Catching up for lost time!

Many apologies for my faithful blog-readers. I do realize that it's been about 2 months since my last post. I'll try to sum up what's been going on and give you a few tidbits that you may find interesting.

Francelino got into a teacher training institute. It is a year long program that prepares students to be teachers in primary or secondary schools up to the 10th grade level. He is in the English Teacher's program so he is being trained to be an English teacher here in Mozambique. The location where he took the entrance exams and interviews is only about 20 minutes from Chongoene, but once you are accepted to the program they can send you anywhere! They sent him to a school in Homoine, Inhambane which is about a 6-7 hour trip from here. It was exciting news to hear that he had gotten into school because higher education here is unattainable for most people, but it was sad that he was headed so far away! He lives at the school with all of the other students and I'll be heading up to visit him for the first time on Friday!

It was difficult at first to re-adjust to being all on my own again. I had gotten so used to always having someone around to talk to and to be with, and now he's gone! I still spend a lot of time with his family and his little brothers and sisters are fun to play with around the house. I try to keep myself busy with lesson planning and other activities in my town.

I got my flu shot yesterday Peace Corps style! They pulled up in a car in front of my school, I hopped in the car, got the shot, hopped out, and they were off! It was so convenient that they came through my area instead of me having to make the trip to the capital to get a shot!

I sometimes show movies to Francelino's little brothers and sisters on my computer in the afternoons. They get stuck on one movie for a while and eventually move onto the next one. The first movie that they loved was UP. Every day they would ask me in Portuguese, "Can we watch the movie with the balloons?". They catch onto the dialogue in movies pretty quickly too. Their most recent favorite film is The Sound of Music. They have been yodeling around the house and yelling Lieutenant! at each other which is pretty entertaining. I think they like it because of the songs.

We are almost through our first trimester of the school year. End of trimester exams start on Thursday and continue into next week. We will have a week off in April, and since we have no Peace Corps conferences, I have a free week where I haven't even decided what I'll do with it yet.

I frequently stay after school with my theater group and let them ask me questions about the United States. The kids in the group are between 16 and 21 years old and love hearing about airplanes, the food we eat, schools, universities, driving a car, and other things that they can only dream about here. Sometimes I wish I could just take them all back with me!

The second year of service is definitely tougher than the first. I can see a lot of the same problems at my school as we had last year, and although I spoke up and tried to present a solution last year, I can see that no change was made to try to resolve said problems. The thing you have to do as a volunteer is take one day at a time and know that you can't change everything!

Lobolo

Last week I attended my first Lobolo with Francelino. Lobolo is a ceremony practiced in most parts of Mozambique before marriage. Before the marriage is agreed upon the bride's family name's a "price" that they want to receive for the marriage of their daughter. The father of the bride and the father of the groom decide upon this "price" before the lobolo ceremony. This payment of sorts can be in the form of money, clothing, shoes, alcohol, soda, goats, pigs, chickens, cows, or a combination of any of the above (and more). At the beginning of the ceremony the two fathers take off their shoes and sit on a grass mat with their legs straight and opened and the bottom of the feet touching the bottom of the other's feet (see picture). They then pull out a list of the agreed upon items and they are presented very slowly and carefully. The money is diligently counted out for everyone to see and the bride's father must approve of every item before moving on. At the lobolo I was at the groom's family provided 20,000 meticais (almost $700 US), which is a LOT of money in Mozambique! They also had a dress, gold necklace, and gold earrings for the bride to be, a full suit with hat, shoes, and cane included for the bride's brother, capulanas and other clothing for the bride and her mother, several cases of soda and beer, at least 10 liters of wine, a chicken, a goat, and some homemade liquor. It was quite the event! The bride to be and her brother then went and put the clothes on and paraded around in them for a while. After the ceremony there was much gift giving by the invitees and the day was concluded with a meal. Events like this really take the whole day. We arrived there at 9am and didn't leave until 5pm, and we were one of the first to leave! Enjoy the pictures of the event!

Storm Pictures

Photos of the destruction done to my school by the tropical storm which hit us last week.

On Sunday of this week (yesterday) we were supposed to go to Maputo for a week long mid service conference. This is the first time that we get to see all of the volunteers in our group since training (a year ago). We also are supposed to have medical check-ups and training sessions designed to support us in our second year. Due to the tropical storm earlier this week, apparently Mozambican government officials decided to open a dam in the southern region to prevent flooding in that area. As a result, the water released flooded a road, the ONLY road to be exact, that goes from my province to Maputo, the capital. The 10 volunteers in my region who were stranded met in two different cities to wait for instructions from Peace Corps. Peace Corps sent two cars out in the morning in an attempt to find an alternate route. They bushwhacked for 8 hours on old paths used for transporting coal and wood and failed to get to us. In their own words "mission possible turned impossible". After waiting around all day we were told to go home or at least to a volunteer's house nearby for the night. Now we are starting day two of our mission. Apparently there is a train that can take us through the flooded zone so that we can get to Maputo. Some volunteers managed to get on it last night and we heard that it took them 12 hours, even though by car it's only a 100km stretch. We have to travel just over 2 hours to get to the town where the train leaves from so we will find out soon if our trip to Maputo will be possible. Wish us luck!

On Monday Southern Mozambique was hit by Tropical Storm Dando. Meteorological technology isn't quite what it is back at home so naturally we had no idea what was coming for us. Monday was the first day of the school year which meant that we had a big meeting with all of the students, teachers, and parents. Monday morning was cool, and I thought to myself, "how nice after so many days of scorching heat". I would soon regret that fact. I arrived at school and our school directors were concerned about where the meeting would be held. Usually it is held in the shade under a grove of mango trees but it was overcast and raining so that would not do. Someone went to check if we could have the meeting at the catholic church up the road since it's the biggest indoor space in our town. We rounded everyone up and filed into the church. After everyone was organized they decided that it wasn't right to have a church meeting in the house of god so they kicked us out and we squeezed maybe 200 people into a classroom made for 30 students. When the meeting finally started it was raining cats and dogs and the corrugated metal roof over our heads was flapping and threatening to blow off. When the meeting ended everyone took off for their respective houses. I closed up my house as best I could, wrapped myself up in a rainjacket with a backpack with anything that I would need and took off to my boyfriend, Francelino's house. Trees had fallen down, roofs were coming off, and the wind was blowing like crazy. I made it to his house running and wading through the roads to get there. When I arrived he had secured the metal roof with extra cement blocks. We locked ourselves in the house, put on dry clothing and tried to go to sleep. The power had already gone out and wouldn't come back on for a few days. In the morning the worst of the storm had passed but it had taken it's toll on the town. Two of my neighbors' roofs came completely off. Luckily mine stayed on, but sustained some damage and one of my rooms flooded. Houses were completely blown over and destroyed, most of the town's farmlands were flooded with water and two classrooms at the school had their roofs torn off by the wind. It's been a slow week of lighter rain and slow reparation of houses, but progress is being made. Pictures coming soon...

Holidays at home

After 2 and a half weeks in the US I am on my way back to Mozambique. The visit was great as I was able to catch up with family and so many friends. I was spoiled by my mother's excellent cooking. She made all of my favorite dinners while I was home and delectable Christmas treats like cherry cheesecake and peanut butter fudge bars! Christmas has always been my favorite holiday and I consider it a very special family holiday so being able to spend it at home this year was a dream come true. The whole day was wonderful with breakfast and presents in the morning followed by a visit to my uncle's house in Connecticut where I got to catch up with many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family Yankee swap was fun as usual, although I think my family took pity on me being the "poor volunteer in Africa" and I came out of it with a cool little telescope.
I appreciated down time, hanging out with friends on the couch and watching a movie, and definitely appreciated having a car at my disposal instead of having to rely on unreliable public transportation, as I do in Mozambique.
Many people have asked me if I experienced culture shock in the return from Africa to the developed world. The truth is that I wasn't as affected by it as I thought I would be. The weirdest thing was hearing everyone speaking English all around me, because I rarely speak English in Mozambique. I think that the since US and Mozambique are so different, and I know to expect them to be different, that I was prepared for the changes that I encountered back at home in the United States.
One of the biggest changes that I noticed In the US since last year is how much more everyone has become dependent on their cell phones! Your cell phone tells you everything: where to go, how to get there, the menu at the restaurant you're going to, you can answer any question on them! I know all of this existed in 2010 when I left, but everyone seems to be much more dependent on them.
The goodbyes were bittersweet after my visit. I felt blessed to have had the opportunity to visit during my Peace Corps service and I knew that I was going to miss everyone like crazy all over again, but the stay reminded me how much I love what I am doing and how much I love Mozambique. All in all, I feel ready and rejuvenated for my second year of service.

Things I can't wait to do in 72 hours...

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!