It's a white Christmas over here (white sand, that is)

Written on Christmas Day, 2010:

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you’re all spending it with good company and good food. It’s a little strange to be away from home on Christmas for the first time, but I can’t complain. I’m in the beachy resort town of Vilanculos for the weekend, staying at another volunteer’s house to celebrate Christmas with several other people in our province. The house is really nice and is in this enclosed compound of expatriates who work for CARE International. Oh, and the backyard is the beach… not bad at all. (Somoh, was this what your childhood was like? Cause wow. :)

We got up at 4:30 this morning to watch the sun rise on the beach, and later today we’re doing a white elephant gift exchange and cooking seafood and veggies. This weekend has been a great mini vacation – the contrast with my last two weeks in Mabote is pretty mind blowing. Not gonna lie, it’s a lot to get used to and has been hard.

Oh, Mabote: my new home. What can I say? It’s way out there, and you understand just how out there it is when you turn off the paved road and keep going for two and a half hours down the bumpy, sand road passing nothing but little road-side stands, a few tiny villages of cane houses, and old war trenches. We usually have power for three hours a day (6:30 – 9:30pm) and also get cell service. Power didn’t arrive until 2006, and cell service in 2008. But I hear we’re getting 24 hour power this year!

There are no paved roads, no bank, no post office, and the market only has onions, tomatoes, mangoes and sometimes bananas, in the way of fruits and vegetables. So like I said, it’s a lot to get used to. But what it does have is a hospital, two schools, several soccer fields, lots of churches, a pretty lively market, livestock, farming and the biggest, brightest sky I’ve ever seen. When the power goes off at 9:30, I just stare up in wonder, trying to figure out whether I'm imagining it, or whether the moon and stars really are closer to the earth here.

My little cane and grass house (er, hut) is cuter than I dared imagine and I spent about 24 hours in utter giddy glee when I arrived. When a Mozambican Peace Corps staffer who hadn’t seen my house came to Mabote this week, he started chuckling about how “Peace Corps” it was… meaning that it’s everyone’s idea of what Peace Corps is, though in reality most people don’t have quite that level of rugged cuteness, at least here in Moz. For example my closest volunteer neighbor, 15 km away, lives in a school dorm with a refrigerator, power from a generator 6 hours a day and a real toilet (though no running water).

Like I said, for the first 24 hours I was giddy. Then the reality of it all set in. No one wants to hear me complain about what I signed up for, so let me quickly gloss over why the last two weeks were particularly hard: Charging spiders. Bedbugs. Sleeping on the floor due to said bedbugs. Lost power completely for the past week due to some bad storms. Unexpectedly wasn’t able to leave Mabote and was running low on money, food, supplies, phone credit, etc. So yeah.

You’re getting the picture of why it’s such a contrast to my current surroundings, as I sit here beach-side with Americans speaking English and making Christmas cookies and eggnog.

But I haven’t even mentioned the best part, the part that makes it all worth it: the people I’ve met. The women (and three men) at my association have been incredibly welcoming. My first day at work the president and I planted a cashew tree in the yard of the office to commemorate my arrival. They also come to my house to visit me often, take me to church with them, and gave me a bunch of cashews to take with me to Vilanculos. I went to the machamba (farm) with Mama Marta, the president, one morning and she patiently showed me how to use the enxada (hoe) and was understanding when I proceeded to accidentally kill a bean plant with it.

There have definitely been some interesting and funny (well, now they are…) moments. For example, last Sunday when I went to Mama Marta’s Pentecostal church, what I thought was appropriate clothing (the capalana dress I had made for the swear-in ceremony) turned out not to be. I walk in, and I get swarmed by Mama Marta and other women who without a word proceed to re-arrange me. By the end of it all, I’m sitting in the front row looking like a patchwork quilt of four different capalana patterns, including one on my head that doesn’t quite sit right. So I spend the next few hours tilting my head and trying not to move, lest the head scarf fall off, as I wasn’t confident in my ability to re-tie it. Keeping still turned out to be hard since I really wanted to turn around and see what was going on behind me, which included several people prophesying in Chitswa (the local language) passionately and at the top of their lungs. Todo, I’m not in New York anymore.

There’s so much more, but I have two years to attempt to understand and explain this place, right? So for now, I’m off to go collect seashells. When I’m back in my hut tomorrow I’ll feel a little less “out there” now that I know all of this is only a 4 ½ hour chapa ride away… and that I have to come here at least once a month for banking/shopping/interneting.

Drink a mimosa for me at Mimi’s, and save me a table setting ornament at Grandma’s.

Oh, and here are some photos of Mabote that I posted on facebook.

Love,
Julie

I’m off to my cute little cane hut! Eeee!

Written on November 30, 2010:

I hope you all had good Thanksgivings! We did it up big over here, even borrowing the bread shop’s massive oven to cook several turkeys. I went the easy route and spent the afternoon leisurely drinking wine and making dill & garlic mashed potatoes with a couple of friends before feasting at our volunteers’ potluck. The spread turned out surprisingly well, considering none of our houses have ovens. But being so far away on Thanksgiving made me homesick, thinking of the various traditions going on without me: lunch at Mimi’s, dinner at the Wingos, a good meal in Harrisburg, and of course my “urban family” in NYC (the mental image of Fish gently massaging herbs into the chicken two years ago comes to mind…)

It’s a big week here. Training has pretty much wrapped up and I officially swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer on Friday. The ceremony is at the American ambassador’s house in Maputo and will be nationally televised (but don’t be too impressed… it’s like public access). One of the volunteers wrote a song about Mozambique that some of us are going to sing, and we’re also doing a traditional tribal dance (I volunteered for both, obviously). We’ll all be wearing clothes we had made out of capalanas (multi-purpose Mozambican fabric), so it should be quite a spectacle to behold.

After that I’m off to a two-day conference in the beach town of Bilene, where I’ll meet at least one representative from the organization I’ll be working with for the next two years. Then I head to my permanent site in Mabote, Inhambane province! I should be arriving sometime around Dec. 10th or 11th (after probably two days of driving, er riding). I found out more this week about my placement, after talking with a Peace Corps staffer and receiving a couple of reports from current volunteers who are familiar with my site or organization.

The organization I’ve been placed with is called AMAMUD, which stands for Association of Mobote Women in Development (the acronym only works in Portuguese). They are a small, community-based women’s agricultural association that also provides home-based nutritional, drug adherence, and moral support to people living with HIV/AIDS. From what I understand, they grow and sell cashews, cashew jam and preserved mangos as income generation. (“Cashew jam” is practically my new nickname, especially among the other people who wanted my site… can’t wait to see what this delicious-sounding spread is all about!)

But what has really made me fall in love with (the idea of) my assignment, other than the cashews, of course, is the town itself and my house. My site—lovingly referred to as the “mato”, or “bush” by all—has never had a volunteer before. So, my organization built me a little cane house… yes, like a hut! (Could it be any more stereotypically Peace Corps? No, I really don’t think it could, and I love that.) But it’s still the district capital so it should have basic things I need food-wise. District capital just means it’s the center of commerce for all of the other extremely small, rural communities in Mabote district.

But there are no banks, no internet, no post office, and the power is only turned on from 6am to 9pm, though some of the barracas (like little stands/bars) have generators. I heard that they’re even planning to hook up power to my house this week, which is kind of a big deal I think. I also hear that the cell service is good (at least as good as it is anywhere in Mozambique…)

Below are a few of my favorite highlights about my site from a current volunteer who works in Vilanculos, the beach-y resort town three hours from Mabote where I will have to go for banking, mail, internet, etc. She works with the international org CARE and travels to Mabote sometimes for projects.

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“People will gawk at you like no other, but integration into your community should come easily as very few (if any) foreigners live there. This means you will be the talk of the town and will probably stop traffic for a while, but before long every single person in the town will know your name! People are incredibly friendly and the town is very safe.”

“Mabote is located 115 km inland from the coastal town of Mapinhane via a bumpy, unpaved road with only the occasional school or community in between the two towns (and no cell coverage on the road). At the halfway point, villagers often sell skewers of antelope meat grilled outside in a makeshift tree-trunk oven, and they are delicious and worth a try!”

“Construction on your house was just recently begun at the time of my visit, but is shaping up to be a cute little one room cane house with a thatched roof. It will be tiny, but very cozy and you can probably sleep a guest on the floor. You are living in the same yard/compound as a few other NGO workers, a nurse from CARE, and someone from AAA [German Agrarian Action, in Portuguese] and INGC [not sure what that one is, and guessing they are all Mozambicans since she doesn’t know of any foreigners who live in Mabote]…

Your toilet will be a latrine right outside the house and there is an attached bathing area, which the owner says he is mosaic-ing, and an outdoor kitchen area which will have a covered roof … There is no running water, but the nearest pump is very close and they are putting a large clay pot right outside your house that holds a TON of water so that you or your empregada doesn’t need to carry water constantly.” [empregada = domestic help; extremely common in Mozambique, and cheap]

She also shared some of the challenges that Mabote faces:

“Mabote is extremely poor with many of its residents (particularly out in the most rural communities) subsiding on less than one dollar a day. Many NGO and other international projects operate here, either constantly or seasonally. The HIV rate is high, compounded by the relative isolation and the transient workers (such as de-mining workers who have been working on the road for quite some time now). [She’s talking about landmines, but don’t worry, I won’t go wondering off in the bush.] They come into town on the weekends, party and get drunk and spread HIV and then leave. There is definitely a lack of access to information in this area and opportunities to raise awareness of HIV and basic health.”

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So that’s the low-down on my site, from what I know now. Because I won’t have internet in my village, and I’m only allowed to leave my site once (for the holidays) during the first three months, my communication is about to seriously drop off. The internet on my phone has also been pretty much useless lately. I think there’s something wrong with it and am going to try and get it fixed when I’m in Maputo again later this week for swear-in.

But it’s possible that, once I start heading north this weekend, I won’t be able to send or receive any emails until around Christmas when I go to another volunteer’s house in Vilanculos for a week or so. (She lives on the beach and has wireless internet at her house… and this is her backyard.)

But I have a hut! And in case you don’t believe me, but mostly just because I’m obsessed, that photo at the top is of my hut when it was still being built. :)

Ok, until Christmas!

Cow head: tastes like dog food

Written on November 9, 2010:

Tudo bom? (Everything good?) I hear it's turning all cold and crisp over in those parts. I also heard that Auburn is ranked #1, ahead of #5 Alabama?? Maybe I shouldn't believe everything I hear...

Things are really starting to heat up here (seasons are opposite). To prove it, I've got a nice, juicy sunburn in the odd places I missed when applying sunblock: back of ears, back of knees, etc. Live (in Africa) and learn!

I'm now just over halfway through training and after a careful survey of life here in Mozambique, I can report that I think I'm going to like it just fine. Let me explain... Mozambicans know how to party. Over the past few weeks I've found myself at three or four festas thrown by friends of Olivia (my first host "mom"), neighbors, or just people whose house I happened to be walking by. In the words of one gracious host: "In Africa, when we throw a party, we throw it for the whole world!"

In Portuguese, they use the expression "the whole world" to just mean "everyone," but from what I can tell, they pretty much do throw the party for the whole world. There will be a meal served, but since there probably aren't enough plates, silverware or seats for all the people who showed up, everyone just squishes together on couches, chairs, or standing room only and eats whatever way they can. Then they push back the tables, pull out the monster speakers, and sing, drink, dance, undulate, stomp, clap, and just generally get down.

Last night I was at one such party. It was a traditional, quasi-wedding for a couple who was celebrating her moving into his family's house. The couple already has two kids together, but the more important thing here is to wait until you save up enough money to throw a good party. In fact, it was only a quasi-wedding because they're waiting until next year to have their legal wedding ceremony so that they can save up and throw an even bigger party, naturally.

As I was asking Olivia about all of this, I found out that she and Salvador are actually not legally married either. (You might remember that their oldest child, Jacinto, is fourteen.) They're saving up to first build a house (they rent now), and traditionally the man also gives a cow to the woman's father. Since Olivia's father lives in Maputo and therefore has no use for a cow, Salvador will just give him some whiskey and call it done.

They're planning to have a real blow out, which is scheduled for the year after next. She told me I have to come since I'll still be here in Mozambique then. Would I miss my host "parents'" wedding? Not a chance. Especially not if there's cow head to be had, as there was at last night's quasi-wedding. Tastes just like dog food in case you were wondering.

So how's my Portuguese is coming along? I can say that I've moved past charades to being able to have real conversations! I don't speak very well yet, but I'm making it, one day at a time. I'm fascinated by the language dynamic here; Mozambique, and Namaacha in particular, is a veritable tower of Babel. I mentioned in a previous e-mail that my new host family speaks a lot of Changana, one of the local languages in Mozambique. I also mentioned that there were 27 local languages in Moz. Well, I was wrong. There are more than 100!

Not only that, but here in Namaacha we're right on the border of Swaziland and South Africa, two countries that both speak English, and also Swazi, Afrikaans, Zulu and probably a lot more. The other day I was sitting at the barraca with Olivia visiting with Salvador's aunt. I didn't realize at first that she was from South Africa, since I mistook the Swazi that she and Olivia were speaking for Changana.

When she started speaking English to me, I spoke Portuguese back to her, which is what I do when people try to speak English with me here. She gave me a confused look and asked if I spoke English, explaining that she doesn't speak Portuguese. So there we were: me, Olivia and Salvador's aunt... Olivia and I speaking Portuguese, Olivia and the aunt speaking Swazi, and the aunt and I speaking English. What a crazy, awesome place this is!

Other quick highlights:

- Two weekends ago I dressed up as my nemesis, the cockroach, for the Halloween party all of the trainees threw.

- On Sunday I hiked with some other trainees to the point on top of a mountain where Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa meet.

- On Saturday I made homemade peanut butter with a pilão (mortar and pestle in English?). It was pretty tasty.

- I also learned how to compost and grow a bio-intensive garden last week. At least I'll find out if I actually learned come planting time in a few weeks...

Hugs & kisses, and saucy Mozambican dance moves.

Correction: I stated rather prominently in my last e-mail that I can see South Africa from my house. Turns out that’s not true. I blame the language barrier.

I can see South Africa from my house!

Written on October 23, 2010:

Bom dia (good day) from Namaacha! I hope all's well on your side of the world. I'm stealing time between my regularly scheduled training activities to write this e-mail because I have a few new tales to tell.

So the news from here is that I am now living with a new host family. Long story, but basically my old host family had to move houses due to renovations and Peace Corps didn't like the arrangements in the new house. (They're essentially squatting, but it's really not like it sounds). Anyway, it was really sad since my first host family and I got along so well and had become close in that short amount of time... it's amazing how quickly that can happen when you arrive like a new-born baby in a very foreign country. :) Carmen, my 10-year-old host sister, cried the whole first night I was gone, according to her mom, but I've been going to see them almost every day. In a way it makes me feel extra-supported to now have two host families.

My new home is pretty different. It's on a traditional compound with several little houses/huts surrounded by a cane fence. The little house with my room has power and is made out of concrete with a tin roof. I usually wake up in the morning to the sound of doves cooing above my head as they scurry around on the roof... that is if the roosters don't wake me up first. Roosters, by the way, are the worst alarm clock ever... no snooze button.

There's an outdoor latrine where the giant cockroaches keep me company as I try to keep my balance while squatting on top of the concrete "chimney", which is exactly what it sounds like. Imagine going to the bathroom on top of a chimney of a house, but instead of the house it goes down into a pit in the ground (which I can see into, but I try not to). And you can imagine what it smells like. There is also a separate bathhouse and kitchen. The latrine and bathhouse are made of cane, and the kitchen and a few of the other structures where other family members sleep are made out of sticks, rocks and mud.

Even though it sounds rustic, it's all very neat and orderly and is definitely an interesting experience. I've also got a pretty amazing view from my bedroom window and backyard: rolling hills and mountains, and because we're sort of elevated I can see all the way to South Africa. Plus, the adorable baby chicks running around the yard almost make up for the freakishly large cockroaches. Almost.

My new host family is big: two parents, 9 (adult) kids and 27 grandkids, but they don't all live here. I'd say about 12 or 15 family members live on the compound. My host mom, Julietta, and host dad, Manuel, are friendly and warm. They've been living on this land since 1979 shortly after independence from Portugal, and also have a machamba (small family farm) nearby.

Manuel is the minister of the Assembly of God church across the trail from us. I haven't been yet, but there's always beautiful music coming from that direction and I think it will be a rich cultural experience to go on Sunday. I've heard that the service is mostly in Changana, the local language. Julietta and Manuel are more comfortable speaking Changana than they are Portuguese, so I usually have to initiate conversation. But there are several of their daughters/daughters-in-law/nieces who are always around and thankfully speak Portuguese very well. (Note: There are 27-ish local languages in Moz!)

I can also report that I survived my first bought of illness and am back to normal and feeling good as of today. I had food poisoning on Tuesday night, my second full day with my new family... nothing like vomiting out the window to make myself right at home! :)

Other obervations: Mozambique is full of surprises. For example, as I was taking my bucket bath in the outdoor bathhouse tonight by candlelight, I had to chuckle to myself as I heard the neighbor playing Justin Bieber's "Baby, baby, baby..." song for probably the 5th time today. Seriously, Justin Bieber (American pop-tart music, if you don't know) has taken Mozambique by storm. He is HUGE here. After I got my new cell phone, my host brother, Jacinto, downloaded some music onto my phone from his and, of course, Justin Bieber was the first song he gave me.

All of this was via bluetooth while standing at the neighborhood barraca (like a little store/hut that sells a few food & household items). I thought the cell phone/blue tooth/Justin Bieber combo was an interesting contrast with our surroundings, a neighborhood barraca that may or may not be carrying toilet paper depending on the day. So, what I guess I'm saying is that in Mozambique, Justin Bieber is more readily available than toilet paper (at least in Namaacha... in other parts of the country they might both be in short supply).

They also watch a lot of really raunchy Brazilian soap operas and game shows. There's one where the whole object of the game is for people to make out with each other. And then there's this Mozambican reality show that's like Dancing with the Stars ("Danca dos Artistas") but with more booty-shaking and grinding in little spandex outfits.

Yet, as a woman here I have to wear my skirts at least below the knee. I guess it's all good on the TV, but not in real life? The modesty does not extend to boobs, however. The mammas here will whip them out anytime, anyplace to breastfeed their babies.

That's all for now (and that was a lot). Ate logo! (until later)

So, what's it like?

Written on October 9, 2010:

I've been in the town of Namaacha living with my host family and training for a week now, but it feels like it's been a month... I've experienced so much just in one week! My life here is so different from my old life. It's a lot to get used to, but I'm actually surprised at how quickly I've adjusted. Now that I've settled in, I'm really enjoying it here, especially living with my host family. They have really welcomed me into their home and family and seem to have unending patience with my inability to communicate very well in Portuguese so far.

So, what's it like? I'm like a 5-year-old learning how to communicate and take care of myself in a completely new environment. Although I've learned a lot more Portuguese in the last week than I would have thought possible, I still have a loong way to go. But being communicationally impaired can be funny at times. I've been having a lot of what I refer to as "Helen Keller moments" this week: when I finally understand something through a combination of simple sentences, looking things up in the dictionary, and -- my favorite -- charades. We laugh a lot at our house (mostly at me, but that's okay).

My host family consists of two parents: Olivia and Salvador, who are mid-30s and really good, fun people, and three hilarious, adorable, sweet, awesome kids: Larson (3), Carmen (10) and Jacinto (14). Salvador works at the local casino, I think dealing cards, and also goes and does odd-jobs at the border with Swaziland which is really close. Olivia runs the house and also does tailoring and sells clothes that she sews from home.

Tonight we all had a good laugh when they strapped Olivia's friend's baby to my side with a capalana, a colorful piece of cloth they use for everything, including carrying babies. I then took a little tour of the neighborhood to show off my new baby-carrying skills and amused several neighbors. I love the closeness of the community here. There are always tons of friends, neighbors and kids running around, and we spend a lot of time at home just hanging out (cooking, eating, doing chores, watching tv, waiting for water to boil, whatever).

Namaacha is also a very walking-heavy town, with a lot of unpaved roads and few cars, and sometimes Carmen and I walk around and run errands or visit other people's houses. On Sunday, she and a friend of hers whose family is also hosting a Peace Corps trainee paraded us around the neighborhood with flowers in our hair and bouquets that they picked. It was like they were showing off their new pet Americans... it was pretty cute.

The house has power (though it's been going in and out last night and today) but doesn't have running water. That means every other morning when I get up at 6, I help carry water in these big, heavy jugs from the spicket nearby. There are 2 bedrooms including mine, plus a living room and sewing room that doubles as another bedroom. The kitchen has a charcoal stove and an electric stovetop with two burners, plus a freezer that is only turned on sometimes because it shares a power source* with the electric stove (*power source = dangling wires that wrap around the electric prongs, but don't worry it's fine!). The bathroom has a toilet of sorts that you "flush" by skillfully pouring a bucket of water into it. It also has a sink and a drain where you stand to take a bucket bath. I actually don't mind the bucket bath thing. It's warm water since they mix in boiling water.

I feel like I'm learning the meanings of some common sayings this week. For instance: "running around like a chicken with its head cut off". It's actually true... I witnessed it when my family slaughtered two ducks, which we then had for dinner last night. They were flailing for at least 5 minutes after their heads were cut off. I was traumatized :). And: "your room looks like a pig sty". Pig sties are actually really disgusting and smell unbelievably bad, I learned that first-hand today when I visited a friend's host family who has a pig out back. And "gathering around the watering hole"... in the morning at 6am when people line up to get water, it's the happening place to be.

Namaacha is really gorgeous, with mountains in the distance, huge, bent over trees with knarled roots, and branches that make a flat ceiling over some of the roads. The colors here are so vivid: rich, red dirt (I feel right at home!) and these trees with almost unnaturally bright purple blossoms. When the blossoms fall off and land on the red mud, the contrast almost hurts my eyes when I look down (I'm not exagerating).

There are animals and machambas (small family farms) everywhere you look. Today on the way to one of the training sessions, we walked past a momma goat and her two wittle bittie babies that were about the size of miniature pinchers. They were the cutest things ever... I lost all control and started making high, squeeky noises that (hopefully) only dogs could hear.

The food so far has been good, though they have this thing here about eating (and bathing). They do both, A LOT. We eat five times a day and most people bathe 2-3, though I'm getting away with 1 bath a day somehow. All the volunteers are trying to come up with creative ways of getting out of eating all the food that's being forced upon us. It's good, just a lot!

One girl in my language group actually had to go throw up one morning just to get rid of some of the food she felt pressured into eating that morning. I think I've got things under control now after several explanations of how good the food is, but I just can't eat anymore, thanks. ("I have a small stomach, it runs in my family... etc."

Based on conversations with some of the visiting current PC volunteers, they say it goes back to the fact that people here are used to having to worry about having enough food, so having a full belly is the best thing there is. And being fat is good because it's a sign of prosperity. Plus, I'm the guest of honor so I'm supposed to eat most of all. Two of my favorite dishes so far are things that remind me of home: Xima (pronounced "shee-ma"), which is like Mozambican grits, and Fejiado, which is like Mozambican beans and rice.

The town, I've been told, is unlike any other rural community in Mozambique. I think that's because it's a border town near both Swaziland and South Africa, and it's not that far from Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique. So it's significantly better off than most rural places, but still seems pretty poor to me.

The first, most visible issue I see is a lack of infrastructure. Even families like mine that are comfortable by Namaacha standards (have enough food, kids go to school, both parents finished high school and seem to have enough income to get what they need, etc.), don't have running water. And trash is everywhere. What I referred to as the smell of barbeque in a previous email from Maputo actually turned out to be burning trash. Everyone burns their trash here because there's no organized waste disposal. And there's so much litter, especially along the roads.

That's all for now... hopefully I can share some photos soon. I haven't taken any yet because I feel so conspicuous carrying around a camera taking photos. (But we all attract so much attention when walking around anyway, what's adding a camera really going to do?). Ate logo... (until soon)

Hi, welcome to my blog!

Hi everyone!

After more than two months in Mozambique, I'm finally getting the chance to start the blog that I promised was coming. I'm about to leave training for my permanent site in Mabote, Inhambane province, where the closest internet access is three hours away. So, I thought what I'd do is post some letters (er, e-mails) I've written to people over the past two months that will give you a taste of my experiences so far. I'm hoping to continue updating this blog whenever I can (my next internet access will probably be around Christmas time). You can also find photos from training on my facebook page, here (you can still see them even if you're not on facebook).

I hope you enjoy!

Julie