The Reconnect Conference in Maputo is in less than 2 weeks, that means I've been at site almost 3 months now. Time goes by fast! Integration has been a slow process and with the language barriers, it is hard. Overall, things are going well at site and I'm finally used to the fact that I live here now! :) I stopped getting those 'OMG I live in Africa..' moments. I think that means I've adapted to life here não é? Life is really tough here but I got my daily routine down and slowly learning how to deal with obstacles (bugs, water shortage, lack of transportation, etc) as they occur. A lot has happened since the last post so I'll try to summarize.
My community:
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| The only mercado in town. This is also the main road |
The people
Everyone's been very nice and helpful, especially my surrounding neighbors. They bring food over for me occasionally and always greet me or just drop by to see how I'm doing. Everyone also ask about Zambie (my kitty, more on her later) and how she's doing and consider her as my filha (daughter). A lot of the women always invite me over to their quintal to make small talks or just want me to see how they're weaving hair extension or pilar-ing. They often try to talk to me in Macua and teach me phrases. I'm really bad with names and a lot of the names are hard to say so I haven't done a good job of remembering names. With the language barriers, I haven't gotten to know a lot of people in my community yet besides the daily greetings and small talks but I'm working on it!
The children
I really enjoy my daily walk/bike ride around town because all the children run out or pause what they're doing to yell out my name to say Bom Dia/Boa Tarde or Salaama or wave to me. My name is spreading fast! These children makes me feel like a celebrity! hahah They often come over and ask to play with me in my front or backyard.
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| Dance party in my backyard ended up with 60+ people |
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| Futbol and jump rope evening |
Languages
Most people speaks Macua more than Portuguese here since it's their local and primary language. Some people speaks only Macua and/or their Portuguese isn't good so communication has definitely been a huge challenge. I've learned how to greet and say random phrases and it makes a BIG difference! People get so excited when I talk to them in Macua.
Marriage proposals/boyfriend offers:
It is almost impossible to go to the mercado without being proposed to. I think it is safe to say half of the men in my town already asked me to marry them and/or offered to be my boyfriend. This is how the conversation usually goes:
Guy: I want to marry you
me: I dont want to
guy: why not?
me: i already have a boyfriend
guy: where is he?
me: in America
guy: thats far.. you need a boyfriend here. i can be your boyfriend
It does get annoying but I'm slowly getting used to the daily harassment here. I should just say I have a husband here in Mozambique already to make it a bit easier.
Here are some pictures from events in the community
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| Futbol match |
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| Dia de Ancuabe |
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| Dia da Paz |
My workplace:
Wiwanana- Ancuabe
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| View from the inside |
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| This is where a lot of people come to get water including myself |
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| Inside the office |
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| I get my own cabinet! :) |
My house is a 5 minutes walk from Wiwanana. I work 7:30-3:30pm everyday but I really haven't done much work-related stuff beside helping my supervisor type up documents or teaching him how to do things on the laptop. Majority of the days I just sit in my office and study Portuguese, work on the Peace Corps blue binder (community entry activities), or talk to my coworkers and bother them to teach me phrases in Macua.
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| I spend most days studying Portuguese and Macua at work when I don't have anything else to do |
Toward end of September, I finally found a Portuguese professor to hire as my tutor. Since then, I've been having lessons either in the morning or afternoon at work for 2 hours whenever I'm not working in the field. I pay my tutor $5/hr and Peace Corps reimburse me afterward. I can get up to 80 hours for each language tutor so I'm planning to learn Macua after Portuguese. My supervisor told me that it's necessary that I learn Macua and I can see why. Everytime I have a work training or community outreach events, it's all conducted in Macua so it's been a challenge trying to understand what's going on.
Coworkers
I love my coworkers! There are only 13 people who works here and the facilitators stay in the field for work for half of the month so I don't get to see them too often. They've been very very helpful with everything including outside of work.
Wiwanana- Chiure
A couple times a month I go to the office in Chiure for meetings. It's about an hour away and I always take advantage of these trips to buy bananas, cabbage, use the atm, etc since my town lacks a lot of things.
Working in the field:
I accompanied my supervisor to several meetings and community outreach activities to observe and see what the facilitators do in the community. Wiwanana Acuabe works in 3 posts: Ancuaba-sede, Metoro, and Meza. So far, I've seen both Ancuabe-sede and Metoro.
Metoro:
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| Conferencia de Santolic |
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| Demonstração da boa lavagem das mãos |
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| Sou facilitadora do grupo das crianças |
Ancuabe-sede:
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| Encontro de reflexão sobre maternidade segura com tema: Partos complicados na aldeia Nanduli |
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| Distribuição de sabão |
Zambie:
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| 1st day I got her |
I got a kitty from my supervisor beginning of September. She was born sometime end of July so she was really needy and annoying! But she's so cute so I can't be mad at her. She's getting more independent now and I'm starting to miss her clingy-ness.
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| She helps guard my house from unwanted guests |
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| She has a lot of really cute sleeping positions! |
Leisure time:
I have a LOT of free time here so I'm always looking for things to do/make to keep myself busy:
-Playing futbol or jump ropes with the kids
-Passear around town or in my neighbor's backyard
-Biking around town with the kids
-Cleaning
-Baking
-Cooking
-Home Improvement and DIY projects
-Watching tv shows/movies
-Reading
Goals for secondary projects:
-Teach English: A doctor from Spain that works for SolidarMed have asked me to teach English to the hospital director and a few doctors/staffs that have some level of English already so this will start soon once we figure out a schedule and where to hold lessons at.
-Teach Vovinam: I taught 1 session for a few of the neighbors' kids so far and they're been asking for more so I'm planning to do weekly classes once I can speak better Portuguese.
-Start a REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educação, e Saúde) group: REDES is a national network girls' clubs in Mozambique that promotes girls' empowerment and reduces their vulnerability to HIV through gender awareness activities, reproductive health and HIV prevention seminars, technical skills-building, and planning for the future.
Other highlights/random events:
-I went to a Malaria ToT (Training of Trainers) in Nampula beginning of September.
-Wiwanana hired someone to fumigate my house to get rid of all the insects and even bought a new queen sized bed frame and mattress for me! I love the new mattress; it is so much better than the foam mattress I've been sleeping on that's starting to concave in. I switched out the twin sized bed in the guest room to my old queen sized bed. I just realized this is also the first time that I have a bed bigger than a twin sized!
-I officially hate long chapa (public transportation.. it's either a mini van or a pick up truck that holds way over the maximum capacity of people) rides here. Transportation is a problem in Ancuabe.. lack of chapas, unreliable time, and bad road condition. Both times that I took the chapa to Pemba, it has been horrible! The 2nd time was worst than the 1st "worst ride ever". Pemba is about 2 hours away from Ancuabe by car, but on chapa it takes 4-6 hours one way. Here is my vent from the 2nd trip so you can imagine what it is like: Waited for the chapa to come from 4am-5:50am. I lost the ability to move shortly after I got on because there was 36 other people all squished together on the seats and on the ground. The chapa keeps stopping for people to get off and on. A lady that sat 3ft away from me threw up and a baby on the other side of the chapa threw up too. Lots of babies crying. A woman next to me was changing her baby's dirty diaper and the baby on my other side kept kicking onto my side. Police stopped the chapa and checked everyone's ID. I didn't get to Pemba until 10am and only had 2 hours to go to the bank and do my shopping before catching the last chapa at 12pm to go back to Ancuabe.. which was another 4 hours ride..
-I bought more capulanas and got more dresses and shirts made :)
-I never baked so much in my life! And first time I'm not using cake mix! :) So far, I've baked chocolate cake, peanut butter cake, brown sugar cinnamon oatmeal cookies, and chocolate coconut cake. All my coworkers and neighbors said they're delicious :D
-My landlord will install a water pump in my backyard!! I don't know when but hopefully soon. I've been getting water from Wiwanana and it is a work out every time.
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| I'm gaining muscles from getting these gallons of water! |
-My Portuguese tutor knows someone whose dog had 3 puppies so I might get a puppy soon!! I hope the puppy will get along with Zambie.
-2 of my good friends in Moz 20 ET (early termination) so we have 24 people left in our group now :( Missing them a lot already but I'm already planning to visit during my road trip when I get back to the states!
-I found a store that sells elastics and zippers!! I can sew more things now.
-I had my first site visit from Peace Corps earlier this month. Lucio said I'm really lucky that my org provided me with so many things (fridge, bicycle, bed, a lot of tables and chairs) when the requirement was only a bedframe, a table and 2 chairs.
-My org helped me open a mailbox in Pemba!! My mailbox will be connected to Wiwanana so they will call me whenever I have mail and will help deliver it if someone's coming to my town or Chiure.
-I have a bad habit of forgetting my keys inside the car back at home.. since I don't have a car here, I've been locked out of my house 4 times now. 1st time I forgot the keys inside so my landlord had to help crack open the lock on my back door. 2nd time I was locked out of my backyard and couldn't get in through the front door because of the inside lock on the front door. I had to wake up my landlord to open his backyard gate (his backyard has a door to my backyard). 3rd and 4th time I locked myself out of my bedroom but luckily the keys were on the table both time and there's a huge gap under the door so I was able to get it out with a broom stick.
