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!

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...

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!

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???

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!

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!