I got 99 problems...and my Dell is one.

Well, as inevitably happens when you bring expensive electronics to Africa, my computer has dramatically crashed. I say dramatically, because it crashed just as I was trying to put on some dance music for 24 expectant girls.


Needless to say, with my laptop out of order, there's gonna be a temporary hiatus on blogging until I can get it working again (hopefully next weekend? Who knows.)

But to set your minds at ease, our REDES conference went spectacularly. I have so many great pictures to post later!

Ife Tayamba, Tayamba: Let's Get to Work

Tomorrow is a big day for my REDES girls! At noon tomorrow, the workshop for all four REDES groups in Tete Province is happening right here in Mavudzi-Ponte. The girls are super excited to welcome 18 visitors from Kaunda, Cateme, and Tete City to our beautiful village.

Everyone's been working hard to get ready -- I've been totally absorbed in logistics (Yes! Event planning, my favorite!), Redi's been gathering things from around town that we'll need, Szasha's been running around doing last-minute errands, and the girls have spent the last few mornings rehearsing the songs they have prepared for the upcoming workshop.

We've been going non-stop all week. I'm completely exhausted and am going to bed early tonight in preparation for tomorrow -- but before I do, I want to share some pictures of the girls who are making it all happen!

Anessi, Anabela, Silvia, Fita, Anataxa, and Suzeta

These are my REDES girls.

• Anessi is the tallest in our group. She can never remember what REDES stands for, but she rehearsed her little spoken bit the most out of all the girls and now knows it perfectly.
• Anabela is the youngest, the only 8th grader in the group. She's small and shy, but she looks up to the older girls in the group a lot.
• Silvia is the most dedicated member of our group, and the one who I think is getting the most out of it. She shows up early every week (sometimes before I've woken up...) and she actively participates in all our activities without vergonha (embarrassment). Silvia is a genuinely friendly, caring individual and she's one of my favorite people in Mavudzi-Ponte. She has also promised to bring me a kitten one of these days.
• Fita is the oldest member of our group and the only 10th grader. We initially weren't planning to include 10th graders, but Fita begged and begged us to let her join the group. She walks the furthest to get to our meetings.
• Anataxa hates speaking in front of others, but whenever she whispers to her friends, she always has something really interesting to say.
• Suzeta is tiny but feisty, and is one of my smartest students. She's the group leader and the choreographer for most of our songs.

Redi, my roommate and REDES counterpart. She's just awesome.

Redi rehearses a welcome song with the girls.

Ife tayamba, tayamba (Ife tayamba!) X 2

Cateme bwerani (Ife tayamba!)

Josina bwerani! (Ife tayamba!)

Kaunda bwerani! (Ife tayamba!)

Mavudzi bwerani! (Ife tayamba!)

Ife tayamba tayamba! (Ife tayamba!) X 2

Let's work together (Let's get to work!) X 2

Cateme has come! (Let's work together!)

Josina has come! (Let's work together!)
Kaunda has come (Let's work together!)

Mavudzi has come (Let's work together!) 

Let's work together (Let's get to work!) X 2

 

Anabela, Anataxa, and Fita having fun at rehearsal.

Every week during our REDES meeting, my jovial next door neighbor Fanilio comes out and jokingly asks "What are the requirements to join this group? Can I join?" The girls always crack up and tell him that Requirement #1 is "Be a Girl". Fanilio then feigns extreme insult and sulks away, moping. This week, Fanilio walked by as the girls were painting their nails and they shouted to him, "Professor Fanilio! Servido!" ("Help yourself!") He crossed his arms and said "No, no, I can tell when I'm not wanted. You girls have fun painting your nails, I'll just go in my house and cry."

The girls like Fanilio a lot. So do I.

Next door neighbor Fanilio offers advice.

We got a new member of our group today! Gelsia, the 2-year-old who lives next door, wandered out when she heard the girls singing. She walked right up to the group and wanted to join in. Her big sister Norai soon came to take her away, and Gelsia waved sadly as she left. Don't be sad, Gelsia, you can join when you get older.

Our youngest member!

Our conference starts tomorrow and goes until Sunday. Wish us luck!

My girls!

Conference #2: Books for Africa / Early Grade Reading (LEIA!)

Cheyanne also loves to read.

Reading is one of my favorite things in the world, and has been since I was a kid. I remember going to the library with my mom and checking out the maximum number of books possible, so conflicted as to which books to check out now and which ones could wait. I read every single Boxcar Children book, couldn't get enough of A Wrinkle in Time, and read The Giver at least once a year.

Mozambican kids don't get to go to the library every week. Most communities don't even have a library. Last year, USAID did a survey of reading levels across Mozambique -- they went to hundreds of schools and interviewed thousands of students in 2nd and 3rd grade, testing their reading levels and asking questions about what kinds of reading material the kids have at home.

The results were deplorable. Over 80% of 2nd graders and 60% of 3rd graders could not even recognize a single letter. When asked to read the first page of a story from a book, 99% couldn't read a single word. That's pretty awful, but not surprising when you find out that the majority of these kids don't speak Portuguese with their families, have no books at home, and never read outside of a classroom setting. Especially when you consider that "a classroom setting" here often entails sitting under a tree with 60 peers, doing mindless repetition with an overworked and under-trained teacher.

In order to start the monumental task of combating illiteracy on Mozambique, USAID partnered with Peace Corps, Books for Africa and Livro Aberto to design and implement a new project: EGRA, or Early Grade Reading Activities.

The project has two parts -- first, designing and implementing a community library. USAID supplied each participating volunteer with a trunk of 144 books in Portuguese of varying reading levels. During the next few months, I'll be working with my friend and neighbor Páscoa to get our library set up at the school and start doing weekly library events, like read-aloud story-time and silent reading sessions.

The second part of the project will come next school year. Pairing select 9th and 10th graders with small groups of kids, we'll have weekly reading tutoring, giving the kids one-on-one attention that they'd otherwise never receive, and and giving my students a volunteer project to brag about when they apply to continue their studies.

This project is a really exciting opportunity, and a huge chance to make a real difference in my community. I can't wait to get started on it! We just received our books, and I've already started asking community members to donate materials for us to make hands-on learning activities for the kids.

Here are some pictures from our training for your enjoyment.

Clothes-line book display idea. Wonderful!

Reading activities are possible despite limited resources!

Liz explores the wonderful world of reading.

Read-aloud techniques demonstration.

Olinda summarizes the book in local language for kids who don't speak Portuguese.

Q and A with characters from the read-aloud book.

Volunteers brainstorm with staff member Custodio.

Conference #1: "PDM" Project Development and Management

Aside from teaching, most PCVs like to get involved in other projects around their communities. Mozambique already has a couple of well-established secondary projects that volunteers can get involved in (like REDES), but sometimes the community has a specific need, and Peace Corps volunteers have several tools at their disposal to help those types of projects happen.

My community has been begging me to help them open a computer lab. Our school got its first (and only) computer earlier this year, and it stayed locked up in the secretary's office until someone stole the power cord two months ago -- now no one uses it for anything. Many of my students have never seen or used a computer before.

Alcídio

That's how it came about that I traveled to Nampula with Alcídio, one of the other professors at my school.  Alcídio is an Art & Design teacher, and one of the few people other than me who has a laptop in Mavudzi-Ponte. For two days, we participated in a conference callled "Project Development and Management," where we learned about how to create sustainable community projects and get funding for those projects. We brainstormed about our computer lab, came up with a rough plan, and sketched out a budget. Next year, I'll be teaching less hours of English so I can have time to get Aulas de Informatica (computer classes) up and running.

There was a slight hitch in the conference when we talked about responsibilities with our counterparts. The session facilitator explained that the volunteer is there to guide and help the process along, but in the end, it should be a community effort, and not the volunteer by themselves. The responsibility should ultimately lie with the counterparts.

"That's silly," said Alcídio, "That's what the volunteer is here to do, to help develop our community. Everyone else already has a job. In the end, the responsibility should lie with the volunteer."

Errrrr.... yeah, Alcídio and I will be discussing that in much greater depth before we actually start putting this computer lab together.

The rest of the conference went well, though. A lot of great ideas were thrown around, and we got to give each other feedback on the various project proposals.

Working hard (with counterparts)

Working (with fellow volunteers)

Not working

Naturally, being a large gathering of volunteers, not all our time was spent working. I was originally supposed to go to Chimoio (the central capital) for this conference, but because I'm participating in Books for Africa (much more on that in my next post!) I ended up doing both conferences in the northern city of Nampula. I got to see a bunch of my friends from the north that I hadn't seen since we left training 9 months ago. I was originally hesitant about feeling out of place without my Central peeps, but I needn't have worried -- I had so much catching up to do with Hannah, Maggie, Casey, Stephen, Mafe, and others that the time passed much too quickly.

Playing.

Coming up next post:

"LEIA!" a.k.a Books for Africa - an early grade reading program to promote literacy in my community.

Me and my team, Páscoa and Alcídio!

Adventure Part 4: In Transit, a.k.a. My Mad Rush to the Airport

"The chapa will get here to pick you up around 6 a.m." Collins told us the night before we prepared to leave Cape Maclear. Knowing Africa, we estimated an arrival of at least 7:30, but got up at 5:30 just to be on the safe side.

I was shaken awake before the alarm went off by my friend saying, "Hey, the chapa's early. Get up and pack your stuff!"

And so began one of my most ridiculous travel experiences so far in Africa.
 

Will, Anna, Fake Moby, Hardhat Guy

 We took a chapa (well, in Malawi, they're called minibuses) to Blantyre, and it seemed to take for EVER. They were re-doing the road that we had to travel on, so we were on dirt detours for much of the time -- not fun. Not to mention, the minibus was falling apart.

Still, it wasn't without its amusements. We ended up traveling with a Danish guy who looked a lot like Moby. Fake Moby was very well-traveled and made for interesting conversation, though I slept much of the way, so I didn't personally converse much.  Additionally, the guy sitting in front of Anna was wearing a very fashionable hoodie and hardhat combo -- one of the more creative fashion choices I've seen in this part of the world, and yet oddly suited to riding in a chapa. I should consider investing in a hardhat for future travel.

Once we got to Blantyre, we stayed at this place called the Hostellarie de France, a bit outside the city. It was gorgeous and secluded and hat hot showers."Jackpot!" we thought.

Come dinnertime, though, it turned into a disaster. We had limited money in Kwacha left over, so we pored over the menu very carefully and asked prices for everything. Yet somehow when the bill came at the end of our meal, it was much higher than anticipated. When we called the waiter to ask about it, he got very defensive. Soon, the owner of the place came over and threatened to throw us out of the hotel (at 9:30 p.m. in a city we weren't familiar with!) Thankfully, we were able to scrounge up enough to satisfy the dude, but the whole thing was a very unpleasant interaction over something that clearly resulted because of a miscommunication. (On a sidenote, if you're going to open a restaurant in a country where the official language is English, make sure at least one person on staff actually speaks English.)

But I digress. Over dinner, I got an e-mail from Peace Corps.

"Ah, great!" I thought, "My plane ticket to Nampula for the day after tomorrow. Finally!"

Then I opened the e-mail, and it read: "Do to a lack of flights the day after tomorrow, we've booked you on a flight for tomorrow morning. Please be at the airport at 8 a.m."

"Wait, what?" I thought, "I'm still in Malawi! Less than 24 hours notice, are you kidding me?"

But no, they were not kidding me. And so began:

"The Great Race to the Airport"

19:00 (Night before flight): Receive e-mail about my flight (Surprise!). Panic.
06:00 (Morning of flight): Get on the first bus out of Blantyre to Tete.
10:00 (Departure time of flight): Arrive at Mozambican border.
12:00 (2 hours after flight): Actually allowed to cross Mozambican border. (Darn Malawi border guards!)
15:30 (5+ hours after flight) Make it to Tete.
16:30 (6+ hours after flight) Call Peace Corps for instructions:

Me: Hey, I've just arrived in Tete City. What do you want me to do?
PC: Your flight got delayed. It now departs at 5 p.m. We want you to try and make it.
Me: What time is it now?
PC: It's 4:38 p.m.
Me: ...!

16:38 (22 minutes before new departure) Jump in a cab.

Conversation I Wanted To Have (Just like the movies!)
Me: Taxi! How much to the airport?
Driver: Twenty bucks.
Me: I'll give you forty if you can get me there in 10 minutes. Now step on it!

Conversation I Actually Had
Me: Taxi! How much to the airport?
Driver: 500 meticais.
Me: Well... that's all the money I have. But I'll be really grateful if you can get me there in 10 minutes! Now step on it... please!

16:58 (2 minutes before departure) Arrive at airport and find out I have no ticket. Thankfully, the flight gets delayed again.
17:30 Finally manage to get a ticket, though with a fine.
18:30 Make it to departures lounge to join my colleague, who has been at the airport since 8 a.m.
19:00 Flight delayed.
20:00 Flight delayed.
21:30 Flight actually leaves.
22:45 Arrive in Nampula, exhausted.
23:00 Fall into bed, comatose.

And so concludes the story of my Epic Airport Scramble. I don't think I've ever slept so well in my life. Also, since I didn't have time to go home in between Malawi and Nampula, as I had planned, I ended up at my conference with nothing but beach clothes and a tent -- not exactly "business casual," but I made it work.

Next time:

Conference #1: Project Development and Management

Adventure Part 3: Cape Maclear (Again?) Good Friends & A Beautiful Hike

Early in the morning of the 24th, I parted ways with Szasha and Joanna. They left to continue their journey back into Mozambique, crossing the border into the north of the country, and I stayed in Cape Maclear to await the arrival of two good friends, Anna and Will.

This gave me an unexpected day to myself. I took a long morning walk on the beach at sunrise, and treated myself to delicious french toast for breakfast. I wandered aimlessly around the town, followed all the while by Tom-Tom, the trusty friend I had made that morning.

Tom-Tom, the German shepherd that belongs to Taipei Garden Lodge.

Tom-Tom and I did some souvenir shopping and then sprawled out on the beach, where I fully intended to read my book, but soon ended up joining T-dog in a mid-morning nap.
  
In the afternoon, I took another walk and then spent several hours finishing up my latest book. Just when I started to get bored, a car drove up and out popped my friend Alexandra who I was not expecting! Apparently, she and her family (who were visiting) ran into Szasha and Joanna at the border, who told her where to find me. Alexandra and her family invited me to their hotel to catch up and have a drink -- they even invited me to stay for dinner, (STEAK!) which was possibly the most delicious thing I've eaten since leaving America, excluding cheesecake of course.

By the time dinner was over, it was dark and I figured my friends had probably shown up. I went back to the lodge to check, and found another surprise -- not two, but three of my friends had come!

(1.) Matt, "tanning". (2.) Anna relaxing. (3.) Will talking on an imaginary shoe-phone.

 It was awesome to see these three again -- I couldn't have asked for better travel companions. Anna is the volunteer that lives in Chimoio (where we celebrated Christmas!) and is very calm and friendly. Will is a total dork (one of the few who understands my nerdy jokes), who I rarely get to see, since he lived clear across town during training and now lives clear across the country. Matt is a total hipster who I never really had the chance to get to know in training, but thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with just the same.

All together, we had a ton of fun. We stayed one more full day, and spend the whole day exploring Cape Maclear. We wandered through the village that sprawls out past the super touristy areas, ate nsima wa nyemba (xima with beans) at the market for lunch, and hiked out on the shoreline, past the fishermen and into the wilderness a bit.

Here are some photos from our walk.

The deserted fish market.

A man builds a canoe out of Baobab wood.

A cool cactus growing on a rock.

Pretty flowers in front of an old boat.

Cotton?

Literally a tree-hugger.

  Coming Up Next:

An extremely hectic and somewhat ridiculous journey

Adventure Part 2: Cape Maclear, Malawi (and a Sunset Cruise!)

Cape Maclear, Malawi... what a paradise. Originally known as Chembe, this UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Lake Malawi National Park was originally inhabited by the Yao people, later discovered and renamed by explorer David Livingstone, and today is the busiest tourist destination on Lake Malawi. 

Upon arrival, you wouldn't know it's one of Malawi's biggest tourist destinations. There's no regular public transportation to get there from the turnoff at Monkey Bay, and the road is partially unpaved, full of potholes. There are no ATMs on the Cape, and no way to change money (this actually became a problem for us, as we ran out of money and had to resort to a shady metical-to-kwacha exchange with a mysterious man on the beach)

Our journey to Cape Maclear started in Lilongwe. We heard there was an 8 a.m. AXA bus daily to Monkey Bay, so we dutifully went to the bus station at 6:30 to get our tickets as per the advice of our hostel. Upon entering the bus station, we were absolutely bombarded with "helpful" Malawians shouting at us, "WHERE ARE YOU GOING? HEY FRIEND! SISTER! WHERE ARE YOU GOING? LET ME HELP YOU!" (expecting a tip for their "help", of course...) We were more than capable of finding the bus by ourselves, though, so we pleasantly but firmly ignored even the pushiest of people trying to assist us.

Almost all the AXA buses were gloriously fancy -- all except, of course, the one we were on. Not only was it run-down and smelled very weird, it was also completely full, with people standing in the aisles (and most definitely invading my personal space) for the entire six-hour journey to Monkey Bay. We stopped about every 10 minutes for no apparent reason -- after the 20th pointless stop in which no one got on or off the bus, we started to go a little crazy -- and yet somehow still made relatively good time to Monkey Bay. 

From there, we got Muzungu-priced (i.e. ripped off) on the fare for the half-hour ride from Monkey Bay to Cape Maclear -- having no idea how much it should cost, we paid 2,000 Kwacha when it should have been 600. Live and learn, right?

But our travel-induced frustration and bad mood immediately disappeared when we got to Cape Maclear and were greeted by this view:

WOW.

In a fun twist to our plans, we found out the lodge that we were planning to camp at doesn't allow camping. We went to check out our second choice and found it closed for re-thatching. However, a really friendly local Dutch offered us a suggestion -- why not try Taipei Garden Lodge?

Taipei Garden Lodge

It was a bit out of the way, pretty quiet, and not as equipped as some of the other lodges. Still, the manager, Collins, was extremely friendly and personable, and told us we could set up our tent wherever we wanted to. He also gave us an incredibly good price, so we accepted and set up our "tent".

When Collins saw it, he laughed.

"You girls going to be OK in the night in that... 'tent'? It gets pretty windy at night this time of year."

"We'll be fine!" we assured him, "We're well-seasoned travelers. We can sleep through anything."

He gave the Bug Hut a very unconvinced gaze up and down and said, "Well, I stay up pretty late, so when it gets too windy and you want to move into the dorm rooms, just come and tell me. No extra charge."

We thanked him, assured him we'd be fine, and went to watch kids play as the sun went down.

Kids play at sundown.

Night fell, and we were pretty exhausted, so we went to our tent around 9 p.m. to get some z's. I fell asleep almost instantly, as did Szasha and Joanna.

Two hours later, I was woken by the extremely loud WHOOSH-ing of HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS. The trees creaked and croaked. Sand flew everywhere. Mary Poppins floated by on her umbrella.

OK. Maybe it wasn't that bad, but if I had some kind of measuring device, I'm fairly sure it would have read: "Current conditions: Pretty f***ing windy."  

Far too windy for our sad little tent, anyway. After a few more minutes stubbornly trying to hold out, we gave up. I stayed behind to sit in the tent as human ballast and keep it from flying away while Szasha and Joanna slunk into reception to find Collins smiling knowingly.

"I thought I might be seeing you soon!" he said cheerfully, "Let me take you to the dorm room." 

We slept the rest of the night like babies. (One bed per person? What luxury!) Needless to say, the experience cemented our positive view of Collins, and we stayed at Taipei Garden Lodge the rest of our time at Cape Maclear. 

(1). Original tent location. (2) Midnight emergency removal of tent to indoor location. (3) Fancy dorm beds we ended up sleeping in.

The next two days, we explored every corner of Cape Maclear. It was bliss. We wandered the beach, swam, ate delicious food, explored the surrounding areas, but mostly lazed about, swapping fofoca (gossip) and stories. We culminated our days together with a sunset cruise on our last evening together. It all kind of runs together in my memory, so I'll let my pictures speak for themselves.

Enjoying beachside strawberry smoothies.

The docks at sunset.

Aboard the Miss Java, about to start our sunset cruise.

Chilling in our capulana dresses on the boat.

Stunning Cape Maclear sunset.

The next morning, Szasha and Joanna left to continue their adventure into Northern Mozambique to explore Ilha de Moçambique. I stayed in Cape Maclear and awaited the arrival of my two friends, Will and Anna.

Coming Up Next Time:

Cape Maclear, Part Two! Hiking and Exploring with Round 2 of Friends.

Adventure Part 1: Angonia, Dedza, and a Pathetic Excuse for a Tent

Behold! I'm back from my blogging hiatus, and I'm happy, healthy, tan, and safe. These last two weeks were a blast, I have so much to write about that I can hardly pick where to start!

I think I'll start from the very beginning. I hear that's a very good place to start.

Two weeks ago, I set out with these two lovely ladies to explore our corner of Africa together.

1. Visiting Mark and Penny in Angonia

 

 I set out two weeks ago with Szasha (from Kaunda, 20 mins away on the road to Zambia) and Joanna (from Catandica, 5 hours away on the road to Chimoio). After hearing so much about the beautiful mountains in the northern parts of Tete, we finally had the time and a compelling reason to make the five-hour journey to Angonia and visit our fellow volunteers Mark and Penny.

 Angonia is well-known among volunteers both because it's practically in Malawi (the closest volunteers to Angonia are in Malawi) and because it's the coldest site in Mozambique -- ironic, considering it's in Tete Province, the Oven of Mozambique. Mark and Penny are older (more mature?) volunteers, and they have a pretty nice setup. Penny teaches at a an IFP (Teacher Training Institute) and Mark teaches at the local secondary school. They live on the IFP grounds in a very cute little house that both of them worked hard to make cozy and welcoming. Gemütlich.

Penny gave me lots of ideas for sprucing up my own house!

  Mark and Penny have a really good Mozambican friend named Eddie who showed us around Angonia in his van.  Eddie is a very hard-working and proactive dude who runs a little school. He has a lot of plans for his school that Mark and Penny will try to help him with.
 

The playground at Eddie's school.

Eddie was nice enough to drive us all to the Malawian border, to a town called Dedza. I haven't crossed many borders by land in my life (except in Europe, where it doesn't count thanks to Schengen) so it was interesting to go through the process of stamping the passport, crossing the border, and stamping again. It was my first time leaving Mozambique since I got here in September -- how exciting!

Dedza is famous for a couple things, the most important for me being Dedza Pottery. The pottery was opened in 1987 by a British expat couple, and they produce a bunch of beautiful ceramic items with African designs made from Malawian materials. They have a little shop, and since pottery is a hobby of mine, I really enjoyed looking at their products -- and I couldn't help buying a little candleholder to take home with me in case of power outages.

(1) The pottery building (2) Beautiful English garden (3) Painted tiles

The most important thing about Dedza Pottery, however, is that they have a little restaurant there that sells, among other things, delicious cheesecake.

Deciding what to eat for lunch.

B.C. : "Before Cheesecake"

After cheesecake. Happy as a clam.

It. Was. Awesome.

After our little detour into the first-world environment of manicured gardens and gourmet desserts, Szasha, Joanna and I parted from Mark and Penny and went on our merry way. We managed to hitch a ride to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, with two missionary couples that happened to be going there from Dedza Pottery.

Lilongwe is an odd city. It's big, but spread out and green. The city center feels and looks like an American strip mall, just with more homeless people and um... interesting... fashion choices.

We didn't have much time to spend in Lilongwe, but we hit up the Game (just like Walmart), the Shoprite (the cheap grocery store) and the Spar (the expensive grocery store.) Soon it started to get dark, though, so we went to crash for the night at Mabuya Camp Backpackers. Since the weather was nice, we decided to skip the dorm beds (Bed bugs? No thank you!) and camp.

"You have a tent?" the man at reception asked us.

"Sure," we told him, "Kind of."


What we had was a Bug Hut, a see-through mesh tent meant to be used as a free-standing mosquito net for two people. We tied some capulanas on the sides for extra shelter. It looked pretty ridiculous, especially with the three of us crammed in there. At one point in the middle of the night, a drunk British guy wandered by and exclaimed to his friend in surprise,

"Blimey! There are three of them in there!"

Did you know that this is the exact setup that David Attenborough prefers?

Still, it did the trick, and we slept relatively well.  The next morning, we woke up ridiculously early and took a bike taxi (SUPER FUN) to the bus stop, where we hopped on the early bus that took us straight to our next destination.

To be continued in the next post!

Coming up: The glorious Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi