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

"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!

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 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.

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...

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.