Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Family fun + Illness

So, quick update. A couple of anecdotes.

The illness that I quickly alluded to last time progressed rather quickly to a somewhat disturbingly high fever. On Friday night I slept for 15 hours straight, and I thought it had passed on Saturday night, but it came back with a vengeance. It was a long night. My fever spiked at 103, and I had shivering chills on and off for several hours. To make matters worse, it was during a terrible thunderstorm and we lost power and cell phone reception, so I couldnt have called the medical emergency line even if I had had the energy to lift my hand and find my cell phone. But it passed, and the next day I finally did get ahold of Peace Corps Medical, who told me I might have Malaria. SUPER FUN. But I tested myself with the kit they give all volunteers, and I did NOT have Malaria. Also within 24 hours I was feeling fine again, so whatever it was was temporary. But it was an interesting weekend, to say the least. Its always fun to call your mom and preface it with ´So I dont have Malaria, but....´

On a funnier note, my host brother came home from school the other day and proudly showed me his tests with awesome grades. As I was complimenting them, I heard my sister start to mumble something about ´Yeah, but he copied all the answers´ before he shut her out of the room. Later that day, he was asking me the words in English for a bunch of stuff around the house, and I found out that my sister already knew all the words. I turned to my brother and said: `See, Mana (sister) already knows these because she doesnt copy off her classmates in exams... students who copy in MY class get ZEROS.´ And we all chortled heartily at his expense.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Field Trip to Maputo and Week 3

Its week 3 of training. Its hard to believe both that weve been here for three weeks already and that weve only been here for three weeks. Its also weird to think that in 7 weeks we are going to leave all the friends we just spent 10 weeks making and spread out all over the country to our separate posts.

On Saturday we had our field trip to Maputo and it was awesome. Having our priorities straight, we first went to a cafe and had coffee and cake. Real coffee. Real cake. So delicious. I also went to the cell phone store and got them to hook up my internet on my smartphone. I was super excited to find out that it works, but less excited when I got back to Namaacha and found it only works in Maputo. Ive kind of got it working in some parts of town now, but not at my house, which is a bummer. But having internet is a luxury and I was not expecting it, so its nice even if it doesnt work all the way.
In Maputo we also went to a bookstore and I wanted to but the Alchemist in the original Portuguese, but for some reason it was super expensive, about six times the price of other books (about 60 USD!). Instead, I stocked up on chocolate for me and my host family and went to the Peace Corps library here in Namaacha to get a book instead.
Before leaving Maputo we went to eat lunch at a restaurant where my friend Sarah and I shared a Haiwaiian pizza all smothered with real, delicous, creamy cheese. Mmmmmm. Never have I tasted something so amazing. And on that note, there is nothing I would not pay right now for a slice of strawberry cheesecake.

Ive been hanging out a lot with my host family. After classes end at five thirty I go home and keep me Mamá company while she makes dinner. We talk about a lot of stuff, mostly cultural differences and life in Mozambique. I taught my family how to play Uno the other day. They like it a lot, especially giving each other the wild draw four cards, but what they liked even more was my shuffling skills. I have spent a lot of time in the past week showing them to shuffle. My brother especially loves it -- I trade shuffling lessons for lessons in Changana, the local language.

We recently had a super awesome day followed by a super sad day. Our cat gave birth to two cute kittens, the pride of our neighborhood, but that the mom got locked out of the kitchen by accident, where her kittens were, and they froze overnight. I expected my four year old sister to react more than she did. Death is not uncommon here and people just accept it and move on.

On that sad note, I am in the process of getting sick, which is not fun. They tell you its not a question of whether you will get sick here, but when and how often. Somehow I still thought maybe I would be the exception, but me and my friend slash neighbor Lisa both have had fevers this last day or so. Not much I can do about it except drink lots of water and sleep a bunch. Peace Corps medical takes good care of us.

We had our first Portuguese test on Friday and I scored really well. We like our language instructor, Meque, a lot, but we unfortunately have to switch teachers next week as per Peace Corps calendar. Hopefully the next one we get will be just as awesome. Never have I laughed so much in class before.

Well, until next time.


Friday, October 12, 2012

Settling in to the PreService Training routine

All is well here in Namaacha. The rainy season has really begun, it rains all day and every day. This is a problem because the English teacher trainees live in a place called Bairro 25, which is on the side of a mountain, and all the paths are dirt, which in the rain of course become huge muddy tracts. Super fun to walk to and from class on. So far I have not fallen down, but its coming and I know it.

Most of our time is spent doing language training. I think I mentioned I wasnt really enjoying my language group, and I spoke to our training manager about it and she switched me into a more advanced group with a teacher who I really like. Now I actually have to like, think. Ugh. I am enjoying it a lot though. My portuguese is improving exponentially, and all of us are starting to experience those moments when we can think of the word in portuguese but not in english. Example: Today someone said "OK guys we dont have the projector yet so our session is going to demorar a bit." Demorar means to delay.

On a slightly less positive note, we had a somewhat unsuccessful practical language training activity when we were supposed to be learning to use the public transportation here, called chapas. This is not like public transportation in the states, of course. Intercity chapas are like big minivans that people crowd into and ride, but local chapas are sketchy pickup trucks that you pay 5 mets to use and just kind of climb into the back and hold on for dear life. Anyway, we each got a post it note with a destination and we were supposed to go there and come back. I ended up at the endstation, which is where I was supposed to be, but I couldnt figure out which chapa to use to get back. So instead I pedired a boleia (asked for a ride) along with some other trainees, but they got out at a different stop and I didnt want to be by myself on an illegitimate chapa, so I got off and just kind of walked back to my group. I trudged humbly back to meet them, having utterly failed the exercise. Please note: I was at no time in any appreciable danger and I am 100 percent fine. (Mom.)

We have a field trip to Maputo tomorrow which we are all looking forward to. Rumor has it there are places in maputo that make things like pizza and sell cheese.WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT!?

Before I sign off, I would like to state that I did try to upload photos, but unfortunately the USB drive on this computer does not work and so unless I magically find a floppy disk and drive to use, pictures are going to have to wait a considerable amount of time. But for now, youre really not missing much because its cloudy and muddy and COLD, and not exactly what most people think of when they think of Africa. I wish I had more scarves.

Until next time.

Friday, October 5, 2012

Namaacha, Mozambique and Homestay

I have to be quick about updating because there are about 10 other volunteers in line behind me to use the internet.

Were in Namaacha for PST, preservice training, and were each staying with a Mozambican host family. My family is really cool, a have a mãe, a pai, and two little sisters, a little brother and a big brother. My little sister, Páscoa, is awesome. She is 4 years old and adores me. Shes hilarious. Yesterday at dinner, she was trying to eat chicken off the drumstick and kept falling asleep midbite. Eventually she just gave up and took a nap right there at the table. This seems common. I think I can embrace table sleeping.

We have training every day from 7.30 to 5.30 and it is exhausting. Luckily Mozambicans really like breaks, so we are always taking breaks and eating snacks. Oh gosh, the food. Its good but its SO starchy and fatty. The first Sunday I literally had 4 lunches and all of them consisted of batatas fritas (french fries) with fried egg. I am expected to eat with all of our guests, so if an aunt comes, we eat. Later an uncle shows up, we eat again. Vovo (grandma) comes and we eat again. Its really filling. My mãe is concerned that I am not eating enough, because I am too skinny. The ultimate goal of our host moms is to engordar us, to make us fatter. We had a conversation today about how in America and Europe we dont like to be fat. They were really surprised about that.

Training is going really well, though pretty tedious. Some days we have HUB days when we are all together, but most days we are broken up into our technical (English, Math, Chemistry) or language groups. The language lessons are pretty hard to concentrate on for me because Ive already studied portuguese extensively, so spending three hours on present tense regular verbs makes me want to go to sleep. But its a good review and Im sure we will soon get to a point where I dont know what is going on anymore.

The house I am living in is small but cute. It has an outdoor, enclosed pit latrine for a bathroom and we take bucket baths. Mozambicans love to take baths, they take three a day and think we are super gross for only taking one shower per day at home. My mãe and I came to a compromise that I would take 2 a day, in the morning and in the evening. My room is small but nice, the mosquito net above my bed is like a princess canopy. Woot. I think the worst thing so far is the cockroaches in the latrine, but when you turn on the light or open the lid they scurry back down to the pit from whence they came. I figure as long as they stay down there and I stay up here, I dont mind them. The moment they cross into my space, bug spray will be wielded.

There is so much more to say, but a lot of people want to use the internet so Ill sign off for now. Sorry for the typos and lack of punctuation, this keyboard is weird. Ill update again later, hopefully when I can get the internet to work on my phone.