Thanksgiving

Mozambicans do not celebrate our American holiday “Thanksgiving,” but nonetheless, I brought our tradition here yesterday.

On Wednesday, I walked into town to the market in search of a pumpkin or sweet potatoes. The market in Inharrime is a haphazardly built conglomeration of straw tables and benches positioned behind a series of stores on the main highway that runs through the village. The result is a dark, maze-like structure filled with women selling the currently in season vegetables. I asked high and low for a pumpkin and explained to many of the market-women about the holiday in my county where we always make pumpkin pie. Each one tried to direct me to someone “down at the end of the line” who would have one last pumpkin, but to no avail – pumpkin season ended last week. By the time I came back through the market at the end – everyone was curious if I had found my much desired “abóbora.”

In the end, I made a banana-apple crisp instead of pumpkin pie, and, with the help of my Amercian-volunteer friend Stephanie, a feast of roast chicken, carrots, and mashed potatoes. The sisters and another Mozambican teacher that ate with us were impressed with their small taste of American culture.

And, in this faraway place, we transplanted Americans even took some time to reflect on what we’re thankful for this year. For me: The continued support of my family and friends from home topped the list. Thanks to everyone for your care even when I am far away. I miss you all and hope that your Thanksgivings were happy as well.

End of School ´´Festa``

Today was one of the best days I’ve had in Mozambique. The kids in the above picture spent the past three weeks preparing a small play as part of the “Theatre Group” during the mandatory three weeks of summer activities that go on at my school after the end of classes for the year.

At the end of the three weeks, on the day that final grades are posted, the school hosted a small festival and all the different groups of activities (basket-making, singing, dancing, theatre, sewing) presented their activities for their parents, teachers, and fellow students. My students from the theatre group, as well as the little group of boys who call themselves “Real Heat” and sing rap music about social change, presented. The audience reacted with laughs and cheers for the play, and clapped along to the music. I was very proud of my students, and happy to have seen a fruitful product of some time well spent with these kids.

Life in Mozambique n the past four months has been full: joyful, challenging, fun, interesting, difficult, exciting, and different -- all at the same time.

I live just outside a small town called Inharrime, only about 15 miles inland from the Indian Ocean. Amid the forests of coconut trees and brick-red dirt of “Centro Laura Vicuña,” I've spent the past 4 months working at a variety of jobs. Mainly, I've worked teaching explanation English classes for students at Laura Vicuña Secondary School, and helping teachers and teaching English classes at Domingos Sávio Professional School -- the technical/high school across the street from the sisters run by the Salesian Priests. I've also taught music class at the professional school, helped out with the small summer theatre group at the secondary school, and done lots of playing and working with the little girls on English and music.

Since most of my daily interactions here are conducted in Portuguese, I’ve been forced to pick it up rapidly during these months. Besides my brightest students and the other English teachers, no one speaks more than a sprinkling of English, so I've had to pick up the new language at a rapid pace. While I'm by no means a ''fluent'' speaker, I manage to carry on intelligent conversations and perceive the vast majority of things spoken to me at this point. I now even find myself accidentally sprinkling in Portuguese words when I speak English.

My initial few weeks and even months here were difficult -- not speaking the language, trying to decipher what my job and my ''place'' here should be, feeling quite alone and out of place when stuck into this community of nuns and little girls -- but things have improved. I have a lot of interesting work now. I love teaching and working with the students at my schools, I've gotten used to the some of the differences in cultural norms here, and also come to accept the fact that I will probably continue to feel ''out of the loop'' on some things because I just am a foreigner and there's no way around that. I've even become proficient at eating ''shima'' (a food something like mushed up rice, or wet, doughy bread) and ''fejão'' (beans) with my hands during our weekly ''eat outside with your hands'' meal that we have so the little girls don't forget their Mozambican traditional ways of eating.

As I've become more comfortable here, I've started to work on some interesting projects. I helped some other volunteers in my area organize an AIDS awareness day in which local high school students competed in a theatre contest where they presented short plays about responsibility, fidelity, equality of genders, and other AIDS prevention strategies. 6 groups from my two schools participated. I was also recently approached by a small group of boys who came to me asking for help with their rap music group. While I'm not really a rap fan, they sing all about social issues -- working to change systems of poverty, preventing the spread of AIDS and malaria, stopping early pregnancy and the abandonment of children -- so I'm going to help them out however I can.

It's difficult for me to distill my experience into a short description, but I wanted put up a general update here, and then make an effort to share more of my experiences from here. I hope that an important part of my being here can be to share some of what I learn with my friends and family at home who do not have this opportunity to travel to a new country and learn about a new culture.

For now, I close with a realization that Mozambique has become much more to me now that a faraway land or a foreign new environment: Now beyond the heat and my constantly dirty feet and the unusual foods, Mozambique is a sea of faces and names: Yolanda, Amélia, Julia, Ângela and the other cute little girls constantly following me around shouting ''Mana Maria!'' Lucília, Albertina, Verdiana, and Lúcia -- the sisters. Sérgio, Fanuel, Marta, Santos, Albazine, Mateus, Armando -- my students. Stephanie and Rita, Gildo, Herlagia, João -- other volunteers and teachers. Dona Rita, Tia Saquina, Senhor Camilo, Padre José Maria -- my neighbors. These people are Mozambique to me now.

I have been in Mozambique for one month and three days, and I think it is about time I wrote something home for everyone to hear about this place and what I have been doing.

I will say, I've thought about writing several times, but it is terribly difficult for me to put into words all I have seen and done. When I first got here, my head was filled with comparisons: “The restruants are just like the ones in El Salvador.” “The bread tastes just like Grandma Becker's.” “The women carrying everything on their heads is not like anything I have ever seen.'' Now that I have been here a little while, I have become accustumed to my surroundings and am not even sure where to start describing them.

I spent my first few weeks visiting Matt in a little village in Sofala, in the center of Mozambique. I had heard many stories of this place and I finally filled in all the gaps. I went to Matt's 8th and 11th grade biology classes and met many students who were eager to help me improve my limited Portuguese. One night we went with a friend to a small neighborhood where five men all played at once on a homemade Marimba (like a giant wooden xylophone with gourds below to echo the sound). We purchased fresh bread, tomatoes, onions and other local produce each day from the open-air market in the city. One day a student whose family runs a bakery invited us to come see how they make bread. The dough looked exactly like Grandma's used to – except that the ball of dough stretched the length of his whole living room as it lay on a giant black tarp to rise.

During my last week up north, Matt's boss from the Peace Corps came through town and offered to take us up north to visit Parque Nacional de Gorongosa, a wildlife reserve. We spent a night camping in the park, and took a drive through the next day catching looks at Impala, Warthogs, Monkeys, and many African birds. After that, we visited Matt's friend Kevin in a town called Caia. The area experienced great hardship during the Mozambican civil war, and its effects are still visible in abandoned houses and railroad cars which have stood vacant for twenty years.

After returning from Caia, we headed south to Inharrime – the area where I will living for the coming year. The general form of public transportation here – the “chapa'' – is a 15 passenger van always crammed with 20-25 people. These vans have no set schedule; they leave when they're full, charge purely based on distance travelled, and let people off an on at most any given place. I've become quite used to this form of travel and now find myself barely phased to be smushed between a man in a full suit and woman with a baby in one hand and a live chicken in the other.

Now, I have arrived in Inharrime at Casa Laura Vicuña – the home of the Salesian Sisters. The compound where I live is simply unbelievable. The main building houses the sisters, other volunteers and myself, as well as the office, kitchen, and dining room. Adjoing the main buidling in the dormitory where thirty-five girls aged 5-15 currently live. There is also a secondary school, a health building, a large garden, and two small guest buildings on the premises, as well as many building under construction (two more dormitory buildings, a bakery, a large cafeteria, and a primary school). The sisters run a top-notch project and we even have runing (drinkable) water, dependable electricity, and lots of rare foods through donations from European benefactors.

So now that I am here, my first task has been to try and settle in and find my niche within this already well-running project. I’m going to be working with the the older girls here teaching an English class each day, and helping the sisters with the younger girls however I can. They are working on starting a health post, so when that gets up and going, I hope to work on that, too. Right now, I am working on learning Portuguese, meeting people who live near our compound, and getting to know this area. Each day so far has been an adventure – I look forward to learning a lot in the coming year.

I leave for Mozambique tonight at 8pm!

I just thought I would start this site as a way to easily post thoughts and pictures for all to see.