Things I plan to do in the United States while I am home:
Use a washing machine and dryer!
Get a haircut
Heat up some food in a microwave
Take a long, hot shower
Go skiing—pray for snow for me!
Drive a car
Dry my hair with a hair dryer
Wash dishes in a sink with running water, or even better in a dishwasher
Eat ice cream (I'm not going to go farther into other foods that I'm craving because this list could go on forever)
Go to the movies!
Sing Christmas carols
Drink hot chocolate by the wood stove
And most of all, see all of my family and friends! Can't wait to see all of you in just a few days!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Exams!
Much of my time here in the last month and a half has been consumed by National Exams in my school. In secondary school (8th-12th grade) students have to do exams twice, once at the end of 10th grade to move onto 11th and again at the end of 12th grade to officially graduate from school. There is a separate exam for each subject. The 10th graders have to do exams in Portuguese, English, Geography, History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics. 12th graders usually have to do a maximum of five exams and have more lee-way because they can choose to do one exam over the other. During exam weeks, testing is run from 8am until 6pm. Boy, it is exhausting standing and watching kids take exams for 8 hours a day! The students have two opportunities to pass all of their exams. In the first week of exams they could pass 3 exams and then have to come back and pass the others in the second week of exams which happens a month later.
I was placed in a group with several other teachers correcting the exams of the twelfth grade students. The exams are multiple choice and they are done on scantron sheets. These sheets are USUALLY used because they are quickly corrected by a machine, but we end up correcting and grading them by hand and then the tests get sent to Maputo to correct our errors. Why are the exams not sent to the machines in the first place to save us days of work? I'll never know...
Once the exams are corrected we have to enter all of the grades into a chart to print out, post, and show to the students. Since people have little to no computer skills I have been the one to enter in the grades because something that takes me an hour takes everyone else five, and it's pretty painful to watch.
Most volunteers don't have to participate in this process of exams, but I didn't really insist against it and it is interesting to see how the process goes. Luckily, or obviously, my tenth grade English students did very well on their exams which made me very happy! I practiced sample exams with them for weeks so I was so pleased to see that the preparation paid off! Just one more day of exams and then I'm out of Mozambique and on my way home!
I was placed in a group with several other teachers correcting the exams of the twelfth grade students. The exams are multiple choice and they are done on scantron sheets. These sheets are USUALLY used because they are quickly corrected by a machine, but we end up correcting and grading them by hand and then the tests get sent to Maputo to correct our errors. Why are the exams not sent to the machines in the first place to save us days of work? I'll never know...
Once the exams are corrected we have to enter all of the grades into a chart to print out, post, and show to the students. Since people have little to no computer skills I have been the one to enter in the grades because something that takes me an hour takes everyone else five, and it's pretty painful to watch.
Most volunteers don't have to participate in this process of exams, but I didn't really insist against it and it is interesting to see how the process goes. Luckily, or obviously, my tenth grade English students did very well on their exams which made me very happy! I practiced sample exams with them for weeks so I was so pleased to see that the preparation paid off! Just one more day of exams and then I'm out of Mozambique and on my way home!
The Sound of Music
One thing that is impossible to go unnoticed here in Mozambique, is the Mozambican love for music. Firstly, wherever you are, you can almost always hear some sort of music blaring somewhere. You can seriously be in the middle of a town which has no electricity, in the middle of the night and hear music bumping. Forget running water, cell phones, televisions, and lightbulbs, the Mozambican priority is a sound system complete with large speakers and an amplifier.
Moving off subject, Francelino and I made a trip to his original hometown this weekend, Manjacaze. We hopped on a bus at 6am and took it about an hour north, part way on narrow, dusty, and sandy roads to reach our first stop, his grandmother's house. We stopped at his aunt's house to leave our backpack so we wouldn't have to lug it along on our trip and his cousin accompanied us into the bush! We trekked along for about an hour, stopping to buy a bag of bread along the way. We passed lots of caniço (straw-like) round houses, water wells and pumps, and lots of cashew trees! Manjacaze's landscape is full of cashew trees, with the occasional mango, mafura, coconut, or eucalyptus tree mixed in. We finally arrived at Vovo's (Grandmother in Portuguese) house and she hurried out to greet us. We went and sat in one of her little round houses and, as a family member prepared hot water for us to take bucket baths, we sat and ate a hearty breakfast of tea, bread, cashews, and chicken (which she of course had personally killed for us earlier that day). When you arrive at someone's house here and have been travelling the first thing that they offer you is hot water to take a bucket bath. I have gotten used to this and it's actually really nice because after travelling you are almost always covered in a layer of dust and sweat. The day at her house was relaxing. We ate, took naps, sat outside and talked with her, and Francelino made a video with my digital camera of Vovo talking about her children, grandchildren, and telling stories, which was very entertaining. She wanted to kill a duck to cook for us at about 4pm but we had already eaten so much and had to be on our way to had to decline. She lives way out in the middle of nowhere with just her sister who is also elderly. I have no idea how old she is, nor does anyone, because she can't even tell you the year she was born in, but every day she does to her machamba (fields) and work to cultivate produce like corn, peanuts, tomatoes, and other crops depending on the time of year, amazing!
In the evening we left and went back to his aunt's house. We were welcomed by a group from her church that were sitting outside on grass mats drinking tea. I sat and chatted with them until they went on their way. The rest of the day mostly consisted of taking baths, eating dinner, and finally going to sleep!
On day two we went back to the road and got in a truck to bring us to the center of the village where Francelino's uncle works. He has a salon there where he cuts hair so we found him there and got a little tour of the “downtown” area. I, unfortunately, had drunk a few cups of water the night before and my stomach did NOT like the water there so I had a few hours of frequent bathroom trips and abdominal pain. We later got into another car to take us out to his uncle's house. There were so many people waiting for us! We met several of his aunts and so many cousins! I think there must have been 12 kids under the age of 13 running around. The afternoon was relaxing and we strolled around the area, took lots of pictures of the family, and ate lots and lots of delicious food. Cameras are not super common so we spent hours making videos of the kids dancing or taking pictures and then showing it to them.
All of the houses that we visited are not connected to electricity but two of the tree have a solar panel which charges a battery which they use to charge important necessities like cell phones, and of course to power their sound systems.
My other inspiration for the title of this blog post is that I watched the movie The Sound of Music with Francelino this week and he loved it and that made me really happy.
Moving off subject, Francelino and I made a trip to his original hometown this weekend, Manjacaze. We hopped on a bus at 6am and took it about an hour north, part way on narrow, dusty, and sandy roads to reach our first stop, his grandmother's house. We stopped at his aunt's house to leave our backpack so we wouldn't have to lug it along on our trip and his cousin accompanied us into the bush! We trekked along for about an hour, stopping to buy a bag of bread along the way. We passed lots of caniço (straw-like) round houses, water wells and pumps, and lots of cashew trees! Manjacaze's landscape is full of cashew trees, with the occasional mango, mafura, coconut, or eucalyptus tree mixed in. We finally arrived at Vovo's (Grandmother in Portuguese) house and she hurried out to greet us. We went and sat in one of her little round houses and, as a family member prepared hot water for us to take bucket baths, we sat and ate a hearty breakfast of tea, bread, cashews, and chicken (which she of course had personally killed for us earlier that day). When you arrive at someone's house here and have been travelling the first thing that they offer you is hot water to take a bucket bath. I have gotten used to this and it's actually really nice because after travelling you are almost always covered in a layer of dust and sweat. The day at her house was relaxing. We ate, took naps, sat outside and talked with her, and Francelino made a video with my digital camera of Vovo talking about her children, grandchildren, and telling stories, which was very entertaining. She wanted to kill a duck to cook for us at about 4pm but we had already eaten so much and had to be on our way to had to decline. She lives way out in the middle of nowhere with just her sister who is also elderly. I have no idea how old she is, nor does anyone, because she can't even tell you the year she was born in, but every day she does to her machamba (fields) and work to cultivate produce like corn, peanuts, tomatoes, and other crops depending on the time of year, amazing!
In the evening we left and went back to his aunt's house. We were welcomed by a group from her church that were sitting outside on grass mats drinking tea. I sat and chatted with them until they went on their way. The rest of the day mostly consisted of taking baths, eating dinner, and finally going to sleep!
On day two we went back to the road and got in a truck to bring us to the center of the village where Francelino's uncle works. He has a salon there where he cuts hair so we found him there and got a little tour of the “downtown” area. I, unfortunately, had drunk a few cups of water the night before and my stomach did NOT like the water there so I had a few hours of frequent bathroom trips and abdominal pain. We later got into another car to take us out to his uncle's house. There were so many people waiting for us! We met several of his aunts and so many cousins! I think there must have been 12 kids under the age of 13 running around. The afternoon was relaxing and we strolled around the area, took lots of pictures of the family, and ate lots and lots of delicious food. Cameras are not super common so we spent hours making videos of the kids dancing or taking pictures and then showing it to them.
All of the houses that we visited are not connected to electricity but two of the tree have a solar panel which charges a battery which they use to charge important necessities like cell phones, and of course to power their sound systems.
My other inspiration for the title of this blog post is that I watched the movie The Sound of Music with Francelino this week and he loved it and that made me really happy.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Time for Reflection...
There have been a lot of big and important events that have happened around here lately, but I'm short on time so I'll tell those stories another time and instead reflect on my time already spent in Mozambique. I have now been here for over a year. I arrived in Mozambique on September 29th 2010 and we are almost through October 2011. Time flies. This has really been one of the most interesting years of my life, if not the most interesting. Honestly, when I came here a year ago I didn't know what to expect. I assume it's the same for many Peace Corps volunteers. I was ready to jump into a new job, culture, and environment just for the experience truly not knowing if I would love it or if I would have to force myself to stay for the two years. I have enjoyed life here so much that I am sad that a year has gone by so fast. I feel so well integrated into the community here and it's a really comfortable environment for me. One thing that still bothers me here is racism and descrimination. I feel totally at home in Chongoene. The people all know who I am and I never really feel the difference in the color of my skin. When I go to Xai-Xai or any other city or place where people don't know me, I hate the attention that I get for being white. A lot of the time people assume that I know no Portuguese or local language so they will talk about me and think that I don't hear them. They all assume that I am rich and make other assumptions about me based on the color of my skin. Men always harrass me for my phone number and ask me to take them back to the U.S. with me. These are things that I have gotten used to and do my best to ignore, but it's hard to be completely numb to them.
Despite these challenges I can't complain. My boyfriend's family has really welcomed me into their home. His younger sisters and brothers play with me around the house, and his mom has also really taken a liking to me. I love my job at the school and I love my students. It's great that I have the opportunity to open my students up to new opportunities through the theater or girls empowerment group at my school.
I watch the nightly telenovela on TV with Francelino every night, and I hate when we miss it. I have gotten used to eating rice with every meal and having the same food day after day. I think it would be weird to sleep in a bed without a mosquito net on it and taking a real shower will be pretty strange after 2 a day bucket baths for the last 13 months.
I find myself wanting to stay at site more and more with people from my town. I get less urges to go to the city in search of a pizza or a few hours on the internet (hence the lack of blogs of late...). All in all, I think that I have really settled into the pace of life here. I no longer obsessively check the time like I did in the U.S. although I still do get bothered when people are obnoxiously late.
I might have mentioned this before, but I did decide that I will go home this December to visit my family and friends over the holidays. I think that my transition back to the United States will be a weird one. I might be overwhelmed with 100 TV channels to choose from, the use of cars, and how easy technology makes life. It should be an interesting trip, and although I will miss Mozambique terribly during that time, I can't put a price on being with family for Christmas.
Despite these challenges I can't complain. My boyfriend's family has really welcomed me into their home. His younger sisters and brothers play with me around the house, and his mom has also really taken a liking to me. I love my job at the school and I love my students. It's great that I have the opportunity to open my students up to new opportunities through the theater or girls empowerment group at my school.
I watch the nightly telenovela on TV with Francelino every night, and I hate when we miss it. I have gotten used to eating rice with every meal and having the same food day after day. I think it would be weird to sleep in a bed without a mosquito net on it and taking a real shower will be pretty strange after 2 a day bucket baths for the last 13 months.
I find myself wanting to stay at site more and more with people from my town. I get less urges to go to the city in search of a pizza or a few hours on the internet (hence the lack of blogs of late...). All in all, I think that I have really settled into the pace of life here. I no longer obsessively check the time like I did in the U.S. although I still do get bothered when people are obnoxiously late.
I might have mentioned this before, but I did decide that I will go home this December to visit my family and friends over the holidays. I think that my transition back to the United States will be a weird one. I might be overwhelmed with 100 TV channels to choose from, the use of cars, and how easy technology makes life. It should be an interesting trip, and although I will miss Mozambique terribly during that time, I can't put a price on being with family for Christmas.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
JOMA Handover meeting and the Adventure in Chidenguele
In my previous blog post I had mentioned that I was going to Inhambane to have a meeting with the Moz 14 volunteers to facilitate the handover of jobs and responsibilities to Moz 15 volunteers (my group). In this process, the new group needed to choose who would be responsible for what and hold the coordinator positions (National Coordinator, Financial Coordinator, Regional Coordinators, etc) for the project next year. I really wanted the position of National Coordinator and nobody else seemed to be itching for that responsibility so my peers supported the idea and I will be JOMA National Coordinator for 2012! I am very excited. It's such a great project and I feel honored to have such a big responsibility. I'm eager to get started!
Last weekend Francelino and I went to Chidenguele, a beach town about 60 k north of Chongoene for a little R&R. Once you get to the main road, you have to walk on a dirt road about 8 kilometers to get to the beach. It's also not too hard to hitchhike your way in and since it was a scorching day we decided to do just that. We got a ride from a man who "said" that he was going to the beach, and who then pulled in next to a lake where some of the 2011 African Games were going on. We left the lake area and turned in the direction of the beach. We also asked a few guys if we could get to the beach on that road and they gave us an uneasy yes. In retrospect listening to them was our first big mistake but what did we know!? We had apparently missed the turn for the closest beach in the first car that we were in, which pretty much doomed us for the day. Anyway, we continued on our alternate route and got a ride from a van full of African Kayaking/Rowing athletes competing in the games who were going to another location. We got out there and continued walking. We went up and down and up and down the sandy path and prayed for another car to come and get us. Sure enough a little car picked us up but we didnt make it more than half a kilometer before the car sank down in the sand and we had to get out and push it. We pushed it a little ways until it sank in so far that we had to use the car jack to jack the car up so that it could get out. At this point the driver decided that they should go back the way they came because they were just going to continue to get stuck. We got out and got in a car behind us who drove us to an intersection where he said we could get to the beach. He showed us to the path and said it would be about 2 kilometers farther. We were sweaty, sandy, exhausted, thirsty and hungry and very very eager to make it to our destination! We made it the final two kilometers and I was so happy to finally hear the ocean and make it to the beach! Unfortunately our journey was just getting started. When we made it to the ocean there was not a soul in sight. We had clearly made it to a beach far away from the one where we were supposed to go. Luckily I had a good idea of the direction we had to go in to make it to our destination so we continued on.
We walked and walked and walked and walked... Along the way we passed a few huts up on a hill and some unfinished buildings that we checked out to see if we could find anyone to tell us how far we had to go or give us some water. I have never been so thirsty in my life. We had walked for hours in deep deep beach sand and I was sure that my shoulders, face, and back were quite sunburnt. The ocean water was so tempting to drink but I knew it would only make me thirstier. I was even tempted ro taste the contact solution that I had along but Francelino nixed that idea pretty fast (rightfully so). We stopped a few times (once to take a nap because we were so tired) and I took a dip in the ocean to cool off. I had brought some eggs to make for us in the morning since the place we were staying in was self catered and once when we sat down to rest I sat on my bag and cracked four of the eggs all over my stuff. It was easily the most frustrating part of my day! Finally we saw people in the distance and arrived at a little resort, not our final destination, but at least there was human life, food, and water there. We stopped and ate a big meal and asked about the place we were supposed to stay at. Luckily it was only one more kilometer down the beach so at about 6:30pm we finally made it to our destination. After checking in we showered and pretty much passed out immediately.
The next day was a million times better. The place where we were staying had barely any guests so we really had the place to ourselves. We had breakfast on the deck overlooking the ocean and then we put on our bathing suits to hit the beach. The beach was beautiful and we were really the only ones there. We swam in the water, played frisbee, and rested our poor bodies from the day before. Later on I swam in the pool for a bit and we could see whales swimming in the ocean and jumping into the air! It was so cool to watch and a German man also staying at the same place let us use his binoculars to see.
After lunch we had to head home so we prepared ourselves for the trip back, which turned out to be much shorter. After walking a few kilometers we were picked up by a family from Northern Mozambique in a van. The mother of the family told me she didn't want to pick me up when she saw that I was accompanied by a man, but that her daughter-in-law felt bad for me, haha. Luckily they were headed south to Maputo so they drove us all the way to Chongoene where we only had to find a car to take us the extra 5k home. We didn't even have to pay and she gave me her phone number and told me if ever I make it up north I can give her a call and come visit!
Overall we had a great weekend. Saturday tested our strength physically and emotionally, but we pulled through and had a perfect day at the beach on Sunday. It was a fun and adventurous weekend out of Chongoene for sure.
Last weekend Francelino and I went to Chidenguele, a beach town about 60 k north of Chongoene for a little R&R. Once you get to the main road, you have to walk on a dirt road about 8 kilometers to get to the beach. It's also not too hard to hitchhike your way in and since it was a scorching day we decided to do just that. We got a ride from a man who "said" that he was going to the beach, and who then pulled in next to a lake where some of the 2011 African Games were going on. We left the lake area and turned in the direction of the beach. We also asked a few guys if we could get to the beach on that road and they gave us an uneasy yes. In retrospect listening to them was our first big mistake but what did we know!? We had apparently missed the turn for the closest beach in the first car that we were in, which pretty much doomed us for the day. Anyway, we continued on our alternate route and got a ride from a van full of African Kayaking/Rowing athletes competing in the games who were going to another location. We got out there and continued walking. We went up and down and up and down the sandy path and prayed for another car to come and get us. Sure enough a little car picked us up but we didnt make it more than half a kilometer before the car sank down in the sand and we had to get out and push it. We pushed it a little ways until it sank in so far that we had to use the car jack to jack the car up so that it could get out. At this point the driver decided that they should go back the way they came because they were just going to continue to get stuck. We got out and got in a car behind us who drove us to an intersection where he said we could get to the beach. He showed us to the path and said it would be about 2 kilometers farther. We were sweaty, sandy, exhausted, thirsty and hungry and very very eager to make it to our destination! We made it the final two kilometers and I was so happy to finally hear the ocean and make it to the beach! Unfortunately our journey was just getting started. When we made it to the ocean there was not a soul in sight. We had clearly made it to a beach far away from the one where we were supposed to go. Luckily I had a good idea of the direction we had to go in to make it to our destination so we continued on.
We walked and walked and walked and walked... Along the way we passed a few huts up on a hill and some unfinished buildings that we checked out to see if we could find anyone to tell us how far we had to go or give us some water. I have never been so thirsty in my life. We had walked for hours in deep deep beach sand and I was sure that my shoulders, face, and back were quite sunburnt. The ocean water was so tempting to drink but I knew it would only make me thirstier. I was even tempted ro taste the contact solution that I had along but Francelino nixed that idea pretty fast (rightfully so). We stopped a few times (once to take a nap because we were so tired) and I took a dip in the ocean to cool off. I had brought some eggs to make for us in the morning since the place we were staying in was self catered and once when we sat down to rest I sat on my bag and cracked four of the eggs all over my stuff. It was easily the most frustrating part of my day! Finally we saw people in the distance and arrived at a little resort, not our final destination, but at least there was human life, food, and water there. We stopped and ate a big meal and asked about the place we were supposed to stay at. Luckily it was only one more kilometer down the beach so at about 6:30pm we finally made it to our destination. After checking in we showered and pretty much passed out immediately.
The next day was a million times better. The place where we were staying had barely any guests so we really had the place to ourselves. We had breakfast on the deck overlooking the ocean and then we put on our bathing suits to hit the beach. The beach was beautiful and we were really the only ones there. We swam in the water, played frisbee, and rested our poor bodies from the day before. Later on I swam in the pool for a bit and we could see whales swimming in the ocean and jumping into the air! It was so cool to watch and a German man also staying at the same place let us use his binoculars to see.
After lunch we had to head home so we prepared ourselves for the trip back, which turned out to be much shorter. After walking a few kilometers we were picked up by a family from Northern Mozambique in a van. The mother of the family told me she didn't want to pick me up when she saw that I was accompanied by a man, but that her daughter-in-law felt bad for me, haha. Luckily they were headed south to Maputo so they drove us all the way to Chongoene where we only had to find a car to take us the extra 5k home. We didn't even have to pay and she gave me her phone number and told me if ever I make it up north I can give her a call and come visit!
Overall we had a great weekend. Saturday tested our strength physically and emotionally, but we pulled through and had a perfect day at the beach on Sunday. It was a fun and adventurous weekend out of Chongoene for sure.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Summer is in the air...
As a student in the United States as soon as May comes along you can feel the sun getting stronger and the air getting thicker with the promise of hot summer days. Suddenly kids at school are itching to get out of their seats to be outside or go to the beach and everyone is anxious for summer vacation to kick in! Despite the fact that the seasons are reversed and the school year is therefore on a different schedule, the same feeling is starting to set in here. I only have 9 weeks of school left, which means that I already have 29 weeks behind me! The cool "winter" air is slowly disappearing, the sun is feeling hotter, and those pesky, malaria-carrying mosquitoes are starting to emerge.
Despite the desire for summer vacation to come, things are moving along quite smoothly in Chongoene. My JOMA group (theater) are working on their last performance of the year which is a short play in English that they will perform in an English Theater competition at the end of October. My REDES girls (girls empowerment group) are working hard on producing capulana bags (purses made of local fabric) to sell to generate some income for the group to start new projects with. I am starting to look for financing for a project at my school. The idea for the project is to start raising chickens to then sell the chickens for meat when they are big, or raise egg-laying chickens to sell the eggs later on. Theoretically this would be a project that I would help finance and could continue on in the future, but that's if all works out as it should. It costs about 23(90 cents US) meticais to buy a baby chick and when it is a full grown chicken they sell for 130($4.80) meticais so the school could really benefit from this project if it all goes well.
I have a 4 day weekend this weekend because I am going up to Inhambane for a JOMA handover meeting. The volunteers who arrived the year ahead of me are leaving in November or December so we will have some big organizational meetings and they will hand over all of the responsibilities to us. Should be fun to have a weekend away (and on the beach!).
Despite the desire for summer vacation to come, things are moving along quite smoothly in Chongoene. My JOMA group (theater) are working on their last performance of the year which is a short play in English that they will perform in an English Theater competition at the end of October. My REDES girls (girls empowerment group) are working hard on producing capulana bags (purses made of local fabric) to sell to generate some income for the group to start new projects with. I am starting to look for financing for a project at my school. The idea for the project is to start raising chickens to then sell the chickens for meat when they are big, or raise egg-laying chickens to sell the eggs later on. Theoretically this would be a project that I would help finance and could continue on in the future, but that's if all works out as it should. It costs about 23(90 cents US) meticais to buy a baby chick and when it is a full grown chicken they sell for 130($4.80) meticais so the school could really benefit from this project if it all goes well.
I have a 4 day weekend this weekend because I am going up to Inhambane for a JOMA handover meeting. The volunteers who arrived the year ahead of me are leaving in November or December so we will have some big organizational meetings and they will hand over all of the responsibilities to us. Should be fun to have a weekend away (and on the beach!).
Summer is in the air...
As a student in the United States as soon as May comes along you can feel the sun getting stronger and the air getting thicker with the promise of hot summer days. Suddenly kids at school are itching to get out of their seats to be outside or go to the beach and everyone is anxious for summer vacation to kick in! Despite the fact that the seasons are reversed and the school year is therefore on a different schedule, the same feeling is starting to set in here. I only have 9 weeks of school left, which means that I already have 29 weeks behind me! The cool "winter" air is slowly disappearing, the sun is feeling hotter, and those pesky, malaria-carrying mosquitoes are starting to emerge.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Family visit!
I had a two week break between semesters so my family came to visit me in Mozambique! I took a chapa down to Maputo the night before their arrival because their plane was arriving at 11, and there was a very slim chance that I could get from my site to the airport in time the next morning. I got up in the morning and tried to kill some time by walking to a little cafe and getting myself a coffee and a croissant. I then took a chapa to the airport and waited oh-so patiently. I have never been so anxious waiting for someone in the airport before! They don't really update the monitors so I didn't even know if their plane had landed and I couldn't even call them since it would be an international call! Finally they emerged through the door with a cart full of suitcases and it was so nice to see their smiling faces again. We quickly exited and hopped into a van to take us to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel we sat outside and had some beers in the sun while we caught up on life. It had been so long since I had seen them that I kept touching their arms periodically to make sure that it was all real.
We spent a couple of relaxing days in Maputo and saw some of my favorite city spots. We visited the open air fish market down the road from the hotel. When you arrive you have people coming up to you to basically take you in as their "customer". A nice woman named Emilia approached me so I chose her as our cook and waitress for the day.You then enter the market and pick out what seafood you want for your meal. They put it in bags right there and give it to you. We got steamers, prawns, and fish. Then you make your way into an open air seating section surrounded by little enclosed rooms where the cooking takes place. Emilia then took our food out back and cooked it while we sat and sipped on our drinks. I had been there before with volunteers and it's a nice place to spend the afternoon, not to mention that the seafood is delicious! We also visited a craft market where I showed them all of the local wooden crafts, jewelry, and other crafts. We spent a lot of time looking around and then worked on haggling down the prices so that my Mom and sister could go home with some nice gifts and souvenirs!
After our days in Maputo we rented a car and zipped up to my site, Chongoene. My Dad did the driving (it's on the left side of the road here) and did a wonderful job driving. We did get stopped by a police officer on our way out of Maputo for a minor confusion in the turning lanes but I apologized profusely in my best Portuguese and she let us go. On the way up to Chongoene we stopped to buy some passion fruit and tangerines, which are so tasty here and the family loved. We also bought some food for the week in Xai-Xai and bought chairs for my house! I only had one chair before this week because that's all that was there when I arrived and I never had an easy way to transport them there from the city before.
The two days we spent in Chongoene were nice and relaxing. We drank coffee on the porch, had a tour of a town, and they spent a good amount of time getting to know my boyfriend, Francelino and his family (more on that in the post below). They got a good taste of life in my town and I think they liked being finally able to see my house and where I had been living for the last 10 months.
After we left Chongoene, we went to Xai-Xai beach which is about a 40 min drive away. We rented a little beach house on stilts and had some more relaxing games full of book reading, card games, walks on the beach, and yummy seafood. It is "winter" here so the weather was around 60-70 degrees, the wind was blowing, and the water was rough so none of us went swimming, although my mother did get drenched once when knocked over by an unexpected wave. (Sorry Mom, I had to mention it). The sun was out the whole week though and all in all, we had beautiful weather.
On Saturday we left the beach and headed back to Maputo. We spent another night in a hotel there and the next morning got in a van to take us to South Africa! The trip took a total of about 5 hours and crossing the border was quick and easy. We got to our hotel in Hazyview called Hippo Hollow. It was a cute little place and we settled in after an early dinner. We had to eat early dinners most nights because you are not supposed to walk around the area at night because hippos roam around and they're super dangerous, seriously. We were picked up bright and early the next morning by our safari guide, Elvis. Elvis drove us about 25 minutes to one of the gates of Kruger National Park where we entered to start searching for animals! We had our eyes peeled from the start (despite the FREEZING weather) and about 5 minutes in I spotted a giraffe with just its neck sticking out from the grass. It was so unreal and exciting! Over the next few days we saw lots of giraffes, zebras, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, birds, buffalo, warthogs and lots of other cool animals. We also got two awesome close-ups of groups of lions which is harder to see and caught a leopard crossing the road too. On the third day we opted out of the safari since we had seen just about everything and we went water rafting instead. During the summer the rapids there are a class 5 since it's the rainy season. We hit it at a low point and as a result got stuck on lots of rocks, but it was still a fun activity to end a great vacation. While we were in South Africa I also got a haircut (first in a year!...gross..I know) and two pairs of jeans (also first new clothes in a year). Exciting stuff. After Kruger we went down to Johannesburg for a day and then I flew back to Maputo and the family went back to the States. It was sad to say goodbye again but we had a great 2 week vaca and I think everyone was ready to head home at the end of it.
Any other friends and family members are welcome to visit while I am here!!!
And I will be home to visit at Christmas so, USA, see you in 4 months...
We spent a couple of relaxing days in Maputo and saw some of my favorite city spots. We visited the open air fish market down the road from the hotel. When you arrive you have people coming up to you to basically take you in as their "customer". A nice woman named Emilia approached me so I chose her as our cook and waitress for the day.You then enter the market and pick out what seafood you want for your meal. They put it in bags right there and give it to you. We got steamers, prawns, and fish. Then you make your way into an open air seating section surrounded by little enclosed rooms where the cooking takes place. Emilia then took our food out back and cooked it while we sat and sipped on our drinks. I had been there before with volunteers and it's a nice place to spend the afternoon, not to mention that the seafood is delicious! We also visited a craft market where I showed them all of the local wooden crafts, jewelry, and other crafts. We spent a lot of time looking around and then worked on haggling down the prices so that my Mom and sister could go home with some nice gifts and souvenirs!
After our days in Maputo we rented a car and zipped up to my site, Chongoene. My Dad did the driving (it's on the left side of the road here) and did a wonderful job driving. We did get stopped by a police officer on our way out of Maputo for a minor confusion in the turning lanes but I apologized profusely in my best Portuguese and she let us go. On the way up to Chongoene we stopped to buy some passion fruit and tangerines, which are so tasty here and the family loved. We also bought some food for the week in Xai-Xai and bought chairs for my house! I only had one chair before this week because that's all that was there when I arrived and I never had an easy way to transport them there from the city before.
The two days we spent in Chongoene were nice and relaxing. We drank coffee on the porch, had a tour of a town, and they spent a good amount of time getting to know my boyfriend, Francelino and his family (more on that in the post below). They got a good taste of life in my town and I think they liked being finally able to see my house and where I had been living for the last 10 months.
After we left Chongoene, we went to Xai-Xai beach which is about a 40 min drive away. We rented a little beach house on stilts and had some more relaxing games full of book reading, card games, walks on the beach, and yummy seafood. It is "winter" here so the weather was around 60-70 degrees, the wind was blowing, and the water was rough so none of us went swimming, although my mother did get drenched once when knocked over by an unexpected wave. (Sorry Mom, I had to mention it). The sun was out the whole week though and all in all, we had beautiful weather.
On Saturday we left the beach and headed back to Maputo. We spent another night in a hotel there and the next morning got in a van to take us to South Africa! The trip took a total of about 5 hours and crossing the border was quick and easy. We got to our hotel in Hazyview called Hippo Hollow. It was a cute little place and we settled in after an early dinner. We had to eat early dinners most nights because you are not supposed to walk around the area at night because hippos roam around and they're super dangerous, seriously. We were picked up bright and early the next morning by our safari guide, Elvis. Elvis drove us about 25 minutes to one of the gates of Kruger National Park where we entered to start searching for animals! We had our eyes peeled from the start (despite the FREEZING weather) and about 5 minutes in I spotted a giraffe with just its neck sticking out from the grass. It was so unreal and exciting! Over the next few days we saw lots of giraffes, zebras, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, birds, buffalo, warthogs and lots of other cool animals. We also got two awesome close-ups of groups of lions which is harder to see and caught a leopard crossing the road too. On the third day we opted out of the safari since we had seen just about everything and we went water rafting instead. During the summer the rapids there are a class 5 since it's the rainy season. We hit it at a low point and as a result got stuck on lots of rocks, but it was still a fun activity to end a great vacation. While we were in South Africa I also got a haircut (first in a year!...gross..I know) and two pairs of jeans (also first new clothes in a year). Exciting stuff. After Kruger we went down to Johannesburg for a day and then I flew back to Maputo and the family went back to the States. It was sad to say goodbye again but we had a great 2 week vaca and I think everyone was ready to head home at the end of it.
Any other friends and family members are welcome to visit while I am here!!!
And I will be home to visit at Christmas so, USA, see you in 4 months...
Francelino
So this is a post that I have been meaning to write for a while but have just not gotten around to doing it! For six months now (almost) I have been dating a guy in my town. His name is Francelino, he is Mozambican and is just wonderful! We are the same age and he lives in a house close to mine. He is finishing 12th grade this year, which age-wise is more normal for schools here. He didn't start school at the correct age because the civil war was still going on in Mozambique and it wasn't safe for kids to go out and attend school. We were introduced by Zach, the volunteer who lived in my town before I got there and left just a few days after I arrived. I spend a lot of time at his house and his family has really welcomed me as a daughter. When my parents and my sister visited Mozambique two weeks ago, he met them and his family invited us to dinner for the two nights that we were in Chongoene. It was definitely an interesting cultural experience for all. My parents, sister, and I are the only Americans that they have ever met and they are the only Mozambicans that my family has ever met. We did have to do some 3 language translating which was definitely a first(Francelino's family said something in Changana, their local language, he translated to me in Portuguese, and I translated to my family in English), but overall it was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed the company. More on the family's visit to Africa to come in another post!
When I made the decision to go into the Peace Corps, a relationship was the last thing on my mind, but I was certainly very lucky for him to come along. He makes me very very happy and he makes life here and the whole experience so much easier for me.
4th of July Audrey's Visit
Firstly, sorry for being MIA for so long...life has been busy here! Enjoy the new posts!
Usually the 4th of July is a fun-filled day of barbecuing, beer, maybe a parade, and some fireworks. Here in Mozambique, in the company of many America-loving volunteer, we tried to make the day no different. I went up to a town called Inharrime, about 4 hours north of where I live, where some of the volunteers who arrived a year ahead of me were setting up for some 4th of July fun. WhenI arrived everyone was sitting outside decked out in red, white, and blue clothing, eating popcorn, and drinking beer. Good start right? We all mostly hung out outside in the sun chatting and listening to music all afternoon, and it was nice to be around Americans and speak English for an extended amount of time. For dinner they made cheeseburgers and potato salad. Some of the girls had also whipped up some cakes and brownies for everyone and had appropriately made red, white, and blue colored frosting to decorate the cakes with. One was decorated with an American flag and on the other one they made the Peace Corps logo. It was very impressive. At night a bonfire was made...minus the fireworks we came pretty close to having an American 4th of July party right? I certainly thought so!
My friend and fellow volunteer, Audrey made the trek down from Tete (a province far, far away) to meet everyone in Inharrime at the 4th of July celebration. It was the first time that I had seen her since swearing in in December so it was great to finally see her again. Her parents were visiting in the coming weeks so she was making her way down to Maputo, the capital to meet them. We planned to meet up in Inharrime and then she came back to Chongoene with me and spent 3 days at my site. It was great to have an extended visitor! She attended some of my classes and we had a question and answer session with her and my 11th grade classes, which was great. Audrey and I are basically the same height, have similar color hair, and both of our preferred outfits are usually jeans with a black fleece jacket. EVERYONE we met asked us if we were sisters and were shocked to learn that we were not. She got a few marriage proposals from some of my students, which is nothing out of the ordinary in this country for us. My students really seemed to like her and it was nice having company in my house. At the end of the week I took a couple of days off and went down to Maputo to “play” a little but, so I got a nice 4-day weekend out of it. Three other volunteers that we are close with were also there so going out with them and exploring the city was a great time. On Sunday, I dropped her off at the airport and started the journey back to site!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
JOMA!
Above is a picture of me with my students and their certificates from the conference that they attended
I think that I have mentioned before that I have been working with a theater group at the school through a Peace Corps program called JOMA. The weekend before last I had an opportunity to take 8 of the kids from the group to a weekend conference a few hours away. They get everything provided for them (transportation, food, lodging) which is great because most of these kids have little to no money to be able to travel like that. I was so excited to go and the weekend was a blast!!!
There were about 62 kids representing 8 different schools in Maputo and Gaza province there. The weekend was full of sessions educating the students on topics like domestic violence, STDs, HIV/AIDS, puberty, pregnancy, self-esteem, and leadership. The kids were so dynamic in the sessions. I was surprised that even while talking about some of the less comfortable health topics, students always had something to say. There were also two Mozambican health workers there to test people for HIV. The majority of the kids elected to get tested and it was a nice opportunity for them to do the test in a safe place. Many people here are afraid to get tested in their own towns because confidentiality here isn't what it is in the US and people think that everyone in their community will know their status if it comes out positive. Some travel to other health centers farther away, but most don't have the money to do that.
At night we held activities like musical chairs or dances or other team building exercises. The kids all made fast friends with each other and it was a really positive environment for them. So many students here love to perform! Whether it was dance, song, poems, theater, or jokes, every student had something to share and on the last night we held a talent show where each group presented something and a group of the girls put on a beauty pageant (with judges and everything).
I'm pretty sure the kids barely slept all weekend. I know for sure that the first night a group of kids woke up at 4am to play soccer before breakfast and the second night they woke up at midnight to play for a while. The volunteers there (including myself) also barely slept and tried to keep things moving smoothly all weekend.
The women who worked in the kitchen preparing food did the hardest work of the weekend. The first night they cooked 27 chickens for all of us. That includes killing them by hand, plucking them, gutting them, butchering, and finally cooking them. It's hard work! The last night they also cooked two goats for us (and also had to kill, skin, and butcher them personally...it's just how it works here!). The food all weekend was delicious and I had a great time. I also think it inspired the kids in my group to keep up the hard work so that they can have other similar opportunities!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Bom Dia Senhora Professora
"Bom dia Senhora Professora!" or "Good Morning Teacher!" is how I am greeted by all of the students (in unison) when I walk into any classroom. It's actually a really nice way to start off a class and can sometimes be a nice pick-me-up on a tiring day.
So for the blog post this week I have decided to give a brief explanation about how the school system here works:
There are two levels of schools here. There is primary school which is 1st-7th grade and secondary school which is 8th-12th grade. School is also not free. The high school kids had to pay about 550 mets for the year which is about 15 dollars US. It doesn't seem like a lot of money to us, but for Mozambicans it really is. I know a couple of students who are doing night school now because years ago they had to stop going to school so that a sibling would go to school. In his family the kids took turns attending school for a couple of years at a time because the family could only pay for one child to go to school each year. He is now 27 years old and is in the 11th grade. This happens a lot so I have many 10th,11th, or 12th graders who are 21, 22 or even 25 years old.
The grading system here is also very different. All of their grades are out of 20 points and a 10 is passing. Yes, 50% is passing, and still SO many students fail every exam. I corrected a 12th grade chemistry exam that I gave last week and out of 25 kids I had ONE student pass and I'm pretty sure he guessed on all of the answers (it was multiple choice). The school likes to see a passing rate of around 70-80% per discipline, but there are some teachers with a passing rate of as low as 30%.
Another issue is that the schools are not completely honest with what they do with the money. For example, in this years matriculation fees for the kids, it included money for their exams. You have to pay for every piece of paper printed or copied at the school since the school has no money. Every time I want to give a test I have to collect 1 or 2 mets from each kid to give them their test. (Someone suggested that as a volunteer I should pay for the tests for my kids,but I currently have about 745 students so for a two page test I have to collect 1490 mets) and I only get paid 6700 per month so it ends up being a big chunk out of my living allowance). Supposedly the kids paid their test money at the beginning of the school year and then the school just decided to use it for something else...
The school also uses a chunk of the money to pay a bakery to send a bread truck to the school every day to bring bread for the kids...but the kids then have to buy the bread when it is sent to the school...so it's like the kids pay twice for the bread...
Students here have a HUGE problem with cheating. I think that they think it's the only way for them to pass and many teachers let it go so the kids learn that they can get away with it. They get pretty upset when I give them zeroes on their exams for using their notebooks or cheat sheets, but they have to learn! They also talk all the time to each other during tests and there are so many of them that it's hard to control. My newest and most successful strategy is that if I catch a student talking to a friend I take 2 points off of their test and make them sit on the ground at the front of the classroom for the rest of their test. Mozambicans HATE getting dirty and the floor is always dirty or dusty and it's also cement which is not super comfortable to sit on.
The students are required to come to school 20 minutes before school starts, line up in front of the school, and sing the national anthem every day. I also am required to be there and have to stand in front of the students with the other teachers and sing (so I now know all of the words). The students are also responsible for keeping their classroom clean so every day before school they have to sweep the classroom. The class that I am responsible for borrows the broom from my house every morning, and many other classes pool together money to buy a class broom and a class eraser for the blackboard because it is not provided by the school. The students are also responsible for keeping the school grounds clean so every other Saturday all of the students are required to be at the school in the morning with their garden hoes or rakes to clean the school grounds.
I'm sure that I am forgetting to include all sorts of other interesting tidbits about the school system but that's all I have for now.
Here are some other interesting things that have happened to me this week:
-On my way here my shoe completely broke. What was I supposed to do with one shoe in the middle of town?! Luckily Xai Xai has many cobblers who re-sole and fix shoes so a guy across the street called me over and fixed my shoe in about two minutes. He also probably could have charged me anything for it since I was shoe-less but it was only 10 mets(30 cents)!
-My dog has been killing chickens/chicks that belong to my neighbors and even though I try to stop him/hide the evidence, they (very nicely) confronted me this week and asked me if I could keep him tied up at night. Thank God they like me.
-They built a KFC in XaiXai (I can't remember if I mentioned this) and it opened about 2 weeks ago. It is also a drive through and the only drive through that I have seen in Mozambique. There is a guard outside who instructs people on how to go through the drive-thru since most people have never used one before haha. ALSO since they drive on the other side of the road here, the drive-thru also goes the opposite way around the building....
That's all I've got for now...until next week...
So for the blog post this week I have decided to give a brief explanation about how the school system here works:
There are two levels of schools here. There is primary school which is 1st-7th grade and secondary school which is 8th-12th grade. School is also not free. The high school kids had to pay about 550 mets for the year which is about 15 dollars US. It doesn't seem like a lot of money to us, but for Mozambicans it really is. I know a couple of students who are doing night school now because years ago they had to stop going to school so that a sibling would go to school. In his family the kids took turns attending school for a couple of years at a time because the family could only pay for one child to go to school each year. He is now 27 years old and is in the 11th grade. This happens a lot so I have many 10th,11th, or 12th graders who are 21, 22 or even 25 years old.
The grading system here is also very different. All of their grades are out of 20 points and a 10 is passing. Yes, 50% is passing, and still SO many students fail every exam. I corrected a 12th grade chemistry exam that I gave last week and out of 25 kids I had ONE student pass and I'm pretty sure he guessed on all of the answers (it was multiple choice). The school likes to see a passing rate of around 70-80% per discipline, but there are some teachers with a passing rate of as low as 30%.
Another issue is that the schools are not completely honest with what they do with the money. For example, in this years matriculation fees for the kids, it included money for their exams. You have to pay for every piece of paper printed or copied at the school since the school has no money. Every time I want to give a test I have to collect 1 or 2 mets from each kid to give them their test. (Someone suggested that as a volunteer I should pay for the tests for my kids,but I currently have about 745 students so for a two page test I have to collect 1490 mets) and I only get paid 6700 per month so it ends up being a big chunk out of my living allowance). Supposedly the kids paid their test money at the beginning of the school year and then the school just decided to use it for something else...
The school also uses a chunk of the money to pay a bakery to send a bread truck to the school every day to bring bread for the kids...but the kids then have to buy the bread when it is sent to the school...so it's like the kids pay twice for the bread...
Students here have a HUGE problem with cheating. I think that they think it's the only way for them to pass and many teachers let it go so the kids learn that they can get away with it. They get pretty upset when I give them zeroes on their exams for using their notebooks or cheat sheets, but they have to learn! They also talk all the time to each other during tests and there are so many of them that it's hard to control. My newest and most successful strategy is that if I catch a student talking to a friend I take 2 points off of their test and make them sit on the ground at the front of the classroom for the rest of their test. Mozambicans HATE getting dirty and the floor is always dirty or dusty and it's also cement which is not super comfortable to sit on.
The students are required to come to school 20 minutes before school starts, line up in front of the school, and sing the national anthem every day. I also am required to be there and have to stand in front of the students with the other teachers and sing (so I now know all of the words). The students are also responsible for keeping their classroom clean so every day before school they have to sweep the classroom. The class that I am responsible for borrows the broom from my house every morning, and many other classes pool together money to buy a class broom and a class eraser for the blackboard because it is not provided by the school. The students are also responsible for keeping the school grounds clean so every other Saturday all of the students are required to be at the school in the morning with their garden hoes or rakes to clean the school grounds.
I'm sure that I am forgetting to include all sorts of other interesting tidbits about the school system but that's all I have for now.
Here are some other interesting things that have happened to me this week:
-On my way here my shoe completely broke. What was I supposed to do with one shoe in the middle of town?! Luckily Xai Xai has many cobblers who re-sole and fix shoes so a guy across the street called me over and fixed my shoe in about two minutes. He also probably could have charged me anything for it since I was shoe-less but it was only 10 mets(30 cents)!
-My dog has been killing chickens/chicks that belong to my neighbors and even though I try to stop him/hide the evidence, they (very nicely) confronted me this week and asked me if I could keep him tied up at night. Thank God they like me.
-They built a KFC in XaiXai (I can't remember if I mentioned this) and it opened about 2 weeks ago. It is also a drive through and the only drive through that I have seen in Mozambique. There is a guard outside who instructs people on how to go through the drive-thru since most people have never used one before haha. ALSO since they drive on the other side of the road here, the drive-thru also goes the opposite way around the building....
That's all I've got for now...until next week...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
I apologize for going SO long without an entry here. Here are the more interesting things going on in my life:
Last Saturday we had a mandatory teachers meeting at the school. I was a little annoyed about it because I was only informed about it on Friday, but oh well. The meeting was supposed to start at 8:30 and teachers were encouraged to get there at 7:30 to work on lesson plans with other teachers of the same discipline. Not wanting to be the only one hanging around at 7:30, I tidied up my house and arrived in Mozambican fashion at 8. I met with some of the other English teachers to talk about the curriculum and challenges that we were having in the classroom and I met with the other chemistry teacher to coordinate our lessons.
The meeting ended up starting at 9:40 (surprise, surprise!). We start every school day with the singing of the Mozambican national anthem so we also kicked off the meeting with the national anthem as well, which I thought was kind of funny, but they took it very seriously. The director and the assistant directors of the school each spoke about what would go on at the meeting. The meeting was basically called to assess and discuss the results and grades from the first trimester. Each teacher for each class is required to calculate their passing rate so for each grade the subject with the highest passing percentage and lowest passing percentage was read off and the teachers were called on to explain what happened either positively or negatively. Luckily my classes of English and Chemistry were not on the top, nor on the bottom for each grade so I wasn't put in the hot seat. Oh and when I say "low passing rate" I'm referring to 25-30%, yes, THAT low. It's a problem.
On the up side, we had been told in training about how lots of teachers and schools change the grades of their students to look better on paper to the government and to therefore receive more funding. I was very impressed at this meeting to hear the teachers stand up and justify failing their students and refusing to change the grades. It's true that there are a lot of kids here who just don't care about their grades and just don't study at all and deserve to fail. I was impressed that the teachers stood up and said that the kids deserved the grades that they got instead of breaking under the pressure of the superiors. Some even accused other teachers with high passing percentages of changing grades.
There is also a problem with illiteracy in the school. In primary school (1st-7th grade), the kids are never held back. They can fail all of their subjects, but will ultimately still move onto the next grade. Therefore, if kids aren't taught well and are just passed along, some kids go through the system without really learning to read and write. Luckily I don't run into these problems since I only teach 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, but I can definitely see how challenging that would be for the 8th grade teachers.
There were about 30 teachers at the meeting and maybe 8 or 9 of them really guiding the discussion about challenges and passing percentages, but of course about halfway through the meeting the director felt the need to call me out and ask me if I wanted to contribute something. Up until that point I truly had nothing to contribute, but I decided that I really should say something so I ended up bringing up some issues that I and the other teachers have been having with night classes. It's one thing talking in front of a group of kids in somewhat gramatically incorrect Portuguese, but it's a bit more intimidating doing it in front of 30 of my colleagues, but I survived. I even made a joke and they all laughed---SUCCESS!
The meeting lasted about 3 hours, but it was all really important stuff and I was able to keep up with all of it in Portuguese which was nice. It was also nice to spend more time with the other teachers and I definitely have a more friendly relationship with them now.
Classes are all going well. I absolutely love teaching English--especially for the benefit of those kids who really want to learn. One of my 10th graders lives at the Catholic missionary church in my town with other students who will enter the seminary in Maputo after 10th grade. He constantly asks me for help and stays after school once or twice a week to practice his English with me in conversation or he will read a book in English out loud so that I can help him with his pronunciation. He is just so adorable and really really wants to learn English.
Also my 11th grade English classes had to write a skit to perform in class this week that had to do with fashion and clothing (because we just learned all of that vocabulary). One of my classes asked if they could come in on Saturday to perform it because they didn't think they would have enough time to do a good job during class on Friday. What kind of high school kids ASK to come to school on a Saturday? When I announced it to the class that it would take place on Saturday a bunch of them stood up and started cheering...crazy kids.
That's all for now--more updates (and pictures) coming soon!
Last Saturday we had a mandatory teachers meeting at the school. I was a little annoyed about it because I was only informed about it on Friday, but oh well. The meeting was supposed to start at 8:30 and teachers were encouraged to get there at 7:30 to work on lesson plans with other teachers of the same discipline. Not wanting to be the only one hanging around at 7:30, I tidied up my house and arrived in Mozambican fashion at 8. I met with some of the other English teachers to talk about the curriculum and challenges that we were having in the classroom and I met with the other chemistry teacher to coordinate our lessons.
The meeting ended up starting at 9:40 (surprise, surprise!). We start every school day with the singing of the Mozambican national anthem so we also kicked off the meeting with the national anthem as well, which I thought was kind of funny, but they took it very seriously. The director and the assistant directors of the school each spoke about what would go on at the meeting. The meeting was basically called to assess and discuss the results and grades from the first trimester. Each teacher for each class is required to calculate their passing rate so for each grade the subject with the highest passing percentage and lowest passing percentage was read off and the teachers were called on to explain what happened either positively or negatively. Luckily my classes of English and Chemistry were not on the top, nor on the bottom for each grade so I wasn't put in the hot seat. Oh and when I say "low passing rate" I'm referring to 25-30%, yes, THAT low. It's a problem.
On the up side, we had been told in training about how lots of teachers and schools change the grades of their students to look better on paper to the government and to therefore receive more funding. I was very impressed at this meeting to hear the teachers stand up and justify failing their students and refusing to change the grades. It's true that there are a lot of kids here who just don't care about their grades and just don't study at all and deserve to fail. I was impressed that the teachers stood up and said that the kids deserved the grades that they got instead of breaking under the pressure of the superiors. Some even accused other teachers with high passing percentages of changing grades.
There is also a problem with illiteracy in the school. In primary school (1st-7th grade), the kids are never held back. They can fail all of their subjects, but will ultimately still move onto the next grade. Therefore, if kids aren't taught well and are just passed along, some kids go through the system without really learning to read and write. Luckily I don't run into these problems since I only teach 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, but I can definitely see how challenging that would be for the 8th grade teachers.
There were about 30 teachers at the meeting and maybe 8 or 9 of them really guiding the discussion about challenges and passing percentages, but of course about halfway through the meeting the director felt the need to call me out and ask me if I wanted to contribute something. Up until that point I truly had nothing to contribute, but I decided that I really should say something so I ended up bringing up some issues that I and the other teachers have been having with night classes. It's one thing talking in front of a group of kids in somewhat gramatically incorrect Portuguese, but it's a bit more intimidating doing it in front of 30 of my colleagues, but I survived. I even made a joke and they all laughed---SUCCESS!
The meeting lasted about 3 hours, but it was all really important stuff and I was able to keep up with all of it in Portuguese which was nice. It was also nice to spend more time with the other teachers and I definitely have a more friendly relationship with them now.
Classes are all going well. I absolutely love teaching English--especially for the benefit of those kids who really want to learn. One of my 10th graders lives at the Catholic missionary church in my town with other students who will enter the seminary in Maputo after 10th grade. He constantly asks me for help and stays after school once or twice a week to practice his English with me in conversation or he will read a book in English out loud so that I can help him with his pronunciation. He is just so adorable and really really wants to learn English.
Also my 11th grade English classes had to write a skit to perform in class this week that had to do with fashion and clothing (because we just learned all of that vocabulary). One of my classes asked if they could come in on Saturday to perform it because they didn't think they would have enough time to do a good job during class on Friday. What kind of high school kids ASK to come to school on a Saturday? When I announced it to the class that it would take place on Saturday a bunch of them stood up and started cheering...crazy kids.
That's all for now--more updates (and pictures) coming soon!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
End of the first trimester and Reconnect conference in Maputo
The last few weeks have really flown by!
The week before last was the last week of the trimester. This meant that I had to finish up evaluating my students and calculate and submit all of their grades by Friday. For many people, this is work, but not too time consuming. Compared to other volunteers and many other teachers at my school, I teach A LOT. I have 600 students and to evaluate them, correct exams, and calculate grades for that many kids in a week is a real challenge.
The other 11th grade English teacher volunteered to write the 11th grade final English test if I would write the 10th grade one in an attempt to split up the work and make it easier for each other. I said that was fine, but made it very clear that the test MUST be printed and in my hand on Monday morning so that I could evaluate my 3 sections of 11th grade English.
I sent him a text message on Sunday night to remind him of this, but low an behold, first period on Monday morning he was nowhere to be seen. I called him right away and he told me that he had arranged the periods with other teachers to be able to give exams to all five of the 11th grade classes at the same time. We would be giving the test at 9am and he would arrive at 830. I was a little bit annoyed because I was at school bright and early at 6:45 and would have to hang around doing nothing until 9, but I acceped it.
By 9:10, he still had not arrived and I was starting to get somewhat ticked off. I called him and....he was still at home. He promised to be on his way and still come in and although I waited until noon for him to show up, he never arrived. Needless to say, I will be writing all of my English exams on my own from now on. I slept little during the week and spent most of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning correcting, grading, correcting, grading and finally finished Friday afternoon so that I could head out to Maputo the next morning.
This past week we had a big conference in Maputo. After 3 (or 4) months of being at site all volunteers have in service training in their area of work. My conferece was with 16 other education volunteers from the southern provinces of Mozambique. Peace Corps pays for cute little hotel rooms for us and meals are all provided to us which is a really nice treat for us. Ans we got to take showers!!! This was my first hot shower in 4 1/2 months so you bet I enjoyed it. The first day of the conference was really nice. We each gave 10-15 minute presentations about our experiences about our respective sites and it was so interesting to hear about the similar and different experiences that the other volunteers were having.
For dinner on the first night we had salad and LASAGNA and veggies, chicken, and CHOCOLATE PUDDING. Okay, so that probably sounds pretty normal to you, but that was the most exciting meal that I had eaten in 4 1/2 months. Unfortunately either that meal or the next one had something in it that was out to destroy my body because the next two days of the conference I spent in my bed with a fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains. The fever subsided after a day, but my two roommates and I there have been suffering from abdominal pains and intestinal problems ever since.
The doctor here said it was just food poisoning which is unfortunate because I have been waiting to eat ice cream and food variety forever and when I finally have it, I can't eat it!
I was planning to visit my host family from training in Namaacha which is only an hour and a half away from here for a couple of days, but I decided to go home tomorrow instead and spend the weekend at home in my bed recovering.
All is well and it was so much fun to visit with the other volunteers in the South. It will be nice to start a new semester fresh with my students on Monday and I bought some speakers in Maputo so I can play my English classes some American songs to learn! Any suggestions???
The week before last was the last week of the trimester. This meant that I had to finish up evaluating my students and calculate and submit all of their grades by Friday. For many people, this is work, but not too time consuming. Compared to other volunteers and many other teachers at my school, I teach A LOT. I have 600 students and to evaluate them, correct exams, and calculate grades for that many kids in a week is a real challenge.
The other 11th grade English teacher volunteered to write the 11th grade final English test if I would write the 10th grade one in an attempt to split up the work and make it easier for each other. I said that was fine, but made it very clear that the test MUST be printed and in my hand on Monday morning so that I could evaluate my 3 sections of 11th grade English.
I sent him a text message on Sunday night to remind him of this, but low an behold, first period on Monday morning he was nowhere to be seen. I called him right away and he told me that he had arranged the periods with other teachers to be able to give exams to all five of the 11th grade classes at the same time. We would be giving the test at 9am and he would arrive at 830. I was a little bit annoyed because I was at school bright and early at 6:45 and would have to hang around doing nothing until 9, but I acceped it.
By 9:10, he still had not arrived and I was starting to get somewhat ticked off. I called him and....he was still at home. He promised to be on his way and still come in and although I waited until noon for him to show up, he never arrived. Needless to say, I will be writing all of my English exams on my own from now on. I slept little during the week and spent most of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning correcting, grading, correcting, grading and finally finished Friday afternoon so that I could head out to Maputo the next morning.
This past week we had a big conference in Maputo. After 3 (or 4) months of being at site all volunteers have in service training in their area of work. My conferece was with 16 other education volunteers from the southern provinces of Mozambique. Peace Corps pays for cute little hotel rooms for us and meals are all provided to us which is a really nice treat for us. Ans we got to take showers!!! This was my first hot shower in 4 1/2 months so you bet I enjoyed it. The first day of the conference was really nice. We each gave 10-15 minute presentations about our experiences about our respective sites and it was so interesting to hear about the similar and different experiences that the other volunteers were having.
For dinner on the first night we had salad and LASAGNA and veggies, chicken, and CHOCOLATE PUDDING. Okay, so that probably sounds pretty normal to you, but that was the most exciting meal that I had eaten in 4 1/2 months. Unfortunately either that meal or the next one had something in it that was out to destroy my body because the next two days of the conference I spent in my bed with a fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains. The fever subsided after a day, but my two roommates and I there have been suffering from abdominal pains and intestinal problems ever since.
The doctor here said it was just food poisoning which is unfortunate because I have been waiting to eat ice cream and food variety forever and when I finally have it, I can't eat it!
I was planning to visit my host family from training in Namaacha which is only an hour and a half away from here for a couple of days, but I decided to go home tomorrow instead and spend the weekend at home in my bed recovering.
All is well and it was so much fun to visit with the other volunteers in the South. It will be nice to start a new semester fresh with my students on Monday and I bought some speakers in Maputo so I can play my English classes some American songs to learn! Any suggestions???
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
During my first few, slow weeks at site I used to say that Africa was testing me every time I hit a bump in the road. With time I got used to expect the unexpected and, with lots of patience, handled the challenges that were presented to me. Yesterday made me go back to my original thinking. What a day! Firstly, I use a little two burner gas stove to cook on. The has tank attached to it lasted me from when i moved in in december until now. On Friday night the gas finally ran out. Unfortunately my visa also expired last week and Peace Corps had taken our passports to renew them. We are not supposed to travel without our documents and Peace Corps informed us that they would be returning them to us on Saturday or Sunday which also meant that I had to be near my house in case Peace Corps showed up with my passport. I decided that i could survive until Monday on bread, nuts, fruits, and vegetables. On Monday afternoon I asked one of my close Mozambican friends if he would go with me to get my gas tank filled up and help me carry it. I also had not done this before so it was nice to have someone along with me who knew where to go for this sort of thing. We set out in the afternoon and got a chapa headed for the city. We got off at a has station part way there and lugged the gas tank across the road. As we walked over to the gas station an attendant signalled to us that there was no gas. He then came over and explained that they had gas but the system for pumping it was down. We dejectedly got onto another chapa and headed to the city. The story was the same at every place that we went to. Every place was completely out of gas. Darn! This took us a couple of hours to do and included about 5 chapa trips. By this time my arm also felt like it was going to fall off. We stopped in the market to talk to my friend's brother to see if he knew anything about the gas situation in town. He said that even Maputo, the capital city, was having gas problems and that there was no place that we could go. GREAT! We reluctantly decided to head home as a rainstorm came through and started pouring on us. My friend said that he would lend me am extra electric stove that he had until I could buy gas. I went to his house to pick it up and then trudged home. At this point I was tired, hungry, and soaked from the rain. Then the power went out. Needless to say, my morale was low. The power went back on a little while later, but I realized that the stove that he lent me had a plug that did not fit in either of the two outlets in my house. Luckily when i told him this he invited me over for dinner so that I didnt go hungry. It was just one of those days where when you think more things could not possibly go wrong, they do. Hopefully when I go back to the city on Wednesday to buy gas ill be successful!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
So I was invited to some sort of church celebration a couple of weeks ago by one of my students. I wasn't quite sure what it was for, but since she invited me I decided that I might as well go. It was in a little village in the bush and she told me that we would have to take a chapa there and leave early in the morning. She told me to meet her at a certain spot on the road at 6:30 am. It was about a 40 minute walk from my house so I left around 5:45 even though I knew that I would have to wait about an hour once I got there (assuming that they would be late). I, unfortunately, was right. At about 7:45 a chapa pulled onto the side of the road near me. A man stepped out and said "stora, o carro ta aqui", meaning, "teacher, the car is here". I got into a chapa that was packed full of people going to this celebration. One of the little girls hopped on my lap (since there was so little room) and held my hands as we headed off to our destination. The women in the chapa were singing songs in Changana the whole way there and everyone was wearing traditional capulana clothing. It really woke me up and I was excited for the day. About an hour and a half later, after driving the whole way on a pretty rough dirt road, we arrived at a clearing with a couple of small buildings (one of them was the church). I was able to assess the people around me for the first time as we exited the chapa. First of all, I assumed that my student had invited some of her friends from school or maybe another teacher or something, but I soon found out that that was false. I was the only person from the school that she had invited. This made me feel honored, surprised, and confused all at the same time(Why me???). Secondly, I have mentioned before that they really pack people into these chapas. Sometimes it really reminds me of that scene from Mary Poppins where she keeps taking larger and larger objects out of her purse, which is clearly too small. Sometimes I expect there to be 10 people in one of these cars, and then more and more people keep exiting and it seems to never end!
Anyway, back to the celebration...I soon pieced together that my student's parents were married at this church and they were celebrating their wedding anniversary. We were soon sat down at a table and served bread and tea (or water with sugar and instant milk, yum). Usually in these situations in foreign countries I like to watch other people serve themselves to see how they do it or see how they eat a certain food, or how much they serve themselves, but here in Mozambique they always make me serve myself first! I basically just have to hope that I do everything right and don't commit any social faux pas! After, my student, Rachell, introduced me to her mom and then we went to take our seats on the benches outside. Usually church here goes on inside, but sometimes for special celebrations where there are a lot of people, they set it all up outside. It was an Evangelical church and most of the service consisted of singing performances by different groups in the congregation, or people standing up in front and preaching really enthusiastically. Oh, and mass was 3 1/2 hours, which was a little bit long for me, but I lived.
After mass we had lunch, which was of course a huge meal consisting of rice, chicken, potatoes, cow/pig intestines (again), beef, hard boiled eggs, and several other dishes which I had to turn down because I was SO full.
After the meal we attended the gift presentation ceremony. Each group invited sings a little song and dances in and presents a gift to the guests of honor. The songs are in Changana so I don't really understand them, but they sound pretty and everyone gets really excited and dances. The presents at this party were serious too. Someone gave them a full fridge and freezer, like a normal one that you would find in the U.S. Other common gifts included capulanas, glasses, buckets or basins, pots, spoons, platters, plates, and other household items. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade and playing with the little kids there. One little girl in particular really liked me although she only spoke Changana so we couldn't communicate too well, but that's not as important with little kids. I also chatted with some of the adults there and lots of them played with my hair (yes, the adults). People always tell me that I have a doll's hair and ask me to cut it off for them so that they can weave it into their own hair.
When we headed back the chapa was even more packed with people. I was given the passengers seat and shared it with four small children. Three of them sat on my lap and I had to try to hold onto them there so they didnt bump their heads on the dashboard as we travelled down the bumpy road. Three of the four also fell asleep on the trip so it was a challenging task. When I got off at my stop I ran into two of my students on the road and one of them got me a ride home with the priest of the church in my town and one of the nuns there. They were very nice and the priest asked me to teach him English while I am here, so maybe if I can find the time I will do that too!
All in all, it was a really fun and interesting day and I really felt so honored that Rachell invited me to come along. Her family and friends were also so welcoming and I really enjoyed myself.
Other news this week:
IT RAINED! I had almost no water in my house the last two weeks and mostly all of my clothes and dishes were dirty. I heard it raining on Sunday night in the middle of the night and I rushed outside with two large basins. When I woke up in the morning they were full of water and I finally got to wash some clothing. It was a very happy moment.
I gave exams to all of my students this week which means that this week/weekend I have 600 exams to correct....yikes!
I celebrated six months in Mozambique yesterday! It seems like it all went by so fast, but when I look back at all the things that I have learned and done since I left the U.S, it seems like forever.
In two weeks the first trimester at school ends and I have a conference in Maputo with other volunteers. I'm already dreaming about treating myself to some ice cream and a couple new pieces of clothing.
That's all for now. Hope everyone is happy and healthy back home!
-Michelle
Anyway, back to the celebration...I soon pieced together that my student's parents were married at this church and they were celebrating their wedding anniversary. We were soon sat down at a table and served bread and tea (or water with sugar and instant milk, yum). Usually in these situations in foreign countries I like to watch other people serve themselves to see how they do it or see how they eat a certain food, or how much they serve themselves, but here in Mozambique they always make me serve myself first! I basically just have to hope that I do everything right and don't commit any social faux pas! After, my student, Rachell, introduced me to her mom and then we went to take our seats on the benches outside. Usually church here goes on inside, but sometimes for special celebrations where there are a lot of people, they set it all up outside. It was an Evangelical church and most of the service consisted of singing performances by different groups in the congregation, or people standing up in front and preaching really enthusiastically. Oh, and mass was 3 1/2 hours, which was a little bit long for me, but I lived.
After mass we had lunch, which was of course a huge meal consisting of rice, chicken, potatoes, cow/pig intestines (again), beef, hard boiled eggs, and several other dishes which I had to turn down because I was SO full.
After the meal we attended the gift presentation ceremony. Each group invited sings a little song and dances in and presents a gift to the guests of honor. The songs are in Changana so I don't really understand them, but they sound pretty and everyone gets really excited and dances. The presents at this party were serious too. Someone gave them a full fridge and freezer, like a normal one that you would find in the U.S. Other common gifts included capulanas, glasses, buckets or basins, pots, spoons, platters, plates, and other household items. I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade and playing with the little kids there. One little girl in particular really liked me although she only spoke Changana so we couldn't communicate too well, but that's not as important with little kids. I also chatted with some of the adults there and lots of them played with my hair (yes, the adults). People always tell me that I have a doll's hair and ask me to cut it off for them so that they can weave it into their own hair.
When we headed back the chapa was even more packed with people. I was given the passengers seat and shared it with four small children. Three of them sat on my lap and I had to try to hold onto them there so they didnt bump their heads on the dashboard as we travelled down the bumpy road. Three of the four also fell asleep on the trip so it was a challenging task. When I got off at my stop I ran into two of my students on the road and one of them got me a ride home with the priest of the church in my town and one of the nuns there. They were very nice and the priest asked me to teach him English while I am here, so maybe if I can find the time I will do that too!
All in all, it was a really fun and interesting day and I really felt so honored that Rachell invited me to come along. Her family and friends were also so welcoming and I really enjoyed myself.
Other news this week:
IT RAINED! I had almost no water in my house the last two weeks and mostly all of my clothes and dishes were dirty. I heard it raining on Sunday night in the middle of the night and I rushed outside with two large basins. When I woke up in the morning they were full of water and I finally got to wash some clothing. It was a very happy moment.
I gave exams to all of my students this week which means that this week/weekend I have 600 exams to correct....yikes!
I celebrated six months in Mozambique yesterday! It seems like it all went by so fast, but when I look back at all the things that I have learned and done since I left the U.S, it seems like forever.
In two weeks the first trimester at school ends and I have a conference in Maputo with other volunteers. I'm already dreaming about treating myself to some ice cream and a couple new pieces of clothing.
That's all for now. Hope everyone is happy and healthy back home!
-Michelle
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
"Tall man" and hot "winter" nights
My school has serious electricity problems. Its not such a big deal during the day because its light out, but when the lights go out during night classes it is a real issue. I find myself in the middle of a lesson and everything just goes completely black. The students yell and squeal with surprise (and delight because it means that they will probably get to go home early). The glow of my students cellphones slowly illuminates the room and at least one or two students push over to my desk to make sure that i can see okay. Sometimes the power switches back on after a few minutes and sometimes its out for days and i lose yet another hour of teaching to my night students. Anyway, i was not pleased when i arrived at school last night to discover that the electricity was out in 5 of the classrooms, including the one that i was supposed to teach in. I asked another teacher if there was anything we could do about it and he said that the same thing had happened the night before, but one of the students known as "tall man" fixed it. Yes, he goes by "tall man" although with the mozambican accent it sounds more like "toll mahn". Anyway, this particularly tall student emerged from his classroom, got a "ladder", which was basically a few sticks nailed together, fiddled around with the electrical wires for about 3O seconds and, magic! All of the lights came back on. Thanks tall man for making it possible for me to teach my classes! In Mozambique they say that they only have two seasons, summer and winter. The other day, on march 21st someone asked me, do you know what today is? The first day of winter! I have realized that my idea of winter is very different from their idea of winter. Its been 1OO degrees every day this week and its pretty much impossible to stop sweating between the hours of 6am and 6pm. Winter? I think not. To make things worse, water has not been flowing from the taps this week so i have had to really ration my water and only use it for drinking and bathing. That means that i have a big pile of clothes and dishes that need washing, but no water to wash them with! Im praying that the water comes back today or ill be in trouble. Water is one of those things i never worried about in the US, but here it can be a big issue!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Schedule changes...again
We are now about two months into school and they changed the day schedule and the night schedule for about the 4th time since school started! To top it all off, they also neglected to tell most of the students AND most of the students about the schedule changes so this week has just been a mess of confusion. The reason for all of these changes is that we have had some new teachers come to the school and other teachers leave. My school is also only a couple of miles away from one of the national universities so many of the teachers at the school are also students at the university. To teach here, in Mozambique, the requirements are not very strict so many of the teachers at the school have only completed up to 12th grade and have no university degree. I am one of the most educated teachers at my school. They also call people who have completed university programs here "doctor" so I am frequently referred to as "Doctora Michelle" (which I find amusing). Anyway, the schedule had to be changed so many times because once the university schedule came out, many teachers realized that they could only work in the morning if they had to study in the afternoon at the university or vice versa.
A few weeks ago the school lost an English teacher (as I have mentioned before) and so I started teaching three sections of 11th grade English. They now asked me to take on some 10th grade English classes (because they also were without a teacher) and a chemistry teacher who was teaching in the afternoon is now teaching in the morning will take over some of my chemistry classes.
I do enjoy teaching English and I still teach chemistry to the night students so I am glad that I get to do both, but the schedule changes are driving me crazy! As soon as I become accustomed to a certain schedule, they just go and change it again! Let's hope this is the last change that will be made this year (or at least this semester).
It was tough making the initial change to not teaching chemistry as much in the morning because I had to leave a few classes behind and they were so sad not to have me as their teacher anymore! It made me feel really good to know that they liked being my students and they begged me to switch my schedule around and teach them chemistry. Unfortunately it's the boss' decision and not mine, but I truly am sad to not be teaching some of those kids anymore.
On the up side, lesson planning for English is SO much easier. I will also never have to worry about a student asking me a question that I don't understand or someone knowing more than I do! It is really fun to teach English too so I am happy to do it.
In other news, I woke up on Tuesday morning and walked outside my house to find that my dog had killed a chicken and was chewing at it on my porch. There were feathers everywhere and I was immediately terrified that I was going to get yelled at by one of my neighbors for my dog killing their chicken. To try to save myself from that fate, I picked up the dead chicken and disposed of it in my latrine and then tried to clean up the feathers as best I could. So far nothing has been said so I think I'm in the clear.
I'm working with a student theater group at school. It's a Peace Corps run and funded program called JOMA that exists in many schools in Mozambique. The students work together to create performances about important topics. My group chose six topics to work with this year includiing HIV/AIDS, sexual harrassment, drugs, and teenage pregnancy. It should be a lot of fun and also very interesting to hear the kids' ideas on these topics.
I must get out of this sweltering internet cafe now. I thought summer here was over, but I thought wrong. It's been 90's all week, and I also have a cold, which is no fun. Who gets a cold when it's 90 degrees outside???
A few weeks ago the school lost an English teacher (as I have mentioned before) and so I started teaching three sections of 11th grade English. They now asked me to take on some 10th grade English classes (because they also were without a teacher) and a chemistry teacher who was teaching in the afternoon is now teaching in the morning will take over some of my chemistry classes.
I do enjoy teaching English and I still teach chemistry to the night students so I am glad that I get to do both, but the schedule changes are driving me crazy! As soon as I become accustomed to a certain schedule, they just go and change it again! Let's hope this is the last change that will be made this year (or at least this semester).
It was tough making the initial change to not teaching chemistry as much in the morning because I had to leave a few classes behind and they were so sad not to have me as their teacher anymore! It made me feel really good to know that they liked being my students and they begged me to switch my schedule around and teach them chemistry. Unfortunately it's the boss' decision and not mine, but I truly am sad to not be teaching some of those kids anymore.
On the up side, lesson planning for English is SO much easier. I will also never have to worry about a student asking me a question that I don't understand or someone knowing more than I do! It is really fun to teach English too so I am happy to do it.
In other news, I woke up on Tuesday morning and walked outside my house to find that my dog had killed a chicken and was chewing at it on my porch. There were feathers everywhere and I was immediately terrified that I was going to get yelled at by one of my neighbors for my dog killing their chicken. To try to save myself from that fate, I picked up the dead chicken and disposed of it in my latrine and then tried to clean up the feathers as best I could. So far nothing has been said so I think I'm in the clear.
I'm working with a student theater group at school. It's a Peace Corps run and funded program called JOMA that exists in many schools in Mozambique. The students work together to create performances about important topics. My group chose six topics to work with this year includiing HIV/AIDS, sexual harrassment, drugs, and teenage pregnancy. It should be a lot of fun and also very interesting to hear the kids' ideas on these topics.
I must get out of this sweltering internet cafe now. I thought summer here was over, but I thought wrong. It's been 90's all week, and I also have a cold, which is no fun. Who gets a cold when it's 90 degrees outside???
Monday, March 14, 2011
A Sad Day for the Secondary School in Chongoene
So, sadly, the school that i work at was broken into last night and 11 computers were stolen from the computer room and secretarial offices. I found out this morning when i got to school. Apparently those rooms were not properly locked and the guard has not been around for a while. The school and the guard have apparently had some issues lately. Rumor has it that they were not paying him as much as they should have. It seems as if some information was passed around secretly too because its too coincidental for thieves to show up two days after the guard decides not to come back. The local police are apparently looking into it, but i would be surprised if they recovered anything or brought in any suspects. Its really a shame for the kids too since i had just started giving them computer classes three weeks ago. This is a really frustrating event because being computer literate is a huge advantage in the working world and i think that its an important step in development also. Its just so unfortunate that the kids had an opportunity to learn something really valuable and now that opportunity has been taken away from them. Im not sure what the next steps are, but computers are so expensive and are definitely not something that the school can afford right away. Anyway, school today was kind of a drag since everyone was bummed out about the robbery. This afternoon i went to the church with the volunteer group that i have been working with there and we cut wood to use to cook with for am upcoming celebration. I thought the hot days of summer were behind up but i was wrong! Yesterday and today were in the upper nineties and boy was it hot. Thats all for now. Not the most exciting or uplifting report today, but sometimes thats just how it goes.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Quick updates!
I'll elaborate later, but while I'm in the city using the internet I figured I would post some quick updates on my life.
-After teaching computers here for two weeks, I will now be shifting my skills to teach English to 11th graders because they can send another teacher to teach computers, but there is no one else here who can teach English.
-Most of my students in computer class have never touched a computer before and were literally trembling as I showed them how to use a mouse and type on the keyboard correctly.
-It is now avocado season here and the avocados here are huge! They must be a different type from the ones that we have in the U.S. because these are giant.
-Yesterday I was invited to the wedding of two of my 11th grade students, yes, 11th graders, and yes, it's normal. I was so honored to be invited to their wedding with an official invitation and everything! It's March 27th and I'm sure that I will have stories afterwards about how it went.
-My Peace Corps sitemate, Naa, is African American and whenever people see us together they assume that I, being white, am American, and she is Mozambican. Yesterday we were eating dinner outside and this white guy (who was either South African or Australian) passed by and came to introduce himself to me. He asked me if I lived in Mozambique, and noticing that he was ignoring Naa and assuming that she was Mozambican, I responded, "Yes, WE are living here in Chongoene". Anyway, he didn't notice and went away without talking to her at all, which I thought was very RUDE.
-I have plans to relax and to go to the beach this weekend....and then figure out what I need to start teaching these 11th graders in English class...
-That's all for now! Things are still great here. More blog posts to come soon...
-After teaching computers here for two weeks, I will now be shifting my skills to teach English to 11th graders because they can send another teacher to teach computers, but there is no one else here who can teach English.
-Most of my students in computer class have never touched a computer before and were literally trembling as I showed them how to use a mouse and type on the keyboard correctly.
-It is now avocado season here and the avocados here are huge! They must be a different type from the ones that we have in the U.S. because these are giant.
-Yesterday I was invited to the wedding of two of my 11th grade students, yes, 11th graders, and yes, it's normal. I was so honored to be invited to their wedding with an official invitation and everything! It's March 27th and I'm sure that I will have stories afterwards about how it went.
-My Peace Corps sitemate, Naa, is African American and whenever people see us together they assume that I, being white, am American, and she is Mozambican. Yesterday we were eating dinner outside and this white guy (who was either South African or Australian) passed by and came to introduce himself to me. He asked me if I lived in Mozambique, and noticing that he was ignoring Naa and assuming that she was Mozambican, I responded, "Yes, WE are living here in Chongoene". Anyway, he didn't notice and went away without talking to her at all, which I thought was very RUDE.
-I have plans to relax and to go to the beach this weekend....and then figure out what I need to start teaching these 11th graders in English class...
-That's all for now! Things are still great here. More blog posts to come soon...
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The art of travelling in mozambique
Travelling around in Mozambique can be a very tricky process. Its one of those things that has a lot of rules that you just have to figure out in order to do it most successfully. First of all, most travel is done by chapa. I think that I have mentioned chapas before but I will explain them again. Chapas are little 15 passenger vans that Mozambicans somehow manage so squeeze upwards of 25 people into(my highest count was 31). In the chapa you have the motorista(the driver) and the cobrador(the money collector). The cobrador basically hangs the top half of his body out the window and wells where the chapa is headed to anyone who looks like they need a ride. There are no schedules and only sometimes are there designated stops. You basically have to tell the cobrador where you want to get off like 15 seconds before you get there and if will bang on the door of the vehicle to tell the motorista that he needs to stop. At first when i went to the city close to me i would wait wherever for a chapa and just hope that someone would drive by yelling "chongoene!" which is the name of my town. I have since discovered a certain spot on a random block where i usually find other people who are going to my town and where chapas to my town always seem to appear. I also think that people are starting to know where i live because some chapas will just stop in front of me and beckon me in without any communication at all. In the city close to where i live there are also a series of hand motions that the cobrador and prospective passengers use to signal where they are going or where they would like to go. Chapas to the beach use a hand motion that looks like you are splashing water on your shoulders. Chapas going to a town called dois mil (literally meaning two thousand) will hold out two fingers like a peace sign. Chapas travelling within the city will point a finger down at the ground and chapas travelling to somewhere far away will point a single finger up at the sky...etc etc. The second option for travelling is hitchhiking, also known as getting a "boleia". This is sometimes necessary especially if chapas are full, scarce, or if you are way out in the boonies where chapas may not exist. To hitchhike here you stand on the side of the road, stretch out your arm with your palm facing down, and move your hand up and down. My friend peggy lives a few hours from me on the main national highway. I visited her last weekend and left at about 8 o'clock on sunday morning to go home. I parked myself on the side of the road and did my best to get someone to stop and take me home. Hitchhiking can be a very demoralizing experience. It only took me about 35 minutes to get myself a ride but in that time i cant tell you how many cozy SUVs with plenty of space inside blew right past me. Finally a huge 18 wheeler came to my rescue and i climbed on board and got to sit in the passengers seat. It was actually a very comfortable ride and the driver made no stops along the way so i was soon back at home. All in all, travelling here is always am adventure and you never know if it will take you an hour to get somewhere or 5 hours, but thats just the way it is.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Photo update!
Some of the kids in my "turma" after cooking at my house at the school anniversary party.
Some of the 11th grade students in my turma outside my house.
The participants in the fashion show modeling their traditional capulana wear.
More capulana wear during the fashion show.
A student strutting her stuff during the "uniform wear" section of our fashion show.
Two students performing a little theater act.
Two students reading poems that they wrote. (They were really good!)
Me and the other judges during the fashion show at my school.
The directors of the school and other teachers.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
My introduction to school parties in mozambique
So like i said earlier, last wednesday was my schools 26th anniversary so there were no classes and instead we had a big party. The week before the teachers each had to contribute a bit of money and each of the classes were organizing food for themselves too. First of all, kids here have every class with the same group of their peers and the students all have one assigned classroom and the teachers rotate around. Each class has a teacher assigned to them who is responsible for the kids in that class(kind me like a homeroom teacher). That teacher is called the director de turma or dt. So i am the dt for a class of wild 11th graders and each week i have to meet with them and give announcements or talk to them about important issues concerning the school. However, the info that i have to give them is super vague to me like..."talk to them about the party, uniforms, the hymn, and saturday, ok go". So sometimes ill ask a teacher to explain things to me in more detail, but i also told my class that schools in the us work very differently and that they need to explain some things to me too. I actually have a couple of students who are up to that task and it helps me out immensely. Ok, now back to the party. I basically let my class plan stuff for the party themselves since i had no idea what was going on. Now, in the US when a class has a party one kid brings in cupcakes, another chips, another soda, etc etc. In mozambique the kids in all out. They brought in pots and pans, wood, charcoal, rice, chickens, a sack of potatoes, pasta, salad, and more. Each class basically camped out in a shady spot around the school and spent the entire morning cooking. It was super impressive. The drinking age here also means nothing and the school doesnt care so classes brought beer, homemade alcohols, and hard cider to school to drink with their meal. Mozambicans also LOVE to dance so kids brought in big speakers and music blasted throughout the school all day. The students also had a little talent show which included singing, rapping, dancing, poetry readings, and a beauty pageant. It was so cool to see them all perform and they made me be one of the three judges for the beauty pageant(pictures to come) which was fun but also a lot of pressure because im not a huge fan of talking to huge groups of people and they made me announce the winners of the beauty pageant to the whole crowd. All in all it was a really fun day although i was forced to eat so much food! I really liked hanging out with the other teachers and the students in a more casual environment.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Things continue to roll along smoothly at my school in Chongoene. I came to the realization this week that I really feel comfortable and am much more integrated into the community. I came to this conclusion in the following way. When I first got to site and would walk around my village to cure some of my boredom, most people just gawked at me and didn't really talk to me. After a couple of weeks people started to greet me in the street, but without much recognition or extended conversation. Now, I am greeted with warm smiles, and "Bom dia senhora professora". People invite me to sit down with them for tea or a meal; they want to talk with me and teach me their local language; and I am greeted with waves and smiles of recognition because now everyone knows who I am. It's a really good feeling. This weekend I had to turn down invitations to hang out with people TWICE because I already had plans, that's a first.
On Thursday afternoons three of my 12th grade girls have started to come to my house while they wait a few hours for gym class to start. The first week we just chatted and they shared their lunch food with me. The second week I also made food for them, we painted our nails, and I showed them my American magazines which they lovedddd. It's a fun exchange of cultures and I hope they continue to come to hang out.
The onlyyyy tricky thing is that people are also comfortable with me so they invite themselves over to my house for meals. Since it's just me at home I don't eat the most lavish meals. I usually stick to a banana or pineapple at breakfast (or oatmeal if I have it), for lunch or dinner I'll make a little soup, maybe some rice or pasta or beans, but it's always very simple. Having guests at my house means I have to really cook! Now I try to stay on my game at all times and keep different food in the house to whip up in case I have an unexpected visitor!
I always get asked here if I am married or have a boyfriend and people are literally SHOCKED to hear that I am not. Then of course they ask why? (What's wrong with you?) Haha, and then we inevitably get into a long discussion about how they think I should really get a Mozambican boyfriend and then take him back to the US with me when I leave. I think people are surprised that I'm single also because people here think that I'm a lot older than I am, which is probably because my level of education is really high for my age (compared to people here). I've had three students or friends ask me how old I am in the last week and when I let them guess their guesses were 28, 28, and 30. Yikes!
Anyway, on Valentine's day yesterday, I received three flowers from students and some cookies so that was exciting. In my time here I've also had several students or men in my village come to my house and literally beg me to be their girlfriend, which is always an awkward situation, but I think I'm getting pretty good at turning them down.
Tomorrow there are no classes at the school because it is the anniversary of the school's opening so we just have a party all day! Apparently it starts with a big soccer game and then the students perform dances, music, theatre, and we have lots of food and alcohol. Sounds like it should be a good time. I heard some professors talking about having some of the students stay this afternoon after school to help prepare the alcohol(they make it themselves out of a certain fruit here) and kill and pluck the chickens. The school really holds the students responsible for taking care of their school. The kids have to sweep their classrooms out every morning and are often ordered to come to the school on Saturdays with their hoes and machetes to cut the grass and keep the school grounds looking nice.
The first week of school a student interrupted my class to make an announcement that went something like this, "The gym teacher would like you all to report to the soccer field tomorrow at 2:00 with your hoes." I really got a kick out of that. The first week of school instead of having gym class the kids had to hoe the field and cut the grass, rough.
The school wants me to start to teach computer technology classes soon which should be fun, except that they want me to follow the curriculum, which just isn't going to happen. We are starting with 12th grade. Some of these kids have barely any experience with computers and the 12th grade curriculum teaches Microsoft Access, databases, and programming languages....yeah, like that's going to happen.
The dog is still healthy, as am I. Time to do some errands and then get back to my school for a meeting this evening.
On Thursday afternoons three of my 12th grade girls have started to come to my house while they wait a few hours for gym class to start. The first week we just chatted and they shared their lunch food with me. The second week I also made food for them, we painted our nails, and I showed them my American magazines which they lovedddd. It's a fun exchange of cultures and I hope they continue to come to hang out.
The onlyyyy tricky thing is that people are also comfortable with me so they invite themselves over to my house for meals. Since it's just me at home I don't eat the most lavish meals. I usually stick to a banana or pineapple at breakfast (or oatmeal if I have it), for lunch or dinner I'll make a little soup, maybe some rice or pasta or beans, but it's always very simple. Having guests at my house means I have to really cook! Now I try to stay on my game at all times and keep different food in the house to whip up in case I have an unexpected visitor!
I always get asked here if I am married or have a boyfriend and people are literally SHOCKED to hear that I am not. Then of course they ask why? (What's wrong with you?) Haha, and then we inevitably get into a long discussion about how they think I should really get a Mozambican boyfriend and then take him back to the US with me when I leave. I think people are surprised that I'm single also because people here think that I'm a lot older than I am, which is probably because my level of education is really high for my age (compared to people here). I've had three students or friends ask me how old I am in the last week and when I let them guess their guesses were 28, 28, and 30. Yikes!
Anyway, on Valentine's day yesterday, I received three flowers from students and some cookies so that was exciting. In my time here I've also had several students or men in my village come to my house and literally beg me to be their girlfriend, which is always an awkward situation, but I think I'm getting pretty good at turning them down.
Tomorrow there are no classes at the school because it is the anniversary of the school's opening so we just have a party all day! Apparently it starts with a big soccer game and then the students perform dances, music, theatre, and we have lots of food and alcohol. Sounds like it should be a good time. I heard some professors talking about having some of the students stay this afternoon after school to help prepare the alcohol(they make it themselves out of a certain fruit here) and kill and pluck the chickens. The school really holds the students responsible for taking care of their school. The kids have to sweep their classrooms out every morning and are often ordered to come to the school on Saturdays with their hoes and machetes to cut the grass and keep the school grounds looking nice.
The first week of school a student interrupted my class to make an announcement that went something like this, "The gym teacher would like you all to report to the soccer field tomorrow at 2:00 with your hoes." I really got a kick out of that. The first week of school instead of having gym class the kids had to hoe the field and cut the grass, rough.
The school wants me to start to teach computer technology classes soon which should be fun, except that they want me to follow the curriculum, which just isn't going to happen. We are starting with 12th grade. Some of these kids have barely any experience with computers and the 12th grade curriculum teaches Microsoft Access, databases, and programming languages....yeah, like that's going to happen.
The dog is still healthy, as am I. Time to do some errands and then get back to my school for a meeting this evening.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
To grandmother's house we go...
Last Thursday was a holiday so my school did not hold classes. I decided to take advantage of my 4 day weekend (I don't have classes on Fridays), and travel to visit some friends! I traveled about 2 hours south to visit my friend Mark at his school in Macia. In Macia he has a family there that he's close with and has meals with a couple times a week so he wanted me to meet them. The grandparents of this family live about an hour north of me in a town called Manjacaze and so the family invited Mark and I up to their grandparents house for the weekend, so we went!
On Friday morning we met the family on the main road and got on a mini-bus to go up to Xai-Xai. Apparently there is one open backed truck that leaves Xai-Xai once a day to go to the part of Manjacaze that we needed to go to so after finding the truck I went off with Mark's host mom, Graciette, to do some shopping! We bought lots of food and drinks to bring up to the house: a 25 kilo bag of rice, 10 kilos of potatoes, lots of soda, wine, bread, etc. Although we arrived in Xai-Xai at 9am, the truck wasn't leaving until noon so we had a while to hang out. Graciette also bought me a headband and a piece of cake as a present and held my hand the whole time we walked around the city. [Note: holding hands here in Mozambique is way more common in the US for everyone. Men hold hands all the time and it's not weird. If I'm walking somewhere with a colleague of mine, male or female, it's not uncommon to hold hands while walking.] Anyway, I knew right away that I was going to like this woman.
Graciette talked to the truck driver and arranged for a spot for me in the passenger's seat so I didnt have to ride in the back of the truck with everyone. I would have ridden in the back, but I never turn down a comfortable seat, especially when it prevents me from getting sunburned. Once we finally got going, a man handed me his baby to hold in the front seat while he rode in the back with his wife. The baby was so happy and so cute and I gladly would have taken care of it for the ride, but his wife squeezed into the front seat with me afterwards so she took the baby back.
We left Xai-Xai and after riding along the main road for a while turned off onto a dirt road. From there the road became smaller and smaller until it was basically a path and the truck just kept bushwacking its way through the jungle. We were really heading out into the middle of nowhere. We had to stop a couple of times because of trees or branches in the road and little kids either jumped out to clear the branches or the men in the truck got out with their machetes and cleared the way. Finally after about 2 hours of traveling we stopped in a clearing where there were a few houses and got out. We unpacked our things from the truck and got ready to head off to the grandmother's house. It was a lot of stuff and I thought to myself that we were each going to have to carry a lot, but of course Graciette pulls out her capulana, lays it on the ground, takes about 30 kilos worth of stuff and ties it up in a bundle to balance it on her head....no big deal...
The way the women here carry heavy loads on their head is unbelievable!
We walked about 20 minutes on a little path and finally reached the family's compound. The grandmother and grandfather greeted us and we promptly sat down for tea and lunch (rice and beans, yum!).
The property was amazing. They are really far out into the bush so they have no electricity and it's difficult to get into town to buy food and supplies, but it seems like they don't need it! The property had papaya trees, mango trees, cashew trees, coconut trees, lemon trees, sugar cane, pineapple plants, and so much more! And that's just the stuff that was on their property nearby! The grandmother took us to her machamba (crop fields) the next day and showed us all of her corn and sweet potato plants which are growing now. She also harvests peanuts and other foods at different times during the year. Anyway, it was amazing to me how self-sufficient this family was. The first day the family said that they would be killing a goat that weekend for all of us and brought us out to where they tie up the goats. There were two fully grown goats and the grandmother asked me to choose which one we should have for dinner, so I picked one (the meatier one I guess?) and she gave me it's rope to lead it back to the house.
We sat outside and hung out for the afternoon. I saw the goat killing (not as bad as the pig), and chatted with the family. I even got to help with dinner by peeling garlic cloves. Graciette then roasted some of the goat pieces on a stick over the fire and the grandmother cooked the rest of the goat in the kitchen hut. It was delicious!
The stars here in Mozambique are so cool and so bright, and since we were in an area far away from any electricity, the stars out there that night were SO beautiful and bright! I didn't go to bed until 11:30 and was very tired from all the traveling, but it was a great day. The next day we got to see the machamba and basically got our own nature tour of the area. We passed many many trees with fruit on it that Graciette picked for us and that we got to taste. We had massala and maracuja (passion fruit!) which was delicious, and then maybe 5 other fruits that don't even have names in English because they probably only exist in tropical areas. It was really cool to be so far away from civilization and to see how this family lived.
Mark and I left around noon, and the family was staying one more day, but one of the uncles and his family was heading out so they showed us where to go. We had to leave a different way from where we came in because we had to get to a busier road where we could hitchhike or find a chapa. We hiked for an hour and a half! Finally we arrived at a "main road", which was still a dirt road. Luckily, we only had to wait about 15 minutes until a pick-up truck passed and let us ride in the back. We rode on the truck for about 10 minutes until they decided that they wanted to buy some wood and kicked us out and sent us to get into a chapa that had come along.
The trip home was less eventful, but it was an awesome weekend and hopefully they'll have me back again sometime soon :)
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