My third day here is over. So far things have gone fairly smooth, although I still have a feeling of being overwhelmed by all new impressions.
I did have a meeting with the minister for about two hours on Monday. We talked a lot about what he wanted to get out of the project, and did show concern that it might be too ambitious a project for just one month. In the end however, we agreed on more details than my original Terms of Reference stated and yesterday I handed in a detailed description of the motivation behind the project and what the benefits to Mozambique as a country will be.
From my point of view, this basically boils down to two things.
- Easier communication within the government will increase the government’s efficiency and thus enable it to do more with less resources. Today there is a lot of energy wasted just on communication between different ministries and agencies.
- Better communication with the citizens and business community will help the government to serve the citizens better. This is especially important for all those living outside of Maputo, where most of the government functions are located. Ordinary snail mail is apparently very slow here and thus an electronic communication system will make it a lot easier for the government in Maputo to serve citizens everywhere (I know this is a very idealistic view)
I have spent the day today working on a naming scheme for email addresses under the subdomain gov.mz.
On the private side, I haven’t gotten my luggage back yet, but rumour has it that it will arrive tomorrow with the next flight from Kenya. Mental note to self: do not choose a airline route anywhere which only has two flights per week.
Yesterday, I discovered that two other Swedes were living in the apartment next to mine. They are students from KTH here working on the project MoreNET, which in the end will connect academic institutions in Mozambique (much like Sunet in Sweden) I knew they would be in Mozambique while I was here, but I didn’t know they would live right next to me. I feels good to have someone who is in much the same situation as I am and who I can talk to unhindered.
Language really is a problem, since most people here speak little or no English. I have a hard time communicating with most of the people I work together with. Yesterday I got a desk in a new room where two of the people speak English well. One of them, Sergio, has spent 5 years in the United States, so I have no trouble communicating with him. He is assigned to my project, so he can act as an interpreter when I need to communicate with others.