Daily Challenges

Yesterday, I was headed into Xai-Xai on a chapa and an Asian man entered at one point on the way.  There are a good number of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean people here working in Mozambique.  After about 15 minutes I realized that a man in the front row was trying to talk to him and basically harassing him in the process: “Hey China! Hey China! Why you have no car? In China car cost 2 dolla!”. I realized after a bit that this man also didn’t speak any Portuguese.  The man in the front row then asked me to translate for him, inviting me into the conversation (bad move for this Mozambican).  I then told the Mozambican to leave the other guy alone and asked him if he’d like to be treated that way.  The poor foreigner was just trying to get from point A to point B, and ended up being harassed by this guy because of his ethnicity.  I think it reminded me of the way that I am sometimes treated for being white and a woman.  At least I have the language skills to try and stand up for myself, but I felt bad that this guy didn’t.

Since I do all of my teaching in Portuguese (local language is not allowed at school), I haven’t learned too much of the local language.  It is spoken within Francelino’s family and other families in the community and it is the first language that children learn when they start to speak. I have learned many words and taught myself to understand many things in Changana, but it’s more of a task to speak it.  So I was at the beach yesterday making arrangements for a group of volunteers to stay there and I was waiting at the bus stop for a really long time without sign of a chapa.  After about 40 min I decided to climb the hill and start walking to another stop where I might find more chapas.  As I was walking away a group of older ladies shouted at me “there’s a chapa (bus) coming!”.  They shouted at me in Changana, but I was able to pick up the words and understood and turned back around.  When I turned around to head back and they realized that I understood them they started laughing and really got a kick out of it.  Here’s to local language skills!

This weekend I put together a weekend get together because Gaza province is welcoming 9 new health volunteers!  We plan to go to the beach and all get to know each other—so exciting!

So the past few weeks it has been pretty “cold” here.  Okay, I know I’m in Africa—how cold can it be? Right?  Well it has been in the high 40’s, low 50’s every morning, which in New Hampshire is certainly not considered cold, however the living conditions here are different.  Consider this: the houses are not insulated, so if it’s 50 degrees outside, it’s probably 55 in the house?  Also many of the classrooms at school don’t have doors and the windows are broken so when it’s 50 degrees and windy outside, it’s 50 degrees and windy inside too, rough.  Some of the kids just use their short-sleeved uniform shirt at school, which is not enough in that weather and you can’t just ask a kid why he didn’t bring a jacket because it’s possible that he doesn’t have one.  It’s so tough!  That being said, I personally wouldn’t mind if the cold weather sticks around because in a few months it will be 100 degrees every day, and that isn’t exactly the most enjoyable weather either!

Other than that, things are going well.  School wraps up October 26^th and then we have testing and other things going on at school, but I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to the school year ending.  The big classes, lack of books and other resources, and being under appreciated at school is starting to get to me.  10 weeks left until summer break!

Peace Corps Extension

Earlier this year I got a community project funded here in Chongoene to build a literacy center to educate illiterate adults who were not given the opportunity to finish school as children.  The project is moving along slowly but surely, but if it finishes on schedule, it would open in November of this year.  That would also be around the time of my COS (Close of Service) date, when I would head home to the United States. 

I want to be there during the first few months of operation to be able to develop a curriculum, find competent instructors, and make sure that the center is sustainable and can continue operating when I do return to the United States.  As a result, I requested an official extension of service through Peace Corps for an extra six months.  My request was accepted, so I will officially stay on as a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Mozambique until May 2013!  I am very excited to have the opportunity to stay on and work more as a community volunteer in Chongoene, as I will no longer be teaching.  There will be another volunteer coming in December to replace my teaching position at the Secondary School, so it will be nice to have another volunteer around also!

I am also very happy to be staying on for extra time to spend more time here with my boyfriend, Francelino.  He is at a boarding school this year which is about 6 hours away and we have only had the opportunity to see each other once a month.  His program finishes in December, and he will be certified as a primary school English teacher (6^th and 7^th grade)!

Those who know me know how much I love Christmas, cold weather, snow, and most things related to winter in New England, so missing another Christmas at home would be devastating for me (and my family :) ).  As a result, I will be coming home for three weeks over the Christmas holidays. AND (drum roll)….I will be bringing Francelino with me to visit the United States and meet all of my family and friends!  We are so thankful and excited to have this opportunity and it will surely be the trip of a lifetime (for both of us!).  We will be in the U.S. from December 24^th to January 13^th; hope to see some of you then!

JUNTOS WORKSHOP 2012

JUNTOS workshops happened in June and July.  I was fortunate enough to be able to work and help out with two workshops, one in Gaza province and one in Maputo province. At each conference participants from 5-6 local JUNTOS groups were invited to participate.  At the Gaza conference we had 8 participants from each group, 5 facilitators, a tech trainer, and an enthusiastic group of volunteers present.  The weekend consists of educational and informational sessions on topics like self esteem, leadership, HIV and AIDS, gender equality, sexual health, and more!  The workshops are a lot of work in the weeks before: buying all of the food, arranging someone to cook, getting the t-shirts made, and making sure everyone is prepared!

At the workshop each group leader facilitates some of the sessions and the tech trainer deals with the more information sensitive sessions (HIV and AIDS, sexual health, gender).  The tech trainer was wonderful in terms of technical experience.  He is a musician and works at a music school so taught the kids songs about HIV and got their creative juices running in terms of other art projects.  In terms of the HIV and AIDS education part, he wasn’t completely prepared and I had to jump in and run some sessions, but in all it was fun!  I used to have such a fear of public speaking especially for a large number of people, but I think that my two years of teaching (in Portuguese) for classes of up to 80 kids has cured me!  The kids had a really great time.  The only down side is that we have so much information to cover, that the kids don’t get as much free time as they’d like.  The solution?  A group of the participants woke up at 4am every morning to get a game of soccer in before breakfast (seriously). 

The workshop only lasts 3 days, but at the end the kids were all hugging and exchanging numbers like they had been at summer camp for months.  Although somewhat exhausting, it’s great as a volunteer to be able to expose the kids that I work with to new experiences.  Here are some pictures of the whole group!

Catching up!

So I realized that I have completely abandoned my blog over the last few months so I am going to attempt to redeem myself with multiple blog posts today!

Happy Children's Day!

Today we celebrate Children's Day here in Mozambique.  The primary schools don't have classes, but the kids usually still go to school and play.  For Francelino's siblings and other kids in the neighborhood I bought them some candies and we're currently we're having a dance party in the living room.  Later the plan is to make popcorn and watch a movie (probably Shrek or Puss in Boots; those are their favorites at the moment). Why don't we have a Children's Day in the US?  (I think my parents used to say that every day was Children's Day, and thinking about all of the opportunities that many kids have in the U.S. growing up compared to kids here, I'll take that answer).

My JUNTOS workshop is coming up in a week so little by little I have been buying materials for the students attending.  I went and signed a contract with a nearby school to be able to have the event there and I am going shopping with a woman from the school on Tuesday to buy food for 60 people for the weekend!  I'm getting really excited for it!

Yesterday was Tobacco and Drug Awareness Day so my JUNTOS group presented a skit and dance for our school.  They did a GREAT job! I'll add some pictures of their intro dance below I tried to upload a video but the internet is just not strong enough. They did a skit about peer pressure and the consequences of drinking and smoking.  It was a hit!  Working with them is really fun and usually a bit more interesting than just teaching classes.

I gave a test to a few of my classes today.  With 70-80 kids per class and 3 kids sharing a desk, you have to be strict and creative to prevent kids from cheating! I made two versions of the test that looked almost identical but had slightly different questions and slightly different answers.  It took the kids a while to catch onto this and on the way out many kids said to me, "teacher you are very clever!" because some of the cheating kids did not catch on that they were cheating off of tests different from their own. GOT 'EM!  I have been tough enough on them that at least now they don't try to use cheat sheets, dictionaries, or their notebooks as much, but cheating off of each other is still a problem!

Hope you enjoy pictures of my cultural group dancing below!

The Adorable Children of Mozambique

These are mostly pictures of Francelino's brothers, sisters, and cousins, but the kids here are just so cute and love having their pictures taken! I figured everyone would enjoy these...

Third World Challenges

Lately things have been going well with work here, however I can't help but be constantly reminded of how the simplest tasks can be so complicated here!

About a month ago Francelino was visiting and the TV hadn't been working well so we took it to Xai-Xai to get it fixed.  So clearly there are no fancy Best Buy-like stores with professionals that do this sort of thing.  There are places where some guys run their own little business out of a straw and wooden booth.  They rehabilitate TVs with one soldering iron, some coolant fluids that they squirt out of an old soda bottle, and old parts that they take out of old broken TVs.  You also have to negotiate your price with them. It helps that I don't have to do a lot of this alone because as a white person they always try to overcharge me.  Once we decided on the price, they opened up the TV, messed around a little, and in 10 minutes had it fixing without a problem.  Feeling that we were ripped off since they fixed it so fast, Francelino made them agree to give us a verbal guarantee, in case the TV stopped working again.  They agreed to give us a 2 month guarantee and we were on our way.  The next day he went back to school, and hours later the TV stopped working again.  

Unfortunately this meant that I would have to take it back by myself to get it fixed.  This is no tiny TV and it's rather heavy so it's not easy for me to carry it more than 10 feet.  

Luckily, the first time Francelino asked his cousin to go with me.  After arriving and letting the guys there tinker with the TV for a while, it was clear that this was going to be no easy task.  I ended up leaving it there and planned to come back the next day.  Over the course of 2 weeks I went back maybe 3 or 4 times.  Two times they closed early, once I went and sat for hours, but it still wasn't finished.  My patience was waning!

Finally it was ready to be picked up and I had to go by myself.  I found a boy near the market with a wheelbarrow who agreed to cart the TV to the chapa stop for 10 mets.  Luckily I got a front seat in the chapa and was able to rest the TV on my knees.  Once I got to Chongoene, I called Francelino's mom and she sent one of the kids out with a wheelbarrow so I could wheel it back home.  

Since then it has worked well!  I find myself missing customer service, phone calls when things are ready to be picked up, and having a personal vehicle to transport things around in! It makes things so much easier!

I also went to visit a neaby volunteer's school on Wednesday.  It's about 13 kilometers away, but the transportation is so reliable here that I left myself an hour to arrive.  I gauged it about right because 50 minutes later I was arriving.  She works at a higher education school where the students live in dormitories at the school.  We have workshops coming up for our JUNTOS groups and I wanted to run a workshop there over three days.  The school agreed and we worked out the financial agreement.  The workshop will invite approximately 50 students and have 3 days of activities and educational sessions about HIV and AIDS, sexual reproduction, puberty, self-esteem, leadership, and domestic violence.  The workshop that I will be running at that school should take place in 3 weeks and I am busy planning the food, materials, etc!  It's a lot of work, but it should be really fun!

There will be 16 workshops run throughout the country in the next few months and all of the participants get t-shirts.  I was in Maputo last week to pick up the t-shirts from the place where we ordered them.  Along with the national financial coordinator, we sorted the t-shirts by size, re-packaged them and then dropped some by the airport to fly them thousands of kilometers to various places around the country.  I took all of the southern shirts with me and will be distributing them to the different areas this weekend. 

I always think of home and miss friends and family, but I am keeping busy here and things are going well. Until next time!