Moz 16!

I really needed to write a blog solely to express my love for Moz 16!  I didn’t know how big the groups were going to be coming in to PC but when I heard it was a group of 30 I never imagined we would all get along as well as we do.   I expected there to be major drama living in close quarters with 29 people for 3 months straight, but my only problem with moz 16 is that I never have enough time to spend with them.   I worry about not getting to know each and every one of them well enough.   There were a few stragglers that I didn’t vibe with all that well in the beginning, but I can honestly say I enjoy the company of every last person in our group agora.   I know I have made some lifelong friendships and I love my bitches!

Ohh how I have enjoyed our dance parties that take over Morgan’s bar, rotating bad moods in language class, being cut in front of in line, spur of the moment trips to Matola, singing Home, getting boleas in the back of trucks, Joe’s portanglish, Dylan walking me home that one night, lipsinking the Mozambican national anthem, haircuts at the bar, Namaacha bigmacs, singing Diva when Claudia walks into a room, over eating at conferences, and many more memories to come!!

Im not trying to brag but our group is the best and everybody knows it!!  Hahaa   We have had to hear about the previous groups mistakes from day one and I think we all silently agreed to set a different president.     Not to say we haven’t had a few bumps in the road… maybe a fight over a bird, breaking curfew a few times, a roofing incident, an inappropriate picture or being hung over the first day at site … but no harm no foul.    All in all, we have a purpose for being here so expect big things!   We have a lot of different strengths and talents within the group and I hope we utilize each other as recourses over the next 2 years.   I will bet 50 mts that no one in Moz 16 ETs  

 :D   LoVe U aLL!! 

work

10-18-11

Keeping up with blogging is harder than I thought it would be.   Time is just going by and life is feeling somewhat normal and routine and so Im not really sure what to write about and what would be interesting for people to know.    Somehow time has been going by pretty fast but I know it wont feel that way once my roommate leaves at the end of the month.    I will be sad to see her go L   

The end of my observation period is coming to an end and I will be going to my reconnect conference at the end of this month as well.   It is a conference to review how the first 3 months have gone and to share what our orgs are like with the rest of the group.  And the best part is to be able to see everyone from training but unfortunately it will probably for the last time we will all be together for the next two years!    We each have to give a 10 min presentation on what we will be doing with our org.  And we get to have a Halloween pool party at our bosses house, so that should be fun!  Our group is really close, basically I am amazed at how well 30 people get along and we are all really excited to see each other and catch up. 

Right now I am working on my SWOT presentation for my orgs, which is their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.   So as you can imagine that is not always the easiest thing to tell someone but I think it will be a good starting point for the work I will be doing.  It gives me an opportunity to tell them what I think needs improvement and what we can work on together.     I think it will be really helpful for the preschool but Im not sure if I will even get a chance to present for ICAP. 

ICAP is going to be closing all of their offices in my province at the end of December and they are being replaced by Elizabeth Glacer.  I have yet to hear this information directly from ICAP or Peace Corps yet so I am not sure how the transfer will go.  I am not sure if I will still be working at the hospital and if the peer educators I am working with will still have their positions.  But either way I hope to be able to start an independent association with the peer educators or other HIV positive people in Chokwe.    That will be much more sustainable and a step in the right direction to start getting people to help themselves.

My neighbor, Julia, is one of my peer edu and she brought her husband over to our house last week because he wanted to know more about the association we are trying to start.   He seems to really understand the process and the reasoning behind forming an association and said he wanted to help and that he knew more people in Chokwe that might be interested as well.    I am really excited about this opportunity to work with them because they are an HIV positive couple who is still together and seem to have a good relationship, which means they are a great example for people to talk about their positive status with their spouses.    Julia has worked with a former PCV when she lived in a different province, so she understands why I am here and wants to work with me.   She worked on a perma-garden with the volunteer and it was very successful, from what she told me.   I just feel really lucky that she is my neighbor so I see her all the time and it will be easy to coordinate our time together.   She also has a son and a daughter that might be interested in working with me on the youth clubs so that is exciting too.   I hope that I build a close relationship with both her and her family throughout my time here.  

The preschool is going well.  We had a meeting with the teachers about treating the kids with respect and I think the information sunk in and was applied which is really great.   The school system is just completely different here and the children are humiliated for not knowing the correct answer.   Im sure the teachers were treated this way as children and therefore do not know another way to treat children in the class room.   You can imagine this is a hard behavior to change and it will take a very long time im sure but this was definitely a start.   I sat in on a monthly financial report last week as well and I plan on helping with some organizational skills and budgeting.   Today I had a little meeting with 3 staff members about local crops, what time of year certain vegetables are planted, what the months are for each season…   I found out some good information and talked to them about helping me start and work on a garden at the preschool this upcoming planting season.    They seem willing to help me so I hope that all works out and we can start adding some more nutrition to the children’s meals.  

I have been traveling a lot on the weekends, mostly going to the beach with my roomie and other PCVs.  It is really nice to be so close the beach but I have yet to go to a beach with real waves cause every location has been a lagoon or a lake.  But it has been fun to stay busy and get to meet new people and see new places.    Summer is starting which means it is starting to get really hot here which I am not looking forward to but I have a fan an a cold shower so I think I will be okay J  

The Norm

Sometimes I forget that friends and family at home are not acquainted to life in Africa and although I am used to it now and it feels like the norm, im sure not everyone could say the same.  For instance the norm in Moz is… 

Goats tied to the side of the road, chickens everywhere, cows crossing the road stopping traffic.  Women carrying things on their heads like 5 gallon buckets of water, cases of soda, bundles of sticks or brooms.  Little girls practicing carrying things on their head with smaller buckets of water or water bottles.  Woman carrying a capulana with them everywhere, women wearing a capulana wrap over jeans or skirts.  People not wearing shoes including kids, men, women and elderly people. People asking complete strangers if they can use their bathroom.  Hitchhiking is a mode of transportation, people make hand signals in which direction they are going and the driver is expected to stop and or hand signal a different direction, explaining why they cant provide a ride.   Riding in a chapa or bus/big van where people sit 4 to a row instead of 3.  Chapa drivers will wait as long as they have to until the entire chapa is filled up before leaving.   While your waiting on a chapa venders will come up to your window with chips, cookies, bread, tangerines, phone credit, CDs etc  If there is no more room to sit in a chapa people will still pack in and stand up in awkward positions for the entire ride.   Chapas can also be the back of a pickup truck with im guessing up to 15-20 people at a time.   Kids make their toys out of different pieces of trash such as bottle caps, wire and bottles, the toy cars are pretty sweet!  Roosters crow here at all hours of the night and day… I guess they didn’t get the break of dawn memo.   Everyone has American music which they blast at all hours… theres nothing like taking a bucket bath bumpin to lil’wayne.   Mozambicans love Celiene Dion, Jean Claude Van Dam, and Brian Adams.  A mud house with a really loud stereo.   Mozambicans believe that everyone in the Peace Corps were neighbors in the states before coming to Africa and if there is a white person in town they must be our friend.    Women breast feed EVERYWHERE like on the street selling cashews or through my entire supervisors conference… I mean everywhere!  During my last meeting a young mother was obviously not breastfeeding correctly because an older woman in a business suit insisted on giving her a live demonstration.  Sometimes they forget to put their boob away and just act like its completely normal to have one tittie out during a conversation lol  TMI ?  People selling American DVDs and CD on the street, I think my homestay dad had more American rap than I do.   Phone credit is sold by street boys with the phone company vest on and you whistle for them to come over.   Hissing is the common way to get someones attention in Moz.  Children greet you at all hours with “good morning, how are you, I am fine, thank you” as one whole phrase.   Men will kiss at you and say “hey baby” as a cat call.   Venders will say “my sister” “I give you a good price, the best price” to try and get you to stop and buy something.  Street venders sell used clothes, shoes, phones and accessories, food, kitchen wear, DVDs, CDs etc.    There is no running hot water … not that I have seen so far.   People testing positive for HIV and living in denial, not telling their family or friends or starting treatment.   If you take someone’s photo they will definitely want to look at it.   People sweep their front yard every morning with a small broom made of sticks, moving all the trash and leaves to the side of the house instead of in front of it.   Trash everywhere!!  There is a specified trash hill next to the soccer field in my town and in Namaacha my family had a trash hill next to our house.    There is no drinking age in Moz, its not uncommon to see people drinking in the morning or while driving.  Cats are only to keep the rats away and dogs are only used as gaurds, there are no domesticated animals here.   You never shake or accept things with the left hand because it could be someone’s wiping hand when using the bathroom.   A very good chance that there is no toilet paper in public bathrooms.   There are no disposable diapers, only cloth. Tampons are only for city people… again maybe TMI lol  Weddings are a 2-3 day ceremony and the groom is expected to pay for everything.  The wife goes to live in with the husband and his family.  People greet each other with a touch of both cheeks or a kiss on both cheeks.  The most common greeting is tudo bem? which translates to everything good? and the response is tudo… everything.   Im sure there are many more things that I take as normal but cannot remember at the moment.    

Explaining my role

Oh how naive am I.   When I imagined joining the Peace Corps I saw a little African town struggling to accomplish certain goals like a program to reach out to AIDS victims or an orphanage.   I thought this town would request a volunteer for the area and everyone would welcome me with open arms.  The people in the town would be so happy and appreciative that Hannah Elyse has come to help them work on this specific problem that they have been trying to accomplish for so long. 

 Well the reality check is that the director of the school I am placed with told the previous volunteer that she wasn’t sure what I could work on with them and didn’t have any ideas for me.  She failed to show up to the supervisor’s conference and sent the lady in charge of buying food for the school instead.   When my counterpart introduced me to the hospital staff they had no idea that I was coming nor did they seem to care that I was there at all.  Half of the people she talked to about me, while I stood quietly, didn’t look at me or introduce themselves.   So not what I expected to say the least!    Chokwe is just like any other city where locals know each other but no one has any idea who I am or what the Peace Corps is.  The concept of a volunteer obviously does not translate because both of my organizations assumed that I was here to give them money or help get them money.   During training we were told that some of us who are new to an org would probably need to explain our role and that many of them would think we were there to give them money.  However I was not prepared for the leaders of an org who have been working with Peace Corps for over 2 years to still not understand this concept.    My counterpart from the hospital who attended the supervisor’s conference was surprised to hear that I was not going to provide food and money to the community, even though the opening line at the conference was the volunteers are not here to provide money! 

But to focus on the positive… some of the things I look forward to working on at the preschool are: helping make the financial and administrative work more organized, giving short classes (palestras) on supervision, lesson planning and preparation, child supervision and safety,  HIV transmission, child self-esteem, learning through play, and general child development.   I want to start a story time that would happen every day and stress the importance of reading to children.   I want to teach the teachers new songs or encouraging them to use songs they already know.  I want to decorate the class rooms with children’s art work, numbers, letters, shapes, days of the weeks and months, calendars and colors.   I am also going to start a perma-garden, try to add more nutrition to the lunch menu and teach cooking techniques to save nutritious value in the food.   I want to find a preschool in Maputo that functions well and take the teachers to see what their preschool could look like.  I want to show them a youtube video of a preschool in the states to see what our school standards are like as well.   I want to sit down with the director of the preschool and create a yearlong curriculum for the teachers to follow and have a posted schedule in the classroom for each day of the week.   I want to encourage the director, through conversations over the next two years, to enforce rules and consequences on the teachers for their behavior and work ethic. 

At the hospital I look forward to working with the peer educators on: establishing their own association, improving home visits and palestras, helping them look for patients who abandon treatment, income generation projects, and grant writing.   I want to look into ways to help in the mental health and maternity sectors of the hospital.   I want to help create a more organized structure for processing HIV positive patient’s paperwork.  I also want to see if any improvements can be made to post counseling sessions for HIV positive patients.  Hopefully if people feel more comfortable coming to the hospital and taking their medications, the number of abandoned treatments will decrease.

I am going to start a Redes group which is girls empowerment group for youth!   I can focus on anything I want with them from playing soccer to having conversations about self-esteem and I am going to do it all!   It is just a club for girls to feel good about themselves and have a positive female remodel to encourage them.   I am also going to apply to be in the peer support network.  It is a network for Peace Corps volunteers to support each other through good and bad times.  If you are a counselor in the peer network then volunteers are provided with your number if they need someone to talk to.  I think this will be a good way to see if counseling is something Im interested in and to help my peers.    

I have been feeling like my jobs are unstructured and the people here are unmotivated which can be discouraging but I just wrote so many things that are possible for me to do here which makes me happy!  I just got a Portuguese tutor which is great so I can feel more comfortable with the language to accomplish all of these things.   I am feeling much more at home in Chokwe :) Till next time Elysea 

Homstay Celebration and Swear in Ceremony

A lot has happened in the last few weeks!   We had our homestay celebration with our families in Namaacha and it went really well.   It is basically a ceremony for our families, thanking them for hosting the volunteers for the past 10 weeks in their homes.    Each volunteer walked up with the chefe (head) of their house while they received a certificate.   There was lots of food, drinks, cake and dancing!  The women came early to cook the food around 6am!  They cooked all day and only came out to hear our song but a lot of them missed most of the ceremony because they were cooking.    We had tons of meat, rice, xima (a denser form of cream of wheat or grits that is every Mozambicans favorite food) salads and a special treat of feta cheese reserved for only the volunteers.   And by Moz traditions for any party, lots of local beer!  I swear that one of the dads was hiding beer for himself to enjoy later lol

 Our group sang the Moz national anthem in Portuguese (wwaatt) the US national anthem and a song called Home.  We did the Home song with a guitar, a water jug as a drum and a water bottle filled with rice… pretty sweet!  The chorus says “home is whenever im with you” which was perfect for this whole experience.   There was some tension during the two weeks of practicing for the performance but everything worked out and I think it sounded good.   

My whole family attended and my dad made a speech as a thank you to the Peace Corps from all of the host families.   My little brother was the main attraction at the party because he is the cutest thing in Namaacha and everyone was a little jealous lol   My dad and little brother started the dance party and soon the floor was full!  Even the homestay coordinator, language teachers and my mom got out on the dance floor.   When everybody left some of the parents and a few volunteers had a little after party, with more beer and more dancing!  My family stayed and my little sister finally danced a little bit and my brother fell asleep in a chair.   I gave my families there gifts that night and they gave me a tiger print capulana.  A capulana is a piece of fabric that is used for everything!    Women use it to wrap around them as a skirt or a shawl, they use it to sit on the ground or to filter water.   You can also take it to a modista (tailor/seamstress) and make any article of clothing or a bag, curtains, table cloth… anything!    The host families bought all of the volunteers matching capulanas for the homestay party too.   We stayed for another week with our families and then had to say goodbye. 

 My family helped me carry my bags and walked me to meet our ride to Maputo for the swearing in ceremony.   One of my friends said they saw my little brother crying on the walk home.   My family didn’t really explain this whole situation very well to my 5 year old little brother because he thought I was never leaving and he just got a new big sister!   When I left I think my mom cried and I did too.  It’s interesting how close you can feel to people in just 10 weeks.   My family was great and I will miss them but luckily I live close enough where I can visit them during my service. 

The group headed to Maputo for our swear in ceremony at the ambassadors house.  We were all wearing matching capulana clothes again and some of the guys made bow ties which was really cute.  Some of the people who attended the ceremony were Peace Corps staff,  former volunteers, our country director, the mayor of Namaacha, and multiple representatives from national health organizations that Peace Corps works with.  Most of the ceremony was in Portuguese and one of the volunteers gave a speech in Portuguese that was amazing.    We all raise our right hand and repeat after the ambassador an oath of service for the next two years.   So we are all now officially PCVs!  It felt good and is a reminder of why we came here in the first place.   We were put up in an nice hotel with a hot shower for the first time in 2 months.  

Half of us left the next day to the north while the other half stayed for another 4 days to have our supervisors conference.   I was extremely upset because I slept through my alarm and didn’t get to say goodbye to my friends that were going to the north.  But I know we will stay in contact and I will get to see them in November for our reconnect conference.    Over all im so glad to end this part of my PC experience and move on to the next step!  

Chokwe! My new home!!

So I finally found out where I will be living for the next two years! Chokwe, Moz!!   It is the district capital of Gaza Province so it is a mid sized city.  I got everything and more that I asked for.  I am going to be replacing a volunteer so I will be staying with her in her house for the first three months and then living in the same house for the next 2 years.  She has the internet, a bathroom inside with a shower and a toilet, there is running water, a sink in the kitchen, a gated yard that is big enough for a dog and a garden, a refrigerator, a gas stove and a pantry!!!  I feel so extremely lucky to have all of these amenities in Africa.  I really wanted a bathroom inside my house but I never imagined it would flush too lol    A lot of times even when a building has toilets they do not flush because there is no running water so you have to pour flush lol  so every bathroom has a big barrel of water and a bucket that you pour down the toilet to flush... the pour flush lol   But not me :)  And the current volunteer already set up the internet inside her house so I will just have to pay the bill... I think it is the equivalent of dial up.  I know so much about my house because two of my group members visited my house for their site visit and they said that the internet is fast enough to skype!  I am so excited and happy about my house it is unbelievable!!


For my job I will be working with two organizations, the first is ICAP which is an international non government org that works in the local hospitals throughout Moz.  I will be working with the peer educators who work for ICAP in the HIV/AIDS testing and counseling center helping train and provide support.  I will also be working with a preschool that is run by a South African woman who speaks english!  All of the job descriptions that were provided by peace corps and the orgs are very general so it is hard to say what my day to day responsibilities will really be until I get there.


I could not be happier with my site!  I also have two education volunteers and many other volunteers near by.  One of my group members is right across the bride from me in the next town and she has 2 edu site mates as well.  I live near a river which has crocodiles and hippos in it and I am so excited to get some pics!  I already received a text from a guy in a previous group, welcoming me to the area, who lives in a town near by.  I am in the south, closest to Maputo out of the whole group, so I can become part of the leadership of REDES like I wanted!   I am so very happy... I will add more info about my new site and home soon!


Elysea

Homestay

I am constantly trying to balance my home stay situation and Peace Corps group dynamic! I want to become integrated and create a tight knit relationship with my home stay family but I also want some time to relax and bond with my Peace Corps peers. I have a really hard time feeling guilty about not spending enough time at home with my family. Its not that I don’t like them because they are great! I guess its just kind of awkward when I go home and really don’t have much to do. My sister is at school, my brothers out playing somewhere, my dads at work and my mom is cooking. I could go and awkwardly stand and watch my mom cook or ask if I can help. But I feel like when I ask to help she stands there and has nothing to do herself because there is a limited amount of cooking utensils.

Tonight I asked if I could help cook and my mom looked at my dad, as if she was looking for approval? Or some kind of look, I couldn’t figure it out, or maybe it was nothing? So I was kind of waiting for her to give me a job because I don’t know how they want their food cooked and im a guest in her kitchen. And then my dad said “Elysea go cook” so I got up and they had me toss the chicken pieces with a lemon, salt, garlic marinade. Then he had me put the pieces on a pan and into the oven. My mom had me start making a tomato, cucumber and onion salad. After a while my dad asked me if the chicken was burning! I had no idea it was my job to watch the chicken lol but it was fine so far. I asked him a few times after that if it was ready and he said no. So I let it cook for a while longer, assuming he was going to tell me when he thought it was ready. You know what you get for ass-uming cause they kinda burned and it was definitely implied that it was my fault lol a few times I heard them say throughout the dinner preparation that Elysea is cooking dinner tonight. So I guess if I offer to help cook dinner then im in charge of the whole thing. Its just really weird to be a guest in someone’s house for 10 weeks and be treated as if you have no ability to take care of yourself. I think because I don’t know how to do things the Mozambican way, I am thought of as a child who knows nothing. My family isn’t bad but its obvious that the community collectively believes that PCVs are helpless. And to be honest, some of them are and im not quite sure how they were surviving in the states lol but I guess college students can survive off of pb&j and top romin lol I really like my family but I will be happy when I can stop being a guest, feeling like a child and have my own space!

lavaring ropa

7-17-11

So here in Namacha the weekends are for lavaring ropa (washing clothes) and I didn’t do any last weekend so I had a lot to do today!   This is the real deal people, washing your clothes in cold, semi dirty water, in a bacia (small plastic tub) with dry detergent.   You use three bacias, the first has soap and the last two are for rinsing.   The whites go first, in case the color bleed, and all the clothes are turned inside out so if the wind blows them off the line when they are drying only the outside will get dirty.     You wash the clothes with the outside of your fists, on your knuckles, and because I did a load yesterday and today my fingers were bleeding a little bit lol.   After the washing process you ring out each item and hang it on the line.  If the clothes are not dry by night time, I put them in my bacia and hang them back up in the morning.  I use the same bacia for bathing and washing clothes. 

Yesterday we didn’t have enough water so me and my little sister, who is my keeper when my mom isn’t home, went down the hill to the water hole and waited our turn to fill up our water pails.   While we were waiting a woman took my bucket from me and filled it up for me.  I had never met her before and Im not sure why she did that, probably because Im obviously a foreigner and she was being polite and partially because she thought I didn’t know how to fill up the bucket myself.    After both of our buckets were filled my sister used a rag, which we clean the floors with, as padding to carry her bucket on her head back up the hill.  The girl who helped me asked if I was going to carry the 5 gallon bucket on my head too!  I laughed, said no and carried it back up the hill, switching hands every now and then.     I really feel like I got my workout for the day after lavaring ropa lol

Elysea

Site Placement

7-15-11

I had my second interview with the director of health for my site placement today.   They had us fill out a form about what experience, education or background we wanted to be considered as well as whether we want a site mate, a roommate (only one of us will get a roommate), joint placement with 2 or more organizations, urban vs rural site, overlap with another volunteer (first 3 months), if we prefer a community, faith or nongovernment based organization, if we are interested in working with people living with HIV (PLWH), holding small classes (aka palestras) on HIV / malaria / nutrition or other health related issues, and if there was one wish they could grant us about our site… what would it be.    I emphasized my background and education in youth and child development as well as my desire to be involved in urban development rather than rural.   I also mentioned that I want to be active in the REDES group, a girls group focused on women empowerment, and that I heard if you are placed in the south of Moz then it is more likely that you could hold a leadership position within REDES, which is really important to me.  Some of the possible positions are program coordinator, financial director, regional and national director.  Any of these positions would be amazing to put on my resume but I am really striving for national director of REDES!

 I went on a site visit to Inharrime, which is in the southern region, and visited Ann Davis.  She has two edu site mates, Scooter and Erin.  I believe Ann is the program coordinator and Scooter is the financial director or REDES.  I asked a lot of questions about how one goes about becoming a part of leadership for REDES and they said a lot of it is situational.  People in leadership need to be accessible to Maputo for meetings and conferences so sometimes there could be a more qualified person in the North but it is just too inconvenient for them to be in a leadership position because of location.   Entao (and so) I asked to be placed in the south to ensure that I can be more involved in REDES.  I also talked about my experience with gardening and my interest in having a garden, or two, at my site.  For my one wish for site I asked to be placed in an urban area where there are opportunities for development.  So even if the organization that peace corps places me with doesn’t have a lot of work for me to do, I can go out and find other organizations at my site that I could work with as well.   I just think I wouldn’t be happy at a site where there is only one organization for me to work with because if they don’t have a lot of work I will feel unproductive.  I understand that Moz has a completely different definition of productive than the average American but I just want there to be various options for development and growth.   I kinda wish I had emphasized that I wanted a site mate but I think that if I am in an urban area I will most likely have a site mate or someone not too far away.   I felt like it was more important for me to ask for more work than a site mate if it came down to either or.  

We find out on wed where we will be placed for the next two years and I think we are all nervous and anxious to find out!  But I think it will all work out and I am trying to focus and attain the mindset that no matter where I am placed I will have to go out there and find work for myself.  Peace corps is not handing us development work, this program is really set up for a self starter who will have to go out into a community and find work for themselves.  It is now clear to me that the peace corps experience is more focused on cultural exchange than development but I can adjust and still appreciate the opportunity.   And in the real world nobodies gana give you anything, you have to get it for yourself!  So im more or less thinking about it as if I moved to Moz for two years…  see what I can do to help and the peace corps just happens to be paying for my expenses lol  in hopes to avoid frustrations of lack of  structure.   I know overall this will be a great experience for personal and professional growth!  

Daily life in Moz

6-30-11

So training is only 10 weeks which isn’t really that long and for some reason I had it in my mind that training was 3 months.   So I am half way done with training at the end of this week!    My typical day in training starts at 630am, I cook myself breakfast.. usually an egg and cheese sandwich on pao (bread pronounced pow) and then language class at 730am.  Language class ends at 930 and then I go to health technical session at 10am till 12 when I go home for lunch.  My mom always has lunch waiting for me and then I work on some homework before I go back for more tech sessions at 130pm.  We end sessions around 430 and then I have language tutoring till 5pm.   Sometimes I go out with the group to have a beer, maybe go use the internet, do group yoga or go home and do homework.  Dinner is around 630 and my family usually eats together but that really varies family to family here in Namacha.  Some people eat alone, some peoples families eat at all different times and some people eat later around 8 or 9pm.   On the weekends sometimes we will have schedules group activities or plan a group trip to the city or to certain attractions in Namacha like the 3 point boarder of South Africa, Moz and Swaziland, the local waterfall or shoprite which is like a local flea market.   Sundays is usually everyones cleaning day when we do laundry, clean our rooms and water filters.     Its nice to have a routine but we are usually pretty busy which can get wearing after a while.  This week we have a community map due and we start a practicum with a community organization.  We interview a local organization, kind of a test run of what we will be doing at site, and come up with a training session on improvements for the organization.   I think this will be extremely useful in working out the kinks with our strategies!   Overall Im looking forward to going to site but its definitely hard to think of the next two years so im just taking it day by day J   

 Elysea

My first month in Moz

6-29-11

Eu gusto Mozambique!  I like Moz!   I am definitely enjoying my stay and training in Peace Corps thus far.  The family that I am staying with is perfect for me.  I thought before coming that I wanted a family that talked a lot but now I realize that along with a lot of talking would come with a lot of demands lol.  The typical Mozambican mother who talks a lot also has a lot of opinions on how to do things, and when you are living with a family and have a 7pm curfew, an opinionated mother can be stressful.   We were warned as volunteers that we might be told by our mothers to change our clothes because they were too dirty or not ironed, that we would have to bathe twice a day, sweep and mop our room every morning and help with domestic chores before 7am class… fortunately my mother demands none of these things! If you know me than you know that these demands would be hard for me to comply with lol.  My mai (mom in Portuguese, pronounced my) is young and very laid back, so to speak.   I have gotten it down to one bucket bath a day, I sweep and mop my room 1x a week, she allows me to choose to iron my clothes (which I don’t of course lol) and she doesn’t ask me to do hardly anything around the house.   If I ask if I can help cook or clean she kinda laughs at me, I think because there isn’t that much to do and if I help she just watches me cause then she doesn’t have anything to do.

  They do not use cutting boards here and I know my mother in the states would die if she saw me peeling a potato or cutting a tomato, while holding it my hand, with a huge knife… but don’t worry its pretty dull.   They only have one knife per family and just enough dishes to cook and eat one meal at a time.   They do not have cupboards so the dishes sit out in the kitchen.   My family actually has electricity, outlets, tv, a fridge and a stove.  The fridge stays unplugged most the day I think and we don’t use the inside of the stove… not sure why?    

My family is very modern, we watch tv during dinner and my pai (father pronounced pie) has more American music and movies than I do lol.  My parents are both young and my pai is a math teacher and volleyball coach.   I have a little brother and sister, Kito (keetoo) and Leticia, who are so freakin cute!   It is a Moz tradition that the male of the household always eats the head of the fish (like the big piece of chicken) but in my family mai gets to eat the head of the fish too.. very progressive lol.  Its interesting though that my younger sister is still kind of treated like a maid who gets things for her dad and it seems that she is always being called to do something.  She does go to school though which is still not common throughout all of Moz.  Some women don’t get to go to school cause it is thought that they should stay home and learn how to do domestic work. 

 There are still a lot of differences here in Moz like…. Men can have multiple wives and the more wives you have the higher social status you have because you can pay for all of them, domestic violence is a part of life or discipline for wives who do something wrong, infidelity is accepted and even expected to the point where wives could put condoms in their husbands pockets hoping they will use it instead of not using one at all… on a lighter note lol pepper is not common, salt only comes in rock salt form, peanut butter and cheese are a luxury,  no mustard to be found, there are banana, mango and papaya trees everywhere, they’re avocados are HUGE!! And more lol

Luckily I have a great family and I have yet to experience the more difficult differences but it will come and I know im going to struggle with my role as a volunteer and overcoming gender bias’ and inequalities.   Im learning the language slowly but surely and I have my test in about 2 weeks that I have to pass to be able to go to site… but im sure ill be fine J  I also get to go on a site visit to another current volunteers site to see what its all about and I find out where I will be placed in week 7!   Im still pretty nervous for site but homestay was much easier than I expected so im sure site will be too.  Nite all!

Elysea