Location: Pemba

I have now been in Mozambique for about a week and I am enjoying the cool winter we are having currently; A casual 25-26 degrees instead of the usual 34-35, so it’s quite pleasant. I have obviously been down to the beach a number of times, both to snorkel and also just to laze in the sun. The Mozambican sun has treated me well, and I am now several shades darker than I was when I first arrived. Speaking of change, the little town of Pemba that I grew up in has since changed quite a bit, while at the same time stayed exactly the same. I am feeling this has tended to be a reoccurring theme during my return to Africa, perhaps there is something in that.

Having been away for 2 years and 3 months, when that sorry excuse for a commercial airplane landed in Pemba I was both relieved and excited. Pemba had started to change right before I left, with big oil and gas findings bringing in established companies from all over the world. Hotels were being bought up on long year leases to house workers, massive ships started coming to the humble harbor, in short little Pemba was getting noticed by the world. A result of this change was the lack of an airport as I landed; instead a temporary party tent had been raised to accommodate travellers.  The old airport was in the process of being torn down to be replaced by a bigger and better one, all due to the increase in visitors.

The population change in Pemba that these new faces brought was quite evident on the drive home.

 So. Many.White.People.

Just a couple of years back, my family knew all the foreigners in Pemba. It was quite easy seeing that they were all either missionaries like us, entrepreneurial South Africans who frequented the same restaurants as us, or Indians and Chinese that owned the shops we bought from. All very simple. Not now though, they were so many on that single drive I think I lost count, and yes, I was actually trying to count. Many new people and cultures all attracted by the prospect of gas and oil wealth. I was always one for the international scene though, so I am definitively not complaining. I just hope most of the potential riches eventually trickle down to the locals, nobody wants to become like Nigeria when it comes to oil wealth and corruption.

It is fair to say that Pemba is on the brink of something big, and one can just hope that the poison that is corruption and greed is kept at a minimum. However, much is still the same. Internet as fast as a crippled tortoise, no water supply from the city (we have to hoist it from our 18m deep well) and still no raspberry jam in the shops. It is tough, but one takes the good with the bad.

In the coming weeks I’ll be starting my medical clerkship, so that ought to be fun and interesting. I’ll try to get something compiled on that when I get started. Now to hoist that water…