No Message-in-a-Bottle Necessary

Thank you for all of the letters and packages! Erica and I have decided to share a post office box with other volunteers in Xai-xai, so if you want to send me letters to this address, I might get them a little more quickly:

Alycia Overbo

C/o Corpo da Paz

C.P. 85

Xai-xai, Moçambique

Please continue sending packages to the Maputo address (Avenida do Zimbabwe, No. 345). I have greater faith that packages will arrive there unopened, and also, the Peace Corps pays the fees to receive them, which works out well for me. Erica and I are well-stocked with coffee and granola bars and are happy as clams at high tide. If you’re looking for new care package ideas, different teas are nice, and reading materials like books and magazines are always appreciated, as are movies and music. And I think I previously forgot to mention my deep love for peanut butter M&M’s. But really, anything from home is a treat. Anything that crosses the United States, the Atlantic Ocean, and most of Africa that has my name on it makes me feel pretty special.

Sun and Honey Time

Looking back at the second trimester and trying to enjoy the last free moments of my break before the inevitable lesson planning, this seems like a good time to type up a new blog post and consequently aid my procrastination.

Good news—though there is still no trace of anything lost in my robbery, a violin has come back into my life!  By crazy coincidence, a nearby volunteer had brought a violin in intending to learn how to play it, but since she’s been busy lately, she kindly lent it to me.  With so many aspects of my life being different here in Mozambique, I can’t even describe how nice it is to practice and feel a continuity with something that’s been a major presence throughout most of my life.  All I can say is, it’s nice.

Our modest science fair was a success.  We had our doubts when we arrived and didn’t see another soul for another hour, but that’s just the way things go in Mozambique; eventually, the participants and other facilitators showed up, and everything ran according to schedule (adding an hour, of course).  Only one student actually conducted an experiment—the others did demonstrations that involved fire, chemicals, and melting plastic bottles—but we were just glad they participated and didn’t start the school on fire.  We’re working on organizing the regional fair, and thankfully have the help of an acquaintance working in the Ministry of Science and Technology.  He is very enthusiastic about the project and has been an invaluable help.  It works out well, because although science fair began as a Peace Corps initiative a few years ago, now that we have involvement of an individual in the government, hopefully in the future we can pass it off and it will remain a sustainable, autonomous program.

My trimester wrapped up a little early because I spent a week in Maputo at a Peace Corps conference to help plan learning objectives and sessions for next year’s trainees.  Afterwards, I was back in Chibuto for a few days to prepare my turma’s grades for conselhos, but [oh, darn!] had to miss the actual conselhos for another Peace Corps conference in Inhambane Province.  Erica and I were pretty thrilled about that timing.  We spent three days in sessions discussing project planning with local counterparts, which hopefully will have productive results; my counterpart and I discussed a model agriculture training for teenage orphans in the community and we may actually implement it.  We’ll see…!

When the conference ended last Sunday, Erica and I were ideally located in beautiful, coastal Inhambane for our week-long break from school, so we trekked over to nearby Barra with a few other friends.  We had intended to stay for a night or two and then move on to Tofo and then meander home, but after landing on the beach and later meeting up with a group of fun, hospitable South Africans, we ended up staying for five nights.  We had a great vacation—swimming, buying colorful capulana clothing on the beach (capulanas are the colorful, multi-purpose lengths of cloth that women use as skirts or to tie babies to their backs, etc.), body-surfing (which I am terrible at), and good eating, thanks to the generosity and cooking prowess of our new acquaintances.  But every vacation has to end sometime, so we finally came home on Friday to be reunited with our pets and start preparing for classes this week.  With memories of sea and sand behind and prospects of lesson planning and grades ahead, it’s tough to get back into the swing of things, but if nothing else, it’s nice to come back to a house of happy animals who are glad you’re home.

[visual aids]

Our casa; Erica blowing bubbles with the neighborhood chilluns; the oh-so-photogenic Shingove; sleeping, snuggling Bea (L) and Rocksteady (R); me with more of the cute neighborhood terrors; our scenic backyard sunsets.
So just how accurate was your imagination?  There will be more pictures to come someday, so work on your mental image of my school for the next test.

The Amber of June

Now that electricity is a fairly constant aspect of my daily life, I occasionally find myself looking at photos on my computer of my past life, and although I am happy, healthy, and doing well here, I sometimes am grasped by the sudden feeling of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?  I have now completed 9 months in Mozambique, which is encouraging and feels good, but it is inevitably followed by the requisite recognition and mathematics of the 18 remaining months, which seems daunting and impossibly long.  But when I feel trapped in the amber of this moment and there is no why (Vonnegut—I cannot take credit for that pretty turn-of-phrase), I think about the few things in my life right now with forward momentum.  In case you were wondering where the momentum of life is blowing me at present, here are some of the details.

My sitemate and I are putting together a Science Fair at her school, which is rapidly approaching.  Her school has had volunteers and Science Fairs in the past, so this year, I just invited students from my school to participate in a joint fair at her school.  I’d had my doubts about the project, but seeing my handful of favorite students get excited about their lung models and physics demonstrations is a winning experience.  There won’t be any earth-shaking scientific discoveries coming from my 8^th graders this year at the fair, but what’s wrong with reinventing the wheel?  The wheel is still lookin’ good.

In other news, as of last weekend, the Chimundo PCV household has increased by one, consisting now of two American women, two Mozambican kitties, one chicken, and (new addition) one adorable puppy.  Puppy’s name is Shingove, Shangana for “cat.”  We think it’s an ironic little joke, but for people around here, it’s just more evidence that we’re not quite right, that we're weird Americans who talk to animals and what’s more, feed and bathe them.  Shingove is a tubby little squirt, waddling around and trying to initiate play with Bea and suspicious Rocksteady (Erica’s kitty, who is not terribly receptive to these antics as of yet).  We heart Shingove.  The cats are reserving judgment.

Speaking of our domesticated animals, Clucka has finally settled in, roosted, and started producing eggs.  After wandering through the house and trying out the spare bed, our beds, and our clothing-filled shelves, she decided to roost inside of the bag of charcoal on the porch.  Maybe this would be a good time for me to explain that Erica and I do not have a TV; most of our entertainment comes from our pets.  But I have to say, it’s pretty funny to be on the receiving end of a death stare from a maternal chicken guarding eggs in a sack of coal.  (Come to Mozambique if you want to give it a try!)

School is going just fine; at my school, we’re already getting ready for our final exams (“final” meaning 4 weeks before the actual end of the trimester to give teachers time to grade and students a few weeks to slack off).  In July, I should have a week off, which should be a welcome opportunity for a bit of travel and a change of scenery.  In the meantime, I’m keeping myself occupied by going to my homeroom’s soccer games.  While they can be little stinkers who skip out on biology on Tuesdays when it’s their last class of the day, I have to admit, they are soccer superstars.  Maybe because they are, on average, one to two years older and 6 to 8 inches taller than the other players, but they do me proud regardless.

Oh, and no news on the robbery.  I have no hopes or expectations of recovering any of my lost items at this point.  But I do have my new passport, which is complete with a badass-looking stamp saying “THIS PASSPORT IS A REPLACEMENT FOR A STOLEN PASSPORT.”  Don’t you know it.

Erica's family was here for a week in May, which was a lot of fun.  It was nice to see Chibuto through fresh eyes and be reminded that while America may feel like another world away, family and friends are only a few plane rides away, continuing their lives until we next meet again.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something [Acid-Washed] Blue

After months without pizza, shopping, movie theaters, and coffee shops, Maputo seems like heaven on earth.  I've been in Maputo since Sunday to apply for a new passport and was slated to back to Chimundo today, but since the consulate was too busy yesterday to sign my application, I'll have to go home tomorrow [oh, darn] .  Looks like another evening of hanging out with fellow the PCVs who happen to be in Maputo and eating at fun restaurants--we all have to make sacrifices sometimes, don't we?

Aside from the fact that I bought acid-washed jeans today (something I never thought I would or could do, particularly in Mozambique), that's really all the news there is to report from the last week; I mostly wanted to put up a new post because:  A. I can, with the free and reliable internet at the Maputo Peace Corps office, and B. I never got a chance to upload my April post, which threw off my nice average of one post per month.  I haven't heard any news yet about recovering my stolen belongings, but two things have come back into my life:  our chicken ("Clucka") and a replacement internet phone.  Things are on the up-and-up.