Fan-trekking-tastic Lesotho

We're back from our trip to Lesotho, and not knowing much about the trek beforehand, it was all that I'd hoped and more.  Erica and I met our sitemate Gracey and two other volunteers in Maputo, where we got a bus to Johannesburg, where we rented a car to drive to Lesotho.  We spent a night in Malealea Lodge and set out from there on a three-day pony trek through the mountains of Lesotho.  This took us through some hair-raising passes, but our patient guides and surefooted horses never let us [fall] down.  That being said, it's a good thing we only trekked for three days; by day three, my fear buffer was running low and I don't think my poor little coração could have handled too many more spikes in my blood pressure.  We spent two nights sleeping in a thatched brick hut in a small, local village and hiked one afternoon to a stunning waterfall, where I swam with frog (singular) in the chilly water.  Heading back to the lodge on the last day, we got stuck in the rain, and due to the loss of my rain jacket in my May robbery, I got more cold and wet than would be medically advisable, but my Viking stock did me well and, Look Mom, no hypothermia!  We took our time driving through delightfully developed South Africa on the way home and stopped in Clarens, a quaint touristy town, where we appreciated art and window-shopped.  Erica and I are now back home and getting ready for upcoming sub-Saharan travels with her sister and dad and my sister and mom, so from here on up, it's all downhill. 

No Proselytizing in Pão, Please

Classes are done! Maybe that does not accurately convey my immense excitement and enthusiasm—classes are OVER! Fim! Finito! Done-zo! And that makes me so-oo happy. After classes ended, we had a week to prepare students’ grades, copy them onto the various official documents, and decide who would and would not pass. Within the last two trimesters, the national stipulations for passing students changed not just once, but two times, so within one school year, we have had three different systems for passing students into the next grade. Need I say that this week of grades was more than a little confusing and messy? Well, it was. Because students fail many disciplines, but instead of making their classes easier to pass, most teachers assign grades, balk at the number of failing students, and tweak grades after writing them in ink in all of the grade sheets. This is tedious, stressful, and fraudulent work, and when the national passing criteria changed for the second time after the week of doing grades, most teachers did more artful erasing and re-inking in the official documents to help students pass. But what is to be done? The education system here is broken, in my honest opinion, with regulations that change on a whim and don’t really match up. For example, with the newest stipulations, students don’t pass into the next grade if they fail design, agriculture, and physical education. Yet officially, they can pass with failing grades in math, the sciences, and the humanities. So without talking to other teachers, I would have had only four students in my class of 40 pass into ninth grade. In the end, 15 students passed—a whopping 37.5% of my class. And as a result, because my school is fairly new and repeatedly fails its eighth graders, it has almost 1000 eighth graders, while only 500 students have trickled into ninth grade, and 300 have squeaked by into tenth grade. It almost makes me want to be a teacher in the United States for a year or two, just to be able to compare the education systems. Almost... but after this, I think I will be a little burned out on teaching for a while.

The work in school is not yet done, however. Currently, the tenth graders are taking national exams. These exams are taken very seriously, with all students in Mozambique taking the same tests on the same day at the same time. The tests arrive in sealed packets, which are opened in every classroom at the exact moment when the bell rings. Yet these elaborate anti-cheating measures are nullified when teachers responsible for controlling the exams and responding to questions simply give out answers. All I can say is, ridiculous. Again, this system is broken, and I don’t see anything changing anytime soon without major, major reform. I’m trying not to lay it on too thick, but this is the reality.

On a lighter note, Erica and I are fleeing Mozambique and these wretched exams to go to Lesotho tomorrow for a three-day pony trek. It could not be better timing for us, as we are both sick to death of school. There will be a second round of national exams in a few weeks, but this trip will give our bodies a break from the heat and give us the boost we need to keep going and not be viciously bitter towards our poor colleagues in the weeks to come. Once December hits, we’re in the clear; we’ll have family coming and will do some traveling around Mozambique and South Africa, hitting the beaches and visiting Kruger National Park to see lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (Although I’m not so sure South Africa has bears, but you get the picture.)

Meanwhile, in Chibuto and outside of school, things are good. We’re having a small fence built for the dogs so they won’t chase and eat our neighbors’ chickens while unsupervised during our vacation. We just gave our house an interior makeover, throwing out tons of junk left by previous PCVs and even fashioning a couch out of my old mattress. With the temperature rising daily, there is the purchase of a fan in my near future. It’s been a long but good year, and we’re trying to exercise some control over a few small things in our life to close this year on a positive note and carry us into the next year. With that, I leave you with these pictures: me and Erica on my birthday (note the lovely mural left by a previous PCV) and a sandwich menu that features the most delightfully terrible English translation I’ve encountered in Mozambique. When things get rough, we toast simple.

Winter that Refuses to Fall Gently into Summer

August and September have been topsy-turvy months. August brought the start of the final trimester and a string of canine-related incidents, while September brought the regional Science Fair and the dreaded arrival of summer heat. I’m holding out for October, which brings the end of classes, Halloween, and most importantly, my birthday. But first, here’s a rundown of August and this half of September.

One Saturday afternoon, Erica and I were walking to a nearby shop and suddenly heard a dog yelping as we passed an empty lot. We looked over and saw a group of young boys beating a stray puppy that was hanging upside down from a tree, tied from its back two legs. We immediately began furiously scolding the children, and set out to find a knife to cut down the unfortunate creature. Within a minute of reaching the safe ground, it died. Erica wisely tried using the incident as a teaching moment to tell these boys that even if the puppy was causing problems and stealing food, there are better ways to cull animals. The boys laughed amongst themselves as we walked away. When peoples’ lives are so difficult here, why worry about a dog?

That same day, our own puppy Shingove became listless and lost interest in food. He soon stopped eating altogether and was quickly reduced to a shaking frame of skin and bones. Erica’s family called several times with different tips and information, so with this guidance, we nursed our sick li’l pup back to health, giving him human medicine and food with a dropper and keeping him hydrated. Come Sunday, he was back to our romping, mischievous Shingove that attacks us as we do exercises; Monday morning, a neighbor girl came to our kitchen window to say that a car had hit our dog. Not just hit, completely ran over our dog with a velocity that should be illegal in a small neighborhood. The bizarre mix of foreshadowing and irony was almost too much, and it was certainly too much for a Monday morning.

On top of the dog drama, someone stole our shampoo, face wash, sponge, and razors out of our bathroom. And one slightly-off man started coming to the school to jabber English gibberish at me, while another slightly-off man started coming to the house to jabber Portuguese gibberish at us. Evidently, we are magnets not only for canine disaster, but also for theft and unstable individuals. Cool.

Yet just as I was beginning to slide into a jaded, pessimistic funk, a friend gave us a replacement puppy, and although it didn’t leave much time for the death of Shingove to stop smarting, our new puppy, Havu (Shangana for “monkey”), is adorable and oh-so-affectionate. One would think I’d learn to stop being so attached to cute puppies, but what’s the use? Why fight it?

Science Fair should have happened during the last weekend of August, but due to a few days of unrest for rising fuel and food prices in Maputo and other larger cities, we were forced to push it back a week. (Thankfully, there were no notable demonstrations in Chibuto, so aside from a brief travel ban and fluctuation in bread prices, we were unaffected.) In the date change, we lost the opportunity to have a sound system and one of our guest speakers, but everything else went pretty smoothly. Projects ranged from making electronic doorbells and motorized cars to making coconut oil to making juice… from a package. While that last one was a bit of a stretch, we were happy to have so many participants—50 or so students from around 15 schools in Maputo and Gaza Provinces. This is nothing by American standards, but in Mozambique, nothing is as easy as it seems it should be, and nearly everything that could go wrong often does, so it was a small miracle we pulled it off. Although we were absolutely exhausted afterwards, it was worth it.

As September slides downhill into October, I’m trying to get a few students mobilized to do some health presentations at school, and Erica has projects of her own at her school. We’re planning our final lessons; I’m in the midst of the reproductive system, and it is just amazing to me how students never tire of saying “vagina,” which by the way is Portuguese for (you guessed it) “vagina.” Even after classes end, we’ll have several weeks of grading national exams and the odious task of writing thousands of grades by hand that will extend into December. But since we have family coming in December and a possible venture into Lesotho in November, and since we are volunteers after all, Erica and I will be able to get out of some of it. Because volunteers without volition make for unhappy PCVs.

I hope those of you back home are enjoying the fall colors and brisk air for me. Once it gets hotter here and cooler there, I’ll see what I can do about sending some of our heat your way. There’s more than enough around here.

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.

Uff daa.

So, up until a day ago, things were going pretty darn well in Chimundo.  I finished my first trimester of teaching, managed to write up 600 grades by hand, and participated in our week of conselhos, where we teachers wrote down our thousands of grades by hand in several more source documents.  It was about as fun as it sounds, but surprisingly wasn´t too awful.  Because of  conselhos, we teachers didn´t get a break, so last week, I jumped right into the second trimester, with a slightly better grasp of Portuguese and slightly better grasp of classroom management.  Slightly.

I´ve been living with my sitemate for the last month and a half, and since it´s been so pleasant to have company, electricity, someone to cook with, and someone to even do Pilates with, we agreed to continue living together permanently at her house.  We even bought a chicken together to have eggs.  But the morning after we decided this, I went back to my old house to begin organizing my belongings and found my front door ajar.  And my bedroom door ajar.  And most of my things gone.  Someone had entered my house that night, using a screwdriver to pry open the doors, and stole my suitcases, violin, and even a drawer from my bed.  Thankfully, my computer and good camera were already at my sitemate´s, and the thieves passed on most of my clothing, but when they lifted my suitcases, they got US dollars and my Peace Corps passport.  I´m sure those are long gone, but I wonder how much good they will get out of my two-year supply of contact lenses, my two-year supply of ivory-colored makeup, and my violin.  My guess is, not as much good as I´d get out of them.  Not nearly.

Oh, and our chicken ran away, adding insult to injury.

I´m sure the thieves broke in because they knew that even though I returned to the house every day before and after school, I wasn´t sleeping there.  I kick myself for not moving my things sooner, but hindsight is 20/20 (unfortunately, unlike my vision, when my one remaining pair of contact lenses dies on me).  People at the school were great, arranging a car for me to move my things to my sitemate´s house that day so the thieves wouldn´t return and lift anything else.  Other teachers have been very sympathetic and supportive, as have neighbors.  Replacing my Peace Corps passport shouldn´t be too difficult, and will get me a trip to Maputo, where I can also replace my internet phone (which unfortunately fell into the Indian ocean a month ago--I estimate it´s halfway to Madagascar by now) and try to replace some of my products.  And I´m going to start thinking about an insurance claim and replacing my stash of contact lenses.  I think disc 1 of Pride and Prejudice is a lost cause (sorry, Mom), but ah well.

Anyway, aside from the robbery, things are just fine.  Bea is doing well and sends greetings.  Hope you are well, too.

Then There Was One

I knew my roommate Arlete was in the process of getting a house, so last Monday night, when she carried her last load of belongings to her new digs and said she was going to start sleeping there, I was surprised that she wasn’t going to stay for the dinner I’d prepared, but not too surprised.  However, when my roommate Amelia told me the next night, “I forgot to tell you—I talked to some people and I’m getting a room of my own, so Friday night will be my last night in this house,” I was fairly surprised.  That’s how within one week, I went to having two Mozambican roommates to none.  Poof!  They both moved to houses that have electricity, so I can’t say that I blame them.

Since my roommates left with their pots, pans, and stove, Bea and I are currently lodging with my PCV sitemate.  Bea likes playing with her cat, and I like this too, since his playful-yet-at-times-painful ankle attacks have decreased. It’s been a nice week to enjoy using my computer, having a well-charged phone, and having the company of an American friend.  It might be hard to adjust to living alone again, but I’m excited to set up my house just how I want it. There’s a chance another Mozambican teacher will move in, but I think the convenience of being close to the school isn’t enough of a pro to outweigh the con of no electricity, so the chance is slim.  Bea and I are going to do some major household item acquisition and try our hands at interior decorating; we’ll let you know how it goes.

Boa tarde, Senhora Professora!

As I write this blog post, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been teaching for a month already. Whereas I have given and corrected my first biology test, I’m still working on the names of my students. That could have something to do with the fact that teaching 11 classes of eighth graders with 55 students each, I have about 600 students. But I have learned my favorite students’ names, which is a start. (It doesn’t help that I’m not terribly familiar with Portuguese names like Boaventura, Moisés, and Calado). The students only have biology twice a week, so I end up teaching the same two lessons 11 times each during the week. It’s nice that I don’t have to do much lesson-planning, but I start to feel a little crazy after teaching the osseo-muscular system for the eleventh time. And repeating myself over and over, I’ll be darned if I remember any biology vocabulary in English by the end of these two years.

Yet all in all, things are beginning to gel. I’m getting to know my colleagues a little better and getting to know the ropes. The living situation is challenging at times, being the odd person out in terms of culture and language (the roomies typically speak in Shangana to each other), but improving. I have begun doing my share of the cooking, and although black pepper is too spicy and vegetable skins are widely distrusted, French toast was a hit (syrup, however, is too sweet). You win some, you lose some.

My cat Bea is in good health and keeping me sane; I identify with him a lot, as we both share language and cultural barriers with our housemates. And although he has the habit of lying in the grass and ambushing my ankles while I’m walking back from the latrine or carting water (on my head, I might add), he’s a good cat.

My PCV sitemate is also a great help in maintaining my sanity. We are thinking of going to the beach this weekend for the first time since Christmas, and I think it will be a well-deserved break from school, Portuguese, awkward living situations, and… oh, so many more things that I don’t have the time or space to write about in this blog—things like marriage proposals, the surprising difficulty of procuring bread, days with precious little water—things to ask me about in two years. Or when you come visit me in Mozambique.

Então, ate já—passa bem, nada mão, e beijinhos!

Three's Company

Last Monday, I woke up early and was putzing around when I heard a knock at the door. It was a woman who introduced herself as a teacher at the school, Professora Arlete. I’ve met several neighbors and teachers who have dropped by to introduce themselves, chat, or practice English, so this was by no means an uncommon occurrence, even at 7 in the morning. As the small talk began to wrap up, Arlete said she was going to get her malas at the neighbor’s house. The word mala sounded awfully familiar, a Portuguese word I had once known but clearly forgotten, so I just smiled and thanked her for visiting. This was met by a confused look.

“No, no—the neighbor just lives over there, and I’m going to get my malas right now,” she said. It was my turn for the confused look. “I’m going to get my malas and come back to the house. I’m going to live with Professora Amelia.” And therefore, most importantly, me. At this point, I remembered what malas were: suitcases.

I tried my best to channel my shock into an overly enthusiastic offer to help with her malas, and tried to hide my expression of complete astonishment. I must have succeeded, because the friendly chatting resumed immediately. And that is how I met Arlete, Mozambican roommate #2.

Arlete is kind and warm, and lived in my house with Amelia last year. At first, I had reservations about being the odd person out and having to readjust to their existing routine, but I think it will work out well, and might actually be easier for everyone. Maybe not as easy as me moving in with my fellow PCV in Chimundo, but where’s the adventure in that?