Administração

We’re all attuned to extreme coughing at the moment, even those of us who are watching coronavirus hysteria with one raised eyebrow. Someone kept rushing into the bathroom adjacent to my office for coughing fits, so I wondered if I was walking through a virus mist when I had to go and relieve myself. I’m not actually bothered, just being melodramatic for the purposes of blip.

Administration and bureaucracy are trying to grind me down, and are succeeding. We cannot employ staff in Mozambique because we are awaiting our NGO registration. However we have a need for someone to urgently help with finances, admin, legal issues and all manner of things that then may enable me to actually focus on conservation in Mozambique. The next best option is to hire someone through our UK office, however VAT and tax rules there mean this has to be structured as a consultancy with specific deliverables rather than what we really need, which is more general and varied. Now we’re doing contortions with some Terms of Reference to artificially create a ‘consultancy’ even though the tasks are to help me firefight unpredictable things and give Francisca on the building’s reception her tenth reminder to print documents. If we try and advertise a consultancy in too general a way, we can be penalised for not having hired a staff member instead. At that point I consider leaving the NGO sector and the tax inspector receives a hard blow to the face.

My head was what you might term in the shed during my Portuguese lesson, but I roused some energy to discuss the issue of girls being forced into underage marriages in Zambézia Province, and the cultural-legal tussle that accompanies it. Ilídio and I always enjoy these conversations much more than discussing the weather or what we gorrup to at the weekend.

This building is one of the countless interesting colonial era edifices around Maputo, especially in the downtown area of Baixa. It was probably once some sort of merchant’s store, and is now a clinic.