Oct 2nd
The first of October has come and gone and it appears as though the rainy season has begun, albeit a bit early. In less than 1 hour I could fill two large baldes(buckets) of water off my chapa roof. I expect our yard will be muddy for the next several months but i’ll take mud over no food in the market . Rains = Food (mangos! Guava! Coconuts maracujá !). The last few weeks have been mildly eventful. I finished my third PACA activity, a seasonal calender, for my community needs assessment. It was probably the least interesting project for all of my colleages mostly beacause it was information they already knew. During the activity it was clear they were perticipating just to humor me. BUt I suppose this is the point of the first 3 months .. it’s much more for me to learn about them and Mecanhelas, than it is for me to actually be helpful... I told both of my supervisor the other day I was worried I wasn’t doing enough for them, and how I was impaciente with myself. They bascially said the same thing: not to worry and that I just got here, which is true, it;s been really easy to forget that. All i can think about is our recconect conference starts in one month. Where the FREAK did all the time go? I remember by week 4 of training I was soooo ready to be done and everyone was craking- bunch of larium zombies.
Recap of events:
1. I finally got my two year bag, Marcelino rolled up at 6:30AM- 12 hours earlier than he told me on the phone but I’m pretty sure my portuguese is good enought o to tell the difference between seis and doze. I was still asleep so Fernando kept knocking on my window. It was serisouly like Christmas. And Marcelino was Santa...(Fernando a little elf?) He also brought me my fridge. I thanked him for his trek out here by feeding him some of the cake I made the day before. He ate about half of it. So now I have cold water whenever I want and Uccenne and the boys have been teaching me how to make popcicles for the last 2 weeks. I also made “ice cream” with REAL coffee (two year bag gifts) powdered milk, and coco powder. Its been so hot until recently- the fridge was 6500 Mets of PC money well spent.
I lost all my music on my IPOD. THis is all i’m writing about the incident...i’m still sad. 2. Jamie tought me and the Cabichi’s how to make peanut butter. It’s a pretty involved process but everything in Moz takes time. It was a fun day of playing vollyball, soccer and eating peanutbutter. One of the best days actually.
3. One of my colleague’s neices came to our office complaining about pain in her stomach during her period. We ended up taking her to the SDS and did a HIV test just as a precaution. The results came back negative and I told her that the pain she feels each month could be cramps and if that’s the case it’s totally normal. Unfortunatly I had to look up the word for cramp and even then she didn’t know what it meant. It was deffinatly a relief to see the negative test result but i was nervous for her. There is absolutly no privacy here...she took that test while i watched with my counterpart and 3 other random hospital admin staff.
4. Lucio came out to check on me for our “three month site visit” excepto that was during the last week of september, so more like 8 week site visit. He came during dia de vente cinco which was a feriado. (holiday) One of my counterparts asked me “ Seu colega nao tem uma calendário? (your colleage doesn;t have a calendar?Everything was closed for the holiday, so he ended up only meeting with one counterpart and one of my supervisors. Apparently despite my personal anxieties about not feeling like I’m doing enough for them yet, language etc. They all seem
to be happy with me and the basic PACA activities I’ve done. That night Lucio treated jamie and I to dinner and beers. We went to one bar after, and then the rest of “Mecdaddy” showed up to watch us get buzzed. I danced with some crianças and had a nice hangover the next day but still went to “work” I think I was the only one.
5. Took my second monthly trip to cuamba to judge some students for Teatro De Ingles, its one of the secondary projects PC vols have here. It was really neat watching such talented kids perform skits about health and their futures all in english... I can’t imagine doing the same in portuguese. I also met a huge chunk of the other Niassa 19ers (all EDU vols). We are hoping to meet up in Lichinga for Thankgsiving and a trip to Lago Niassa/Lake Malawi. I. Can’t.Wait.
6. Spent 3.5 hours sunday waiting for our chapa to leave Cuamba. Have I mentioned I hate hate hate chapas? We did get to sit in the front though. Small victories.
7. Dona Cabachi went to Cuamba around the same time as us for a funeral but didnt return until thursday. While we were all in Cuamba it was the boys weekend /week alone since Nene and Pasivo went with her. I stepped up my trust relationship with Uccenne and gave him my keys so he could wash my floor and fogão (and use my fridge) while I was gone for two days. I was a little nervous considering he’s a 17 year old boy and would be unsupervised for large chunks of the weekend. BUT when I came back my house was better than when I left it.
8. Sunday when I got back I got in a fight with fernando bc I told him he was nosy when he picked up my Millenium BIM banking recepit. He’s 14 so obviously super sensitive about everything, plus we don;t speak the same laguage so whatever I said could have easily come out way worse than I intended (althouth mozambicans are rediculously blunt: “you sleep a lot, you don’t speak portuguese well, why are your leg hairs so long?.)..etc, they should be used to it. Anyways it took some major desculpas to get him to say “problema acabo” Problem finished.
9. With the mom in Cuamba still and Senor Cabachi gone each night to guard the AMIREMO office- the boys have to do everything sozhino. Uccenne cooks for his brothers and we’ve been making dinner, eating together and watching filmes each night. We make a cute little family.
10. I bought a bike and it’s awesome. I’ve been needing one to acompany the activistias on home visits way out in the campos but I was nervous about biking around here . So far things have been easier than I imagined. I’m still expecting to crash and burn soon due to the large quantities of sand in Mec, and the general disrepair of every path and “road” a generous term really.. sometimes I feel like im biking on abandoned raildroad beds, excepto of couse with sand. The rain has helped pack it down a bit which is nice but once it turns to mud I’ll have a whole other problem. It’s also clear that Mozambicans are under the impression brancas dont know how to ride bikes ( i can tell by their shocked faces etc) im guessing that’s because they think we all only use cars? Not entirly untrue- lucky for them I have a much longer history with bikes than cars.
October 12th
Fernando and Uccene still seem to get into fights every other day. This wouldnt really be any of my concern if they weren’t constantly trying to pull me into their drama. Why they cant see how this is a bad idea is beyond me. My language skills are totally not suficiente to properly mediate things and frankly even if they were I wouldnt want to. It’s totally exausting. Especially when they decide they want to fight with me for no reason. Parabens to me. All the money in the world couldnt convence me to be 14 or 17 again. Luckily when they are getting along and not trying to pick fights with me or prank me (ie hiding my bike and pretending it got stolen) they are complete and utter affirmation that I made the right decidion to move here. They are such a sweet family and I am learning a lot from and about them. I hope they are learning something from me. OK More updates:
1. Accompanied my AJADC colleages to our local jail to give a palestra about HIV to the inmates. Most of them dont speak portuguese so my counterpart spoke in Macua, one of the local languages here in Niassa. There were about 35 men in a cell about twice the size of my living room. The police locked us in with the men since there was no other way to do our palestra. Before we went in the gaurd asked “você tem medo?” basically “are you afraid.”..I said no, which was true but tried to joke with him about how he should give me his gun and then I really wouldnt be scared. I’m still not sure if he understood me or just didnt find my joke funny... probably both.
2. That same night two of the inmates escaped and the police apparently shot and killed one of them at the water post while Uccene and Fernando were getting my water (!!!! WTF)
3. Bought a new capulana and took it to the alfiate to make a skirt. It was too biga t first but now its perfect. Not to brag but it’s pretty chiqui de matar agora.
4. Tought my first english class for my AJADC activistas. I think it went well and at least now I feel quazi helpful. Tried to do the same at AMIREMO but only one person showed up. We;ll see how next week goes.
5. Went to a huge birthday party for my joven friend/portuguese teacher, Victor. I hope to attend more parties like this- it really is one of the best ways to meet people and to show the comunity that you really want to be invloved. It was muuuuito bom. I got home at 2. Somehow Mozambicans are under the impression I can dance (they don’t realize that just bc I agree to dance, doesnt mean im good at it) Regardless, I’ll take it, bc eles here SABEM. Even the children, it’s really remarkable.
6. Tonight I’m going to another party to celebrate dia de professors with jamie. We keep telling people we’re married so I’m her date.
