“Bom dia! Tudo bem?” is a common phrase when you walk on the streets. People start to recognize you and want to have a conversation with you. It is good to practise your Portuguese and it is amazing to see how friendly the people behave. For public transportation we often take a “chapa” – a minibus – which is not very comfortable, but it is handy to travel longer distances.
This week Odilia and I defined the criteria and did the analysis to select one of the areas we want to investigate. We spoke to several people about what they think about the areas and which areas they think that might be interesting to investigate. Besides that we visited the university to talk with Dr. Nelson Matsinhe, who participates in the project as well.
Irene investigated which analysis (chemical and biological) must be done to characterize the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). For this she visited the university (UEM) and the Ministry of Health. In order to avoid redoing work that has already been done by others, it is important for her research to have an overview of the data that is already available. For this she met people from the municipality about the WWTP
Since André was going to leave on Thursday, his last week was very busy and he had several meetings. On Wednesday and Thursday he attended the National Conference on Sanitation.
Boats in Inhaca.
Since we had to speak with PAMODZI about the pilot areas, we went to the conference as well. When we arrived we recognized somebody with whom we talked before – the world of foreign engineers is a small one here in Maputo. We also discovered that out on the boat to the Island of Inhaca (35 km east of Maputo). In the boat we talked to a lady from the UK who worked for WaterAid and who is the author of the picture at the top of this website.
