Mozambique: Volunteers Worth Their Weight in Gold

The tall man is skeletal. Even so, it is a huge feat for him to muster up the energy to sit upright in front of his visitor – a young, vibrant woman. They sit on wooden chairs around a small table in the centre of a starkly bare room. Lying on the table are a wall clock and several packets of pills – for the time being, things that are key to the man’s survival. "Why do you have to go yourself to the hospital tomorrow?" asks the 31-year-old woman, Louisa*. The man, 51-year-old Fernando, coughs and then replies faintly, between gasps of breath, "My wife doesn’t understand Portuguese well, so it is difficult with the doctors."