There is a fisherman in a small coastal town in Mozambique. Every morning he wakes up early and goes fishing. After he catches three large fish he goes to the market and sells two of them, and uses that money to buy the things his family will need that day. The third fish he keeps for his family to eat. It doesn’t matter that there are more fish in the ocean, and that he could probably sell more if he wanted to. The point is that he doesn’t need to. After selling the two fish, he goes home and takes a nap.

There is a businessman in urban America. He works twelve hours a day at a stressful job with a complicated title that no one understands. He doesn’t remember which of his children play which sports, and he has no idea what subjects they like at school. He talks to his wife in person for ten minutes a day. He buys iPads and giant TVs and expensive clothes and luxury cars and other things he doesn’t need to make his family think that they’re happy and have a good life.

Malawi!!

I had an amazing trip to Malawi last week! I went with three other volunteers, one of which is dating a rather wealthy Portuguese/Mozambican who has a car. The first night there we went to the lake and stayed at a really nice resort, which the wealthy boyfriend had arranged, but turned out to be more expensive than he had thought, so we were planning on leaving the next day. Coincidently, there was a video/camera crew coming the day after to make some videos/brochures promoting tourism in Malawi, and the owners of the resort needed some people to model and be interviewed. So they gave us a great deal: 75% off lodging and food, and FREE water activities, as long as they could take pictures/video us. We accepted!

First water activity: snorkeling. Lake Malawi is full of an endemic fish called the Cichlid, and other types of fish. Snorkeling tip: take a piece of bread with you, and tons of fish will come super close to eat out of your hand. Second water activity: sunset yacht cruise. They have a yacht called Mufasa, and the first night we were there was cloud-free, so we went out on the lake the see the sun set from the water. It was so beautiful, and free champagne was included! Mufasa has two bathrooms, a full kitchen with a fully stocked bar, and sleeps 10 people. Third water activity: kayaking. There’s an island not too far off the shore, so we kayaked our way there and back. Fourth water activity: water skiing. They have a “training bar” to teach people how to water ski. It stick off the side of the boat so you can practice first before going out on the rope. I successfully learned, and realized that water skiing is a lot more tiring than difficult. Fifth water activity: sailing acrobatics. I didn’t know really what I was getting myself into when they asked me to do this, but it was awesome! First, I got all suited up in a wet suit with these water-shoe boots. Then they gave me a giant diaper-looking harness to put on around my waist/legs, and we were off to the sailboat. There I attached a hook on the boat to my harness, which meant that I could lean out over the water as we sailed along. What with the wet suit and flying over the water, I kind of felt like a super hero off on a mission. We later decided that my super hero name would be “Flying Bass,” and that my mission, for example, could be that there’s another sailboat that was having problems, and I had to fly out there to give them supplies/help, and then we elaborated even more that there could be a baby on the other sailboat that I had to go save. We presented this idea to the owners, to make this movie and have it be part of the video, but for unstated reasons they opted not to take advantage of our brilliant creativity.

In addition to water activities, they also had various games, including Scrabble, a pool table, and a trampoline! I’m happy to report that I still know how to do flips. The room had hot showers, fluffy pillows, warm comforters (it was winter there, and it got cold at night), hair dryers, full-length mirrors, and were so clean. And the food! Beautifully arranged fruit plates, bacon, pancakes, yogurt, jasmine tea, burritos, chicken, avocado, chick peas, pasta, three-course dinners with chocolate cake, lemon pie, fish cakes, yum yum yum!! And we got along really well with the owners and the other staff there, they all gave us hugs goodbye when we left. I’m now considering the idea of working at a resort in Brasil next year, or in Argentina or Chile.

After we left the lake, we wanted to go to an animal reserve, but, as often happens in Africa, there was an unforeseen complication: Malawi ran out of gas. About a month or two ago, the Malawian president kicked out the British ambassador, who promptly withdrew all funding from Britain to Malawi (which was about 20% of the national budget) and cancelled Malawi’s foreign exchange, thus Malawi ran out of money (all public workers haven’t been paid since), and couldn’t buy gas. We waited in line for almost 5 hours trying to get gas the day we wanted to leave, but could manage to. The next day the boyfriend was able to get just enough gas for us to make it to the border, but I think he ended up paying the equivalent of about $15/gallon. (Just to give you an idea how much that actually is in Africa, my Peace Corps stipend comes down to about $7.50/day.) The five hours spent waiting in line for gas was supposed to be spent going in to Blantyre, the largest city in the south, to get some souvenirs, which we were unfortunately not able to do. But, despite not seeing the reserve and not getting souvenirs, we had a great trip!

I must say though, that hearing the Malawians speak English makes me very worried about the quality of my Portuguese. It was very difficult to understand many of them, and I seriously hope that Mozambican Portuguese is much more similar to Portugal’s than Malawian English is to Britain’s. We did find out that apparently in Malawi, much schooling is done in the national Bantu language, and not so much in English, so hopefully that’s why.

And about the video/pictures, I’m not sure if they’re online for general viewing or what, but if I find out I’ll post the site.

The unit I’m currently on with my students is about drugs and alcohol. I wrote a text about the effects of drinking, and I mentioned that many countries prohibit selling alcohol to people under a certain age. In Mozambique, the drinking age is technically 18, but that is not enforced at all, and parents often send 10-year-olds to go buy them alcohol. The students thought it was hilarious that in the US you have to show your ID to buy alcoholic beverages. But what if you forget it? But what if you don’t have an ID? But what if you’re already really drunk and you can’t go to the store yourself, what do you mean you can’t send your kids? They thought I was lying when I said that a store will deny selling you alcohol if you don’t have an ID.

In a past unit at school, the topic was literature. I decided to teach the students about limericks and similes. It was a big hit! I gave them the assignment to write similes, and here are some of the best ones I got:

I’m black like charcoal. I’m black like the blackboard. He is bad like Bin Laden. Sambo is strong like David Beckham. (suck up!) Eduardo is smart like a computer. (written by Eduardo, a slightly egotistical student) He was as short as a chicken. This boy is as polite as Jesus.

Sambo has a really adorable neighbor who is about 2 years old. The other day his mom bought him his first pair of shoes, and it was hilarious to watch this kid try to walk in shoes for the first time in his life. Barefoot he walks normally, but with shoes he would pick his left foot up really high, and then drag the right foot. And he looked at his feet the entire time. I think he was having trouble balancing because of the toes being enclosed or something. It made me think of the servant in the movie “The Birdcage.”

In the US we often hear of the terrible working conditions and low wages in Malaysia and elsewhere. I’m sorry to report that I participate in the exploitation of poverty to get cheap labor. I have a guy here that I pay to wash clothes, wash dishes, cart water, and do various other tasks. On average, he probably spends about 1-1.5 hours working for me per day, so let’s say 40 hours per month. Each month I pay him 400 meticals, which means that he makes 10 meticals per hour, which is about 30cents per hour, and $13 per month. He has a wife and 4 kids.

Most houses in Mozambique are made of local materials. In the north, a typical house is made of mud blocks with a thatched roof. To get the blocks, you dig a hole next to where you want to build a house to get your mud. This way you don’t have to transport the blocks, and you have a nice trash pit for when the house is finished. You mix the mud with a little bit of water and put it in rectangular (brick-shaped) molds to form the blocks. Then you let the blocks sit in the sun for a few days. To construct your house, you dig a small trench about 8 inches deep for the foundation, including the outer and inner walls. To lay the blocks, you start at the corners and work your way out, making a sort of step-pyramid at each corner that grows with each additional layer of blocks. To hold the blocks together mud is used. Sticks and string are also used in this process to guarantee that the walls are being built straight, both horizontally and vertically. When you want to leave space for windows or doors, you can put bamboos across the top to support the blocks above the space.

A typical house is about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, in my estimation. It will include the main living room, two bedrooms, and a dispensary, which can be used as a kitchen, or another bedroom. Each of these four rooms will be based in one of the corners of the house. (The cooking is done outside, and meals are usually eaten outside as well.) It will usually have two doors, each exactly in the middle of the 30-foot walls, positioned such that if both are left open you can see directly through the house. If the house is made with just one door, you may not later knock out blocks to make a second door. If you do, someone in your family will die. It will have either three or four windows, all on the 30-foot walls. The 15-foot walls never have windows. An average house of this type will have about 7 people living in it.

Roofs are angled in the typical manner that one might imagine, with sloping sides that peak in the middle of the 15-foot walls. To make the roof, you first lay a tight grid of bamboos. Then, if you can afford it, (which most people can), you use rolls of what resembles trash-bag plastic or a very flimsy tarp to cover the bamboos. On top of that, you put roof thatch, which looks pretty much like straw, or like dried reed-grasses. Then, so the thatch doesn’t blow away, you cover it with a widespread grid of bamboos. The peak is reinforced with extra plastic and thatch. The roof hangs about a meter in front of and behind the 30-foot walls, creating small verandas in front and in back. You will rotate your cooking/sitting spot around the house, depending on the time of day and positioning of the sun so that you are always in the shade.

Pretty much anyone here knows how to make a house. If you’re really poor, you will make your own, maybe with the help of some neighbors. If you’re not so poor, you can pay someone to make it. If you don’t have much else going on in your life, you can make the blocks in about 5 days, construct the house in about 6 days, and get the roof done in about 2 days, if the supplies are ready. All in all, a house can be made, from start to finish, in about 2 weeks. Most people don’t do it that fast because they have to go to their farms and do other stuff, but if you hire someone to do it, it can be really quick.

In the south, houses are often made of sturdy reed bases, with woven/braided banana or coconut tree leaves as the roofs. The bases will have vertical wooden posts periodically, which support horizontal bamboos, which hold the reeds in place. I imagine that the roofs are made in a similar fashion to roofs in the north, with bamboos and plastic, but I’m not sure.

I was going to leave the bathroom out, but I just decided to include it. Your bathroom will be separate from your house. First, you dig a very deep, but not too wide, hole. Then you put boards across most of the opening, leaving a 6 x 6 inch square uncovered. This is the hole where you will do your business. The boards are then covered with mud. This area is enclosed by roof thatch walls, using bamboos to hold them in place. The bathroom is roofless (I still can’t figure out why, it would be cheap, easy, and convenient for it to be covered, but no one does it!), which makes it very cold to take a bath in the wind, even with heated water, and very inconvenient to have to relieve yourself when it’s raining. A cloth can be used to close the doorway.

The school is about a mile from my house. To get there, I take a path that cuts through my neighborhood. About 30 seconds into my walk the first kid sees me. “Good morning!!” he or she shouts to me. I respond. The kids in the next house hear and come to the path to yell good morning, which alerts the kids in the following house that I’m coming, who then come to greet me, which signals to the kids in the house after that to come out, and so on and so forth. All in all, there are about 3-4 solid minutes of greeting kids as a walk through my neighborhood. The main road that goes to the school doesn’t have many houses, so the only greetings there are with the people who pass going the other way, but seeing as how those people change every day the greetings aren’t as enthusiastic.

Now most young kids in Nacaroa don’t know how to speak Portuguese, or they know how to say certain phrases, but don’t know exactly what each one means. Therefore, common greetings with these children go as follows:

Me: Good morning!

Kid: Good morning!

Me: How are you?

Kid: How are you?

Me: I’m fine.

Kid: I’m fine.

Kid: Good morning!

Me: Good morning!

Kid: Good afternoon!

Me: Good MORNING!

Kid: Good morning!

Me: Good morning!

Kid: How are you?

Me: I’m fine!

Kid: Good morning!

Me: Good morning...again!

Sometimes we greet in Macua, but I think the kids (and their parents) enjoy it more when they greet me in Portuguese. And once isn’t enough! When I come across a group of them they all should “good morning” together. I respond. But they don’t know which one the response was for, so they all keep shouting “good morning, good morning” repeatedly as I walk by. The kids on the way to the school are used to seeing me every day and get excited to come greet me. Kids who I come across in random places have various reactions. Some hide behind the other people they’re with. Others cry. Others wait until I’ve passed, and then yell good morning after me. Others respond normally, but then giggle excitedly with their friends once I’ve passed. Others yell “good morning,” but then run away and hide without waiting for a response. Others just stop and stare at me.

Quality vs. Quantity

Quality and quantity are enemies. Where there is quantity, quality is often not important, and rarely achieved. Where there is quality, quantity suffers. But how do you balance this inverse relationship to get what’s best for everyone? If you focus on quality, what will change if you increase quantity by 1%? Probably nothing. What about 5%? 20%? 50%? How do you draw the line between doing what’s best and what looks best?

Let’s look at schools in Mozambique. They say that completing 7th grade is mandatory (but in reality it’s no more mandatory that having a driver’s license to drive) which makes putting caps on class size difficult. An average primary school classes has about 50-80 students. Even with optimal resources, well-trained teachers, and involved parents, getting a good, quality education would be difficult. Now change that to minimal resources, minimally trained and minimally dedicated teachers, and illiterate and uninterested parents, and what do you get? Students who enter secondary school (8th grade) without knowing how to read, write, understand or speak Portuguese very well. Students who can memorize that A=B and B=C, but can’t deduce that A=C. Students who complete 10th grade without being able to locate their own country on a map of eastern Africa. Students who need to use a calculator to do 3x7.

So my question is this: is it better to have 80 students who kind of know a little bit about a few subjects, or 40 students who know a fair amount about most subjects, and 40 kids who are illiterate? Because, in my opinion, if the lower achieving 50% of the students just got kicked out of school, the remaining 50% would be able to learn a fair amount. The “humanitarian” has to answer that all children have the right to education, and that all 80 students have the right to go to school. But what if realizing this right for the lower achieving 50% jeopardizes the education of the higher achieving 50%? What if, in the higher achieving 50%, there exist students who would be capable or learning how to be engineers, doctors, and various other professions that Mozambique imports from China and South Africa, at the benefit of these other countries? But these students never have the opportunity to show what they’re capable of.

In my opinion, from what I’ve seen here, Mozambique would have a better future sooner if all kids didn’t have the right to education. I know it sounds awful, but it’s true. At a public school here, it’s nearly impossible to get a quality education, and rare to get even a decent education. Example: I give tests that have 20 multiple choice questions, each question having 4 options. In two of my classes I asked the students what grade they would statistically get if they randomly guessed for every question. Out of approximately 70 12th-graders, exactly one knew that the answer was 5. If that’s half-way through 12th grade, imagine what all they don’t know after 7th grade. Is Mozambique educating its citizens to be able to lead and develop the country in the future? Will it always have to hire people from other countries to do things that are too advanced for them to do themselves? Will it always depend on foreign aid to fund all aspects of its functioning?

I know I sound pessimistic, but I’m also being realistic: Mozambique does not currently have the resources and infrastructure to give every child a quality education. Yes, we can say that they should work on building more schools and training more teachers. With what money? And what about right now? I know as a democratic American I’m supposed to say, “but even if the child can learn one thing that will help them in their lives, then it’s worth it for them to go to school.” Fine. If there were enough schools and teachers I would be 100% for that. But given the conditions that actually exist, is it worth it for one child to learn one useful thing while robbing another child of learning five useful things?

Giving birth is a battle. Sometimes there’s a cry and a sigh. The result of the birth being a tie in which mother and child win life. Other times there’s a cry and silence, the child killing the mother and taking her soul as a trophy. Or there’s a sigh and silence, the mother killing the child, but preserving her own life. And finally, there’s total silence, the result of the birth being a tie in which mother and child kill one another in the fury of the battle.

From Paulina Chiziane’s “O Alegre Canto da Perdiz” (The Happy Song of the Partridge)

When we read the story of Cinderella in the US, we hear about a poor, mistreated girl who was unjustly forced to do housework, sleep with rats, eat left over food, and wear old, torn clothes after her mother’s death and father’s remarriage. In the US, Cinderella is a fairy tale; something so sad and unfortunate that it could never happen. In Mozambique it is the life that many children are happy to have. Children here, even those with both parents living and married (which is rare), do basically all of the cleaning around the house. This includes washing the clothes and dishes by hand, sweeping the yard, helping to care for younger children, helping cook, going to the market, helping in the fields, and carting water in 20 liter jugs carried on their heads, etc. But many children here don’t grow up in a house with both of their parents. For children who have lost one or both of their parents, or come from poor families, common situations include:

1. One or both parents died. The child is adopted by a neighbor or relative.

2. The father abandoned the mother or denies that the child is his. The mother probably has no money, so A) she sends the child to live with a neighbor or relative OR B) the child has to help a lot in the fields and doesn’t go to school.

3. The parent(s) have no money. They send the child to live with a neighbor or relative.

4. A neighbor or relative wants help around the house or caring for a child so they ask the child’s parents to send the child to come live with them.

5. There isn’t a school near the parents’ house, so they send the child to live with a friend or relative in a larger town.

6. The parents split up and neither one wants the child, so they send it to live with a relative.

7. The parents are young and want to finish school, not get married or start a family, etc, so they send the child to live with a relative.

Notice that almost all of these situations end with the child living with a neighbor/friend/relative, which the child will refer to as aunt or uncle, regardless of biological relationship. These aunts and uncles are then responsible for feeding, clothing, and in general caring for the child. In return, the child must help a lot around the house, in the fields, caring for younger kids, etc, which these children do obediently, respectfully, and without self-pity. They brag about how much water they can carry and debate who’s stronger. They show pride when they can make their nieces and nephews (the kids of the “aunts and uncles” are referred to as nieces and nephews) stop crying or go to sleep. They responsibly hold the money they are given when they are sent to the market, giving their friends glimpses to make them jealous. At mealtime, children are often given a communal pot of food to fight over. It includes the leftovers from the adults, which are usually high in starch and low in vitamins and proteins. Almost all of these kids, and many adults, sleep on reed mats on the floors of houses with rats. In terms of clothes, most children own one school uniform, less than 5 skirts/pants/shorts, about 5 shirts, and one pair of flip-flops. All of these items, except maybe the school uniform, are used and well-worn. And this is life. There isn’t any reason to cry about it, whine about doing work, feel bad for yourself, or expect this to change. And luckily, there’s no fairy god-mother to throw you off with images of dances and princes and beautiful things that will never be yours.

Last year there was one main football team in Nacaroa that played against teams from other districts. At the end of the year the man who sponsored the team got angry and took away their equipment and uniforms. At the beginning of this year he decided that he wanted to sponsor them again. Most of the players said they didn’t want to play for him anymore, and formed the Workers Football Club. They contribute money each month to pay for equipment, uniforms, and traveling costs. Some players went back to play for this man, and he recruited some other people to form a team called the Mambas. The Mambas charge people to watch their games, which was previously unheard of here. They make a big to-do at the beginning of their games by driving the players on to the field in a truck.

Needless to say, the Workers and the Mambas are rivals, and this rivalry has created a lot drama in Nacaroa. One Mamba who was renting a house from a Worker was kicked out. Another Mamba who works for the Worker coach was told that if he wanted to keep his job he couldn’t be a Mamba. A Mamba stole a Worker’s cleat so he wouldn’t be able to practice. The Mamba’s sponsor threatened various Workers when they formed their new team, saying that he was a very important man in Nacaroa and that they didn’t want to be on his bad side. And so on and so forth. The two teams did various things to sabotage the other.

But sabotage in Africa includes an element that doesn’t exist in the US: witchcraft. When the Mamba’s got in a small car accident on the way to a game, it was because the Workers went to the witch doctor to put a curse on them. When the Mamba’s goalie had stomach aches and let in an easy goal, it was because the Workers put a curse on him to make them lose. Luckily, there are ways to protect yourself against such curses. Because of this, the witch doctor has become an important element for both teams, even traveling with the Mambas to away games to provide the necessary protection. Ironically, since the two teams that exist this year are composed of players that all played together for the same team last year, they both use the same witch doctor. Talk about a conflict of interests and violating the Hippocratic Oath.

The witch doctor has many ways to protect the team. First, he may instruct the players whether they should or should not have sex the day before/day of the game. Second, he may instruct the players about certain foods they should or should not eat the day before/day of the game. Third, he participates in a pre-game ritual with the players that may include painting the feet with charcoal, washing the head with water prepared a certain way, putting a paste of various herbs on the heart, or various other rituals that will protect the players. And fourth, he inspects the field and the goals to make sure the other team (either from Nacaroa or the opposing district) hasn’t put any sort of cursed object.

If you disobey the instructions of the witch doctor, your ancestors will punish you. When the Mamba’s goalie let in that easy goal, they were quick to accuse the Workers of having cursed him. But a few trips to the witch doctor and a small investigation revealed that he had taken a bite from the forbidden apple, and had stomach aches because his ancestors were punishing him for not obeying the witch doctor’s dietary guidelines.

On a final note, unrelated to football, but continuing with witchcraft, there has been a huge problem lately with people bewitching animals to go steal things from their neighbors. For example, you can take your cat to the witch doctor who will give it powers to be able to go into your neighbor’s house and swallow all their money. Then it will come home and spit out the money for you. In fact, just yesterday, this happened. Two neighbors sent their bewitched cats to go steal from the neighboring house at the same time. The cats each went into the other house and stole money. But on their way back to their owner’s houses they ran into each other, and knew what the other one was up to. The bigger cat swallowed the smaller cat, and went back to his owner. When the owner of the smaller cat realized what happened, he got some neighbors with him to go confront the owner of the bigger cat. When they got to this house and knocked on the door, they discovered that the owner of this cat was actually a snake. I’m not exactly sure how it ended, but there are several eye witnesses of the one cat swallowing the other, and no one in Nacaroa (except for me) doubts that this happened. I can’t emphasize enough that people here REALLY BELIEVE THIS SORT OF THING EXISTS, AND ARE LEGITIMATELY WORRIED ABOUT THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPENING TO THEM.

I’m the god-mother of the wedding of an already-married man, and I’m not even Christian. Let’s start at the beginning. First, some background information about Mozambique: 1) Teachers get randomly assigned to work in random places throughout the country. The goal is to diversify things, but the reality is that it really just splits up families, and increases infidelity. This same process applies to all government workers, including nurses, doctors, and police. These government workers have one month of vacation per year, which means that they hardly ever get to see their families if they’re sent really far away. 2) In Mozambique you can only legally be married to one person. But no one really bothers getting legally married because it’s expensive and they don’t feel like it. Many people do traditional weddings that are culturally recognized, but hold no legal standing, and other people just start living together and calling each other husband and wife with absolutely no ceremony whatsoever. But socially and culturally speaking, they’re married. This way, when things start going bad you can just leave each other and not have to deal with divorce. Or you can have multiple wives this way, which is more or less socially acceptable. Alright, now on to the story: You remember Nhambe and Isaura from the post about healthcare? Nhambe is from Maputo and got randomly sent here as a teacher. When he came here he left his wife and son back in Maputo, 2500km away, hoping to be able to transfer back soon. When that didn’t happen, the only solution was to find a girlfriend here. Well, Nhambe and Isaura dated for a while, and all was going well. She knew that he was married, but his wife knows nothing about her. But then she got pregnant. According to cultural tradition, that means that he has to present himself to her family, which is more or less saying that you’re married or going to get married. Isaura is from Nampula City, and all her family lives there. Nhambe is from Maputo, and has absolutely no family here in the North. Traditionally at a presentation like this, all of his family should be present, especially his parents, god parents, and the family elders. Since that wasn’t possible given the distance, Sambo and I were his representatives, acting as god parents. (Sambo and Nhambe are socially/culturally brothers since they’re both from Maputo and have no biological family here.) Luckily for me, Nhambe and Sambo don’t speak Macua, so it was all done in Portuguese, which isn’t normal for an event like this. Here’s how the presentation goes: (There is a table with several chairs. On one side are Isaura’s parents, god parents, some siblings, and other relatives. One the other side are Nhambe, Sambo and me. Isaura sits at the head of the table.) Isaura: Good afternoon. My family, I called you hear to present you to the man I managed to get for myself. I’ll let him introduce himself. (Nhambe introduces himself and then her family members come one by one to kiss his cheeks. This is repeated with me and then Sambo.) Isaura: Alright, now I’ll let my family present any questions they have to Nhambe. Father: My first questions is, what do you mean by “the man I managed to get for myself?” What did you get him as? A neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, boyfriend, husband...? (Isaura and Nhambe look uncomfortable and don’t say anything.) Father: What exactly is the relationship between you two? (No answer.) Are you two telling me that you’re married? Isaura: Yeah... Father: Are you sure? Because the way you phrased it didn’t indicate that. Nhambe: Yeah...we’re married...(continues to look uncomfortable)... Father: Ok. (Asks where Nhambe works, lives, is from etc.) So, Nhambe, you said you’re from Maputo. I just want to make sure you didn’t leave another wife there. Did you start to make a family there before you left? Nhambe: (looks very nervous, legs shake uncontrollably) Well, when I left Maputo left my wife there, but now I’m really far away, and the relationship is cooling off, because of the distance and all, so she’s there and I’m here... [side fact: Nhambe’s wife and their son live with his parents.] Father: My daughter, did you know about this? Isaura: Yes, he explained this to me. Father: Ok. At least he’s honest. [side fact: Nhambe’s wife, parents, etc no absolutely nothing about the existence of Isuara and the fact that she’s going to have his baby.] Well, that’s all of my questions. No I’ll let the god-mother ask questions. God Mother: I don’t really have any questions. I just wanted to give my advice, and ask that you both be responsible and communicative in your relationship. The fact that you called us all here today shows that you at least sat down and talked about this, which is a good start...etc...etc...etc. Then Sambo said some words, apologized for not having the elders present, and reinforced that it was because of the distance. Her father suggested a celebration later in the year for which a few direct family members could come to represent his family. Sambo and Nhambe assured him that would be possible, but it definitely won’t be. Then we ate a nice meal, cut the cake, and drank champagne. They are now socially/culturally married. Not once, at any moment, was there mention of love, happiness, or forever.

For $1 in Nacaroa you can currently buy:

-3 eggs

-1kg of potatoes

-30 good-sized limes

-juice powder sufficient for 5 liters

-a little more than ½ a liter of gas

-1-1.5kgs of rice

-1.5 kgs of wheat flour

-10 ears of corn

-1/2 kg of quality beans

-15 medium-sized onions

-15-20 poor quality tomatoes

-15 “breads” aka rolls

-5 good quality flashlight batteries

-30 boxes of matches

-at the tailor you can get a purse or a pairs of shorts custom made, as long as you provide the material

One thing I have really come to love lately is afternoon tea. The ritual goes something like this:

Once the sun starts to set, around 5pm, I start to heat the water. If I’m going to cook dinner at home that night, I use my charcoal stove. When I first got here I absolutely dreaded lighting the charcoal because it got my hands dirty, took forever, and had a very high failed-first-attempt rate. By now, I’m a charcoal-lighting pro. I’ve discovered that the best way to do it by using a dustpan to scoop the charcoal into the stove, and then use roof thatch the get the flame going. The entire process, which used to take about half an hour, has decreased to just five minutes. If I’m not going to cook dinner here, I just use my gas stove, which is much easier in the short term, but more expensive and inconvenient in the long term because it’s difficult and pricey to get the tank refilled.

Well, I get the flame going and put the teapot on the stove. While the water’s heating, I roll out a reed mat on my porch. I bring the teacups, teabags, sugar, and best of all, limes. The tea is Mozambican tea, from the tea fields in Gurue, in Zambezia province. The sugar, which is of course brown sugar, is also a Mozambican product, and the limes are literally fresh off the tree. Like you literally send a student or other kid to go climb the tree and take down the limes so you can cut them and hand-squeeze the juice into the tea. Flavored teabags don’t exist here, except for in the expensive South African stores, but during lime season there isn’t a flavored teabag I’d rather have.

In Mozambique, everyone drinks tea; it’s not primarily for women as it is in the US. And tea, in Mozambique, is to be drunk piping hot. My two-year-old neighbor can tolerate hotter tea than I can. (I think that this must lead to taste bud damage, because Mozambicans like to put a lot of salt on everything.) Sambo can down an entire cup while it’s still too hot for me to comfortably sip. Morning tea is also a must, according to all Mozambicans, but I don’t always have time for that (What do I mean not have time? I’m so white. Why don’t I just go to work late like most other people here?), and it’s definitely not ritualized like afternoon tea.

A peculiarity about tea in Mozambique is that a thermos is a must. You can’t boil the water in the teapot and pour it directly into the teacups. It must go from the teapot, to the thermos, and then to the teacups. I’m not sure of the exact reason, but I think it must have something to do with the fact that a woman must have morning tea ready by the time her husband wakes up, and afternoon tea ready by the time he gets home from work. A thermos allows her to make sure the tea is ready in time, but doesn’t proceed to waste charcoal or occupy the stove after the water’s ready. It also guarantees that if he dilly-dallies for two minutes the water won’t cool down to an unsatisfactory temperature. And the thermoses here are of optimum quality. You can boil water at night, and it’s still piping hot for morning tea, or morning bath. They also come in all sizes, up to 3 liters, which is almost a gallon.

My internet flash drive is working again, which means I can put up all sorts of random posts on a more regular basis!!

I’ve been reading an interesting book called “O Zahir.” (In Engilsh: The Zahir) It’s by the same author who wrote “The Alchemist,” Paulo Coelho. There’s a phrase that’s said in the US that goes something like, “Good friends are the ones that are always there to help you celebrate, but true friends are the ones who are always there even through the bad times.” This book brings up the opposite idea: that good (or not-so-good) friends are there during the bad times so that they can feel better about their lives and get attention and sympathy for whatever unfortunate thing has happened to you, while the true friends are the ones who are there to help you celebrate, and truly enjoy your successes without feeling jealousy or resentment about your good fortune.

Sambo has a friend, Nhambe, who’s a teacher in a small community about 20k from Nacaroa. Nhambe and his girlfriend, Isuara, often come to Nacaroa to do some shopping, since Nacaroa is a city compared to where they live. Every time they come here, they ask when we’re going to come visit them in Nachere. So one Saturday we decided to go visit them. It was really cool to pass all of the super rural communities along the way, see the kids playing in the rivers, and realize that Nacaroa isn’t as rural as I thought. We had a really good time, but as we were leaving both Nhambe and Isaura started complaining of stomach aches. We didn’t really think much of it, because that happens all the time here. When we got home, we sent a text to say that we arrived safely, and Nhambe responded that he had diarrhea and was vomiting. We didn’t really think much of that either, because that happens from time to time and isn’t usually anything super serious. That night we were awakened around 3am by someone banging on Sambo’s door to tell us that Nhambe was in critical condition, and was here at the hospital in Nacaroa. Apparently the diarrhea and vomiting had gotten worse, and either he wasn’t able to keep any fluids down, or they didn’t think about trying, so he got really dehydrated and started convulsing. Luckily, Isuara’s a nurse and lives at the health clinic in Nachere, so they were able to call a health technician (here a technician is above a nurse) to give him an IV. The technician thought that Nhambe was having a seizure, so he gave him some shot, which made him go into a coma and stop breathing. Somehow someone knew how to do CPR, or else guessed, or else Nhambe started breathing right around when this person tried CPR. So they called the ambulance (yes, they do exist here), but it was “unavailable”. I don’t know what it could have been doing that made it unavailable, it wasn’t transporting sick people. So they woke up someone important in Nachere who had a car, and managed to get Nhambe transported to Nacaroa in the middle of the night. So we went to meet them at the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. As Nhambe is hardly conscious, has been vomiting and having diarrhea all night, the technician tells us that we should be making him eat. Because he expelled all the food in him, we have to insist that he eat to replenish it. Well, from my 2-3 hours of health sessions per week during training, and from my occasional consultations of my health manual, I was quite sure that you weren’t supposed to make someone eat under these circumstances. I tried to suggest that maybe he just try to drink a little water, but I was overruled. They made him eat some porridge, and he continued throwing up. Then he went to sleep, so they didn’t make him eat for a few hours. They debated what to make him eat for lunch, and decided on soup. Since I live really close to the hospital, and have a gas stove (much faster than using charcoal like everyone else here), and know a little bit about what someone in Nhambe’s condition should be consuming, I offered to make it. His girlfriend said that no, she would make it, but I told her to just stay by his side and that I’d be back soon, and left before she could try to decline again. Back at my house, as I made soup (heavy on the broth, with just enough tiny noodles to fool the nurses into thinking it was soup rather than just broth), I showed Sambo my health manual. Under the diarrhea section it says, in underlined print, “DON”T EAT SOLID FOODS FOR 24-48 HOURS,” which is simple enough English that he could understand. It also listed food to eat, and foods not to eat, and when you can start eating what. It also said to take rehydration salts. Back at the hospital Nhambe ate some soup, aka broth. I asked the technicians if he could take rehydration salts, and was told that those were only for after the diarrhea has already stopped, which is definitely not accurate. On the packets it says, in English, French, and Spanish, “For the treatment of diarrhea.” They still said no. And Nhambe refused to do anything without consulting the technicians, and Isaura always concluded that everything the technicians said was correct. I wanted to just lie to Nhambe and Isaura and say that I had already asked the technician and that he had approved, but Sambo said that the technician would find out and get mad that we did stuff without his approval, and would stop treating Nhambe. I didn’t think that sounded like such a bad thing. Nhambe continued in stable conditions, the vomiting stopped during the first day, but the diarrhea continued. On Tuesday-Wednesday I had planned to go to Nampula to meet up with some other volunteers, so I bought some antibiotics at the pharmacy there, after Sambo consulted the technician, of course. He started taking the antibiotics, but continued two more days with diarrhea. I also bought bananas for him, but of course he wouldn’t eat them without consulting the technician. I went to consult one, and convinced him that he should approve bananas, so we went to tell Nhambe. While I had been gone, another tech had entered, and had decided that bananas were bad. The scientific explanation: “Bananas are bad for diarrhea. They seem good because right after you eat them you don’t have diarrhea. But they’re really bad because they stick to the inside of your stomach, so then when you eat other food it all just comes out as diarrhea.” That is a direct translation, not altered or exaggerated. I wanted to just say, “That is absolutely not true,” but I knew that they would just get mad, not change their minds, and that Nhambe would still not eat them, so I just gave them a look that indicated I didn’t believe them, but didn’t say anything. After two days of antibiotics the diarrhea stopped, so on the third day they decided that Nhambe should stop taking them. At the pharmacy in Nampula I got specific instructions from the pharmacist that he should take them for 7 days. I told this to the technician. “Yeah, but the diarrhea stopped, so he doesn’t need them anymore.” Isn’t it bad to stop taking antibiotics before the full dose? Nope. But can’t the sickness come back even stronger if it’s not all taken care of? Nope. But everyone knows that with the malaria medications you have to take all of them, you can’t stop once you start feeling better. Unrelated. Around this time Isaura’s mom decided that the only explanation for this prolonged illness was that someone had put a curse on Nhambe, and everyone else agreed. (Medical incompetence/unsafe food or water couldn’t have anything to do with it.) So she went to a witch doctor to explain the situation. The witch doctor consulted some shells and bones, and concluded that someone in Nachere was jealous and hated Nhambe, and had therefore gone to a witch doctor to send some sort of bug his way. This bug provoked the diarrhea and vomiting. The antibiotics had subdued the bug, but it could, at anytime, reappear and make him start vomiting and having diarrhea again. (Never mind that unclean water can do exactly the same thing.) To remove the bug completely, Nhambe would need to go to a witch doctor also, to get some remedies and undergo some processes that would rid him of this bug forever. Now it’s never wise to act on the opinion of just one witch doctor, so the next day Sambo and another friend went to see another witch doctor to get a second opinion. According to them the readings overlapped enough that it was clearly “africanism” (curses/black magic/etc). The second witch doctor, after hearing that Nhambe was sick, consulted the shells and bones and concluded that Nhambe was either feeling a dry stomach, a headache right in the center of the forehead, or aches and pains in the joints. Well, considering she knew was sick, those seem like some of the most obvious guesses, and she was wrong about the headache. Both of the witch doctors warned that this wasn’t the first time someone had sent a curse his way, and interestingly enough they both said the first attempt was an attack at the family jewels. Since the readings “corresponded,” they decided that Nhambe had to go visit in person. The witch doctor asked him to bring some flour to make porridge and a chicken, live of course. He went with the same friend who had taken Sambo earlier in the day. Once they got there, the witch doctor (who was a very old woman who worked topless) put some of the flour in a pot of water over the fire and said that if it made porridge like it should, then the sickness came from God, but if it didn’t make porridge, that was a sign that someone sent a curse. Well, obviously it didn’t make porridge. Then Nhambe had to hold the chicken, still live, and if it acted dead that was confirmation that it was a curse. Obviously, it was confirmed. So he kept holding the chicken and the witch doctor said some chants and whatnot, and the chicken started acting more alive, which showed that the curse was leaving Nhambe. Then she gave him some roots and told him to boil them in a pot of water every day before he took a bath, and then after his bath he should use that water last to cleanse his body, and keep doing that for as many days as it took for the roots to not leave any color in the water. Then he braided some reeds to make a string that he was supposed to wear around his waist. I’m not sure how long that was supposed to be. Nhambe is currently in good health. I unfortunately didn’t get to go along on the visit because the witch doctor’s hut was a little ways from Nacaroa so they went by motorcycle. Sambo has also decided that we can never go to Nachere together again, because he's afraid that someone might try to put a curse on him. I pointed out that several people have probably already tried in Nacaroa, and since they haven't had any luck in Nacaroa why would it be any different there? Apparently one's ancester's spirits can protect one from such curses, but eventually these spirits get tried, so it's better not to put yourself at risk too much.

-Nutrition for pregnant women is part of the 5th grade curriculum. -One day I was going with a friend to make a cake at another location. She came to my house so we could go together. I was bringing some supplies, which I had already put in a pot and wrapped with an African cloth, to be socially acceptable, of course. When my friend got here, I grabbed the supplies to leave. She took one look at me carrying the bundle in my hands, and was like, “Are you just going to carry it like that??? Here, give it to me to put on my head.” -For the first time since I’ve been here, I finally, in February 2011, saw something fall off of someone’s head. It was a man going to sell some biscuits in the market. In a large plastic basin he had put the biscuits, and on top of the biscuits he had a small dish with sauce for them. Apparently the biscuits shifted, causing the sauce to spill, which broke the equilibrium. He managed to catch the basin before it fell to the ground, but exactly 13 biscuits spilled to the sandy dirt. He dusted them off, put them back in the basin, and went on his way. -If you give a kid half of a cracker they will think you are the most amazing person in the world. -No one believes me when I say I don’t have a fridge or TV in my house here. -According to common knowledge: cucumbers cause fevers in kids, when a woman has her period it’s impossible for her to make a good cake, -Reasons someone might come to my house that would never happen in the US: to get their chicken that got into my yard, to ask for some lit coals, to ask for a cracker, to ask to charge their cell phone, to ask me to fix their cell (obviously I can do that, I’m white), Items that every Mozambican household has, or has arrangements with neighbors to use: -Pilao: A giant mortar and pestle used to make flour from corn or peanuts, made of wood. -Pilaozinho: A small mortar and pestle used to crush garlic, rock salt, or other small things. -Panera: A shallow woven reed bowl about the size of a manhole cover used to sort rice, peanuts from shells, and other things -Relador: A wooden thing resembling a footstool, but with a serrated metal rod/disk on one side. You sit on the footstool and pass coconut over the serrated part to grate it. -Cuador: A wooden frame with fine, wire mesh. Used after the coconut it grated to squeeze the oils/liquids out of the gratings without the gratings falling in the food. -Culher de pau: A long-handled wooden spoon, usually with a really small, shallow spoon part.

Hey! I have some more time to write now. I’m pretty excited about the school year that just started. Last year I taught 11th grade, and there wasn’t a 12th grade. This year I’m teaching 12th grade, which means that the only students I have are the ones that passed last year. So I know them, they more or less understand English, and they’re used to the way I teach! Only about 75% of the 11th graders from last year passed to 12th grade, and of the ones that passed, about 15% of those didn’t passed English, which means they just do the other subjects that they did pass. (If you fail more than 2 subjects you repeat just those subjects in 11th grade again.) So I only have three classes, and each class only has about 40-50 students, so I should be able to do some more fun, exciting projects this year. My standard workday this year is classes from 8:30-12:00, but on Fridays I start at 7:00. I also have Wednesdays off.

In terms of other projects, I’m going to get my English Club started again once I get back to site. I went to the District Administration last week to talk about reserving the room in the community centar that I used last year. Some guy there told me I would have to pay 1,500 meticais each time I wanted to use it!! (I make about 7,000 a month.) Well that wasn’t about to happen, so I had to go talk to some other people but I was assured by them that I would not have to pay and that the other guy was crazy. Another project I want to initiate this year is a theater group that will perform plays about HIV, gender issues, corruption, etc in the town center on various holidays. I hope to be ready to have our first play be performed on Womens’ Day, April 7th. I’ll also be having an English Theater group again, and I’ll be organizing the regional competition for the northern provinces, but that won’t be until around September.

I really enjoyed the holidays. I travelled all the way down to the south of Mozambique by ground transportation (buses, hitchhiking, etc), stopping several places along the way to visit other Voolunteers, before meeting up with Sambo at his sister’s house in Inhambane Province. She lives on the coast near some islands, so we took her kids to see the islands with us. The beach there was beautiful, and you have to take a tiny little sailboat to get there. Then we went a little more south to his brother’s house. He also lives on the coast very close to some beautiful beaches, and has three adorable kids ages 3-11 who I loved playing with. We stayed there for Christmas, and then went down to the capital, Maputo. We stayed in the city a few days and then went to Ilha de Inhaca, which is where Sambo is from. Once again, I got to enjoy some beautiful beaches and scenery. Unfortunately, during this part of our trip is when his niece drowned, but we managed to get in several fun days before that happened. Then I took him to Namaacha to visit my home stay family from training, which was really fun. The two brothers that were finishing school when I was there have since started working, and there were several improvements to the house now that they have some money. They want Mama to stop working because she’s getting older and they can support her now. Unfortunately Mama wasn’t there, but all three of my brothers were. I decided to buy a plane ticket and fly home to avoid the 2-3 day bus trip on an over-crowded bus with no bathroom, which I think was a great choice.

I’m in Maputo now doing my 1 year medical check-ups. I’m also taking advantage of the internet, food, and the movie theater they have here! Yesterday we saw The Switch, and today we might see Jacuzzi, just because we can. I don’t think either one of these movies got good reviews, but it’s in a real movie theater with popcorn!! I’ve also added greatly to my already over-sized souvenir collection, but I figure after being gone from the US for 2 years plenty of people will want gifts, so I just keep buying all the pretty things here that I can’t get at site.

Other news/comments:

-I got robbed last week. We left two plastic chairs and a key chain in the yard next to the porch while Sambo and I went inside to listen to music. While we were inside, someone took them from the yard.

-I have absolutely no idea what to do with my life when I’m done with Peace Corps. Ideally, I’ll move back to Raleigh and get a job in the linguistic cartography field. The only problem is, that field hardly exists, is definitely not well-established (or even established at all) in Raleigh, and I would be completely unqualified for.

-About 4 hours ago I developed an interest in possibly pursuing a Masters in public policy. But I really don’t want to ever take the GRE.

-I am currently waiting for the 3D, green, beaded hippopotamus that I am getting custom made for me.

-There is a terrible drought in Nacaroa. The crops aren’t growing at all, which sucks for me, but more so for the farmers. Along with this comes cholera and diarrhea as people drink swamp water. (I still have a good water source, don’t worry!)

-Food I’ve been excited about eating here in Maputo: pizza, cheeseburgers, cheese, bagels with lox and cream cheese, ice cream, thai food, fruit.

-Food that I get excited to find in Nacaroa: tomatoes that are NOT rotten, canned ground beef.

-An excerpt from my father’s 2nd grade report card: “Hygiene: Lewis has a handkerchief and knows how to use it properly.” I have also started using a handkerchief. I’ll practice all year, and maybe by the time I leave here I’ll also know how to use it properly.

I'm not sure if this entry is 100% finished, but I don't have time to add more, so it'll go up like this. I'm also pretty sure it has terrible grammar, but oh well.

Over the holidays I went with Sambo to visit various members of his very large family. Overall we had a great time, which hopefully I’ll be able to write more about, but there was an unfortunate event that occurred. We spent New Years on Ilha de Inhaca (Inhaca Island), which is where Sambo’s from. While there, we decided to take a bunch of his nieces and nephews of various ages to the beach. Living on an island, most of them know how to swim a little, or else know that they can’t go in deep water. But one niece, Joaninha, had rarely been to the beach, (which no one thought to tell us when we headed out) and therefore didn’t really know where she could or could not play in the water. At one point I was giving a snack to some of them on the beach, and Sambo was playing with others in the water, and neither or us realized that Joaninha wasn’t around.

So I was on the beach eating crackers with some of the kids when all of a sudden one of them was like, “Look, someone passed out!” I turned to see a man carrying a little girl, clearly unconscious, in his arms. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that it could be one of the kids that had come with us until another nephew was like, “That’s Joaninha!” We called Sambo, and the man carrying her laid her on the beach. She’d clearly been vomiting. I tried to think back to CPR from 10th grade health class, but couldn’t remember exactly what you were supposed to do. The man and Sambo pushed on her stomach and a bunch of water/vomit came out of her mouth and nose. She still had a pulse and was breathing a little. They found someone with a 4-wheeler to take her to the hospital.

I took the rest of the kids back to the house, and then went with the older ones to the hospital. When we got there I went in the room where she was. The doctor was cleaning vomit out of her mouth and nose with guaze and some suction thing. Then he put a long tube in her nose, and looked at her, and took it out, and put it and took it out a few more time, and then left it in and hooked it up to an oxygen tank. Joaninha was still unconscious. He declared that she was “out of danger” and left, instructing the nurse to put in an IV. I later found out that he wasn’t a doctor, that a doctor comes a couple of times a week to the island, and that this guy was some kind of technician.

Well we waited around a couple of hours, and the technician came back. He found it “shocking” that she hadn’t woken up yet, and was immediately concerned. He called (phoned, not summoned) a real doctor, then gave her antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory shot. “Out of danger” no longer applied. He now proclaimed that she could either live or die (duh) and that at this point it was still “too early” to say. We rotated who stayed at the hospital, and when Sambo and I were there she woke up! She drank some juice, he gave her a tissue and told her to clean her face and blow her nose, which she did, he asked her where it hurt and she was able to mumble a coherent, logical answer. She was clearly struggling to breathe, so the technician found an (adult-sized) oxygen mask, played around with it trying to figure out how to use it, put it on her, and she passed out again. Another aunt came to stay there during the night, and they planned to transfer her to the mainland early the next morning. Sambo and I went back to his brother’s house and went to bed, relieved.

Sambo got a text early the next morning asking him to come to the hospital. We figured they were getting ready to transfer Joaninha. He went. Soon after I got a text saying that she had died. I went to the hospital. Apparently during the night she had woken up a few times, drank more juice and milk, and even asked to go to the bathroom. And then died.

In Mozambique:

How do you transport a dead body? You put it in the back of a truck along with the passengers. Wrapped in colorful Mozambican cloth.

How do you react if you’re a 25-year-old man and you’ve just been told that your 6-year-old sister died? You don’t. Not at all. Not even a gasp, a dead-drop, a shake of the head, a curse, or a widen or blink of the eyes. You just say thanks for the information, and then you serve yourself a glass of water if you want. No need for anyone to do that for you, you’re a man, it’s not that big of a deal. Granted they had different mothers and I don’t think he had ever lived in the same place at the same time as her and therefore didn’t really know her much, but still.

How do you break it to the other cousins who were at the beach and saw what happened that she died? (All the adults knew of the death already) You wait a few hours, until the kids are being loud and not helping you with the work, and then you say, “Hey! Stop being loud and start being helpful! Joaninha died ok? She’s dead! So shut up and do what I said!” And the kids will shut up and do what you said, and they won’t cry because it’s not the first time someone they knew died because people die all the time.

What about burying the body? In Grandma’s back yard. (next to her sister’s grave, who had died the year before) In a coffin made by the men. A tiny little coffin for a 6-year-old’s body. With the body wrapped in white cloth leaving the face showing. In a grave dug by the men and later filled by everyone, including me. And then everyone takes a flower and plants it above where she was buried.

What is a funeral like? While you wait for everyone to get there, the women start cooking. When “everyone” is there, first the closest family members go look at the body. Then the more distant family members. Then the friends, neighbors, and everyone else look. Then everyone starts singing, and some of the men carry the coffin from inside Grandma’s house to the grave in her yard, that has to be dug the same day as the burial. And everyone keeps singing. And then everyone goes up to put some dirt on, and then when it’s full everyone goes again to plant a flower there. And then the women go back to cooking, and then serving food. Then the non-family go home, and the family stays. The women cook more and most of the men drink. Then you eat more, and cook more, and possibly drink more, and talk with the other family members etc. Repeat for 3 days, adding in sleeping at night. The cooking was fish and rice for all lunches and dinners.

Let’s clarify: by “the women cook,” I mean that the Mozambican women cook, and the white woman is allowed to cut tomatoes, potatoes and onions, as long as the peeling of these vegetables is done for her. But first you must confirm that she is capable of such a task by asking her if she knows how to cut onions. (They really, literally, asked me that.) And by “talk with the other family members” I mean that if you speak Changana (the local African language there) you talk with the other adult family members in Changana (even though you speak Portuguese fluently), and if you don’t speak Changana (me) you play with the kids. So basically after the funeral and burial I had another 3 days of boring patronizing-ness.

But at least here there was no looking for someone to blame, as I’m sure would have happened in the US. So, while it was quite sad at the time, there is very minimal lasting guilt regarding the whole situation, so that’s healthy.

A trip to Swaziland

Mozambique recently drastically raised the price of a one-year visa. Peace Corps has been trying to negotiate some sort of exemption for Volunteers, but the negotiations are taking a long time. I conveniently happened to be back in Namaacha helping with the training of the newly arrived trainees when my visa expired. And Namaacha conveniently happens to be a border town with Swaziland. So Peace Corps took all of us Volunteers that were helping at training that week for a quick trip to Swaz to get 30-day visas so that we could travel back to site without running into problems. Some fun facts about my trip to Swaz:

-Date of my exit stamp from Moz: 05/11/1999

-Date of my entrance stamp on my return to Moz: 05/11/1010

-Freebies available at the border control building: maps and condoms (both male and female)

-Number of visas that my picture appears on: 2 (mine and someone else’s, they got confused)

Back to Namaacha

Namaacha is the name of the city in which training (PST) takes place. Every week during training Peace Corps invites some current volunteers to come help and meet the trainees. I remember when I first arrived in Namaacha last year it seemed so undeveloped and poor, compared to the US. Now, after living in Nacaroa for almost a year I was amazed by how developed and rich Namaacha seemed. They have paved roads, with sidewalks. Last year I noticed the potholes and unevenness, but this year I noticed the blacktop and curbs. Some people have cars. Last year I noticed how old and noisy they were, this year I notice how many there are. There are a lot of house made from cement and blocks. They have a library, which seemed so tiny last year, but now I’m just impressed that it exists. They have preschools. They have restaurants and cafes. I can’t imagine what I would have thought of Nacaroa if I hadn’t been eased in to Mozambique with Namaacha.

I had a lot of fun helping with training and hanging out with the other Volunteers who were helping the same week. This coming week the trainees will find out their site placements, so I’m pretty excited to find out who will be coming near me. The closest site to me will be getting two new Volunteers.

I also got to see my host family from last year again. I brought them some pictures that I’d taken last year and gotten printed for them. I had really good luck with the timing of my arrival: My oldest brother, Samito, had been working at a hotel in Namaacha last year, but earlier this year he started working for the border control a little ways away. He stays there and works for 2 weeks, and then has 1 week off, and luckily I came on his week off. The second brother, Zinho, works at a really rural school about 30km away. He usually stays there during the week, and comes to Namaacha on the weekends only, but this week there was a conference in Namaacha, so he was around all week. My youngest brother, Jeque, apparently got some bad friends and failed school last year, so they decided that he should go live with his older sister and study at the school where she teaches. Conveniently, I got there the week after school ended, so he had just returned to Namaacha. And my little nephew, Erlander, who is really adorable and loves to talk, left to go spend the holidays with his father the week after I left, so I got to see everyone! My Mama was really excited that I was back, she wanted me to stay and sleep there and eat every meal with them, and take my baths at their house, etc.

Work

The school year has finished, so now is the time for national exams for the 10th graders. All last week we had to proctor the exams, which was incredibly boring. I didn’t know how long 90 minutes could feel like until I had to stand in a hot room and do absolutely nothing for that amount of time. And next week will be spent correcting the exams. And then after that there are retests for the students who fail, and then correcting the retests.

In my “homeroom,” there were 78 students. Of these, 50 have passed. 9 dropped out/transferred during the course of the year, 8 I suspended for failing/missing class almost everyday, and 11 failed and can repeat 11th grade next year if they want. The ones that I suspended can’t repeat 11th grade next year, they national regulations are that they are suspended for 2 years, and after that they can repeat 11th grade if they want. Which sounds harsh, but seriously, I took roll 37 times this past trimester, and these students were absent more than 30 times, with similar percents in their other classes. The classes are already huge, and students get turned away once the classes fill up, so I don’t really feel too bad. They posted the results yesterday, so we’ll see how many show up at my house to complain.

Overall, I although I have really, thoroughly enjoyed my first year here, I honestly can’t say that I find the work very rewarding, and I don’t really feel like I’m making much of a difference. Many students hardly learned any English in previous years, they miss school all the time, and very few are motivated to learn. And I can’t blame them. Most of them know they’re going to be farmers or housewives, and no one will pay more to buy tomatoes from the farmer who knows some English, and washing clothes by hand isn’t any easier for someone who knows some English.

There’s one Volunteer near me who works at a mission trade school. Her school has machinery, a good library, classes of 30 students, and all sorts of resources. When I first found all this out about her school I thought Peace Corps should have chosen a less developed/ less privileged school that could have benefitted more from having a Volunteer. But now I think Peace Corps should invest its Volunteers in more schools like this. The students at that school have hopes of going to college, of having good jobs, of actually using the English that she teaches them in their futures. Those students are actually benefitting a lot from having a volunteer, whereas very few of my students are.

Random Tidbits

There’s this one song in Mauca that comes on a lot here. I obviously can’t understand what it’s saying, but I like the beat and the lyrics seem lively and relaxing. One time it came on when I was with some of my students. I told them I really liked it. “Do you understand it?” they asked. I told them I didn’t so they translated the chorus: “Don’t beat your wife while your kids are watching.”

I recently received a care package that my aunt sent me. One of the most exciting things in it was a rat trap. Since my house has luckily been rat free for a while, I told Sambo to take it and use it in his house, which is full of rats. The first night he killed a rat. The second night, the rat managed to take the food without setting off the trap. I figured he must not have set it properly, so the third night I had him show me how he set and baited it. It looked good to me. But somehow that rat managed to take the food, set off the trap, and not get caught! So the fourth night he tied the food to the trap, and managed to kill another rat.

I was showing some pictures I’d brought from the US to the students in my English Theater group a while ago. There was one student who always knew which one was me in a group of people, but the others could never tell which white person was me. There was one picture with me and a bunch of my mom’s relatives. “Which one am I?” I asked them. They debated it, and finally all agreed that my cousin Angela was me. For those of you who aren’t my relatives, my cousin Angela has very blond hair, and looks nothing like me.

Way back in 8th grade I interviewed one of my dad's aunts about life during WWII. Recently she just sent me a message asking about life in Mozambique for an article to be published in a newsletter. I figured I'd post it here too.

On a typical weekday I wake up between 5:00 and 6:00. In the summer it gets light at about 4:30, which makes sleeping even until 5:00 difficult. And in the winter it's still dark at 5:45, which makes waking up difficult, since I have no electricity. I almost always eat an egg sandwich for breakfast, and then head to work. Nacaroa Secondary School is about a mile from my house-a pleasant walk in the early morning and cold season, but dreadfully hot in the afternoon and hot season. On my way to work the children love to run out of their houses and yards to greet me. Even after being here a year the kids still get really excited when I pass by, even though it happens at least twice a day. The mothers call to their children, and the children call to their friends so that no one misses out on greeting me.

The school is new, which has pros and cons. The classrooms are in good conditions, there are enough desks for all the students, the blackboards aren't falling a part, and the courtyard is pretty. But before this secondary school, which was started in 2006, there wasn't a secondary in Nacaroa District. This means that many of the students come from families in which their parents have, at most, completed 7th grade, and therefore have jobs that don't require being able to read, write, or speak Portuguese. Therefore, many students skip school a lot and aren't motivated to learn because they plan on being farmers like their parents, and think that school is just to pass the time.

I teach English in 11th grade, which is the highest grade at the school this year. Next year will be the first year for 12th grade, and the first students will officially graduate from the least developed district of Nampula Province in Northern Mozambique. The students are very well-behaved compared to American students. Most classes have about 70-90 students. They are never overtly disrespectful, the only behavior issue is too much talking, but that happens all the time in classes of 20 in the US. Morning classes start at 7:00 and end at 12:05, and afternoon classes are from 12:30-5:35. Because of a shortage of classrooms and teachers, students study only in the morning, or only in the afternoon, depending on what grade they're in.

Between classes the teachers hang out in a small pavilion, which serves as the teachers' lounge. My colleagues often like to try to speak a little English with me, or get me to speak Macua, the native language of the region. I have learned to speak Portuguese fairly well, knowing Spanish before coming really helped! But when I have difficulties saying something in Portuguese my colleagues are much more patient with me than I imagine most Americans are with people who are learning English.

I teach only in the morning, so when I'm done for the day I go home and make lunch. The most common meals I prepare for lunch or dinner are rice with some sort of vegetable mixture, pasta, French fries with salad, or soup. One of my favorite rice toppings is okra with tomatoes and onions. But here my diet varies greatly depending on the season. In the hot season there isn't much produce in the market, just mangos, onions, and potatoes. When the hot season starts to pass, sweet corn, okra and tomatoes come. Then oranges, green peppers, chives, lettuce, cabbage, green beans, other leafy greens, bananas, and sweet potatoes come into season.

In the afternoons I plan my lessons, grade homework or tests, and have English club a few times a week. When I don't have work related things to do, I like to visit my colleagues and other friends, play cards, or read. Despite not having a TV, a mall, or any sort of American-style entertainment, I rarely find myself bored. I often wish that I had more time to read or keep my journal, but I often choose to spend time with people instead.

The town generator comes on from 6:00-10:00pm every night. The first seven months I lived here it was broken, so I lived with absolutely no electricity. I used to charge my phone once a week using a solar panel in the building I used for English club. My iPod and computer were never charged, and I had to do anything requiring good light before 5:00 at night. It's amazing how much difference just four hours a day can make! I feel almost like I'm in the US at night!

The market is about a 10-minute walk away, and without a refrigerator I end up going almost every day. I usually time it so I go to the market, get home, take a bath, and get dressed just as the generator turns on. Otherwise I'll just sit at home after about 5:30 waiting for the generator and not doing anything useful.

I've gotten pretty used to bathing and washing dishes without running water. I've hired someone to cart water from the pump to my house. The Mozambican women are amazingly strong and can carry large quantities of water on their heads, but compressing my vertebrae is one thing that I don’t plan to attempt while here. I have a large water basin in my bathroom, which is a separate structure from my house, and two large water basins in my house. Whenever the water gets low, I just ask my water-carter to cart more. To take a bath in the hot season I just go to my bathroom and pour cups of cold water from the basin over my body, lather, and rinse. When it’s really hot, that can be the most pleasant part of the day. In the cold season, I like to heat my bathwater and carry it to my bathroom in a smaller basin.

Once the generator comes on, I cook dinner, usually using charcoal. I have a gas stove that I use for quick things, but gas is expensive, and it’s hard to get the tank refilled, so I like to use charcoal when I have time. After dinner I usually wash the dishes, using two small basins of water, as if they were the two sides of a sink. Then I hang out with my boyfriend, play cards, listen to music, read, use my computer, or go to bed. Since I wake up early, 8 or 9 at night is usually my bedtime.

Mozambicans often address women as the mother of their child, instead of using the woman's name. For example, another teacher who I'm really good friends with, Lidia, has a daughter named Edilenia. At school people use her real name, but at her house her husband and friends call her "mae de Edilenia," (Edilenia's mom). When I first heard this it was at the house of a male colleague who was asking his wife to bring us some drinks. And then later in the conversation he told me that his wife got pregnant (not phrased as he got her pregnant) so he had to marry her, making it clear that he wasn't really planning on that. I thought it was awful that he just thuoght of her as his daughter's mother, and not as his wife, not as a real person with her own name. But lately I've been realising that the women all address each other like that. A few weeks ago we were cooking for a Teacher's Day party (an interesting experience of cultural gender issues, I might add a post about that) and the women who didn't know each other would ask what the other women's kid's names were, and then call each other Mae de Dao, Mae de Mara, Mae de Edi, and they really didn't know or ask what each other's real names were. I was exchanging numbers with one of them later, and when I started to put her name in my phone she was like, "No, put Mae de Mara."

The English Theater competition was yesterday. The plan was for my group and two other groups that were coming from the same direction to all travel together. However, on Friday afternoon (the day before the competition) I got a phone call saying the driver who was going to take us raised his price significantly and without cause, and they were wondering if I could find a vehicle here in Nacaroa for my group. Luckily Sambo’s neighbor transports various products for local stores, so he had a truck, didn’t have any plans for the next day, and was willing to give us a very fair price considering it was last minute. The only problem was that since he usually transports products, he didn’t have the credential to transport people, and the administration had already closed for the weekend, so we couldn’t get an authorization letter. There was only one solution: take advantage of the corruption that plagues so much of the developing world.

I wanted to leave by 6:00, so I had told the students to meet at the local elementary school at 5:30. I was worried that they would oversleep since the majority of them don’t have alarms or phones, or even watches to know if they’re on time or not. But they all managed to be there by 6:00, and we headed out. The transit police in Nacaroa knew us, so we just explained where we were going and why, and they let us pass without any problems. My first thought: that was nice of them! Second thought: that was illegal and wrong and corrupt-it’s kind of like how teachers here let students pass when they should fail, and the students think “that was nice,” and I think, “That’s terrible and corrupt!” But when being corrupt helps me, my first thought is how nice these people are. The next transit police didn’t know us, so I gave the driver 100 meticals to slip them, and we passed right on through. My first thought: that was so easy! My second thought: No wonder students who have money just buy their grades; it’s so much easier than studying. The third and final transit police we passed on the trip didn’t make us stop. My first thought: yes, it’s our lucky day! My second thought: wait a minute, these police are getting paid by the government and doing absolutely no work.

We arrived in good spirits; I’d bought juice and bread for our breakfast on the way. We were the third group to perform. They made a few mistakes, but nothing major, and overall they performed well, and had worked really hard for the past two months. We just had the disadvantage of being from the rural school. The schools from the cities had students who could watch TV in English all the time, had access to computers and the internet, and were the kids of well educated parents. The level of English of my students just didn’t compare. But I’m really proud of them, and I think they did a really great job with respect to their abilities and the opportunities they’ve had in life. Even though we didn’t win, the students seemed to be really glad they’d done it, and didn’t think it was a waste of time. They each got Portuguese/English dictionaries, T-shirts, and certificates for participating, and 100 meticals for “travel expenses,” which they didn’t have any of so they could buy whatever they wanted.

On the way home, it was late so we didn’t run into any transit police. Tomorrow is a national holiday (September and October are full of holidays!), which means various groups will perform dances/songs/etc in the town pavilion, where we’ve been rehearsing. When we got back yesterday, the students said they wanted to perform for the village on the holiday. Luckily I’d helped the person who’s in charge of organizing the program for performances with some English explanations a while ago, so he was more than happy to put us in last minute.

The other day I was in the market and I wanted to buy tomatoes. There was a pile of 10 tomatoes that cost 10 meticals. I had 9 meticals in change, or a 50 metical bill. The vendor didn’t have change. The logical solution that appeared to me was for him to take away one of the ten tomatoes, and let me pay 9 meticals for 9 tomatoes. When I suggested this he laughed and was like, “What, if you can buy 10 tomatoes for 10 mets you think you can just buy 9 tomatoes for 9 mets?” Well I thought it seemed like a logical idea, but apparently not.

I’ve started reading “The Alchemist,” and I’m really enjoying it. People in Nacaroa think I’m crazy for leaving the US to come here, and don’t understand at all why I like it. No matter how much I try to explain that ever since I can remember I always wanted to live in other countries and learn other languages and experience other cultures they just think I’m crazy. The main character in The Alchemist is just like me. According to this book, everyone has a Personal Legend, which is what you’ve always wanted to do and are destined to do, and the universe always conspires to help the people that try achieve their Personal Legends.

When I first got here I was constantly thinking of interesting and exciting things to write about on my blog, but I didn’t have a way to write and post stuff. Now that I have my computer, electricity, and the internet, I’m used to living here so things don’t seem so interesting and exciting anymore, they’re just normal now. It’s been almost exactly a year since I left the US.

Daycare centers and babysitters don’t really exist here, at least not in the same way that they do in the US. Women who have babies bring them to school/work with them. They also have a relative or neighbor, usually a girl 7-10 years old, come with them to help take care of the baby. As a result, the school is full of female students who are constantly coming and going from the classroom to take care of their babies, young girls who miss years of school to care for other people’s children, and teachers who breastfeed while they’re teaching. One of these teachers is a good friend of mine, and whenever I have a free period I love playing with her baby, who will be 6 months on my birthday! Anyway, one day while my friend was teaching I asked the girl who cares for her baby to help me tie her on my back with a cloth the way African women carry their children. Man, the students and teachers really got a kick out of seeing that! They all asked why I didn’t already have a baby, told me that I should have one, and that when I go back to America I should teach everyone how to carry babies in clothes on their backs.

My English Theater group performed for the school today. I was really impressed with how well they did; no one forgot their lines, and scene changes that had not always gone smoothly at rehearsals were flawless. There’s a song about HIV that’s part of the performance, and afterwards others students at the school were singing the chorus. We rehearse in a pavilion in the village, so there’s always tons of kids watching, and the kids know almost the whole song and the motions, despite not being able to understand a word of it.

Before I left the US I was thinking that I would be a teacher when I got back. Now I think I’ll be a soap opera writer. I’m pretty sure I could write a good 3 seasons not just BASED on Nacaroa, but literally EXACTLY what goes on here. Now that I’ve gotten to know people better I’m learning all sorts of secrets about who’s dating who, who’s pregnant with who’s baby, who’s cheating on who with who, and so on.

And of course, I have to write about rats. One time my parents asked me if rat poison was available and affordable here. It is. “Why don’t Mozambicans put out rat poison so they don’t have a live with rats?” they asked. I told them Mozambicans didn’t really seem to mind rats. I was at Sambo’s the other day, and the student that lives with him, Gildo, was moving around some reed mats. A rat appeared. Gildo shrieked with excitement, grabbed a shoe, and starting chasing it. It ran outside, but Gildo kept chasing, and it ended up running back inside, and then back outside, and then escaped. But Gildo was smiling the entire time, and it looked like he was having as much fun as if he were playing football. I have fortunately not had any more rats in my house.

Last weekend the Governor of Nampula province came to visit Nacaroa. The district superintendent of education asked Sambo (since he teaches art, kind of) to decorate the two pavilions that reception for the governor would held in. Sambo rounded up me and a few students to help him. What sort of decorations are appropriate for the Governor? Decorations similar to an end-of-year picnic for a 3rd grade class. The supplies: two boxes of brightly colored magazines (Box 1: magazines for parents about how to talk to your child about sex. Box 2: “The future begins today,” magazines for 5th and 6th graders about how to be safe, why you should study, how to resolve problems without violence, etc. Both boxes should have been delivered to an elementary school in the district, but apparently never made it.) and two staplers. BYOS. (Bring Your Own Scissors) Well we brought our own scissors, and we started cutting up those magazines, and stapling together paper rings to make chains to hang from the ceiling and wrap around the posts of the pavilions. I’m not saying it wasn’t pretty, but if I didn’t know the occasion I would have guessed a 10-year-old's birthday party.

Note that “ladder” was not included in the supplies list, so in order to hang the chains from the ceiling we got a table to stand on, which worked fine for hanging things from the edges of the pavilions. But the roofs were very slanted, so then we got a chair to put on the table to hang things closer to the center. But the chair on the table wasn’t enough to reach the roof in the center of the pavilions. So then we got an American (me) to sit on the chair on the table, and students to stand on the table, and another student to stand on the top of the back of the chair on the table, supported by the students standing on the table, to hang the garlands from the center of the pavilions. In my opinion, way too risky, but as the students explained to me, “Mozambicans are very brave.”

We were also lucky enough to have some help cutting and stapling from some very excited neighborhood kids. It wasn’t every day they got to use scissors! And staplers, they’d seen at school, but rarely had the opportunity to be allowed to use! And, to top it all off, the American was present! Now in Mozambican culture, it’s very normal and appropriate for any adult to ask any kid (who they may or may not know) to run any errand or do any favor at any time. (ex: you open your door and tell the first kid you see to go to the market and buy you bread) And man, these kids decorating the pavilion got so excited whenever I would ask them to do something. (ex: Me-“Go give this stapler to so-and-so.” Kid-“OK!!!!!” and he or she would run as fast as they could to the person, give them the stapler, run back to me as fast as they could, tell me that they had successfully completed the task, and follow me around and wait excitedly for the next order.) And at the end, we gave them each a magazine, which they were inexplicably super excited and proud to receive, despite the fact that very few of them could read.

I also gave leftover magazines to the students in my English Theater group. Despite being 11th graders instead of the 5th and 6th grade target audience, they were also inexplicably excited to have magazines that explained menstruation and wet dreams, what to do in case of emergencies, etc. And now they bring these magazines with them to all of the rehearsals, and read them while they wait for the other students to arrive. Which demonstrates that in a country where very few people have personal reading materials, people are super excited about anything they can get, weather or not the topics are particularly relevant or interesting.

Some exciting changes have happened since I last posted. First of all, I’m writing and posting this from the comfort of my house. How is that possible??

Well, first, the town generator that worked for the first three weeks I was here started working again at the end of June, and I finally got my house hooked up to it at the beginning of August. Why did it take so long? Various reasons, the most amusing of which is that the electricians went to jail for stealing gasoline. So I’ve been hooked up to the generator for a few weeks now, and life has great! I have electricity from 6-10 at night, so I can easily plan lessons, read, play games, etc after dark, and I can also charge my phone, computer, and iPod at will.

So that’s how I’m writing this from the comfort of my house, but how am I posting this? Last weekend I bought an internet flash drive that I can use to get internet via the cell phone antennae. Now the cell phone reception comes and goes, but when there’s good reception I can check my mail, post photos (which I plan to do within a few days) and whatnot.

I also would like to comment, with regards to “The story of the Rat and the Foreigner,” that I have had only 4 rats in my house during the 8+ months I’ve lived here. I don’t want my sister to be afraid and decide not to visit me next year. The story itself is, unfortunately for me, 100% true; it really happened, but it only happened once, and it’s not an experience that my dear Emily is likely to have when (not if) she comes. If my parents were to come the rat would be the least of their worries; for my dad (the Wise Father) because he would be worried about so many other things, and for my mom because she would be practical after reading this and bring rat traps. (Rat traps, which I was silly enough to decline in a care package after several ratless months.)

Other exciting news—I’ve started dating another teacher who works at my school. His name is Sambo (pronounced Sahm-bu), and he teaches something called design, which seems kind of like drafting/geometry/architecture, kind of like scientific, measured art. He is also one of the stars of Nacaroa’s soccer team. Like my guard, he doesn’t exactly understand my fear of rats; his house was full of them, until a few weeks ago when I convinced his to get rat poison, and he killed 10 rats in 2 days. He does, however, understand about 50% of my sarcasm, which is way more than anyone else here. Sarcasm just isn’t used here, which is very sad for me, and my futile attempts have often led people to think that I misunderstood various conversations.

The story of the Rat and the Foreigner

(Author's note: for best results, picture the events of this story while reading.)

Several months ago a Foreigner came from the Developed World to live in the Developing World. The Foreigner quickly learned to love most things about her new life, but one thing she could not love was Rats. The Local People were confused by the Foreigner’s fear and dislike of Rats; they had long since learned to live in harmony with these small, harmless creatures. Almost all of the Locals had Rats in their houses on a somewhat regular basis, and some enjoying eating them roasted on sticks like shish-ka-bobs.

Sometime, not too long ago, one particular Rat managed to enter into the house of the Foreigner. The Foreigner awoke early one morning, when it was still dark outside, because of unusual noises coming from the shelf in her room. She switched on her flashlight in time to see the shadow of a Rat run out of her room, into the spare bedroom. She quickly shut the door of said bedroom, and summoned her Guard.

Now the Guard was a very nice person and a reliable and trustworthy guard; however, he was a Local. He did not understand the Foreigner’s strange and inexplicable fear of these small, harmless creatures, and thus was often less than persistent in finding and killing them in the Foreigner’s house. His most common response, after minimal searching, was often, “Já fugiu,” meaning, “He got away.” On this particular day, the Guard’s response was no different. The Foreigner tried to convince the Guard to continue searching, but it was of no use; she had no choice but to move on with her day and wait until the Rat appeared again.

That evening when the Foreigner was cooking dinner, the Rat appeared again. She summoned her Guard. The Rat was in the main room when the Guard entered, but with the commotion of movement and shouting he fled to the kitchen. Now what would usually happen in this situation is that the Guard would enter the kitchen with a stick, the Foreigner would stay outside of the kitchen holding the door shut, and the Guard would kill the rat. But on this particular day, the Foreigner inexplicably found herself inside the kitchen with the Rat and the Guard. Even more inexplicably, the foreigner had subconsciously selected a flimsy, orange, plastic dustpan as her weapon of choice.

All trapped in the kitchen, it’s hard to say if the Rat or the Foreigner was more scared. The Rat ran around frantically trying to escape, while the Foreigner performed a series of awkward jumps, trying to avoid allowing the rat to get too close to her feet. These jumps were accompanied by yelps and shrieks of fear, along with swats and flicks of the dustpan. The Guard tried to tell the Foreigner to calm down, but it was of no use. The Foreigner eventually ended up jumping into the door, which opened ever so slightly, allowing the Rat to escape back to the main room. The Foreigner and Guard followed and searched briefly, but the Guard soon announced, “Já fugiu.”

The Foreigner did not sleep well that night, and to her disappointment the Rat did not appear the following evening, leaving her with another night of ratmares. Finally, on the third night, the Foreigner remembered the words of her Wise Father, “Could he be hiding under the stove?” a question he has posed several months prior with the entrance of the First Rat. The foreigner grabbed her flashlight, went to the kitchen, and hesitantly looked under the stove. The Rat was there! She quickly summoned her Guard, making sure to stay outside the kitchen this time, and held the door tightly shut as he entered with a stick. This time the Rat did not get away. The Guard killed it, picked it up by the tail, and removed it from the Foreigner’s house. The Foreigner lived happily ever after, at least until the entrance of the Next Rat.

Hey again! So what was I doing in Nampula on a Thursday to have made that post yesterday? I have either a lot of bug bites, or an allergic reaction, so I came to see the doctor. It looks almost like I have chicken pox, but not quite that bad.

Not much is new at site, there are a few projects I want to get started, but I’m having some difficulties due to lack of development in my district. I have been wanting to start English classes for adults, but there isn’t anywhere to do that at night because no place has electricity. And it seems kind of pointless to do it during the day because a lot of the people who are interested will be working. I also want to run a Future Business Leaders of Mozambique course, but again there’s no place to do that. FBLM is an 8-week course in which each week has a specific business related topic, such as ethics, managing a budget, demographics, etc. Groups of interested future business leaders participate, and create a business idea during these 8 weeks. At the end, they all do presentations, and the winning group is awarded money to actually implement their business idea.

I made goat burritos for some colleagues a few weeks ago. It was the first time I personally cooked goat meat. When I went to the butcher in the morning, the goat was still hanging from the tree where they killed it, and they were cutting the hide off. I went to buy a few things at the market, and then came back to buy the meat. The legs and head were sitting right there next to the meat that was for sale. It a very different experience from buying meat it the US. Also, I’m looking for a better term than “goat meat,” because that sounds very unappetizing. Beef and pork sound so much better than cow meat and pig meat, so if anyone knows the euphemism for goat meat, please let me know.

There is another rat in my house. I heard a noise when I was going to bed Wednesday night, so I got my flashlight and investigated. I found a bug. I didn’t think the bug could have made the noise, but I didn’t see anything else so I went to sleep. Early Thursday morning I was awakened by a noise coming from my bookshelf. I got my flashlight and went to investigate again. A shadow ran from the bookshelf to under my bed. Was it a rat? I looked around the rest of my room, but didn’t see anything. I went into the hall just in time to see a rat--definitely a rat--run from the other bedroom to the kitchen. I went to the kitchen doorway, and grabbed my rat killing stick on the way. But then the rat ran towards me, and got very close to my feet. I screamed. The rat ran into the other bedroom. I called my guard, but he was out fetching water for me, so I closed the door, crammed sandals in the opening between the flood and the door, and waited for my guard to come back. When he came back I sent him in to kill the rat, but the rat had disappeared. So now this rat is alone in my house making itself at home. I dreamt about it last night even though I’m about 100 miles away in a nice hotel.

A lot of my colleagues have very young babies, so I’ve been playing with them a lot lately. They’re so cute!!! And if I start playing with them when they’re really young they learn not to be afraid of me.

Well, that’s all for now.

Hey everyone! I’m back in Nampula doing some shopping and going to the bank. I’ve had an exciting past month and a half since I last posted. I went to visit Ilha de Mozambique twice, just for the day both times. It’s really pretty, and I got to go swimming! I also went to another city, Namialo, to watch our soccer team play. (We tied 0-0.) There is another game tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll win!

Big news: Winter is here! It’s been getting cooler and cooler during the past month, and this week I’ve been chilly walking to school in the morning with long pants and a sweater. It still gets pretty hot in the afternoon, but it gets in the lower 60s at night.

I’ve got my English club started! It’s been going really well, the teacher I’m working with is really enthusiastic about it, and the students really like it too. The first week we did introductions, the second week we talked about malaria, the third week was Mozambican culture, and the past two weeks we’ve done story telling. Next week the topic will be HIV/Aids, and then after that we’ll start rehearsing for an English Theater production. We’ll be doing a 10-15 minute play related to HIV/AIDS to perform in a competition with theater groups that other volunteers have.

The second trimester at school is going really well. I’m more organized, and I’ve been planning better. The scores on the first test were really good for the students who usually come to class, but absenteeism is a big problem, so there were still a lot of students who failed. We’ve also been assigned by our director to do observations of other teachers, so it’s been interesting to see some other lessons. For the most part, the lessons seem pretty good. Some other teachers whose lessons I wasn’t assigned to watch invited me to come anyway, so in the next few weeks I’ll be seeing a lot of disciplines. I’m interested to see what the students are learning in other subjects.

After hearing some other volunteers stories about their colleagues and schools, I think I got pretty lucky when Peace Corps placed us. At the end of the 1st trimester we had to do the grade sheets for the students. Not on teacher asked me to change any of the grades, and my director didn’t ask me to raise the average or anything. Stories from other volunteers include teachers going around with lists of names making sure that these students passed, sometimes asking teachers to change the grades, and sometimes just taking the grade sheets and changing the grades themselves. I really like my colleagues I have a lot of fun hanging out with them during the breaks. At first I really didn’t like that the school is a 15 minute walk from the village, but it’s actually really nice walking home with other teachers and talking to them.

Well that’s all for now! I’m don’t have any plans to travel in the near future, so I don’t know when I’ll be posting again.

[Posted by Jess's parents]

Several new activities are underway, or at least under consideration:

I have started an English Club, that will meet weekly, for students who want a chance to practice their English language skills. Thirty students participated in the first session, and some of them asked if we could meet more than once a week - but for now, it will be every Thursday only. Each week, I review some vocabulary related to a specific scenario, and the students take turns in small groups, practicing the dialog for the various roles in the scenario. The first week's scenario was going to the doctor; next week's will focus on Mozambican culture. I would like to start a similar club for adults in the village, but with no electricity, there is not enough daylight to hold a class in the evening.

Some of my students recently sent letters to a group of elementary school students in North Carolina. We have not received any feedback yet, but I know that the teacher and class are looking forward to reading letters from Mozambique.

For the future, I would like to start an English Theater club that would participate in competitions with similar clubs from other Peace Corps locations in Mozambique.

I will try to post more next time I have internet access. For now, this brief (and somewhat belated) post by my father is the best we can do.

Hey, I just wrote this post this past weekend. I'm also not sure why one of the ones in March posted in Portuguese. I wrote it in English, so I'm pretty confused.

Hello again! I’m back in Nampula for another conference. This one is for something called JOMA, which means Jovens em mudanca e accao, which means Youth for Change and Action. A lot of volunteers have JOMA groups, which use journalism, theater, or other arts to promote change and action in relation to AIDS, gender issues, etc. I don’t have a group, but I volunteered to come help out with check in and random things that come up. Next year I think I’ll try to get a group going. I’ve actually been working to get my English club going (I think I’ve written that before), but it still hasn’t happened, but I don’t think it’s my fault. I want to use the community center for the English club, so I had to write a request. Then I had to wait for the school secretary to type it, but the times I wanted were written incorrectly, so I have to wait for them to type it again. Then my director was gone, so I had to wait for him to come back and sign it, then the administrator for the district was in South Africa, so I had to wait for her to come back and approve it. That’s how things work here, there everyone has a specific job, and isn’t willing/qualified/allowed to do what someone else should be doing. (Another example: I went to the post office in Nampula one time to mail a letter. The person who sells stamps wasn’t there, and no one else would sell me the stamp, so I had to wait a few weeks until I came back to mail the letter. One more: my friends went to eat at a restaurant and ordered sandwiches. The guy who makes sandwiches was on vacation, and apparently the people who make pizza, salads, and everything else ) But I think my request for English Club is finally ready, but now it’s the break between the 1st and 2nd trimester, so everyone has left Nacaroa, including me. But I think it will really be ready to start the first week of the 2nd trimester. And I’m pretty excited about it, the students keep asking when it will start. Also, as related projects I want to do an English theater group, and start a penpal exchange with a teacher I’ve been corresponding with in the US. She teaches ESL, so we want our students to exchange letters in English, which I think will be exciting for both groups.

I have started making no bake cookies for various people at site, and they’ve been a big hit! People would often teach me how to make food/give me food they’d made, and I didn’t know what to do back because most “American” foods require ingredients I can’t get/store at site, or an oven. I’m also going to buy stuff to make s’mores while I’m here so I can make those for people. One dessert I’ve learned how to make is doce de abobera, or pumpkin sweetness. You peel and de-seed a pumpkin, and boil it in a little water until it all turns to mush. Then you add coconut milk and sugar, and eat it.

April 7th was Mozambican Woman’s Day. There was a ceremony in the morning with dancing, singing, drum circles, and other cultural activities. Everyone was really excited that I wore some traditional Mozambican clothes, a long cloth wrapped around my waist for a skirt, and a head scarf (like bandana style, not Muslim style). In the afternoon, I had a party at my house. They brought a generator over and we had music and everything. It was a lot of fun!

I wrote this when I was here for the conference in March, but then never got to post it. It is outdated, but I don't have time to update it:

Well the conference is over now. I'm about to go back with a friend to see her site in Zambezia province. It's known for being really beautiful and has a mountain to hike, and then I'll go back to my site this weekend. The conference went well, but I'm ready for it to be over.

So in the past month at site...

We had the district superintendent come to our school to address some reports of unprofessional behaviour that had been filed. They began by reading the names of the accused teachers along with the behavior: Teacher Joao is accused to bribing a student for 50 mets (the currency unit). Teacher Momade is accused of inviting a female student to his house at night, and then harrassing her in class because she didn't go to his house. etc. Then the teachers responded: "I didn't ask for 50 mets, that student just offered it to me, so I took it." "I invited her over at night for help with school." etc. Then it was emphasized that it is not prohibited for male teachers to date female students, but that they should only impregnate said student if they plan to marry her. (There is only one unmarried male teacher at the school. Multiple marriages are not legal here.) Then we talked about bribery. Is it ok for teachers to accept gifts from students? The teachers agreed there was nothing wrong with it, and that if it was something small not only could they accept it when offered, but they could also ask for it when not offered. I was surprised and impressed that the district superintendent disagreed.

The food options have increased dramatically. I no longer feel the need to come to Nampula City every other week to add some variety to my diet. Which is great, because I really don't like Nampula. We went to a craft market on Sunday, and a friend I was with had her purse slashed, but luckily nothing was stolen. I have learned how to cook with okra, which makes a really good dish to put over rice.

My director has finally said that the teacher who was going to be my roommate will not come this year. I'm thinking about getting a student to live with me. In exchange for food and a place to live, she would do the cooking, cleaning, etc.

The coming month at site...

I'm really hoping to get an English Club up and going. I have surveyed the interest of my students, and they seem really excited about it. Now I just need to find a location. As a somewhat joint project for a smaller group of students, I want to get an English Theater group started too. There is already a network of Volunteers who have English theater groups, and in September there will be an event where we all get our groups together to perform. A smaller group of us volunteers want to start a new program for elementary students with Portuguese theater. Up here in the North, especially at rural sites, there is a big problem with students not speaking/understanding/reading Portuguese well. So we want to start a Portuguese theater for them, and possibly expand it to a sort of film festival, but the logistics for that aren't really logical, so we'll see what happens with that.

The first trimester ends in about a month. Here you need a 50% to pass a class. I have way too many students who are failing. A major problem a lot of us are having (which is a major problem in general here) is lack of motivation and self esteem on the part of the students. The students don't necessarily seem to realize the correlation between studying for a test and getting a good grade, so they don't bother to study because they assume that they will either pass or fail, and that there isn't much they can do to change the outcome. I think part of the problem is lack of study skills/knowing how to study, so in all honesty studying might not help them very much. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to address this, because if I hold a study skills class outside of school, no one will come. But the only way to get students to come is to do it during school, which would mean not teaching English that class. It would be great if they understood enough English to try to teach them in English how to study, but that wouldn't work.

[A rough translation of Jess's last post, using a few online translation tools.]

Look at a map of Mozambique. Nampula City and Gurue (NW in Zambezia province) do not seem to be 12 hours apart. But sometimes they may be. After the conference, I decided to visit another volunteer for a few days on site in Gurue. We were very excited that the Peace Corps driver needed to make a visit to a nearby city, so we could get a free, fast ride there. Or so we thought. We left half an hour after the departure time indicated, which is, by definition, not late here. We had a good first hour-and-a-half drive, but then got a flat tire. The driver knew how to change it, and there was a spare tire ... only problem was that the spare tire was already flat. Then, after waiting for another spare, and then waiting for another transport, and at one point being harassed while waiting, we finally arrived in Gurue.

Let me make some comparisons between Gurue and Nacaroa: Gurue has actual stores where you can go in and look for products and choose what you want and take it to the cash register to pay. Nacaroa has shops that consist of a counter, behind which are some shelves that are stocked with a selection of basic products. You tell the worker what you want, and he or she takes it off the shelf and gives it to you. There are no cash registers, and people tend to use calculators to add 15 + 30, or multiply 3 x 6. Gurue has street lights that work, computers and a computer room at school, an internet cafe (where I am now), electricity (obviously) and running water at certain times of the day. Nacaroa has street lights that are, apparently, a decorative item as there is no electricity. Ironically, the only time you can see the street lights is during the day. The whole town has no public computers, no Internet, and running water is not even in anyone's thoughts. Electricity is on everyone's mind, though. How to have a chicken dinner: Gurue – go to the store and buy a pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Nacaroa – buy a live chicken, kill it, defeather it, skin it, cook it. Gurue has real streets and gas pumps. Nacaroa has dirt roads and guys who sell gas in water bottles. (I'm not sure where they get the gas from, but they painted “BP” on the side of the stall that sells it, which makes me laugh.)

On the other hand: in Gurue, men harass you at the market, and the people don’t really know each other and rarely greet you in the streets. In Nacaroa, people greet each other and smile. I cannot go to the market without meeting at least 3 people I know and ten foreigners in a 10-minute walk. In Gurue, there are other white people, so there's nothing special about me. Everyone in Nacaroa is interested in talking to me because I'm the only white person around and they do not know what to think. In Gurue, starting work by 7 am is super early. In Nacaroa, I see at least three people I know on the streets before 6 am – when I'm running, just before leaving for work.

Overall, Gurue is amazing, but Nacaroa is much more of what I expected and wanted for my two years in Africa.

I'll probably post again tomorrow.

Olhe para um mapa de Moçambique. Cidade de Nampula e Gurue (em NW província da Zambézia), não parece ser uma viagem de 12 horas de intervalo. Mas eles podem ser. Após a conferência, decidi visitar um outro voluntário para alguns dias em seu site na Gurue. Estávamos muito animado que o Corpo de Paz driver necessário para fazer uma visita a um neraby cidade, para que pudéssemos obter um livre, rápido passeio mais do caminho. Ou então pensamos. Saímos de menos de meia hora depois da hora de partida indicado, que é, por definição, não tarde aqui. Tivemos um bom primeiro horas e meia de viagem, mas tem um pneu furado. O motorista sabia como mudar isso, houve uma tomada e um pneu sobressalente ... único problema foi que o pneu sobressalente já era plana. Então, depois de esperar, pegar uma carona, esperando encontrar uma chapa, a ser assediado durante a espera e, finalmente, encontrar uma outra chapa chegamos Gurue.

Deixe-me fazer algumas comparações entre Gurue e Nacaroa: Gurue tem lojas reais, onde você pode ir dentro e olhar para os produtos e escolha o que quiser e levá-lo para a caixa registadora para pagar. Nacaroa tem lojas que consistem de um balcão, atrás do qual são algumas prateleiras que estão abastecido com uma seleção de produtos básicos. Você diz que o trabalhador que quiser, e tirá-lo da prateleira e entregá-lo para você. Não existem registos de dinheiro, e as pessoas costumam usar calculadoras para adicionar 15 + 30, ou multiplicar 3 x 6. Gurue tem luzes de rua que trabalham, computadores e sala de informática na escola, um internet café que eu estou agora, energia elétrica (obviamente) de água e execução em determinados momentos do dia. Nacaroa tem luzes de rua que são, aparentemente, um item decorativo pois não há eletricidade. Ironicamente, a única vez que você pode ver as luzes da rua se durante o dia. A cidade inteira não tem computadores públicos, definitivamente internet não, e água corrente, não é mesmo na mente de ninguém. (Como a eletricidade é na mente de todos embora.) Como comer frango com jantar: Gurue, ir à loja e comprar um maço de desossada, breats frango sem pele. Nacaroa-comprar uma galinha viva, matá-lo, defeather ele, a pele dela, cozinhá-lo. Gurue tem meios de tráfego e bombas de gás. Nacaroa tem estradas de terra e caras que vendem gás em garrafas de água. (Eu não tenho certeza se ele recebe a partir de. Mas eles pintaram "BP" do lado da barraca que vende-lo, o que me faz sorrir.)

Por outro lado, Gurue tem homens que assediá-lo no mercado. Nacaroa tem pessoas que cumprimentá-lo e sorrir. Pessoas em Gurue realmente não sei se mutuamente e raramente cumprimentá-lo nas ruas. Em Nacaroa eu não posso ir ao mercado sem cumprimentar pelo menos 3 pessoas que eu conheço e 10 estrangeiros na caminhada de 10 minutos. Gurue tem outras pessoas brancas, por isso não tem nada de especial aqui. Evenone em Nacaroa está interessado em falar comigo porque eu sou a única pessoa branca em volta e não sabem o que pensar. Em Gurue começar a trabalhar por 7am é super precoce. Em Nacaroa vejo pelo menos três pessoas que conheço nas ruas antes de 6 da manhã, quando eu vou correr, só sair antes do trabalho.

Globalmente, Gurue é surpreendente, mas Nacaroa é muito mais do que eu imaginava e queria para os meus dois anos na África.

Eu provavelmente vou postar novamente amanhã.

I'm in Nampula City for the week for a conference. I took an amazing warm shower with running water last night. I'd forgotten how nice things like that are! And the food here...it's a buffet with all sorts of exotic food, like meat, fruit, yogurt, ice cream, and salad! Ok, so it's not exotic per se, but it's stuff I can't/don't eat at site. There is also air conditioning, electricity, and all sorts of frivolous things like that!

Work is going well. I really like the other teachers I work with, even though I do sometimes see them accepting bribes and doing things that are "really bad" by American standards, but here it's so common that you can't really judge the individual because it's really a societal thing. I'm in the process of trying to get an English club going, and there seems to be a lot of interest in it. I'm not sure how interest will translate to actual attendance, but we'll see. I've been having such a great time just hanging out in the afternoons (I only teach in the mornings), visiting friends and colleagues, watching soccer games in the community, etc that I've been really unmotivated to get other projects going, but I know I should, so English club will be Secondary Project #1.

I've started trying to learn Macua, the local langauge. There is a teacher at the elementary school who really wants to become and English teacher, so I teach him Engilsh, and he teaches me Macua. I let him borrow an English self-learn book that I have, and he skipped school the next day to do a bunch of exercises in it.

My director has finally admited that my roommate is not coming this year. I'm thinking about getting a student to come live with me. A lot of teachers and other people do this with orphans or students with other family problems. The student does all of the cleaning, cooking, washing, etc in exchange for a place to live and food to eat. So that would be helpful, and I think worth the additional cost of food, especially since I don't spend nearly all of my monthly salary, cuz there's really not a whole lot to buy.

Some price/other examples:

1 kilo of beans: 10 mets/$0.33

a good flashlight: 100 mets/~$3

getting to the capital: 100 mets/150 kilometers/ ~100 miles/ 3-4 hours

a decent sized lime: .5mets / 2 cents

a large roll (bread): 2 mets / 7 cents

1 egg: 6 mets / 20 cents

a lot of okra: 5 mets / 17 cents

too many (fresh) peanuts to eat in one sitting: 1 met / 3 cents

Exciting news from Mike: He got an invitation to be a Volunteer too! He should know the exact location and leave date soon, but for now we (think) we know Africa, and leaving in June.

Look for more posts in the next few days

My house has a lot of make-shift things. To start, my bookcase is the cardboard box that my oven came in. My spice racks are made from pieces of cardboard that I folded and duct taped to make rectangle boxes, and then used fabric to make strings to hang them from nails on my wall. The nails are actually real nails, hammered in using a rock. My dresser is still my suitcase. I asked for an armoire, but instead my director had the “well thought” idea to change that request and tell the carpenters to make me a coat rack. I will be buying hangars today in Nampula. I had a very nice cornfield in my back yard, but now a have only a so-so cornfield. First, my neighbors had the insight to cut down a tree in their yard, which fell into my yard, which damaged some corn, and they just left their fallen tree there in my way. I say they had the insight to do that, because a few days later a very similar tree that I had in my yard fell over in a rainstorm, damaging even more corn. Oh well, there was way more corn than I would have ever been able to use anyway.

So last weekend a woman showed up at my house. “Do you know how to make matapa?” she asked me. I didn’t. “Ok when do you want to come make some with me?” I told her I didn’t know. I was still trying to figure out who she was, if I was supposed to know who she was, if I had met her before, etc. “Today?” she asked. I suggested the following day. She sent a girl who lives in my neighborhood who I had talked to several times to come get me the next day, and we went to her house. She lives only a 2 minute walk from me, but it is drastically more rural. Her house was made of sticks and mud. Mine is made from cement blocks with a tin roof. Many of her family members didn’t speak much Portuguese. First we picked green beans, but not like American green beans. These are beans that come in the pod, but you have to take the beans out and cook them like dried beans. Then we picked pumpkin leaves. Then they pounded and crushed peanuts to make them look like flour. Then you just cook it all together, and you have this stuff to put over rice. I finally figured out that she was the sister of the head secretary at school. (Head secretary is a very prestigious position. You can get promoted from being a teacher to being the head secretary.)

I got a thermometer sent from home a few weeks ago: average temperatures out side are about 95-96 during the afternoon, and 80ish or even a little lower at night. Inside, it’s usually around 90-92 in the afternoon, and 85-87 at bed time, and maybe low eighties when I wake up. 95 outside can actually be pretty pleasant (or at least not unpleasant) in the shade, especially with even a small breeze. But 85 inside at night is surprisingly miserable to sleep in. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I’m often sweaty and gross. Therefore, I often opt to sleep on my porch, which isn’t nearly as soft, but overall much more pleasant.

It is malaria season here, because it is the rainy season. I can’t even count how many people I know who have gotten it already, but it doesn’t seem like too big of a deal to them. They just take the medicine, which is really cheap and easy to get, and get better.

My guard is one of those people who got malaria. Obviously I sent him home and told him he didn’t have to work. A few days later he came back, and offered to clean my house, as he occasionally does. I knew my floors were a bit dirty, so I did a quick sweep before he came in so he wouldn’t think I was gross. But he still swept out a too-big pile of dirt, scrubbed my floors, washed some rags and buckets, etc. So I decided to give him a peanut butter sandwich (peanut butter is kind of a big deal here). That night when he arrived for work, he gave me a broom and told me that his wife wanted to give it to me. I’m still not sure if it was a thank you for letting him rest at home/the peanut butter sandwich, or a hint that I should sweep more often. Based on the culture, and my preference, I’m going to assume it was a thank you present.

I really like the other teachers at the school. There are only one or two other female teachers who work in the morning with me, but they either don’t come to work very often, or avoid the teachers’ lounge. Anyway, a group of male teachers came up to me and asked me how to say a word in English, but I didn’t understand the work in Portuguese that they wanted to know. So they preceded to act it out: one teacher bent over and made a noise. Another teacher pointed to his butt and made a face and waved his hand in front of his nose. “Oh! To fart.” They asked me to write it for them, and conjugate it in the past tense. Then they preceded to perform some sort of skit about someone who smelled a fart and wanted to know “Who farted?” I was a little confused, but entertained. They were very entertained with themselves.

Anyone here over the age of 10 or so can bite the tops off of beer or soda bottles that are supposed to require a bottle opener. Anyone over the age of ten can also carry at least 10 gallons of water on their head.

Men here pee in public a lot. Take any place that a drunk American would consider peeing in at night, and a sober Mozambican man will pee there in the middle of the day, with anyone in sight. Snot rockets are also perfectly acceptable by any person in any outside location. Same goes for spitting, including (maybe even especially) during meals.

Our definition of good bread here is pretty much any bread that doesn’t have sand or rocks in it. Bread can still be termed decent if it has only a little bit of sand.

The Portuguese word for chalk is giz. This has led to some very mature jokes among us volunteer about having giz on our pants, etc. Whats that white stuff all over you? Hey, looks like you had a good class, you have giz all over your pants!

I have been asked if I’m afraid of rain, thunder, lightening, heavy rain, the dark, going to the bathroom alone at night, soccer balls, bugs, lizards, butterflies, really heavy rain motorcycles, and many other things that I’m not afraid of. But whenever I tell people I’m afraid of rats, they look at me like I’m weird and they don’t understand why I would be scared of them.

I´ve been really impressed with the school overall. It seems well organized, has some books, and the teachers usually show up, which is a real problem at a lot of schools here. My director is organized, helpful, and really nice. I feel like in training I heard a lot of the volunteers that we talked to had some negative experiences with their schools, directors, other teachers, etc, but I feel like the other teachers respect, and they talk to me and stuff. I have learned that 7:00 means show up by 8:00, and so on, and optional means no one is coming, and stuff like that, but when school is actually in session most of the teachers and students come. We even have a ´teachers lounge´ which is a gazebo/pavilion type thing outside under the trees. Its actually really nice to relax there between classes.

Overall I really like my community, school, and everything about site. Except rats in my toilet and house. Traveling usually sucks, takes a while in crowded vehicles, get harassed as a tourist, whistled and yelled at etc, but at site, where I am most of the time, the people seem pretty excited about me being there. The most annoying thing is people who speak really bad English insisting on trying to have a conversation with me in English instead of Portuguese, which I hate, but it´s good that at least they´re trying and want to learn and stuff.

Finally another post! To start, I just finished my first week of teaching! It has gone well, but the students have a much more basic level than what I was expecting. The national curriculum says they should be learning “I will be doing” and “I will have done” (future continuous and perfect), and they can’t even write in the simple past. We have a lot of work to do this year. Also, about 25% of my 11th grade students are my age or older. My oldest student is 65 years old, and has never studied English before because when he did 10th grade Mozambique wasn’t even a country yet. But for the most part the students are respectful, try hard, and seem to want to learn English, so that’s nice. The other teachers have been nice, about 75% of them are men but I don’t feel that they have a sexist attitude to us female teachers, as other Volunteers seem to have experienced.

I teach only in the morning, which is nice because it is either super hot, or rainy in the afternoon. The school is about a mile from my house, so I’m glad not to walk in either of those conditions. When I leave my house at 6:30, it’s amazing how hot it already is.

Everything that’s happened since my last post:

-I got mugged. Broad daylight, on a main road, three guys grabbed me and asked for my phone and money. I gave them my phone (I have since bought a new one), and they ran away while I was looking for money. I was alone at the time, but walking to meet some friends. This was in Nampula City, something like this would never happen where I live. I went back two weeks ago with two male volunteers. They tried to mug one of the guys when we were all together, but didn’t succeed.

-We had a nice xmas celebration, all 10 of us new volunteers here in Nampula province. We decorated with stockings, paper snow flakes, and I made a wreath out of acacia branches. We had a secret santa exchange and made cookies!

-There was a rat in my house. I hate rats. But luckily I have a guard, so I made him come in a beat it with a stick. There is a much longer story of knowing the rat was in my house/room and not being able to find it for a few days and sleepless nights. various plans for how to kill it, etc, but this will suffice.

-I no longer have electricity ever. The generator ran out of gas the beginning of the month, and they are not organized enough to figure out how to collect money and keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t. I have heard that it should start again February 1st, but I’m not counting on it.

-There is still pretty much no fresh produce at site, just mangos, onions, potatoes, limes, and sometimes tomatoes and pineapples. In about a month more should be ready. This lack of food options was not helped this past week by the fact that my gas tank for my stove ran out, so I’ve been eating a lot of peanut butter or tuna fish sandwiches since Tuesday.

Fun Facts:

-here the paper and binders have two holes, not three

-blue ink is the norm for official business, not black

-breast feeding in public is normal, as is leaving the breast hanging in the open so the kid can start feeding again at will

-false cognate: constipado. It means having a stuffy/runny nose, not being constipated, but caused a little awkwardness before I knew that

-I wash my clothes in basins. I don’t know why some many people in the US hate doing laundry, all it entails is throwing clothes in a machine and pushing buttons. Here I scrub each piece of clothing my hand and get blisters.

-It’s really really hot.

I might update more in a few minutes. We will see.

[Written by mom and dad after speaking with Jess]

I had a nice Christmas visiting with other volunteers in Monopo, but I wasn’t able to blog from there because the internet café was closed for Christmas. So I asked my parents to update my blog. [Editor’s note: Jess’s dad has been rather slow to post this.]

I had an exciting time on my first trip to Nampula City. When I arrived, after a 3-hour chapa ride, I called the other volunteers that I had planned on meeting there. As I put my cell phone back in my pack, three guys suddenly surrounded me, telling me to give them my cell phone and my money. I handed over the phone, and they started saying “Hurry up! Give us your money!” I searched through my purse trying to find the money; the guys kept saying to hurry; I kept searching; and in a few seconds they ran away. I guess I was lucky that I didn’t find the money. It all happened so quickly that I didn't even have time to get scared.

After a couple of hours at the police station, reporting the robbery, I ran into the other volunteers and we did some shopping. First on my list was a new cell phone – I opted for a more basic (ie, cheaper) model than the one that had just been stolen. Next was food and household stuff. I didn’t buy as much as I planned to, because the merchants tried charging me prices way above what they were charging the local people. When I questioned this, the answer usually was “take it or leave it,” and in most cases, I left it. Overall, shopping in Nampula City was rather frustrating. But the day wasn’t over yet – I still had to get back home.

When I went to pay for the chapa ride going back to Nacaroa, they asked for a price much higher than what was reasonable. Again, their attitude was “take it or leave it.” And again, I wouldn’t pay the unfair prices that they wanted. Instead, I found a more economical, though less comfortable, means of transportation. I rode standing up in the back of an open truck, crammed in like sardines with a bunch of other people. The woman next to me was holding a baby, sandwiched between us. It was kind of cute for a while, but unfortunately, the baby was facing my way when his/her bladder decided to relieve itself. Finally, I got back home, washed up, and began looking forward to the next day.

I am learning what it is like to stand out as an obvious non-local. In Nampula City, they charged me higher prices. Here in Nacaroa, everybody knows where I live and that I am the new

American teacher. I’ve had kids knock on my door and ask if I would hire them to do some work for me. The school provides a guard who watches the house overnight, sweeps the yard, and replenishes our water supply as needed. The other day he told me that he also is a good mechanic, and wanted a job fixing things.

The school year will start soon. Teachers are supposed to arrive by Jan 11, and classes will start around Jan 18. It’s finally been decided that I will teach English, not Chemistry. I will have three sections of 11th grade English, which meets five days a week. I also will be Director of a quarter of the 11th grade students. I am looking forward to it.

The first week in Nacaroa has been pretty good! I'm in Monopo now visiting some other volunteers and hanging out for the weekend. The market in Nacaroa is pretty small, and right now only has tomatoes, onions, mangos, small potatoes, and rice. And the tomatoes and onions are pretty puny. I was really excited to come here to stock up on food in the big city only to find that they have nothing else right now here either.

My house is really nice! It's pretty big, and it has a screened front porch and an open back porch. I have a large fenced-in yard, and there's a large canopy thing that's in the process of being built now but will be great for reading and lesson planning when it's finished. My director has been great about getting me furniture for my house beyond what Peace Corps requires, and the big news: the generator started working the day I got there, and my director got power lines run to my house on Wednesday, so I have electricity from 6-10 every night!! And next year there should be electricity 24/7, so then I can get a fridge!

I've met several people in the town so far, and have been getting some good Portuguese practice. There seems to be two populations of Nacaroa: the locals that are from there, who are mostly farmers; and the government workers since it's the district capital, who live there during the week but have families and homes elsewhere, mostly Nampula City, and leave on the weekends. World Vision, an American NGO, has an office there so I've met several people that work there. They have some of the few cars/trucks in the town, and I've been able to get rides to the market and elsewhere from them. And since they go home on the weekends I was able to get a ride part-way to Monopo from them in a nice, safe, air-conditioned truck instead of a crowded, sweaty, half-broken chapa. But the chapa driver who took me the rest of the way here was a really great, intelligent Rwandan guy and I had a lot of fun talking with him.

It's been REALLY REALLY hot here. Like so hot I sweat all night and wake up dehydrated just from sleeping. I've been told that it gets "cold" here in the winter, but I have a feeling that there might be a cultural difference in what "cold" is, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But I'm really looking forward to March when it starts to get cooler, and slightly dreading January and February. The school has morning classes for half the students and afternoon classes for the other half because there's not enough classrooms. I'm not sure when I'll be teaching, but it's gonna be really hot there by 10am. The school is nice though. It's new, but there are only 8 real classrooms, and 4 or 5 makeshift ones. 4 or 5 more real ones are in the process of being built though.

I'll be back here for xmas, so I'll probably have another post up soon!

Life as a PCV has been full of surprises. We were officially sworn in as Volunteers (before that we were Trainees) on Tuesday at the Charge's house in Maputo. After one last night in Namaacha, I said bye to my host family, promised to come back to visit next year, and headed to the airport to fly here to Nampula City on Wednesday.

We were put up in a really nice hotel, and my roommate and I were excited to find out there was a pool there. After dinner we decided to go for a swim, which was really refreshing. Since we arrived at night we hadn't been able to see what the pool looked like very well, and we joked about how funny it would be if we woke up and realized the pool was green, or had poop in it or something. Well, sure enough, we awoke to find out that the pool was VERY greeen (although hopefully feces free), and everyone was disgusted when we told them we went swimming.

Yesterday (Thursday) we had the regional conference for all the new volunteers here in the north and our supervisors. My first conversation with my director went something like this:

Me: So are there many other English teachers at the school?

Alexe: Yes, we have a lot of great English teachers. We are very excited for our new chemistry teacher.

Me: Your new chemistry teacher?

Alexe: Yes, you teach chemistry right?

Well apparently now I do. Which I'm actually kind of excited about cuz I'll get to teach in Portuguese.

That was surprise #1. Surprise #2 was this conversation:

Me: So what is my house like?

Alexe: It's very nice. It's big, it has a table, chairs, bed, etc. And when our district gets electricity next year we'll buy a small refridgerator for you.

Me: There's not electricity?

Alexe: No, the whole district of Nacaroa doesn't have electricity, but I think we will get it next year.

So I have no electricity. The school has no electricity, although it recently got running water. But with no electricity I'll have no way to charge my phone. But since the market in my village sells primarily rice, peanuts, some beans, and a few canned vegetables and fruits, I'll have to make frequent trips to neighboring towns, and hopefully I'll be able to charge it then.

One final surprise: My house isn't ready, so I'll be staying in a Guesthouse or something for the first week or so. Of my various surprises this is the most annoying, even though it sounds like the least significant. But I really wanted to get settled into my house, see what else I need to buy, get organized, etc. Hopefully it will be ready before xmas.

Me and one other volunteer are both opening extremely rural sites, so while everyone else headed out to site today, we got to stay here in Nampula to do some shopping. We managed to buy matresses, stoves, gas tanks and gas, pots, dishes, etc all today, without a car, in a foreign city we didn't know at all, and transport them all back to the PC office here. We also went for another swim in the green pool, since there were no adverse side effects from my first swim.

My school director seems really organized and on top of things. He was brought to Nacaroa in 2006, which was when the district first got a secondary school. Before that, students didn't really have the opportunity to go past 7th grade unless they moved away to another city. This is the first year that there will be an 11th grade, and next year right before I leave the first 12th grade class will graduate, which will be really exciting to see that happen. The school building is apparently rather new, but there are not enough classrooms to accomodate all of the students now, but they are building more now. My director used to work in Nacala, and there were PCVs at his school there, so he's familiar with PC and stuff, but I'll be a new experience for Nacaroa.

I still haven't found out much more about my roommate. He said she will probably be the new French teacher they will be getting, but she hasn't been assigned yet. Since teachers are government workers they really don't have much choice about where they teach, and they get assigned to schools, usually somewhat near their homes. Teachers have to be at school starting Jan 8th, so with moving, xmas, and new years, I think I'll be pretty busy. I also found some cheap books in Portuguese on the street today, so I'm excited to start reading them, if I have much free time.

I'm really excited for our Xmas celebration here. We have to stay in our Provinces, but there are 10 new volunteers in Nampula, so we're all getting together. We drew names for a secret santa, and two of the PCVs have sewing machines, so they are going to make stockings, and the rest of us are going to bring little stocking stuffers for everyone. These two PCVs also have a ridiculous amount of games, so we will have plenty to keep us busy. Hopefully I'll be able to post again around xmas. Happy holidays!

So I guess you can see my parents post below and you all know where I´ll be going for the next two years. Our Model School here went well, our students were really great and gave us hugs and stuff the last day. Yesterday I went with some friends to hike a mountain nearby where Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa all meet. It was a pretty intense climb, and it unfortunately rained a bit so the pictures aren´t as great as they could have been. Tomorrow a bunch of us are hiking to a nearby waterfall that is supposed to be really beautiful. There is really only one week left here in Namaacha, and all of us are pretty much ready to go to site now that we know where we will be going. This last week of training is going to last forever!

I´m also really excited about the other volunteers who will also be in Nampula province with me. Apparently several of us have September birthdays, so we are already planning a big party, as well as a christmas party for this year. We need to stay at site for either xmas or new year, and we can go away for two weekends per month, within our province, for the first three months. And I know Moz is incredibly far away, but if anyone wants to come visit you´re more than welcome!!

I have had nothing stolen here so far, which really reflects the awesomeness of the people here rather than the security of the houses. On Tuesday I went home for lunch to find my house locked and no one there. I debated going across the street to my friend´s house, or texting one of my brothers to come let me in, but in the end i decided to break in by climbing up on a bucket and jumping in through the open window, which was remarkably easy. About 10 minutes later I got a text from my brother telling me where the keys were.

Peace Corps had a great thanksgiving dinner for us, and we had a big American football game too, which was a lot of fun. That was also the day we got our site placements! Some people will be living in mud huts without electricity (and requested such sites), while others have hot running water. But since everyone wanted different things, most people were happy with what they got.

My house here is rather empty now, since it is summer and several family members have gone away for the holidays. Right now it´s just me, Mama, and my two brothers Zinho and Samito.

And a quick update on Mike: He moved to Vale, Colorado for the skiing season and has a job with Vale Mountain and gets to ski a lot!

[Written by mom and dad after speaking with Jess on Thanksgiving]

I found out yesterday that my service site for the next two years is in Nacaroa, a rural district in the province of Nampula, in northern Mozambique. I will teach English to students in 8th to 10th grade, probably seven classes with about 70 students per class.

I will be the only Peace Corps Volunteer in Nacaroa, and the first one ever to serve there. This is exactly the type of setting that I was hoping for, so I am really excited about it! I want to become part of the local community and culture, speaking Portuguese as much as possible, so I like the idea of being the only Volunteer there. Other Volunteers from my training group have been assigned to nearby districts in Nampula province, close enough that we should be able to visit each other occasionally. Nampula city, the capital of the province, is about 3-4 hours from Nacaroa. Nampula is the third largest city in Mozambique and is known as a business center.

I will not see my living quarters until I move there on Dec 10, but here is what I have heard about it: I will have a Mozambiquan roommate, probably a teacher from the school where I will teach. The main living quarters has two bedrooms and a common living room. The kitchen is in a hut outside the main living area, and the bathroom also is outside. There is no running water. The nearest water source is about 600 meters away, so I probably will pay someone to carry water for me. There is electricity, but it is only on from 6:00 -10:00 PM. I don’t know what we do for food storage – with only four hours per day of electricity, we won’t have a refrigerator. There is cell phone reception in the area, but I don’t know how good the reception will be at my house and school. I don’t know if there is internet access at the school or anyplace nearby.

I can’t wait until training is finished and I head to Nacaroa! I am sooo… looking forward to seeing my new home, meeting my roommate, and becoming part of Nacaroa!

I had a great time in morrumbene and we went to undo beach also i'm in mastun now and i just bought some really cool earrings that are the shape of a mozambican map. We start model school this week, which is kind of like student teaching.

I'm on my way for a site visit, which basically entails visiting a current volunteer to see their site and job and stuff. I'm going to the city of morrumbene in the province of inhambane, which is near the beach! I'm happy to say i've no been sick since the last post. Me and my neighbor meagan made chocolate chip cookies from scratch and a made up recipe and were very popular with the people who happened to be around.

Everything is still going great here! I've been sick a few times in the past few weeks (stomach things), but still loving it overall. Some highlights of that include my mama putting a bucket in my room and telling me I could go to the bathroom (and she wasn't referring to urine...) in there so I wouldn't have to go outside at night. I tried to tell her there was no way I was going to diarrhea in my room, but she insisted so I had to tell her I would and then sneak out as need be. She also gave me cheetos and cookies to eat, and didn't seem to understand why I didn't eat them.

It's getting to be the beginning of the rainy season here, which means the dirt roads get incredibly muddy and slippery. It also means that there isn't much water left in the wells, and the water that is there is quite dirty. I didn't have water to bathe yesterday, so I was really excited for my one today, until I was the water. It looked dirty enough to have been used the clean the floor already, but amazingly I still felt a lot cleaner afterward than before.

Another thing that goes along with the rain is rain gear, so I wanted to comment on a few rain outfits my fellow trainees have worn that I think my father would really approve of:

1) A few people have ponchos, which for those of you who don't know, my dad is a strong advocate of. I've kept one in the trunk of my car even since I got my license because he said I never knew when I would want one. The answer was never, even though Mike did use it once.

2) One of my friends has a hardcore rain outfit that reminds me of the one my dad wore to Dillsburg when I was in middle school. It consists of waterproof overalls, and a jacket to match, all olive green

Next weekend we will be going on site visits, which means we will be staying with current volunteers Sat-Wed to see what their sites and jobs and lives are like, so I'm really excited for that. I'll find out where I'll be going for that on Wed, which won't be relevant to where I'll ultimately be placed for 2 years.

I really want to get my hair braided. I lot of my friends have sisters who do it for them, but I only have brothers, so that hasn't happened for me. I tried to tell one of my friends' moms that I wanted braids, hoping that she would get one of her daughters (she has five) to do it, but instead she just laughed like it was the funniest suggestion she had ever heard, so I didn't get braids.

There is a really beautiful mountain nearby that I really want to hike a little bit. Me and some friends headed for a walk in that direction this morning, but didn't go too far, and we want to make a day trip of it sometime.

Well that's all for now...I'm still waiting for a call from my dear sister...perhaps she needs my dear parents to buy here Skype cards?

Hey!! I'm finally using the internet from Namaacha! I might be getting on a little more frequently now. So it's been going pretty good so far. The family I'm staying with is great, a lot of people in one house: Mama Anita, an Aunt, sister Clara (31), brothers Samito (22), Zinho (20), and Jaque (17), and Clara's son Zeca (10), and me. The house has one main room that is divided into a dining room and a living room by a curtain. There are 4 rooms that come off the main one, the kitchen, my room, and then the two bedrooms that everyone else sleeps in. The food has been good, and I haven't been sick so far, but a lot of the other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) have been, so I'm sure I will be soon too. My house has electricity, and they have a TV too. There is no running water, and I have a latrine hole in the backyard that also serves as the shower house. Which means that when 8 people all wake up and want to shower at the same time, and then all get home at want to shower again at the same time, it can be difficult to use the bathroom when needed. Which hasn't been a big problem yet, it just makes me nervous for when I inevitably get sick...

Training overall has been unimpressive. It is not well organized so we spend a lot of time waiting around. We also have 5 different people come to talk about the same thing, and since they don't hear the other presentations there is a lot of repitition. Language training is the best part, but it's still not intensive, and most people don't like it very much. But I like my family, and I practice talking with them, and I like the people in my language group and we have fun talking about random things in Portuguese. But I would definitely not call training intensive and full of important information. Namaacha is really pretty, which is good because we spend a lot of time walking all over to go to our classes, which are not organized near each other.

My brothers here are really in to watching Smackdown (wresting). Portuguese is coming along all right, still have a long way to go but I like talking to my family a lot. I have pictures of thanksgiving and halloween that I told them I'll have to explain to them in a few weeks cuz what I said last week made them think Americans were a little wierd. There are elections coming up here soon, so hopefully all will go smoothly with that and we won't get evacuated. I have a cell phone now, if you want the number ask Emily or my parents. Well, that's all for now!

So I have a little more internet time and I thought of a few "Mozambican" things I've noticed, so I figured I'd add them.

First, I didn't know they drive on the other (British) side of the road here. Not only do they drive on the other side of the road, but they also walk on the other side of hallways/staircases too. It took me a little while to figure that out, and I wondered why I kept bumping into people in the airport and at our hotel. But then I noticed the escalators at the airport were switched, and it started to make sense. I'd never really thought about the driving on the other side of the road expanding to walking on the other side of hallways too, but it makes sense.

The other main thing to note is some medical procedures. We obviously have had to get several shots here for our own good, but they never really tell us what they are injecting us with, or if it has any side effects or anything. Also, when I got some shots today the medical assistant that was injecting me was just putting the used needles back on the table (there was a red biohazard disposal right next to her...I guess that's not common and she didn't know what it was for). Then the head nurse came over and told her where to put them, explaining they weren't going to be reused. Luckily I know that no one here has HIV since we all had to get tested before coming, but still. I've also started my malaria meds, but I'm taking Doxy, which doesn't give you vivid dreams, it just makes you get sunburned really easily. It seems kind of counterproductive to have a malaria med with that side effect given where malaria is prevalent, but oh well.

Well thats all for now, it's almost 10pm which means bedtime! I'm excited to see my training village tomorrow!

Well I'm happy to say I've arrived safely in Mozambique! We are staying at a rather nice hotel in Maputo, the capital of Moz. We have just had the lucky chance of meeting MC Rogers who is apparently a famous Mozambican popstar. I've never heard of him, but google him and see if it's true. So far we've had some orientation sessions, gotten some shots and other medicines, and gone over a bunch of info. Tomorrow we will be going to Namaacha, the town where we will have Pre-Service Training (PST). I can't really get a feel for Moz yet since the hotel is nice, but in a bad part of town, so we're not allowed to leave. We will be back here next Sat so I think I will be able to see more of the capital then. I'm excited to meet my host family and see what my house will be like. There are some current volunteers here with us now, and it sounds like living conditions might be better than we expected. Some families had TV, almost all had electricity, none had running water though, which is fine. It's supposed to be pretty cool in Namaacha, especially at first.

I've met a lot of cool people so far, and all the staff seems really nice. There's almost 70 of us, so it's taking a while to learn names and whatnot, but we're getting there. I wish I had more "Mozambican" information to share, but all we've really seen is the hotel, which is not too different from any other hotel, except we don't drink the water here.

And I'm happy to say, I have an address that I you can use to send mail to me during PST:

Jessica Bass

Corpo da Paz/Peace Corps

Avenida do Zimbabwe 345

Maputo, Mozambique

This address will be valid the entire time I'm here, but after mid-Dec I'll probably get a PO box closer to near where I'll be living, when I find out my site, but you can send letters to that address until I say otherwise.

I'm not sure when my next opportunity to use the internet will be, but not for at least a week I don't think, maybe not for a month, who knows.

Hey everyone! So I have about a week left in the States before heading to Mozambique, so I wanted to get this up and running before I leave. I'll be spending the next 27 months in Mozambique as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English in a secondary school there. Hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with everyone through this blog, but I'll have to wait and see what the internet situation is like. For the first three months I'll be staying in a village in southern Mozambique near the border with Swaziland. After that I'll get assigned to a post somewhere else in the country, and live there for two years as teacher. I've heard that I probably won't have too much internet access during the first three months, but after that I will probably have a more reliable connection. We will see!