Hello everyone and thank you for your interest in my adventures in Peace Corps, Mozambique. I’ve been in training for about 3 weeks now so I think I’m due for a blog post. I will try to update this blog once or twice a month.
Training takes place in Namaacha, a town at the southern tip of Mozambique. Take a look at some of the pictures of around town in my last post. I will be here living with a host family, attending language class, and learning technical and cross cultural skills until December 9th when I will be delivered to my site.
Where to start? The last three weeks have been incredibly full and each day seems like two. The first week here I think was especially hard for everyone. American culture and Mozambican culture are very different from each other, and on top of that volunteers (and the Mozambicans speaking to us) have to deal with the huge language barrier.
Some moments are really embarrassing, or just quiet and awkward. This is my first time staying with a host family, so I didn’t really know what to expect. The first day in Namaacha I was kind of stunned and confused. My sister picked me up and we walked all the way to our house (muito longe). She showed me around the house (which is actually many separate, small buildings) and I met some of my other family members. Sitting in the conzinha around a fire with a bunch of people I didn’t know who spoke a language I couldn’t understand felt very strange. Was I just another person, like them, in a new environment? Or was I a diplomat sent from the United States to observe another culture? A couple times that day I felt like an alien from outer space on a mission to learn about the human species. As time goes by, however, I think I will find that we share more in common than I could have ever guessed.
Since I arrived in Namaacha there have been embarrassing moments. The first morning I was brushing my teeth and I didn’t know where to spit so I went into the latrina. I spit in the toilet and did some business and when I came out my family members were looking kind of surprised. There was a glass of water sitting on the porch and they told me it was for me. My sister took me to the side of the house and told me I could brush my teeth there. Apparently it’s disgusting to brush your teeth in the bathroom. Actually with the lack of hand-washing here I’m not surprised.
I’m lucky I haven’t been in any situations that were too embarrassing. I have a friend who backed up the toilet in his first week and he had to tell his parents with his very limited Portuguese. While we were still in Maputo we were told about a volunteer who had his host mom bathe him (she might have insisted on it).
My family is huge and I’m still trying to figure out exactly who is who. It is possible that when I leave Namaacha I still won’t know who everyone is. I have four sisters and four brothers (I found out I had a fourth one yesterday. He even lives in the same compound but I don’t see him much and I though his wife was my other brother’s wife). I also have many nieces and nephews. One of my sisters, Jilda, is practically my mom. She makes me meals and helps me with everything. She does a lot of work at the house and she’s a single mom, but she also finds time to go to night school three days a week and participate in multiple groups within the community. She is 25. I don’t know what I would do without her because often times I can’t understand my mom and dad. My mom and dad work on the machamba (field) and grow fruits and vegetables (cove, onion, bananas, etc). My mom also helps sell the produce from the machamba in the local market with the help of my youngest sister. Oh and everyone’s first language is Changana, but they speak Portuguese equally well.
The other night I killed a chicken for dinner. I was at my friends Brian and Jordan’s house and I, Brian, and our friend Ben killed three chickens, one for each of us. It was my first time killing anything larger than a fly so the moment leading up to it was kind of unsettling. I watched Brian kill his chicken first: grab the chicken by the wings, step on its feet with one foot, then step on its wings with the other foot. Grab its head and pull out to get to the neck, then start sawing away. It helps if you sharpen the knife beforehand, but it’s not going to get much sharper than a butter knife. I think it was Jonathan who said his family had one knife for chopping vegetables, plugging up holes in walls with cement, breaking apart insect homes, and cutting the heads off chicken. It’s pretty gruesome. You also have to hold the body down afterwards as the body tries to run away. Once I killed my first chicken I came to terms with death and I feel fine killing them now. I even killed one for my family the next day. Jilda called me a chicken murderer (assassino de galinhas).
That night I was invited to dinner at Brian and Jordan’s house. I had to tell my family that I was eating over so I went back to tell my sister. A couple hours later I got a call from my dad who told me it was time for dinner. I went back and explained that I was eating over at the neighbor’s house, and he looked like he reluctantly accepted. That night I came back home late and my dad was waiting for me on the porch. I said I was sorry and I think he said something about his heart as we walked inside. The next morning I was talking to Jilda and it turned out my dad was really sad because he thought I was over at the neighbor’s house to eat dinner because I didn’t like the food they were serving me. Jilda said she explained that I had been invited to dinner though, and I think it worked out alright in the end. It’s really hard communicating with my dad.
I guess I’ll briefly say something about the living conditions here. I live in a concrete house. I am lucky to have a big room with a desk. There is electricity (I think just one outlet) but no running water. Some people get their water from a river and I have heard that it looks really dirty. My family gets water from a tube that supplies our local community with water on certain days of the week. I boil and filter my water before drinking it. That’s about it. Oh and there are no trash cans. Everyone burns their trash. I have been hoarding mine in my room but there are flies in it so I think I’ll have to give it up soon.
The amount and level of technology here does not fit with everything else. It’s kind of strange that there are no land lines but almost everyone has a cell phone. It’s also strange that some people have huge stereo systems, a T.V. and DVD player but no running water. My neighbors are almost always playing music, sometimes as early as six in the morning. I am sorry that I don’t know more pop music because Mozambicans here are really into it. I was really confused when my sisters were telling me they liked Enrique Ingles. I think their cell phones couldn’t fit his full last name. Many Mozambicans also LOVE Michael Jackson (especially my brother Jackson). I think he was big here before his death but now you hear him everywhere.
Now that I have covered almost everything I will talk about the reason why I’m here – to teach chemistry to high school students. In my tech class we have been giving 10 and 20 minute practice lessons to each other in Portuguese and Monday we will begin the 45 minute lessons. We can make a lesson on whatever we want so I’ve been sticking to the basics – the atomic structure, elements, molecules, etc. I hope that I teach either 8th or 9th grade because I don’t want to teach organic chemistry to 10th graders. Making a lesson in Portuguese is pretty difficult but I can use my dictionary and write it all out. Yesterday I was talking with Brian about how crazy it is that we can use a chemistry book in Portuguese to make lesson plans about Avagadro’s number, molar mass, etc.
Well that’s all I have for now. Keep writing me emails because I can check them on my phone (writing emails with T9 is a little more difficult). I will try hard to keep this blog updated. Chow!
