30/10/09

Tonight two of my aunts, my mom's sisters, were visiting our house. The 13 year old girl who is technically my little brother's dad's aunt has always been referred to (to me) as my cousin, even though in practice she might be closer to a maid. We have been told that it is very common in Mozambique for orphans and such to be taken in as maids in exchange for food and shelter. But since she was always referred to as my cousin and she goes to school, I wasn't sure exactly how she fit into my conception of a maid, especially since in Mozambique it can be difficult to differentiate the concepts of being a woman and being a maid. But tonight my aunts explicitly referred to her as the maid. But I've gotten pretty used to not really knowing whats going on. One huge idea behind Permagardens that I forgot to mention is that when you show up to teach the techniques to families, you bring nothing with you: on tools, no special seeds, no fancy fertilizer. You hope they have a rake because your job is much easier with one, but if al they have is a hoe, you use only that. That is the entire philosophy of the Peace Corps. We don't show up to a place with lots of food, monetary aid, or fancy pamphlets. For one, the Peace Corps simply doesn't have the budget for that: last year the budget for the entire Peace Corps worldwide was $35O million--one half the military marching band budget (but I'm sure they are improving many lives). The Peace Corps strategy is to work on a person to person basis and to create sustainability so that even after we are gone, the improvements we have helped create can continue to exist. Rather than preach our Permagardens philosophy to as many people as possible, our hope is that during our two year here we can thoroughly teach it to one or two people/families. Because if they are able to adopt these strategies and improve their standard of living and continue to teach these strategies to others after we are gone, then we have truly made a difference.

29/10/09

Today and yesterday were dedicated entirely to Permaculture/Permagardens (Permanent Agriculture/Gardens): growing family nutrition security for the fight against HIV/AIDS. The main aim of Permagardens is to provide food security (and more importantly, nutrition security) at the family level. The project is designed to be implemented by a family of five and to simply use the very small space that isn't being used (or most effectively utilized). For example, 1O meters x 1O meters is enough. The emphasis is on using nature and working with nature to maximize outcomes. Some gardens have seen a 4OO% increase in crop yield as a result of adopting a few basic and simple techniques. So we spent the last two days learning the proper techniques for making compost, preparing the plant bed (double digging!), and water management: creating swales, berms, and guilds to maximize minimum rain and minimize maximum rains (because in many parts of Africa it floods during the rainy season and simply doesn't rain during the other months). Before yesterday I had zero interest in having a garden at my site, but now I plan to have my own garden and to hopefully teach the Permagardens techniques to any people in the community who are interested. Something I learned today: bury charcoal in your garden, not only does it hold and filter water, but it is carbon negative, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere and holding it in the soil where it is used by the plants! Yesterday was hot and sunny, but today was rainy and 6O's all day. It was the kind of day that makes you want a nice hot shower, but it's pleasantly suprisin how well a basin of hot water and a cup can do the job.

28/10/09

This morning I walked into the kitchen to prepare my bath water and encountered my grandma, topless. This evening my mom and I were talking about singing and I told her I sang in a group in college and got out my ipod to play our CD and my solo for her (bella: ransom notes has made it to africa!). Regrettably my ipod speaker are in my other bag in Maputo so we only had my headphones to work with. After listening to my group for a while, we listened to a lot of my other music. American rap and hip hop are really big here so she knew a lot of the songs and artists already and was so excited that I had so much music she liked. She told me her cousin has two daughters named Britney and Jennifer. After Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez.

27/10/09

Election day is tomorrow, hopefully everything goes peacefully. I have finally gotten a little sick which was inevitable, so i left language class early yesterday and went to bed at 5pm. We had a technical session on languages in Mozambique today. The official language is Portuguese, but almost all Mozambicans speak at least two languages, Portuguese and their native language. Over 2O languages from the Bantu family alone are spoken in Mozambique. The local language here is Changana in which i have learned to say only "good morning" and "good night." Changana has a lot of whistling-type sounds and i am not physically capable of saying some of the words my family has tried to teach me. After about a week of trying to buy stamps, the post office was finally open when I went today. There are no hours per say, it's open whenever the guy decides to show up.

26/10/09

The water was supposed to be on on saturday but it never came on and hasn't since then so we have essentially been out of water since saturday. We were all planning to do our laundry over the weekend but with no water we haven't been able to and you find yourself asking "i mean, exactly how dirty is it?" yesterday afternoon i went to a baptism party where i saw multiple men and women open glass soda bottles with their teeth. I thought that was a joke, I had no idea civilized, grown-up people actually did that. Last night we had a huge storm and our house has a metal roof, so at times you couldn't even hear other people talking. Today we have our 45 minute lessons. The idea of getting up in front of others and speaking for 45 minutes in portuguese about chemistry was pretty daunting! I wrote everything out so most of my speaking was pretty good, but at one point a colleague asked a very good question and I really struggled in answering because of my limited vocabulary--extremely frustrating.

25/10/09

Today I killed my first chicken. My cousin and I went to market and bought one and then I carried it home (you hold it by the wings behind its back). I was instructed how to step on the feet with one foot and on the wings with the other foot, then use my left hand to hold its head and extend its neck. Then you just start sawing at the back of the neck. I have been told that the spinal cord it very close to the back of the neck so it dies very quickly—I am going to just believe that. There was a little bit of squawking at the beginning and even after its dead the body does a fair amount of twitching/trashing and my cousin had to help me hold the head. Thankfully this chicken closed its eyes when it died (or maybe they all do that, but that made it easier). Then we dumped it in hot water and plucked all of its feathers off. And yes people do look like plucked chickens when they have goosebumps. We also peeled the scaly skin off the feet and cut off the toenails because people fry and eat the chicken feet here. Then grandma opened it up and took out the guts and all of the stuff we don’t eat. I’m glad I got it over with, killing a chicken is kind of a rite of passage for Peace Corps Mozambique. But I don’t think I’ll be eating much chicken once I get to site.
After dinner I was talking to my cousin and she asked if I was born in 1987. I said no, I was born in 1986, when was she born? She said 1997. But she is 13 (and I am 23) and we are both born in august, so something wasn’t right…when I explained this, she thought for a second and said that no, she was born in 1996. I don’t know if this was because she doesn’t live with family to be mindful of her birthday, or if birth year isn’t as significant here.

24/10/09

We had a language exam this morning, but afterwards we were done for the day. Erica and I went to the market where we both bought capulanas, the very ornate cloths that women use for everything here: wrap skirts, carrying babies, headwraps, etc. You can take capulanas to the tailors in town and they can make you a shirt, skirt, or dress, so I am planning to have some beautiful dresses made.
This afternoon Jordan, who does all kinds of dance, gave me a tap dance lesson. I plan to be a pro when I return. At 3 a whole bunch of us met up and walked to the very edge of town (right next to the Swaziland border) to play futbol (soccer). Way more of us than are allowed to be in one place at once were there, either watching or playing, and some host brothers and other random kids joined in. By the end of the game, we were all the reddish brown color of the dirt—our ankles were just caked in it. It took so much water to bathe tonight—there are few times in my life I have ever been that dirty.
Tonight the power went out (which it still does every night and yet everyone still seems mildly surprised) twice. My mom and I went and stood in the front yard. The power had gone out in the entire neighborhood and it was the time right before complete darkness where everything is silhouetted—so beautiful. Due to our curfew and a fear of mosquitoes, I have yet to see the stars down here but I want to, especially to see the Southern Cross.

23/10/09

23/10/09
We have language class (or in this case, a test) on Saturday mornings, but my family has no reason to get up, so tonight at dinner I told my family that I was capable of going to the bakery in the morning to buy bread, heating the water for my bath, heating the water for my morning coffee, and otherwise getting ready in the morning, so they didn’t need to wake up. When I said this, my grandmother laughed like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.
Today, in our language groups, we got together with our moms to cook traditional Mozambican food. We made xima, cove, matapa, and rice. The entire process took four hours. We were taught how to do everything and very carefully supervised while doing it to make sure we were doing everything correctly.
In Mozambican culture it is customary at meals to serve the guest and the father first (and give them the choicest parts of the meal), then the older sons, then the mother, and last the children. Last night we had beef stew which had in it three pieces of bones which I would guess are very high in nutrition and are the most coveted part of the stew. My mom and grandmother each took one but I said I didn’t want one. My three year old brother asked for one, but my mom told him no, the bones were only for adults, not for children. Then she and my grandmother split the extra one while he stared longingly. Just a completely different cultural attitude than the one I am used to and was extremely hard for me to understand and watch.

22/10/09

We have a huge ant problem, we can’t figure out where they are coming from, but they especially love the peanut butter and somehow are always able to get inside the container. Well, I had wanted more protein anyway.
The homestay experience is incredibly helpful because most of us needed to learn how to do everyday chores and otherwise function without running water and many of the other cooking and household “luxury” items (such as vacuum cleaners, refridgerators, etc). However, the experience can also be pretty frustrating and incredibly humbling. All 69 of us are college graduates and although a lot of us just graduated in May, many people have been out of college and working for at least a few years. Also, I would imagine the peace corps attracts pretty independent people for obvious reasons. But for our homestay experience we are placed as a guest in someone else’s house and are generally treated like small children. Many of us have encountered this same situation: the ways we do things are not the “right” way—are not the way things are done here. Many of us have had to fight for our right to brush our teeth after breakfast because “in Mozambique we brush our teeth when we get up.” I knew how to slice vegetables, crack eggs, peel an orange, and take a bath before I came here, but I didn’t know how to do it the Mozambican way, and so it wasn’t right. So we are all learning the proper ways to do things now.
One thing that still throws me off is a common way of saying goodbye translates literally as "see you tomorrow." And people use it indiscriminately--regardless of whether they are going to see you tomorrow or not. So I should be getting used to it, but it still catches me off guard sometimes when people say they are going to see me tomorrow and I wonder to myself "really, I didn't know that?"

21/10/09

Yesterday was a hub-day, meaning that all 69 of us, both health and education, were all together. We got permission from our training director to have a Halloween party and an extended curfew that night which is a huge deal because not only are we trainees in our third week, so the rules are still pretty strict, but all of Peace Corps Mozambique is on standfast right now because of the elections (which are next Wednesday). At the end of the day we were divided by concentration (science, english, health) to give skits about our experiences so far and to show how our Portuguese has improved. The skits were pretty funny because we have all had pretty shared experiences: the host moms who think we are incompetent, the never-ending host family and we’re not quite sure how everyone is related, the killing of a chicken, etc. After, we sang the Mozambique national anthem (which is like ten minutes long!). Then a man who has AIDS came in and played guitar and sang some traditional Mozambican songs beautifully. Afterwards all of language teachers played a Mozambican song and danced for us and then invited us join them. Then they said they were going to play an “American song” for us to sing and dance to for them—they played “Summer of ‘69!”
I find the hub-days especially interesting because they are usually focused more on health issues, namely HIV, because regardless of our formal job, it will affect all of our lives over the next two years. The HIV rate in Mozambique is between 14-22%, depending on where you get your data. One thing I learned today is that the STD rate in Mozambique is ~79%! And having an STD increases susceptibility to HIV transmission (one source says transmission is twice as likely!) Also, in Mozambique there are 3 doctors and 20 nurses per every 100,000 people!

20/10/09

Neither of my school-age cousins went to school today. When I asked the thirteen year old why she said that grandma told her to stay home to help mash the peanuts. One of my aunts stopped by last night in what I can only describe as a prom dress: floor length, sparkly silver, spaghetti straps, backless. Today we had water so I was able to do my laundry and wash my hair. My host siblings taught me how to play “banana” the Mozambican equivalent of hide-and-seek. Our technical sessions today were at a house with running water! I haven’t seen running water since we left Maputo. And thus my wish finally came true, I was able to wash both hands at once, scrubbing them under the running water. Tonight I was sitting in the kitchen doing work when my 7 year old came running into the kitchen holding a squawking chicken by the wings, he grabbed a large knife and ran back outside, chicken in one hand, knife in the other. Dinner.

19/10/09

The Peace Corps finally came by today to put up hooks and rope to properly hang my mosquito net, so hopefully I won’t be waking up with it wrapped around my neck anymore. It looks quite pretty actually. I like to think of it as my princess canopy bed, rather than my anti-malaria-carrying-mosquito net.
This week we are each teaching a lesson again but we have now moved up to 20 minutes, rather than 10. I gave mine today and I thought it went pretty well actually. One of the systems the Peace Corps recommends is community content-based instruction, so making your lesson relevant to the kids’ everyday life. For my lesson about chemical equations today I used the recipes for two local dishes, matapa and xima, as examples. We are having a session solely on vocab and pronunciation later this week which will be really helpful because some of my pronunciations are quite bad.
I was planning to wash my hair tonight but we are almost completely out of water so I will wait until tomorrow.

18/10/09

This morning I was walking to the bakery with my little brother when I saw two men in their Sunday best praying to one of the trees that run down the middle of the road. Wait. No, not praying—peeing on the tree. You see that a lot here.
Sundays are usually laundry day here, but we are almost out of water now and the water won’t be on again until Tuesday, so I was only able to wash a few things. During this time of the year the water is only turned on every five days. On these days everyone fills every water they container they own. My family is fortunate enough to have a faucet in their yard, so on water days they run a hose into the house to fill the water containers. During other times of the year, such as after the rainy summer months, there is water every day. And just when I think I am getting the hang of things…I had to wash my pants three times because every time I would finish washing them, I would accidentally touch them against something and this damn red clay just gets on everything and is really hard to wash out. A pain especially when you’re trying to conserve water.

17/10/09

Today I was walking with my host mom and a relative of hers who has a one month old adorable baby. The baby got the hiccups so they picked a left from a plant, wet it, and stuck it to the baby’s forehead. My first weekend here I was told church started at 8am, but we didn’t even leave the house until 8:05 (Mozambique time is very…flexible). Then the second weekend my grandmother told me while I was bathing at about 7:30 that we were going to be late and needed to leave. So tonight I asked her what time we were going to leave tomorrow morning and she said at 8. When I explained why I was confused, my mom explained that my grandmother doesn’t use a clock or watch so when she decides it’s time to go, it’s time. That’s when I realized, I don’t think there is a clock in our house.
“Passear” in Portuguese is translated in the dictionary as “to go for a walk” or “to take for a walk.” The idea is really to walk with no real purpose but for the simple pleasure of walking. For example, you would never passear to school or the store. It’s wonderful. People just passear.

16/10/09

My host brother and cousin have gone from slightly wary of me, to tolerating me, to completely enamored. Now they want me to be the one to help them with their food or hot chocolate or listen to their stories. At lunch my little brother kept asking me to play soccer with him and I told him I couldn’t then but I would after class. When I came home in the afternoon the first thing he said was that now we could play soccer!
I am completely exhausted. It takes so much more mental energy to listen to Portuguese all day because I have to force myself to focus and listen, not to mention trying to understand. On hot days like today I understand why people shower so often here. Not only are you sweaty and gross, but it’s so dusty here and all of that red dust sticks to you.
It seems that either the political climate has changed recently or things were worse than the Peace Corps originally let on. We are on standfast now, so we can’t leave the town and are really only supposed to be either at our classes or at our homestays. We aren’t allowed to go to a waterfall near the town because there is no cell phone service if there were an emergency. Our training director explained that all the people on the various election-related committees are Frelimo party members, the party that is and has always been in power. Apparently when it became clear that MDM, the new third party, actually had the possibility to win some parliament seats, it was decided that MDM would only be permitted to participate in the presidential election which Frelimo is basically guaranteed to win. So things are a little tense.

15/10/09

Today my host brother asked his mom for a pair of skates and a puck so that he could play hockey too. I played soccer with them a little bit before dinner but I couldn’t get them to stop using their hands! After classes today a bunch of us met in a field to play Frisbee, kick around a soccer ball, throw around an American football, and just socialize (because health and education people only see each other once or twice a week!). A group of kids were intrigued by either the balls or the Americans and before we knew it we had a group of 40ish grade school kids watching us play catch and before long we were basically playing 40 person monkey-in-the-middle. Every time the ball was loose there was a 15 kid pile-up. So for about an hour there was complete chaos in the field with two footballs and three Frisbees in action at any given point.
You probably think of French fries as a staple American food. I always did. Little did we know that fried potato slices are also a staple Mozambican food! At lunch every day without fail probably half of us have fries. And here fries aren’t necessarily the side order to your burger, but I have been served a heaping plate of fries. The Mozambican diet seems to consist of mostly carbs (white bread, rice, xima, and pasta), a little bit of protein, and every once in a while some fruits and vegetables. Many of us, myself included, have had to specifically ask for more fruits and vegetables. So now every night after dinner I peel an orange (with a knife, of course) so I can offer slices to everyone. Especially for my cousins, this may be the only fruit they eat all day.
My host brother and cousin call me “sister” in Portuguese.

14/10/09

Today while I was bathing I looked down to see a daddy long leg crawling up my leg. Then about a minute later the power went out in the house so I finished my bathing in complete darkness. I am just glad it happened in that order. After, I sat in the lantern light with my host brother and cousins and they took turns telling stories. My 7 year old cousin was dancing so if I asked if he knew how to dance like Michael Jackson. He couldn’t do the moonwalk but his spin and crotch grab were spot on! After classes I had gone to play catch with some other trainees with an American football and so my host mom was asking about American football and hockey and asked if I had any pictures. I got out the picture of me playing that I brought to give to people and gave my family one, as well as a Bowdoin hockey puck. My host brother kept saying he wants a pair of ice skates and I taught them the word “puck.”
Today we had a session on personal safety and security, especially highlighting landmines. During the 17 year civil war the followed independence, a huge number of landmines were planted all over Mozambique and many have yet to be discovered and disabled. ~~~~~~~ would not have lasted long in Mozambique because people are discouraged from going to abandoned areas and traveling on anything other than the path well traveled. Another session we had today was about the myths and misconceptions surrounding HIV that we will encounter (not might, but will). They listed the many common misconceptions about HIV (ex: God sent HIV to punish people, condoms contain HIV, you can contract HIV from touching an infected person, etc), and we had to come up with both a response to correct this misconception and also an analogy to help explain. In many places outside the western world, science is not just the simple explanation for things, so we need to reply on other methods as well. A current health volunteer explained that if you simply responded to people with scientific “proof” it would be as if you responded in a different language—quite simply, they do not speak the language you are speaking. So the analogies, especially if they have cultural context, are much more effective teaching tools.

13/10/09

Today I watched a woman walk around her yard with a plastic bag picking up all of the leaves, but not picking up the two beer bottles, piece of paper, and plastic wrapper. As an American all of the litter everywhere here really bothers me and I can’t understand how a culture that is meticulously clean in other aspects doesn’t care about trash in their yards and on their streets. The dirt roads literally sparkle with all the pieces of broken glass on them. When I observe foreign cultures I am usually able to think “okay, not the way I would do it, but I kind of get it.” For example, my family peels their oranges with a knife, rather than their fingers (and won’t let me use my fingers to peel oranges), but perhaps this has health values in a culture where people don’t wash their hands particularly often. Or frying everything in 2-3 inches of cooking oil. Yuck, but perhaps in a culture where the diet is mostly carbs (and empty carbs at that—white bread and rice), this oil is an essential source of extra nutrients and fats. But the trash thing I just can’t wrap my mind around. I just can’t understand why nobody cares that their country is covered in trash.

12/10/09

Today we had to give ten minute presentations on any chemistry topic of our choice in Portuguese. They went okay. A lot of accidental Spanish speaking and a lot of mispronunciations. The problem with mispronouncing something in chemistry is that syllable change may completely change the meaning of the word. Example: an alkane becomes an alkene. But it was reassuring that, however shakily our presentations went, we were able to give them and it is only week two.
All of our technical education sessions are held outside so there are always interesting distractions. Today a chicken and a pigeon got into a loud fight so our instructor had to go over and shoo them away. And apparently chickens can fly because this fight occurred on a second-story ledge. Chickens, ducks, quails, goats, dogs, and cats roam the streets and yards freely often fighting with each other and otherwise causing commotion.

11/10/09

Today I ate cow intestines. They chewy, a little bitter. It's the mossy-like stuff on the outside that is quite disconcerting. This morning while I was bathing a 1 inch diameter hairy spider crawled out of the drain (goo) so we eyed each other warily the rest of the time. You hear american music everywhere here. My host mom loved it last night when I was able to translate "all my single ladies" and "it's too late to apologize" for her.

10/10/09

As Peace Corps Trainees and Volunteers we are strictly strictly prohibited from being involved in any political activities (penalty: next plane state-bound). We shouldn’t even, for example, passively observe a political rally. The Peace Corps can’t risk being suspected of being an intelligence agency or anything of the sort. PC was kicked out of Russia due to suspicions and that is just a huge loss for those people who are no longer benefitting from able, eager, and trained volunteers there. Mozambique elections are coming up on October 28th which is very exciting. Mozambique had a civil war for 17 years following independence so peace and democratic elections are much more appreciated here than in the U.S. Also there is a new third party, MDM (democratic movement of Mozambique), in this election and it’s the first time ever that there has been a viable third party. On Sunday there was a huge Frelimo (the party in power) rally downtown which some volunteers got unknowingly taken to or otherwise encouraged to attend. Every day you can see motorcycles drive by with a huge Frelimo flag on the back and I just heard a Frelimo truck with huge speakers drive by. The U.S. Department of State has issued a travel alert for this period of time and the Peace Corps will be implementing the Emergency Action Plan from October 19-November 6 meaning that all volunteers must stay at their sites and cannot travel, but everything seems pretty safe and civil so far.
Mozambique tends to be a very patriarchal culture. We were given a “Homestay Portuguese Cheat Sheet” with all the terms and phrases former volunteers thought were essential and one of the terms was “casa dois”—literally second house. This refers to the fact that many men here have a casa dois. For example, two other trainees share live next door to each other and share the same host father but have different host mothers and siblings. This phenomenon of multiple concurrent partners is also one of the factors behind the huge HIV/AIDS epidemic. I am a little glad that my host home doesn’t have any males (other than the 3 and 7 year olds). Many trainees eat at the table with their host father and perhaps a host older brother, while the mother and kids eat on the floor in another room. One current volunteer who was in this position during her homestay asked her host father if she could eat with the mother and the children, she was told no.

09/10/09

This morning I saw a gecko-type animal on the wall in my room. It’s the first living thing I have seen in my room—as long as there are no cockroaches or scorpions I am happy (one of the current volunteers who has been helping with training the past week says she has to shake her shoes out every morning and has had a couple scorpions fall out). There is also a small hole in the roof of my room but it hasn’t rained yet so I suppose I will cross that bridge when I get there! One of the side effects of our malaria medicine is nightmares. I have not had any nightmares but I woke up last night thinking “that was the weirdest dream I have ever had!” A lot of crazy dreams. It’s also pretty common to wake up multiple times during the night on this medicine so between that and waking up completely tangled in my mosquito net, I haven’t necessarily been getting the greatest sleep. There is litter everywhere here. Broken glass, wrappers, paper—trash. Everywhere. Yet in many ways Mozambicans are meticulously clean. They sweep their yards (there is no grass here, just the red dirt) every day. And even if your shirt has holes in it, it is expected to be clean and ironed.

08/10/09

“Dosed” just played in the background of a commercial on TV here (they are probably watching a Brasilian telenovela or something) and I thought of BellaMafia! Miss you guys. Yesterday I finally worked up the nerve to ask questions about my host family. My host cousin is 7 and his mother lives in the little shack twenty feet behind our house (though I have only seen her once and that was at church). When I asked why he lives here instead of with his mom, my host mom said that he wants to be with his grandmother. I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s what I was told. Here is the kicker, I found out that the 13 year old girl who lives here and who was introduced as a cousin but they treat more as a maid is the aunt of the father of my host mom’s 3 year old son. She is technically the great aunt of my 3 year old host brother! I made my host mom explain that one a couple times because I thought I must have misunderstood! I am currently wearing a capulana (the traditional piece of cloth here that is worn as a skirt or headwrap or used to carry babies, or can be made into a shirt) my host mom gave me after I complimented hers. The colors and patterns on many of them are beautiful.

06/10/09

The electricity has gone out every day since I have been here always at about the same time in the evening, yet everyone always seems pretty surprised so I guess it’s not regular or not supposed to happen. My host brother and cousin have warmed up to me, whenever I come home from school they come running up saying “Anata Anata Anata Anata Anata.” Yes, I’m still being called Anata and no, I don’t respond to it yet. Also, when I am being overfed, to avoid offending, I slip a few cookies or biscuits to the boys so I think that helps them like me more. Today was our first day of language classes which move a little slower than I would prefer but it is good to review (or learn) the basics. It’s just funny to be learning the alphabet when we can read Portuguese fairly well and have basic communication skills.

05/10/09

Today was our first day of school, though we didn’t begin our language or cross-cultural lessons, it was mostly introductions (in Portuguese—didn’t understand much), and overviews. We began the morning by sharing our funny stories, awkward moments, and concerns since we hadn’t all been together since we were dropped off with our homestay families two days ago. Some very funny stories, some incredibly awkward moments, and unfortunately a few concerns. My host family experience has been pretty mild so far compared to others’ (though my host grandmother told me today that she wants to get me fat). A long and scary lecture in the afternoon on many aspects of health including diseases/parasites and food and water preparation. Many of us have questions and concerns about where our water comes from and the water with which dishes/vegetables/fruits are washed. Even without the huge language barrier that is a difficult topic to approach. How do you tell someone who has graciously taken you in as a guest that the way they (and their mothers and grandmothers) have been doing things are wrong? Especially in my case, I feel my host mom would think “I just taught you how to do your laundry yesterday and now you’re going to tell me how to operate my kitchen?” In many ways the homestay program forces us to try to improve the hygiene and health of our host families by encouraging things like washing hands, soaking vegetables/fruits in a bleach solution, boiling and filtering water, etc which is a potentially good thing but puts a lot of pressure on us. It’s also hard because many of us are not allowed to help with things like food preparation and dishwashing because we are guests and even modest houses have a maid. Also, I am quite adept at making myself useful in any kitchen in the U.S.—in Mozambique everything is an entirely different system that renders us practically helpless.

04/10/09

I went to church this morning—didn’t understand a word of the two hour mass. I caught “deus” every now and then but that’s it. Surprisingly I was the only Trainee in church this morning so of course everyone stared at the non-black stranger (the priest and two nuns were white though which surprised me). Afterwards my host mom taught me how to wash my clothes—I must be the only 23 year old she has ever met who doesn’t know how to wash her clothes. She kept telling me to do it with more force. She gave me clothespins to let me hang my clothes up by myself, but then as I was hanging my first shirt she giggled, said “no, no” and came over and corrected me. She is great, she is very helpful and approachable, but also lets me do things myself once she has taught me how. The ground here is red, redder than the clay/soil in Virginia. It covers everything, clothes, cars, shoes especially, with a reddish-orange tinge. On the way to church I some threes covered in the most beautiful blue-purple flowers, the color is so vibrant it seems to glow. I asked my host mom’s niece about them but either she didn’t know the name of the tree or didn’t understand what I was trying to say. In the afternoon we visited my host mom’s sister who is Ana’s host mom. It was such a relief to speak English and to compare host family stories. She lives literally on the border (within yards of the barbed wire fence) of Swaziland. My host mom is going to Swaziland next week and asked if I wanted to go also but we are not allowed to leave until we are sworn in. The more people I meet, the more I realize how clearly my host mom speaks and I am so grateful!

03/10/09

We arrived at our homestays today, the families we will be living with for the next three months during our pre-service training. My host mom is 25 years old! She is finishing schooling now in order to be a primary school teacher and will actually graduate about the same time I finish training in December. She didn’t try to bathe me (as we had been warned might happen), but did give me a thorough demonstration of proper technique. She also showed me how to use the toilet which was incredibly helpful. The house has electricity and no running water, but the indoor bathroom has a bathtub, sink, and sit-down toilet. Living in the house are my house mom, her three year old son, her mother, her seven year old nephew, and 13 year old niece, but there are always other cousins and relatives in and out. The boys are a little wary of me still but her son offered me one of his cookies so I think he likes me. I took my first bath yesterday with a tub of warm water and a cup with which to pour the water over you. I really liked it and was impressed by how little water was needed to bathe. I still had water left over but we were told to use all of it so our host families don’t think we are dirty. Bathing is very important here and we have been told that most people bathe 2-3-4 times a day. I wasn’t able to initially convey the concept of a nickname (which I was able to later explain, but too late), so my host mother has been calling me “Anata.” First time in my life. The problem is that I don’t respond to it whatsoever so I’m not sure what I will decide to do. After dinner my host mom and I sat and talked for about an hour, it was incredibly refreshing to know I can do that (though I did have my dictionary on hand the whole time and consulted it often)! I can understand most of what she is saying and although my grammar is awful, I am able to get my thoughts across. We talked about our families (she has nine siblings, which she didn’t know right away, she had to count them out when I asked) and our interests. I really like it here and am excited!

today i was chased by a man with a knife. we went to maputo for the day and when we were walking back to our chapa (the van/buses here that they squeeze a ridiculous number of people into) we saw a group of people on the street ahead of us scatter so we stopped walking. a guy had a knife and just seemed to be running at people randomly. when he started to come at us we turned and ran slowly but then he started to actually chase us so we sprinted down the block and turned the corner but luckily he didnt continue following us after the turn.
i had been dutifully writing blog posts each night and saved them to my flash drive so i could post them once i had internet but now this public computer wont read them. the short story: things are going well here. they keep us busy. my house has electricity but no running water. every once in a while i just wish i could wash my hands by rubbing them together under the water instead of using one hand to hold the damn cup, but thats just life now!

Hi! So after 31 hours of traveling (leaving the hotel at 2:30am, hanging out at JFK, a 15 hour plane ride, hanging out in the Johannesburg airport, another plane ride) we arrived in Maputo (the capital of Mozambique) yesterday! We are Moz 14, the 14^th group to be sent to Mozambique, and there are 65 of us distributed between health, english teachers, and science teachers. We have met a ton of wonderful people who will be training us over the next 10 weeks, including our training manager who told us that our resumes and aspiration statements were just awful! She told us she will save them for our closing of service interviews so we can have a good laugh at them then. We are staying in a very nice hotel now (which we have been told to cherish and not expect ever again) so I have no good Africa stories to tell yet! Missing everyone!