Science Fair

I am officially back in Mozambique after two wonderful, but way too fast, weeks back in California for my sister’s wedding.  I ate everything from Del Taco, Panda Express and In N Out to California Pizza Kitchen, Chipotle, and Don Jose.  I enjoyed the luxuries of running water, a toilet seat, floors you can walk around barefoot on, and dependable electricity.  I was awed by the sheer amount of cars on the freeway, so many paved roads (without trash littered around), movie theaters, restaurants where they actually serve everything on the menu, and the lack of 30 people crammed into a small car.  It was absolutely amazing to be home and see my family and friends.

After over 65 total hours of traveling there and back, it was again time to get back to the reality of life in Africa.  I made it back just in time for the first week of provincial exams (the ones where the government writes the tests).  I helped proctor two tests this week, and will do one next week, other than that, just have to grade about 100 biology assignments about classifying plants in the area as well as 150 computer students notebooks. 

More exciting though, this Saturday was my local Science Fair.  I can’t remember if I already explained about the science fair, but if not, I’ll give a brief explanation here.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Science and Technology in Mozambique, Peace Corps organizes a National Science Fair for secondary school students.  First, individual districts hold a local science fair (for example, my local fair in Murrupula).  After, two winners from 11^th-12^th grade and two winners from 8^th-10^th grade go to a Provincial Fair (ours is in Nampula).  There students from districts or schools around the province compete for a chance to go to the National Fair where winners can receive prizes like a lap top or digital camera.

Though I started out with almost 30 interested students at my first information meeting, we had 4 students actually present projects during our local fair to an audience of 11 students who came to watch, 4 professors, a panel of 4 jury members and me. 

The students were instructed to create an experiment, demonstration, or invention, create a poster presentation, and prepare a presentation.  All the students did a great job!  A panel of 4 professors gave points to each student for visual presentation, oral presentation, use of the scientific method, knowledge of the scientific concept and importance of the project in life. 

Our fourth place winner, presented about water filtration and demonstrated how one can use toilet paper to filter out particulates in dirty water.  Our third place winner presented his project about the density of objects.  He demonstrated how an egg floats in salt water and sinks in plain water.  The second place student did a project analyzing the rate of fermentation of different kinds of fruits (papaya, lemon, orange, and tangerine).  He found that the papaya fermented the fastest and therefore must have the most sugar.  And our first place winner used electrolysis to create an insecticide.  He used a battery attached to two wires to create a current in salt water with iron nails.  Using a sweet potato root (I’m not totally sure why), he created a liquid that can be used to kill bugs, or even rats.  He even brought in a bug to demonstrate how his liquid will kill the insect on contact.  Though I didn’t totally understand his procedures, he definitely created an interesting project.

Because all the students were in 11^th-12^th grade, only two will go to Nampula for the Provincial Fair in August.  I had brought back some books from the US for prizes, including an English/Portuguese dictionary with pictures (1^st place chose that), a book full of questions and answers about everything from science to animals to space (2^nd place’s choice), and a pop-up book about the human body.  4^th place received a daily planner that I hadn’t used because I didn’t want him to feel left out.  I also gave each student a blue, black, and red pen as prizes and will print out certificates for them. 

Though smaller than I had originally hoped for, the fair was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to next year and hopefully having more students participate.  Only four participated, but it was great seeing them do something on their own and then present their work, something these kids don’t get the opportunity to do that often.  Perhaps I had hoped for more students, but I have learned to rationalize my work here as me giving students and people an opportunity and it’s up to them if they want to or choose to take it. 

The four participants: Juma (11th), Jaimito (12th), Hermenegildo (12th), Aires (11th)

Participants and the Professors who helped organize and judge

Grocery List

In exactly one week from today, I will be back in the USA for a couple weeks for my sister's wedding!! Of course I am excited to see my family and friends, but I am also extremely extremely excited to EAT and EAT and EAT!!  

So Mom, here is a preliminary grocery list (I will probably add to it as my leaving day gets closer and closer).  Looking forward to opening the cupboards and seeing all the American snacks!  Thanks Mom! Love you :)

Apples

Cantaloupe

Grapes

Peaches

Honeydew

Strawberries

Lettuce/spinach

Carrots

Red bell pepper

Italian dressing

Ranch

Caesar Salad

Ribs

Bacon

Deli meats – Turkey!!

Tortillas

Bagels

Wheat sliced bread

Trix

Golden Grahams

Raisin Bran Crunch

Honey Bunches of Oats

Milk

Yogurt

Cheese (string, cheddar, provolone, American, any!)

Cream cheese

Sabra Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Salsa (Santa Barbara brand)

Tortilla chips

Pita chips

Sun chips (Garden Salsa)

Cheez-its

Triscuits

Wheat Thins

Goldfish

Granola bars (chewy, nature valley)

Fruit Snacks

Pudding Cups

Ice cream (rocky road, mint choc chip, sherbert)

Chocolate chip cookie dough

Chocolate sauce

Peanut butter

Syrup

Pot stickers (Trader Joe’s has tasty ones)

Honey Baked Ham (like Easter kind?)

And to make sure I can eat it all: TUMS (and probably some immodium AD haha)

What would you do for $2?

My birthday was this past weekend.  To celebrate, about 10 volunteers met me at Jill’s house in Carapira to just hang out and eat some fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad and cake.  Good food and good company, what more could a person want for their birthday?!

On the ride back to Nampula Sunday morning, Adam and I had another chapa adventure, this time dealing with the stereotype of the perceived wealthy American. 

After catching a boleia with a nice couple to Namialo (a city about halfway to Nampula from Carapira), we opted to take a chapa for the remaining distance to the city because the road seemed pretty empty this Sunday.  It became time to pay.  Let me explain the typical paying procedure for this van filled with at least 25 people.  Chapas have a “motorista” who drives the car, and a “cobrador” who stands in the back with the passengers, opens and closes the door, and is in charge of collecting the money from each passenger, typically beginning with the back row. 

Both Adam and I were unsure of the price for this unfamiliar chapa ride, so I asked a woman sitting next to me how much it should be.  Unfortunately, she forwarded my question to the cobrador who quickly decided to take advantage of our ignorance.  He told us the price was 100mts, which we didn’t think much of until we remembered that it was 95mts all the way to Carapira, so that couldn’t possibly be the correct price.  We watched as the cobrador gave the other passengers their change back, wanting to verify that this was indeed an incorrect price.  We noticed that he was giving everyone else change so that they paid only 70mts. 

I then proceeded to argue with the cobrador (yes, in Portuguese) about how he had overcharged us.  I began with politely asking for our 60mts change and he proceeded to explain that no, it was indeed 100mts.  So I asked him, why then was everyone else paying only 70mts.  He decided to reason that because we had asked the price, it was higher.  I quickly followed, calling him out on his ridiculousness stating, no, we live here in Mozambique, we are professors and never before has this happened.  We were going the same distance as everyone else, and thus should pay the same price and he could not raise it simply because we were white.  This evoked a slight smirk out of him, indicating that I had indeed called him out and this is precisely what he was trying to do. 

He proceeded in refusing to give us our proper change, so I continued to remind him every few minutes or so about how we still needed our 60mts in change.  (Ok, that is only about $2, but that is a lot of money here in Mozambique, almost an entire other chapa ride!  And it was more about the principle of the matter, and not allowing him to rip us off.)  Eventually, he gave me 20mts, thinking that would appease me because he had “discounted” the price from 100mts to just 90mts a person.  Adam and I told him, ok great, but we still are only going to pay 70, so we still need 40 more. 

To make a long story short, we eventually did get the full amount of change, but it was not an easy task.  Typically, in the few other instances where something of this sort has occurred before, other fellow chapa riders back you up, telling the cobrador to pay up and be fair, but this was the first time no one really said anything to him.  I also want to emphasize, that yes, I have become accustomed to knowing that people will try to increase the price because they see white skin and think MONEY, but usually people relent after they find out we live here and know better, and it is certainly not something everyone does.  (I don’t intend to put a bad light on the entire country, just this one man, this one day.) 

I was pretty proud of myself for getting our proper change and doing it all using Portuguese.

Mozambican acrobatics

While waiting for my chapa from Nampula to Murrupula to fill up and leave, I took note of the items passing people were carrying on their heads.  Quite the clever way of carrying items allowing for free hands.  Typically, they roll up a capulana on top of their heads to allow for some cushioning, but it really is pretty amazing, not always because of the sheer weight they are carrying, but also the skill of balancing these items!  

Here’s the quick list I made:

Bushel of plantains (like 50+ bananas)

One shoe

Bucket of water (that’s pretty much an everyday sight)

Sack of 25 kilos of rice

Bed Frame

Wooden table

Broom

4 wooden chairs

Sacks of carvao (that’s at least 100 pounds)

Hoe

7 crates of bottles (beer) – that’s 12 bottles per crate, 7 crates high!  That’s like Cirque du Soleil style!

**This by no means is a complete list of all the interesting things you might see, just what I saw in about a 20 minute period**

In need of push-ups...

A couple weeks ago, I attempted to go get water for myself because my neighbor who usually gets it for me has kind of disappeared lately.  I could have asked someone else around the neighborhood to help, but I wanted to see how hard it actually was… 

I pay a neighbor whose house is behind mine (maybe about 150-200 yards away) for access to their well.  It’s basically just a hole in the ground with water and you lower a small bucket attached to a rope (which is then tied to a longer branch that extends beyond the diameter of the hole so the rope doesn’t fall in) down in to the hole, let it sit for a few seconds to fill up, then lift the rope and bucket back up and pour the water in to your own bucket.   That was the easy part.

Then I had to carry the bucket back.  I will admittedly say that I have been slacking on working out lately, and I have never been one to claim to have much upper body strength, but this was pretty hard!  I stopped about every ten feet to rest, but luckily did not see too many people to totally embarrass myself.

I did successfully make it back on my own, spilling only a little, mostly down the front of my skirt, so all in all a successful adventure, but not one I need to repeat again.  For just a few meticais per bucket or some candy to pay a few children, I will gladly pay someone else to get my water for me.  Either that, or it’s time to do some more pushups and learn how to carry things on my head!  Certainly makes you appreciate those faucets in your house!

Always an adventure in Mozambican travel

Traveling with Adam to Nametil a couple weeks ago, we encountered a surprising, yet not so surprising, twist to our chapa ride.  First off, I think I have briefly explained the conditions of their road before, but it bears repeating.

The road from Nampula to Nametil is only 72km yet takes at least 2 hours.  That is about 45 miles in 2 hours!  And sometimes, more common probably, it takes closer to 3 hours, even 4, depending on your driver.  Now this ridiculous length of time is neither due to rush hour traffic nor lots of people or animals on the road.  It is because of the terrible conditions of this road.  Think of your typical four-wheel drive dirt road; yeah it has a few pot holes and you can’t travel too fast, but this road is not your typical dirt road.  Pot holes, deep crevices (sometimes at least a foot deep and half a foot wide extending for ten feet across the road, maybe canyons is a better word), random dips in the road…basically awesome times riding on a chapa with at least 23 other people, almost no suspension, and generally very little, if any, padding in the seats.  It is pretty amazing what you can get used to here though.

So we are riding along “comfortably” in the back seat, backpacks in our laps, trying to avoid hitting our heads on the roof or window, when the chapa made a funny sound.  The driver got out, inspected the tires, deemed them alright, then we continued on.  About ten minutes later however, the sound happened again followed by the driver’s “Ee-pah” (essentially, the Mozambican sound for “oh shoot!”), definitely not a good sign. 

All the passengers began to file out of the chapa with all of their belongings, Adam and I still seated in the back wondering what was going on.  I asked the woman next to me who explained that there was a flat tire or something wrong with the car and that everyone was deciding to walk because we were “close”. 

“Close” in Mozambican terms can really mean anything, one kilometer, one mile, 5k, 10 miles… But Adam and I decided we might as well walk with the rest of them rather than just sit and wait, maybe we could catch a ride with another passing car perhaps. 

By now it was already dark outside, and for some reason, tonight the street lights decided not to work.  So we had a nice walk under the stars, but had to be careful not to look up for too long for fear of falling in to a crevice or pot hole.  About an hour and a half later, we finally arrived at Adam and Kevin’s house, sweaty, a little dirt covered, but thankful to be there.

I have a feeling though that this won’t be my only broken down chapa story….

An interesting question...

On my walk home from school a couple weeks ago, I met this Chinese man who works in the gold mine close to my town.  He seemed stunned to come across a white girl, asking me where I was from and what I was doing here.  He seemed even more surprised to learn that I was here by myself asking me, “Aren’t you afraid?”

Now this is a question I got a lot from family and friends before leaving for Peace Corps and frequently during those first few weeks at site from people in my community.  Still, over seven months later, I am not quite sure how to respond to this question.  Sometimes I still can’t believe I, a 23 year old girl just out of college, am living alone in Murrupula, Mozambique teaching in Portuguese.  Of course that’s scary! 

So yes sir, of course I’m afraid, at least sometimes.  But like anything else, like moving anywhere new, it takes time to adjust, to get comfortable in a new setting.  And yeah maybe this is a little more extreme than say moving to a new city or even a new state, but one day at a time, you really can get used to anything.  When there is no one else around, you figure it out and make do with what you have. 

Besides, I frequently think to myself, at least I have cell phone service…

The month of April.....

I think I have been pretty honest with this blog in describing my time here, explaining both the good and the bad, my emotional highs and lows.  So, continuing with this honesty, I’d like to share about my past month or so, which will also explain a little about why it may seem like I disappeared…

Four months in to a PCVs service, Peace Corps holds an in-service training called “Reconnect”, in which volunteers from the region gather together to catch up, exchange stories, give advice for the classroom and in the community, etc.  I left for Nampula mid-April, excited to see some friends and learn about how everyone was doing at site. 

Unfortunately, whether due perhaps to being the first time my body has had a chance to actually relax in a long time or perhaps caused by something else I’m not really sure of, I was eating dinner one night and began to have this feeling in my chest like someone was sitting on it and my throat began to tighten up like it was closing.  Needless to say, this was not a fun feeling and I started feeling light-headed and definitely a little freaked out. 

I do have a slight allergy to shrimp, which was served that night at the hotel for dinner (but which I did not eat) and thought maybe this was some sort of allergic reaction.  I went up to my room and took a Benadryl, hoping the symptoms would ease.  When they did not seem to be going away at all, we took advantage of the fact that I was in Nampula already and called the doctor to have things checked out because now I was definitely freaking out. 

Peace Corps came and picked me and Adam up from the hotel and drove us to the Peace Corps office to meet with the doctor.  He checked my airway, clear.  My blood pressure and heart rate, normal.  My throat, fine.  Everything seemed to be in order, which eased my mind a little and the symptoms started to abate. 

The following day, it happened again in the afternoon.  I skipped the afternoon training session, finding it better if I lay down and tried to relax and just watch a movie in my hotel room.  But the symptoms persisted and I made another trip to the doctor.  Again, everything seemed fine, but I went to a clinic to get an EKG done.

Now, almost two months later, I forget all the details that happened in between, but in short, the symptoms still persisted for several weeks.  They would come in waves, seemingly out of nowhere, sometimes just the chest tightness feeling like I couldn’t quite get a good deep breath, other times feeling like it was hard to breathe and as if someone was pushing on my Adam’s apple or had their hand wrapped around my neck. 

Thankfully, I never passed out and the feeling would always go away, either after a few minutes or after 30 or more minutes.  I tried and tried to find a trigger that set it off, perhaps acid reflux from eating spicy food or eating too fast?  But it was never consistent and would sometimes occur during eating and other times several hours after eating.  Perhaps an allergy to something?  But then the Benadryl should have helped.  Was it my heart?  But I did get that EKG done….it was exhausting!  My body was under constant stress, I couldn’t relax and always felt anxious.  For a little over a week, I was afraid to eat because I thought that maybe it was something related to food and I didn’t really have an appetite anyway, and so on.

The doctor was aware of the continued symptoms, but, to my own fault, I didn’t really explain to him about the anxiety and how it started affecting my everyday life until about three weeks after it started.  I have always been the type of person who hates people worrying about me, wanting to appear strong and able to handle whatever.  After the first week, when the symptoms didn’t get worse (yet still wouldn’t go away and weren’t getting better), I tried to just ignore it, trying to keep myself busy and distracted.  That helped for maybe a couple days, but then the feeling came back again, and mentally I got worse.  I knew how I was feeling was not me.  I was easily overwhelmed, seemingly couldn’t function on my own and was afraid to be by myself for fear that the symptoms would happen and I wouldn’t be okay. 

Thank goodness for Adam being there with me the entire time.  He would help me focus on taking deep breaths and little sips of water, listening to my paranoid thoughts that this was going to be the worst time and I would indeed stop breathing for a bit, or helping to distract me when I could not stop thinking that I couldn’t go to sleep for fear of not waking up again in the morning (this was definitely the lowest point). 

Finally, two weekends ago, I went back and saw the doctor who had discussed my case with the other Peace Corps doctors and had agreed that my symptoms were most likely caused by anxiety and the malaria prophylaxis medication I was taking, Mefloquin.

If you Google Mefloquin, you will most likely find that common side effects do indeed include several mentally-related effects like anxiety and depression and a whole slew of other fun things.  So the doctor switched me to a different prophylaxis and I have since, and I’m happy to report, been doing better and better every day.  Mentally, I feel more and more like myself, and was finally able to return to site and be back on my own again.  I still do have some chest tightness but can at least ignore it better (or try to) or distract myself and not freak out too much, knowing that it’s not some crazy, rare, life-threatening disease, that it always goes away and that never once, during this entire past month or more, have I actually stopped breathing or passed out.  I’m hoping that as the drug gets more and more out of my system, the symptoms will cease, and for now, I am trying to get back in to my routine.

I still want to do more, but am trying to take things slow and easy, one moment at a time and make sure I give myself time to relax and do nothing every now and then (trust me, that can be hard when it seems there is always something you need to or should be doing).  But, I am still teaching of course and the second trimester only has a few more weeks, I have begun work in organizing a local science fair for my schools, and I am soooo excited to go home in just a few weeks for my sister’s wedding!