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

Girl Power

2010-04-27T21:59:00.001-07:00

REDES conference 2010 was a big hit!!! A couple other Peace Corps Volunteers and I had been planning this conference since the end of last year. Epa, what a task in a place like this! General lack of resources (human or materials), widespread chaos, chronic inefficiency, and unpredictable communication systems make large-scale events like this one quite challenging, but the work paid off. 50 girls from 6 different provinces in northern and central Mozambique made the treck all the way to Chimoio, a city in central Mozambique to the week-long conference targeting issues in education, health, life-planning, and leadership skills. For some girls, this trip maybe the longest distance they ever travel and for many of them, it was the first time leaving their province!

One of my favorite hippie Peace Corps colleagues introducing the girls to yoga.
Mornings were filled with large-group sessions. I got to lead one session on test-taking skills and another on study skills.

Meeting other Mozambican girls from the other side of the country is one of the greatest things that happens at the conference. The support and encouragement they get from/give eachother is pretty powerful and so needed.

Veronica was one of our Mozambican fascilitators. She was a rather sassy, loud, intelligent woman who refered to her booty as her Mozambican "riqueza" or riches. lol Besides being hilariously entertaining, she served as a solid role model for the girls. She is one of a very small number of female school directors. We also had 2 other Mozambican facilitators, a math teacher and Portuguese teacher who were also refreshingly witty, talented, inspiring women who will undoubtedly do great things for Mozambique. They certainly did for our conference. The goal is to eventually hand the project off completely to Mozambican women.

The girls had technical sessions in the afternoon where they learned nutrition, public-speaking, self-defense, and income generation. Here we have one of my fellow PCVs, Gina attacking a girl in practice.

The girls are definitely starved for positive attention. We had them occupied from sunrise to sunset.

Olivia and Muazareia, the representatives from Angoche.

Outside of Chimoio is Cabeca do Velho, a mountain that looks like the profile of an old man. Many of the girls had never climbed a mountain before, so we took them up one afternoon.

stretch

view all the way into Zimbabwe

I have to say that the mountain was one of my favorite activities.

Alcancia, quite possibly my favorite Mozambicn woman.

group shot of the PCVs, and Mozambican counterparts and fascilitators

Muazareia

We carried them up the Mt just like this. jk This is the Nampula province group.

Rapariga oye!

Happy Mozambican Womens Day 2010!!!

2010-04-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

On April 7th, I got to celebrate for the second time in my life, Mozambican women's day. This year was definitely special for me and our girls group. I actually was entrusted this year with picking out the capulana for our girls group, quite an honor. I went with this lovely pink and black number. And more importantly, this year our girls performed at the city plaza for the women's day opening ceremonies--quite a big deal. I mean, they don't just let any random bozos sing and dance in front of the mayor, administrator, their wives, and every other distinguished to normal Angochean! The girls had to try out in front of the mayor, his wife, and the leader of the women's organization in town. They looked beautiful and sang and danced wonderfully. We are so proud of them. This year will be the first time for REDES to make it to the plaza!

Some footage of them performing

Heading toward the plaza
Singing in the youth center. Dress rehearsal.

Group shot. These are our gals, my roomie Alex, and site-mate Margarita.

And there's that white face mask that makes Angoche famous.

Just look at that interesting crowd.

Gettin all prettied up before the performance. Seriously, probably the only time they get to wear fingernail polish.

I don't know why Margarita has that worried look on her face. I happen to have one year of experience arranging head-wraps.

The lovely Alexi

yep. you go girl

Just try not to smile

2010-03-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

Pic taken by Alexi

Conversation

2010-03-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

Forget trying to learn great pick up lines! If you are a really awkward conversation starter, just move to Mozambique. You'll fit right in! My roomie and I often marvel at the weird ways people get communication going. One method is the one word starter. They just pick a word- any random word-and say it to you and then hand off the conversation baton to you, staring expectingly as if they did their job adequately. My favorites are:
"frio" (cold)
"calor" (hot)
"sol" (sun)
"poeira" (dust) Come on? Are you kidding? That's all you're going to give me to go off of? Dust?

But that's not all! The one word conversation starter can also be used after a huge lull (up to 5 hours in my experience) in conversation to get things fired back up. So lets say you're chatting it up with someone on the chapa, talking about Barak Obama and then the convo stops flowing and even ceases for 5 hours when you're bumping down the road. That person could easily employ the one word convo starter to continue the already-used conversation. Exept this time he doesn't choose a random word. Instead, he selects any word from your previous conversation. For example "Obamaaaaaaa" or "Americaaaaaa" (you evidently must let the word drag) would be used to replay the already-been-used convo.

And my all-time favorite, although less frequently used method, to start a conversation is simply "estamos aqui hoje" (we are here today) cue expectant pause
Really? We are here? Today?

The strangest encounter I have had yet was with one young women who showed up at our door and simply said "they sent me." I was really annoyed besides being a little creeped out, but I didn't let her get the best of me. I waited her out. We stared eachother down in silence until she offered me more to go off of. Then she did the unthinkable. She just repeated herself. It's gonna be like that huh? Alright, lets make this into a game. More silence for you! She repeated herself once more and I wondered if I would be wasting my whole day riding the "they sent me" silence "they sent me" silence train. Fortunately, she eventually caved and explained who sent her and why. Score for that day: Branca: 2, Moz: zip

Back to the Chashew Factory!!!

2010-03-22T06:33:00.000-07:00

Mozambique won the battle today. I'm not defeated, but I am pretty demoralized.
As a approached an angry crowd of 8th graders outside the school this afternoon, I knew it wasn't going to be good. I heard the words voltar (return) and fazenda (ranch, the nickname for the area outside the old cashew factory in the bush, where I gave classes last year) and immediately ran into the school to find someone who knew what was going on. It's true. I have to move with my 8th graders back out to the fazenda. There are too many kiddos per classroom in the new school, so they are dividing the students into various smaller groups and kicking the lil guys out.
RIP electricity RIP door RIP windows RIP bathrooms RIP not broken chalkboards RIP 5minute walk RIP ocean view RIP not showing up drenched in sweat RIP breeze from 2nd floor

Ok, done complaining. Lets talk about the good in this. I will be walking more. More exercise. Exercise is good. Ooooo, AND I didn't really like the stupidity of thinking we have a good school just because the building is prettier. And this might create a bond of suffering with me and my 8th graders. Bonding is good. And at least they aren't asking me to teach English. Yep, that's it.

Alright that's all for today. Hopefully I get to wake up in a few minutes.

Robert Hooke

2010-03-12T06:33:00.001-08:00

That's right folks...the one and only Robert Hooke came all the way to Angoche to teach my kids about cells. After all, he is famous for discovering the cell in 1665. I am going to miss how easy it is to get students excited about whatever. Dumb hat+paper moustache+maskingtape glasses=guaranteed authentically enthusiastic participation by 100 8th graders.

It's weird to think that in England 1665, 'ol Bobby had enough equipment to see cells, but I still can't show my students cells in 2010 because I have yet to find the schools microscopes and when I do find them...not sure they're going to be functioning properly. Oh Mozambique.

Ode to the bata

2010-02-13T04:54:00.001-08:00

This is just a random smattering of some of the day to day stuff.

So we have to wear these batas to school now. They are these thick polyester white lab coats that make us sweat even more than normal. Our bosses insisted this year that we participate in this typically ridiculously formal Mozambican tradition. On the brighter side, people LOVE it when we wear these things and tell us we are so much more beautiful which is weird cause we're just putting on a big baggy polyester sack:-) whatever.

The view from the desk in my room is one of the things I will miss the most about our house.

It's been raining just a bit lately. Check out the rainbow. Hopefully the weather starts cooling off soon.

This is Aryan, and his mother/our friend, Ranjan in the shop their family owns.

Lately we've resumed our afternoon dates at the city plaza to watch the sunset. This photo was taken by my roomie Alexi.

New School

2010-02-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

Here's some quick shots of our shiny, impressive new school. These are some of my 8th graders from turma D, by far my roudiest bunch.And this is them taking notes. I wish I could say that all our problems disappeared with the new place, but that would be far from correct. Whoever purchased desks and chairs did not think logistics through very well. Instead of buying newer desks that can fit 1-3 students at a time, single seating desks were purchased which means fewer students sitting in a chair and more on the floor. 8th graders lucked out because they are smaller in stature and the 8th grade population of Angoche was split in two groups, 1 group remaining at the old school on the grounds of the cashew factory as a run-through before that school takes on all other grades.

Open-air hallways...something I've never seen until comming here. I could get used to this. And look at that view! This is the courtyard between the administrative part of the school and the classrooms.

Another view from a classroom balcony into bairo de Horta, one of the major neighborhoods.

And one of the reasons I'm in love with this place...

See that building??? That's our apartment building. We are soooooo close now!

Many things have gotten much easier here, but a lot still needs to change. One thing that continually drives me mad is the idea here that if something is beautiful, it is therefore, good. Many people say that we used to have a bad school and now it is good, completely overlooking the fact that we didn't get bigger classrooms or more classrooms. We didn't get rid of a drop of the corruption, we haven't improved the curriculum, and we aren't much more organized or motivated than we were last year (as the weeks have gone by there has been less and less excitement about the new school and poor attendance to match on the part of teachers and students). "New" wears off fast.

Valentines Day

2010-02-09T01:19:00.001-08:00

There he is folks! The man I love!
Ben, I know it's a few days early but wanted to be sure to wish you a happy Valentines Day all the way from Mozambique. This is the last one you'll celebrate sozinho! Thanks for loving me and takin care of me. Your genuine excitement for Mozambique, my students, the PC, my family, and my friends is a huge part of making me able to do this.
Te amo muito!

11 things to get excited about in 2010

2010-02-04T00:29:00.000-08:00

1. I am teaching the 8th graders again this year, meaning I already have all lesson plans and curriculum prepared from last year and can actually improve! Plus, I don't have to deal with the older boys in upper classes, most of whom are my age and sometimes older which makes it weird.
2. We are in the new school! This year we no longer have to walk 2 miles alllllll the way out of town in the blazing sun to the tin shacks by the cashew factory. Instead, we walk 3 minutes to a beautiful school that has a beautiful breeze and view of the Indian ocean.
3. The new school has a door that actually shuts on every classroom--does great things for classroom management.
4. The new school has bathrooms!!! No longer have to hold it or run into the field behind the cashew factory!
5. The new school has nice chalkboards!
6. The new school has electrical outlets, so maybe I can use a computer and show the students stuff!
7. So far, I only have about 80 kids per class--half of my numbers from last year!
8. Everyone seems really excited about learning this year. We actually started classes just a few days late and we're still going!
9. I am now in charge of the bio department. Don't know what that means, but it sounds great and I'm excited to see what I can do.
10. Margarida, a new health volunteer has joined the team in Angoche. She is so sweet, wonderful, and willing to help with our REDES group (girls empowerment group).
11. I get to help this year with REDES national conferences and we're revamping the program.

Well those are just a few things...stay tuned.

Swaz Safari

2010-02-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

Most people envision Africa like a sceane from the lion king, but a lot of it doesn't look a bit like that terrain and lions, zebras, and elephants don't roam freely. Much of the remaining large animals were killed or fled during the civil war in Mozambique, the survivors live on a number of wildlife refuges where they are trying to build numbers again. Fortunately for me, many of Mozambique's neighbors have much more populated wildlife refuges. When I went to visit Swaziland, I went with a couple Swazi PCVs to Hlane, the king's royal park.

We actually decided to camp at the park which was interesting. The camp ground is surrounded by the kind of fence used to keep cows in pastures in Iowa. Call me crazy, but I think someone needs to re-think the differences between cows and rhinos. Oh well. We were informed by the staff that we could quietly and calmly approach the fence to take pictures. As we set up camp and made dinner we actually got to see rhinos and hippos.

The next morning at 5AM we all piled into the safarimobile with our driver/guide and headed off into the park.

At first, some of the animals were a bit shy, so we did a lot of grass-gazing.

Sweet. A turtle. Can we see the lions now?

Anyone know what this guy is?

White rhino

Giraffes

Antelope

Warthog

finally...the king
And my favorite...elephant. Definitely the most exciting. This one actually charched the jeep. Still pissed after we disturbed him last night.

This is him the night before. We were makin dinner and he was just on the other side of the fence eating. We quietly approached him to take pictures and he got really really angry and charged. Good thing there's a big fence. Can you see it?

Visiting Swaziland

2010-02-01T07:09:00.001-08:00

From Namaacha Mozambique, it's only a walk to the outskirts of town to be at the border of Swaziland, so I made my first visit out of Moz. What beautiful country. Reminded me so much of the terrain in Namaacha. It's suprisingly well-developed compared to Mozambique and people speak Sswati (sp?) and English, so travel was super easy. Just look at that beautiful paved road!
Such an interesting little country. It's the last monarchy in Africa and practically surrounded by South Africa--just shares a bit of it's border with Mozambique. Because of it's rather uniform culture and strong monarchy, it was able to resist take over by any of the bigger guys and is a quite stable and calm place to be. It also boasts a suprisingly diverse array of terrain and many large game parks where a huge percentage of African game safely roam. It's certainly not without its problems. Swaziland has an even higher rate of HIV than Mozambique and many of the other issues I've experienced here.

A couple of months before I left for Mozambique, I crossed paths with Jaclyn and learned that she would be starting her 2 years in PC Swaziland. Not long after that, I was placed in Mozambique. Bada-bing! Banda-boom! Neighbors! I got the chance to visit her a few weeks ago, so I took it. What an amazing and refreshing experience to talk to someone who grew up in the midwest, loves Jesus, has a ton of mutual friends, has been working in a southern-African country for over a year with the Peace Corps! I got to see her site, learn about her work, and listen to her perspective on things.

Her site is pretty matu (bush). But so beautiful! This is the view walkin out of her front door!

Jaclyn, me, host family squirt.

Kids are pretty cute there too. As you can see.

Back to Namaacha

2010-02-01T06:18:00.000-08:00

First of all, sorry for the long break in blog posts. Couldn't have been helped--I was on the road. Thanks to those of you who didn't get bored and give up on me. So first off, when I returned to the southern half of Mozambique, I took advantage of my proximity to the 'ol host family and went to hang out with them for a bit (normally a nearly impossible trip to make from Angoche). The last time my host family saw me was the last day of training in December of 2008. I was informed by them that I had gotten fatter (a compliment here), whiter, and could finally speak Portuguese after a year in Angoche and a month back in the States. Gotta love em. We covered a lot of ground...we could communicate so much better. And it was kinda sweet that I wasn't treated as some sort of awkward princessy guest that no one understood...I felt like a part of the fam. So here's some updated pics of the fam.
Nilzu
Mana Neida

Ilda, Sancho, Xirene, Mana Neida

Sancho and Nilzu...not gonna lie...they're my favorites!

Sancho

Our house

Ilda

Sancho, Mama Come, Nilzu, and some random cousin

Sancho

And last but certainly not least...my nephew! My host sister had him the day I left for Angoche and I didn't even get to see him. he played hard to get at first, but then warmed up to his tia branca.

Brrrr. No place like home

2009-12-09T16:19:00.001-08:00

My toes were a little chilly when I stepped off the airplane in Omaha.
What a week to make the transition from my tropical life! Walked right back into a blizzard wearing flipflops.
That's right folks, I traded sweating for shivering, black for white people, portuguese for English, rice and shrimp for pizza and milk, students for family Ben and friends. I'm home until January. Anyone want to hang out? So it was 105 degrees when I left Angoche. And here its -5. No big deal. Just a 110 degree difference.

Papa Frems.

When I told people in Angoche that it's cold where I'm from they say

"oh you mean like our winter?"

Nah, not exactly. You guys wear puffy down jackets and stocking caps for 60 degree weather because you're goofy. Where I'm from, ice falls from the sky and stays on the ground without melting.

"Do you have to wear a jacket?"

Yes. And boots, mittens, scarves, and hats.

"What happens if you leave your house?"

You mean without a jacket? Well, you could die if you stay out too long.

"Why do people live there?"

Smile. I dunno. Hot chocolate?

Thanksgiving

2009-12-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

Mashed potatoes...a lot. Toam and I made em.
How we going to keep them cold if Katie doesn't have a refrigerator?
Oh well, they'll be ok if we eat them soon enough, right?
Did Miguel, Hammer, and Katia get a turkey?
They didn' have time to find a turkey.
How much are ducks? Lets get 2. The lady at the bungalow will cook em for us.
A sail boat ride to Chokas Mar.
I think one duck is sick.
Lady who usually cooks for us is not there.
Is there anyone else who can cook our ducks?
One duck escapes.
Hammer catches him again.
Anyone wanna play scrabble?
Can that kid cook our ducks?
He's like 9 years old.
Who cares. They know how to do that stuff.
No one in sight for miles in each direction on the beach.
Perfectly azure water.
Frisbee.
Is it time to try to make stuffing?
How do you make stuffing?
Just some veggies, bread, and some sort of bird juice?
Mashed potatoes are fermenting. Ew.
More beach.
Did anyone start the stuffing?
What are you reading?
Anyone in the hammock?
Sun burn.
Katia on guitar. "Octopus with one tentacle gone"
Stuffing looks weird.
They're back with the ducks!
Oooo, kinda tough.
Stuffing is interesting.
Pumpkin pie saves the meal, nice work David.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Beach Babies

2009-12-09T14:18:00.001-08:00

Last trip to Praia Nova for the year. We got to go with our favorite Moz fam.

Shamik. We're in love.

My roomie and Danish (they're in love) and the boys' beautiful mom, and our friend Tonisha.

Sand art lessons from Tia (aunt) Alexi.

Thanks mom for sending the spider-man kites. This guy loved them!

Not long after this, he accidentally let the kite go and his Tia Xirene had to chase it down the beach to the amusement of the local village people.

Ahhh. Gotta love it.

Mango eating machines!

2009-11-30T06:37:00.000-08:00

I know I write a lot about mangos. But they're just so good. As of late, many of us have had a little extra time on our hands now that classes are over. So when there's nothing else to do in places where entertainment options are few, we make contests out of lots of things. Like who can poke the most sticks up their nose, or climb this tree the highest, or balance on one foot the longest, or eat 25 pieces of bread in one day or .... the lastest...who can eat the most mangos in 30 minutes???After our famed bread-eating challenge in Nampula, Andrew, Alex and I decided we'd take it up a notch and try mangos. So the three of us sat down with a huge bowl of mangos and a timer set to 30 minutes. And how many mangos did we consume??? Any guesses? Look at those game faces!
39 and 1/2 mangos! I don't mean to brag, but I actually took home the gold after an embarrassing showing the previous week in the bread division. I put away 14 (the last was already rotting, I might add)...I did it for you, Mom.

Mozambique Island

2009-10-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

Finally out! It had been awhile since Alex and I had spent time away from site so last weekend we made our way over to Moz Island to say goodbye to volunteers who will be making their way back to the states after completing their 2 years here. Friday night we had a very tropical version of a pub crawl. Here we have Mana Alexi and me kicking off the night with a few beers, a dance, and a lot of goofiness right next to the fortress on the island. After that...schedule full of other locations with no lack of dancing, eating, drinking, and more goofiness, but mostly dancing.
So if things weren't weird enough...Saturday night we attended the senior prom of the secondary school on the island (where our fellow PCV Katie teaches 12th grade English). I'm not sure we or anone else knew who we were or why we were there, so all the white people were conveniently contained at a table in the corner between the kiddie table and the start of the food line. LOL Tension was high because the food was a few hours late and they subjected everyone to weird, awkward archaic waltz-ish dance routines which suprised me 'cause Mozambicans are excellent dancers. But anyway, the food eventually came and the DJ started playing some real music and the white people hopped onto the dance floor with everone else and everyone enjoyed the senior prom they'd been hoping for.

Erin, another PCV here in the north of the country.

And here we have Andrew (not a PCV, but a kindred American spirit who certainly livins up our get-togethers) burying a small naked boy in the sand.

After the island adventures, Alex and I hopped onto a sail boat and took a beautiful 3 hour ride to Chokas Mar, quite possibly the most beautiful place on earth to relax for another day.

Ussene, our boat driver wanted to put on sunblock too. As you can see, he got really excited about it, even though he doesn't need it. He says when he puts on sunscreen, all his friends tell him that he smells like a white person for the rest of the day. So Ussene likes sunblock.

My beautiful and wonderful roomie, Mana Alexi.

Ahhhhh. Thats our boat heading back over to the island after dropping us off.

REDES girls

2009-10-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

Aren't they cuties??? This is one of the more recent pics of our girls group. Their moms would be proud.
Just to update you on what we've been doing...the girls have been learning self-defense, womens health, sex ed, and a little goofiness on the side with Alex and me. Hopefully next year, most of them will stick with us.

Teachers Day

2009-10-25T23:58:00.001-07:00

You guessed it! Another Mozambican holiday. Another reason to cancel school. What's the excuse this time for canceling classes??? TEACHER'S DAY. Just like every other holiday, this one started with a mini-parade that ended at the plaza where we sang the national anthem, threw flowers on this statue thingie, and listened to a few long-winded speaches before returning home to escape the sun. Yippee.

Here we are with our colleagues. Mozambicans take their holiday gear seriously.

Our shortest colleague who we lovingly call Papa. We look good.

Mana Alexi and one of our lovely students chillin at the beach for awhile with a bunch of our colleagues.

So most of the rest of the day we kinda just hung out, got wierd, and waited for something to happen. We drank a lot of pop, told stupid jokes, and tried to help get the food ready for the huge dinner party that was supposed to start at 7:00PM. So... the food was 5 hours late (wait, did you say FIVE HOURS LATE???) Yep. By the time the food was ready, our colleagues were all pissed. No worries though, after everyone had a full belly of delicious food and a few beers down the hatch, the tension wore off and we had a bit of a dance party. Whahooo! Happy Teachers Day!

Mangos are BACK!

2009-10-25T23:13:00.001-07:00

What makes our lives bearable at the most terribly hot season in Mozambique?
What do my roomie and I consume at least 5 of daily?
What inspires a girl to carry around dental floss wherever she goes?
What makes a girls tongue burn because of some fruity acid reaction but she still eats them anyway?
What shares a number 1 slot with capulanas for my favorite Mozambican things?
What's enough to make any PCV extend service just to go through another season?
What do I dream our lame machamba (garden) would produce?
What makes the skin around the average PCVs fingers and mouth look like they have jaundice October through January???
What fruit feeds the nation when nothing else is in the markets???

MANGOS MANGOS MANGOS

Thats right folks, the beautifully delicious fruit whose very name my blog title bears is back in full force!!! What a great fruit. I'm considering going on a full Mango tour of the country. Did you know the various types of mangos are much like the various types of apples there are available in the states??? From the large juicy red ones in Chokas Mar to the slightly stringy but beautifly tartysweet green ones in Angoche, I'm hooked! Mangos OYE! OYE!!!

Angoche Day

2009-10-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

I never knew so many people lived here! On Angoche day, the city's anniversary, the place exploded with people. Lots of festivities were going on. As you can see, quite a large crowd of people gathered to watch the main events for the day. There was a men's 10k foot race (that I'm thinkin of entering next year mainly because I was told I couldn't), a motorcycle race, and a race where women balanced water containers on their head through a marked course.
I'm quite shocked that no one died in the motorcycle race. I only saw one crash. Here we have the signature super man move to eliminate some wind resistance. A couple of our colleagues even entered this race.

People were all over the tops of buildings just to get a better view.

Fortunately, we got a bird's eye view from the house above the post office, where our wonderful friend and post office manager, Fabiao, let us watch from his balcony.

A bunch of other PCVs came to visit Angoche and party with us. They joined us for all the Angochian events and a nice evening of frisbee and relay races on the beach. Can't wait until next year.

THANKS!

2009-10-09T00:44:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say thanks to Mr. Kruzel (my roomie's dad) for comin to visit and spoiling us a ton. When people send us packages, come to visit, read our blogs, and just generally take interest, it definitely makes us feel loved. Mr. K just came right in time to enjoy a pretty insane week of party after party here in Angoche. He arrived just at the end of Ramadan which includes lots of celebrating (after a long month of fasting), a national holiday, town anniversary, and Alex's birthday. Holy moly! Mr. Kruzel's arrival was also a source of celebration as he is a big supporter of the youth center Alex started. He was definitely the most famous guy for a week. So far Alex' mom, sister Emelia, friend Marcella, and my friend Jesse have come to visit good ol Angoche and enjoy a week of being the center of attention. You could be next! Thanks to everyone who sends stuff, visits, and keeps track of us. Thanks Kruzel and Freml families! thanks Ben! Thanks readers! We really appreciate it! Love yas!

Rice Sack Penis

2009-10-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

How do you get 150 8th graders per classroom to pay attention during the last month of school in Ramadan season while everyone is dry fasting from sun up to sun down??? You guessed it! Talk about sex, of course! I've never taught sex ed before, let alone sex ed in Mozambique in Portuguese to a population where HIV/AIDS is at the top of the list of problems plaguing the country. Its been kind of funny at times, shocking at times, and all-around frustrating. First problem: few resources...so I had to draw huge diagrams of the male and female reproductive systems on rice sacks to hang in the classroom.

I started out with male and female anatomy and moved on to fertilization, good decision-making skills, family planning, and HIV. The first day I walked into the classroom and hung the giant penis on the board thinking it wouldn't be that big of a deal (since statistically, many of them are already very sexually active). I tried my hardest not to laugh as 75 8th grade girls screamed and 75 8th grade boys laughed, cheered, clapped yelling out "Professora...biggie, biggie, biggie!!!" Roudy start, but things eventually calmed down. I was rather impressed, in fact, by their relative control. If I was a Mozambican 8th grader sitting in a classroom with a funny white lady in front talking about big penises and vaginas on the board in a funny accent, I'm not sure I could keep myself under control.
So sex is sometimes a tough/complicated/sensitive topic to teach within your own set of people, and here it's even harder with cultural and linguistic issues and differences. To give a few examples of cultural differences: fidelity (what it means and how it is practiced), people's attitudes about/motives for having sex, what is/is not sexualized, and the complexities of biological and emotional involvement surrounding sex. And then there's my personal beliefs. I certainly have beliefs that make my perspective on relationships a minority here. So what do I do with my beliefs or how do I present information to a group of students who believe very different things. Epa! So much to think about. I definitely have a ton more respect for my fellow health PCVs who have to tackle these issues on a day to day basis.
Anyway...after the initial discomfort/goofiness passed, my kids started asking a million questions. Some of my 15 year olds--15 year olds!-- were honestly asking why men don't get pregnant and other questions that shocked me considering how sexually active the population seems to be at a much younger age. I found that many of my students who openly expressed, in one way or another, that they had already become sexually active (either by requesting condoms for themselves or asking questions that indicated experience) did not even understand the basic physiological process or anatomical structure of their own body. What a scary situation to have a very uneducated population engaging in an activity they don't fully understand. It has become obvious to me how the lack of education contributes to the prevelence of HIV. I also wanted to scream as my kids asked questions about many of the sexual myths that are so engrained here like...if a person does not have sex on a regular basis they will go mentally insane or if a woman does not have enough sex, her vagina will permanently rot or if a man does not release sperm frequently enough, he will blow up like a balloon and ruin his chances of having children in the future. When I asked my students where they heard this stuff, they often responded that other teachers had told them these things. I was extremely frustrated to find out that my female students are being influenced in this way by my colleagues, considering inappropriate relationships between teachers and students are not uncommon. On a more positive note, I was relieved and excited to see that many of my students seemed to trust me and believe the things I tried to teach them. Many of them commented that no one had ever explained all the embarrassing stuff or responded to question after question. I havn't quite made it yet to the end of the unit, but so far its been quite the experience personally and professionally.

Catamoio

2009-10-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

Islands finally! Being here a year now and not yet making it to one of the islands sprinkled between Angoche and the open ocean was definitely leaving a huge gap in my understanding of my site. The islands are full of Angoche's history and culture. Thanks to my roomie's father's generous contribution of a nice speedy boat ride (other option: toast away in a sailboat with other ppl, goats, chickens, etc), we made the hop to Catamoio rather quickly and in style. Thanks Mr. Kruzel. Here we have my lovely roomie, Alex in full boat attire.
Angoche's very own Marina

One of those boats I was telling you about.

There she is...Catamoio, the most important of the islands. Back in the day, the sultans ruled Angoche from this island. It is said to be the center of power in the area and if anyone means the islands any harm, they will never be able to step foot there. During the war, many people fled to the islands.

Naked baby greeting! Heyoooo!

Never imagined any place would be more slow-paced and quiet than Angoche...yep, could definitely take a few naps here.

Baobab...comin back to climb this one. Unless its sacred or something. I dunno.

TAKE MY PICTURE! What a bunch of goofball old ladies. lol

And here we have Alex and Mr. Kruzel approaching the oldest (arguably) Mosque in Mozambique. The beautiful little building is slowly crumbling, but supposedly renovation is underway.

I think next time we come, Alex and I will build a lil mud hut so we can have a place to sip coconuts in utter peace and quiet.

I live here???

2009-08-31T05:14:00.001-07:00

Man, just can't get over how beautiful this place is.

Regional Science Fair

2009-08-31T04:07:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I took the science fair kiddos (just the 4 winners from the local fair) to the regional fair in Nampula City with one of my colleagues. We hopped into the back of a chapa Friday morning at about 3AM with our bags and materials for our experiments and rolled into the city about 10AM, allowing enough time for the students to explore the big city (one of the students had never been to the city) before any programs started. The next day the competition was on! Angoche did quite well. I was so proud of our students. Sunday, we all headed back home to start the next school week.
Science fair is a growing secondary project that many PCVs collaborativelly facilitate. Many of my fellow teaching PCVs brought the winners of their local fairs for the next level of competition. Here we have some mixer games going on to entertain the kiddos while waiting for things to get started. Over and over I've gotten to see how much the students are motivated by meeting their peers from other areas of Mozambique for school related events.
The kids brought all of their materials to the gym in one of the high schools and had sometime to set up and get themselves organized before opening speeches and judging started. Here's Belito, Faruk (fellow teacher), and Carlos getting things set up.

Silva with his rotton fish experiment. Woot! Woot! Way to represent for the 8th graders!

Belito explaining his palm wine making process to a group of dazzled peers.

Carlos got quite a bit of attention from the judges with his salt-water distillation set-up. He made it to the second round and presented to the whole crowd, taking 3rd place over all!!!

Mount Namuli

2009-08-15T08:24:00.001-07:00

Since Jesse and I started planning our trip to Gurue to visit some other volunteers, we had Mt. Namuli in mind. A few Peace Corps Volunteers have climbed the mountain (second largest in Mozambique) and had enticing stories to share after, so I've had the itch since I heard about it. It's a rather difficult physical and strange cultural experience.
DAY 1: Our guide Rambo (a student of PCV's in Gurue) arrives at the house where we're staying at 5:00am. We make our way out of the city with backpacks of water, food, blankets, and a few extras. Sunrise over Gurue's tea fields is absolutely gorgious! We walk...and walk...and walk...over 25K, just to arrive at the base of the mountain.

Some kiddos along the way, happy to pose of course for a photo:-)

The hike is absolutely amazingly beautiful...and long.

When we finally arrive at the base of Mt. Namuli, we head strait to the Queen of the Mountain's house. We must pay her to cook for us, to sleep on her kitchen hut floor, to send up one of her family members as a guide, and to bless us so it doesn't rain on us tomorrow when we climb the mountain. These lil farts greeted us and couldn't get enough staring in. Don't think they see a whole lot of white folk:-)

After the exausting 9 hour hike, this is where we passed out til the Queen served dinner. This is where Jesse got to try real xima and eat with his hands for the first time!

This was our lovely accommodations for the night. Normally I am roasting here, but this area of Mozambique gets reallllly cold at night. After the fire went out in the hut, things got chilly. I was so tired though, that I didn't really mind freezing my butt off in the dirt.

DAY 2: 6:00am breakfast is served. Then comes the interesting stuff. I'm told not to point at the mountain because it's disrespectful to the spirits of the mountain and will, therefore, rain when I get to the top. We walk out into a grass field with the Queen of the mountain, the secretary, and a reallllllllly old woman. We squat down in a dirt clearing and the ceremony starts. The old woman takes the xima flour we brought her and makes some piles of it on the ground and dumps some of the beer we also brought her over it and then passes it around the circle as she says a bunch of stuff in a language I don't know. At this point I'm wondering if these people are laughing in their heads as they count the number of young Americans they've dragged through this whole series just to see if the dopes go along with it. Whatever. So we got our blessing and then I accidentally pointed to the mountain. Off to a great start!!!

10:00 am finally through all vegetation with the principal peak in sight!

So, some parts got a lil steep as you can see. Yikes. Tough climb. The Queen sure picked her weirdest relative to take us up. He spoke a little portuguese, a lot of local language, and made a lot of interesting animal noises.

All worth it though, once we reached the top!!!

Wowza! Take a look at the 360. We sat at the top and ate lunch then made our way back down the mountain and arrived back at Queenie's house by about 2:00 pm. She brought us more food and then we passed out in the kitchen hut for another cold night.

DAY 3: 3:00 am, I'm sick of not sleeping and ask Rambo and Jesse (who are also not sleeping) if we can just start out and get some hours of walking in before the sun comes out. A beautiful decision. With a full moon and set of stars goin full force far away from civilization, we got a few chilly but beautiful moonlit hiking hours in. Just a few more of the locals along the way back. What a cutie.

When we finally reached the tea fields again on the way back, the workers were out in full force and happy to get their pics taken:-)

11:00 am we finally arrive back to fellow PCV's house in Gurue, really dirty, really sweaty, really tired, and really hungry. One great trip.

Jesse in Mozambique

2009-08-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

Fellow Morningsider, former RA, and adventure enthusiest, Jesse Lieber made the trek alllllll the way from South Sioux City, Nebraska to Mozambique to visit me just over a month ago as his first time out of the country. Talk about diving right in!!! Holy cow. What a friend! I had a break from school in mid July, so Jesse and I made plans earlier this spring for his visit. It was refreshing to have a reminder of home to hang out with, not to mention a good reality check for me. Somethings here start to normalize as certain standards lower in order to cope with day to day life, and it was interesting to be reminded that a normal person should be upset when waiting in line takes more than 4 hours and an insane amount of people budge like its their job, or a normal person should not allow people to sit on top of them in public transport, or a normal person should expect restaurants to have food. Anyway, despite all the transport issues, luggage disappearances, constant in-ability to plan, altitude sickness, and culture shock, Jesse pulled through and handled it like a real trooper. First stop, ANGOCHE!
Upon arrival in our beautiful tropical paradise of a city, Jesse got to help me check papers (probably one of his best memories) and then go to school with me. My students went NUTS!!! They were singing and dancing for him and wanting to hear all about the stranger from the United States who came to school with Professora. He was definitely the most famous person for miles.

We of course, showed him around the rest of our favorite spots in Angoche including our beautiful beach just across the mangrove swamp. I think he liked it:-)

After Angoche, we headed over to Zambezia province to explore some of Mozambique's beautifully green and mountanous interior. Thanks again, Jesse for comin and for all the rest of you guys...feel free to come and visit. I'd love to have ya!

Angoche's 1st Science Fair

2009-08-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

Wowza! Angoche's first science fair was a hit! Although not the flashiest or most well-attended event of the weekend, our participants and a few spectators enjoyed some fun intellectual stimulation. A few months ago, I invited some of my best students as well as some older students recommended by colleagues to become part of the science fair group. I met with the handful of kids for a number of weeks to prepare for the event. The first week, we learned the scientific method (something that was news to even the 12th graders); the second week, we practiced using the scientific method to set up experiments and identify different types of investigations; and from then on, the students carried out their own investigations to present at the fair.

Each of them had to bring their materials and report on Saturday the 4th of July to the youth center to set up and explain their project to a panel of judges (including my lovely roomie Alex) or any interested spectator. The judges selected 4 winners including Carlos with his salt to freshwater distillation process, Belito with his palm wine demonstration, Fina with her condensation demonstration, and Silva with a rottin fish/fly experiment. These four winners recieved prizes and also had the privilage of competing in the regional fair in Nampula city. For more on the regional fair, stay posted--definitely more to come. But until then, hip-hip-hooray for our lil scientists here in Angoche!

Me, givin a lil speecheroo before.

Getting a better look at Carlos's project with Professor Bento.

Professor Bento and Faruk (my Mozambican counterparts for this project) with the winner of the local fair, Carlos Rodrigues.

Lots of stuff

2009-08-15T03:38:00.000-07:00

Hey there faithful readers...hope you have some hotdogs, cause I'd like to ketchup my blog with news. Ha ha ha. Since my last update, Mozambique had an independence day, I celebrated my birthday, the second trimester ended, we had a local and regional science fair, Jesse Leiber came to visit me, I traveled to Gurue, and I spent a few days in Maputo planning for next year's REDES conference. Yikes!

Welp...I'll start from the top! Mozambican Independence Day, my lovely roomie and I sported our commemorative capulanas for the day and went to the parade and celebration at the plaza.

Here's the good ol Moz flag!

Me and one of my students, Muazareia.

And last but not least, our mozambican grandpa.

And a day later I turned a year older. A couple of other volunteers came to Angoche to help me celebrate. I spent my 24th b-day at the beach, picnic-ing it up with some fresh shrimp and plenty of frisbee! A girl couldn't ask for much more.

Shenanigans+odds and ends

2009-06-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

I usually letcha all in on the big stuff, but I thought I'd just give you a few slices of the stuff that normally wouldn't make up the meat of one of those intense blog posts you've all surely come to crave from me. lol

Wowza! Would you look at another one of those beautiful Angoche sunsets???

2 of our colleagues...buncha goofballs. Everyone here LOVES Obama. I'm afraid to wear my Obama Tshirt again after the swarms that followed me the first time I wore it. These 2 fellas were lucky enough to be the recipients of 2 of the Obama t's Alex's dad sent from the states. Thanks Papa K! You're helpin me make friends!

Racist baby. JK. She just doesn't like us...at all. She is our neighbor downstairs and quite possibly the cutest lil thing in Moz, but if we go within a few feet of her, she freaks out. Funny but sad (for us). Anyway, sorry about this pic being sideways, but I was struggling to make it turn. You were probably going to tilt your head to the side...and say "awwww" anyway.

Yep...things get wierd when there's not much to do...and we have permanent markers and students and neighbors visiting.

I like to climb...things. Doesn't this remind you of Iowa? Oh the many faces of Angoche!

Part of the walk home from school.

What better backdrop for frisbee than the beautiful Praia Nova???

Just takin a peek...exploring the abandoned Portuguese Catholic mission outside Angoche.
Ok...that concludes this completely random post. Hope you enjoyed. Later gators!

Teacher

2009-06-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

So teaching has been going better. Things got super wild with behavior issues for a few weeks in late April/early May...and I mean wild. The kiddos were definitely seeing how far they could push the branca before things got messy. One day there were 3 fights (one in my classroom), a seizure, and all the chaos that ensued, but I'm happy to say that we have since recovered. Things are going really quite well the past 3 weeks. We actually caught up on the materials (a miracle straight from Deus himself, considering the disaster of a first trimester we had) and are moving at a pretty steady pace! Tudo bem!

Sometimes I forget that people back home don't know the small details about this whole teaching in Moz thing...cause everything here starts to normalize for me and I forget to share the quirks. So here are some fun facts for you:
I have an average of 4 Assane's, 5 Ali's, 4 Fatimas, and a plethora of Amina's in everyone of my turmas.
Mozambicans alphabetize by first name (which makes half of my gradbook A's).
Handing back papers always tickles them to death with my attempts at prounoucing names like Hortencia da Paz Muitela Jamal, Muquissirima Assane Ussene, and Osvaldo Antonio Boaventura.
I still have about 140 kids per turma and no official list of their names from the school.
An average of 20 kids have to sit on the floor every class (depending on who shows up).
My boss tells me that every single one of the kids is a untrustworthy bandit (I'm thinkin maybe she should have retired).
Kids cheer uncontrolably sometimes when I bring a diagram to show them.
Paper is too expensive here for posters, so I use rice sacs and permanent markers to make posters.
Ages in my 8th grade classrooms range from 13 to 19.
Some of my kids can't read or write Portuguese yet and others are so bored from the material that they sleep in class.
My biggest classroom management problem is a lack of a door.
An average of 2 of the 140 kids per room actually owns a text book.
It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to walk to school from my house.
There are no bathrooms...but there is a nice field with tall grass...but I can never quite slip away unnoticed or followed since I'm usually the only white person for miles:-)
When kids have a free classperiod, or want to skip out, or a teacher doesn't show up to teach, they are free to roam around everywhere and do pretty much whatever they want without supervision.
Alrighty...hope you liked the Mozambican educational system trivia.

Almost forgot! Something else in the works: first ever science fair coming soon to Angoche! I invited six 8th graders and six 12th graders to participate in the fair (either kids with excellent grades or kids who are always on top of things and participating during class). I couldn't believe how incredibly excited the kids were to be invited to do something like this. One lil guy who is usually a lippy little trouble maker (feisty, but smart) was in tears, he was so happy.
I taught the 8th graders the scientific method just this morning...first time they've ever heard it, so it will be intersting to see how this goes. The science fair itself will be an experiment. Hahaha science jokes. And speaking of science jokes...look at this funny skeleton one kid drew and turned in. LOL! Good stuff.

To be fair...this is what one of the BEAUtiful ones looked like. She drew this free hand. Ugh. wow

So to mix things up a little bit and make the kids REALLY roudy right before I leave the classroom, I decided to start teaching them a Coisinha Americana (lil american tidbit) at the close of every class. They go wild. I either give them a fun fact or teach them English slang. This is the first "Coisinha": Whazuuuuuuup!?!?

Youth Center

2009-05-07T00:32:00.002-07:00

Finally open! All my roomie's hard work the past year has started to pay off! We opened the Youth Training Center of Angoche last Saturday and the ceremony made quite the splash here in Angoche. It was so great to see Alex's vision realized. We ran around like mad all week getting things together to make a good first impression to the public. The whole process has definitely not been without glitches. Figuring out technology in the developing world, learning Mozambican cultural quirks and traditions surrounding logistics of opening such a center, and getting Mozambican counterparts involved for the sake of sustainability has been tough, but we're open and going! A bunch of our fellow PCV's from all over Moz came to support Alex on her big day and then join us for a much deserved party on the beach afterward. Job well done; proud of you Alex!

Our beautiful center...

Some of the first students who will be trained...

And nothing is really ever official here until there is singing and dancing...so we invited some women's cultural groups to liven up the party.

Crowd shot...

After the ceremonies PCV's wowed the remaining kids with their musical talent...

Cutest lil couple dancing...

To the beach!

My girls

2009-05-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

I knew our REDES girls were fantastic and I've enjoyed them since I've started working with them, but I've never been so proud of them until now. Two weeks ago Alex and I took a few reps from our guys and girls groups to the provincial capital for conferences. Alex took our guys and I got to take our girls. I could not believe how much different these young ladies are when there are no males around or allowed. They're all a bunch of bright, bold, intense, knowledge-hungry sassifrasses! I love seeing them have a blast hanging out and learning with girls from all over the north of Mozambique. Some of our girls have never left Angoche, so it was definitely a powerful experience for them to travel to the big city and participate in a national conference. No one will be able to alleviate even half the problems these girls face, but I got to see how powerful it was for the girls to hear "me too" from the lips of other Mozambicans. They got to share and bounce ideas off each other all week. The girls had an opportunity to hear some amazing powerful Mozambican females speak on a variety of topics such as HIV/AIDS, gender issues, leadership, health, corruption, and community activism. They also recieved technical training in computers, sewing, and art. Angoche girls definitely tore it up and represented well. Our girls are the greatest!

Here we have me and the girls singing to introduce Angoche to everyone.

I helped with the art tech. group. We paited a mural at a local primary school.

Cleaning and prepping the wall...
About half-way done...everyone had a brush in on it...

Isn't she beautiful??? The mural illustrates the ability of Mozambican women to achieve a variety of "modern" goals, but still maintain Mozambican female culture. It was a big hit. People in Nampula City loved it and were asking tons of questions about the mural and REDES.

Dia da Mulher

2009-04-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

Hey there all you readers, especially the ladies...happy women's day all the way from Mozambique!!! I tell you what, these women know how to celebrate! After getting all prettied up with our girls group, we joined everyone at the plaza near the waterfront for an amazing opening ceremony complete with a variety of cultural and musical presentations especially dedicated to female issues. It was so fun to see these women all dressed up, singing and dancing like a bunch of Mozambican divas. Girl power definitely surged all day as ladies strutted their stuff around to different celebrations, programs, and parties. My roomie and I were definitely in the thick of it...tryin to be as Mozambican as possible. Angochian women ate it up! Overwhelmed with amusement that we were participating in the festivities, women we've never spoken with came running up to us to shower us with hugs, kisses, squeals, and compliments. It was pretty cute. After opening ceremonies, we visited a bunch of people in Angoche like students do before prom. In the evening, we went to watch our neighbor play in a women's soccer game and then we went out to party. Hands down, my favorite day in Angoche so far!

Me and my roomie in full garb.

One of our REDES girls. Such cuties!

Viva Mozambicana, VIVA!

Some ladies lookin good.

Colorful crowd, eh?

A lil bump and grind with some Mozambicans...

Ridiculous!

2009-04-11T01:18:00.000-07:00

So to tickle those senses of humor that are a little on the less mature side...I would like to share some of the absolutely ridiculously graphic depictions of people with cholera that my students drew. Pretty great if you ask me. I didn't even ask them to draw anything. But at least they got the basics (as you can see). I like to think I drove home the main points about choleral pretty darn well. These are just a select few of the great variety of pieces I recieved. Feel free to vote on your favorite!!!

And to keep with this art theme, I also have to share some of the pretty amusing poetry I've been recieving from students and um admirador secreto.

I would like being your own friend.

In case that allow me.

Female friend as of paper he shreads

Female friend as of class container he broke

Female friend as of iron rust

Female friend equal to you do not exists!!!!

I adore you!!!!!!!!!!

Does have anything than it is to accurate for it say

As you all of it looks not having more felt

than it is to God at the send of one angel

to remain in our side

that angel is you, Erin

Amicability that's a connection humane

than it is to involve knowledge mutual

he may be actual or virtual

and that takes to a esteem

friend they feel in case that alright at the company

actual virtual from the another one

Pretty great huh? I thought so too.

Half year already???

2009-03-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

In exactly one week I will be able to say that I survived the first trimester of school in Angoche. I feel like I’ve been running around like mad but not getting much of anything done. After a handful of random school cancelings for reasons that definitely wouldn’t fly elsewhere, 6 complete schedule changes for 8th-10th grade students and teachers, and the addition of nearly 300 students to my teaching load just last week, I’ve had few opportunities to actually appear in front of my kids. The disorganization drives me absolutely mad. I have gotten through just 6 complete lessons with only half my students in 2 months. I gave a multiple choice test last week thinking it would be easier to grade…and promptly decided I’ll never do it again. After using 30 minutes of class time the previous day to explain and practice multiple choice verbally and visually, I still received answers in essay form as well as some true/false answers. I also caught about 20 kids per class cheating. I wanted to beat my head against the chalkboard. I’m going to think of the whole trimester as a learning experience for me—just figuring out what exactly I’m going to have to do to teach the lil hooligans biology. Although school has by far been my greatest source of frustration, I think my favorite moments have been in the classroom. In response to a cholera outbreak that has caused quite a frenzy with all the misunderstandings of how people get sick, I decided to teach all my 8th graders about the causes, symptoms, treatment, and preventions of cholera. I assume there was divine intervention in the classrooms that day because for about 30 minutes 130 8th grade kiddos were glued to me as I explained cholera. They were asking great questions like “Teacher, do you have cholera in America? Why not?” and “If we can prevent cholera by keeping clean, why did my sister die and not the people who live on the street?” Quite an intense experience.
Although my kids are wild, immature, and unruly most of the time, I love the goofy 8th grade personality. It’s pretty easy to make them laugh and get excited. I have most of them convinced that I built my own house on an island right across the bay and swim inland, dry off, and walk the rest of the way to school every day. The nicest kids offer their dad’s boats as rides in the morning. lol I gave them an assignment 2 weeks ago to teach one other person about cholera and write a paragraph about the experience. What I got back was definitely not what I asked for, but way better. My roomie and I got at least a half hour of entertainment going through their ridiculously graphic drawings of sick people. Things get pretty weird here.
Speaking of weird, Alex and I have quite the array of fabulous fashion items piling up. It’s amazing how tickled the Mozambican women get when we leave the house in custom-made Mozambican garb. Hopefully in the future we’ll have a full line of Mozambican fashion to model for you on our blogs. Some of the stuff our tailor comes up with is pretty amusing. He’s no Stacy and Clinton, but we love seeing what he comes up with. We have also purchased 3 traditional drums (one for each white girl and one for possible guests) that we play on our balcony just about every night, definitely a little post-dinner treat for the whole neighborhood. I don’t mean to brag, but our patriotic happy hour has gotten a lot of attention lately…I think it’s really catching on here.
We’ve started meeting on Saturday mornings with our REDES girls- a group that promotes women’s health/education/support as well as our JOMA boys- a group that uses different forms of art to promote/communicate gender education. They’re both excellent groups of youngins and I’m excited to get to know them well. Our girls are busy prepping for Mozambican women’s day activities—should be a crazy fun day for us with them—I heard Angoche explodes with all sorts of fabulous festivities for the females. Both of our groups are also gearing up for conferences in Nampula City over the 2 week school break.
Yay for a little bit cooler weather!!! I was roasting beyond belief. I’m currently the only person in Mozambique with fully functioning sweat glands, which becomes a problem when the professora branca is expected to arrive at school looking like a pretty princess after a 30 minute midday walk with no shade. Everyone else has problems, but I’m the one who gets the hey-are-you-sick-or-something-? looks. Anyway, I’m super excited for the “winter” here. I shivered once at night last week—it was pretty exciting!
Alex and I have started running at night together and I think it’s boosting our popularity a few notches, especially after what happened a few nights ago. We got to main street and a couple of rowdy little kids started mocking us so we invited/challenged them to run with us. Before we knew it there was a herd of 15ish kids chasing us down main street singing Mozambican children’s songs at the top of their lungs. Hilarious. We really needed the extra attention. Not.
Today I realized that the end of this week will mark my 6th month here in Mozambique. That’s half a year already! Pretty crazy. Sometimes, I feel like a day or week will never end, and other times, I wonder where the month went. All the PCV’s in the northern half of Mozambique met in Nampula City the first week of March for our regional conference—an opportunity for them to pump us full of information, advice, and vaccines while we get a little vacation from our sites. I got a shower and air conditioning for the first time in 5 months as well as a lot of time with a lot of Americans. It was amazingly refreshing.
In other news, I miss you all like crazy. Sometimes I’m not really sure anything constructive and long-lasting is being accomplished by my presence, but I know its right for me to be here, so here I will stay. Meaning if anyone finds a couple thousand dollars in their couch, you would be more than welcome to purchase a ticket to Mozambique. I know the perfect un-touched little paradise, full of green coconuts, music, squirrely lil kids, and two professoras brancas who would love to host you…think about it…

Let the madness begin!

2009-02-18T03:16:00.000-08:00

In order to preserve the typical Mozambican practice of starting any given appointment 1-7 hours later or any event 1-7 days later than scheduled, the 1st day of school actually happened over a week later than it was supposed to here in Angoche. The Mozambican ministry of education completely changed the 11th grade curriculum 3 days before the calendar start of school, which threw a monkey wrench into our already troublesome organizational process. I didn’t receive my schedule or even an idea of what grade I would be teaching until one day before classes started. After getting through 2 lessons with all my students, I finally received the 8th grade curriculum which one of my colleagues luckily had bought off the streets of the provincial capital city. Silly American teachers wanting to plan ahead!
My roomie, Alex teaches 11th and 12th graders who go to school in the morning, so I was left to be the one white wonder in a crowd of curious 8th and 9th graders after the rather toasty midday walk to the outskirts of the city my first day of school. After some chaos, one of the other few teachers present lined up all the kids for the singing of the Mozambican national anthem at attention in a clearing lacking any mentionable shade, a twice daily tradition. It was everything I could do the first day to keep a straight face after hearing the line of 8th grade boys nearest to me try to make it through all the note changes with out screeching. If you ask me, they really should consider shortening the anthem…or growing more trees because sometimes students pass out during the process. After the anthem—more chaos.
Our director showed up fashionably late with class lists which were posted inside the classrooms which started a pushing, yelling stampede of hundreds of students in and out of the rooms to find out which class they’d be in. I escaped a classroom I had entered a little bewildered by the yep-this-is-just-how-we-do-things-here vibe I was picking up as no one attempted to control anything. I spotted a few colleagues standing in the shade under a nearby tree and joined them asking what the heck was going on. One explained that no one would be teaching today because of the chaos, so I joined them under the tree, not knowing what else to do. One of my directors walked by and asked me why I wasn’t teaching. I gave her my best cross-cultural are-you-freakin-kidding-me-? looks, motioned toward the war zone that was our classrooms, and tried to mutter something in Portuguese that reflected my utter cluelessness and frustration. She then launched into a less than encouraging or helpful mini-speech about American teaching approaches, half of which I did not quite understand probably to the benefit of my self esteem. She then ordered me to enter a classroom and walked away. Mouth hanging open, I turned around to my colleagues for any sort of help and received some dude-I’m-just-glad-she-didn’t-pick-me shrugs. A bit more courageous only because of some boiling anger, I headed toward one of the 8th grade classrooms, picked one at random (cause I didn’t know which one I was supposed to enter), kicked out everyone who was in stampede mode, and started teaching the rest. Walking home that day, I congratulated myself on not crying.
Things calmed down a bit since the first day and will probably continue to get better as more teachers decide to come to school and teach. Some don’t come for a while because of the chaos and because the students’ attendance is spotty. So the students don’t come because the teachers don’t…so the teachers don’t come because the students don’t…and you see the vicious cycle. So far I’m the only teacher to show up every day.
Anyway, so I teach anatomy to three 8th grade turmas or groups of students of the same grade. Here in Mozambique, the students stay in the same classroom and the teachers enter to teach their discipline, instead of the students changing classrooms. Each of the 3 classrooms I enter has a blackboard and enough desks to seat about 70 of the over one hundred kids per tiny room. The unfortunate 30 or so left over plop down on the floor, leaving numerous legs to tip-toe through as I write across the chalkboard. I’m actually quite impressed at their attentiveness so far despite all that’s going on. I’d like to attribute it to my stellar classroom management skills, but I think they just pay attention to me much in the same way visitors to zoos stare in wonder at strange creatures they’ve never seen before. I showed them pictures of my family and my fiancé and they went ballistic like a bunch of girls in the 90’s would if Hanson walked into a room. The weirdest things tickle them. The goofballs amuse me.
I gave them an assignment that first week to draw a picture of a cell, and what I got back was definitely a learning experience. I wanted to see where they were at as far as knowledge of biology goes. I got everything from houses to flags to people to autobiographies, to cell diagrams. I have my work cut out for me. Nerve-wracking as it is, I’m pretty pumped that I finally started teaching—I feel like I’m at least trying to do something constructive now. After I survive this first trimester, improve my Portuguese, and figure out how best to teach them, I suspect I’m really going to love this.

Machamba!

2009-02-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

What’s better than a barefoot white girl heading out to the machamba (garden or field) pants hiked up, gardening tools slung over shoulder to pick at the dirt while a crowd of Mozambican women collects to point and laugh hysterically??? Two barefoot white girls! Alex, my roomie is back from her crazy chapa adventure from the northern most border of Mozambique all the way down to Maputo. Inspired by a presentation on permaculture at her midservice conference, she arrived home with a book about how to get more yield of any fruit or veggie using solely whatever one has available and employing better methods. Hopefully in a few months, I’ll be able to tell you all about our wonderful corn, tomatoes, pineapple, carrots, cilantro, and pumpkins we’re enjoying. We even planted a coconut tree! Our neighbors gave us a very small plot next to theirs behind our apartments. The idea behind teaching permaculture her is to help people get much more food to feed their families or excess to sell in the markets just using what they have. We are hoping that our neighbors will get a bit curious when they see (we hope) our machamba yielding a ton more than theirs, providing teachable moments on why irrigation systems, seed spacing, and compost piles are important and why throwing trash in the machamba is a bad idea. And besides that, it became a competition for me when the women gathered round to laugh at us and mock our methods.
Aside from our newfound gardening passion, Alex and I have spent a lot of time hanging out with our 4 little Angochan boys who love to color, sing, dance, learn English, and help the strange white girls with whatever project they have going for a payment of American candy or stickers.

I’ve also been meeting a lot of great people here in Angoche. Of the 42 teachers working at the secondary school, 5 of them are women including Alex and I. Fortunately, one of the 3 Mozambican female teachers is in the bio department and has already approached me for tutoring sessions. She even took me out to the school to show me around our make-shift tin classrooms. I’m excited to have someone to collaborate with already. I also met a British couple who live quite close to me who are working with the Koti people on a number of various projects. It’s been wonderful to have a few more people to converse in English with, bounce ideas off of, and marvel about Mozambican cultural quirks with.
I finally started up my running routine again to work off all the extra carbs in the Mozambican diet. As if I wasn’t getting enough attention alreadyJ. I usually leave the apartment around 5 or 5:30 am and try to sneak my way to the edge of the city in my t-shirt, shorts, and running shoes (an odd site here) to a path that only fisherman and women headed to the fields use at that hour. Any later in the day means a burn from the intense morning sun as well as more laughing and staring as the path fills up with people going back and forth. At first I got a lot of questions like where are you going? What or who are you running from? It just doesn’t make much sense to run with no specific destination in mind and no apparent motivation for moving faster than the standard Mozambican stroll. After about 3 weeks of this routine, I’ve gotten a better response from my audience, now more accustomed to the fast sweaty white girl. I’ve even raced a few of the fishermen and had herds of little kids line up to greet and cheer for me like I’m some sort of Olympian. It’s great encouragement. It’s so impossible to go un-noticed around here.
Alex has been busying herself with all the arrangements for the opening of a youth center in the city, teaching me the ins and outs of many of her secondary projects that I’ll most likely start playing a role in. I’m excited for the opening ceremony. Alex and I picked out some wacky tree-stump designed capulanas (sarongs) that are being fashioned into 2 matching traditional dresses and head wrap thingies for the occasion. Traditional drums have also been ordered. These people are going to eat it up. LOL. We’re hoping to make a big splash about the youth center to get solid community involvement invested into young people here. The youth center could centralize many of the various activities for the youngins with the hope that organization and synergy will keep things running even if all the Peace Corps volunteers leave Angoche.
In light of the up-coming start of school and all the busy-ness and stress that will bring, I traveled up to Mozambique Island to visit another volunteer for a mini vacation. If I weren’t so biased about the beauty of my site, I would have to say that the island is definitely the most beautiful part of Mozambique I’ve seen so far. Spooky abandoned colonial homes, businesses, churches, and crumbling fortresses sprinkle the tiny island surrounded by white sand beaches and teal water. Unfortunately, the locals have trashed the place and the island doesn’t have enough infrastructure to support the average tourist, so it remains off the beaten path, a hidden treasure, like the rest of Mozambique. The other PCV and I spent a lot of time exploring the island and practicing riding double on her ridiculous new pink bike complete with a basket, fenders, and a bell. We were quite the spectacle. I also successfully cleaned a gargantuan tropical fish for the first time in my life with out instruction. I’m on my way to being a pro at this Mozambique stuff.
So, school starts on Monday and I have yet to find out what grade I teach which is extremely frustrating considering the amount of time I will need to plan lessons. My Portuguese is getting a little better, but I know it’s going to be tough talking about technical topics for 45 minutes multiple times a day. Today Alex and I were told to go into work to help with some things, and when we showed up and no one was there, not even our bosses. The same thing happened yesterday. This definitely feels like another planet sometimes. Concepts of organization are completely different. Paciencia. I hope this gets better.
I’ve gotten a number of the same questions from various people, so I figured I would just answer them here: No, unfortunately, I have not seen any zebras or lions. Although most of the stereotypical African animals once roamed freely further inland, they now only live on reserves nowadays. This is true for many other African countries as well. Once in a while, I’ve spotted a monkey, but that’s it. Food: I’ve been eating a lot of beans and rice as well as whatever kind of seafood I can find (usually prawns, shrimp, or crab) and a pretty respectable assortment of veggies and tropical fruit like bananas, pineapple, and mangos depending on the season. Weather: It’s ridiculously hot and humid here. We’re talking mid 90’s and a baggillion percent humidity all the time. Supposedly the rains are going to come soon and alleviate this Iowa girl. And last, but definitely not least…yes! I’m engaged to a man named Ben Cuentas. Ben is currently serving as a chaplain assistant in the Army in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and quite possibly looking at an upcoming deployment to Afganistan this spring. Ben and I met in Sioux City and worked in a number of ministries together where we became good amigos and partners in crime. Why, you ask, would a young lady run off to Africa after an amazingly talented, smart, creative, fun, like-minded young guy asks her to marry him? Good question. Although the situation isn’t the easiest route, I had Africa on my heart before Ben asked me to marry him, and even after engaged, I felt like this is what I should be doing. Fortunately, he fully supports and encourages me to be here doing what I’m doing in Mozambique. His upcoming deployment puts him out of the country as well for a large chunk of my service, so it makes it a bit easier knowing we’ll be gone at the same time. So that’s my story! I hope I cleared up some mysteries!
Anywho…there are seeds to be planted, creative lessons to be planned, kids to play with, and meetings to attend, so I’ll catch you all up again in a few weeks. Thanks again, readers, for taking interest in what I’m doing…you all make a girl feel loved!

Bem-vindo!

2009-01-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

Bem-vindo (welcome) to my life! It’s probably been a while since most of you have heard from me. Desculpa. Well, I’ve got a lot to catch ya up on, so I’ll get right to it. Just before Christmas I completed my 10 week training with the Peace Corps in Namaacha, a small southern city near Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. Training was overwhelming and frustrating most of the time, but had its fair share of adventures and amusing moments. I lived with a host family for the duration of training, which was an experience allll to itself. I would describe my host family as a very loving, chaotic, Mozambican circus. My dad is involved in some sort of security operation and my mom is an elementary school teacher. My 3 brothers and 3 sisters ranging from ages 7 to 19 were a constant source of energy, activity, and fun to keep my mind off my less than par Portuguese and on better things like Frisbee and climbing papaya trees. We all lived together in a 4-room concrete house with a tin roof (which sounds amazing in the rain) and a couple of cockroaches, my new least favorite critter on the face of the earth. My family patiently introduced me to the world of bucket baths in outside casa-de-banhos (bathrooms), cooking Mozambican cuisine over charcoal, and the basics of family culture. I’m sure they got sick of the white girl constantly in a state of bewilderment, functioning at a level less Mozambicanly civilized than Sancho, the 7 year old…but they didn’t show it. I already miss them and I’ve been away for just over 3 weeks. Outside family life, I attended language classes every morning for a few hours and then afternoon sessions on cultural and logistical Mozambican life topics as well as technical sessions where I worked with other Peace Corps volunteers who will also be teaching science. Days were full to the brim, but a majority of our weekends were free for hanging with the fam, escaping to Maputo for pizza, or hiking in the nearby mountains. Training ended after a week of model school, which was a chance for PC teachers to get up in front of a classroom of (semi-bribed) little brothers and sisters and anyone else we could round up from the community and practice our English, bio, or chem teaching skills. Poor kids:-) Yikes! It was nice to get a little practice but teaching biology in Portuguese is nerve-wracking! I’m not sure I’m ready to do this; but Peace Corps says I am, so on the 12th of December, I swore in as an official PC volunteer in Maputo.
I was “delivered” to my site shortly after swear –in and was overwhelmed by the un-stereotypical-peace-corps-ishness of my new home and the beauty of my city. I now live in a spacious, breezy apartment complete with ocean views from my bedroom windows and both of my balconies. I have running water for half of the day (although it’s not drinkable), electricity that’s been pretty reliable so far, and a considerably smaller cockroach population. I felt almost guilty telling some of my comrades who are definitely roughing it in the matu (bush) about my site. I’m a lucky duck. I was greeted into my new home by my PC roomie, Alex, an English teacher who has been here for one year, already a refreshingly goofy and fun source of information and encouragement as well as 4 little Angochan boys who sang, danced, and presented me with flowers and drawings. After my dinner of crab-legs freshly fished from the nearby Indian Ocean, our 4 little friends accompanied us to the top of our hill where we watched the sunset over the lagoons and got to hear rather animated stories in Portuguese from our mini-tour guides. What??? Is this really my life? I could definitely get used to this.
I spent a week in my city getting the basics settled and entertaining a few PC volunteers traveling through and then set off to meet up with some other volunteers to celebrate Christmas in a resort town north of my site. I soon found the greatest disadvantage of my site so far—getting out. The road to Nampula City, the provincial capital, is pretty darn rough in a chapa (choice form of transport), which is basically a flat-bed truck with a canvas cover on the back. But its not necessarily a rough ride just because the un-surfaced road is crazy muddy and full of holes or because the vehicle is less than luxury—it’s ‘cause they stuff so many darn people (and animals) in one stinkin’ load and stop frequently to pull little kids out for roadside bathroom breaks and to purchase snacks like mangos, cashews, or freshly slaughtered goat. This trip was considerably more authentic than my arrival in the PC jeep, and my butt literally had the bruises to prove it. Anyway, I eventually got to the others, and we celebrated a rather tropical Christmas complete with a shark and pineapple Christmas Eve dinner and a Christmas morn waking on a beautiful beach.
I’ve been back at my site now for about 2 weeks and I’m pretty well settled in my apartment. After doing a little exploring, I’ve found my city to be ridiculously beautiful, rich in a smattering of cultures, and a bit mysterious. I feel like I’m in a completely different country than that of my training, here in the north of Mozambique. I’m still a novice when it comes to the basic workings of this place, but I will do my best to give an accurate depiction. In the northern 3 provinces of Mozambique, the dominant tribe (and language) is Makua while my city, Angoche, and its surrounding islands speak a separate language, Koti, and consider themselves separate from the Makua. Angoche started long ago as an Arab trading center and later became an important city during the colonial era for the Portuguese who turned it into a bit of a mini-tropical-economic playground for themselves complete with factories, businesses, and beautiful homes galore. The Portuguese were eventually kicked out of Mozambique by FRELIMO, Mozambique’s Liberation Front, after a war that dragged on from the 1960’s to mid 70’s. The Portuguese left quickly after the war, destroying infrastructure as they went, taking the educated and experienced with them, and leaving the country in a rather chaotic mess. FRELIMO quickly took on a socialist flavor and met with resistance from RENAMO, Mozambique National Resistance, a group backed by outside sources (South Africa, Rhodesia, and possibly a couple westerners). The 17 years of violence that ensued was arguably a civil war, a discussion considering RENAMO’s sources and roots. Things have gradually stabilized since then as Mozambique fights to recover and catch up as a growing democracy in Africa.
So basically, what I have here is a Portuguese ghost town built on the Koti and Makua tribes who still reflect the Arab influence through the dominant Muslim faith. Mix in a growing population of Indian families and throw in one confused white girl, and you’ve got Angoche! So little is published about what happened in Mozambique, specifically Angoche; and many people here completely avoid many subjects. Add that to my rather green Portuguese communication skills (unfortunately which are not even very useful on the street due to the favored local language or cocktail of languages spoken) and its been difficult to figure out just what is going on here. I suppose that will come as I integrate.
I start teaching in about 4 weeks (we’re still on summer break here) which is incredibly intimidating to me. I will not know what grade level I will teach until the first week of classes and word on the street has it that I could boast as many as 100 or more students per class. I also learned that the Escola Secundaria (high school) of Angoche is undergoing a major facelift, so until that’s finished, we’re having class on the grounds of one of those abandoned Portuguese cashew factories I mentioned above. Oh Mozambique! Never a dull moment. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted. Until next time…Happy (belated) New Year all the way from Southeastern Africa!