The first meetings

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who so generously donated to the library project!  Hopefully, as the rainy season is beginning to dry out, we can start construction within the next couple of months!

Meanwhile, with only classes in the mornings, I have been looking for projects to keep me busy in the afternoons.  Last weekend, I had my first meetings for a newly formed girls club and English club.

First, the girls club. 

REDES: Back in 2005, a couple Peace Corps volunteers had the idea of creating a national organization called REDES - Raparigas Em Desenvolvimento, Educação, e Saúde (the English acronym would be GIDEH, Girls In Development, Education, and Health- not quite as catchy).  Now, the organization has grown to include over 90 youth groups, some run by a Peace Corps volunteer with a Mozambican counterpart, others solely run by a Mozambican leader.  In general, the goal of REDES is to empower young Mozambican women, giving them the knowledge to make good and healthy decisions, build successful futures and reduce their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.

I first presented the idea of starting a REDES group to a woman named Lidia who works with AJUDEMU (the organization I am working with on the library project).  Lidia is everything a strong counterpart should be; she is a successful Mozambican woman, has a career, and is reliable and passionate about doing volunteer work in her community.  Unfortunately, Lidia may be transferred out of Murrupula for her job, and, ultimately, the goal is that the group will continue without me once I leave at the end of the year.  To combat this, Lidia suggested working with a 20 year old student, Neusa, to teach her about how to be a leader and take over the group once she is transferred.

Last Saturday was REDES-Murrupula’s first meeting.  I think due to some confusion about the date/time of the first meeting plus unfamiliarity with the location, only four girls came to the first, of what will be weekly, meeting.  Admittedly somewhat disappointed, we attempted to continue with our planned agenda.  We played a name game using a couple beach balls and explained more about the somewhat foreign concept of what a “girls club” actually means and what type of activities we would/could do together.  It was all a little less energetic than I had envisioned and had room for improvement, but hopefully this coming Saturday will bring more members.

English Club: Immediately following this first REDES meeting, I went to the school for the first English Club meeting.  There, I am working with another English teacher to provide a venue for students to come practice their English in a fun environment.

 Through advertising with a colorful sign taped to the school wall, over 30 students attended this first Saturday meeting!  I knew a lot of students were interested in having some English help, but, after a somewhat disappointing REDES turnout, this all went so much better than I could have envisioned! 

I am hoping to begin each Saturday meeting with some type of song, whether it be a radio song or a “Hokey Pokey” type song.  This week, we taught them the chorus to “Glad You Came” by The Wanted. The lyrics are as follows:

The sun goes down

The stars come out

And all that counts

Is here and now

My universe will never be the same

I’m glad you came

They loved it!  Following the song, we discussed what English Club was and organized other meeting times during weekday afternoons, then played a name game practicing simple introduction sentences, followed by a twist on the game I’ve always called “Move Your Booty”, but changed to “Everybody Who…”  One person stands in the middle of a circle of people standing close together and he/she has to say something like “Everybody who has sandals” and then everyone wearing sandals must run to find a different spot in the circle, leaving a new person to stand in the center.  I was a little unsure how the game would go over with students who have a limited vocabulary, but it couldn’t have gone better!  It is definitely a game we will be playing again using a sentence like “Everybody who likes…” or “Everybody who is…”

On Monday as I walked up to the school in the morning, a few students shouted to me, “Good Morning, Teacher! I’m glad you came!”  And I could hear some other students practicing singing along to the lyrics as they played their most recently downloaded song on their cell phone.  J

After a frustrating Monday morning of dealing with irregular and weak electricity and thus impossible computer lessons, in the afternoon I had my first weekday meeting for English Club.  This time, over 20 students came.  I began the meeting with a tongue twister to practice the “th” sound, a difficult sound for someone whose native language has nothing even resembling it.  “The thousand thieves thought that the other thirty-three thieves took their things.”  Then we made some club rules, answered some vocab questions including translations of words from “pumpkin” to “pea” to “Chemistry”.  We then had a team/group competition to practice making sentences with the new vocab and ended by repeating the tongue twister faster and faster. 

All in all, I am totally pleased with how these first meetings went.  Yes, REDES has room for improvement, but even with just four girls, I returned home feeling content, feeling like I am starting to do what I came here to do and what I enjoy doing. 

P.S. Any ideas for games, icebreakers, activities, suggestions, etc. are greatly welcomed!  E-mail, Facebook, comment below.  Thanks J

Lucky then not so lucky then lucky again

The day started out with luck on my side.  I woke up around 5:30am Friday morning, motivated and ready to travel to Nampula to run some errands and then to Nametil to visit Adam for the weekend.  I walked for about 15-20 minutes out to the highway, thankful for the good travel weather of white fluffy clouds and blue sky, not too hot and not raining.  As I reached the road and headed towards a parked chapa waiting to fill up, a VW SUV approached and I somewhat half-heartedly stuck my hand out to flag them down, not expecting them to actually stop.  To my surprise (and probably theirs too at seeing a white girl out here), they did stop and I eagerly got in the car with an Indian girl and Mozambican lady, both probably in their early 20s.  Leather seats, air conditioning, seat belts!  I was in Heaven!  This was going to be a good ride in to Nampula J

About an hour and a half of pleasant chats and pleasant driving, we reached the city and I headed to my Peace Corps office.  I spent the next hour or two running around buying extension cords for my school’s computers (I bugged them enough that they finally just gave me the money to go and buy them myself!), printing and getting copies made for my exam this week, and buying some snacks for the weekend.  By now, it was getting sunnier, humid, and hot, but I was proud of myself for being so productive.

Around 10:30am, I headed to the station for Nametil, chatting with my cab driver along the way. 

Then my luck turned around…

The transportation available for Nametil can be a little unreliable, not really sure when, or even if, a chapa is going to come to the station.  So, when there is a chapa there, it’s usually better to get on it rather than stand by and hope something else comes.  The “station” is in no way what the term might imply.  It’s just a corner on the side of a busy dirt road where a chapa or truck parks and loads passengers or goods, people walk around selling bread and random other things from soda to perfume to stickers to kitchen supplies, and other people just hang out watching the hustle and bustle.  It’s not really a place one would want to wait around for an extended period of time.

So when my taxi pulled up and I saw a chapa there, partially filled with passengers, I did think to myself about how it did not appear to be in the nicest condition, but I didn’t really have many other options, so I got on, taking a seat in the back row.  A man sat on my right with a young child in his lap and two other gentlemen filled the seat on my left, squeezing us all together in the cramped space.  The seat in front of us had no back to it, but with my bags in my lap, it was actually not totally uncomfortable. 

We then proceeded to sit there for over an hour, waiting for more passengers to come, those last two people seemingly taking forever to get there as we sat dripping sweat in the back seat, feeling absolutely no airflow from the small open windows up front and the trunk unable to be opened, of course.  People started getting restless and uncomfortable, acknowledging how this was not good for young babies to be sitting in such heat, but the driver was nowhere to be found.  People threatened to get off and wait for another car to arrive if this one didn’t leave soon.  Finally, the driver appeared and it seemed like we were going to leave.  After a few failed attempts, the engine finally started and we were off…

The road to Nametil is a pot-hole-ravine-crevice filled dirt road for 72km (about 45miles), worse than any of the “shortcut roads” my dad has ever taken us on.  The constant bumps are not only rough on your body as you strain to not hit your head on the ceiling, but also on these cars that are already not in the greatest condition.  So, when about an hour in to the ride, at 12:50pm, our chapa came to a halt on the side of the road and someone explained to me that a part had broken (some kind of triangle, they said), I was disappointed and frustrated but not totally surprised.  The passenger next to me recommended I take all of my bags with me, this chapa was not going anywhere anymore…..excellent.

So the 20 or so chapa passengers filed out of the car, gathered all of our belongings and walked to a small tree to wait in the small amount of shade there for another vehicle to, hopefully, pass by soon.  There was really nothing else to do!  No cell phone service, we were out in the middle of nowhere!  It was really pretty sitting there alongside a riverbed, but there was nothing around…

About 30 minutes later, an already extremely overloaded pickup truck was the first car to pass and a few daring people decided they would try to squeeze on to the bed of the truck, finding places to stand and hold on.  No thank you!  So then there were about 12 of us left under that tree, waiting. 

They started chatting with me and I told them I was a teacher, heading to visit my colleagues and boyfriend in Nametil.  They asked me questions like, do you have roads like this in your land?  Is there a shortage of cars there?  Can a white person and a black person get married?  What color would their children be?  It’s possible the baby could be white?!  A brief genetics lesson…on the side of a dirt road…out in the middle of nowhere…. …only in Africa…

Finally, at 2:25pm, a big flatbed truck came past and we explained our dilemma to the driver who informed us that he was not going all the way to Nametil but to another village about 30km outside of the city.  I had already decided that any kind of forward movement would be better than sitting here with no phone service.  If nothing else, I was getting closer and could at least probably call Adam and let him know what was happening.  Soon, the rest of the group was also convinced to jump on and we all were headed in the right direction, laughing how little by little, we would get there.

About 30 minutes later, we arrived on the outskirts of a town called Mecua, still about 19miles away from Nametil, but closer than I was before!  Thankfully, there was cell phone service here and I was able to call Adam and let him know about my situation, hoping there was something he could do to help from his end, but knowing that there wasn’t really much anyone could do.  (He did go up to his station to see if there were any drivers waiting there who maybe would come and pick us up, but no luck…)  Also, at this point, my phone was blinking at me “battery low”.  Of course, right?! 

It was 3pm by this point, meaning I still had about three hours of sunlight time left, but also meaning I only had three hours of sunlight left and I started to get a little nervous.  The road was unusually quiet, a few cars only leaving towards Nampula but none coming in to Nametil.  And the group of us continued sitting there, waiting to see what would happen.  “Estamos mal,” they kept saying.

Finally, at 4pm, a van headed to Nametil stopped for us and fortunately, a fellow female passenger knew the driver and convinced him to give us all a ride.  Thank god!  What a sigh of relief!

So after having left my house around 6am then leaving Nampula at 11:45am, I finally arrived in Nametil at 5:30pm, exhausted and hungry but so grateful that I made it.

And then we had delicious chicken for dinner with Hidden Valley Ranch and Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce Adam and Kevin had brought from home, and I was a very happy person again J  Simple things…

So after a quick 38 hours or so in Nametil, Sunday morning I headed back to Murrupula, a much less adventurous ride this time, thankfully J

Mid Service Conference

January 27^th, Moz 17 volunteers were all once again united for the first time since January 2012 for our group’s Mid-Service Conference (actually, it’s past the mid-service point as we’ve officially been in country for over 16 months, but the idea still remains accurate.)  Flown to the capital city Maputo, we 39 members were rewarded with seven nights in a hotel complete with running water, air conditioning and per diem allowances burning a hole in our bank accounts just waiting to be spent in this city full of delicious restaurants!  What more could a Peace Corps volunteer want?

The first day of the conference, we had a special memorial ceremony for Lena and Alden, the volunteers who passed away last December.  It was an informal event consisting of several activities including planting trees, making a garden, painting walking stones and creating a mural in the girls' honor.  It was the perfect event and a great way to remember our lost friends.

 

Here's our memorial garden.  We painted stones, planted flowers and bushes and each volunteer painted their own square around the mural quote "The Love They Gave Will Forever Endure".  Also, a zoom in on the plaque which dedicates the garden to Lena and Alden.

The remainder of the conference aimed to provide an opportunity for us to share our successes, lessons learned, strategies in the classroom and community as well as performing a yearly physical and dental exam.  We had discussions in the morning and afternoons were either free or for our scheduled dental or medical appointments. 

I think probably everyone’s favorite part was having the evenings free to hang out and sample the huge variety of restaurants in the city.  I ate spinach and ricotta-stuffed ravioli, thai food  including spring rolls, curry, pad thai and beef in a thai sauce, pizza, a burrito and nachos (interestingly made with Dorito-like chips, but still delicious), cheese, ice cream, real coffee,  and so much more!  My tummy was very happy J  

All in all, the week was a great chance to catch up with some good friends and I think we all returned to site motivated, inspired, and ready to continue this last year.

Let's Make A Difference!

During any volunteer position, one may be challenged by the feeling that she should do more or, on the other side of the spectrum, that there are just too many projects to do and not enough time or resources.  These are both feelings that I struggle with probably every day and are feelings that now weighs heavily as I am starting to count down my last year of being a volunteer here in Africa.  And so it leaves one with the question of, “What am I going to leave behind?  What difference can I make that will have a lasting effect? 

The most frequent requests I receive here are from students and other community members wanting to learn and improve their English, invoking thoughts for starting an English club.  With a small set of Portuguese reading books, I worked with a few children to improve their literacy skills, invoking thoughts for creating a bigger children’s reading program.  Hoping to continue working with students interested in the sciences since I am not teaching Biology this year, I have thoughts of starting a science club.  Amongst these ideas of forming various clubs and after school programs, I continually run in to the problem of not having the resources nor a proper place to meet with these groups, invoking thoughts for a different project, the creation of the Murrupula Community Library.

Working with a local professor and a community group, our goal is to construct a library and resource center that provides both Portuguese and English books, as well as a space for student and community groups to hold meetings and other secondary library programs like tutoring, English lessons, and children’s reading sessions.  In order to accomplish this, I need your help.  My project has been posted on the Peace Corps donation website:

Donate to Murrupula Community Library

and you could be just one click away from helping my goal become a reality here in Murrupula.  Any donation of any size would be greatly appreciated and put to good use.  We cannot begin building until all of the money has been raised and the clock is ticking away on the amount of time I have left here. 

Imagine growing up without ever having touched a book, trying to learn to read and write in a classroom of 100 or more students, learning another language with no way to practice it outside the classroom.  Help me to begin to tackle some of these issues for my community!  Help me to make a positive, lasting change!  

Thank you in advance for your generosity and continued support. Muito Obrigada!  Kuchukuru!

This is the starting point - We are going to tear down this existing structure and build a new, bigger, taller, one-room building in its place, along with a veranda.

Mac & Cheese Mistake

Cheese is a luxury nearly all Peace Corps volunteers cherish; a rare, usually pricey, treat.  That said, please don’t pass judgment on the following behavior…

The other day, Adrienne and I decided to make Mac & Cheese for dinner, using one of the precious boxes of Kraft Mac & Cheese that Adrienne had brought back from home.  The electricity here has been ridiculous lately, going out several times a day for anywhere from 5-10 minutes to several hours.  Of course, right as I threw in the pasta to boil, the power went out.  I entertained the idea of lighting the charcoal outside to cook the pasta, but it seemed like so much work and quite the process, all just to boil some noodles.  Adrienne and I joked about how the power would probably come back right as the charcoal was lit or right after the pasta finished cooking…

So we decided to just see what would happen to the pasta if it just sat in the hot water, thinking, yeah it’ll probably be a little gummy, but it’ll cook.  That was mistake number one.  Yes, the pasta did “cook” after about 15 minutes and yes, it did become very chewy.  However, working by lantern light, we deemed it decent enough to tame our hungry tummies and proceeded to add the vital packet of processed powdered cheese, and mixed in some powdered milk and water.  Mistake number two.

Voilà! The electricity returned!  (Of course!)  Tadá! The worst Mac & Cheese ever!  After sitting for a couple minutes, the texture of the noodles had become something I can only describe as like eating glue.  The gluey noodles sat in a pool of a cheesy, watery soupy substance.  It was inedible, this coming from Peace Corps volunteers who will eat almost anything, especially if in a cheese sauce!  Adrienne and I looked at each other, neither one of us wanting to say that we should throw it out, wasting the precious packet of powdered cheese…

Now with the power on again and because we had such cheesy soup-coated noodles, I had the idea of draining the cheese sauce, thus separating the terrible noodles and salvaging the precious cheese sauce, and attempting to boil some new macaroni noodles.  We proceeded to use a spoon to squish the sauce out of the gluey substance, rescuing what we could of such a delicacy and preciously saving it in a mug. 

Thankfully the electricity did not go out during the second batch of pasta making!  Tasting a properly cooked noodle once again emphasized just how bad those first noodles were!  We poured the protected cheese sauce over the new batch and happily enjoyed our cheesy meal.