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Just arrived in Blantyre yesterday after a long trip hitchhiking from Mozambique..

The journey will go on tomorrow. On the way to Nairobi to work on a guidebook (sorry, it will be in Dutch) about Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. Enjoy your day. The coming days I will be posting some pictures if the connection allows me…

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‘This country was so terrible’, a guy, 30, said to me. ‘In the 90’ies, 1990 people where hiding on the beach while the shooting was going on in town. People who were moving with a dhow where shot. The dhow went to the bottom of the sea. Now, we want this place to be beautiful. We want you to see how beautiful this place is. When we had the war, nobody could come. Now you can come and enjoy with us.’ I am standing in a local bar in Vilankulos

Can anybody explain me why in a country where the majority of the people live below the poverty line, I still have to pay two euro for an hour on the internet whereas in my home-country Netherlands, people have limitless broadband internet access for 15 euro a month? It makes these countries stay behind more than necessary. Imagine what it could do education, trade etc. if everybody would have access to the internet here. That evening, I had a beer with the manager of the French cultural centre in Maputo

Reading The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman about convergence and the availability to connect to anyone in this world through cheap internet access, I realised once again that Africa is the continent where wealth and progress have an other definition. Apart from the fact that the book is extremely inspiring (please read it!), Friedman does not take a lot of time to talk about Africa. He is only saying that this is the continent where only the number of Health Clinics seems to grow. Why mister Friedman, the

It’s easy to catch the atmosphere of positive growth, reconstruction in Maputo. Walking through the lush streets, you find people talking, chatting with each other. It seems that everybody is sick of the war, of insecurity and they want to show everybody. Compared to last year, roads and buildings have been reconstructed and shopping malls are being created. Buildings got a fresh paint. The atmosphere of growth is in the air. Although the country is still very corrupt according to the locals I was talking to. It can never be

The next day I was travelling from Johannesburg to Maputo overland. A 500 kilometer journey that took me almost 15 hours when I travelled by train and mini bus last year, but the the comfortable long distance bus would bring me there in only seven and a half hours. On the way I met a Mozambican guy who just fired from hospital after two years. ‘I’ve recovered from leukaemia, and I am happy to go home.’ The last two years, he had spent in a private hospital in Johannesburg. His

On my seven hour bus ride back, through the beautifull landscape of green hills, that seem to change colour with the hour, I realised that in my mother country Netherlands we can’t enjoy the luxury of wondering through nature for days. Ok, wondering for hours is possible on my favorite Dutch spots: Schier and Terschelling. Netherlands might be among one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but in terms of space you could call us a development country. Arrived at the Parkstation in Johannesburg, I wondered what I should