Selected children

I have selected the following children and this was their story:

1. Rábia Monarene is 18 years old and passed the exam very well. She is the daughter of the best bricklayer of Cabaceira Pequena and her mother sometimes works for us in the laundry (I found out when I invited her parents) They are very motived and willing to send her to school and even without the money I think she would have gone, but now they are even more motivated

2 and 3.. Chali Amisse and Aburhas Abdul, They are 16 and 17 years of age and because I only looked at the results when I selected them, I was quite surprised to see they were brothers and also that they were the most dominated cheeky ones in class. When they arrived with their father I was even more surprised because I know him from being a representative of the school and a very serious man. I said to them that they should not only get proper results, but also change their behaviour otherwise I could not keep them into the program and their father was just stimulating them to listen well to me and convincing me he tries every day to get them to school, but they just do their own thing... let’s see how they will do.

 

 

4. The smartest girl was Muahasane Ibraimo she is 15 years old and passed without problems. Only thing: she didn’t show up. The leader of the community talked to her parents and they decided that she was to be married and not allowed to go.... so we substituted her for the other girl with the best results, but who didn’t pass all questions Aziza Ali Fundi. Her father turned out to be one of the leaders of the community and told me that many boys have been asked to marry her, but she refused because she wants to study.

5. Donsan Salimo 19 years old, very shy boy, son of a very serious tailer of the village. Passed well and I am convinced that his parents are willing to support him all the way.

6. Ibraimo Anlawe, 18 years old, very shy bow as well, son of a fisherman and a mother that doesn’t speak one word of Portuguese. The father didn’t show up. He is very intelligent, but I am afraid that his father will be wanting to use him as a helper on the boat. I told the leader and the mother that if I would find out about this, I would send the authorities to talk to him about this. Let’s hope this helps. otherwise I think Ibraimo will be fine!

 

 

secundairy school

Various guest left money to support the children from Cabaceira Pequena that wanted to join the Secundairy school in Mossuril. In total we collected enough money to support 6 children.
With this information we went to the director of the primairy school and asked him if we could to an exam to select the best children.

He agreed and we made an exam in which we:
1. asked the children to read a small text (from my Portuguese lessons book, very easy...)
2. asked to children to write down their dreams for the future
3. asked them a simple calculation (ex 18*4)
4. asked them to solve the most simple question of an IQ test (multiple choice)

From the 16 children we did the exam with, only 4 passed the test. They could do everything, then we selected two next best ones.

 

 

Orphanage

After finishing the food project and the mosque project for the princess, we started with the orphanage in August. This was a less easy job.

First we found a carpenter and a constructor. They made a calculation of the materials needed and a quotation for the job. After the necesarry negotiations, we headed off.
First we decided to make our own concrete blocks. We bought a mould in Nampula and 500 bags of cement (each bag 50 kilos). They all came in by boat and are stored in a house nearby the construction site. The blocks are build in the garden of this house.

Sand is brought in by tractor from Cabaceira Grande, we didn't want to demage the dunes at Cabaceira Pequena. Water is brought in by women from the village.

The stones necessary for the foundation, came from the 13th century ruins in the village. These ruins are from former Arab houses made by coral rock. These rocks are now used for the orphanage....

The goals is to use as many things and people from the village as possible, since most of the money earned will be spend within the village and other people within the community will profit.

The construction is now well on it's way. Only thing missing is the roof.

House for the elderly

One of our guest were really impressed by the positivity of the people in the village and wanted to help with a donation. After seeing the list of projects, they selected the house for the elderly as their goal. In Cabaceira 4 old people are living without children to sustain them. They live together in a house under very bad conditions where rain can come in. Food they get from other people in the community and familiy. Hearing this story, the couple decided that a house would give them the possibility to live in good conditions the rest of their lifes.

After buying an existing house from the money they donated, we informed the famility that it would be available for them. Unfortunately the old people didn't want to move. Everybody was convinced this would be better for them, but they didn't agree.

 

We decided to use the house for an other project on the list. The wish to have a house for the community to put visitors of the mosks, teachers and nurses that are send here to work. We agreed with the leaders that they could use the house at will.

So far the house is still available. Although everybody in the community thought the house would contribute to the development of the community, so far, no succes. The house is in good quality and in good condition, but it is not in the centre of the village (that is 3 minutes walking). I think this is the reason they don't want to use it.

We will wait a little more and see if it will stay empty. Afterwards I will sell it again and use the money for the project the couple selected as a second option: supporting the children of Cabaceira to go to the secundaire school.

walls

After finishing the roof: silence... It bothered me to see that they didn't use the building. This way the money was spent in vain.
So I started to ask the director of the school why he didn't use it. The idea was that the community would all together contribute with putting in stones, and mix water and sand for the walls, but the community didn't feel like doing this. They were waiting for us to contribute more.
I informed them with spending more money on the school the other project would have less and they had to wait longer. So an other meeting was organized within the comminity and they decided that:
we should buy cement and lime and would pay the constructor. They would organize people to bring stones, water and sand.
So since we had save enough money again from all our guests for this investment, we bought the material, stored it safely and waited.....
Nothing. Weeks later: sms: we have started and the whole community is contributing. Great!!!
unfortunately just one day. The next day they asked us to pay for workers to do this.

The school is almost finished now.

The roof on the school

They wanted a roof from congregated iron... not the traditional palmleave or grass. Ok, your choice. But how do you want to install a roof when walls are missing. No problemo senhora. Please organize the roof.

So with the same procedure as the electricity we organized the roof. First we organized wooden poles fromt the bush. Hand sawed and very strong (110 x 3 metre long poles). They were transported to Chocas from where we took them with our tractor to Cabaceira. No trucks without 4x4 can arrive at the village.

Then the rest of the material was bought in the city of Nacala and transported by truck to Ilha de Moçambique and by traditional dhow to Cabaceira. The carpenter finished the job within a month.

So now we had a school from bamboo sticks without walls.

electricity in the clinic

This was an easy to realize job. We first find a Cabaceirian electrician. He made a list of material he needed according to the wishes of the head nurse. With the material list, we send somebody to Ilha de Moçambique for shopping and after the negociations with the electrician, things got started very quickly. Total costs: $330,-

But to get it connected to the main electricity line, was another thing. A form needed to be filled out and stamped by the director of the hospital in Mossuril. After this another $120,- needed to be paid to the electricity company to connect it. Luckely we had guests who were really concerned with realizing this and they made an extra donation to make sure the hospital was connected. Thanks Megan and John! Can you see the connecting line?

voting

After the respresentatives made the list, we invited the whole community to vote for the projects they wanted to do first. Almost unanamous everybody voted for the roof of the school. The other project which involved less money, was the electricity in the hospital and was voted second. We decided to start with realizing both.

selected projects

After the lodge was open for about a year, we had quite some money saved from all the guests staying and paying $2,- per person per night. Enough to start investigating what projects the community would want to do. One of the managers together with the respresentatives of the school, clinic, leaders and community made list with things they wanted to change or build.

The following list was concluded.

Donation projects to develop Cabaceira Pequena.
1	electricity for the clinic	material and electricien
2	roof for the school	material and carpenter
3	electricity for the primary school	material and electricien
4	furniture for the primary school	per 3 children
5	cultural centre	for old people, dance groups and artists
6	uniforms for 4 football team and 4 footballs	socks, shorts, Tshirts, ball for 4 teams, 10.000 each team
7	extention of the hospital	to extent the delivery room
8	motorbike with trailor for hospital	to transport sick people to the hospital
9	pre-school material	for the new pre-school
10	medicin cabinet and fridge for hospital	to store the medicins
11	3 public latrines	for sanitation
12	garbage collecting project	cleaning of the village by women of the village to help their dance group
13	playground for the primairy & pre-school	from local material
14	hand pump for well	to take the water out of the well
15	gate around cemetary and indication of grave	to protect the heritage
16	banches from cement in the village	for the population to meet on the street
	market from cement	for higiene and comfort
17	project of helping to go to secudairy school	per child to board in Mossuril per year
		to finish the secundairy school is 3 years
18	project of fishing at the deep sea and not at the reefs	buy fishing nets for deep sea
		boat for the fishing association at the deep sea
	house for the homeless elderly	4 elderly people without childeren

Distribution of food during ramadan for 100 poorest

After finilizing the list of the people receiving the donation, we started with the procurement of the food items.

First we made a shopping list to buy items for dinner for 100 people for 30 days and then we started to investigate what the costs for all the items would be. Finally we decided to make 30 packets of food which included:
25 kilos of rice
10 kilos of dried beans
30 coconuts
12 packets of powder for juice
5 cans of condenced milk
10 cans of tomato paste
5 litres of cooking oil
3 kilos of onions
3 kilos of potatoes

a donation of 500 meticais

This amount times 100 people...

Can you imagine buying these amounts times 100? That was a big truck full of food from Nampula and then a big job to carry it in to 4 boats and from 4 boats into the storage of the lodge (with low tide). All the Coral Lodge staff helped out and just before dark everything was stored. They money that was left, was shared between the 100 people.

During 3 days we took the food for 30/30/40 people to the entrance of the lodge where all the people were waiting with a ticket as proove they were entitle to receive it. All went very smoothly and the poor people of Cabaceira where really happy with the help of the princess.

list of 100 poorest people

When you ask the leaders of the mosques to give a list of the poorest people of the village, they don't feel a oblication to Allah to write down most poorest people first. They say it is writen in the Koran that first the leaders have the right to receive a part of the donation, before others. So their names where on top of the list and after that many of their family members and friends.

This was a great dissapointment to many people in Cabaceira and that's why we decided to select a new commision which involved some workers from the lodge, the leaders of the community, some other community members and me. Together we evaluated the list that was written by the mosque leaders. We took off all relatively rich and added the really poor, so finally a list was produced which was according to what we thought would be respresentable. To proof this to the community, we wrote all the names down for all to read and put it up on the market. This was not according to the will of the leaders of the mosque (and Allah according to them), so together with the leaders of the community we took it away and informed everybody which wanted to know who is on the list, to ask the workers of Coral Lodge.

We didn't get any complaints about the final list, even after the distribution of the food.

rehabilitation of the 4 mosques

The four mosques presented a list of necesarry items and workers that they needed, and we added the prices to make sure that the items asked for, where within budget. After little changes all items where bought in one trip to the city of Nacala, so transport costs where shared between all mosques as well.

After driving the material to Ilha de Moçambique, all was loaded into 4 traditional sailing boats and arrived at the village at night during high tide. The material was checked and handed over to the leaders of the mosques, responsible for the executing. Without discussion or other problems, all workers started with the rehabilitation jobs on all 4 mosques and after half a year, all mosques where finished within budget.

More projects from the princess

After finishing the mosque and distributing food for the poor during Ramadan, the princess wanted to do another project in Cabaceira Pequena. Her dream was to buid an orphanage and so after prooving that we had spent her money well, she asked us to make plans and calculations to build an orphanage.

After finishing the plans and emailing it to her, she invited me to present my plans in Abu Dhabi and give me a tour in her beautiful country. So that is where I went in June 2012. After the presentation, she donated money for the orphanage, rehabilitation of all the 4 mosques in Cabaceira Pequena and food for the 100 poorest during the whole month of Ramadan.

Since Ramadan was near after arriving back at the lodge, we started with making plans for that, together with the rehabilitation of the mosques. All leaders of the 4 mosques where invited and were asked to make a calculation with the money that was available for rehabilitation of the mosques and together present a list of the 100 poorest peope in Cabaceira Pequena.