While we gathered data from NGOs (nonprofit here is non-governmental organizations) and government representatives, we were not comfortable relying on these interviews to tell us what people in the “most need” thought about themselves, their needs and their options. We decided to talk to people in and around cities of Maputo and Beira who were among the most vulnerable, and in addition to individual interviews, arranged ‘focus groups’ to reach more people at a time. We also decided that photos would play a large part in relaying realities. I urge you to visit the album links as they will tell you much more than I can write here.
Visiting neighborhoods was tricky to arrange. People are not very welcome to wander in the neighborhoods we needed to reach. The neighborhoods are also very dangerous; it is unsafe to be walking around without someone who actually lives there. I conducted the interviews with the help of my Program Manager from VSO since my Portuguese is still weak.
Our first interview was with a young man, Baptista, who sells flowers across the street from our VSO office, and, it turns out, he is also something of a mentor and small business supporter for a number of other vendors in this area. He put together our first focus group from the vendors he knew – it was a very good start. More importantly, he invited us to his home in Albazine, a very poverty stricken neighborhood on the far outskirts of Maputo. I wrote a short posting about our visit with his family.
One of the neighborhoods within in the city of Maputo is Mafalala (album link). When we visited some young men who have put together a center in the neighborhood (providing training for people to clean waste, learn how to mobilize and other such projects) took us around. We wound around and about through slim passageways and on unpaved roads. The neighborhood is teaming with kids. Their homes iare made of tin sheeting or crumbling bricks. They eat next to nothing, have no water or electricity in their home, and their playground is rubbage and fetid, mosquito and waste infested water. But they are still kids. And they run after me with my camera hamming it up, striking poses and hugging their friends begging for me to take a picture. They act like kids do everywhere, laughing and yelling and running about. Only they also run out of energy, malnourished as they are, and their faces take on blank expressions I haven’t seen on people so young. Based on current statistics, were I to return in six months or a year, a number of them will be gone – not relocated to a better place – rather they will be dead, having succumbed to illnesses that don’t necessarily kill in wealthier populations. This sounds so grim, like a late not advertisement asking you to pledge a dollar a day to help a child in Africa. But it is real and right there in front of me.
In some neighborhoods when I began an interview in a backyard with six or eight people, the numbers would swell to 25 and 30, some people wanting to talk, others wanting to listen. The questions I asked were mostly the same, but always led to unique conversations, frequently taking on the flavor of a neighborhood meeting with us as observers.
After taking a group photo so many people came to say thank you – I felt so privileged to be trusted to enter their neighborhood, to hear their thoughts that were not always “politically correct,” and to be allowed to photograph them and their neighborhood - but my thank you was always drowned out by their thanks. Our visit was unusual in that we came to their turf to ask them what they thought, without looking for certain answers, and without promising things except that we would be sharing what they said in our report. While studies about poverty in Mozambique, in Maputo and elsewhere have been done, this one seems to be unique. Many people have become interested in it – people in the neighborhoods we visit, people in NGOs and people in government.
A couple of things before I end this segment. I was not aware of the level of danger or the unusual nature of our visits until this past week as various Mozambicans have expressed their surprise that we talked to the people we did, that we saw the depth of the neighborhoods that we did, and that we were allowed to photograph what we did. This speaks to both my naiveté and to the people who protected me in their neighborhoods, and made it ok for me to be there.
Finally, about vulnerability. What is the definition of vulnerability? This question comes at me a lot. Our definition comes from answers people gave of vulnerability in their own lives, and definitions used in the world of development by entities like the Red Cross and World Health:
Vulnerable populations are those that may be less able to care for themselves, and may experience health crisis, when rapid negative events are introduced into their lives, and they have been made vulnerable by characteristics of life/circumstances such as: finances, location, health, age, limited rights, lack of education, limited knowledge/information, loss of family, history of abuse, loss of cultural/historical roots, lack of self-protection, insecure livelihood, governance, lack of social protection, politics, inability to communicate effectively, exposure to effects of climate change, presence of chronic illness/disability.
In practice all of that is just words on paper. Initially, I found it hard to emotionally difficult to process what I was experiencing – I just kept doing the work. It started to get really hard about ten days in when I was in Beira visiting a neighborhood with so much less than nothing, yet people with incredible vigor and desire to find a way to make things different. That same day I visited a place called the Grand Hotel – I will share more about that in another posting. But as we drove away from both of those places I felt an overwhelming choking sadness – I just wanted to be somewhere where I could yell at the sky and cry and cry.
Select a photo below to link to that photo album.
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| In and Around Maputo, Mozambique |
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| Beira |
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| Grand Hotel, Beira |
