside town) 4 times in order to pick up people and supplies. 14 x 25kg bags of rice as well as 120 tins of milk powder in addition to bags of cabbage, tomatoes, etc was transported on one day.
I presented a short entrepreneurs course to 10 people who have small businesses. Doing everything through an interpreter we did 3 sessions of discussions about the 4 P’s of marketing. Teaching some to use a calculator was indeed one of the interesting aspects of this training. It was possible for us to take calculators, note pads and pens for 10 people. In addition, funds were used to buy a pump for the water tank and baby milk for the kids.
We learnt much more than we taught and were reluctant to depart. We loved it there and will return and hopefully take others with. There is still a lot of work to be done and we hope to be part of it.
Japie, Debbie, Katelyn & Rachael
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