I haven’t written much in these blogs about working in Mozambique, so perhaps I should. The advice that lots of people gave me before I came was not to assume anything. I took that on board and I think I arrived genuinely quite open-minded; certainly nothing I found at work particularly shocked me at first. There are many differences between working in Europe (or at least in the UK) and Mozambique, but somehow the most significant have become slowly more apparent, rather than being initial surprises.
I probably understand the value of education in a way I never have previously; it is easy to talk about the importance of a good education, but I have never been really sure how much schooling contributes to that, compared to what individuals learn independently and through experiences. But here I meet lots of bright, ambitious, keen people who have been held back by poor education and it is sad to see the impact this can have on them. Managers always have a responsibility to develop their team (and let’s face it, it’s a great part of a manager’s job!), but here I feel it is even more important and you have to be prepared to address some surprising gaps (not long ago I was explaining fractions to a group of senior accountants, for instance).
I gate-crashed Sam’s Portuguese lesson when I got home from work recently (sorry, Sam) and was talking to the teacher (Jose) about education in Mozambique and some of the instances I had encountered at work, such as when two locals had had a misunderstanding as a result of the poor Portuguese of one of them. Jose noted only just under half of Mozambicans speak Portuguese and that even those who are keen to learn from a young age find it difficult to do so. There are basically no books for children in Mozambican Portuguese, and those in European Portuguese are difficult to get hold of and are ludicrously expensive (a child’s picture book is likely to cost around $10 and be hard to find). With this lack of resources, it is hardly surprising that even the most determined struggle.
A related issue is a very different attitude to questions in the UK compared to Mozambique. A few weeks after I started at Maragra, a colleague I got on well with came for a chat; she wanted to talk to me about questions. She started by asking what was wrong; why did I object to various issues? I was nonplussed because I didn’t object in the slightest. It came to light that if I asked questions about a topic – which I almost always do – it would be assumed by many that I disagreed with whatever had been presented. This stunned me and explained why I seemed to be one of very few who spoke in many meetings. Many do not see curiosity as a positive attribute here; understanding this, I have spent quite a lot of time trying to explain to my team and others why I ask questions and why I want them to as well. Not being prepared to ask questions, and being badly received when trying to do so, risks slowing down learning, understanding and making change.
One thing I have had to get used to is standing out. It is pretty well impossible for a British woman to blend into an environment of mostly African men. Most of the employees at Maragra live on the cane estate and we sometimes stay there too (which is always nice – it’s a beautiful place). When we do, it amuses me how often people see Harriett and Imogen playing on the estate and come to me later to tell me they’ve seen my children and how much they look like me.
Talking of the estate reminds me of another area that differs substantially working here; the boundary between work and home is very different. Because most people live on the estate, with their houses owned and managed by the company, issues that in the UK would remain personal issues come to work, such as the day to day aspects of any household; leaks, broken air conditioning, lack of space for growing families, etc. Also, people are colleagues as well as neighbours – this certainly impacts the workplace because there is an awareness that work issues can spread into the home environment as well. I suspect this has positive and negative implications; from an accountant’s perspective, I worry about the impact of the reduced independence on financial control, but I think it also tempers some disputes between colleagues (that’s another story, but feedback between colleagues is much more direct than it would be in the UK!).
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