Forget the Christmas updates - they can wait until a day when I'm not frazzled from year-end audits and the dire necessity of closing almost 2,000 dormant accounts before the end-of-year processing starts.
At the office we draw lots to decide who leads office devotions each Wednesday, and I've drawn next Wednesday, the first working day of the year. (I have previously drawn several other Wednesdays, but always been able to wriggle out of the duty, by travelling to Nairobi or being obliged to fix a server during the meeting.) I'd be most grateful for suggestions from anyone who has the power to comment as to what I should present for New Year's devotions.
(I'm sorrier than ever that the ingloriously inventive Beck has lost that power - her employer wised up - but probably best that she doesn't give me ideas.)
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Feliz aniversário
An overdue post, due largely to the second server crash in a fortnight. Neither one should have been a big deal, but the various failovers and standbys which we have in place didn't rise automatically to the occasion as they should have. At the IT managers' meeting in Nairobi in September, Diana had to explain the concept of "Murphy's law" for those who hadn't encountered it before; I complicated the issue by adding that I called it "Mozambican law".
Anyway, my supervisee Carminda (Nilza's replacement) was highly amused to find on her task list this week a request that she write out the words to the Portuguese version of Happy Birthday. You will see that it assumes rather more intellectual capacity than does the English version. Memorising the words is one of those small jobs which I keep forgetting until someone here has a birthday and I have to stand and listen as everyone else sings it. I take the opportunity of my brothers' birthdays on 8 December to rectify this situation, after almost six years.
Parabens a você
Nesta data querida
Muitas felicidades
Muitas anos de vida.
Tenha sempre do bom
O que a vida contem
Tenha muita saúde
E amigos tambem.
Translation, belatedly addressed to Morgan and Brendan: on this precious day, congratulations, much happiness and many years of life. May you always enjoy the good that life contains, good health and many friends.
Anyway, my supervisee Carminda (Nilza's replacement) was highly amused to find on her task list this week a request that she write out the words to the Portuguese version of Happy Birthday. You will see that it assumes rather more intellectual capacity than does the English version. Memorising the words is one of those small jobs which I keep forgetting until someone here has a birthday and I have to stand and listen as everyone else sings it. I take the opportunity of my brothers' birthdays on 8 December to rectify this situation, after almost six years.
Parabens a você
Nesta data querida
Muitas felicidades
Muitas anos de vida.
Tenha sempre do bom
O que a vida contem
Tenha muita saúde
E amigos tambem.
Translation, belatedly addressed to Morgan and Brendan: on this precious day, congratulations, much happiness and many years of life. May you always enjoy the good that life contains, good health and many friends.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
The rainy season
The rain was thundering down when I woke at 5.00 this morning and hadn't stopped when I finally managed to get into the office at around 9.00. João and Theresa, who sit at the front desk with a view over Avenida 24 de Julho, inform me that it's been pouring continuously since. This is unusual, even for this time of year; there are usually breaks between the downpours.
The lengthy trip to work was due mostly to searching the avenidas around my apartment building for pools less than ankle-deep. I had naively put on waterproof leather boots, and then had to remove them and empty them out on the chapa, much to the amusement of those sensibly shod in rubber flip-flops and presumably carrying their office shoes in their bags. To add to the entertainment, the traffic lights at Eduardo Mondlane and Karl Marx were out (again), resulting in a Nairobi-standard traffic jam, and two motorcades passed us (when a top official drives through town, surrounded by outriders on siren-blaring motorcycles and carloads of security guards - or maybe secretaries, or even mistresses, as one can't tell through the tinted windows - everyone else has to pull over and stop).
How conditions must be in the dirt-paved bairros, I don't like to think. I was about to write that at least the bairros don't get motorcades, but an occasional motorcade through the poorer parts of town would no doubt be a good thing.
An email is circulating, telling the story of Noa, a fisher living in Vila de Pescadores, just to the north of Maputo. The Lord speaks unto Noa, telling him to build an ark, to load aboard two of each animal, etc. Noa objects: but, Lord, I'll need more than forty days and forty nights to get a permit from the Department of Forestry to cut the wood, and then I need a permit from the Department of Industry to transport the wood from Gaza province to Maputo, and I need permission from the municipalidade to start a construction project, and from the Department of Agriculture to import non-native species... and so on. And the Lord decides to spare humankind another flood, thanks to Mozambican bureaucracy.
The lengthy trip to work was due mostly to searching the avenidas around my apartment building for pools less than ankle-deep. I had naively put on waterproof leather boots, and then had to remove them and empty them out on the chapa, much to the amusement of those sensibly shod in rubber flip-flops and presumably carrying their office shoes in their bags. To add to the entertainment, the traffic lights at Eduardo Mondlane and Karl Marx were out (again), resulting in a Nairobi-standard traffic jam, and two motorcades passed us (when a top official drives through town, surrounded by outriders on siren-blaring motorcycles and carloads of security guards - or maybe secretaries, or even mistresses, as one can't tell through the tinted windows - everyone else has to pull over and stop).
How conditions must be in the dirt-paved bairros, I don't like to think. I was about to write that at least the bairros don't get motorcades, but an occasional motorcade through the poorer parts of town would no doubt be a good thing.
An email is circulating, telling the story of Noa, a fisher living in Vila de Pescadores, just to the north of Maputo. The Lord speaks unto Noa, telling him to build an ark, to load aboard two of each animal, etc. Noa objects: but, Lord, I'll need more than forty days and forty nights to get a permit from the Department of Forestry to cut the wood, and then I need a permit from the Department of Industry to transport the wood from Gaza province to Maputo, and I need permission from the municipalidade to start a construction project, and from the Department of Agriculture to import non-native species... and so on. And the Lord decides to spare humankind another flood, thanks to Mozambican bureaucracy.
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