Monday, August 31, 2009
Regional Science Fair
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!!!
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!!!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Mount Namuli
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.
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.
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
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
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
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!
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.
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.
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