6 month update

So… this is going to be one of those more introspective entries, since I've completed 6 months, more or less, at site. Looking back at my old journal entries, I feel like my perspective of the Peace Corps experience has changed a lot.

For one thing, you can't possibly understand what it's like to be in the Peace Corps unless you do it. I mean, you can read about it; you can watch documentaries, and you can listen to others tell their stories, but until you've experienced it yourself, you really have no idea. The experience is just very different and unique for every individual, depending on your personality, your site, the people you meet, and the past experiences you bring to the table. I can sit here and try and try to explain it, and you can listen, but you would never know the significance it had in my life.

 They say that Peace Corps changes who you are. Well, up to date, I would disagree with that. Peace Corps does not change who you are. All of my experiences here have just helped me discover who I am, made me confirm aspects of my personality that I knew already existed and made me realize all the things that I was capable of doing. I don't think that I have changed who I am. Let's demonstrate this with an example:

 I used to be borderline obsessive compulsive before I came here. I hated clutter, and I wanted things to be clean all the time. However, can you really be that clean here in Mozambique? I've got spiders and termites all over my room (they're laying eggs in my closet); our house floor has not been washed since I've moved in (7 months!); I re-wear my clothes 3 or 4 times before I wash them (because they wear out so quickly when you wash them and I didn't bring that much with me). Don't get me wrong. Dirty dishes still bother me; too much shit being all over our dining room table still bugs me; and when I cook, I put everything I used back right away or that clutter would bother me (yea, this one is definitely OCD). However, I've learned to deal with a lot of other stuff. You just learn to not care as much. Hence, my point illustrated. I've always been and probably will always remain a neat-freak. This much about my personality I knew, but what I didn't know was – could I live a non-neat life? If everything around me was a mess, could I ignore it and continue on? If I couldn't take a bath for 3 days, could I do it? If I had to do #2 in the bush (unclean food and long chapa ride – enough said), can I do it? And yes (ha! Thank god!), I can! I can do all that! I've learned that I can survive and still be happy in non-neat environments, and that's made me very happy.

 Well, that's just one example. There are other things that I've discovered but to describe them all would take too long, so I'll leave it at that for now.

 Since the end of the second trimester is ending next week, I want to take this time to talk about one of my goals when I first entered into Peace Corps: to be able to teach science effectively in a resource-less environment using another language. Well, that goal is shot to hell since I don't teach science but English instead. Even though I ran science fair for our school this year, it was so difficult to explain the scientific method to students that I really just half-assed it. The whole thing just showed me one thing: I just didn't apply myself that much. Damn, well one of the things I said when I first decided I want to do this – meaning Peace Corps – was that I would work really hard and try my best for 2 years. I imagined that I would have no life, no time to travel, no friends, and no TV, so that all my life would involve is work. I'd figured I'd be really lonely and bored and miss home all the time, and the best way to combat that was to work.

 How wrong was I? I've made friends, mostly other Peace Corps volunteers. My roommate and I watch TV on the laptop all the time. We leave site and go party once a month. I'm planning on traveling every break. I don't just have work here, and lately, I'm finding it very hard to focus on work. It sucks that you work so hard on your lessons, and you think your students understood what you taught, but then the end of the trimester comes, and they all fail their final exam. OR, even worse, they try to cheat. It makes you think…damn, what is the fucking point then? Why do I have to put in all this effort, when the result is the same, and I just feel even shittier because I tried so hard? Isn't it better not to try, not to care as much? My life would be easier without stressing over the students. And sometimes, that theory is true. I shouldn't stress too much over things I can't control because if that's the case, then every time I travel anywhere, I would have a panic attack. Anyway, why did I say all this? Just trying to explain why my original goal of working extremely hard for 2 years is shot to hell.

 Being here for 6 months has also made me weary of the people. I mean, I never was a people person in the first place. It has always been difficult to read people, but it's especially hard here. People are always asking us for stuff. Can I borrow some money? Can I have 4 tomatoes? Can you help me translate something? Can I borrow your camera? Can you help me type this up? Can we use the journalism club's ink to print this out? Vanessa and I talk about it all the time. We just want people to STOP ASKING US FOR STUFF! I hate when my trust is displaced. If I lend you money, freakin' pay me back! Don't not pick up my calls and avoid me for 3 weeks. Don't make excuses. Don't borrow my bike and then break the pedal and say it's not your fault. Why would I lend out stuff anymore? But you know, then you feel bad cause it's really not that big a deal to lend out the stuff, IF the person can take care of it and returns it in the same condition. The problem is, I don't know people well enough to judge if this will happen. I hate that! I guess this learning who to trust is just something that takes longer than 6 months to learn.

 However, unlike learning to read people, learning how to travel around the country is a much easier task to take on. I remember when I first got here, how scared I was. When the Peace Corps car dropped me off at site, I thought to myself, "I'm never leaving site." How could I just hitchhike? Remember those old entries of being fearful of being stuck in Tica? Well… been there… done that! Got into a chapa accident where the damn car flipped? Check! Slept in a stranger's home that same weekend? Check! Still want to travel? Hell yes! The country is actually not that difficult to navigate, once you've done it. I love that I can hitchhike with strangers in this country without fear of being kidnapped and killed. I love that I can travel from one city to another with just my backpack. Oh… and do I have grand plans… tell you more about it later!

chicken killing and more...

So… I killed a chicken today. What an indescribable feeling. How can I
explain the emotions of taking a life? All I can say is… it's nothing
like I thought it was going to be. I was very excited at first, having
purchased the chicken yesterday for cheap since it was Children's Day
here in Mozambique. I've seen people do it a couple of times, carved
the neck, let it bleed out, and then pour hot water to pluck the
feathers. I've even seen them carve with very dull blades. Well, with
my very sharp Calphalon, I thought it was going to be a snap.

I had to step on the legs and the wings and then hold the neck with
the left hand while cutting with the knife in the right hand. It takes
longer than you think, even with a very sharp knife, and while I was
shearing away at the tough neck skin, I could feel the chicken
struggling away for its life in my hand. At that time, I began to feel
a pang of sadness deep in my gut, and all I wanted to do was kill the
chicken faster. I didn't want it to suffer under the blade anymore,
and I became very serious with the knife. When the deed was done, and
the neck broken, I still had to hold down the body and the head to
bleed it out. That was a terrible feeling. You can just feel life
draining from the chicken with every wince under your hand. I don't
think I'd want to do it again. I'm sure I could probably get used to
killing chickens if it's the only thing I could do to eat it, but damn
it, why would I want to do that again if someone else could do it for
me? Does that make me a hypocrite if I like to eat meat but I don't
want to do the killing?

But you know, there's also this strange feeling of conquest
afterwards, like yea… that's right… I KILLED A CHICKEN!

Oh, and today was also Chama de Unidade (translated Torch of Unity),
where Mozambique has the tradition of carrying a torch from the
northernmost city to the southernmost city of the country. It's kind
of like the Olympics torch, except this one is supposed to represent
everyone joining hands in unity, every part of the country. Someone
told me that this tradition started after they got their independence
from the Portuguese and only occurs every 5 years. The torch would be
passed from people to people within city limits but would be held by
someone on a car going from town to town. Ofcourse, at night, they
stop to rest. So, this torch has been traveling for about 2 weeks now.

Boy, am I lucky that I got to enjoy this and the election while I
completed service here since these things occur every like 5 years.
Anyway, it was such a special occasion to me because we don't have
anything like this in America. I mean, we have the 4th of July, but
not everyone in the city comes together like the Mozambicans do here.
Sure, we have get-togethers, but mostly with our friends and family.
Here, when I say get-together, I mean GET-TOGETHER! As in the entire
town cancels work and school to await the arrival of the torch and
everyone comes out to try to touch it. It was so crazy. The entire
town! Now THAT'S what I call unity.

pictures... i know...low quality, but what can you expect

Below, 1st three pictures are when we grilled for Woman's Day here with our friends. The next two pictures are of the neighbor kids playing naked in the rain. It's so awesome that whenever it rains here, the kids just take off all their clothes and go running naked in the street. There's also one of Jackie in her crazy dance moves. Next is a picture of my journalism students and I at our regional conference along with my counterpart. They did me so proud at that conference! They even put together masks and did a rendition of Thriller! Next picture is my cute and oh so gentle dog Itchy. Last one is of me and Vanessa dancing the pasada, a Mozambican dance, completely sober! 

finally update

Today was such a crappy day. One of my turmas, Turma G: the one that’s behind all the other turmas, had P.E. and a soccer game, so they came to class 15 minutes late. I didn’t know that they were going to come at all because they’ve skipped my class before. So, I decided to join the ones that did show up with another turma that has me the next period, just so I could leave early. I debated for awhile because I knew that if Turma G did end up showing up, there would not be enough room for all 2 turmas to fit into one room, but I did not want to waste time teaching only 7 people. Unfortunately, those guys did show up, and like I’d figured, there was not enough room. We were reviewing for a test, and I’d told them that even though they could not attend my class, they were still going to have a test the next class.

Man, I feel so awful about that now that I’ve gone home and think about it. How awful of a teacher am I, to give my students a test that they didn’t even get to review for knowing full well that more students will probably fail if they don’t get a review. How selfish am I, to give them the test just so that they wouldn’t even be more behind and I’d have to plan different lessons for them. Lately, though, I feel like I’m slacking a lot. Why, just on Monday, I skipped school because I was so hungover. Yea, can you believe it?! Being hungover in Mozambique! Well, the difference is, in America, when you’re hungover, you can call in sick. In Mozambique, you can just skip and nobody would give a rat’s ass. Teachers skip all the time because they just don’t care. Most of them don’t live in Buzi. They live in the city and just come to Buzi to teach on weekdays and return to their families on weekends. Many would either skip Friday or Monday because of traveling.

In any case, that doesn’t excuse my skipping. I should have been a good role model and represented American work ethic. Should not have gone drinking on a Sunday night! Although in my defense, it was a special occasion. I’d just met these Europeans last week, and they’re leaving town this weekend. I only wanted to make new friends, but before I knew it, I was drinking cheap whiskey and beer and barhopping. Thank god it was a Sunday night and no one was really out, but who knew my tolerance for liquor had decreased so tremendously?! Anyway, not that I was throwing up or anything like that the next day, but I just felt very stupid the next day. Ofcourse, I could have gone to teach, but you know, when nobody cares if you skip, it makes it all that much easier for you to just do it!

Anyway, had a little moment of reflection today and realize I just don’t try as hard anymore. I don’t spend as much time lesson planning as I did last trimester, and I don’t try to vary the activities so the students would have fun during class atleast. I’m so caught up in other things. Shit, last weekend was busy with a meeting and my friend from another city came to visit. The weekend before that was a neighbor’s birthday party. This weekend is going to be a student talent show. I always think I have Fridays off, but no, I have this to do and that to do… my journalism club… science fair starting up. Damn, where did my time management skills go? I gotta straighten myself up again.

Not that I don’t like being busy. I love it, but I just gotta straighten up my priorities again. Don’t worry. Stress here is so different than stress there. Hmm… how can I explain it? I guess, it’s because I know that this stress will end after 2 years. No matter how hard it gets, it ends eventually, and my life here isn’t permanent. I have something else to look forward to. Plus, I don’t have anything else to live for but work here, so it makes it a lot easier. When you don’t have a social life, no TV, no recreation, no accessible internet, you have plenty of time. Ofcourse, I’m starting to gain a social life and finding other recreation, so I’m finding myself without so much free time, but still, I’m not that stressed.

Oh, and I also like to take this time to talk about the new love of my life, my neighbor’s little daughter. Her name is Jackie, short for Jacqueline. Ahhh!! She is sooooo cute! I have some pictures of her that I just recently took, but I’m too lazy to upload it into my computer now, so I’ll just wait for next time. Plus, it takes way too long to upload. This little girl brightens up my day every time I am sad. When I’m frustrated from class, I just come home and look at her and talk to her. Ofcourse most of what she says makes no sense, but I love that abandonment about her. She just doesn’t care. She doesn’t care that I’m a different skin color, or that I’m not her family. I love that she never judges me. I love that she likes to hug me and cling to me. Sometimes, I secretly catch her just dancing and playing by herself and it’s hilarious! No worries. Pictures next time.

Also, I don't think I'm planning on going back to the states in december. My roommate is ending her service with a trip to South Africa, so I think I'm just going to go with her. Sooo.... if anyone is interested in meeting up in South Africa, holla!

robbery

isn't it funny that as soon as i posted the last entry, i got robbed? It was Easter saturday night and vanessa and i had gone to the catholic church in our town to watch the baptismal, which was really cool by the way and which i'll post pictures of later. We left at 9 and after the baptism, went to a discoteca until like 2 in the morning. We didn't even drink cause all our students were there and when we got home we found that they had entered our back door and stolen both our macs, my cell phone which i'd forgotten at home, and some other small things. We went to the police the next day and monday of the next week promptly got a call that they'd caught the thief but only 1 computer was recovered, vanessa's. Throughout the next week, they'd also recovered my computer and phone back, which is pretty great. I mean, i wasn't too devastated when it was taken but it's just so more convenient to have my computer back. The phone, though, with internet use and my only means of staying in touch with the US, I was really sad about. I also didn't like that it made me feel unsafe in my town and that any time we go anywhere we had to hide our stuff and make sure it's all locked up. I have to make sure to back up all my grades,too. Anyway, i'm just grateful to have my phone back.:-)

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.