Today we worked for half a day only, then we had a relaxing afternoon at the swimming pool in Alcatraz, barbecued food and some music after dinner.

Tiredness is starting to creep in and we still have many days ahead. So, descanso por todos (rest for everyone).

In the meantime the mornings mean work, so there’s an appointment at 9.30 with Jacopo Fo and a return to Demential Yoga. The group repeats the pushing exercise, imagining themselves to be trees.

Someone jokes (sensibly) about monkey brains, the others laugh, I think they have understood everything!

After the Demential Yoga, we move to ecotechnology.

This morning I prepared the solar concentrator, the solar oven, the oven bag, and even Elsa, the legendary low-cost pyrolytic burner perfected by BluComb s.r.l., the spin-off company of the University of Udine, which is promoting it in lots of African countries. Very little wood and a flame that doesn’t produce smoke.

There’s an egg in the centre of the solar concentrator, which we’ll boil!

There are a few pieces of bread drying out in the oven, while in the oven bag there’s a pan of boiling water that will stay hot for hours. The oven bag is used to cook food without using fire or other types of energy. Cooking starts in the traditional manner, over a flame, and when the pan is hot it goes inside the super-insulated oven bag, and cooking continues. It was invented by a mother, and that’s an ideal guarantee!

The idea is to show the Mozambicans a series of ecotechnologies that work, are easy to produce and that can greatly improve the quality of their lives.

They are all things we discovered the existence of as a result of the research carried out for the book “Ecotecnologie a basso costo per tutto il mondo” (Low-cost ecotechnologies for the whole world).

The pyrolytic burner amazes more than the rest, Felix and Adelino (senior) are already talking about starting a company to sell them :-). We explain that they could even go around the villages and “train” the communities on how to build and use Elsa.

Adelino takes a piece of oven-dried bread from the solar oven and eats it. Now that’s what I call a successful experiment!

* * *

The last part of the morning is filled with chat about the theatre, our performance! Will we present a love story? Jacopo asks the group to explain how their performances begin, develop and end. Is there a presenter? Do they start with a dance, a song? Would a love story interest the public in the villages?

One by one they start acting, first in Portuguese and then in Makua, Makonde, Swahili, they explain the plot, yes there’s usually always a presenter, at the beginning the message that the performance tries to give is also explained (health care, teaching, no to violence).

It’s the first time we hear the Swahili language, our performance will be in Swahili, the most familiar dialect in the area of Palma, and what rhythm, what musicality. It’s probably the same with our dialects too, but maybe we no longer have the habit of listening.

Swahili is full of sounds, long vowels (iiii, ooooh), wonderful!

And they all start to like the idea of a love story…

* * *

Italian barbecue and a Mozambican party! There are two young rappers in the group of five from Palma, Adelino (junior) and Safina, whose stage names are Mister Kedo and Miss Zaina.

A computer plays the base, speakers and live performance!!! Then we danced and a great difference between us and them appeared: we dance alone, they always dance in pairs. They put their arms around each other, they wiggle their hips, together. Not alone, how silly we are…

Good night!