Author: Caroline Bach

Caroline Bach5 Comments

Bushfire festival 2012

So we spent our weekend in a magical place where anybody, no matter the age, hairstyle or social group, was invited to dance. I spoke to rasta men, American “Oh no he didn’t!” teenagers and UN ladies while brushing my teeth outside of the camping showers, and we had all been just as cold during the night. The second night Anna and I discovered that the sleeping bags could be zipped together into one huge sleeping bag, which made it much warmer – so happily I didn’t have to get up at 6am just to stand by the fireplace to warm up.

We ate amazing vegan karma food, had Savannas, watched enormous Mozambican puppets, looked for lost friends, sang along to wonderful Ayo’s medley of songs, sat in the sun, spoke to random people, did some market shopping, and danced – a lot. And I took photos. And at some times, I was doing all of that alone – because Anna was sleeping. She sleeps slightly more than normal I would say, and I have the issue that I sleep far less than I’m supposed to – so there was quite a big gap in between our sleeping hours. I didn’t mind as it gave me time to walk around and contemplate. But I still made a “Sleepy Anna” meme for her. Just because she’s the best, and because it’s hilarious.

Oh, and 3g roaming? Ha, I wish! My network provider (Vodacom) doesn’t even have a deal with Swaziland, so I didn’t even have normal reception. But hey – I was fine anyway. See? I’m not completely addicted to my phone. (If I get to dance instead, that is.)

Anyway, here are some glimpses from the festival. You can see many more here. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. I get really happy when you write little comments, it reminds me that you actually visit this space and that it’s not just my slightly weird diary. Enjoy!

Caroline Bach4 Comments

Inclusive

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On the first day of the conference that we organised here in Maputo, I was responsible for taking the group photo of all the participants. Getting all the people to stand together wasn’t the easiest of tasks, and people were being slow and a bit confused.

So when I finally got them all to stand in the front of the beautiful ballroom, there was a heavy silence. I was preparing the camera and suddenly realized I had a huge group of ambassadors, parliamentarians, professors, students and NGO people in front of me, waiting for my command.

I took the camera down, smiled and said “Wow.. Hello!”. They laughed, and I took a couple of shots.

And that was that. A group photo, not very complicated.. but then, yesterday, a girl from one of the ministries approached me.

“I just want to smile every time I see you, what you did was amazing!”

I didn’t have any idea about what she was referring to..

“You don’t understand, it’s a very complex and sensitive matter. Yesterday, when you asked all of us to stand in front of the room, people were in shock. You just put all of us, the parliamentarians, the ambassadors and us, the normal people – together! Here, in Mozambique, we always take two photos: One of the VIP’s, and one of the rest of the people – they usually don’t want to be on the same picture as us – but yesterday you forced them to. And it was so easy, you just said something funny and asked us to smile. Normal people and VIP’s – we laughed together – and we all loved it!”

Damn, the most random of things one can accomplish when accidently making a cultural faux pas. I guess sometimes it’s just better not to know these things. Also, the exchange of experiences, values and ideas couldn’t have started off in a better way. Especially for a conference that the Nordic countries had organised, where the theme was inclusive growth. Inclusive. And my camera will always be blind for hierarchy anyway.

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