Summer Begins in Mozambique

-->

4 months on since our last report and almost too much time passed to even recall all the events that have transpired. So I’ll give it a shot to start in the future and work our way back. As we just secured a local source to import Turkeys, cranberry and pumpkin pie we’ll be hosting a collection of mostly non-American friends in a couple weeks for Thanksgiving. As most our friends and family begin to dawn the sweaters and jackets we are just now beginning to enter our summer with days getting close to 100 and weekend times finding us poolside or beachfront. We are excited to welcome my sister in couple weeks for most of December to celebrate Adi’s 4^th birthday and a Christmas holiday on one of Mozambique’s most beautiful islands and marine reserves, Bazaruto. 

-->

For the time being life in the present is quite perfect. Our big news is that we are finally expecting #2 in April of next year! We had just about given up hope when our luck turned for the best (right along with Pranvera’s US citizenship and us all receiving residency in Mozambique so we can finally travel to South Africa as a family). Adi has already been practicing being a big brother by singing, hugging and kissing the belly as well as paying special attention to a couple of our close friends new babies. The little one should arrive in April and we expect to deliver and stay in northern South Africa for two weeks to process a passport and be able to bring the infant back into Mozambique.

 

-->

We also have moved into a new, lovely home more centrally located with a much bigger yard and better layout for all the rooms (including nursery/office). But beyond all the new conveniences and charm of the house the highlight is the fact that our neighbors are our landlord and have been fantastic fixing any problems almost that same day. For those of you who have been along for our entire Mozambique experience, you’ll recall how horrible our other landlords were and we are elated to be rid of them and ironically saving over $1000 rent/month for a much worse and smaller place.  

 

-->

Work has been going well but has had me traveling on the road for more than any of would like. I spent several weeks in the far north seeing the real Mozambique which is strikingly beautiful but desperately poor and undeveloped. I spent much of the time inside cashew processing facilities seeing how my NGO might develop assistance programs with the management to provide more social benefit and return to the employees and communities they source from. Another work trip had me in Zambia for the week leading facilitation sessions for the launch of a new partnership facility. As much work as there is that needs to be done here my organization just closed out our largest funded program which caused us to lay off over half the staff. That said we are going to be rebuilding quickly and already have several potential projects in the pipeline and our hope that we will win the new (to be released) USAID flagship agriculture program which would give us billability securing for the next 5 years if we choose. In the meantime I will be spending my time across a number of new and innovative projects in the coming year. 

 

-->

Pranvera finds herself still working as a consultant with DFID but only part-term as the growing baby is taking all her energy these days. Her work on an anti-corruption case has been both interesting and challenging. Adi continues to enjoy daycare with friends who have (by default) become our friends. Weekends and afternoons full of play dates and visits to playgrounds and others houses. With the arrival of summer he’ll start taking swimming classes again (loves the water) and afternoon activity play learning karate, ball play, cooking or gymnastics.  We are very blessed with his strong health, great personality, insatiable curiosity and humorous comments to often leave us astounded and rolling.

We haven’t done any adventure weekends in so long due to the fact I have been traveling so much already during the week for work and we actually were not around for the later part of the US summer. Adi and Pranvera spent almost 2 months back at her home in Kosovo. Adi just loved reacquainting with family and especially took to Bruno, their new German Shepard dog. He was able to understand Albanian again by the end of the trip and spent several weeks in school with local and international kids. Unfortunately the European winter started to arrive early so many days of cold rain were spent inside rather than out in the fresh air of the parks or cafes. Pranvera also had a tough spell of morning sickness and other harsh related pregnancy effects leaving her to rest or retreat inside the house for more of the holiday than she would have liked.

Yes, that was particularly hard for me to be away from them for that period but ended up doing one business trip then, moved our entire house without them (but help of maid and moving company) and took my annual leave of absence to return to the States for the Friends and Family Tour. Started off with a nice long weekend with the Kaisers out at the Shore house in Chesapeake Bay taking in nature, tennis, boating and great conversations that long-time friendships provide. Was able to do a quick visit with other close friends and spend a wonderful night with my Cousin Rand in from Uganda and his two daughters Kate and Sophia (full grown girls already). Then I was off to a half week in St Louis where I was born to see both my parents and close friends. Was nice to absorb the Midwestern hospitality again before popping off for an extended weekend visit in Chicago for my 20^th year college reunion. My closest gang of 10 all returned mostly with family to do our own separate reunion after 5 years. A ton of late night drinking and laughing, daytime adventures on campus and the Homecoming football game (despite terrible rains). I was also able to add on wonderful quality visits with high school buddies Mike Jenny and Adam Keyser and their families. College roommate Evan Magas also made special arrangements to join me for a meal before I disappeared into the vacuum of reliving life 20 years ago. My final week spent back in St Louis allowed me more quality family time and visits with childhood best friend Mark Sneider, Alex Clark and family as well as Sydney and Sheila and their great kids. It was certainly nice to return to such a familiar place and see so many quality people. But at the same time I was ready to return to my own family and the newness and excitement of life in Africa.

-->

 Mom's Holiday Visit to Africa and Pranvera's Naturalization Ceremony

It has been an unbelievably busy past 2 months and summer is only half way over! First Dad arrived end of May for a 2 week visit of both Mozambique and South Africa (photos posted next blog). Then after I had a 1 week trip back to DC for work but also squeezing in some great visits with close friends I returned the day before Mom arrived for another two weeks. Then before that visit ended Pranvera took off to the Sates to finally receive her US Citizenship (last photos). Sadly Adi and I could not join but my dad and sister did along with many of our close friends in DC. An unbelievably long journey (5 years) to only be finally realized in a 4 minute ceremony. This now means that our family can not only enter South Africa to explore a more developed part of Africa but we can travel worldwide without the cost of visas and hassles of border crossing.

Visits with both parents were wonderful and offered quality time with their grandson. Great to see the reconnection and bonding as if no time has passed. I believe the uniqueness of Maputo and life in Africa intrigued them both and we certainly showed them the nicer side with great food, wonderful parties with friends and local adventures of sites seeing. But of course the big adventure was our visit to Kruger (did a 4 night stay with  both mom and dad but at different lodges). Since this was before her receiving a US passport Pranvera was unable to join. As you can see from the images below, the Rock Camp with mom was certainly over the top located on its own 4000 ha. reserve and rock-like huts camouflaged in the hill-side lodge overlooking Kruger and the world beyond. Our adventure was full of game drives, hikes, lounging at the camp, visiting an elephant sanctuary and eating 5 star meals in a beautifully designed Eco-lodge.

And we had the pleasure of celebrating my mom's birthday with home-made lasagne and wonderful wine.

Happy Fathers to all us dad’s out there. Funny where living in a country with so many different nationalities among our friends that some celebrate while others don’t. Happy to say my lovely wife found a couple other Brits who thought it would be nice to take us dads and kids to our city beach for any afternoon picnic of good drinks, food and friends.

Sorry again for the long delay in entry. A combination of a crazy busy schedule and our still crazy expensive internet to get pictures uploaded. We are coming off a couple week visit from my dad who visited Africa for his first time and we think loved it. Of course it was a pretty sugar coated trip with the great winter weather of Maputo (warm 80s during day and pleasant 70s at night) and highlights of the sights and sounds of an emerging ‘modern’ African city with a great international community and western comforts such as mostly paved roads, electricity, restaurants and overall pleasantness to foreigners (except the street venders who followed him for blocks insisting he purchase a belt, sunglasses or even a carpet).

Although the weather is great it is actually too cold for ocean swimming so we spent the weekend he landed doing a daytrip up to our island getaway for fantastic views, playing in the sand and a fresh fish lunch feast. The tour includes a rather sketchy looking 5 minute ferry ride and a safari truck pick-up to get through the sand dones to the lodge. The other weekend the boys (since Pranvera cannot still get into S Africa) went to a fantastic private lodge right outside Kruger Park for 3 nights. The best thing about the location was that we were staying across Crocodile River which is still part of the park and were able to view the herds of elephants, hippos and alligators in the water from the comfort of the lodge grounds while having our morning coffee or afternoon cocktails. The weather was perfect and we took 3 different game drives into the park to see all the big 5 plus a leopard. Also our guide allowed us to bend the rules and take Adi in the open safari truck into the park which they normally reserve for 6y/o and up.

In between all the excitement we had good meals in the city and visited with friends to expose dad to the great and diverse international community we associate with. He had quality time with his grandson and the guestroom has transitioned from Aunt Stacey’s to grandpa. We miss his support and presence but are eagerly awaiting my mom’s visit now in early July to do a similar tour of Mozambique and SA.

On the more routine homefront we continue to settle into our grove. The most recent big transition is Pranvera began her fulltime job with the UK’s development Agency DFID as a Senior Anti-corruption Specialist who will be advising the G19 donors on key corruption issues and potential solutions to accompany their budgetary support programs directly to the government of Mozambique which presently accounts for over 35% of all their expenses. Her office is conveniently located in a building next to mine so not only is she able to ‘play adult’ again but we are all able to commute Adi to daycare and drive into the office, meet for lunch and return in the evening to see our little one playing with the nanny and a revolving collection of friends to come over for playdates.

My work continues to be good with new partnership opportunities we continue to explore with entering multinationals, local organizations and donors wanting to invest in PPP models around agriculture. As a result of some work in did in Ghana over a year ago building a CSR dialog platform for the oil and gas industry I have been asked to speak and present on this model to the government and donors as well as businesses and civil society on a number of occasions. It seems like it is catching on now and actually might be designed and implemented with the support of the French, Canadian and American governments. So this has added a bit of excitement. I will also return to DC next week for a crazy busy week of attending our Senior Management Conference while trying to fit in some key doctor appointments and visits with friends.

As a parting update on our happenings, we are pleased to finally announce that as of July 15^th we hope to welcome yet another worthy addition to the American family as Pranvera will take her naturalization oath in DC. It has been an incredibly long and painful 5 year road full of every type of delay, challenge, denials, resubmissions that one can imagine. The biggest challenge for us has been moving overseas to work for an NGO doing American government work but proving our case that we still consider the US our base (not to mention both her husband and son are America). In the end the government is either so incompetent or backlogged with the immigration process that they refused to let us know the status of her final application for 5 weeks past their own deadline potentially jeopardizing even her status as a green card holder since we were already at the 6 month mark where she would have to have returned to the US just to keep her resident status valid. So in the end it only took a close personal connection with an ex-Congressman to link us to his close Senator friend whose office inquired and pressured a response on our behalf. Her invitation to present final document and take the oath came within 24 hours. How is this for justice and equality for all?