Today we went to the site of the new tri-country game park. The agreement was signed three weeks ago to join Kruger (South Africa) with parks in Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Currently, they are removing fences and building news ones to create the corridors. Like everything else, this could take a while.
But this is a great thing for this region in some ways, and a bad thing in other ways. It increases the wildlife and preserves some endangered species, most obviously elephants, but it stresses already poor regions, with tourism that takes more pictures and leaves more trash. I hope this is being taken into account. If I go to the game park, I'm going to make sure I speak the local language so that I can talk with the people and enjoy their presence as much as I enjoy the animals.
We drove up there today with Blake's family to see the dam in Massingir and we continued on about 3K into the park. We spoke with a few of the locals...not really. Blake's father wanted to get pictures of them, so I decided to try and test my Portuguese.
Unfortunately, the people didn't speak Portuguese.
I got out of the car, hands clasped together as a sign of respect, wishing them a good afternoon and then I sought out the oldest one. Usually, if you go to the elder, he will be able to direct you to who you need to speak with (if it's not him). Well, either there was nobody in this village who spoke Portuguese, or he wanted to show the village he understood the visitor.
Well, he didn't.
First, I asked (with gestures) if we could take pictures. He said it was OK. Then, because they all had USAID bags of rice, I asked which way the people who brought the bags went.
He then proceeded to translate this for the crowd of people that had assembled. They ooh'ed and aah'ed and smiled at me more. At this point, I realized that the elder was probably saying that I was responsible for bringing the food or that I was bringing more. I thn posed the question in a different way, simpler, hoping I would get a proper response, but again what must have sounded like nonsense was translated into whatever he wanted me to say.
At this point, a man who spoke as much English as I speak Changana, called me over. I repeated the question, to which I got "Yes". It was a confident "Yes", to his credit.
I have no doubt that this is how I must seem to many Mozambicans - regardless of how intelligent we are, we become stupid in the eyes of those who are fluent in languages we barely have a grasp on. On this day, I was as much a curiosity to them as they were to me.
Peace
John
