31/08/11

Monday morning Ann and I showed up at the administration building for our meeting with the administrator and or the head secretary. We sat down to wait and heard some singing outside. Ann checked it out and said “I have no idea what it is, but everyone from the hospital is there.” After we had waited for a while, a nice woman (the same one from last week) came over and said that we would have to wait a little longer, because the administrator was going to take part in the ceremony outside. It turns out it was National Blood Donation day, so, as with all Mozambican holidays, people came to the town monument and there was a ceremony of placing flowers followed by speeches. We have a brand new town monument which is really beautiful. After all of that was finished we finally got to meet with the administrator in his very nice office. We discussed the mural and then he told us to go talk to the chief of sports, since our mural will be at the town stadium. The chief of sports has been really nice and helpful, he is arranging with the police to help guide traffic that day (the wall we are painting is directly on the national highway. Great publicity, but yikes!) and he was helpful with designs. We are going a little crazy trying to figure out getting all the necessary supplies, getting 150 people fed that day, and making sure nobody gets hit by a car, but it will all be worth it!
Tuesday was the end of Ramadan (sorry I don’t know what this is called). In southern Mozambique at least, most shop owners are of Middle Eastern descent. Many of them have been here for generations and are definitely “Mozambican,” but they are clearly not completely ethnically African. They are also all Muslim. Thus, on Tuesday, as far as I could tell, not a single shop in town was open (and by shop I mean real cement building with a door, luckily all the little stands were still open, because these are run by the ethnically African Mozambicans).
At Irmã Dolorinda’s request I have started English lessons with the littlest girls here in the orphanage. They don’t retain too much from lesson to lesson, but everyone gets a huge kick out of when they say “good afternoon!” Once, a girl got too excited and said “good sisternoon Albertina!”
This afternoon I was sitting on my porch when a student from the primary school passed me and said “good afternoon Sister Agnes.” I laughed. Sister Agnes is the director of this girl’s school. She is also black, wears glasses, and always wears her nun’s habit.

I put more pictures on the REDES Flickr site (address at right), so check them out!

My colleague gives a girl painting tips

7am and headed to Chidenguele!

27/08/11

Today was the big REDES (Rapariga em Desenvolvimento, Educação e Saúde—Girls in Development, Education and Health) Inter-group Exchange between my secondary school group, Shannon’s group and Naomi’s group (two other PCVs). For the Exchange, Naomi’s group and my group traveled to Chidenguele, Shannon’s site, to meet up with her group and to paint a mural on a wall in the soccer stadium there. We were scheduled to leave at 6am. At about 6:15am the bus showed and most of the girls had assembled at the meeting point. We had to wait a few minutes and send two girls to the houses of other girls to retrieve them, but we had everyone by 6:35am. Then we set off for the other meeting point (since my school is about 3 miles out of town, some of the girls live here near the school and some of the girls live in town). Everyone was there already! Except for one girl. Nobody had seen that girl yet, but somebody said that she lives near my school, so we went back out there and sent someone to her house, but they were told that she had gone home to the bush for the weekend. I tried calling the guardian who had signed her permission form, but either the person’s phone died right when I called, or they hung up on me and ignored my calls. So at 7am we hit the road, only one person short. This is actually the third time since being here that someone just hasn’t showed up the morning of a trip. And I really don’t understand it because these trips are literally once-in-a-lifetime events for these kids (some of my girls had only been through the towns we passed once or twice before, and this is significant since we were going south, ie toward Maputo). Last year one girl didn’t show up to go to the REDES conference and one girl didn’t show up to go to English Theater.
About 20 minutes out of town the driver pulled over to get “gas.” We have gas stations in this country. But another common form of filling your tank is at little makeshift places along the side of the road. When the large trucks carrying gas drive by on the highway, people bribe the drivers to stop and let them siphon gas out. Then they display this gas on the side of the road in old water or cooking oil containers. I had asked a male colleague of mine to arrange the bus we rented for this day, since he had arranged the one for our English Theater competition last year. He asked if he could come along, not to hang out with us, but to just spend the day in the town of Chidenguele, and then to be let off in Quissico on the way home, where there was a large festival going on. I let him come and he turned out to be a huge help all day. He yelled at the driver for me when he made this stop he should have done before picking us up. And when the driver demanded the second half of the payment in the morning (rather than at the end of the day) and I refused, my colleague called the bus owner and sorted things out.
The day went really well, and it taught me a lot about what we need to do to prepare for our next two mural paintings. We had 52 people there and I believe everyone got to do some painting, and the girls had a great time painting, painting themselves and each other, dancing, and spending the day together. We had lunch at a small place there (one of two restaurants in town) and—wait for it—they actually had all the food ready when we showed up! Two of Naomi’s girls gave a talk about having good relationships with other people, and then we got back to painting. We didn’t quite finish everything on Saturday, but Shannon and her girls will finish it up for us.
On the way home, late and in the dusk/dark, the driver pulled over to pee on the side of the road. All of the girls suddenly had to pee so I reluctantly let them off. Another bus coincidentally pulled up beside us for a pee stop too. Since all 15 of my girls had gone into the grass on the side of the road in front of the bus, I walked around to the driver’s side and turned off his headlights. Then I heard squeals. Turns out that one of the disgusting guys from the other bus had taken a picture of all of my girls peeing. I wasn’t too worried because it was far too dark for any picture to come out on a good camera, much less a phone camera, so I reminded the men what revolting dogs they are and herded the girls back onto the bus.

Ann, me, Erin and Buck at the first stop on the winery tour. Cape Town is far off in the background.

26/08/11

I just got a text from my host mom--Baby Anata is walking!

At Zavora, the closest beach to Inharrime, a man walks by with a very fresh swordfish on his head.

25/08/11

Last week Donna, Luis, Erin and I were sitting in Ann’s house when she came walking in holding a toddler who, upon seeing four white faces grabbed Ann’s neck in fright. “Who’s that kid?” Donna asked. “Remember at our supervisor’s conference how Ann’s counterpart was extremely pregnant? That’s the kid. THAT is how long we’ve been here!” I responded. (Supervisor’s conference was where we met our bosses and counterparts at a two-day conference after we were sworn in as volunteers and before we were delivered to our sites—so December ’09.) On Sunday I nudged Buck and indicated to the cute little toddler giggling and dancing around the church, “she was still a fetus when I got here.”
Buck left today, which I am bummed about. It was so wonderful having him here for three months, it will be tough adjusting to him being gone. But I feel lucky to have gotten to spend that time with him.

24/08/11

At 7:30am this morning Ann, Erin and I had a meeting first with the head secretary of the administration of Inharrime district and the administrator of Inharrime (like our mayor). We showed up on time but the head secretary wasn’t there, so we went next door to the district direction of education. In order to take kids out of our district like I want to do this Saturday with my REDES group for our Inter-group Exchange, I need the district director of education’s permission. He gave me permission, but then explained what we would have to do first. He explained that the administrator is like the father to all of us here in the district, and you would never leave home without first saying goodbye to your father. So on Friday 12pm we (all 30 REDES girls I plan to take) needed to return to the administration (4k from our school and where a majority of the girls live) for a formal send-off from the administrator. I explained that almost all of my girls study in the afternoon, so he changed this time to 8am. He explained that it was a formality so all 30 girls didn’t necessarily need to come. I was thinking to myself that there was no way I would convince even five girls to walk that far at 8am for something they wouldn’t get credit for. I was hoping it wouldn’t be too awkward when the administrator and I had a one-on-one send-off. Then he explained that on Monday we would need to return for a welcome, because you never return home without greeting your father.
We returned to the administration and waited for a little while longer. We were told the head secretary wouldn’t be coming in today, but that hopefully the administrator would see us. But then I saw him walking home (he lives across the street), so we guessed that we wouldn’t be seeing him today. The lady apologetically informed us that he wasn’t working today, and that tomorrow he would be traveling through the weekend, perhaps we could come back on Monday. Ann, irritated, asked if we were actually going to get to meet with anyone on Monday, since we had been told to come in today by both people we were supposed to meet, only to find neither person was working. The lady asked us what we wanted to meet about anyway. We explained that we didn’t want anything! We had turned in a letter last week describing our project and it was them who wanted a meeting with us.
On my walk out of town an older lady greeted me and asked if I was going back to the sisters.’ “My house is right up here, let’s walk together!” I was in power-walking mode and trying to get back to school as quickly as possible—she was walking at Mozambican speed. But I slowed down and walked with her and her grandson and was glad I did. She asked if I knew Sister Lucilia. She talked a little bit about how wonderful a lady she is (which she is). Then she asked why I don’t come to town on bike, since I live so far away. I explained that I didn’t like having my bike in town, because I am always afraid it will get stolen. “Oh yes” she agreed “people here are always stealing bikes. I even heard that last year a bike got stolen WITHIN the sisters’!” I told her it was my bike. I was surprised that gossip had made it all the way into town. When we arrived at her house she invited me in for tea, but I actually had a meeting to get back to, so I told her I would come by next week.

On July 4th (please note the color coordination in my outfit) we came across a woman selling very very fresh seafood in town. We bought 2 kilos of shrimp for 200 Meticais, about $6.

23/08/11

Last night I dreamt that I was back in America and what I was most excited about (other than seeing people, of course) was being able to see the Big Dipper again.
Today in a store I was receiving change and the woman didn’t have bills, so she gave me my change in coins. The man next to me asked if he could change a twenty for the two ten coins I had and I said yes. Only a couple second later did I process that he had asked me in Txopi, not Portuguese! Clearly this was a simple phrase, but I was still really proud of myself.
My extra-curriculars are slowly but surely getting off the ground. This morning I had about 50 students show up to the morning and afternoon sessions combined, so they will be divided into three groups that will focus on different themes: current events, peer-education, and learning skills (like sewing).

22/08/11

Today we had a fantastic REDES meeting! It's really one of the greatest feelings in the world. My REDES group has grown exponentially, we are now at 27 girls. Most REDES groups are 8-12 girls. It's overwhelming to say the least, but I suppose it's overwhelming in a good way.

The Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town, aka Heaven

Check out the REDES blog to read all about the 2011 Southern Regional Conference!