Challenge Maputo

There's been a recent spate of leavers in our office, which is coincidence rather than a mass exodus. Lulu is in the Africa team and will leave soon while most of us are travelling. Revolution in Cambridge has cheaper deals on a Monday and has an amazing retractable roof on the terrace, so we sat on it and enjoyed the evening sun for a few hours. Ali and Jess are here poised with poppers, ready for Lulu to enjoy her surprise team outing.

My days this week are being spent rapidly getting up to speed on what I need to achieve in Mozambique over the next couple of weeks: NGO registration, bank account signatories, local employment law, relevant contacts to meet and office spaces to scope.

Of all the work trips I do, this one mostly closely feels like Challenge Anneka. Our Mozambique programme is at an interesting point of being able to stabilise and develop, yet some of these programme administration issues have never been fully resolved. We can't move forward clearly with hiring, taxing or relocating folk without establishing the current legal and administrative mandate for us to operate. This will involve knocking on doors of various government departments and sympathetic NGOs in Maputo, launching a charm offensive to help get answers. It's more of a step into the unknown than my usual work trips, but very exciting as I've had a soft spot for Maputo after travelling through there several times in a former life.