Não quero uma manga so

Sexy to someone

2011-02-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

I remember reading a comparative study once on the body-image/confidence of 3 groups of American women: latinas, blacks, and caucasians. It was all about how these groups of women both saw their own bodies and also how they thought others saw them. According to the study, black Americanas are the most confident, followed by latinas, and then the white girls bringing up the rear (come on white girls, step it up!). I don't remember the rest of the details of the particular study or how scientifically valid it was (I hope I didn't read it in Seventeen), but in my mind, the results seemed to confirm both stereotypes and my own experiences.

I'm half German, but there's not much of a connection I have with that culture other than my last name and occasional desire to eat cooked cabbage. I would say that most black-Americans are similarly quite far removed from any African roots and so I'm guessing that many culturally African ways of thinking are not deeply ingrained. But it's interesting that during my time in Mozambique surrounded mostly by black women, I often observed a confidence similar to what the study explained.

And I wondered, is it a cultural environment thing or is there just something about being a black woman?

I will say that whatever it is, it was contagious for me. I've never had significant body-image issues, but I personally felt way more confident about my appearance strolling around Mozambique than I do now that I've been back here in America. And I think that's saying a lot considering the fact that there, I was consistently at least 75% more sweaty, dirty, and logistically unable to maintain the kind of personal hygiene habits I enjoy here in the States. Why did I feel better there?

1. In Mozambique, my clothing shopping habits were different. To obtain clothing in Mozambique, an average woman doesn't walk into a clothing store and go to the skinny jeans rack where there are multiple sizes of skinny jeans that she can try to stuff herself into and then blame herself when none of the million sizes available fit her correctly. Instead, she wears a capulana which is incredibly forgiving (one size fits all) or has clothes made-to-order at a tailor (thus a tailor can be blamed if something does not fit) or gets something from a 2nd hand clothing market and just makes it work (she knows that the chances of anyone finding the perfect fit are slim considering the random array of clothing). So there, she tries to make clothes fit herself, not herself fit clothes.

2. In Mozambique, calling someone "fat" is a compliment. This one took a while to get used to. The first few times I heard "epa! Professora esta gorda hoje!", I was pretty pissed and defensive, but then I realized that most of the time, it's genuinely meant as a warm fuzzy. Calling someone gorda or fat is often better translated as beautiful, healthy, happy, content. But even when they do say gorda and really do mean that you look chubby, that is also a compliment. Many women want to be fat, but before I make Mozambicans sound way less intrinsically shallow than Americans, I must make one interesting connection between fat and wealth. In Mozambique as well as some other African countries, having a few chubs means that you're not only healthy (sick people, especially HIV positive individuals stereotypically and in reality are often thin), but also prosperous enough to have enough food to get chubby. So anyway they mean it, fat is good and not the devil.

3. There is not one standard of beauty. When I taught sex ed for the first time with my 8th graders, I remember one boy making the comment, "teacher, I like that kind of girl," as he pointed to some other student across the way who was not of the particular body type that I ever would have guessed a high school boy would be attracted to. And he wasn't just being a smart-ass. As I continued to observe relationships at my high school, I noticed girls who would never get a second look from guys here in the states were still constantly getting attention there. It's like no girl is undesirable. Everyone is sexy to someone. I worked a bit with a woman named Veronica. For a woman her size, Veronica had the largest ass I have ever seen in my life. I always thought the myth of the bootie on which a glass of water could rest was a joke, but it's not. The woman could rest multiple glasses on that thing. And oh how she loved her ass! She would grab it and say it was her riqueza mozambicana or "Mozambican wealth." She also frequently commented that her husband is more than enthusiastic about it also. (To be fair, some Mozambican women feel pressure to be more thin, but to me, it appeared mostly as a result of modernization and Western influences). What relief and freedom those women enjoy when so many shapes and sizes are authentically accepted as beautiful.

Those 3 reasons may help to explain why being in that environment for 2 years made me feel more confident myself.

And then there's Americaland.

Going through high school and freshman year of college, I was sick of hearing people talk about body image crap because I'd never really struggled myself or saw other girls struggle. But later in college, I saw how toxic American culture is for women. As an RA, I was horrified by the percentage of classmates and friends at my college who had eating disorders and are completely messed up in their brain about how they look.

Many blame the media and I will jump on that bandwagon for a few moments. There really is just one narrow definition of beauty in this country. And the media pounds it. In recent years there has been an effort to introduce different sizes as beautiful but it seems like more of a politically correct gesture of pity to people who will never meet certain standards than an authentic celebration of differences. To fill the cast of Glee, they found someone chubby (and hit two birds with one stone because she happens to fill the black quota also), some Asians, a handicapped kid, and an ugly girl (new this season), and a gay kid. But would Americans really enjoy watching Glee without the charming Mr. Shuester, cute guidance counselor, or hot Santana, Brittney, Quinn, Rachel, Puck, Finn, and blond new guy??? No, I don't think they would. The standard of beauty is still Quinn. Everyone else is a concession.

In Hollywood people point to actresses like J Lo, and say "Look, her ass is a couple of inches bigger than the rest" or someone like Kate Hudson and say "Look, her boobs are smaller than the average." A few inches indicate diversity in our definition of beauty.

I usually wake up in the morning and look in my American mirror quite satisfied with what I'm seeing. But if I spend the day shopping, looking at magazines, watching TV, or hanging out with a large group of women, I end my day less enthusiastic about my looks.

But why does all this pressure seem not to affect black women as much? And how do we morph into a culture where all healthy women look at their body and genuinely think, "damn, I look good, and even if that person doesn't fancy me, I'm definitely sexy to someone else."?

Any sistas out there have advice?

Maybe if I stopped looking at pictures and started hanging out with more black girls, I'd feel better again, almost like I was in Mozambique.

What am I going to do with this thing?

2011-02-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

So now that I'm back from Mozambique and done being a Peace Corps Volunteer, I'm not sure what to do with this blog. After all, the address is erin-in-mozambique, and that's not true anymore. I don't want to become one of those nerds who tries to re-live just one short experience in their life over and over until everyone pukes in their mouth a little every time they have to hear another lame story they've already heard. However, I don't think many individuals were reading my blog (not complaining, just being realistic. Thanks Ben for always reading) and there are certainly fewer now that I'm home. So I'm thinking I won't annoy friends or loved-ones by continuing. And when I think of it, one of my most therapeutic activities while in Mozambique was blogging, so maybe that could help me while I try to be an American again. Let's face it, a lot of me still feels very much like I'm in Mozambique.

I guess I'll start by posting all the entries that I was too busy to post my last month in country and then maybe talk about what I'm doing after Mozambique.

Closet Christian

2010-11-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

When I entered my Peace Corps service in October of 2008, I thought most of my cultural dilemmas would be from the mixture of American and Mozambican aspects of life, but I soon discovered that the Peace Corps crowd itself definitely has a strong and distinct culture itself that at times had me feeling a bit out of place much in the same way that being a single white Americana in a predominately black, Muslim community sometimes does. This PC culture seemed even more robust to me with the frenzy of the presidential elections hot underway. I remember sitting in the middle of many intensely lively discussions with my new colleagues who are also subsequently one’s new family and basically everything. I was thinking if these people knew that I didn’t vote in this election, a torrent of hot ridicule and shame would certainly be pointed in my direction. I knew this because I watched it happen to someone else. (Side-note, I do think it’s very important to vote. Americans should vote. I decided not to. During the presidential election, I was more preoccupied with my 6 week notice about my service assignment in Mozambique, getting engaged, and trying to wrap up life in the states. There was no amount of energy/emotion/brainspace left for politics. And part of me was looking forward in many ways to a vacation by way of isolation from Americanish things)

Anyway, when I saw other volunteers so venomously insult people like Sara Palin, actually chucking objects at the TV in our hotel and cry tears of joy when Obama was elected, I knew I was a minority. Not because I didn’t want Obama to win or because I’m a Sara Palin fan (I’m not, please don’t throw anything), I just knew that so many of my passions are directed toward different things.

The stereo-typical PCV walks around in cuffed jeans, Chacos or flip flops, and bandanas with a back pack slung over the shoulder and probably a duct-taped Nalgene bottle hanging off the side unless it was stolen. The PCV is super friendly, helpful, intelligent, super aware of world-happenings, politically passionate, amazingly multi-talented, liberal, upper middle class, 20-something, was/is/at least seriously considered being a vegetarian, creative, hopeful yet slightly bitter about one thing or another, driven, goofy, independent, a little self-righteous, opinionated, and either apathetic toward or opposed to religion-especially American Christianity.

When it was announced at the church I grew up in that I would be joining the Peace Corps, I lost count of the number of people from my church family who asked me why in the world I would want to join Peace Corps instead of choosing to do mission work because Peace Corps doesn’t allow you to tell people about Jesus. This annoyed me. What’s wrong with simply helping someone with anything? But it also made me question things internally about the ultimate “point” of helping people. Why do I help and what ultimately will “help” people the most?

I have grown to enjoy and respect Peace Corps and the PC crowd, but I am such a minority in some ways. I love Jesus and want to talk about Him, call myself a Christian, have quite conservative values, and am rather politically moderate and sometimes apathetic. I don’t mind confrontation when necessary, but generally avoid it. During a lot of hot PCV conversation, debate, and discussions; I haven’t really participated much and I’ve learned a lot listening. So many PCVs (and many ppl from my generation it seems) bristle at Christianity or anything relatively conservative.

I remember in training, I joined a small group of volunteers who met for Bible study. I skipped out one of the last weeks because I wanted to say goodbye to a larger group of volunteers who were meeting at our favorite bar. I never exactly advertised that I attended the Bible study so no one felt inhibited when I walked into the bar to continue making fun of the idea of studying the Bible. It’s such a weird thing. PCV’s pride themselves on being open-minded, but I think it’s more of a selective open-mindedness which really isn’t open. I really think that if it had been a group of people studying the Qur’an, no one would have said a word. Why? My generation and mainly people like PCVs, seem to hate American Christianity. Not that I can blame them. I’m not much of a fan either. And sitting all the way over here for 2 years watching the United States from a distance and talking to a lot of non-Americans, and starting to feel more and more removed from Americanisms, I’ve started to see things a little bit differently. I don’t get what’s going on in the church in America and it’s interesting to hear the rest of the world talk about Christianity in America. Whenever evangelicals are spoken of, it’s to talk about the evangelical vote. People also talk about the “Christian right.” Some people are surprised that I pray because they heard that American scientists don’t pray because of science and religion issues. Oh Galileo, we still don’t have it figured out. Where does faith/religious stuff/spirituality belong?

From here and from other perspectives in the world, it seems Christianity in America is all politics and issues. How does that happen?

In Mark chapeter 12 when the Jewish religious leaders ask Jesus about whether or not it’s lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, they were trying to trap him in the often difficult to define relationship between church and state. Jesus responds “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” I think he was recognizing the need for maintaining earthly organizations like governments to keep order (because he’s an orderly God) while also calling people to remember that God is still ultimately preeminently God.

Christians and churches should participate and care about government and politics, but when the American church is seen as a political entity by many people in the world, known only by the political issues that they passionately argue about, I think we’ve gone wrong. I think many evangelicals would rather debate gay marriage than Jesus and participate in a political campaign than devote their lives to serving their communities humbly.

In the Old Testament, God tells the Israelites “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” A kingdom of priests. Priests were the intermediary between people and God. When God told them that they would be a kingdom of priests, he was calling them to be the “go-between” the early nations of the world and God. They were to be faithful to God and serve the nations around them so that he could bless the world through them.

In Ephesians, Paul calls the church the “body of Christ” – the organization that is to carry out Christ’s work on the earth.

In his book Jesus Wants to Save Christians, Rob Bell writes “a church is an organization that exists for the benefit of non-members.”

Maybe if churches in America busied themselves with being this priesthood, the body of Christ, the blessing that they are to be to their communities Nehemiah-style, people like PCV’s wouldn’t be so turned off by Christianity and churches might have influence on culture, values, and subsequently political issues because of respect rather than power obtained by vote.

I certainly have failed along with the American church to serve as I should. I don’t mean to be such a Negative Nancy, but I think we can do so much better.

So back to the question of why I did Peace Corps rather than mission work. Learning. Experience.

Being here and doing Peace Corps has done nothing but reinforce by beliefs that people need changed hearts if the world is going to change.

PC is all about teaching behavior change. Education, education, education. I’m a teacher. I think education is important, but it’s not the answer. If it was, there would be no such thing as smart ass-holes. As it turns out, educated people can and often still do really shitty things and make the world even shittier. Behavior change is just behavior.

Here in Mozambique, one of the demographics where HIV is on the rise is young educated professionals in Maputo. The best and the brightest. They know why and how to use a condom. Why doesn’t behavior change work?

People who are strong willed white knuckle their lives and keep themselves in line. Weaker-willed people fail. Still others, don’t care.

A student told me last week that he would rather have sex “carne a carne” (flesh to flesh) than use a condom even with the risk of contracting or spreading HIV.

What more can be taught?

What if our desires changed? What if our hearts were different? What if we could change what we wanted the most so that we wouldn’t have to always fight off everything we really desire?

I certainly don’t know everything, but I have seen Jesus change hearts. I think ultimately people need Jesus. There, I said it. I’m out of the closet. Sorry Peace Corps, sorry PCVs. Maybe I don’t belong, but I loved the Peace Corps experience and learned so much!

Dia do Professor

2010-10-23T05:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Teacher's Day all the way from Mozambique. October 12th is our day. How do we celebrate as educators? Cancel school for a few days. Again. So the day started off with a motorcycle parade of teachers, ceremonies at the plaza, a lot of cooking and decorating (for female teachers while our bozo male colleagues went to the beach), and a party.
Angoche Plaza
ESA's dance group
Some of my 8th grade kiddos
My boss and an one of the students who was "asked" to help cook for the party
The food was great
We had the party right on the court next to ESA
Colleagues
Me and Celia, one of 5 female teachers in our school
Here in Mozambique, we cut cakes together at every party. Guess what idiot got chosen to cut the cake with the director this year. This gal. Weird

Distractions

2010-10-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

The roof and wall of half of one of the classrooms blew away today in a strong gust of hot dusty wind. I love teaching in tin huts. I've been waiting for it to happen. I noticed a long time ago how termites have had no mercy on the coconut tree trunk frames. Luckily, no one got hurt. The kids stampeded out of the room. As if we don't have enough distractions here.

I've pulled out all the stops. I even saved the reproductive systems until the end of the year because I wanted to take advantage of their raging hormones to get them to pay attention.

2 more weeks of the chaos I call my job and I'm finished as a teacher here. So sad but a relief in so many ways...

Preach it sister

2010-10-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

I remember one Sunday at church when we had a southern baptist minister as a guest speaker. He shared that the first time he spoke in a church like ours (more subdued), he was totally demoralized after his sermon because everyone was so quiet. The most emotional response was a baby crying in the back. Other than that, blank stares. Where were all those re-affirming Alleluias, Amens, and preach-its? After talking to people later and receiving excellent reviews, he realized that his preaching was in fact, very well received. How's a brother to know? Congregations are just different.

Responsiveness varies.

I'm really white and most of the time anywhere from pretty mellow to modestly enthusiastic. But if there's anything that makes me feel like a black southern baptist preacher (sorry if that's offensive to you), its a Mozambican classroom. My self-esteem, as far as lesson delivery goes, has definitely sky rocketed out of control here. The inflation is going to be a real problem when I go back to the states and encounter the types of conservative middle class white kids with a slightly to extremely unimpressed attitude that I was a part of as a high schooler and that I taught during student teaching.

When I first arrived, I was a little bit intimidated and shocked by their seemingly over enthusiastic responses, mostly because I never quite knew what would elicit eruptions of enthusiasm. I got a standing ovation for the first poster I drew of the skeletal system on a rice sack. Anyway, as great as enthusiasm is, it gets dangerous when 8th grade class sizes are over 100.
Little by little a person picks up on patterns. I learned to harness their energy because sometimes it drives me absolutely nuts. For example, I can't ask yes or no questions in my classrooms. The first time I innocently asked "Are you all finished copying these definitions?", I was horrified by the ridiculously prolonged high-pitched nasaly "SIM!" (yes) "NAO" (no) war that ensued between the slow and fast copiers. I at first thought they were just being ornery to me but have since then noticed that they do the same thing to my colleagues and it's totally normal. It drove me so nuts that no one is allowed to respond with a verbal yes or no anymore. We learned how to give thumbs up or down. It kills them. Sometimes when they get too emphatic, they jump up and down with their hand motion. Even in silence, they're loud.

Also, every time I do something a little out of the ordinary, the participation is incredible. It's just normal here. I love it, it annoys me, and I'm still surprised sometimes.

At a recent school assembly on sex, pregnancy, and women's health, I was responding to a student's question about feminine hygiene and trying to use delicate vocabulary. One of my fellow teachers also helping with the assembly interrupted me because I was either not being as graphic as she would have liked or the girls weren't showing clearly enough whether or not they understood what I was saying. She held up her hand giving me a sort of girl-I-got-this signal and then proceeded to prompt the crowd with her big sassy oh-no-she-didn't finger.

"Sometimes...dramatic pause... it stinks!"

giggles

"Does it stink?"

Yesssss teacher!!!!

"DOES IT STINK?"

It stinks teacher!!!

"I said DOES IT STIIIIIINNNNNKKKKK???"

It STINKS teacher!!!!!!
cue standing ovation, girls cheering and jumping up and down uncontrollably for nearly a minute

What? I almost peed my pants laughing. Only in Mozambique does a room full of high school girls get so excited about vaginal stinkage.

Oh Mozambique.

Conversation

2010-10-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

This is a conversation I had with our 50 year old, arguably crazy guard, Feliciano.

Feliciano: Do you have any stomache medacine?

Me: no

Feliciano: because my belly is filling with gas

Me: I don't have any meds for that

Feliciano: and sometimes, it leaves like this makes a motion with hand imitating gas coming from his butt and makes a fart noise, spraying spit in my face then wipes the spit off of me

Me: Feliciano, its just gas. Did you eat beans or something that might have already gone bad?

Feliciano: Yeah, I think so.

Me: It will leave your body without medicine

awkward stare-down

Me: ok see you tomorrow

Feliciano: Its just that it stinks

Me: Farts do. bye

Feliciano: ok, see you tomorrow

Scandalous part 2: Sex Assembly

2010-10-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

I was a little nervous as the masses of teenage girls poured into the doors of the school gymnasium and squeezed into chairs facing all 5 women who work at the Angoche Secondary School. My pedagogical director gave a brief introduction to the girls siting the huge female drop out rate and 53 pregnancies as the motivation for the assembly. And then she turned the floor over to me. I was shakin at first feeling a little overwhelmed by the weighty and uncomfortable topic as well as the number of older students-many of whom are not that much younger than me. But finally settled into a normal rhythm of a biology lesson. They were so receptive. We went over male anatomy and female anatomy and physiology focusing on the menstruation cycle and how pregnancies occur. I was amazed at the lack of information they have about how their bodies work and how to take care of themselves. By the time I got through the technical info and responded to questions, we had already been there for 90 minutes. I was glad to have my colleagues there. In any given language there's practically a whole dialect of slang devoted to sex practices and reproductive organs. Add to that the confusion with terms in Koti and Macua, both local languages, stir in Islamic practices as well as initiation rites ceremonies I still don't understand, sprinkle the cultural differences between Western and African thinking on top and you've got a nice big dish of confusion. But as a team, we worked pretty well. It was fun and interesting to be a part of it with them, realizing that no matter how different our lives are, there is still so much that women have in common. duh. Sorry this is getting really corny. But seriously. It was good.

Anyway, after I fielded a lot of questions on technical topics, my loudest, sassiest colleague got up in front of the girls and threw out some extremely controversial statements inciting a uproarious debate. I definitely became a spectator. I'm usually not a fan of this type of teaching method. It gets a little too emotional and dramatic for me. But it worked. I learned a lot.
My colleague got her spicy sista attitude on and asked the girls why they go after old men who've lost their taste.

The first girl stood up and delivered a rather sermon-like seemingly practiced speech citing behaviors that girls commonly use to go after a male teacher. She ended with a dramatic "it's us who go after them!"

My jaw dropped.
Half the girls in the room clapped or hooted or nodded in agreement.

The other half of the girls were livid.
Another girl in tears stood up and disagreed. She shared that when she was 14, an older, disgusting teacher had approached her. "What would I ever want with a gross old man when I'm 14?" She yelled. They come after us and if you reject them, you might not pass. Who wants to flunk?

A couple other girls stood up and shared and then my colleague asked them what the motives are for those girls who approach teachers. There were a lot of motives mentioned, but from what I gather these were the main motives stated by the girls themselves:
1. Their parents push it in effort to get one more child out of the house and into the house of someone who has constant work.
2. The girls like the teachers. Many of them aren't really all that much younger than some of the younger teachers.
3. They want money or new clothes and a cell phone. One girl actually stood up and said she didn't think anyone in the room would reject a proposition for 1,000 mets (roughly $28). Most in the room agreed.
4. They want to pass. And if they have sex with a teacher, that teacher then makes sure that their colleagues pass the girl in every discipline.

At this point I was feeling pretty sick. It seems my colleagues were right on a number of points about the girls provoking the teachers. I couldn't believe what some of the girls were openly admitting to.

Even so...

I still want to castrate some of my male colleagues. They are adults (many married) and a kid is a kid. The lines get so blurred here.

I was wondering how these points were all going to be addressed.

My colleague leading this debate finally responded and had a number of intense retorts about the girls' embarrassing behaviors--for those provoking situations. She talked to them about having a little big more dignity not in their sexuality but in their ability to study and do something better. She also said how disgusted she was with them because a lot of them were making women in general look bad when they are too lazy to study so just have sex to pass. Another colleague talked about how many more opportunities they have than she did just one generation ago, and if they just get through high school and maybe collage, life for them would be considerably better.

She also addressed how to avoid becoming a victim. The girls were told never to be flirty, to concentrate on studying, to be serious and determined, and to save everything for their records in case some situation would ever come up. "And if one ever does approach you--my colleague advised-- you look him straight in the face and tell him, I mean no disrespect, but I want the same opportunities to study that you had, teacher, without having to deal with the funny business!"

Wowza.

I was a bit naive, thinking the girls were always victims with no control.
I have such a refreshed respect for my female colleagues.
And I'm mad that there isn't much more that can be done about the situation.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be them. I grew up in such a different environment. Going to school and having to worry about that kind of stuff? Yikes.

Scandalous

2010-10-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

I sometimes struggle with what to write and not to write on my blog. I love so many things about Mozambique and Angoche in particular. I don't like writing negatively; especially since you all can’t see the whole for yourselves. But corruption in the school is such a huge issue in my life here.

Last Friday I was informed of a meeting only for the female teachers at our high school. Oh boy, what is this about? Except for the remote possibility of my female colleagues wanting to go on a girls’ night out shopping for capulanas, I was dreading the reasons for calling together the 5 total women who work in the secondary school system here in Angoche. It’s going to be something about our girls. I wondered what had happened and what they expected us to do about it. Many of the problems women experience here are because of men, so why don’t they get called into a meeting?

A few days before the meeting, I was talking to one of my male colleagues who I respect and trust the most. I told him about the meeting and asked him what it was going to be about. He said it would be about pregnancy. I asked him why alllll the teachers weren’t invited since many of them like to chase after the girls. “Mana” (or sister), he said, the girls are the ones who provoke teachers!” After sitting through a tearful meeting just a week ago with our cream-of-the-crop students in our girls’ group listening to them tell their stories of male teachers in our school who have taken “special interest” in them and all the trouble that ensues when girls are noticed by a teacher. Hearing their stories about this particular hardship frustrates me more than anything here. I was not happy with his response and let him know it. He told me I thought that way because the girls I spend most of my time with are the good girls. He started to share what it’s like to be a male teacher in Angoche, who is one of the few teachers who reportedly does not “conquistar” (literally conquer, but it this case means seduce) female students. He said one day he had a discussion with a female student about why she didn’t have a notebook. The student said she had no money. He asked her why she had a beautiful, expensive looking weave if she had no money for notebooks. She responded with a rather spicy “so teacher will notice me.” He also told me about the dramatic letters he intercepts sometimes as a director of turma, the US equivalent of a homeroom teacher. He said that so many girls pursue teachers so aggressively that they even fight each other over certain teachers. He offered to show me the letters if I wanted proof. Not a native to Angoche, he also enlightened me about what he was told when he was transferred here. He was repeatedly informed that he would certainly forget the fiancé he was leaving behind in his home city if he came to work in Angoche because women from Nampula (our province) are so beautiful. I’ve certainly heard that before about women in this province, but always thought of it on a much more innocent level. He asked me if I thought women here were remarkably more beautiful than in the south.

Not really.

Then why do you think the women here are legendarily beautiful to the point that people all the way down in Southern Mozambique talk about it?

I don’t know.

Do you know what they do at initiation rites ceremonies, Mana? At the first sign of menstruation for the girls, they hold the ceremony, explain to the kid she’s an adult now, instruct her on the mechanics of sex, and often fail to also impart guidelines about when and with who these activities should be done. In fact, most parents, he shared, are the ones who push the girls into relationships in order to get one more mouth to feed out of the house. And that, he concluded, is why women from Nampula are more “beautiful.”

Great, I live in the middle of a culture which breeds easy targets and labels them beautiful for it. Does my little girls’ empowerment group stand a chance? My colleague certainly made a number of good points, but I’m not completely convinced.

Our suspicions about the meeting were confirmed. My pedagogical director, one of the 5 women in the school, sat us down in her office and announced that female enrolment was down by 200 students since 2006 and that 53 girls are pregnant in our school and those are just the ones who were big enough to start showing and they hadn’t done a sweep of the 8^th grade classes yet. I’ve gotten to watch this process before and every time it horrifies me. A girl walks past a teacher. The teacher suspects they might be pregnant and calls the girl over. The teacher asks “what is this?” “do you have a belly?” or “is there a package in here?” while rubbing the girls’ stomach to see for themselves. This usually happens wherever and in front of whoever happens to be around. If the student is not pregnant, she giggles, and tells the teacher she’s just getting fatter. The girl usually starts crying if she is pregnant and is told to report to the office to transfer to night school. Night school is not taken seriously here. It’s full of last-chance older kids who couldn’t behave during day school and adults who are trying to get their high school degree because during their youth, the civil war was raging, making studying impossible. They don’t care much about learning, they are just there to get the piece of paper that says they passed 12^th grade. Usually when these young pregnant girls go to night school, they quit studying.

My pedagogical director asked us what we were going to do about all the pregnancies.

Silence.

I decided to be a little more bold than I usually am with my colleagues and asked them what why all of our male colleagues were excluded from the meeting when they are certainly responsible for at least a portion of the 53 pregnancies. Eyes widened. “Really?” they asked, apparently unaware of the possibility.

Seriously??? I thought. Come on. Are you blind? Don’t try to tell me you don’t see this. Our colleagues ride around with the girls on the backs of their motorcycles and disappear into houses together. These girls who don’t have any money mysteriously start wearing beautiful clothes. Some colleagues have even openly admitted to me that they have sex with students. How do the girls have a chance if they reject a teacher? Teachers have power and money and connections. My director interrupted me and with a tired face, told me that in all reality, there’s more to they story than I know. The girls provoke them.

Here we go again, blaming the girls.

And besides that, she went on, there’s not much they can do to stop the male teachers’ behavior in this area. So she posed the question again. What are we going to do about it?

I was fantasizing about castration in my head but together we decided the best option would be an assembly of sorts with just the girls to go over some information they are no doubt lacking, to hear their perspective on all of the inappropriate relationships, and try to encourage them to continue studying. As the resident anatomy teacher, I have the pleasure of teaching reproductive anatomy and birth control methods during this assembly for half of the female students in the public school system. How’s that for pressure? It’s ridiculous that I could be the most qualified person to do this. Poor girls. Anyway, I am pretty impressed right now with my female colleagues…we met, didn’t waste time, decided what we wanted to do, wrote a plan, and dismissed. I almost felt American. It’s amazing how different women are when men aren’t around. Anyway…stay tuned to hear about the sex assembly.

Happy Birthday Angoche

2010-10-09T01:11:00.001-07:00

Para bens Angoche! On the 26th of September my beautiful little city turned 40 years old. Angoche Day happens to land on the calendar right next to Armed Forces Day, so we had 2 weekend holidays which in Mozambique translates to no work/school on Friday or Monday. Party on!
This year's festivities were much like last year's. Lots of struttin around in Angoche Day capulanas, traditional singing and dancing, drinking, going to the beach, live concerts, dances, eating, and of course, all of the competitions. Every year, there is a men's and women's foot race, a bicycle race, a needle-threading race, a water jug on the head race, and the most exciting of all, a motorcycle race! Just like last year, Angoche turned into a bustling city as everyone from the bairos, and outskirts come in to walk around and participate in events. And no one misses the motorcycle race. It seems insanely dangerous to me especially when a girl comes from a land where helmets, seat belts, speed limits, baby seats, warning signs, and guard rails are the norm; and there was actually one casualty this year. But hey! I guess this is what people do when they're hard up for entertainment.
David, Melissa, and Gina all came in to celebrate Angoche Day with me and my lovely site mate Margarida. We were fortunate enough to watch the race comfortably from the balcony of Fabiao's apartment on main street.

People will do anything to get a good view of all the Evel Knievel wanna-be's.
And I mean anything. In fact, this roof got so crowded, someone fell off the top. The ambulance following the cyclists had to make a stop to pick him up.
And here's the excited crowd rushing toward the winner of the motorcycle race. Turns out, it was one of my colleagues who teaches 8th grade math. Represent

Mozambican enthusiasm may have been for the motorcycles, but for the Americanas, the men's run was the focus. Last year when I watched the men's 10K race, I knew I wanted to participate the next year. Most of the participants couldn't even finish partly because they sprint the first lap like they're runnin a 100M dash and then die and partly because the concept of working really hard and training well is a bit fuzzy. To many Angocheans, training means taking a little jog and doing some weird hip-thrusting calisthenics the night before a race. When one can't finish a race, he either runs straight of the course to hide somewhere or he flops himself on the ground dramatically. It's pretty great. The women's race is only 2K, which is a pretty big insult in my opinion.
So anyway, I wanted to participate this year, thinking it would be a really great girl power example to Angoche. When I asked to sign up myself and 3 other female colleagues for the men's race, guys laughed in my face, which inspired me all the more. I was surprised that even Mussa, one of our best, open-minded friends had to be threatened to sign us up with the organizing commission. Whenever ppl heard about it, we got amused but negative responses. Even our Papa Fabiao at the post office who knows us so well and sees us running all the time told me that I certainly wouldn't be able to do it, even though most days I run 12K or more.
In fact the only Mozambican man who was fully supporting us and even bragging to everyone that we were going to win, was our wiry, slightly crazy, old guard. Feliciano even agreed to be our water boy on race day cause he wanted to be there when we crossed the finish line.
So anyway, the day of the race came and they tried until the last minute to get us to participate with the women. I had to throw a fit in front of the Mayor of Angoche before my request was observed. As they were stapling our numbers to our shirts and telling us we were going to die and I thought it might be a real possibility now that things had run so late. The race was scheduled for 7:30AM. We actually go on the line at 11:30. It was toasty and super sunny and there is no shade; but the Americanas made a great showing. Once they saw after the first sprinted lap that we weren't going to die off so quickly, people were a little more supportive. In fact, some students were so concerned about how much Senhora Professora was sweating and turning red, that I was dowsed with water 3 times.

Melissa ended up coming in 3rd, I got something like 6th, Gina and Margarida placed somewhere after that. We can't be too sure. They lost count of both people and laps. Whatever. I thought the point had been made. We beat a good number of the guys and actually finished the race as opposed to a third of the male participants who walked after the first 2 laps or disappeared into the crowds.

This is the Moz way to take a pic--no smiling, and ya gotta have a prop.

And there he is, our waterboy/coach/biggest fan. Thanks Feliciano.

I wish I could say that running the race proved all the naysayers wrong. I've gotten mixed reviews. Many people responded so positively, the way I had hoped. "Wow, I didn't know that was possible, but now I do!" Some men including Fabiao, have continued to laugh at me saying that they were right all along, women can't do it. What the what? Some students and colleagues have asked me why I bothered finishing the race because I only got 6th and that I embarrassed them by not winning.
I didn't win.
But I finished.
And I finished in front of over half the men who were actually able to finish.
Epa.
I guess generations of particular ways of thinking far outweigh one 10K race. And although I "embarrassed" a lot of people, we were the talk of the town as everyone was at least excited to see 4 white women runnin with the guys. Hopefully more ladies will participate in the future knowing that the opportunity is there. I'm going to mark it down as a win and award myself at least 3,000 integration points.

Communications Drought

2010-10-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

If the 4-12 hour chapa ride that makes my feet swell up like watermelons cause a girl can't move and my backside feel like I was just attacked multiple times by mom's wooden spoon isn't enough to make me feel isolated here in Angoche because I never want to leave because riding out is so awful, the internet droughts and technological issues drive me more nuts! Our internet here in Angoche stopped working at the end of August. Then my computer crashed. Fortunately, I had everything backed up on my external hard drive. A guy in Angoche was able to fix my computer miraculously, but it no longer had any of my files. Last week, I discovered that my external still has a virus and won't let me open any of my backed up files. Yesterday the internet came back. But I can't send anything important. Oh the joys. Mozambique and technology mix like oil and water. But you 2 or 3 remaining faithful readers, get ready!!! As soon as I find that one Angochean guy who has recently gone MIA and turned off his cell phone who might be able to take the virus off my external hard drive, I will unleash a torrent of blog posts like you've never seen before! Thanks for not giving up on me.

Viva Ciencias!

2010-08-22T09:13:00.001-07:00

So just to update you all on Science Fair news...I returned a few hours ago from a rather interesting journey to the regional capital with our three winning students from the local fair and one of my colleagues who helped me with planning and implementing Angoche's fair. Thirty-three students presented their projects at the regional fair, representing 11 different schools in Northern Mozambique. Competition was tough, but Angoche brought its game face. I'm happy to annouce that Iahaia, who placed 3rd in Angoche's fair, took 4th place this weekend with his height estimation equation! His interesting project and excellently delivered presentation charmed the judges. I was so excited to see him place in the top 5. Of all my students who participated, Iahaia comes from the least privilaged family. When I went to visit his family to ask permission to take him to the fair, I met everyone in his family and at the end of our conversation, I was given a small mountain of peanuts as a gift. They were pretty enthusiastic about sending their son/brother to this competition so I'm quite certain there was a lot of celebrating going on in his house when he returned with 4th place and a bunch of fancy school supplies and other prizes.
And here's Angoche with the new American Ambassador here in Mozambique, Leslie V. Rowe. Her presence was exciting addition this year and hopefully reinforced the importance of continued development of projects like this one. Plus, she's an interesting lady and seemed genuinely interested in Peace Corps Volunteers and our projects.

And here's Angoche again, with one of the Mozambican big-wigs in education. I tried to make them all smile, but didn't have much luck.

Viva Ciencias! Vivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

c a p u l a n a

2010-08-19T00:25:00.000-07:00

A capulana is a strip of material most often tied around the waist or worn as a scarf.

Photo by Ausi Petrelius

To fully express with authority the wonders of the capulana, I would like to borrow some words from the heart of a Mozambican writer, Paulina Chiziane, who recently featured an article about capulanas in the nation's most prestegious magazine. Of the capulana, she writes:

"It accompanies all the stages of our life. With it, we recieve the new-born infant; with it, we make attire for all ages; it is shroud, sheet, headscarf, and blanket. With it, we tie the baby to our back, or make a bundle of vegetables, or tie up a bunch of firewood. It's the practical funcion which gives this strip of cloth is very peculiar character. The capulana is the symbol of Mozambican women, of African women. A real Mozambican woman must have a capulana. Two capulanas. A thousand capulanas or more--the number doesn't matter. One capulana is never the same as another. There can never be too many."

I couldn't agree more, Paulina! There can never be too many! We've certainly tried our best to obey this Mozambican cultural norm. Our enthusiasm for capulanas is widespread. One day I was walking down the street and some young woman I don't even know ran up to me and burst out "Teacher! the new women's day capulanas are being sold down the street!" How did she know that I would be interested? That's easy. Everyone knows the Americanas love capulanas and they love that we love them.

Although we usually aren't seen using capulanas to carry bundles of firewood on our head (we don't have the skills for that) or strap a baby to our backs (we don't have the babies for that), we do find them incredibly useful. They make great blankets, towels, curtains, cushions on long chapa rides, embelishments, and of course, clothing. When we're talking clothing, however, I must admit, that I've never gotten too into the traditional way to wear the capulana-wrapped around the waist like these ladies.

Photo by Ausi Petrelius

Mine ends up coming un-done and/or I feel incredibly restricted. A girl can't take Americana-sized strides when wearing a capulana like that! (Maybe that's why everyone here walks at just slower than a snail's pace) So we turn our capulanas into capulana clothes, which is also a loved tradition, especially typical of Northern Mozambique.

Life in the Peace Corps gets difficult and sometimes boring. Some volunteers relieve stress by traveling, some journaling, some exercising, and many by drinking the national brew, 2M. But others, like ourselves, occupy some of our time developing fabulous capulana fashion creations.

STEP 1--> Buy a capulana.

Capulanas are typically 1.5m in length and come in pairs. They cost about 150-300 mzm or $4-8 depending on the quality, novelty, printing process, and origins. We walk to the market to buy them. I usually look for the softest and most colorful. They can have extremely modest to ridiculously flamboant prints. They often feature famous people's faces like presidents, the iconic Mozambican heroine Josina Machel, the pope, and even Obama has a capulana dedicated to him in Malawi. They also frequently feature completely random prints like computers, hands, cards, matches, turkeys, tree-stumps, or casserol--anything goes. So anyways, we bargain with our favorite dealers, then add them to our collection.

STEP 2--> Design the clothes.

With the purchase of a new capulana comes inspiration. We draw designs of clothing on note cards, rip pages out of magazines, or take pictures of people on the street.

STEP 3--> Go to the tailor.

This is always the hardest part. We have roughly 6 tailors that we frequent with our capulana needs. Each of them has his forte and quirks. It took them a while to get used to our American tastes--like not wanting to make every dress a little baggier in front to allow for frequent pregnancy--but they're more accostomed to us now. We carefully explain the drawing, get measured, and turn in the capulana.

STEP 4 --> Pick up new capulana gear.

Finally, after anywhere from a day to 3 months depending on how Mozambican the tailor chooses to be about time-frames, we pick up the clothes. Usually adjustments need to be made, and sometimes the piece is just a big flop. But when it's not...

STEP 5--> Work it!

English

2010-08-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes--trust me, not too often--I wish I was an English teacher here so I could recieve more great txts like the following:

Hello my dear, how are you? I'm not well, i have stomach-ache.your student Pineapple

Cow Hearts and (Weird) Fresh Starts

2010-08-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we've already begun the 3rd trimester in this school year! I'm almost through my second full year of teaching. Weird. So since I'm an expert--not!--I thought I'd bore you all with some teaching philosophy stuff and a weird story. One thing I've learned so far is that a majority of classroom problems I encounter are my fault or partly my fault as a teacher. I never thought I would think that in a place like this where much of the blame for classroom problems can easily be placed on situational or environmental issues--like ridiculously large class sizes of 120 8th graders, lack of doors and complete walls, and little to no administrative support--but when I reflect on the past 5 trimesters here, I come to the conclusion that a really well-prepared and delivered lesson trumps all those other issues...usually. (There are those times when I think Mozambican classrooms would get the best of the greatest teacher in the world). So toward the end of the second trimester after a frustrating 2 weeks of battling for the lil monsters' attention, I sat down and tried to figure out what I was doing wrong. If I was an 8th grader squished into that classroom and some weirdo foreigner lady delivered me that lesson, I concluded, I wouldn't pay attention either. Back to the drawing board.
Since we were working on the circulatory system, I thought I would try to bring in something to grab their attention. So I went to our market one day after a cow was slaughtered and bought some cow guts. I got lucky. The heart with portions of all the major vessels was still in-tact and no one had taken it yet. I took it home, dissected it, and identified the structures I'd been explaining in class. Show and tell went quite well. Although, I don't think anyone has ever done anything like that before. They started giggling and exchaged the all too familiar glances that they exchange whenever no one knows--since they're only 8th graders and I'm a foreigner and sometimes the only teacher at the cashew factory--if I'm doing something wrong, taboo, or just weird. They got pretty into it though.
They're not a bit squeamish like American students are when it comes to guts and blood. In fact, I had to ask them to stop grabbing and poking the heart with their bare hands...cause after a whole day in the hot sun being squished and poked at (and with no bathrooms or running water for miles), I had no idea what lil extra microscopic prizes were growing on my cow heart. And to confirm what I feared, they all wanted the heart. Sick. I knew that they would cook it up and eat it if they took it home and I didn't want to be responsible for a salmonella death, so I told them no one could have the heart. They asked me if I was going to eat it. I said no and tried to teach them about bacteria, but that just sounds dumb and finicky to a kid who has always seen meat purchased after sitting in the market exposed to flies, poked over by anyone and everyone, and handed to the buyer in no packaging whatsoever. My plan was to take the heart home and throw it away, but people always go through our trash. Darn. So I told them that I was going to swim out to one of the islands and feed it to the sharks. Good one, Professora. They told me Allah would be mad at me for that sin. Got me there. After class, they all started following me home. Creepy. So I started running and someone driving by saw the American teacher with cow guts running from a pack of students and gave me a ride. Whew. So anyway, after their initial anger about me burying the heart in a top-secret location wore off, we've been doing a lot better in class. Yay cow hearts. Yay fresh starts.

a p a s

2010-07-31T09:28:00.000-07:00

What do my toilet and arteries have in common? They both risk clogging because of a little thing called apa. ba-boom-ching! There is much to be explored in the world of Angochean cuisine which boasts a fine array of fresh delicious seafood; yummy healthy traditional dishes made with coconut milk, casava leaves, and peanuts; spicy Indian curries over rice; wonderful tropical fruit; and more...
...and then there's street food. Street food is down right bad for your constitution and--lets face it--doesn't even taste very good; but everyone has their street food vice anyway (if they're honest). Amongst all street food varieties, apa is king, and quite possibly the only food in Angoche that can truly be considered fast food.
So what exactly is an apa?

1 folded up tortilla ish thing + 1 greasy fried egg + ketchup + unrefrigerated mayo = apa

Why does a smart person eat this?
In America, you lucky ducks eat a lot of Taco Bell after a night of drinking, or you say "let's just order pizza" when lacking culinary creativity, or you carry out Chinese when you don't have the energy to fire up the kitchen at home, or when electricity in the city disappears...nevermind, that doesn't happen there. Here, in situations such as these we turn to the apa. The apa stand is actually located conveniently (or inconveniently when it comes to my health) near our apartment. When I first arrived and was introduced to the apa, I was horrified that people eat it. Now, I confess I don't just eat them out of a survival instinct, I like them. Maybe they make you dummer. I'm sure they at least take years off one's life, which is actually ok for me. I took a life expectancy test in Developmental Psyc my last year of college and was horrified to find out that I'm supposed to live to be 102. I'm happy to say that I've reduced that to at least 98. Jesus here I come! Thanks apas.

Apa fun facts:
1. Each apa costs 13 mets or roughly $0.40
2. Each apa comes in a tiny plastic sack (so much for the environment!)
3. This student, Mecussete, is the best at getting the egg/tortilla/sauces proportions correct

4. 2 is the magic number for anyone who goes for a complete meal (average female PCV serving size...guys usually down more...maybe that dumb factor?)
5. The record number of apas eaten in one setting is 10. Gross. (We got bored and had another eating contest) Congrats Andrew, honorable mention: Margaret with 9

6. The apa stand has a complete menu, but they only serve apas, sweet bread, and a weird drink called maheio (sp?)

7. It is nearly unpredictable when the apa stand will be open.

8. To make a date out of an apa-run, you can sit down in apa alley, a nice shady nook right off to the side of the apa stand. Seats 4 on the bench.

This post is lovingly dedicated to Mana Alexi, who has eaten more apas with me than anyone on earth. Does Chicago have Moz town?

Science Fair 2010

2010-07-15T23:13:00.001-07:00

Just last Saturday Angoche enjoyed her second annual science fair. I've been meeting with 17 science fair students for two months now learning the scientific method and organizing projects. Step aside silly American projects like vinegar and baking soda volcanos and weird planet orbit models! Angoche is going to show how to do a science fair Moz-style! Setting up our new facility this year, I was nervous that our turn out would be weak like it was last year.

But then after the weirdly formal opening speeches by our school director and myself, traffic started flowing.

What else do Angocheans have to do on a Saturday morning? I think we were the most exciting thing going on. Just look at that crowd!

After the grand opening, our judges started circulating. We had Teacher Alexi, Professor Mucaibo (my go-to science colleague at the school), and Cremildo, a biologist from Primeiras e Segundas the WWF/CARE project in Angoche. What a juri forte! The students were judged based on their grasp and application of the scientific method, content of their project, application of their project to both scientific concepts and every-day life, and oral/written defense.

Who takes the cake??? Would it be Luis with his yogert production project? Yussufo with his sugar extraction demonstration? Felismina with her charcoal substitution? Muchangame with his home-made papaya leaf/soap pesticide? Belito, my lil bootlegger with his production of wine from banana leaves? Faruk with his coconut oil extraction process? Separation of a mixture with Carlos? Homemade cast-plaster making with Fina? Or one of the suprise projects presented instead of the projects submittend and explained ahead of time to Professora Xirene (me)??? Stay tuned!!!

Let the explanations and demonstrations begin!

Bottoms up! This kid really trusts Luis and took a big swig of his yogert.

Iahaia carefully calculates heights of different objects using a mirror and mathematical equation.

Carlos, our winner from last year, expertly explains his separation process.

I think some of the members of the juri will probably want some of your wine, Belito, after this is all over.

And how could I forget to mention our special guests from the community??? We invited Primeiras and Segundas to set up a display about conservation of natural resources in the area. A number of their technitions showed up with mangrove trees and photos to explain their projects to the community.

We also invited the Associacao de Solidariedade e Aconselhamento em Saude (what a mouthful!), a health organization in Angoche that works primarily in HIV/AIDS counseling and support. Margarida, my lovely site-mate is partnered with this organization and brought some of her most entertaining colleagues to talk to everyone about HIV prevention!

They brought along Joao and Maria, 2 dolls that are anatomically...er...um...accurate and obvious. Many health workers are finding that people will ask more specific questions about HIV, relationships, sex, etc if they can talk about the doll. "If Maria does ______, is she at risk?"

Andre, me, Bento. Bento helped me a ton with science fair preparations. Thanks bud.

More colleagues dripping with enthusiasm for science.

Everyone anxiously awaiting the judges decision. It has been a long morning.

Who will it be???

Drum roll please....

In 3rd place we have Iahaia with his height calculating math equation utilizing just a mirror and pencil!
Takin 2nd and representin all the ladies out there we have Felismina with her charcoal substitution project!

And Muchangame takes 1st place with his beautifully organized project testing the effectiveness of his home-made pesticide concoction of papaya leaves and soap!

Congrats everyone on their hard work! Until next year, science nerds!

Mama Maria Invades Mozambique!

2010-07-04T01:41:00.001-07:00

When I picked my mom up at the airport in Nampula at 1AM, after a long stretch of flights, she was clearly tired but had a big smile and hug waiting. What a tough lady. She would soon be riding chapas, avoiding panty-selling street venders, running from rats, charming babies, and swatting mosquitos with the best of them. I let her get a good night's sleep and then we started out the next morning for Mozambique Island to do some touristy stuff. It was actually pretty cold and rainy when we were on the island, but after we crossed over to Chokas Mar and waited a day, Mozambique finally showed her it's beautiful face.
Since we were there in the middle of the week, we had miles and miles of beach to ourselves and the beach vendors had no one else to sell their trinkets to. We were like sitting ducks...until...

...Humper came to the recue. Mozambicans are very afraid of dogs, so after Humper started hanging out, we got a little more peace and quiet. Humper was left behind by some PCVs in a nearby village, so he is rather attracted to Americans...a little too attracted at times. We liked having him around until he started living up to his name... ewwww.

Awwww. My mom, me, and........Humper who came out of no where and went straight for my leg.

After our little vacation excursion, it was time to see my site, Angoche. My mom finally got a taste of the Angoche chapas, I'm sure one of her best memories. not. Here we have one of the more popular stops along the way where venders love to shove assorted fruit and goat heads in your face out of either sheer excitement, wanteing to get a reaction, or thinking the pushiest person will make the most sales.
So first things first. Parade around town and visit everyone who will be pissed at you for not introducing your mother when she comes to visit. Stop #1 is always Fabiao, our lovable adopted papa at the post office who so diligently sees to it that the professoras brancas recieve packages from you all in America. What a guy! When he saw my mom he asked me why I didn't have pretty eyes and hair like my mom. lol Thanks Fabiao. Oh the honesty.

Mom also got a nice taste of the local cuisine. She had Alexi and Xirene's special spicy coconut pumpkin beans and rice, matapa, squid, shrimp, lobster, and tons of street peanut sweets.
We also took her across the swamp to our nice lil beach to get a feel for the boat chapa and also relax a bit.

What better way to spend your 25th birthday than with your Ma in Mozambique? I was lucky enough to have her around for a great birthday party!

And then, the grand finale...Mama Maria came to school with me. If there had been a contest for show and tell, I would have won easily. When I was preparing my students and colleagues for her arrival, I told them that she doesn't speak Portuguese. One of my colleagues suggested that I just get her a bunch of capulana clothes made. As if that would help the language barrier. At first, I thought this suggestion was another dose of silly logic. Language barrier-->solution-->capulana clothes. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that sometimes capulana clothes do communicate more than whatever language. Anyway...I digress, we did make capulana clothes for her and they were a big hit.

She helped me teach that day. We talked about our family in English and the kids got to interview her about her life and American culture. They also prepared gifts for her as well as songs and dances.

Wheres Whitegirl?
Mussa is one of my lovable indisciplinados (trouble makers). The lovable ones are the worst, the kind that make you laugh while your yelling at them. He put the moves on my mom right away.
Alright, this is getting to be a really long post. Thanks so much Mom for coming. Everyone who met you and spent time with you says I get my best qualities from you. Angoche loves you. I love you. And I miss you all!

Mama Maria Invades Mozambique! pt2

2010-07-04T01:41:00.000-07:00

A person can't get the full Angoche experience until she explores the Angoche islands, so I asked Mussa, one of our good friends to give my mom a tour of Metubane, one of the islands closest to the city. Mussa is my age, super smart, continually happy, in love with his culture, and has a huge wealth of knowledge about the history of Mozambique and Angoche. He always talkes about how incredible the island populations used to be. Mussa was born on one of the islands, but came to Angoche to study in a better school.

We set out in a sail boat early in the morning to arrive before the heat. We were joined by my lovely site-mate, Margarida (aka Margaret) and some other PCVs, Greg and Stew, who were visiting our oh-so-irresistable site.

This is senhor Mecussete, our captain navigating through the mangrove. Yes, that's a red pajama outfit and pink stocking hat. And he's not even joking around folks. He couldn't figure out why my mom was giggling and wanting pictures of him.

Arriving on the islands is like stepping into magical place stuck somewhere back in time. The islands are super primitive, incredibly quiet (except for when the kids go nuts because white people showed up), and even slower-paced than Angoche (if that's possible).

We were definitely the most interesting thing going on, so we collected quite a following. Since it was Sunday, no one was studying. These kids are lucky enough to have a nice primary school. My roomie Alex was involved in the rehabilitation process after Cyclone Chokwe flattened the islands.

One of the many things I love and appreciate about Margarida, she also cannot resist a good climbing tree.

And there's Mama Maria having a lil chat (or more realistically awkward stare-down) with some local women. She was, after all, the guest of honor which makes her ambassador for the visit.

Mussa and the shehe (i think i spelled that correctly), or the religious/traditional leader of Metubane.

And back to the boat. This time, since the tide was out, we did a little more walking than sailing.

See ya later aligator.

Island Adventures

2010-06-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

To commemorate dia mundial do meio ambiente (environment day or something like that...i dunno, I don't speak English well anymore) a local environmental organization called Primeiras e Segundas put together a rather wonderful educational island excursion. Alex and I were in charge of running a contest at the local schools to select students to go with us on the voyage. We selected 4 wonderful students from Angoche, 2 elementary kiddos and 2 high school students after reading through all their application essays about the environment in Angoche. So on Friday we set off early in the morning on this boat that appears to be more impressive than it really is and arrived late morning at our home for the weekend--the island Abudo Arahamane, aparently named after a guy who lived there alone for many years. He's dead now so his island has been pretty quiet until we made it a field trip destination. Below you will see our arrival and camp sites.

Not bad for a field trip, eh? Anyway, so this particular island was selected because it is situated on the the far side of the Angoche islands (a group of islands clustered so close together in a mix of canals and mangrove swamps between Angoche and the open ocean that it's difficult to distinguish where one starts and the next stops). From this particular island, it's an easier hop over to the chain of islands that are further out in the open ocean--the islands that the project Primeiras e Segundas is focused on.
We were scheduled to make a trip that day to one of the islands called Puga-puga in the Primeiras e Segundas chain. Puga-puga is nesting ground for sea gulls, engangered sea turtles, and a number of other beautifully interesting sea creatures. Unfortunately the wind and waves made the trip a little too dangerous, so we didn't make it there. I think I was even more bummed than the kids were. We did make it to a sand bar named Pinga-pinga. I'm not sure if they were kidding about that being the name. Pinga-pinga or not, we got to hang out for a bit before the sandbar disappeared. Bento and Andre, our fellow teachers we invited to come with us. We told them that guys in America always pose like this for pictures. Suckers.
Definitely our most curious student who we have re-named Pinapple. He found this jellyish thing. I don't know what it is. I'm from Iowa.
Anyway...we were still able to do a number of other activities with the kids including little info sessions about some of the issues specific to this area like trash disposal, uncontrolled burning to clear farmland, sustainable fishing techniques, and mangrove management and planting. Stay tuned for my next blog post for more details on mangrove info, one of the most important focuses of the excursion and the Premeiras e Segundas project. The kids were also part of a ceremony on the Island of Mazuani. The administrator from Angoche, a documentary film crew, a number of different representatives from WWF and Care, the Moz media all showed up so the kids felt pretty darn important. They were all honored for their work and there were some rather long-winded speeches made. Their work was displayed and they recieved their prizes.

These are some of the kids who live on Mazuani. They probably don't see a lot of visitors, so they were quite curious. They also don't speak Portuguese well, so I invited (or forced, rather) my older students to teach them in Koti about what we were doing there. Life on the islands is pretty tough. No electricity, health care, little drinking water, dwindling fish population, difficult transport, and just one teacher for grades 1-7 for everyone. Epa.

I would say the weekend was a success. These kids don't get opportunities like this. None of them had been to the islands before this trip. Yay field trips! Thanks WWF/CARE!
Cowabunga

Mangrove Madness

2010-06-07T09:20:00.000-07:00

And here we have Abigail, one of our bright, cute little 7th graders who went with us on the Island excursion to teach us all how to plant a mangrove forrest.

1. Get some mangrove seeds.
2. Stick the pointy ends down into the mud in the intertidal zone.
3. Leave them alone.

4. Watch them grow.

I was suprised at how easy it is to plant mangroves. Of course, some plantings don't take very well for a number of different reasons, but many of the mangrove re-planting areas have been a success. Many areas that were covered in mangrove are more and more exposed in recent years because of natural causes (harsh storms) and human causes (mangroves are perpetually chopped down for firewood) Why plant mangroves? Mangrove forrests create a natural perforated barrier between shorelines and the harsh waves of the open ocean. This natural barrier prevents errosion, a problem that is an especially hot issue since the cyclone went through a couple years ago. This also creates an environment suitable for baby shrimp to grow up in, swim back out to the open ocean, reproduce, and send the youngins back in again so that Angoche has more tasty shrimp to eat. Not to mention the mangrove is just an interesting ecosystem full of interesting critters.

ant balls and banana rats

2010-05-24T22:55:00.000-07:00

I don't get Mozambique sometimes. There are just many things that I think I will never fully understand or never be any less annoyed about. This goes for Mozambican critters too.

I don't get Mozambican pests. Take one particular Mozambican breed of ants who constantly attack our water supply. One day I left a half-finished sucker on our kitchen table overnight (I got distracted before I finished it evidently) and in the morning was awe-struck to find a herd of ants swarming not the half-eaten delicious sugary sucker, but instead a glass of water also left on the table.
What???
The same ants also crawl into our water filters by the cagillions and rather than sipping water from their position on the walls of the container like normal animals, they dive right into the water. And they don't swim alone or give eachother space while they splash around. The idiots congregate in big floating ant-balls. So weird. When I open the filters, I find these almost perfectly spherical balls of ant bodies. To get to the bottom of this weirdness, I decided to dissect an ant ball one day to see if there was some sort of food particle that they all were trying to get to, but when I got to the center, I only found dead ant bodies. Why?!?! What does this accomplish? What does the ant ball do for you? If you are thirsty, why do you jump completely in the water? And why do you crawl all over eachother? Is the ant ball worth it? Are you at least happy before you die in this bizzare and retarded suicidal terrorist attack on my drinking water? Epa! Getting mad just typing this.
On to the rats. We have this a-hole rat in our house now who we named after a slime-ball guy in town who annoys the crap out of every white girl who steps foot in Angoche. Fitting right? Anyway, the first time I saw him (the rat not the guy), he was crawling up the outside of my bedroom window screen. So he was contained between the pane and the screen. It dawned on me as I was running into the other room yelling out death-threat warnings to our new furry friend while trying to find a suitable weapon, that he really must have done something tricky to get into the space between my screen and my window. And by the time I came back, weapon in hand, he was gone. Unfortunately, the light in my bedroom is not working, so I had that against me during the hunt that ensued. Lil fart knew exactly what he was doing! The next morning when I had light, I carefully examined my windows, frames, and screens. No holes. And outside the windows, there is a 3 story drop-off. The walls inside and out are made of solid extremely smooth cement. How did he do it? He got in and out without holes!

Magical a-hole rat.

These guys do stuff I don't understand just to make me angry. Thats not all though.
We have a lot of food laying around in our house--a wonderful buffet full of selections any rat would love. We have nuts, left-overs, candy, chocolate cake, an array of grains, peanut butter, etc--and no way to lock it all up from furry thieves. So what does he go after???

Bananas.

Bananas??? Really? And the guy doesn't even finish a banana he starts. He takes a few bites and then leaves it!

Wasteful, magical a-hole rat.

The bananas are really small, he could at least finish what he starts. Come on.

Maybe I shouldn't have said any of this. My mom is coming to visit very soon. Just kidding Mom. None of this is true.

Poverty and the Environment

2010-05-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

Mussa is the average local Angochean. Mussa has a pretty big family and his family gets hungry, so he needs to feed them. He is a fisherman, but he is a pretty poor fisherman, so he doesn't have the money to buy a fishing net (in more agrivating scenarios Mussa had enough money but spent it on something stupid like a widescrean TV for his hut). So Mussa, being resourceful, uses what he already has--for example, a mosquito net--to fish. Many of Mussa's fisherman friends, in the same situation, do the same thing. The mosquito net he and his buddies are using has really small holes and doesn't allow much of anything to remain in the ocean but water. So they all get a lot of good eating fish, a lot of baby fish, fish eggs, some smaller sea critters, and plants and other vegetative goodies everytime they cast or drag their nets in the nearby Indian Ocean. Mussa and the gang do this for a while. Soon, they notice that there really aren't many animals in their nets anymore, so they move fishing spots and continue. Soon their new fishing spot is fishless, so they move again and again until the sea is fished dry near Angoche. Now everyone is getting really hungry.
Welcome to Angoche and many other places in the world where poverty and beautiful ecosystems clash. Often in places like this, poor people and natural reasources are in quite a vicious cycle in which both sides suffer. If people are not educated on how to use reasources properly, they will be destroyed or depleated, leaving locals even more devestated.
In Angoche, 2 organizations WWF (environmental) and CARE (people-oriented) combined to create a project called Primeiras e Segundas which focuses on protecting local wildlife and terrain in order to boost productivity of the soils and ocean (not to mention protecting some beautiful species just to keep them around to marvel at) so that the local people can survive and even thrive. Their website is accessable on the right side of my blog for you nerds and hippies who want to know more. So anyway, they've been here for a while now trying to teach people how to do all this preservation stuff and have mainly been working with the older folks. We recently collaborated with them to involve some young people.
Alex and I rounded up a group of students who gathered in the Primeiras e Segundas office to learn about environmental issues and then do a beach clean up last Saturday. Our students were impressively interested in what the project officers were teaching about and are even talking about getting a student group started up! It's been exciting to see them have opportunities to apply what they've been learning in biology to their lives in such a vital way.

Here's Cremildo, the Marine bio officer teaching some students about the structure of sand dunes.
Cardoso and trash. Good work dude.

The guys teaching the kiddos. I'm so impressed with them. So well educated. So qualified to do their jobs. Actually show up to meetings on time. Interact well with students. And so passionate about what they're doing. It's been refreshing collaborating with them!

Stay posted! More to come about Primeiras e Segundas. We will be taking a smaller group of students in a week or two to the far chain of islands between Angoche and the open ocean to learn more first hand about mangrove importance/preservation. We even get to camp out there!!! And I hear there are dugongs, whales, dolphins, and all sorts of beautiful critters. So excited.

Conversation part 2

2010-05-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning I walked into the post office. Fabiao is the post master, a good friend.

Me: Good morning Fabiao
Fabiao: Good morning my daughter. I heard you had diarrhea.

No sense in asking how he knew that

Me: Yeah I didn't go to school yesterday.
Fabiao: Did you go to the hospital? Are you taking medication?
Me: No
Fabiao: Why not?
Me: Because it was something bad I ate.
Fabiao: Why aren't you at home? Where are you going?
Me: Welllll, I'm actually just going to buy bananas and toilet paper and then going home.
Fabiao: (giggling) You use toilet paper???
Me: Yeah, I do.
Fabiao: You should wash yourself instead, my daughter.
Me: Well, in my culture, we use toilet paper.
Fabiao: I tried toilet paper for awhile, then I switched back to washing. You're in Mozambique. You should wash.
Me: I'll stick to the toilet paper, thanks.
Fabiao: My daughter, its easy. You just...

Squats down right there and proceeds into a lenthy demonstration with overly detailed commentary on how one washes himself after a no 2.

Me: Papa! I don't need to know this!
Fabiao: But if you keep using toilet paper, you'll stain all your underwear. Its so easy to miss a spot!
Me: Alrighty! This conversation is over. Bye Papa!
Fabiao: giggling Hope you feel better soon!

never thought I would discuss skid marks in another language

Beach babies

2010-05-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

Danish, our friends oldest kiddo
Danish

Danish

Aunt Alexi and Danish

Tonisha

Andrew, Alexi, Danish, David

Danish and Alexi

Praia Nova

sand dunes at Praia Nova