Drum Roll please........

First of all, shout out to my brother and sister-in-law! Congratulations Mike and Kali! Can't wait to meet my new niece, Lucy! And happy almost birthday to my nephew Mason!

So yesterday we finally learned where we will be living for the next two years!! They passed out envelopes to each of us and inside was the name of our site and which province it is in and then we all went and stood on a giant map of Mozambique drawn in chalk across a basketball court.  So drum roll please.................

I am headed up north to the province of Nampula to a city called Murrupula.  I know very very little about the site, but I'll share with you what I have discovered so far....

I am assigned to teach Biology and computers (apparently if you know how to use Word and Excel, then you are a computer expert) and I have a roommate, Erica, who is also a Moz 17er with me.  We are going to be re-opening the site in Murrupula.  Apparently, the school was not doing repairs that needed to be completed on the volunteer housing there, so Peace Corps stopped sending them volunteers until they did the repairs.  So, supposedly the repairs are done, and Peace Corps is making another appearance!  Though, I know nothing about what the housing is going to be like or what the school is like, or really anything else yet...

Murrupula is about an hour chapa ride from the big city of Nampula, so it is easily accessible and should be pretty easy for me to get whatever things I need.  It is also only a couple hours from Angoche (a beautiful beach) or about four hours from Ilha de Mocambique (another beautiful beach).  There are 12 other volunteers in my group who are also going to the Nampula province.

So that's pretty much all I know for now.  It is definitely going to be an adventure!

Never know what you might run across in Mozambique...

On Sunday, I hiked with a few friends to the Cascatas again.  We were smarter this time and decided not to go at the hottest time of the day and planned a picnic for some much needed relaxing time on our day off.

On our hike back, we encountered something I never thought would happen during my Peace Corps adventure….we happened upon a photo shoot!!  I’m not kidding! Walking along, suddenly we saw a girl in a long glamorous green gown, complete with peacock feathers.   There at the base of the Cascatas was a second model in the middle of a photo shoot, posing glamorously atop a large boulder with her gown draped elegantly across the rock.  The photographers saw us six Americans watching and urged for us to join the model!  (I don’t know who was probably more surprised, us on seeing a photo shoot, or them on seeing six American girls.)  Though definitely not in our proper modeling attire and quite sweaty and not feeling any bit glamorous, especially next to this gorgeous Mozambicana model, we eagerly jumped at the opportunity and the photographers clicked away on their cameras.  Apparently they work with a Mozambique designer  and these gowns are going to be featured during Mozambique Fashion Week in December.  (Who knew they have fashion week in Mozambique?!)

But my favorite moment of the day above being a model for a few minutes, was dinner.  Mary and I decided to make tacos for our families.  Her five siblings/cousins joined my sister and cousin for a fabulous taco night.  It was one of my favorite moments ever sitting around the table with them, chatting in Portuguese, having them laugh and correct my Portuguese, and them even trying to teach us Xangana (the local language).  They loved the tacos and I was amazed at how much Mary’s little brothers could eat!  It was a simple moment, but one of those moments where I thought to myself, this is why I am here, for moments like this J.

On Monday, we went to an orphanage here in Namaacha and played with the kids there a bit.  The orphanage was started in 2006 by two nuns and has about 60 children.  The kids don’t live there, but do receive food, learn all the things a parent would teach them like how to wash dishes and clothes or how to take a bath, and receive some tutoring.  If the kids make it through 7^th grade, the nuns pay for them to go to boarding school which is quite a gift and hopefully serves as some motivation for these children who do not come from very promising circumstances or backgrounds.  We were only there for an hour or two, but played games like duck duck goose, ride that pony, jigalo, red light-green light, taught them the song “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” and they taught us a couple games.

Inhambane

Took a while, but here are a few photos from my site visit...

Inhambane Province

Boat across the bay to Inhambane city

Tofo Beach

Falafel dinner

Site Visits

This past week, we ventured beyond Namaacha and stayed with currently serving volunteers at their sites, getting a first-hand glimpse of what life as a volunteer in Mozambique might be like.  People traveled all over the country, to all 10 provinces, revealing the great size of the country and differing experiences each and every volunteer here has/can have.

I visited the city of Homoine in the Inhambane province.  (Still considered southern Mozambique, Inhambane is located two provinces north of Maputo.)  After spending the night in Maputo on Friday (Thai food for dinner was delicious), we left the hotel at 4am and were driven by Peace Corps to Junta, the bus stop in Maputo for everything headed up North and beyond.  Junta is epitome of every stereotype about African transportation.  We had been briefed by other volunteers about the potential scariness or overwhelming-ness of Junta and didn’t really know what to expect.  Thank goodness Peace Corps continued to baby us and had four of our language teachers accompany us at Junta to make sure we got on the right/safe bus.  They even waited until the bus actually drove out of the parking lot to make sure we were properly on our way. 

Let me see if I can paint a proper picture of Junta.  There are chapas (~20 seats), medium sized buses (~30 seats), and large buses (~50 seats) parked on a dirt lot a little smaller than a football field, most with engines on and idling.  The buses are parked just close enough for someone to walk between and there are signs in front of some stating where they are going and how much it costs.  Drivers walk around asking where you are headed, saying they will offer you a good price to wherever and trying to convince you that’s where you want to go instead.  People wander about selling soda, water, crackers, capulanas, sunglasses, clothes, even nail polish!  Sitting waiting for the chapa to leave, I tried to not make eye contact with the vendors pacing around outside my window so they didn’t think I wanted to buy anything.  People stand on top of the large buses (like charter sized buses) hauling large suitcases, tables, chairs, mattresses, etc. on top of the roof, creating a pile about 15-20 feet high!  All in all, Junta is definitely not a place one should walk around looking lost or confused, despite the inevitability of feeling lost and confused by all the commotion.  I never felt unsafe, just wary and cautious and it was certainly comforting having our language teachers there to guide us around.

So we found our bus, then proceeded to sit on it waiting to leave for about an hour and a half.  I don’t know how or who decides because I don’t think any sort of bus schedule exists, but eventually the bus filled up and left around 6:30am (we left our hotel at 4:30am).  Oops, only to exit the lot then stop to load four wooden benches underneath, which took another good 15 minutes or so….

But overall, the ride was much more spatious than I had anticipated and luckily it wasn’t too hot of a day.  Amazingly, the road (Dad, you can highlight the N1 for me on your map), was unbelievably straight, I don’t think we ever once made a turn or even a bend for that matter.  The driver stops every few hours or so and people can get off to go to the bathroom (just squat on the side of the road, behind some bushes if they are around) or vendors run up to the windows selling water, sodas, cookies, mangos, bananas, cashews and even stranger things like if you need a straw mat. 

After about 9 hours, we arrived in Maxixe and met up with the volunteer we were visiting, Yvette.  After lunch at the market in Maxixe, it was another 45ish minute chapa ride(our first chapa ran out of gas) to Homoine, followed by a 20-30 minute walk to Yvette’s house.

So that was our 10 hour adventure to arrive in Homoine.  Inhambane is an unbelievably beautiful province.  There are tons of trees (palms, mangos, and others) and everywhere you look is green green green.  We even saw a rainbow! The city itself is fairly small, but nearby Maxixe has an amazing market called Taurus that has lots of fun things like soy sauce, spices, cereal, broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, and other goodies. 

Yvette is an English teacher at a teacher trainer institute and lives on the school grounds.  She usually has running water (and even running, HOT water), but unfortunately the pump has been broken for a couple months so we didn’t get the pleasure of taking hot normal showers and continued using buckets.  But the bathroom was inside which was a nice change.  Her place has a living room, kitchen, and three bedrooms, very spacious and lots of natural light. 

During our visit, we met many other volunteers who live in nearby cities either down the road about 20 minutes or off the main highway about an hour or so away.  They met us for lunch in Maxixe (I ate a surprisingly very delicious hamburger).  Then a huge storm started and, totally unprepared for rain, we decided to brace the storm and run through the flooded streets to the chapa stop about a 15 minute walk away.  Yvette almost lost her sandals in the flooded streets and people definitely were very amused to see three Americans running through the thunderstorm.  Of course, about 10 minutes after we got on the chapa, it stopped raining…

During the rest of our visit, we walked around the village center and the market in Homoine, relaxed and chatted with Yvette and other volunteers, and just enjoyed the beautiful view around us.  The best part was taking a boat then a chapa to the beautiful beach in Tofo for a fantastic beach day (let me just say, that never when I imagined my days in Peace Corps, did I imagine lounging for the entire day at a gorgeous beach with crystal blue water the perfect temperature for swimming).  It was definitely a nice change of pace being able to cook for ourselves!  We made pancakes, tacos, stew, but the best dinner by far was falafel, complete with pita, yogurt sauce,  cucumber, tomato, salad, and of course hummus!  SO DELICIOUS!

I wish I could transcribe every second of every experience into words, but I am finding that to be nearly impossible, but I greatly accept any questions you may have regarding anything, big or small!!

Mostly, the site visit served to show what life can be like and meeting and talking with so many volunteers revealed the great diversity in living situations, work situations, and experiences.  On Wednesday, we find out our own site placement and I can’t wait to see what my adventure will be like…

Permagarden

This weekend we learned how to make a Permagarden (permanent garden).  The Permagarden technique is something universally done among Peace Corps volunteers in an effort to promote families in the community to develop and sustain their own garden, making for cheaper, healthier lifestyles and even a possible source of income.

As most you of probably already know, I am not a keen lover of gardening but for some reason the idea of setting up my own garden once I get to site sounds kind of fun! (Maybe it is because I am definitely lacking vegetables in my diet…)  But let me tell you, starting a garden from scratch is quite the process!

We started the day bright and early learning about composting.  (Dad, I can give you all kinds of tips now for your garden in the backyard!)  We used machetes and hoes to collect, chop, dig up, and gather green and brown materials to make our compost pile.  It rained super hard last night, so it was a pretty muddy adventure climbing through shrubs and gathering the materials. 

We dug a small hole about 10cm deep and then laid sticks across it to allow for some air flow.  Then we alternately added brown material, green material, soil/manure to make a pile about 1m tall.  We covered it with banana leaves to help retain some moisture and hopefully our pile will start to decompose in a few weeks to make some nice compost!

Then we turned to the garden.  The past group of volunteers had started a garden, but no one had kept it up, so we started with weeding and cleaning up the area a bit.  Then we made our planting beds, first digging up the dirt with the hoe, then forming mounds about a meter wide, then double digging and mixing in charcoal, manure, and compost with the soil, then building berms around the perimeter of the garden, and making pathways between planting beds.  Then we planted lemongrass and sweet potatoes around the perimeter in the berms which apparently are natural repellents.  I had no idea you could just plant the stalk of the plant and it will grow!  We filled our planting beds with tomatoes, corn, lettuce, and beans. 

Here is the final product!

A Few Distinct Differences

This will probably be a list that I will continuously add to, and I don’t intend to generalize for all of Mozambique, but these are a few things (not including the obvious like speaking another language or killing your own chicken) I have observed during my few weeks here in Namaacha that are distinctly different from things seen/done in the US.

·         Trash disposal: Walking down the street, it is not uncommon to pass open, unwatched fires or to see plumes of white smoke in the distance.  These are merely trash disposal methods.  So it’s probably not the greatest for the atmosphere or the air we breathe, but you gotta do something with your trash, and there is no organized trash pickup service or dump, so the Mozambique method is simply to burn it all. 

·         Passear – Passearing, or just wandering or walking, is a favorite pastime for Mozambiquans.  But my gosh do they walk slow!  And when you think slow, think about 100 times slower than what you might consider slow.

·         Strong women – The concept of chivalry and men carrying heavier things is not commonplace here, women do considerably all the heavy lifting around the house.  And by heavy lifting, I mean carrying incredible loads on top of their heads.  It really is a miraculous thing to see, women and girls carrying bundles of wood, barrels of water, buckets, whatever on their heads walking down the street, up hills, over cobblestones with the most relaxed ease!  How these things balance on their heads and how their necks can support such incredible weights, I have no idea…

·         Cars – Here, pedestrians have the right to get out of the way of vehicles.  Cars do not slow and do not really swerve but expect you if you are walking to move out of their way.  And not only do they drive on the other side of the road here, they also sometimes drive on both sides of the road.

·         Children – Once a kid has the ability to walk, they are pretty much independent.  It is not unusal to pass a group of two or three year olds playing on the street with no adult supervision in sight.  For the little kids who can’t walk yet, mothers do not let them stop them from doing things around the house and simply tie them to their backs snugly with a capulana. 

·         Obedience – Another interesting thing regarding children is their obedience towards their parents.  Never have I heard my siblings defy my parents or ask them why they had to do something.  Sometimes I can tell that they might be upset or not want to set the table or wash the dishes that night or my sister will tell my brother to do it, but never do they say no or argue with my mae.  For instance, here is a short anecdote.  The other night for dinner, my sister made a fruit salad.  Upon seeing that she had forgotten to add oranges to the salad, my mae scolded my sister telling her she made it improperly and needed to put an orange in it.  So my sister got up and went to the market and bought an orange to add to the fruit salad.  If it had been a teenager in the US, there would inevitably have been back talk and arguing, but here my sister just sucked it up and did what she was told.  When she came back, my mae asked where she had gone and said she didn’t mean for her to go right then, but even I heard her tell her to go and I don’t know much Portuguese. 

A Few American Influences I've Seen in Namaacha

·         Clothing: On Wednesdays and Saturdays, Namaacha has what is called ShopRite in which vendors gather in this outside marketplace and sell various things.  Amongst people selling food, shoes, bags, and capulanas, are many clothing sellers.  I have no idea how the vendors come to aquire the clothing, but I assume most of it is second-hand items donated by Americans.  It is not unusual to see residents walking around in shirts featuring logos of American sports teams or American universities and English phrases which make one question whether the person wearing the shirt understands the words written on it. 

·         Music: Residents here love their music and love blasting their music at all hours of the day.  My family uses the TV as their speaker, but many families have gigantic speakers in their homes making it feel like one is constantly in a discotech (club).  American music is everywhere, everything from Mariah Carey to Akon to Snoop Dogg to Katy Perry and Lady Gaga to music from the 80s.  I was walking to my class the other day and a teenage guy thinking he was all cool was walking down the road blasting Celine Dion’s “A New Day”.  My Irma sings a lot and I love when she sings along to English songs not really saying any words in English, but making sounds that are similar to what the actual words are.  Every now and then, I try to translate a song for them or at least tell them what the song is generally about, but my language skills are still in the making, so I am somewhat limited still.

·         TV:  The other night Mr. Popper’s Penguins, the recent movie with Jim Carey which I think came out just this summer in the US, was on TV here in English with Portuguese subtitles.   Later, I watched CSI: Miami with my mae, also in English with subtitles.  Another volunteer mentioned that she has watched Disney Channel and even “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” with her family.  I wonder who decides which programs make it to the other side of the world…