I am a United States Peace Corps volunteer serving in Mozambique, Africa.
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| Mozambique, Africa |
I live in Tete Province, which makes up most of the western prong of Mozambique's awkward "y"-shape. Tete, being by far the hottest province, is the butt of many jokes. However, it's also a very beautiful place, mountainous and picturesque, and home to one of Africa's most up-and-coming cities.
Tete City, situated on the mighty Zambezi river, has everything a Peace Corps volunteer could want, from grocery stores to air-conditioned pizza places to bumper cars and a bumping nightlife. What's more, the city is growing with incredible speed, with new stores and restaurants opening every month.Outside the city, Tete is a magnificent landscape of baobob trees, mountain ranges, and rivers. The dam at Cahora Bassa provides the hydroelectric power that supplies a vast portion of south-eastern Africa's energy.
I live in a village called Mavudzi-Ponte, nestled next to the Mavudzi river in the foothills of the mountains of the southernmost reaches of the East African Rift. It's about an hour's drive from Tete city, and you know you've reached Mavudzi-Ponte when you come up over a hill crest and and think "Wow, now that's a beautiful little village."
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I live in a professor's complex on school grounds of the Escola Secundaria de Mavudzi-Ponte, in what I assume is called a triplex, a house wedged in between other teachers' houses. I live with another volunteer, Laura, and we both teach English. I have a cat that Laura secretly likes but won't admit, and we employ a sixteen year old student, Izaquel, who has turned into our close friend. Our other friends are mostly teachers, students, and nearby village people.We are lucky to have electricity (few in our village do!) but we have no running water, and Izaquel hauls our water from a pump about a football field's length away. We take bucket baths every day, and for our necessidades there is a concrete latrine not far from the house. On laundry days, we get out the big buckets and wash our clothes by hand. It's a very simple way to live, but it's tranquil.
I teach 8th, 9th and 10th grade English at the school. In the afternoons, I teach two classes of 10th grade, which are by far my favorite students -- they have been with me from the beginning. At night, I teach adult 8th, 9th, and 10th grade. Adult students can be far more difficult to motivate, but I enjoy the challenge.
Outside of teaching, I help run a girls' empowerment group (REDES), an English Theater Club, and a community library project. I work with other PCVs and development professionals to make these programs a success. My favorite activity has been working with the Red Zebra project to bringing books in local dialect to the people of Mavudzi-Ponte.
In my free time, I busy myself with reading extensively, drinking cold coca-colas by the river on a hot day, and staring up at the incredibly luminescent milky way on clear nights.
Welcome to my little corner of Africa. Every day is a challenge, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!
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| Escola Secundaria de Mavudzi Ponte |
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Mozambique? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Mozambique in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez