Day 5 of the Malaria Boot Camp here in Senegal. It's been fantastic so far, I have so much to recount. I was a little worried that some portion of a ten-day conference would be dedicated to stupid ice-breakers, but instead we have just been bombarded with useful and relevant information. It's been wonderful. I will have a lot to say once I have a moment's rest!

Hmmm, it seems that in my excitement to get to Senegal, I forgot to finish my last post. I had some reflections, I'll write them later. I wanted to say I made it here to Senegal safely and am enjoying malaria boot camp so far!

I leave for Senegal in a few hours! The woman I am staying with is an RPCV who served in Ivory Coast. Since she was one of the first groups to go there, they had their pre-service training in Senegal, actually at the same center where my malaria conference will be. There has been talk of political unrest and possible demonstrations in Senegal, so I was worried that the conference might be cancelled or postponed. But we received emails from the Senegal post assuring us that we won’t be near any demonstration sites and will be kept with Peace Corps the whole time.

One thing I have experienced multiple times here, meeting many people who aren’t American: people will talk to me about very personal things as if we met longer than an hour ago. I have had people bring up in friendly conversation their divorce, family tragedies, the time they hit and killed a woman, and guilt from trauma.

I am in Maputo now, following a Friday session about malaria and weekend REDES (Girls in Development, Education, and Health) meetings. This past week was the Midservice Conference for Moz 15 (the group behind me) because they recently completed their first year of service. Friday morning they had a malaria information session and I followed it with an explanation of what my role would be this year and to lead a brainstorming session of malaria activities PCVs could do this year. It was fun getting to see them again, some of them (who live in the north) I hadn’t seen in over a year. And I got to see Erin and catch up with her, her mother had visited in December while I was gone, and to hear about how Inharrime is doing (I hope I get back there soon!).

One volunteer came up to me and asked if I could take something back to Namaacha to give her host family. I said of course so she gave me a sheepish smile and said, “it’s my hair…but I double-bagged it!” People here often braid people’s hair into their own for more life-like extensions. I routinely get asked for my hair. This PCV had just cut her hair short and saved the long braid to give to her host mom and sisters.

Anna and I are both working with what we call the PCV secondary projects this year: REDES, the co-ed youth group, English Theater, Science Fair, and Future Business Leaders. Anna is working with the national coordinators of all of them to try to make them more sustainable and functional as organizations. My role is to evaluate their curriculum and activities and try to improve them so that they are more effective at preventing HIV, since 100% of the funding comes from HIV/AIDS prevention money. Saturday and Sunday Anna and I sat in on the REDES planning meeting. It’s difficult but we are trying to approach these meetings from the point of view of our new jobs, not the ones we used to have, and understand that it’s not our group to run anymore. We feel a little uncomfortable, we don’t want to step on their toes since we were the two who ran REDES last year.

I had been told back in October that it was possible I would be attending a malaria boot camp in early 2012. I had been asking about it fairly regularly since I got back to Moz at the beginning of the month, but all we had been told so far was “sometime in February.” With February quickly approaching, I called our country director again on Monday and I was finally given dates! The conference will be from February 2-11 and my tickets were bought yesterday so I am officially leaving on Wednesday the 1st! I am a little intimidated—I have no idea what we will do at a conference for ten whole days. But I am really looking forward to learning everything about malaria. All I know about malaria I learned in the past month reading a book about it. Here in Peace Corps Mozambique we have never had any formal malaria activities or programs before. In the past everything we do has been heavily HIV/AIDS focused, mostly because that’s where our funding comes from. This year my job is to jumpstart and promote any and all malaria-focused activities involving PCVs, and I am starting from scratch. On the other hand, some West African Peace Corps countries have tons of experience with successful malaria programs and activities. I, representing both myself and Peace Corps Mozambique, will be the ultimate rookie at the conference, but I will be taking furious notes and plan to bring many ideas back with me.

Apologies for the lack of blogging. The cell phone service in our house is terrible, so internet on my phone is only possible from 2am-5am. There is a place in town that has internet but the computer is miserably slow so I have only been twice now. Peace Corps has an office here in Namaacha but until we have been granted access you probably won’t be hearing from me often.

Anna arrived on Wednesday! Luckily a Peace Corps car was driving to Namaacha from Maputo to check on the office since apparently it flooded. All of the paved roads have been turned to rivers and the unpaved roads to mudslides, but this Peace Corps SUV was able to get almost all the way to our house, essential since it was pouring and Anna had all of her big bags from America. It’s been nice to be able to share the experience of being confined to the house (when it rains hard our entire yard, including the bathroom, floods) and not having anything to do with another person finally!

Apparently there are a few cyclones in the Mozambique Channel currently. We haven’t gotten the brunt of the storms, but we have felt the effects in the way of winds and rain. And fairly regular power outages that last anywhere from 30 minutes to 15 hours. I keep putting basins and buckets out to catch the rain water and judging by how much I have been able to collect, I would estimate that we have gotten about 35 inches of rain in the past three days. Everything I touch feels either damp or cold, I can’t tell. Probably both. Even when it isn’t raining the air is filled with moisture, it’s so foggy we can’t see past the front gate and you can see the mist drifting in through the windows.

I had asked my host mom if she knew of anyone who would be interested in working for us to wash our laundry and she said she would ask around. I preferred going through her because this helped ensure that the person would be trustworthy. She told me a few days ago that a cousin (or something, some sort of family relation) who I remembered from when I lived here was interested in working for us. I got her number and we arranged for her to come by my house the next afternoon. The next afternoon she never showed so I called and nobody answered. I have been here long enough to understand that I should start looking for someone else. I finally heard from her a few days later and she explained that her husband had told her she couldn’t work for us but she had found someone else, so she would bring her by the next day. So today my host mom, this familial relation and the woman she recommended stopped by. I brought chairs out into the yard so we could sit in the shade and I offered them cold water. But things like this still terrify because I am certain I am going to mortally offend someone without even knowing it, since I am still such a stranger to their customs and don’t know how I should behave as a hostess in this situation. The good news is that this woman agreed to wash our laundry for us. Anyone doubting why Peace Corps Volunteers need to hire someone to do their laundry must understand that in countries like this where labor is so cheap and money is so scarce, people with salaries like us are expected to contribute to the community by spreading this money around in ways such as this. Also, try washing bed sheets or denim jeans by hand sometime.

Great news, the last PCV involved in the car accident has been released from the hospital and is back in America and doing well. Despite suffering spinal injury he miraculously suffered no paralysis and or brain/nerve injury. It’s incredibly wonderful news and suddenly the terrible feeling of wondering, of not knowing about a friend that has haunted us for the past four weeks is gone.

Inharrime, in Inhambane province, where I lived the last two years, is often referred to as the coconut belt. Something I took for granted. A coconut there costs between 3-6 Meticais. Here in Namaacha, up in the mountains and fairly temperate, a coconut costs 12.5 Meticais!

We have running water in our yard that comes out every few days. It is turned on and off by a knob up in the front corner of our yard and comes out of a hose behind the house. The water doesn’t come out too regularly, but this week I thought it was strange it hadn’t come out in a while, so I went up and checked the knob. Someone had turned it off, most likely when I was in Maputo and Amendoim was chained and couldn’t reach anyone who entered the yard in that corner. It must have been the two girls I had been paying to cart water for me—they are the only people who have anything to gain from me not having water. I was extremely angry. Not only was it dishonest and done by two of the only friends I had made here in this new neighborhood, but I was pissed that they (or their friends they enlisted, there is a whole troupe of kids who live near us and harass the dog) had entered our yard. And my feelings still get hurt when something like this happens, even though I know I should know better by now. I am still always saddened and wonder how long I would have to be here for people to not always see me as different and try to take advantage of me?

Today I went into Maputo with Rosalia, my host mom, to pick up her son who had been spending the school holidays with an aunt, since classes recommence tomorrow. When we met up at the chapa stuff she handed Baby Anata to me and said, “here, you hold her.” Surprisingly, Baby Anata didn’t object or get upset. Apparently today she decided that we will be friends. The driver on the way there was pretty crazy. Scary. Just something you try not to think about and be calm because you have absolutely no control in the situation. We got off the chapa in the bad part of town and headed to where we could catch our next chapa, me with Baby Anata and Rosalia with our purses. The man in front of Rosalia suddenly yelled “Hey! Look what you did!” He pointed to his rubber sandal that had split into two layers in the sole. He demanded that she pay him for the shoe she had just broken. She said no, she didn’t have any money. He commented on the way she was dressed and said she did (she was dressed very chic—probably why he picked her in the first place). A cop passed, heard the situation, rolled his eyes and told her to pay the guy. She refused. Eventually one of the street vendors there told the guy that she wasn’t going to pay his salary and he should stop trying to take advantage of people. As we walked away we laughed that his shoe had probably already been broken and he was waiting for a well-dressed person to walk by who he could blame it on. I felt bad that I couldn’t help her or stand up for her, but getting involved would have been the least helpful thing in the world. If the man had known I was with her, me with my white skin that just screams money to everyone here, he never would have let us go. But it was kind of refreshing to see that ridiculous things happen to other people here too.

At their house we sat and chatted and they prepared lunch to serve us. Because having guests and not feeding them is basically a mortal sin here. My host aunt and her husband had just married in January, so they were showing us pictures and the DVD from the wedding. A wedding in Mozambique involves the traditional ceremony which has many steps and involves a fairly large dowry and the presentation of it to the bride’s family, the religious ceremony, and the official registering with the state. All three of these processes are fairly expensive, thus many couples here opt for what we would call common-law marriages in the states. This couple has been together for many years and they already have two children together, but had never officially been married before. It was interesting to watch the DVD and see especially the traditional ceremony which I have been told about but never seen before. Her husband and I kept asking each other questions about the other’s respective cultures and ceremonies and comparing the similarities and differences.

Yesterday afternoon after I got home I went down to the Salesian sisters’ mission because I had heard that some of the Sisters from Inharrime were there. It was so wonderful to see them again and I was greeted by big smiles and hugs. Irmã Ana (Irmã means Sister in Portuguese) got moved down there, so she will be here this entire year while I am ecstatic about. She is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met. They must have had a meeting for the order within Mozambique because there were tons of Sisters there. I saw Irmãs Agnes, Dolorinda, Lucilia, and Claudina, and also Candida, the current Portuguese volunteer from the mission in Inharrime. Also there was Irmã Elizabete, my colleague from the secondary school who is a Sister of a different order in Inharrime. I was so happy to see everyone again, it was a momentary rescue from the pervading feeling of loneliness I have felt since I returned—Anna (my roommate) isn’t back yet, I don’t live on an orphanage with 65+ girls anymore, nobody knows my name here, and the Volunteers from my Peace Corps training group (Moz 14) are gone. I also got to see Irmã Rosaria who was in Inharrime for the first two months I was there and taught Portuguese in the secondary school, but then got moved up north to Pemba and I haven’t seen her since.

I then walked by my homestay house to visit the family there, I hadn’t seen my grandmother, brothers, or cousins yet, and I had been told by my host mom’s neighbors earlier that Baby Anata was there for the afternoon. As I was walking into the yard I ran into Anna’s host mom—Anna and I were technically “host cousins” because our moms are sisters and I lived with their mom (our grandmother). Sitting out in the yard behind the house were my mom with Baby Anata, my grandmother, two of my mom’s sisters I had met briefly before and another sister I had never met, a sister-in-law who had been at the lunch in Maputo the day before (she was host mom to a Moz 17er), my cousins and brothers, and two of my mom’s cousins. Turns out that the two cousins had been in my chapa that morning and they recognized me immediately and launched into the story of the chapa guy trying to make me move, me stating that I had the right to sit in that seat too and refusing to leave, and the teenage girl eventually moving up to the front the resolve the problem. One of my aunts shook her head in frustration, “I wish they hadn’t done that” she said, referring to the compromise of moving the girl up to the middle seat. “Women need to stand up for their rights and can’t give in to jerks like him who say we don’t have rights.”

This morning I left Maputo to head home to Namaacha. I went to a store on my way out to get a couple things you can only buy in Maputo, and then with these two shopping bags, my big duffle bag (I had left a few things at a friend’s house while I was in the states), and my over-sized purse, I headed to the chapa stop. When I got there nobody was in the front seat which is ideal when you have a lot of stuff because there is more leg room. Chapas, which are extended vans, have this front seat with a normal car door, and then a sliding door that opens to four rows of benches that seat people four across. The front seats are a bench seat, so there is the driver’s seat, the regular passenger seat, and then the small makeshift seat in between them which nobody was in yet. I settled into my seat, put my headphones in, pulled my book out and waited for the chapa to fill up so we could leave (the chapas here don’t run on schedules, but leave once all the seats are full). When the last person showed up, a man, the guy in charge of the chapa came over to my door and told me to move over so the guy could sit down. I said “no, the man can sit here in the middle.” He said “no, men don’t sit there. Move over.” I said “no, men can sit here in the middle too. Women have the right to sit in this seat.” He laughed as if what I said was actually funny and asked “in what country?” He told me if I wasn’t going to move over I would have to move to a different seat in the back. I said no. He said if I refused to move I would have to get out of the chapa. I said no. I told him I had the right to sit in that seat and I was going to sit in it. He left for a while and then came back and the argument repeated. He kept insisting that I either move other, move to a different seat, or get out of the car. I kept saying no. Eventually he turned back to the chapa full of people (mostly women) and started talking to them in Changana, probably telling them that I was the reason we hadn’t left yet. I turned around indignantly to defend myself: “he is saying that women don’t have the right to sit in this seat!” I could tell a couple of them were annoyed with me. But I recognized the looks on the rest of their faces—they wanted to help me but didn’t know how or didn’t think they could. Eventually an older woman who had come to drop off her teenage niece told her niece to climb up to the front middle seat and then the last passenger (the man) could sit in her seat. It was a compromise but the chapa guy and I were both pissed we hadn’t won the argument. When he came over to collect the money I said “you’re going to see that this world is changing, just wait.” “What am I going to see?” he asked bitterly. “That women have all the rights that men have.” He was too mad to even laugh at me. There are times when I get so angry at this world we live in.

The memorial service for Alden Landis and Lena Jenison was today at the U.S. Ambassador’s house in Maputo. It was a beautiful service that commemorated and celebrated both Alden and Lena’s tragically short time in Mozambique and the commitment and spirit of all Peace Corps Volunteers. All of Moz 17 (Lena and Alden’s training group which arrived in September 2011) had been brought down to Maputo to be together in some grief and counseling sessions and for the service. There were also a handful of PCVs from other groups who happened to be returning from holiday travel abroad and were in Maputo, or lived close enough to Maputo to come in specifically for the service. And then a huge presence from the American community in Maputo. The American community in Maputo came together during this tragic time, from putting up all of the PCVs in their houses—allowing this unplanned and unbudgeted conference for 49 people to happen—to helping feed them and give them family and community in the way of evening cook outs. Many of the Foreign Service members in Maputo are RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) and many others came to show their support. Fellow PCVs who were close to Alden and Lena shared poignant anecdotes, favorite quotes, and blog posts in memory of their friends. Our Peace Corps Country Director shared a letter from the Director of Peace Corps worldwide and spoke briefly, as did the U.S. Ambassador. The Ambassador’s husband is an RPCV from the Philippines (1967-1969) and spoke movingly about his experience and the great impact that a PCV has. A picture slideshow of Lena and Alden played before and after the service, and there were books for people to write their condolences to both families. There were also large cards for people to write words of encouragement to the other three PCVs who had been in the accident—two who have been released from the hospital and are back in D.C. and one who remains in the hospital with spinal injuries.

After the service current Peace Corps staff and volunteers went to the American School for a lunch with their homestay families from Namaacha. A few of the host parents gave speeches and we all ate and caught up with each other.

A tiring day. No matter how often you try to remind yourself that today was meant to be a celebration of their lives and experiences, it’s difficult to not get sad when you think about how full of enthusiasm and passion they were and how little time they got both on this earth and here in Mozambique. The Moz 17ers are in pretty rough shape. I think they are having difficulty differentiating between the grief they are feeling for their two friends and the general horribleness that your first few months of service generally are. Think about it—during training you have a set schedule, classes and session everyday that give you a sense of purpose. You are surrounded by 50 other Americans who share your passions and aspirations and with whom you can relate your experiences, from struggling to learn Portuguese, to frustrations with sessions or in the homestay, to things you miss from America. Then one day you are dropped off at your site where you know no one, you don’t know where to buy your vegetables, your house has rats and/or a variety of other surprises, you have no job to get up for in the morning (classes don’t begin until January 16th), and suddenly you might not have anyone to commiserate with over a beer in the evening. This time is difficult for everyone and it is meant to be a learning journey—this was the time when my Portuguese improved exponentially because suddenly I was around no other English speakers and I gained confidence as I began to master functioning as a member of my community. But merely ten days into this difficult time (and only five days before Christmas, generally a big get-together time even for those who don’t celebrate it) two of their colleagues died and three others were in the ICU. A few of the Moz 17 Volunteers will return to the states tomorrow for emergency medical leave of up to 45 days to try to deal with their grief and decide how to move on with their lives. Please keep them all in your prayers during this time. And please pray for my friend Mark from Moz 15 who is still in the hospital.

Today I was walking to the chapa stop in Namaacha when I heard someone yell out “mana Anata!” I looked up and saw one of the girls from the orphanage in Inharrime carting water with a couple other girls. She and her sister, who also lives at the orphanage, have family here in Namaacha so they spend there holidays there with them. I was so happy and excited to see someone I knew—it’s sad moving to a town where nobody knows you—especially someone who was so thrilled to see me.

My chapa arrived in Maputo in the bad part of town so I held on tight to my bags and walked determinedly to the stop for the next chapa. Someone put their hand on my wrist so I flicked it off and continued walking. Then I heard someone say “teacher Anata!” It was one of my students from my English club in Inharrime! I felt terrible for flicking his hand away so rudely, I had just assumed it was someone trying to sell me something, so I hadn’t even looked at him. He is spending his holidays with family in Maputo.

Baby Anata with the new sunglasses i brought back for her

This morning I ran past a man walking down the street sipping out of his beer bottle at 5:48am. Seriously?

It’s mid-summer here and it’s hot! And humid. I had straightened my hair for the flight back here and as soon as I stepped off the plane in Maputo I could feel my hair start to curl back up.

I went to visit my host family yesterday. My mom greeted me with a big smile and “you got fat!” Baby Anata is still scared of me, but I’ll be around all the time this year, so I’m sure she’ll get used to me soon enough. She had a fever on an already hot day so she was in just a diaper and my host mom wrapped her in a damp towel that kept drying too quickly. Unfortunately all of my other host siblings and cousins had gone to spend the holidays with other relatives. She asked me about the accident. Everyone in Namaacha heard about it because we all live here with families during our ten-week training. I was surprised that my taxi driver in Maputo also asked about it, but maybe he drives a lot of PCVs.

Back in Mozambique.

I got home yesterday and was extremely relieved (and perhaps a little surprised) that the dog was still alive and our house hadn’t been robbed. The good news and the bad news is that the only beings that entered our house during the month we were gone were rats. I was fully prepared to come back and have things robbed, so I guess I can handle washing rat poop and pee out of things. Amendoim (our dog—means peanut in Portuguese) is a great rat killer, this I already knew, but he really proved himself by killing seven rats in the past two days. I got the eighth myself. And now I understand why dogs like squeaky toys.

My trip back to America was wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that I wasn’t too excited to get on that plane to come back, but I am looking forward to starting my new jobs. I found that America wasn’t as full of culture shocks as everyone and I expected, but small things that I had forgotten about, that really thrilled me or kind of annoyed me. I think the material things I miss most are the notion of customer service, the fact that there are relatively clean bathrooms everywhere, and free potable water everywhere.

I’ve spent the past two days settling into our new house here and trying to unpack everything and clean out the rat poop and dead bugs from everywhere. This is a really nice house with separate rooms, as opposed to my one room that past two years which served as a bedroom, kitchen, and living room all in one. The one thing I miss most about running water is being able to wash my hands easily and whenever I want to.

I was only in Maputo to sleep since my plane landed at night, so I haven’t seen anyone since being back. It’s a strange feeling though, the same places, the same people, the same smells—but now somehow everything is different. The memorial service for Alden and Lena will be on Sunday in Maputo.

Peace Corps Mozambique suffered a terrible tragedy this week:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1934

The other day I was in a public restroom when the toilet just suddenly flushed while I was still on it. Automatic toilets. I forgot about those. My reaction was probably something out of a movie, momentary pure surprise and terror.

My friends keep making fun of the comments I make. I’ll say things like “it’s so weird how people write the month first, then the day second in a date” and my friends make fun of me because I say these things as if I never took part in them. My friend was going to the grocery store and asked if I wanted to come. I forgot that I hadn’t been to a real grocery store yet. By the end she told me she would just wait in line until I was done wandering around in wonder. I forgot that grocery stores here sell really cheap sushi—it’s amazing! And the variety in America is absurd, why in the world do there need to be 12 different variations of baked beans? They are all pretty tasty though. And what’s craziest to me I how cheaply you can buy any kind of food—spaghetti and meatballs, casserole, potato salad, sandwiches—already made and ready to eat. I was raving about how amazing it is that you can buy a slice of pizza that’s ready to eat for so cheap. “Think about it! Think about how much work went into that one slice of pizza! Someone has to take care of the cow and then make the cheese, someone had to make the dough, someone had to pick and cut the vegetables! And in the end you pay less than $2 for the slice!” My friend responded, “yeah. That’s why whenever you yell ‘America!’ everyone responds ‘**** yeah!’”

At a rest stop in New York I got to spin around in the first snow I had seen in almost three years, since maybe February 2009. And I made and threw a long-awaited snowball.

Speaking of accents, the Boston accent is really hard to understand when you haven’t heard it in two years.

Yesterday we went shopping and a couple times I felt like I was in the scene from “Love Actually” where Mr. Bean is extravagantly gift-wrapping the necklace. I bought a pair of earrings that were already on a holder. The saleswoman put them on cotton in a box and then wanted to put the box inside a bag. I told her I didn’t need the bag. She seemed perplexed, but I just wanted her to stop making so much trash! I mean, I could have just thrown them in my purse!

This evening I went to our local honky-tonk country bar to see the country legend Billy Joe Shaver play live. He put on a great show and for me it was a crazy dose of culture shock! The funny thing was, I had a terrible time understanding his very twangy country accent when he was speaking. I haven’t heard English spoken like that in over two years.

America has been less shocking than I expected, there have just been small and strange things that I guess I had forgotten about. When I was on the Emory campus earlier this week I think I stopped to drink out of every single water fountain I walked by. Just the idea that there is this fresh, cold, FREE, potable water everywhere—it’s incredible and frankly too good to pass up. I had completely forgotten about twist-off beer bottles—in Mozambique they don’t exist. I keep wondering why all the drivers are sitting on the wrong side of their car and feel a constant general confusion about which side is the correct side to be driving on. I can’t believe how smoothly cars accelerate here! And I’m disarmed every time waiters are friendly and helpful, in Mozambique a vendor or server will often make you feel like you are a huge inconvenience.

I find it difficult to remember that I have been gone for two years. Perhaps because I went to boarding school and then away to college, since I was 14 I have constantly been leaving for short periods and then returning home. So now I have trouble convincing myself that it wasn’t just another one of those times. I keep saying things like “oh you got a new car!” or “wow that building is new!” To which people respond, “actually it’s about two years old…” The little kids have grown up into real people and many people are engaged or have more kids than when I left.

This past week a group of ten of us have been in Maputo for COS (Close of Service). Two of us are coming back for another year, but they rest of them are now RPCVs—Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. It’s been wonderful to get to spend time with these people before they all leave, I just wish it could be our whole group together. We have spent a lot of time this week reminiscing about our first days, weeks and months in Mozambique, recounting the funny stories, and speculating how so much could have happened in two years that flew by so quickly.

Yesterday I went to church at the sister’s place that is the equivalent of where I lived for the past two years in Inharrime. The Salesian sisters in Namaacha have an orphanage, secondary school, and primary school and have been there for maybe 50 years. They are one of the main houses of the Salesian sisters in Mozambique and I think all novice sisters in the country spend a year or two there. The mission in Inharrime began construction only eight years ago, so most of the sisters I lived with the past two years have spent at least a little time in Namaacha, and some of the older ones 20 or 30 years. I was talking to a friend after church, this woman is white Portuguese and grew up in Namaacha and attended the sisters’ school. She spent Christmas and Easter with us in Inharrime and has been there one other time to visit, which is how I know her. I had stopped by to introduce myself to the sisters a few days earlier and while I was waiting, all of the girls from the orphanage huddled around to talk to me and touch my hair and skin. As soon as she heard there was an American from Inharrime she came running up to where I was sitting, “Anata, I knew it had to be you!” After church I was talking to her about finding someone trustworthy to check on our house and feed Amendoim the three weeks when Anna and I are in the states. A young woman walked over with a big smile on her face and because she was wearing a nun’s habit it took me a second to place her—she was one of the girls in training who had lived with the sisters in Inharrime the first six months I was there. I had loved her and was disappointed when she left, but yesterday I learned that she had since become a sister and I’ll be seeing a lot of her this coming year!

The neighborhood kids tease Amendoim mercilessly, standing outside the gate and barking at him. And he’s just two young to just ignore them, so he whimpers and cries and frantically wishes they would play with him. We have yelled at them multiple times, but it only makes things worse. A few days ago I got a ride with Peace Corps to my house and when I saw them outside I made an exasperated comment to Ludovina, a Mozambican training leader with Peace Corps. “I’ll talk to them” she said. She got out and yelled at them. When they started to run away (she is a fairly formidable woman) she told them to get their butts back over there, and then she gave them a thorough tongue-lashing in Xangana. It worked for a while, but the next day the little heathens were back at our gate.

Yesterday I turned in the keys to my house and drove away from Inharrime. I was able to get a ride for all of my stuff all the way to my house in Namaacha and to Maputo for me and Amendoim, Ann’s former dog and our new dog. I was worried about getting Amendoim (means “peanut” in Portuguese) to Namaacha because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get him into a chapa. Luckily I am very persuasive. I showed up with the dog and confidently walked over to the chapa. I was told that dogs couldn’t ride on chapas, but I calmly and repeatedly assured them that it was okay. Once I had convinced them that the dog would be riding on the chapa, they told me to buy a row (four seats) and sit there with the dog. I soothingly and repeatedly told them that I would buy the two front seats and the dog would sit on the floor between my legs. They were adamant that the front seat is for humans only, but I eventually soothed them into agreeing with me and Amendoim and I got our front seat on the chapa to Namaacha.

one last picture of Ann and me with the girls

Tomorrow I leave what has been my home for the past two years. It sucks. The next phase, including going back to the states for the first time, will be great, but I am sad to see this part of my life ending.

My colleague said today, “you’re leaving tomorrow? But you haven’t given me your hair yet! What are you going to do with our hair?” I laughed, “oh, it’s YOUR hair?”

One of the girls appeared to get fairly mad at me today because I was leaving. I explained that I had been here for two years already. “You should have to stay for ten years!” decided another girl. The angry girl didn’t agree, “No! Thirty years!” The other girl volunteered “if not ten, at least five years.” Angry girl wasn’t having it “NO! Thirty!”

Moz 17 is now in week six of training and on their site visits this week. Erin is hosting two girls who came yesterday. The same as when I went on site visit two years ago—it’s just such a mental health check, such a relief to see volunteers living normal and fun lives and eating good foods and doing normal things. Training has its merits, but it is very orchestrated and very stressful to live as a guest in someone’s house where the culture and customs are different, therefore almost everything you do, you do wrong.

Today we went up to Maxixe to meet up for lunch with 8 other volunteers and their visiting trainees. Since Becky who hosted me on my site visit two years ago extended, she is still here and met up with us today. And we ate lunch at the same restaurant that we went to two years ago when I was just a trainee!

Last night we all went to dinner in town: Erin, Ann and me, Donna and Luis who were in town visiting, one of our friends from Inharrime, Sandra, who we buy our vegetables from, and Gil, a Portuguese guy living and working in Inharrime. Donna speaks very impressive Xitswa (the local language where she lives) so she and Sandra were speaking to each other in local language—a mixture because Sandra lives here and thus speaks Txopi, but she is originally from an area where they speak Bitonga, and both are fairly close to Xitswa. My Txopi is not conversational like Donna’s is, so I would just pick out the occasional words and phrases I knew. When we hang out with Gil we normally speak in English because his Portuguese accent is so strong it’s easier to understand his English than it is for us to understand his Portuguese. Plus, he makes fun of our “bush Portuguese.” But tonight Sandra would yell at us to speak in Portuguese so she could understand. Idurre and Oscar, two Spanish volunteers from the mission, came to the restaurant to eat so they joined our table. Donna and Luis, both Latino, love the opportunity to speak Spanish, so they kept switching into Spanish with them, though their Spanish differs greatly from Spain Spanish. And thus we had a great mixture of languages. Sandra was quizzing Ann’s Txopi and asked where she works. Ann didn’t know the word for hospital, so Sandra said it. I shook my head, “that’s not hospital in Txopi, you must be speaking Bitonga.” “That was ballsy!” Oscar said to me.

While Ann and I were waiting for the others to arrive we were sitting out in front of the restaurant on the main street. A kid selling corn on the cob saw us and started yelling at us unnecessarily loudly to buy some. I teasingly yelled back equally unnecessarily loudly and we kept this banter up for a while. “Hey hey come grab some corn” he kept yelling. Then a teenage boy selling phone credit yelled “hey mulungu, com grab this” and grabbed his balls. I jumped up “are you **** kidding me?! Do you not have any respect?!” The lady standing next to him selling things whacked him and then yelled to me “no, he doesn’t have any respect.” A whole chorus of women selling things then began to reprimand him loudly and he, apparently embarrassed or sorry, vanished within seconds. I was happy to see people defend me .

Last night Gil was using his phone as a flashlight and dropped it into Ann’s latrine. He was upset because the sim card in that phone was the one from Portugal. I called my colleague who knows everyone and the next day he came over with two guys who said they could get it would for 200 mets (about $7). They tied a hoe to a long palm tree branch and got it out—the whole process took about 4 minutes! They actually got the phone to turn on again, but we just put it quickly in a plastic bag to give back to Gil.

Tonight we were making onion rings (thus deep-frying in oil) on charcoal outside. The fire had gotten a little too hot so Erin left it to cool down for a few minutes. Then we looked outside and there was a huge fire blazing---the coals, the stove itself, the pot, the oil. Two years ago Ann and I set my wall on fire and our reaction was panic and for Ann to frantically ask where the fire extinguisher was (the only ones I have ever seen in this country are at South African houses/lodges). Tonight Ann’s reaction was to laugh out loud and shout “quick, who has a camera? Someone get a camera!”

On my way home one of my primary school REDES girls yelled out to me and waved as I passed. She was sober and didn’t seem to be up to anything too bad, but it made me feel sick to see this 5th grader (she is 14 years old) out on the street at 10:30pm on a Saturday night 3 miles from her home (she lives near the mission).

I started this list last week (see right). This past weekend at the English theater competition we brainstormed and came up with an impressive list. To almost every item people would exclaim “What?!” or “what/who is that even?” Without fail Jasmin was a fount of knowledge and would fill us in—having left the states a mere six months ago, she was the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

The past few days at work I have been helping with the 10th and 12th grade student files. 10th and 12th grade are exam years, so they will be taking national exams next week, thus each student needs to have a form filled out with their information. I was put on this job because my other colleagues are finishing grades, whereas I don’t have any, but I also suspect I was put on this job because everyone gets a chuckle out of hearing me say all these African last names. My Txopi lessons definitely paid off though, just helping me to be familiar with the types of sounds. My colleagues by now are pretty used to me thinking the most ordinary things (to them) are strange and taking the weirdest things for granted. And all my strange questions. The forms we fill out list their parents’ names and we copy all of the information from their birth certificates. I learned that maybe only two-thirds of kids have the same last name as their parent (father, unless he is dead or gone then mother). There are obviously a lot of kids where one parents is dead, so that part is just left blank. And some kids where the father is written as “unknown.” We had one file where the mother was written as “unknown.” “They fill these out at birth right? How can the mother be unknown?” I asked. My colleague opened his mouth to answer me and then thought about it for a second “yeah, you’re right. That is strange.”

As one of the most computer-savvy people I have also been working on digitizing the students’ grades. It’s a step in the right direction, but as of right now I am not sure why we do it because we don’t substitute the digital version for anything, we just end up making a fifth copy of the grades. Last night I was still working at 5:30pm when my director gave me a soda and an egg sandwich. “Uh oh, this cannot be a good sign” I thought to myself.

This morning I ran into Irmã Dolorinda, the head sister of the mission. “What are you doing now?” she asked. “Right now? I am going here.” I responded. “No not right right now. Are you leaving here?” “Yes, I’m leaving next week for Namaacha and then America.” I responded. “No, like today, will you be here? Can you do me a favor?” she asked, slightly exasperated. Sometimes I really miss operating in a language I feel completely comfortable in.

My colleagues continue to say things that require me to respond, “but you know I am leaving next week, remember?” Then they are shocked and say “already?!” “Yes, my contract was only for two years.” And they respond “but you haven’t been here two years already. Have you been here for two years? Already?”

One of my colleagues basically begs me daily to cut my hair and give it to her. Women here love to weave hair into their own. This doesn’t seem weird to me at all anymore, unlike when I first arrived two years ago. I am surprised because usually the red and blonde hair is coveted, mine is kind of boring because it’s already the same color as hers. But she still really wants it. And the other day an argument sparked between her and another colleague over who I was going to give my hair to.

Today was the Inhambane province English theater competition. We, my group and Erin’s, were supposed to leave at 4:30am but when the chapa still hadn’t arrived at 4:45am I called him. Obviously just awoken he asked “am I supposed to come now?” “You were supposed to come ten minutes ago!” I yelled. But amazingly he was there within 5 minutes. A few of our students showed up a little late (this is Mozambique, after all), but by the time the driver arrived everyone was there and we set off for Massinga, where the competition would be.

Most of the buses and cars in this country originally came from Japan and they have vestiges of their history like stickers or stickers, in Japanese, explaining how to open the door or the maximum capacity. The chapa driver turned on the tape in the player and suddenly I perked up—it was Hikaru Utada’s hit album “Automatic” album from 1999! In other words, it was the hit album by a Japanese pop star the year I lived in Japan with my family when I was 12 years old, an album that I still have and listen to. This tape clearly came with the bus and had been in the player, maybe stuck in there, for 13 years. I rocked out the whole ride; I don’t think anyone else enjoyed the music quite as much as I did.

There were 15 different English theater groups from around Inhambane province at the competition. Each group had between 5-10 students and it was such a pleasure to see so many students excited about speaking English. Throughout the day the students spoke predominantly English, excited to be around other speakers and proud to show off their proficiency. One group was actually a REDES group that decided that they wanted to form their own all-girls English skit.

Anytime a bunch of teenage boys (sadly most groups were about 70% boys) are writing a skit you would expect it to be pretty goofy. This is no surprise and it’s not a bad thing either. But one thing that bothered me today was how light and goofy the plays were at times when they were discussing and portraying very profound and serious topics, such as rape. And perhaps what bothered me even more was the audience’s ability to forget that they were watching the portrayal of a rape and laugh at the actors’ antics during the scene.

My group didn’t win any prizes, but I was incredibly proud of them. The performance they gave today was one of the best ones they have ever given. My colleague and counterpart had come with us, but he had an event with his wife’s family mid-morning, so we had requested the first time slot and planned for him to leave after our group performed. But unfortunately, in true Mozambican fashion, many of the groups were late and we started about 1.5 hours behind schedule, so he wasn’t able to see our group perform.

On our drive home a young man about my age was standing right on the yellow line on the left side of the road. He looked to his left, didn’t see anything, and took the first step of a sprint into the road, right where our chapa would be in a second. At the last moment (and after he had already started to move) he looked right, saw our chapa, and stopped. Our chapa missed him by feet and the mirror on the side of the bus missed him by inches. Everyone in the first two rows (all PCVs) screamed and the driver looked like his heart stopped—mine certainly had.

Yesterday during our REDES meeting some of the girls asked me if Rihanna was married. I said no so they asked if she had a boyfriend. I said I didn’t know but she used to date Chris Brown (also a very popular artist here) but she broke up with him when he hit her. “Well what happened?” they wanted to know, “did she provoke him, who started it?” I was floored. “It is NOT a question of who provoked who or who started it. There is NEVER a reason for a guy to hit a girl!” They thought about this for a second and then agreed with me. But I see this often here with people I know fairly well, who are sgood guys who would never hit a woman—unless she did something to provoke/deserve it.

Today we had our last REDES meeting and we watched “Alice in Wonderland” in Portuguese and the girls got some snacks with some of the money they have made from their earrings. After the movie a few of the girls presented me with a small necklace and earrings they had gotten me and told me that they would miss me and our group meetings. How do I even tell them that REDES was the reason I got up some mornings, and it was the best part of my experience here?

One of my English theater kids and students stopped by my porch yesterday to return an English book I had lent him. In English he said, “teacher thank you. You have given me many things and improved my life, I will not forget you.”

Ann's three REDES girls who we took to the beach with us last week

The two littlest ones in the orphanage. The one on the left, I affectionately call "little devil" because, well, she is. And the one on the right, though you can't see in this picture, has a small bald spot because she found some used gum, chewed it for a while, and then got it stuck in her hair.