yay for bluetooth

Damn i wish bluetooth can also connect of to the internet cause it really sucks to have to type on my phone.

Wow! Long time no write. Sorry, but school makes life pretty busy. Plus, there's been so many things going on. I've missed school for about a week now because we just had our 5 day reconnect conference. Peace Corps gets everyone together after 3 months in order to see how we're doing and for us to share our experiences. It was really great. They rented out a really nice hotel for us, and I mean NICE. Air conditioning the entire time; buffet breakfast, lunch, and dinner; nice hot and cold showers; a refrigerator in the room; a nice comfortable bed. I felt like I'd left Mozambique and gone back to America for 4days. It was good to see people I hadn't seen since training, traded movies, our teaching and integration experiences, and just catch up. Another really cool thing was that the city in which we had our conference had a Lebanese restaurant and a hooka bar! It was so exciting to eat Asian foods and smoke hooka because I hadn't done that in ages and didn't even think it was possible to do in mozambique.

Other than that, though, it was kind of a stressful time for me. 2 days before I had 2 leave site, I'd caught this really bad fever. It was awful! My head ached so much that I couldn't even sleep. i would wake up in the middle of the might dripping in sweat at one point and them wake up in chills at another point. The fever had gotten over 101, and all my wounds that I'd had on my skin from an infection before started to puss up and get infected. On top of that, I had to worry about traveling, and I was so stressed out. (the river Buzi flooded, so the road was washed away. Even though it was already bad before, it was still passable by car. Now, a part of the bridge ya washed away so you had to get on the back of a bike for 3 km, wade through water at the part where the bridge was, and wait for a car on the other ride, if one even comes along. i had to plan another route out, and good thing my roommate was really helpful, and we'd found a back way.) the day I had to leave, I still had a fever in the morning but thank god it went away by the afternoon. So yea, during the conference, I couldn't drink with everybody cause my leg was so infected that it hurt to walk and alcohol seemed to make it worse. After the conference, I had to fly to another city to see a dermatologist, who took a biopsy of my skin, so there's the picture of my stitch. Hope it heals ok. Wouldn't want another infection. Anyway, so they put me on antibiotics and the wounds have stopped pussing and are starting to scar. I'm so happy. Please god, let me heal completely...

Anyway, so what's my life like in Buzi now that school has started? Before my leg got infected, I had woken up at 5 to log 2x a week, and damn, sunrise in Buzi is so fucking beautiful. The sky is blanketed with all kinds of colors that stretch as far as your eyes can see. Buzi is so flat that the sky seems bigger to of somehow. No cars, on buildings, a few houses, but mostly just me and the neverending land.

Since I teach in the afternoon, in the morning, my time is busy sweeping or cleaning the house, fetching water for up from our neighbor's faucet when it's running, or going to the market to buy done for up, lesson planning, grading, and cooking. Best time for market is around 10 when it's all set up and food is fresh, and since our fridge is not that good to store food, I usually have to make a trip every 3 days. My roommate Vanessa, black girl below, teaches in the morning, so I usually end up making lunch for up, so a lot of my time is spent cooking. Damn, I'm surprised at how resourceful I am with our limited ingredients here, but then sometime I also get tired of having 2 cook so much. Sometimes, you just want some east food, but it's impossible here. We can go out but it takes forever and costs yay more.

I do teach one class in the morning every Tuesday - thurs. After lunch, I usually have 5 or 6 classes of 45 minutes back to back, and then I go home, take a bath, eat dinner or in have a drink with Vanessa( Cokes on good days and beer on shitty days when we just want to vent). Let me tell you, it's a real adrenaline push for of sometimes to in back to back with classes. Since it's the same lesson, I'd get on this high and if the lesson is good or I know how to improve it, it's awesome that I get to try and try again for 5 times ofcourse that can also backfire with crappy lessons. Thursday nights we have a 30 minute radio program where we teach our city to speak English. That's pretty fun since I get to DJ. No classes on Fridays! Woot! i usually get chores done or grading in the mornings, but Friday afternoons are taken up by journalism club. Friday nights we in to the local car or restaurant for beers or just watch a movie at good if we're too lazy. No excessive drinking tho cause everyone in our town knows us, so it looks really bad if people see up wasted. Gossip is huge here.

So that's weekdays. Weekends, Saturday mornings from 9 - 12 we have English Club, which is like an extra lesson for students to practice and get tutored. After, we eat lunch and them usually bum around or hang out. That seems kinda rare tho cause we usually have lesson planning or grading to do. If we didn't, we're probably in the city buying food or other necessities not available at site or partying with other central volunteers. When we go to the city, we definitely party harder cause no one there knows us, but I think I've only gotten that wasted like 3 times since I've been here. It's such a pain to travel.well it feels like i've written too much so i'll save it for later.

new bike

Yay! So, yesterday, Vanessa, my roommate, and I went to Beira to get me a new bike, which is going to be paid for by Peace Corps. Isn't it nice? Got a basket for groceries, backseat for passengers, and even a bell. Honestly, school is only a 15 minute walk from home, so I don't really need a bike, but it's so hot here that even 15 minutes in the sun is exhausting. Plus, I haven't rode a bike since who knows how long, and though it's only 1 speed, it's really so much fun :-)

Anyway, so school started last week. Even though I was trained to teach bio, I ended up having 4 English 8th grade classes in the afternoon and 1 8th grade class at night. The way school works here is that regular day school is from 7 to 6 at night. You either have morning classes, from 7 to 12:45, or afternoon classes, from 1 to 6.45. Night classes are for older students who have never passed, and since the majority of the population has not finished school, a lot of the students in my night class are adults. I taught afternoo classes, so I didn't have to be at school until 1 so I usually did planning in the morning. I liked that a lot, but that's all going to change next week.

So, apparently we don't have enough english teachers so I have to take over all the 8th grade English classes, which is 8 classes altogether, and that includes morning classes. Since I will be teaching morning and afternoon, I didn't think I would have enough time to plan, so I'd asked them to drop my night classes, which is a little disappointing cause I was looking forward to teaching the adults bio, but I guess that's one thing you learn in the Peace Corps, it's that you gotta be flexible. holy crap. i have no training in english. It can't possibly be that hard, right? We'll see how it goes..

So, my first day.. I was super prepared and had everything written out that I was going to say, and guess what happened?! I had like 10 of my students out of 50 showed up, and even worse in might class, 3 of the 50 ppl showed up! Apparently, it's common for ppl not to show up to school here the first day, not even teachers. Can you believe it?! So, whatever lesson I had planned was worth nothing cause I couldn't teach it to just a few students so I had to improvise. Damn. It's really not as easy teaching english as you might think. the students don't have books and so any vocabulary had to be written on the board and copied. They take a very long time to copy, especially when I have to wait on 50 students, and they're all at such different levels. No overheads so that means no visuals unless I draw it with chalk. Shit! I'm no artist, and then they're also no artist so they don't even know how to copy down my drawings. Last week, I taught about family, like how to say mom, dad, uncle, etc, but that was only to 4 classes. The ones that didn't have me had no English class, so they have not had English at all. It's unbelievable that we're still rearranging classes and schedules, not just of individual students but entire grades, and it's the 2nd week of school already. We had to dissolve 2 8th grade classes and split those students up into other classes because one of our teachers transferred and we don't have enough. Students don't know when they have classes and when they don't. It's all so sketchy. You would think it'd be more organized!

Anyway, so far, i don't feel like the kids are bad. They just don't understand. I ask and they don't know how to respond so it's very frustating for me, especially when the answer is so obvious. It's like teaching elementary school. I gotta remind myself that they just were never taught to think, only to memorize and regurgitate, so I have to be patient.

Damn but it's hard to be nice and patient when it's so rediculously hot and I have to wear a lab coat on top of my clothes to teach. Dude it's like atleast in the 90's everyday, and they fit a room with 60 ppl, no AC and only windows. i gotta keep a sweat rag in my lab coat pocket to wipe the neverending trickle on my face. I've got heat bumps all over my skin from all the sweating cause I just never stop. As soon as I put on clothes after a shower, I'm sweating again. It's so hot at night I can't even sleep sometime, even if I sleep naked. That's one sure way to make sure you get up early. Just be so hot.

Other than that though, I still love it. It just offer to rain or cool off. Then i'll be happy.

Holy Crab!

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Look what I just discovered existed at my site for the price of 2
eggs?! Fresh from the river Buzi that divides my town in half, picture
3 from above.

Yes, while I may not have the mountain view I'd longed for in the
beginning, there are some real benefits to being so close 2 the river!
Nothing is ever as it seems here.

stove quest

Oh Shit! Let me tell you about my day yesterday. What a long day! And it all started with a stove.

So, my stove broke the night before yesterday, and they don't sell stoves in my town. I had to go to the provincial capital, which is Beira, in order to buy a new one, 1st picture above. Yes, I could have used the coal stove, 2nd picture above, which I did that night, but that thing is rediculously inefficient and slow that I decided to get a new stove.

So, yesterday morning, I woke up at 6 to take the 3 hr boat ride to Beira, didn't actually leave dock until 8 but was actually scheduled for 7, walked to the store from the dock, bought the stove, and walked back to the chapa station right away to take the chapa back to Buzi. That was about 1230, but the one going directly to Buzi had already left, and since the next one going directly to Buzi didn't come until the next day, my only alternative was to take a chapa to another town on the way, Tica, and take a chapa to Buzi from Tica.

Well, since i've already done this twice, having missed the direct chapa to Buzi twice and having to detour to Tica, I already knew that I was going to be spending some 2 or 3 hours in Tica waiting for that chapa to fill up. That's why I hate going to Beira. It's such a waste of my fucking time! Anyway, since I knew on one in Beira, I waited at the chapa station from 1230 to 3 for the chapa to Tica to fill up, and then got to Tica around 4.

There, I'd figured I only had to wait another hour or two since the Tica chapa to Buzi usually left around 5 or 6. Boy was I wrong. At around 530, i heard the chapa driver say that since there were so few passengers going to Buzi, we would all have to pay more to make up for his lost or he wouldn't take us. Holy crap! I started freaking out because it was already so late in the afternoon on a sunday. No one else was going to come. Everyone else looked like they weren't wanting to pay the extra cost, and there were no cars driving by that road in order for me to even hitchike. I didn't know anyone with a car nearby that could come pick me up. The others were thinking about going back to Beira, but they knew ppl and I did not know anyone there I could stay with either. I also wouldn't want to pay to go back to where I just came from and waste all that money, so if he refused to take us, I would probably sleep in Tica, the town with population 75!

I started looking around and Tica had no hotel or anything like that at all. It was maybe a collection of 20 houses, and the only thing my panic state of mind could think of was to sleep on someone's front porch until the next day when I could catch the chapa back to Buzi. WTF! I did not know what to do. See, this is the problem with being by yourself in a country you are not used to.

We waited around some more, but no one else came, and it was 630, getting dark. Other ppl were begging the driver to take us, but the Mf kept refusing saying he wouldn't make any money taking us. In the end, a couple of us ended up paying double the normal price to cover others who didn't have enough and we were on our way when it was dark. i was just so happy because i didn't have to sleep on someone's porch, but the ride has got to be one of the worst ride i've had. It was 2 hours on the back of a truck bed on an unpaved road. Imagine someone bouncing you on their knees every 10 minutes, except instead of falling back down on a cushioned knee, you land on a hard truck bed. Since it was so bumpy, i was afraid my new stove would break, which would have defeated my entire trip, so I had to cradle it in my arm like a baby, cushioning it with my legs and dissipating the 'knee bounces' with my body. It's really hard to do when the driver didn't give a crap about us in the back and was speeding and braking like a madman and me trying not to slosh around all over the truck bed. I was just so happy I finally made it back around 9. Damn, if it was America and I needed to get something quick from the store, the furthest I would have to go is maybe across town and I could call on ppl if anything went wrong. It was really scary to think that I had no one to call. Sure I could call Peace Corps, but what can they do? They live in another province. The best they could have done was give me verbal advice..

Well, that was my long ass quest to get a new stove. Picture 3 is of my kitchen. 4 is my mini fridge and the big green thing in the back is what I store water in. 5 is my living room. 6 is my bathroom with the tub that i use for showering. Toilet is flushed with water in the green bucket next to it. 7 is my closet with the missing door. Next time, I'll post pictures of the town.

racism as i experienced it today

These 2 pictures are taken with my phone of the 'Face of the Old Man'
mountain in a town called Chimoio, where I visited after xmas. The
first one is at the bottom and the second is of the view after we'd
hiked up his nose.

Anyway, topic of conversation today is racism. As I walked around town
today, to the parts where I've never been, along with the usual
staring by everyone I pass, I got called several things that reminded
me of an experience I had in Namaacha that I forgot to write about.
When I say stare, I really mean stare. Everyone I walk pass would dog
me out, and they don't even care if I stare back. And it's not a
smiling stare either. It's straight up mean mugging. It's very weird.
Well, besides that today, there was also a lot of name calling. Like
they'd call me chinesa, chinese, japonesa, japanese, or korean. I
think I must be the first Vietnamese person here cause nobody knows
where it is. On top of that, the damn little kids went up to me and
was like 'ching chang chong chang chong' in a mocking voice to me. Oh
I was so pissed. are you freaking kidding me!? I have not been made
fun of like that since Elementary school, and to be mocked by
children! Well, i guess i shouldn't have been so mad but it was just
so shocking to be made fun of. Most of the time ppl don't even believe
i'm american. You know how when ppl in the states would ask what are
you, i would always respond with vietnamese. Well here, i have to
respond with i'm american, which i totally forgot about the first few
weeks, and ppl here would be like, no really what are you. It's so
hard to fathom that i'm american and i would have to speak english to
prove myself. Well, that's my identity crisis of the day. Just wanted
you to be aware that stereotyping exists here too. There's no escaping
it.

Site!

So today was my first day at site. Btw, i'm located right in the middle of mozambique, in the Buzi district of the Sofala province. The river Buzi actually divides our town in half, but i live on the larger and more central part. Many of my students will come from the other side and have to take a raft across. I haven't yet explored too much of the town because it's been raining, but i've had quite a few visitors, and everytime they like to chat right outside my door for like 15 to 30 minutes. Mozambicans are very welcoming. I've had former students, other teachers, and neighbors come by, and they all seem very nice. The town itself is located in the middle of nowhere but is a good size town with a decent market. When peace corps dropped me off with my luggage, we had to get off the main road and drive on this dirt path for like 40 minutes. Nothing but farmland and grass. So much like the texas country, but still beautiful. It was so rediculously hot last night that it was quite difficult for me to sleep, even with the fan blowing on me all night. Thank goodness it started raining and cooled off a bunch today. It felt great to go to the market and buy and cook my own food. Since we're by the river, there are lots of fish, but from what i've seen, the're all small and bony. I'm not adventurous enough to cook it yet, but i also know they sell frozen chicken here. Kind of a bummer since i wanted to kill my own chicken but i'm sure that will come with time. Today i made sauteed vegetables and omelette. Also am glad they sell bananas, apple, and mangos here but i wish there were other fruits. Ok. More later when i've explored more, but so far so good. I'm excited to get started.

Site Placement Announcement

November 28, 2009~


So, we got our site placement last week right before Thanksgiving dinner. It was all very exciting because Peace Corps actually let us have a Thanksgiving “dinner”, with turkey and everything! I say “dinner” but since it was Peace Corps, it was actually the day before Thanksgiving and “dinner” was really at 2 PM. We didn’t care though. We were just so happy that it happened at all. I was very impressed by all the different dishes people were able to cook here, even though there are so little to work with. We had all kinds of mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, all kinds of cookies and cakes, fried pies, and even a key lime pie. For my part, I made chocolate cake from scratch, and it was edible. Yay me! We had classes in the morning, and since we all knew that they would announce our site placement sometime that day, I don’t think anybody’s mind was on the lesson. It was a good thing they announced it right before we ate.
They gave us all envelopes and told us we had to open it all at the same time, and it was like Christmas day when all the kids opened their presents at once. Some kids were ecstatic about what they got, others were disappointed. It was the same for us. Some people were crazy about where they got placed and others not so much. I was pretty happy with my placement, which is in the central region of Mozambique, in the Sofala province, in the district of Buzi. I had really wanted a northern region since I knew that’s where the mountains were, so I was disappointed at first that Buzi is just a flat plain, just like Texas, and just as hot, too, I heard. However, there is a river that runs through the town, and it’s fairly small, which is great because then I can integrate into the community better. It’s fairly interesting to see how our group divides after we’ve learned out site placement. Northern people hung out with each other more, central with central, and south with south. Another good thing about being located central is that all the central people are pretty cool people. Haha… look at me, already taking sides.

Well, so I wrote the first 2 paragraphs a couple of weeks ago, and it is now December 9, 2009. We just had our swearing in ceremony yesterday in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo, and I´m still here waiting on a flight to a supervisor´s conference, where I meet the heads of the school where I´m going to work at, tomorrow, and then off to site we go. I don´t think it´s really hit me, yet, that I´m actually a volunteer now, no longer a trainee. I don´t feel any different. The swearing in ceremony was actually pretty nice since it was held at one of the ambassador’s house, and all types of important people came to give us speeches. Half were in Portuguese, which I didn´t quite appreciate as much since I was so sleepy and kept on zoning out due to lack of mastery of the language, but it was nice nonetheless. The entire ceremony only took about an hour and a half. People made speeches, 2 of our own made thank-you speeches, they called our names, and then we swore to serve the Peace Corps. It was difficult to think that we´d worked so hard for the past 2 months just to have the opportunity to say those words, yet those words only took a couple of seconds to say. I can´t quite put my finger on it, but I felt kind of robbed. Damn. My English is starting to falter now that the Portuguese is kicking in that I can´t even think of the right words to express how I felt. It´s probably not that important, anyway. It was pretty sad to have to say good-bye to everyone afterwards, though, because it felt like this was going to be the last time I see a lot of them for awhile. Like I said, the first 3 months at site, I´m restricted to my hometown except for Christmas or New Years, I have to pick one in order to go visit others. When I said good-bye to my host family, it wasn’t as sad, because I was very excited to be on my own. I did have a long talk with my host mom before leaving though, so I did feel good about that.
It´s strange how they grew on me so much, especially my host mom. Not everything is as meets the eyes as you may think with these Mozambicans. Since my Portuguese improved a lot more since I´ve been here, I´ve been able to have more meaningful conversations with her, and I´ve learned a lot about her family. I truly felt that they cared for me a lot, and it made me happy when I was able to do nice things for them. For instance, I made them cake, which they loved. It´s nice to think that this time next year, if I’m not headed for America, I might go back and visit them.
So, something cool happened to us. One of the U.S. ambassadors came to see us the other day before we swore in. Oh my gosh, I felt so privileged! I mean, this dude had a say in how much money the US put into Mozambique every year and has control of billions of dollars. He meets with the President of Mozambique on a regular basis, and he is basically the State´s main means of communications with this country. During our session, he got a call from the General Manager of some big company that invested billions of dollars into Mozambique, and he declined it for us! I couldn´t help but feel special. He talked about how the US pours billions of dollars into this country every year. Yes, this was exactly what I had been wondering for a long time now, too! I mean, with our huge national deficit, all of our economic problems, and the insufficiencies in states´ budgets, ahem California, I couldn´t understand why we invest about 5 billion (don´t quote me on this but I think that´s what he said) every year in another country. That includes economic investments, not just purely selfless giving away of money, but we do devote millions of dollars into PEPFAR, which is the emergency aids funds that backs tons of anti-AIDS campaigns here. Couldn´t we use this money to help stimulate our own economy and fix our own budget problems? Well, the way the ambassador put it, we are actually being proactive. Poor countries tended to become war-torn countries, which is a breeding ground for terrorism, and it would cost way more to send countermeasures in later than it costs to help the country build its infrastructure now. In addition, he also said that there are quite a few untapped resources in Mozambique and if we could help them develop economically, it would strengthen our economy, as well. Besides, Mozambique is the first African nation to have survived a civil war and is a prime example for other African nations that democracy does work, so it´s in our best interest to promote this nation, to encourage the principles of freedom and liberty to other African nations. Anyway, that´s probably pretty boring to read, so I won´t go on any more about that, but I only wanted to express my feelings at that time. As I was sitting there listening to him speak, I felt validated somehow, like I´m part of this movement to spread freedom and democracy throughout the world. What I´m doing is important, and I´m important enough for this man that works for the White House to come and speak to me about my work. He has tons of things to do all day long and important people to meet, yet he took out time from his work to speak to us, to me! Score! That was such a winning moment! Not to mention that guy was an awesome speaker and was so delightfully entertaining.


Now for pictures! I uploaded wrong and the more recent one is at the top and the one from long ago is at the bottom. sorry!

After hiking over 10 miles to the top of the Limpopo Mountain only to be turned back by 2 armed guards with AK´s 20 feet from the top. Grrh!



All the people teaching biology from our group at the Halloween party.


The only asians in this year´s group of 67.




My mae, host mom, and pai, host dad.


All of us fitting into the chapa!


People in my language group and our favorite professor, Candido Macaringue!



Me and my host mom. She´s so cute!