23/06/11

Came down to Maputo this morning. A relatively nice chapa ride until we got into the outskirts of Maputo, when the main road was out so we had to take a detour. Apparently everyone else was also taking this detour, so we sat at a standstill for about 35 minutes. Some very resourceful men were moving large block of concrete back and forth for cars that paid them sufficiently, to allow these cars to escape the girdlock. Tomorrow we head to Swaziland for a few days!

the weather is always changing rapidly here, often creating rainbows like this one. taken from the porch of my house two mornings ago.

21/06/11

This morning I think I saw a guy out on a run. I was really confused. I probably stared at him harder than everyone else always stares at me. He ran out from the bush onto the highway in front of me and at first I thought he was mocking me or joking around, but then he stayed in front of me until I turned around to return home.
I forgot to write about this. When I was in Swaziland, the hostel we stayed at was inside a game reserve. One morning I was running and looked over and there were six zebras standing in the grass about 30 feet away from me. I stopped to stare back at them and with the sun rising, the mountains in the background, and the wind blowing gently through the grass, the moment was simply breathtaking. But, trying not to ruin the moment, I racked my brain trying to remember if I had ever learned that zebras are aggressive. I hoped not, because it turns out they are pretty huge when they are standing so close with no fence in between you. Eventually I gave in first and continued on my run.

Buck (my brother) playing a game with the primary school kids

20/06/11

On Saturday morning my dad came by my room at around 8:10am and asked how my REDES meeting was. “It hasn’t happened yet” I responded. “But wasn’t it at 7am?” he asked. “Yes, it is” I responded. He looked at his watch and gave me a puzzled look. I didn’t even bat an eye when our meeting finally started at 9:08am. Today I was chatting with one of my colleagues in the middle of the school courtyard when she said, “wait you have something in your teeth” and reached out. I had no other choice, so I bared my teeth and let her pick out the piece of food right there in the middle of the school. My definition of normal has changed so much in the past year.
Last night I came across some yogurt in our town (which is pretty rare), so I wanted to buy it while I could. I checked the expiration date—04 Jul. I’ll be traveling later this week so I won’t eat all 6 yogurts before they expire, but I’ll get to them within a couple weeks after. The other yogurt I have from the last time I bought expires on 02/11/11. I just keep hoping that the date is written in the system used here where the day is written first, because this gives me another few months. As opposed to the American style of writing the date, in which case they expired four months ago. Oh well, I haven’t died yet.

This was taken at the Junta, the main bus terminal in Maputo which is just a large clearing where 5x the number of buses of all sizes that should fit into this space jam themselves in and men try to force you onto their bus by yelling louder than others and pulling the bags off your back.
In a rare moment of relative peace, a man arranges items on top of a bus as the sun comes up.

18/06/11

This morning the REDES group from the primary school met and rehearsed the dance they will perform on the June 25th (Mozambican Independence Day). We were sitting over in the courtyard of the secondary school and a bunch of girls from the orphanage wandered over to watch, join in the dancing, or help with the choreography. Something was going on in the school, so a bunch of students were walking past, including some former students of mine and some students I know from English Club—they all gave me big smiles and waves. One of the little girls from the orphanage had crawled onto my lap and fallen asleep and one of the girls from the REDES group, mid-dance, looked over at her and yelled, “AAA, look!” The little one on my lap had a glob of snot hanging an inch out of her nose. Everyone laughed. Walking into town later a wedding procession drove past and one of my students was in the back of a one of the trucks, she gave me a huge grin and waved. And it’s times like this that I get incredibly sentimental and feel like I’m not ready to leave here. I finally feel like I have a place in my community and I know so many people and they know me and seem to genuinely like me.

17/06/11

Teaching the same lesson again today with a different class, I got another round of interesting questions. One student asked me if I liked a certain kind of dancing. I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she jumped up and demonstrated really quickly, before she could think about what she was doing. Everyone, myself included, laughed at this sudden outburst from this relatively quiet girl and she sat back down mortified (but maybe a little bit happy with herself). Another student asked, if I had the choice, would I live in America or Mozambique. I explained to them that I needed to return to America to return to university, but afterwards I wasn’t sure where I would be, and I would like to come back to Mozambique. One student, showing off his retention of new vocabulary (our current theme is Citizenship), said “maybe you can change your nationality!
Many of my students have seen me running, so one asked if I liked to run. I told them that yes, I did like to run, and in fact I ran 20 kilometers this morning (my marathon training program has a long run each week). One student thought for a second, and then got a smile on his face like “oh this silly American has no idea what she’s saying.” “No teacher” he said to me with a sympathetic smile. “Yes” I replied. “No teacher” he said, with the same sympathetic smile. “Yes!” I replied. “No teacher!” he said forcefully. I am sure he still doesn’t believe me.

Our REDES group decorated our REDES bin that holds all of our materials and some other boxes and bins for our things. Here one girl has written "I choose the life of REDES"

16/06/11

Today’s lesson topic was question formation, so for the “motivation” activity at the beginning of the lesson, I told my students that they had 3 minutes to ask me any questions they wanted, without using the “wh-“ question words: who, what, where, when, why, or which. The first boy stood up and asked “are you married?” Everyone laughed and suddenly the ice was broken, you could see all of them thinking hard to formulate a question—they weren’t going to let this opportunity pass. I was asked if I had a boyfriend in America and like I always say here, I said yes. So another boy asked if I wanted a boyfriend here in Mozambique. I explained that I had one in America, and for me one was more than enough. Completely earnestly and seriously he insisted, “yes but what about here in Mozambique?” I was asked how old I am (I know “how” should have been included in the question words, but I didn’t want to complicate things) and so I finally admitted that I am about 2-4 years older than most of them. One student asked if I had been a teacher before coming here, and then he wanted to know if I thought teachers in America or Mozambique were better. One student asked when I would have kids and when I told them I didn’t want to, I think the collective response from the class was “eih?!” I explained that, should I decide to start a family, I would adopt children who were orphans. A couple students nodded at this, but I think most of them just thought it was a pretty weird idea.

trouble

11/06/11

There are five little girls in the orphanage this year who are too young to go to school, so they just run around like they own the place, wreaking havoc on everything in sight. Right now I am sitting in the main house of the sisters trying to work while they are all in here, one is rubbing lotion on my arm, one is running around with no underwear on and her dress inside out, one keeps trying to stuff the little biscuit one of the sisters gave her into my mouth and once she’s finished she keeps pulling things out of the trash can and telling me what they’re for (and I have to remind her that trash isn’t for playing with), one has my house keys hanging around my neck and if I’m not careful she’ll walk off with them, she also keeps going through my bag and finding new things she can help carry for me, and one has my Nalgene on her head and is practicing carrying it like that and I’m pretty sure she’s going to drop it and make a mess.

practicing their skit about women's rights

girls from the primary school REDES group dancing

11/06/11

I have one 12th grader in my REDES (Girls In Development, Education and Health) group (all of the other girls are 9th graders) who has really taken on a leadership role and acts as big sister to all of the other girls in the group. Wanting to tap into this leadership potential, I encouraged her to start her own REDES group in the primary school that she would be the main facilitator of, and I could help out with. Due to schedule conflicts, I was finally able to make it to my first of their meetings today. They have decided their focuses will be theater and dancing, so during their meeting they did just that. Their facilitator, my 12th grade REDES girl, had written a short skit about women’s rights so they practiced it. Then afterwards they danced with true Mozambican flourish and energy for a good 20 minutes before we sent them on their way. June 25th is Mozambican Independence Day, so they have decided to prepare a dance to perform at the town celebration.