Sunday, November 29, 2009


This is the moment you have all been waiting for these past eight weeks. SITE PLACEMENT!!!! Yeah! Alright! And then, at the peak of our excitement, right before real Thanksgiving and shortly before the feast of our Peace Corps Thanksgiving, they throw that last little Peace Corps catch. Everyone's placement was in an envelope, and everyone had to wait until the last envelope (there are about 70 of us) was handed out and the letter accompanying it was fully read. Yes. All seventy adults sat with our placements in hand, and couldn't open it until we could all open them. Why? A question the world will never be able to answer. But to get to the good stuff, I can and will tell you what province I will be moving to: Zambezia! A lovely little province, technically in the central region but really more northern. This is accompanied by summer days that can be up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and winter rains that result in a long lasting and all-encompassing red mud. This charming variety in weather is accompanied by two more human charms: the mentally unstable woman that is not only disposed to hit PCV's in the market but is also rather strong, and the “very fast legless man” (quoted from a site detail sheet left by a former volunteer) who will ask for money with applause-worthy persistence.

But let's move on since a lot has happened in the past week and I'm already prone to lengthy posts. Tuesday our health group visited two orphanages. I was determined to visit the girls' orphanage, which I did, while the other half visited a boys' orphanage. Both are privately run and funded, so along with that goes the assumption that they are better equipped than a government-run orphanage. While I haven't seen a government-funded orphanage, I did ask and was told that the orphanage I saw was far superior in funding and facilities than a government orphanage. We were greeted by all eighty-nine girls singing several songs to us in nothing short of angelic voices. It was heartwarming. The facilities were very nice, with clean, sound buildings and bright cheerful colors. Almost every bed had a mosquito net, and they just finished building a school on premises. This, of course, was constructed because the girls had been walking off site to another school, but it was discovered that some of them were being stolen and killed. Well, the woman who described it was a little vague, but the exact verbs used were robar para matar, which in a direct translation means to steal for to kill. The girls seemed very happy, healthy, and eager to wrap their arms around us. We were given morning snacks, and they even wanted to feed us, which was amazing but we were able to turn down. It was extremely uplifting. As far as the boys' orphanage goes, the main point that struck me was that the orphanage has its own school, and families in the surrounding communities actually opt to pay for their sons to attend school at the orphanage. So, while these are uncommon, it is still just awesome that they exist.

Wednesday was our Thanksgiving day, and I have to hand it to us trainees and to administration, because it was wonderful. There was so much food, and it was so traditional American, and the tables were pretty and there were little (meaty) appetizers. The effort blew my mind, and then the food blew my stomach. I don't think anyone was able to do more than waddle out of that lunch. I personally ate an entire plate of dessert. But that was only to fulfill my duty as a PCV, part of which is to bring American culture to Mozambique, and what better way to show American gluttony than me eating sugar to excess? Exactly.

And there was been a nice surprise for me this week. Another mystery has been solved within my host-house: my aunt's husband is not dead. Surprise! No, instead of death the man just lives and works in another province. Gaza, to be exact, and as a truck driver. And no, I'm not just incompetent: the Portuguese words for “to reside” and “to die” are extremely similar, and I was given this information the first night with my family. Also, the man (I now know his name is Beto) that lives with us doesn't just intentionally ignore my evening greetings. He is, in fact, partially deaf. Case closed.

I'm sure everyone has been on pins and needles wondering how my nose-blowing session with eight year-olds went. Don't worry, it was a hit. The five boys and one girl learned how to wash their hands properly. Sadly, for this exercise (upon reflection and a recent laundry day) I am pretty sure I had them wash with laundry soap. But soap is soap... right? They they ate cookies, learned a little about their boogers, made some hankies and called it a day. I learned that little kids are great at blatantly lying to me. They all said that not a single one had boogers. Ever. So I taught them the theory, if there every came a day that they did develop that which all other people seem to have. And a few days after, my brother and his friend asked me if I was having class the next day. For them. They wanted to have me teach another lesson, which was sweet. I told them that when I move to Zambezia, they are more than welcome to visit and I'll give them all the lessons they can handle.

So now all we have to do is sit back and wait. My knives have been bought from the Chinese “Walmart”, as well as a knife sharpener (since I decided against the more local manner of knife-sharpening which is against any concrete surface), and the basics in spices. Ready to move in!

Until next time, I will give you this bit of employment advise:

If you show up drunk to a work function, even if it is another nation's day of giving thanks, you will probably be fired.

Monday, November 23, 2009


Question: was that creek there before?
Answer: Um, no. Welcome to the rainy season!
So hi and Happy Thanksgiving Week!
Thanks in large part to Peace Corps, this Wednesday we PCT's are having a lovely, American Thanksgiving Celebration. American means we will all be together, probably speak little to no Portuguese, get information we desperately want (our site placement, here already?), gorg ourselves on food we want and don't need, and then play a rousing, already competitive game of American football. I say that the game is already competitive because teams are Health trainees against Education trainees (about 26 to 45, respectively) and the Education team has had a practice. Yes. They held a practice for what will be flag football. We clearly are aching for a personal win.

What food, you might ask, could a few dozen Americans and the USG backed Peace Corps whip up for America's most orginal holiday? Turkey, roasted veggies, sweet potatoes that are purple, pies,including pumpkin, cookies, including my own chocolate chip cookies, minus the chocolate chips because I haven't found them here and chocolate is like brown gold, deviled eggs (or so the gossip claims and I am eager to believe it), Mexican flan (glad to see the majority population of California stepping up), stuffing with walnuts, and a macaroni and cheese was suggested but I think might have fallen flat. Cheese is expensive, to say the least. So it will probably be a wonderful feast followed by a less than stellar, slightly sickened game of American football on the major pitch in town where all the Mozambicans can see us run a little until we get tired because we just ate seven and a half pounds of food per person. The perfect Thanksgiving.

Here in Mozambique, though, I like to think that we give thanks every day for little things. Here are some of the things that I give thanks for lately.

1) Lack of shame. The other day I was taking my morning constitutional, or run, and ahead of me a woman was walking. Nothing new. Even though I run relatively early in the morning (around 5am usually), it isn't that early in Moz. This woman, though, veered off a little to the side of the walkway, lifted her capelana skirt to about mid-thigh, firmly planted her feet a little over shoulder-width apart, and proceeded to urinate. As a health worker, knowing that last year cholera was all the rage, I was a little wary. But, urine is sterile, very few things can be passed through it. Blood, yes, but that's rare. Schistosomosis parasite? Well, yes technically. But unless she peed in a puddle and that puddle had a specific type of snail and then a person bathed in that puddle, it is ok. And the runner in me said, Heck yeah. Do it. You have to pee, pee. In Moz, there aren't public toilets. I take that back. I know of one, and that is in the Maputo shopping mall. I would argue that she probably couldn't hold it all the way to Maputo, nor should she. I especially liked that she didn't look around, didn't make sure nobody was coming. I know that, because if she had, I wouldn't have seen her. I was coming. So I applaud her style and am thankful for her lack of shame. Because when it comes down to it, what's a little public urination?
2) The English Language. This is because the other day I was spending a little quality time with my family, and we were all enjoying the riveting (and these days I'm not joking anymore) Brazilian telenovela, Parar Paralelo (yes, I know the title now). It has been unseasonable cold and seasonably rainy lately, so in order to warm up a little, and because she's so darn cute, I got little Mae to sit on my lap. All was right in the world for those warmer, adorable moments until. Until Mae looked at me with her devilish smile, stuck her chubby little middle finger up, and, after clearly rehearsing in her head, said the words that usually go along with just such a hand gesture. I was shocked! She's three! And it was perfect, clear English! So I told her those were bad words and it was bad to do that. She looked a little self-conscious, and I briefly congratulated myself on undoing what some naughty kid or teen did to her sweet brain. Until she did it again. My sense of morality made me feel like she should be punished a little. So I made her get off my lap. Which actually punished me more than her, since she just went to bed where it was warm under several blankets, and I was left to try to explain why I just banished the three year old from my lap. So thank you to English, for being so popular in Moz that one of the few phrases a school kid learns is so offensive, and for being easy enough for a three year old to perfectly enunciate such shocking words.
3) Knowledge. So this is a broad thing to be thankful of, so I will narrow it down for you. I believe it is (or should be) well known that when a person has a latrine outside, it is not recommended or fun to use the latrine at night. That is why someone very nice and wise and thinking ahead thought to invent the xi-xi (pronounced she-she) bucket, which is a bucket slightly filled with clean water in one's bedroom that you pee in at night. And sometimes in the morning when technically it's light and easy to use the latrine, but maybe you want to just lay in bed a little because it's Sunday and just read and you don't feel like walking the approximately fifteen feet from your room to the latrine. So xi-xi buckets are wonderful, and sometimes the hottest topic PCT's have to talk about. That being said, it had come to the attention of a few PCT's that their family, with a less buckets available than desirable, use the same bucket for several functions. Like for xi-xi, and then also for mopping the floor. Or, for those unfortunate PCT's, for xi-xi, and then bathing. I counted myself as lucky that my family only multi-tasked the xi-xi specific bucket for mopping. Until a little knowledge stepped in. Since Little Mae is only three, it is hard for her to use a tall bucket at night. Which is why their xi-xi bucket consists of one tall one within a wide, squat one. And I just noticed this the other day. That pee actually goes in the wide one. This makes sense, but I never thought of it probably because I never wanted to think of it. Because that wide bucket is what we use to bathe. Which is probably why my family insists on rinsing buckets out all the time before use. Sadly, we have no cleaner to clean the actual bucket in between functions. So I am now thankful that I know this, because from then on I have been extra careful to keep my eyes and mouth shut when I bathe.


A quick shoutout to my Mamá, who started singing in a group and won the local talent contest last night. Grand prize? A rather chique capelana. Parabéns (congratulations)!

So this is all for now. This week is a full week. I am leading my practicum session, which is going to teach kids about nose-blowing and hand-washing. Then a trip to an orphanage, followed the next day by site placement and Thanksgiving, followed by real Thanksgiving. I am sure I'll be writing again soon, with so much excitement on the horizon. Until then, I'll give you this tip.

If you're a Portuguese speaking man and want my attention, it is not to your advantage to yell across two lanes of traffic “Whitey! Whitey! Whitey! Whitey!”.

And no, in this case persistence does not pay off.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Hi. I just wanted to say i'm on a wireless network on my lovely little netbook at the Maputo shopping center. Just another day in the life of a PCT. It feels surreal, which is becoming normal. So i guess it feels normal?

A highlight of the day? We found the Chinese Walmart in Maputo. I bought what looked like a twinkie. it wasn't. It had what looked like a slimjim in the middle. It (thankfully) wasn't.

All for now. I need to catch a chapa out of here in an hour and my iceberg salad is staring at me.

More to come...

Friday, November 13, 2009


I'm so proud, but it's only a front. I cried on the inside. Gela is my host-mom's little sister. She's 23 also, and didn't like the cookies at all. Nice, Gela.
Wow. Well alright. A lot has happened since you last heard from me, and I think the best place to start is with dessert, because one never knows with the electricity will go out.
Last Friday I decided to impress my host-family with my exquisite culinary skills. In preparation, I bought expensive peanut butter (All peanut butter is expensive, but this stuff was unneccessarily so because I bought it at the gas station and I should have bought it at the cheap bar. Yes. Peanut Butter with your whiskey?), vanilla extract, margarine (I've seen butter three times, twice of which were plane rides and the last was in the hotel we were put up in), and what some people would call brown sugar, but I would call unrefined sugar. It's from Swaziland, not fine, but I figure it was the best thing I had and it was at least a little brown. Anyway, with these in hand I warmed my margarine and creamed it, added the eggs and peanut butter and did my baker thing. First half dozen? Burned. The trick to an electric oven is to switch the electric current from the top to the bottom of the oven halfway through. Last two dozen? Perfect. Moist, sweet and peanuty. Impressive? Not even a little. My host-family, as it turns out, doesn't like very sweet cookies. Which is probably why they make cookies that are a lot more like biscuits than my idea of a cookie. But don't worry. I brought the cookies with me and my travel companion Emily said they were perfect and our host PCV thought they were very nice too.
Which brings me to my travels! I'm excited to say that I have now been out of the southern region of Mozambique and in fact have enjoyed the luxury of in-country flight to the north. What a nice break. I do want to thank all of my American family, friends, et. al. for your generous contribution to my trip. Taxes were never spent so well. The beaches were either shockingly pristine, or excruciatingly dirty (think latrine usage). The views were always amazing, and the play between old Portuguese architecture, war-torn crumbled buildings, and current housing and businesses is amazing. Also, I found a cafe that sold Diet Coke. Truly a luxury. The PCV I visited was fantastic, and gave some great inspiration for those of us health volunteers that will end up at site with no actual job to do. Not to mention 1) mangoes are better 2) coconut is young and better and 3) there is no mud. It was a wonderful cross between a tropical vacation and a hardcore Peace Corps experience.
The PC experience came in when we trekked across the low-tide marshlands of the Indian Ocean for two hours midday before wading with our full packs across the ocean for about a half mile in order to find the fishing boat we hired to take us back to site. Let's just say that sometimes sea urchins aren't delicious; they just hurt.
So now we've made it back to training and are even more anxious to get to site. Not to say that i'm not glad to be back with my host-family that won't ever fail to give me my mid-morning and late-afternoon snacks, because nothing can replace the love you feel when you know you'll be getting those lanchees. But really, starting my life at site won't come too soon, because then I can have all the rice and beans I can stand (up north they make rice with coconut, and I feel I will be doing the same thing for the next two years). And I'll be able to cut my hair without being giggled at quite as much. Don't worry, it was just a trim.

I leave you with this question: what is good with Orange Fanta, Coke, Jolly Jus (almost like Crystal Light), and tastes like Bazooka bubblegum?
Agua de Papa (translation: Dad's Water)

Friday, November 6, 2009

Post- LPI/Round Robin rundown






Why yes, there is something different about me. I have been working on my tan. I thank you for noticing.


So hello there.

I hope this finds everyone in excellent health. I myself am doing very nicely these days. I've just come from the finish of my Round Robin exam, which was to access that we stay awake in classes and sessions, essentially. My language test was a conversation, and at the end my tester told me that i spoke Portuguese well enough, but I need to study different tenses. What? I can't speak only in the present for the next two years? Absurd!

The tests were very easy, which probably doesn't mean I'm very smart, just that Peace Corps are looking for success and not failure. Especially since they've just spent an excellent amount of PEPFAR money on our planetickets to...


SITE VISITS! That's right. It's time for all us little PCT's to get out into the wide world of Mozambique for a few days. I myself am headed up north to the Nampula Province, which I hear is lovely this time of year. It will finally be warm, which is great. I'm traveling with another PCT and staying with a PCV that is working in health as well. It's an exciting time, and a great way to mark the end of halfway through training. Huzzah.


Today we were supposed to celebrate with a little Bean Burger Get-Together, but that was shut down by admin. Because some people are leaving at 4 in the morning tomorrow, they wanted us to keep our bedtimes early and sober. So there you go. But I have a feeling we'll come up with something nice to do together tonight and still get our much needed rest. Unfortunetly, the visiting PCV's that organized it had already bought 300 Mt. of cheese. That will make for Mozambique's most awesome grilled cheese sandes (sandwich) ever.


This past Wednesday was a great time during cultural exchange. They brought in some local dancers and I discovered just how much a 5 year old can beat out my eight years of formal dance lessons. Lesson to be learned? If you truely want to teach your children to dance, ship them over here.


My mom's sister is visiting this week. I suspect it's to help around the house a little, since being over eight months pregnant is kind of a drag as far as housework goes. Although, it hasn't stopped my Mae from trekking to the machamba (small family garden/farm) and apparently working. My "aunt" is 23 like me! And lives in Maputo and is very nice and pretty. She wants to learn English. Don't we all. We compromise by her speaking english to me and me answering in Portuguese until her english runs out. Which is quick, since she only took a very little. Me, I've recently learned, i'm on the same level as a 10th grader would be. So in five weeks it's like i've taken two years of high school level language. Not bad, if I do say so myself.


Well, the day is beautiful, the sun is finally out, and my laundry is waiting. Two weeks worth of mud demands my attention.


Regarding the Nampula man that likes PCV's, Alfredo our safety man says," He won't attack you, he won't rape you. All he wants is the kiss. That is all. Just the kiss."


Until later, my sincere regard.

Monday, November 2, 2009


Happy Halloween!
And yes. Sometimes she does smile for pictures.
And no, my Portuguese instructions weren't enough to not have my head cut off...
Go figure.