Criancas

What is a Crianca?  They make you smile.  They make you scream.  They greet you on your way to school.  They meet you at your gate when you return home.  They stand outside shouting your name for over an hour.  They are not content when you tell them you can't play today.  They stare and watch you exercising in the morning.  They ask for everything and anything.  They are the ones who can totally brighten your day, if even just for a moment.  They are Mozambican children.

Mozambique, and Africa in general, is known for its huge population of children.  In fact, over 50% of Mozambicans are under 18 years old.  It's a staggering percentage to try to imagine, but while walking around and seeing the vast number of children, usually totally on their own, without any adult supervision, it becomes a statistic that is not so surprising.  It still shocks me when I see a five year old carrying her five month old sibling on her back or when that two year old is just walking down the road by himself. While, admittedly sometimes, criancas can be frustrating such as when they throw rocks on your tin roof and don't want to leave you alone or when the baby next door will not stop crying, but most of the time they are hilarious, so cute, always full of energy, resilient, and extremely entertaining.  I can't help but smile each morning when my four year old neighbor Selema and her little brother climb the ladder in their yard to look over the fence and greet me, "Bom dia, Sara."  It's a great way to start the day as I walk past the group of children my way to school and they excitedly shout my name when I pass by, "Sara! Sara! Ta-ta! Ta-ta!"

Here are a few of my favorite crianca photos from my time here in Murrupula so far.  I'm sure there will be plenty more to come!  Most of the pictures are of the group of children that regularly come to my house to visit.  Hope they make you smile too!

Following my prompt to smile

The mistake of letting them braid my hair.
Took over an hour to get all the knots out!

Models complete with make-up

Building houses with some extra bricks.

These girls love to model!

making dolls out of fabric

Fun Friends

You always hear stories of crazy bugs and critters in Africa.  Well here are the fun friends I have made so far!  Typically, before I find a fun friend in my house, I first grab my camera to take a picture of it.  Then I use my best friend Mr. Broom to sweep my friend out of the house, or I use my other best friend Mr. Shoe to smash my housemate.  Enjoy!

I'm pretty sure that was some kind of egg sac...

Yup, the lizard is inside my mosquito net...

Scorpion surprise!

I stepped on one of these huge slugs once! So sticky!
But these are the biggest snails I have ever seen!  The shell is like 6 inches long!

A friend in the kitchen. That's Adrienne's hand for a size reference.

Google Golden Orb Weaver!  They eat birds!  This one's torso was
as long as my thumb!  I killed it with a huge rock while my
neighbors watched over the fence.

I'm not even sure what to classify this as...spider/scorpion interbreeding!

Doesn't it make you want to come visit.... :)

Quelimane - The City of Bikes

A typical Mozambican bus stop full of vendors

My last first trimester of teaching in Mozambique is over!  Only two trimesters left to go in the school year before I head home in November.  Excluding the first week of the remaining trimesters when students don’t show up, plus holidays and provincial exams, I only have 16 weeks left of teaching for the entire school year!  Trust me, it’s as crazy to me as it might sound to you.  I can’t believe how much faster time is passing this year than last year!  I remember being so thankful last year that I had made it through that first trimester that just never seemed to end.  Around this time last year, my terrible reaction to the malaria prophylaxis and the accompanying physical manifestations the anxiety caused were just beginning.  April and May were not good months for me.  But this year, things couldn’t be more different.

                                                      

During the school holiday, a huge group of volunteers from all over the country had planned to meet at Vilankulos.  Unfortunately, just before we were planning to begin our long travel to get down there, there was some political unrest in sites along the national highway, creating unsafe travel situations in that part of the country.  Peace Corps issued a travel restriction, prohibiting volunteers from travelling on that part of the highway, making it impossible for us to get to Vilankulos.  A group of 8 of us here in the North created a new plan to go to the city of Quelimane, located in Zambezia province along the Zambezi River.

Looking over the Zambezi River - Back (from left): Tony,
Sara, Adam, Sam, Derek, Erik. Front: Patrick, Adrienne

Last week, we all hopped on an 8 hour bus ride and spent the week relaxing in a new city, eating out at new restaurants and spending time with some Americans, escaping our normal lives for a bit.  An American guy who works in Quelimane and is friends with many Peace Corps volunteers, very generously opened his house to us while he was travelling.

One day, the group of us decided to head to Zalala Beach located about 40km outside of Quelimane city.  After a 30 minute chapa ride in the back of a very over-packed and bumpy truck, the driver stopped, no beach was in site.  We were soon informed that the road the rest of the way was closed, something which none of us were aware of beforehand.  We were told we would have to take a bike taxi the rest of the way, a twenty minute ride.

Bike Taxi to Zalala Beach

Bike taxis are extremely common in Quelimane.  Walking the streets can be somewhat dangerous or stressful as you must always be on the lookout not just for cars but also for passing cyclists.  For just 5meticais, you can get on the back of one of these bike taxis, sitting atop a seat just above the back tire, and the cyclist will take you anywhere in the city.

None of us were super thrilled, however, about this totally unexpected twenty minute ride on the back of a bicycle to head to this beach where the Zambezi River dumped into the ocean meaning swimming was probably not a good idea.  We had all come this far though, so we could only continue forward. 

It turned out to be kind of fun actually.  The ride was beautiful, going through rice fields filled with lily pad pools, all around us flat land spotted with the occasional house situated amongst a grouping of palm trees.  Chatting with my bike driver, I was shocked to find out he makes the trip at least 5 times every day, sometimes upwards of 7 or 8 times a day!

We reached the beach, not the prettiest beach in Mozambique, but certainly an interesting one.  Just past a line of densely packed pine trees, the sand began, sparkling due to its high content of metal deposits.  We walked along the shoreline for a bit, reaching a group of people selling fish and then headed to a restaurant to re-
hydrate and eat some lunch before heading back.

Now, back in Murrupula, the second trimester is beginning.  My computer students will learn how to use Microsoft Word this trimester, granted the electricity cooperates and I can actually use the computers to teach regularly.  In a few weeks, Adam and I are headed to meet with his brother and sister-in-law in Cape Town and Zanzibar, a trip I am so excited about!  In the meantime, I’m still keeping busy with my REDES girls group and English Club.  I am hoping to start a science club soon and am continuing organizing things as they continue to make bricks for the library.  With April coming to a close, I only have a short 6-7 months left!  As I prioritize my to do list, balancing travelling with actually working, recognizing my limits and realizing that time certainly does fly and there is always more you can or could have done, I hope to focus on strengthening not only the projects I have already started, but most importantly, continuing to strengthen the relationships I have made.  

Another Electricity Adventure

Finally, after those weeks of having no electricity and fighting with the electrical company to repair the situation, things had improved.  The power still went on and off at times throughout the day, but it always came back on and was in unison with the rest of the town, or our neighbors at least.  Adrienne and I were totally content.

The partially cut up papaya tree

Then, Saturday April 13^th, while enjoying a beautiful afternoon playing cards outside, we heard a strange crashing sound, soon realizing that it was one of our papaya trees falling down.  Of course, during its crash, it not only took out our nicely repaired fence, but also the power line linking our house to the electrical post on the road.  Perfect…

Being Saturday, neither one of us was hopeful that the electricians would be at their office, but I headed over to the EDM (Electricidade de Mocambique) office, just in case, determined to try to get this electricity problem fixed as soon as possible, if I could.  Of course, no one was at the office, but the guard instructed me to go to the electricity director’s house and talk to him there.  Also not at home, but after last times adventures, I now had his phone number and called him up.

Perhaps stretching the truth a bit, I informed him how the tree had fallen down and that there was now an exposed live wire that was dangerous to leave and should be repaired as soon as possible, emphasizing that we would pay to have the electricians come out today to fix it.  He responded saying, “Senhora, today is Saturday, we do not work today.  It is a day to be with our women and rest.  I will cut the wire, but we cannot repair it until Monday.”  He was not falling for my tricks of persuasion.

So I headed home to help Adrienne and Adam take care of what to do with this huge fallen papaya tree.  Arriving there, there was already a gentleman helping them cut it up with his machete.  Actually, when I arrived, Adrienne had the machete in hand as she wacked away at the top section of the tree while a group of about 20 children watched.  This man had just been walking by and offered to help, showing a generosity that is very common in the Mozambican culture. 

After finishing cutting up the tree, it was then time to tackle the fence.  Using rope made from tires, we re-secured the grass and bamboo fence, giving our audience a little dance show as I stood holding the fence in place (much to their amusement).  Finally, after a couple hours of work, we were finished and everything was as good as new, minus the electricity situation.

While being content with waiting until Monday to see if EDM would come, Sunday morning a neighbor Professor Shamu (yup, like the whale.  How would you explain to a Mozambican that he has the same name as a famous orca whale?) came to the house determined to repair the problem that day.  Apparently his house and six other houses behind us also did not have electricity due to the falling of the tree.  Shamu and his friend went on a mission to locate a ladder that would be tall enough to reach the electrical post.  Metal ladders are an extreme rarity here; People instead lash together bamboo to construct ladders typically only about 10 feet tall.  (It’s not like there are many tall, multi-level buildings then need to climb up.  For reaching those high up coconuts or papayas, they just climb up the trunks without needing ladders.)  Shamu came back with two ladders, confident in the fact that he could just lash them together to create a taller ladder secure enough to reach the post.  Adrienne, Adam, and I certainly had our doubts.

Next, we needed to find an electrician.  It is not unusual for people to do electrical work without any form of training.  For instance, many houses splice the electricity lines themselves, sidestepping the involvement (and payment) of any sort of electrical company.  Not the safest, but that’s the least of their concerns.  Knowing this we figured it would be pretty easy to find someone who could repair our line. 

Lightly drizzling as the electrician works

After asking some neighbors, we got the number of an actually qualified electrician who actually knew how to do work like this and would be more than competent.  Though we still had our doubts about the ladder…

Shamu climbed up first, testing out the ladder’s strength.  It held together.  So up went the electrician, though somewhat tentatively.  After about only ten minutes of work, everything was back to normal!  He even repaired the street light that had been out for as long as I have been here! 

All in all, it was quite the unexpected adventure, but due to the generosity of some Mozambicans, we came out in an actually better situation than we had started.  We are now on the same phase as the rest of our neighbors, so now we won’t be the only ones without electricity at times when everyone else around us does!  At least I hope so…

The Fight for Electricity

Wednesday, March 20th, sitting in my living room in the late afternoon, the electricity flickered, dimmed, came back, dimmed a second later, came back, and then finally died all together.  Murrupula was quiet and dark.  The electricity was out everywhere, suggesting it wasn’t just a normal power outage.  The next morning I learned that the town’s transformer had exploded and burned out.  Adrienne and I joked that the bubble gum holding it all together must have fallen out.  Though we quickly realized the electricity would be out for at least a few days, it was somewhat comforting knowing that it wasn’t coming back and not feeling like we were just waiting not knowing when it’d return. 

Adrienne and I shared many dinners outside by lantern light, cooking over charcoal, going to bed early because there wasn’t much else to do.  I read an entire book in just a couple days.  Unfortunately, both Adrienne and I had a terrible cold and desperately wanted to just lie around and watch movies or TV on our computers, but our computers had died days ago.

After locking up my house Saturday night, discouraged, sick, and frustrated that the power still had not come back, I heard cheers from the neighbors both near and far.  These cheers could only mean one thing – the electricity had come back!  However, our house still remained in the dark.  It seemed every other house in Murrupula had electricity but ours.  Of course, right?  It was already 8pm though and there was not really anything we could do until the morning.

However, then it was Sunday, and people don’t do much work on Sunday.  We called up our friend Iassito to bring over an electrician to see if it was a problem with a blown fuse or something on our house, something that could be easily fixed.  The electrician confirmed our fears, it was a problem with the main electrical set-up, meaning we would have to deal with the district’s electricity company, EDM (Electricidade de Mozambique).  Iassito fortunately knew one of the two technicians who works for the company and we visited his house.  He clearly was tired and not too motivated to do much on his Sunday day of rest.  We then went to the Director of EDM’s house to see what he could do about our unlucky situation.  Unfortunately, during our walk over there, the electricity again went out for the entire town, so we were out of luck.  The Director informed us how some part he called the “juntador” was not strong enough to support the entire town’s energy usage.  Apparently it was only supposed to be for about 200 houses but there were over 1000 houses running on it now.  So they were having to selectively turn on some houses at certain times of the day and rotate the electricity usage.  Even then, however, we should have had electricity for at least some portion of the day…

Then it was Monday, and our neighbors were back with electricity again, for at least some portion of the day.  Our house, still nothing.  Arriving at the EDM office at 2pm, the director informed me that the technicians are only there at 1pm so I would have to come back tomorrow.  Another night without power.

Tuesday I went back to the office at 12:45pm, ready to make someone do something to fix our house.  Finally around 1:45pm, the director and the technician arrived and knew what I had come for.  Tuesday, they did whatever they had to do and we had electricity finally in our house later that afternoon.

Then Wednesday morning, it went out again.  Less than 24 hours had passed.  Awesome.  We held out, hoping that it was a problem with the entire town, but then Thursday, we heard our neighbor’s music and knew something was wrong…. again.

Adrienne and I both had planned to travel for the weekend, so we were going to have to wait until after to return to harass the technicians.  Hey, maybe they would figure it out while we were gone?...

We both came home Sunday, and surprise, still no electricity.  It wasn’t so much the not having electricity part that was annoying, it was the fact that everyone else had electricity and no one was doing anything despite us coming every day to complain.  It should not have been this difficult!  Definitely very frustrating…

To make a long story short, it’s Wednesday April 3^rd, and the electricity finally came back to my house today!  We’ll see how long it decides to stay on for this time…

Library Construction - Brick Making

First off, I want to send out another huge thank you to everyone who so generously donated to help this library project happen!  I am still shocked at how quickly we were able to raise all the money and I am so very grateful for all the support from friends and family back at home.

Now, for an update.  Following the necessary formalities of the country, throughout the past couple weeks we have had meetings with local government officials including the Director of Education and Technology and the Administrator of the district, informing them of the community library project.  More exciting though, the library construction is in its first phase: brick making!

Making mud

A couple weekends ago we went with Iassito (the president of the organization AJUDEMU who will manage the library) and Shek (the English professor who will be the manager of the library) to learn how to make some mud bricks. 

The process is relatively simple.  First, they take the proper type of dirt, mixing it with a little water to make mud.  (They carry the water over in buckets from an underground well about 100 yards away.)  

Carrying the mud over

Next, two boys use a blanket to bring the mud inside the mosque where the bricks are being formed.  (The mosque is just a big open brick building which serves to protect the bricks if it rains. I guess we are going to have some special blessed bricks!)  

Me making bricks

Then, you pack the mud into a wooden frame which forms two bricks at a time.  Once filled with mud, you use a little water to smooth out the mud on the top and then remove the wooden frame.  Lifting up the frame without destroying the bricks is the hardest part, but it should kind of just slide up with a little force.  And that’s it!  Now you have successfully made two mud bricks!  Just repeat about 3000 times! After sitting out to dry completely, they will then put all the bricks in a big outdoor brick oven to burn them for about 2-3 days.

Shek makes bricks while an audience watches

Do  you have any idea where bricks come from in America?  I just told them we buy them from a store, Home Depot. Ha, something to think about…

Our brick makers include a group of two older guys and five or six boys.  I’m sure they loved watching the two American girls playing in the mud, laughing at us, of course, throughout the process.  Hopefully we didn’t slow down their work too much, but in a typical day they make about 550 bricks.  For our library, we estimate needing about 5,000 bricks.  If all continues to go well, we should be able to start the building construction in late April/early May! 

This has been an idea I’ve had for a long time now, and it’s so exciting to see it actually starting to happen!  We still have a lot of work ahead before we can open and offer books to the community, but little by little, it’s becoming a reality.

550 bricks!