When you are a Peace Corps Volunteer, or any ex-pat living and working in the “developing world,” you take a number of risks. Its a risk when you decide to not brush your teeth with filtered water. Its a risk when you sometimes purposefully miss your malaria prophylaxis. Its a risk when you swim in that fresh water river with your friends when you know it may be ridden with schisto. Its a risk when you eat that salad despite the fact you know that the kitchen probably did not clean the vegetables. Its a risk when you neglect to wear sunscreen on a day you are out doing home visits.
When I was studying at BU, one of my professors, Bill Bicknell, began to talk to us about these risks. I remember him saying that despite all the infections, diseases, ailments, and discomforts we may, and probably will have, our greatest risk was getting into cars.
When I got to Mozambique, that point seemed totally true. Its not just that the roads are bad, but its that the roads are bad, the cars are falling apart, and the drivers are rarely licensed. I have gotten in cars where no one sits in the front seat because the radiator gets so hot you cannot sit down. I have gotten in cars where the doors fall off. I get in cars that are over packed and are left with a blind spot bigger than the road itself. I fly down roads with huge potholes and often get out with bumps on my head because there are no seat belts to hold me in place as I am jostled as much as the goat sitting next to me.
Its a risk I take. Its a risk we all take. And until last week that was all it was. A risk. But it was not real.
Until last week.
When I heard about the accident it was so surreal. I had just boleaed, hitch hiked, from another beach a few days prior exactly like this group of volunteers did. We all do. Many of us prefer open back trucks; they are airy, spacious, and give you a chance for a ride without having to explain who you are for the thousandth time that week. The fact that we all take those rides makes the accident so surreal. So surreal but also so sobering.
The details of the accident are still a bit unclear, but the five volunteers involved apparently realized partway through their ride that this risk was greater than they were comfortable with. After asking the driver to slow down, they finally asked him to stop, but he, like so many Mozambican motoristas did not seem to care at all.
The tire in the truck blew out, scattering the volunteers as the truck flipped. Two volunteers, who had only arrived at site the previous week, sustained too great of injuries, and never made it to the hospital. The other three volunteers were immediately medivaced to South Africa where they received care.
Lena was new to Chibuto. She had a big smile and was willing to poke fun at her subtle Wisconsin accent. You could tell immediately that she was excited to be in Mozambique, to learn and try something new. To see the world.
Alden was opening an education site in Chissano. Her first weekend there she stayed around to help proctor exams, a particularly undesirable job. We all gave her a hard time for already being taken advantage of by her school director. She was just so eager to be a part of her new life in Mozambique.
Derek, Mary, and Mark are still recovering in South Africa. It is unclear if they will return as volunteers, but needless to say they have the support of every Moz Volunteer, past and present.
The other volunteers in the new swear in group have lost two of their sisters. Lena and Alden had only been at site a little over a week. After the ups and downs of training, I remember how close I was to to many of my colleagues, and I cannot imagine how difficult it has been for them to lose two beautiful women as they have.
We are all sobered by the events this month. The risks we take are real risks. They have real consequences. And while the consequences are often steps away, sometimes they are lurking nearby.
My heart goes out to the families and friends of Lena and Alden. Having had the opportunity to meet both of them briefly, I cannot start to express my sympathies but I hope you know you have the support of the entire Peace Corps Mozambique family.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
patience is a virtue, but so is understanding the functions of "right click"
Those of you who know me, know that I am not the most patient person. In high school it used to drive me crazy how long Dena, my younger sister, used to take to shower before school. I do not like waiting around for things to happen, and I am usually busy doing three or four things at once.
In Mozambique, you are lucky if you do three or four things in a week.
Things move much slower here. Its really not a bad thing, but it took some getting used to. When I make a meeting for 10 AM, I am no longer surprised when we don't start until 11:30 or 12. I know see the value in the kibitzing I do in that “waiting time.”
In Mozambique people take time to talk about the weather, how their fields are faring, and gossip about the neighbors. Its considered rude to walk past someone you know and not stop to say hello. And I have grown to love it. Some of my favorite interactions each day happen underneath a shady tree when I run into someone in the road. Then, if that conversation makes me ten minutes late, no one seems to mind. I am learning to appreciate the day for what it is and to stop being in a rush all the time.
Despite what I consider to be great strides in my patience, I still have a long way to go.
The greatest test of my patience so far has been a series of computer classes I started teaching last month.
I teach to two different groups. My REDES girls come in in the afternoons and I teach to a few of the Mozaic team and church members a couple times a week in the mornings.
My favorite Mozaic student was Mama Fatima, who is the wife of one of the Pastors in our network. Fatima is the mother of three beautiful children, the youngest of which is only about six months. I think she just liked that she had the opportunity to get out of the house everyday and do something a little different. She would bring her youngest son, and with him either strapped to her back or propped on her lap, we was content to “type” for hours.
I was able to install a typing program on the computers. The program prompts you to type a word and then times how long it takes you and how accurate you were. Each level adds different letters and characters and becomes a bit more difficult. Fatima would sit and work with this program all morning. One day I looked over her shoulder and realized that she did not care at all how accurate her typing was. She said she liked how it felt to tap the keys. She was sitting for hours typing gibberish. She was doing about 35 words per minute but only had about 2% accuracy. When I explained that she was supposed to try to type the words on the screen, she said that she knew but she liked doing it this way.
To her the class was much more about the prospect of something different every few days than it was about learning computers.
I think its this prospect that really made me excited about teaching computers, despite the test of my patience.
At my first lesson with my REDES girls, I had a short passage I wanted the girls to practice typing, then save in a folder that they create for themselves on the desktop. When Etelvinha, one of my favorite, most dedicated REDES girls, sat down and pushed the start key like a touch screen when I told them to click start, I knew I needed to take a step back.
You take for-granted how much you know about computers. I am anything but tech savvy, but I know how to turn on a computer, to hold and use mouse, and am familiar most of the basic functions of the computer's software.
I was starting at square one with my girls. Etelvinha, Fatima, and Neuzia came in almost everyday before the holidays, other girls did not come in as regularly, but were also excited to have the chance to play on the computer. They were happy to practice using the mouse in a paint program, play solitaire, and try to pass different levels in a typing program. While at times, teaching the difference between a right click and a left click made me want to pull my hair out, and sometimes ended in a mysterious malfunction of the entire machine which I still am unsure how they managed so many times, seeing the girls get better and better at typing was really fun. It was also fun for them to be able to sit down at the computer and open “their” folder, filled with paint documents cluttered with hearts and smilies and long letters that had no punctuation at all (punctuation is at the end of the typing program and we have not quite gotten there yet).
What is exciting about teaching computers to this group of girls is the fact that knowing the basic functions of a computer puts them among a small percentage of Mozambicans who can boast that. Knowing how to create and save documents is a marketable skill that will help these girls find themselves in a position where they can do something other than sell cookies in the market or work hard in the machamba all day.
And that prospect is worth my frustrations when I explain for the tenth time how to shut down the computer.
In Mozambique, you are lucky if you do three or four things in a week.
Things move much slower here. Its really not a bad thing, but it took some getting used to. When I make a meeting for 10 AM, I am no longer surprised when we don't start until 11:30 or 12. I know see the value in the kibitzing I do in that “waiting time.”
In Mozambique people take time to talk about the weather, how their fields are faring, and gossip about the neighbors. Its considered rude to walk past someone you know and not stop to say hello. And I have grown to love it. Some of my favorite interactions each day happen underneath a shady tree when I run into someone in the road. Then, if that conversation makes me ten minutes late, no one seems to mind. I am learning to appreciate the day for what it is and to stop being in a rush all the time.
Despite what I consider to be great strides in my patience, I still have a long way to go.
The greatest test of my patience so far has been a series of computer classes I started teaching last month.
I teach to two different groups. My REDES girls come in in the afternoons and I teach to a few of the Mozaic team and church members a couple times a week in the mornings.
My favorite Mozaic student was Mama Fatima, who is the wife of one of the Pastors in our network. Fatima is the mother of three beautiful children, the youngest of which is only about six months. I think she just liked that she had the opportunity to get out of the house everyday and do something a little different. She would bring her youngest son, and with him either strapped to her back or propped on her lap, we was content to “type” for hours.
I was able to install a typing program on the computers. The program prompts you to type a word and then times how long it takes you and how accurate you were. Each level adds different letters and characters and becomes a bit more difficult. Fatima would sit and work with this program all morning. One day I looked over her shoulder and realized that she did not care at all how accurate her typing was. She said she liked how it felt to tap the keys. She was sitting for hours typing gibberish. She was doing about 35 words per minute but only had about 2% accuracy. When I explained that she was supposed to try to type the words on the screen, she said that she knew but she liked doing it this way.
To her the class was much more about the prospect of something different every few days than it was about learning computers.
I think its this prospect that really made me excited about teaching computers, despite the test of my patience.
At my first lesson with my REDES girls, I had a short passage I wanted the girls to practice typing, then save in a folder that they create for themselves on the desktop. When Etelvinha, one of my favorite, most dedicated REDES girls, sat down and pushed the start key like a touch screen when I told them to click start, I knew I needed to take a step back.
You take for-granted how much you know about computers. I am anything but tech savvy, but I know how to turn on a computer, to hold and use mouse, and am familiar most of the basic functions of the computer's software.
I was starting at square one with my girls. Etelvinha, Fatima, and Neuzia came in almost everyday before the holidays, other girls did not come in as regularly, but were also excited to have the chance to play on the computer. They were happy to practice using the mouse in a paint program, play solitaire, and try to pass different levels in a typing program. While at times, teaching the difference between a right click and a left click made me want to pull my hair out, and sometimes ended in a mysterious malfunction of the entire machine which I still am unsure how they managed so many times, seeing the girls get better and better at typing was really fun. It was also fun for them to be able to sit down at the computer and open “their” folder, filled with paint documents cluttered with hearts and smilies and long letters that had no punctuation at all (punctuation is at the end of the typing program and we have not quite gotten there yet).
What is exciting about teaching computers to this group of girls is the fact that knowing the basic functions of a computer puts them among a small percentage of Mozambicans who can boast that. Knowing how to create and save documents is a marketable skill that will help these girls find themselves in a position where they can do something other than sell cookies in the market or work hard in the machamba all day.
And that prospect is worth my frustrations when I explain for the tenth time how to shut down the computer.
Monday, October 24, 2011
how to run a successful business in Manjacaze.
If you walk into the market in Manjacaze, you might be very impressed. I think Manjacaze has one of the best markets in Gaza, but I also am a bit biased.
The market in Manjacaze has a few things that I really love. First is the fancy “banca” owned by a sassy lady I just call Dona. She also refrains from asking my name and calls me Amiga. Now a fancy banca really means she has a stall with lots of different convenience items. She is my go-to lady for bug spray, toilet paper, dish soap, etc. She also sometimes has great chocolate cookies and quality fruit juice, so if I feel like splurging, there is always a place for that. She also knows when I am baking as its her banca I go to when I need flour and sugar. She especially appreciates when I bring her a cookie the next day.
Another frequent stop I make is at my modista's banca. My modista (dress-maker), Irene, has a hard time keeping to a schedule. If she tells you your dress will be finished by Tuesday, you might get it Thursday or Friday or maybe the following Wednesday. Despite her difficulty sticking to a schedule, she does a very good job, and only laughs a little bit when I ask her to make my hems shorter and to take the ruffles and the sleeves off my sun dress. She works with two other younger women who always have questions about American culture and always promise to make me a very nice dress for when I go home.
The next part of the market could be overwhelming for you if its your first time in a Mozambican market. Stall after stall of similar products at similar prices make it hard to chose which cute little lady you will patronize that day. If someone has given me a good deal once, they become my go-to. I also reward creativity, so if someone reasons with me why I want to buy cabbage instead of green beans or explains that September is the best month to make collard greens, I will probably be convinced. I am also a very loyal customer, and the market ladies know that, so they have begun to try to get my attention when I head straight for my favorite place for lemons. That said, I have had to spread my loyalty around. I now have one lady whose tomatoes I like, another who has good sized garlic, one who I buy eggplant from, etc. The other ladies in the market have started to get a little jealous. When I walk past their stalls they ask why I don't want onions and I just smile. Customer service is everything in the market.
I once asked one of my market friends why they don't go sell their products elsewhere. Certainly, finding a street corner that wasn't full of ladies who were also selling bananas, beans, dried fish, and lettuce would make selling your product easier. The lady responded quite simply, “but my friends are here.”
Much about having a business in Mozambique is about having something to do during the day. Most Mozambicans are subsistence farmers. They often do not have jobs outside of the home, and having a job that gets you to the market everyday is exciting. Its fun to know all the other ladies and no one is really competitive. Prices are the same at every stall and if you don't like the mushy tomatoes from your favorite lady, she will point you to her friend who has less ripe ones.
Last week I organized a financial management and business skills seminar for a few of the church leaders Mozaic works with. We were discussing different business opportunities and, more often than not, people reverted back to businesses with which they were already familiar. I discussed with them about how selling chickens is not a good idea if there are already five other people in the market selling chickens and I was greeted with blank stares.
The non-competitive nature of Mozambicans made businesses training a challenge. We discussed the importance of not giving big discounts or free products to your friends and family and overall the group agreed that it would be impossible to avoid. We discussed having a service that was better than the others available in the community and everyone agreed that it would be better to work with others with that same service and talk about improving their overall efficiency as a co-op.
At the end of the training, I think the group did go home with an idea of the importance of competition and critical thinking about the viability of a given product or service.
But when it comes to them deciding what kind of businesses they want to open, I bet the majority still chose selling tomatoes. And I cant blame them, the tomato ladies are so much fun.
The market in Manjacaze has a few things that I really love. First is the fancy “banca” owned by a sassy lady I just call Dona. She also refrains from asking my name and calls me Amiga. Now a fancy banca really means she has a stall with lots of different convenience items. She is my go-to lady for bug spray, toilet paper, dish soap, etc. She also sometimes has great chocolate cookies and quality fruit juice, so if I feel like splurging, there is always a place for that. She also knows when I am baking as its her banca I go to when I need flour and sugar. She especially appreciates when I bring her a cookie the next day.
Another frequent stop I make is at my modista's banca. My modista (dress-maker), Irene, has a hard time keeping to a schedule. If she tells you your dress will be finished by Tuesday, you might get it Thursday or Friday or maybe the following Wednesday. Despite her difficulty sticking to a schedule, she does a very good job, and only laughs a little bit when I ask her to make my hems shorter and to take the ruffles and the sleeves off my sun dress. She works with two other younger women who always have questions about American culture and always promise to make me a very nice dress for when I go home.
The next part of the market could be overwhelming for you if its your first time in a Mozambican market. Stall after stall of similar products at similar prices make it hard to chose which cute little lady you will patronize that day. If someone has given me a good deal once, they become my go-to. I also reward creativity, so if someone reasons with me why I want to buy cabbage instead of green beans or explains that September is the best month to make collard greens, I will probably be convinced. I am also a very loyal customer, and the market ladies know that, so they have begun to try to get my attention when I head straight for my favorite place for lemons. That said, I have had to spread my loyalty around. I now have one lady whose tomatoes I like, another who has good sized garlic, one who I buy eggplant from, etc. The other ladies in the market have started to get a little jealous. When I walk past their stalls they ask why I don't want onions and I just smile. Customer service is everything in the market.
I once asked one of my market friends why they don't go sell their products elsewhere. Certainly, finding a street corner that wasn't full of ladies who were also selling bananas, beans, dried fish, and lettuce would make selling your product easier. The lady responded quite simply, “but my friends are here.”
Much about having a business in Mozambique is about having something to do during the day. Most Mozambicans are subsistence farmers. They often do not have jobs outside of the home, and having a job that gets you to the market everyday is exciting. Its fun to know all the other ladies and no one is really competitive. Prices are the same at every stall and if you don't like the mushy tomatoes from your favorite lady, she will point you to her friend who has less ripe ones.
Last week I organized a financial management and business skills seminar for a few of the church leaders Mozaic works with. We were discussing different business opportunities and, more often than not, people reverted back to businesses with which they were already familiar. I discussed with them about how selling chickens is not a good idea if there are already five other people in the market selling chickens and I was greeted with blank stares.
The non-competitive nature of Mozambicans made businesses training a challenge. We discussed the importance of not giving big discounts or free products to your friends and family and overall the group agreed that it would be impossible to avoid. We discussed having a service that was better than the others available in the community and everyone agreed that it would be better to work with others with that same service and talk about improving their overall efficiency as a co-op.
At the end of the training, I think the group did go home with an idea of the importance of competition and critical thinking about the viability of a given product or service.
But when it comes to them deciding what kind of businesses they want to open, I bet the majority still chose selling tomatoes. And I cant blame them, the tomato ladies are so much fun.
malaria.
If you are an American living in a Malaria zone, you will probably get Malaria.
And it is not going to be fun.
The biology of it is unfortunate. As Americans, we have not been bitten by those little blood-suckers, the anopheles mosquitoes. Therefore, we do not have the anti-bodies to fight the virus that we might have had we been co-existing with the anopheles our whole lives. Even on prophylaxis, you have a chance of getting it, though it will be a much less severe case than the many who chose not to use prophylaxis.
Now do not be mistaken, people in Malaria zones are not at all immune. Mozambicans get Malaria every year. But when a Mozambican comes down with Malaria, they show up to work and complain about having a bit of a fever, they might even stay home a day. It gets to the point where people can self diagnose, and the pharmacy does not question it when people come in asking for the treatment. I would equate it with people in the US who get bad colds they know as the flu.
Which is what you might think you have at first. Malaria first starts just like the flu.
I convinced myself I had the flu, because it seemed much more manageable than Malaria. But after a day of trying to convince myself (which was tough, I have not had the flu since sophomore year of college and I got the flu shot for the first time in my life this year, me getting the flu this year is highly unlikely), it was clear I did not have the flu.
I took the at home Malaria test. The little test was a pain to take, I was shaking from my fever and could not get my finger steady to get the drop of blood needed to activate the test. Eventually I did, and I sat there above the test like Juno over her pregnancy test. When it came back positive, I was at first in disbelief, but then I looked at the mosquito bites dotting my ankles and called Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps doctor wanted me to get a blood smear at the local hospital to find out my virus count. I asked Gerhard for a ride, since I was clearly unable to walk the 10 minutes to the hospital. He drove me, and I called my doctor friend at the hospital, who told me to come right into his office rather than waiting in the three hour line with everyone else with Malaria. I felt a bit guilty, I should probably wait like all the other sick people, but there are benefits to being friends with those who work at the hospital.
After the test, the doctor was writing me a prescription for Coartem, standard treatment for Malaria in Mozambique, and I asked him if he had ever had Malaria. He just laughed and said of course.
When I explained it was my “first time” he was stunned. I explained there is no Malaria in the US and he said that that must be nice. I thought to myself that yes, it is quite nice.
And it is not going to be fun.
The biology of it is unfortunate. As Americans, we have not been bitten by those little blood-suckers, the anopheles mosquitoes. Therefore, we do not have the anti-bodies to fight the virus that we might have had we been co-existing with the anopheles our whole lives. Even on prophylaxis, you have a chance of getting it, though it will be a much less severe case than the many who chose not to use prophylaxis.
Now do not be mistaken, people in Malaria zones are not at all immune. Mozambicans get Malaria every year. But when a Mozambican comes down with Malaria, they show up to work and complain about having a bit of a fever, they might even stay home a day. It gets to the point where people can self diagnose, and the pharmacy does not question it when people come in asking for the treatment. I would equate it with people in the US who get bad colds they know as the flu.
Which is what you might think you have at first. Malaria first starts just like the flu.
I convinced myself I had the flu, because it seemed much more manageable than Malaria. But after a day of trying to convince myself (which was tough, I have not had the flu since sophomore year of college and I got the flu shot for the first time in my life this year, me getting the flu this year is highly unlikely), it was clear I did not have the flu.
I took the at home Malaria test. The little test was a pain to take, I was shaking from my fever and could not get my finger steady to get the drop of blood needed to activate the test. Eventually I did, and I sat there above the test like Juno over her pregnancy test. When it came back positive, I was at first in disbelief, but then I looked at the mosquito bites dotting my ankles and called Peace Corps.
The Peace Corps doctor wanted me to get a blood smear at the local hospital to find out my virus count. I asked Gerhard for a ride, since I was clearly unable to walk the 10 minutes to the hospital. He drove me, and I called my doctor friend at the hospital, who told me to come right into his office rather than waiting in the three hour line with everyone else with Malaria. I felt a bit guilty, I should probably wait like all the other sick people, but there are benefits to being friends with those who work at the hospital.
After the test, the doctor was writing me a prescription for Coartem, standard treatment for Malaria in Mozambique, and I asked him if he had ever had Malaria. He just laughed and said of course.
When I explained it was my “first time” he was stunned. I explained there is no Malaria in the US and he said that that must be nice. I thought to myself that yes, it is quite nice.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
girls only.
When I was about nine, I remember having conversations with Abbie George that were strictly “Girls Only.” I think sometimes we even had “club meetings” and would not let Devin play with us those days. While he probably thought we were leaving him out, we were excited to have the time to ourselves, not that we did anything particularly scandalous or noteworthy. I also am pretty sure we were not the only ones to separate ourselves from the boys on our block. In fact, I bet if you go to Claire's, in the mall, today you can find all kinds of “girls only” pink and turquoise paraphernalia.
In Mozambique, few girls can boast that they ever had time just to themselves. Once you are old enough to carry a baby, you have one strapped to your back. When you can be trusted not to burn the rice, you spend your afternoons preparing dinner for the family. Girls in Mozambique are usually served second, sit on the floor, and bring the water for the men to wash their hands. Girls are fifty percent less likely to finish secondary school than boys, mostly because their families think they should be home taking care of chores around the house. Even at a young age, many Mozambican girls never get the opportunity to enroll in primary school, the priority is to their brothers. Needless to say, door placards explaining that no one can come in until their girl talk with their best friend is over do not exist.
I think that is why I think REDES (Rapariga em Desevolvimento, Educacao, e Saude) is so important. REDES is an opportunity for school aged girls to have something to call their own. At our meetings, my girls are very silly. Sometimes they drive me completely crazy, but then I just think back to how much energy I had as a fifteen year old girl. My REDES girls love to dance and sing and if you ask them what they want to do when they want to grow up you will get an elaborate picture of their future, complete with a description of their future home, the number of kids they want, and their profession which could be anything from an architect to a doctor to a movie star.
REDES is also an opportunity for girls in Mozambique to do something they normally would probably not get the chance to do. Recently, I helped with a REDES program in Inharime with 120 girls. The program had a bunch of different stations set up around Inharime's soccer field. We had reserved the field with the owner that day and were assured that no one else would be using it that day. Throughout the day, girls had a chance to learn about nutrition and make peanut butter, learn to make little fabric flowers to try to sell, paint a mural about women in sports, play soccer, dance the cha-cha slide, and talk about life in secondary school (half of the girls were secondary school girls and the other half were from primary school).
The program was a huge success. Despite the hot sun, the girls maintained their energy throughout their games of football, their dancing, and their impressive painting of a mural. They were all starting to make new friends and really enjoying the opportunity. But then, around 2 PM, forty boys showed up expecting to play soccer. We explained to the coach that we had the field for the day. After some arguing, he agreed to come back around 4 when our program ended. However, as the negotiations went on, the girls took matters into their own hands.
The forty boys soon found themselves surrounded by 120 energetic, empowered young ladies. The girls started chanting, “NOS QUEREMOS JOGAR! ELE NAO AGUENTA!” (which roughly translates to: We want to play! He won't win!” The boys were stunned. Then a girl stole their soccer ball and started playing with it. That started the girls singing even louder and really confused the boys. Eventually the girls started moving the boys toward the entrance to the stadium. Before long they had successfully run them off the field. The girls threw back the ball and told them not to come back before 4.
They got the picture and left us alone, though they came back a few minutes before 4.
They got that that day the field was “girls only.”
But more important, they girls got it. The girls were proud of their day on the field and no team of boys was going to take that away from them.
And better than a little door placard, now the field's walls are covered with a mural of images of girls playing soccer and girls dancing.
In Mozambique, few girls can boast that they ever had time just to themselves. Once you are old enough to carry a baby, you have one strapped to your back. When you can be trusted not to burn the rice, you spend your afternoons preparing dinner for the family. Girls in Mozambique are usually served second, sit on the floor, and bring the water for the men to wash their hands. Girls are fifty percent less likely to finish secondary school than boys, mostly because their families think they should be home taking care of chores around the house. Even at a young age, many Mozambican girls never get the opportunity to enroll in primary school, the priority is to their brothers. Needless to say, door placards explaining that no one can come in until their girl talk with their best friend is over do not exist.
I think that is why I think REDES (Rapariga em Desevolvimento, Educacao, e Saude) is so important. REDES is an opportunity for school aged girls to have something to call their own. At our meetings, my girls are very silly. Sometimes they drive me completely crazy, but then I just think back to how much energy I had as a fifteen year old girl. My REDES girls love to dance and sing and if you ask them what they want to do when they want to grow up you will get an elaborate picture of their future, complete with a description of their future home, the number of kids they want, and their profession which could be anything from an architect to a doctor to a movie star.
REDES is also an opportunity for girls in Mozambique to do something they normally would probably not get the chance to do. Recently, I helped with a REDES program in Inharime with 120 girls. The program had a bunch of different stations set up around Inharime's soccer field. We had reserved the field with the owner that day and were assured that no one else would be using it that day. Throughout the day, girls had a chance to learn about nutrition and make peanut butter, learn to make little fabric flowers to try to sell, paint a mural about women in sports, play soccer, dance the cha-cha slide, and talk about life in secondary school (half of the girls were secondary school girls and the other half were from primary school).
The program was a huge success. Despite the hot sun, the girls maintained their energy throughout their games of football, their dancing, and their impressive painting of a mural. They were all starting to make new friends and really enjoying the opportunity. But then, around 2 PM, forty boys showed up expecting to play soccer. We explained to the coach that we had the field for the day. After some arguing, he agreed to come back around 4 when our program ended. However, as the negotiations went on, the girls took matters into their own hands.
The forty boys soon found themselves surrounded by 120 energetic, empowered young ladies. The girls started chanting, “NOS QUEREMOS JOGAR! ELE NAO AGUENTA!” (which roughly translates to: We want to play! He won't win!” The boys were stunned. Then a girl stole their soccer ball and started playing with it. That started the girls singing even louder and really confused the boys. Eventually the girls started moving the boys toward the entrance to the stadium. Before long they had successfully run them off the field. The girls threw back the ball and told them not to come back before 4.
They got the picture and left us alone, though they came back a few minutes before 4.
They got that that day the field was “girls only.”
But more important, they girls got it. The girls were proud of their day on the field and no team of boys was going to take that away from them.
And better than a little door placard, now the field's walls are covered with a mural of images of girls playing soccer and girls dancing.
southern hospitality.
I imagine when people talk about “southern hospitality” it means you show up to someone's house, where they have a lovely sun-porch and they offer you sweet tea or lemonade and maybe some home-made cookies. It means gentlemen open doors for ladies. It means there are always clean towels in the bathroom that has little soaps shaped like sea shells.
But I honestly do not know. I come from the Midwest. People there smile at each other and bring cookies to the new neighbors. It is hard to walk into a home that is not warm and welcoming and covered with pictures of smiling children, whose giggling you can always hear playing outside on the calm streets. Its hard to imagine being more hospitable than my neighbors on 58th Street, but somehow, the term was coined, “southern hospitality” and they left Dundee totally out of it.
Maybe southern hospitality refers to southern Mozambique. Doubtful, I know, but on a recent trip out to a rural community in Inhambane, I learned a new degree of hospitality.
I was traveling to Mademo. The small farming community lies about 25 kilometers from a district capital, Panda. Though on a map it is not too far from Manjacaze, the roads are fairly deserted. I left my house at 5 am to catch the first chapa out to Mawaela, a town that was once a bustling train stop, but is now pretty run-down village with a few good shops and a lot of men drinking palm wine. Around 7, the driver decided his truck was full enough and we finally left. At 9, we arrived in Mawaela only to find that the only chapa to Panda left at 8. I sat down on the steps of a closed shop convinced another car would come by soon. The men drinking palm wine just laughed and talked about how disillusioned this mulungo was. Anyway, I after waiting a few hours, the shop opened and the owner insisted I go sit at her house. I declined, explaining if a car came by I really needed to be able to see it. She brought me a chair to sit on and a glass of water. A few hours later she came to tell me lunch was ready. Though I told her I was okay, she insisted and provided me with lunch and the entertainment of her adorable three year old daughter who, though she tried, could not eat pasta in any way but spilling it all down the front of her.
At this point the shop owner told me I should really just stay the night with her and her family, there was no way I was going to get a ride that afternoon. I smiled and told her I was sure some car would have to pass through the town that afternoon (why I was so sure, after 6 hours of not seeing a single car, I am not sure). At exactly that moment, one of the men drinking palm wine, who at this point was not even pretending to walk straight (2 PM) informed me that the Administradora do Distrito, kind of like a County Mayor, was going to be driving through to Panda, but that she never stops for anyone. If I wanted a ride, I needed to go to the administrative building on the other side of the town (two minutes walk). I gathered up my things and plopped myself in front of the door of the white plastered building. Twenty minutes later, the Administradora's car pulled up. She got out, paid me not a minutes worth of attention, got a drink of water, and got back in the car. At that moment, one of the guards I had spoken with asked if I could sit in the back with them. She looked me up and down and agreed, although I cannot say she was thrilled.
I hopped in and traveled the rest of the way to Mawaela. Just before the town, I told the guard to ask the driver to stop. As I got out of the car, the Administradora explained there is an actual town 500 meters up the hill and asked why did I want to get out here in the middle of nowhere. I explained I planned to camp near the river. She laughed and drove away.
As the car pulled off, two women who had been cleaning at the river ran toward me and grabbed my bags. They helped me carry them to the campsite (which for the record, while in the middle of no where was an established campsite) and then told me they would come to check on me soon.
I spent a few hours relaxing at the campsite and then decided to head into town. I arrived at the house of one of my few contacts in the town and Suzana, the mother of the house, greeted me with a warm hug. Apparently the ladies who had helped me with my bags had let her know I was coming and she had just toasted cashews for me. The warm cashews were a huge treat, but they were followed by a great fresh salad, made completely from vegetables from her garden, and coconut rice, a tasty Inhambane treat. After chatting for a while, she, her husband, and their two children all walked me the kilometer back to my campsite. We stopped in a shop first, where I was lucky to buy the one and only roll of toilet paper in the town.
The entire week went somewhat the same. Throughout the week, people I worked with would show off their gardens and not let me leave without a head of cabbage, a bag filled with tomatoes, or lots of fresh green onions. Suzana and her family took me in as a third child and cared for me extremely well.
I think what is important to remember is that in Mademo, people do not have a lot to spare. Right now is a good time of year, there is a lot of food to harvest from the machambas, and few people are going hungry. On the other hand, when Suzana ran out of sugar, she told her son to ask the shop keeper if he wanted a chicken. In return for her chicken, she got three kilograms of sugar. Though she had nothing to spare, she insisted on being my very hospitable host. She was never satisfied to set the table if the tablecloth had not not been washed that morning or if the tea had been made in a blackened kettle.
Its a different degree of hospitality. Cookies and lemonade are one thing, but every meal, especially if putting food on the table is both a challenge and source of pride, is true hospitality. People in Mademo would give you the shirt off their back. And its not that people in Omaha wouldn't, but they might think twice. In Mademo, they would give it to you, and then offer to wash the one you were wearing for you.
But I honestly do not know. I come from the Midwest. People there smile at each other and bring cookies to the new neighbors. It is hard to walk into a home that is not warm and welcoming and covered with pictures of smiling children, whose giggling you can always hear playing outside on the calm streets. Its hard to imagine being more hospitable than my neighbors on 58th Street, but somehow, the term was coined, “southern hospitality” and they left Dundee totally out of it.
Maybe southern hospitality refers to southern Mozambique. Doubtful, I know, but on a recent trip out to a rural community in Inhambane, I learned a new degree of hospitality.
I was traveling to Mademo. The small farming community lies about 25 kilometers from a district capital, Panda. Though on a map it is not too far from Manjacaze, the roads are fairly deserted. I left my house at 5 am to catch the first chapa out to Mawaela, a town that was once a bustling train stop, but is now pretty run-down village with a few good shops and a lot of men drinking palm wine. Around 7, the driver decided his truck was full enough and we finally left. At 9, we arrived in Mawaela only to find that the only chapa to Panda left at 8. I sat down on the steps of a closed shop convinced another car would come by soon. The men drinking palm wine just laughed and talked about how disillusioned this mulungo was. Anyway, I after waiting a few hours, the shop opened and the owner insisted I go sit at her house. I declined, explaining if a car came by I really needed to be able to see it. She brought me a chair to sit on and a glass of water. A few hours later she came to tell me lunch was ready. Though I told her I was okay, she insisted and provided me with lunch and the entertainment of her adorable three year old daughter who, though she tried, could not eat pasta in any way but spilling it all down the front of her.
At this point the shop owner told me I should really just stay the night with her and her family, there was no way I was going to get a ride that afternoon. I smiled and told her I was sure some car would have to pass through the town that afternoon (why I was so sure, after 6 hours of not seeing a single car, I am not sure). At exactly that moment, one of the men drinking palm wine, who at this point was not even pretending to walk straight (2 PM) informed me that the Administradora do Distrito, kind of like a County Mayor, was going to be driving through to Panda, but that she never stops for anyone. If I wanted a ride, I needed to go to the administrative building on the other side of the town (two minutes walk). I gathered up my things and plopped myself in front of the door of the white plastered building. Twenty minutes later, the Administradora's car pulled up. She got out, paid me not a minutes worth of attention, got a drink of water, and got back in the car. At that moment, one of the guards I had spoken with asked if I could sit in the back with them. She looked me up and down and agreed, although I cannot say she was thrilled.
I hopped in and traveled the rest of the way to Mawaela. Just before the town, I told the guard to ask the driver to stop. As I got out of the car, the Administradora explained there is an actual town 500 meters up the hill and asked why did I want to get out here in the middle of nowhere. I explained I planned to camp near the river. She laughed and drove away.
As the car pulled off, two women who had been cleaning at the river ran toward me and grabbed my bags. They helped me carry them to the campsite (which for the record, while in the middle of no where was an established campsite) and then told me they would come to check on me soon.
I spent a few hours relaxing at the campsite and then decided to head into town. I arrived at the house of one of my few contacts in the town and Suzana, the mother of the house, greeted me with a warm hug. Apparently the ladies who had helped me with my bags had let her know I was coming and she had just toasted cashews for me. The warm cashews were a huge treat, but they were followed by a great fresh salad, made completely from vegetables from her garden, and coconut rice, a tasty Inhambane treat. After chatting for a while, she, her husband, and their two children all walked me the kilometer back to my campsite. We stopped in a shop first, where I was lucky to buy the one and only roll of toilet paper in the town.
The entire week went somewhat the same. Throughout the week, people I worked with would show off their gardens and not let me leave without a head of cabbage, a bag filled with tomatoes, or lots of fresh green onions. Suzana and her family took me in as a third child and cared for me extremely well.
I think what is important to remember is that in Mademo, people do not have a lot to spare. Right now is a good time of year, there is a lot of food to harvest from the machambas, and few people are going hungry. On the other hand, when Suzana ran out of sugar, she told her son to ask the shop keeper if he wanted a chicken. In return for her chicken, she got three kilograms of sugar. Though she had nothing to spare, she insisted on being my very hospitable host. She was never satisfied to set the table if the tablecloth had not not been washed that morning or if the tea had been made in a blackened kettle.
Its a different degree of hospitality. Cookies and lemonade are one thing, but every meal, especially if putting food on the table is both a challenge and source of pride, is true hospitality. People in Mademo would give you the shirt off their back. And its not that people in Omaha wouldn't, but they might think twice. In Mademo, they would give it to you, and then offer to wash the one you were wearing for you.
Monday, July 18, 2011
karma.
When I was in seventh grade, I had this Language Arts teacher, Mrs. McLaughlin. Mrs. McLaughlin did not like me. She had her reasons: I was a side talker, an instigator, I rarely was paying attention, and I was a bit of a smart ass. I would have probably not liked me if I was my seventh grade teacher. I want to take this opportunity to apologize to Mrs. McLaughlin and any of the other teachers I gave a hard time throughout school.
The last two weeks I have spent teaching primary school kids nutrition. I have to admit I never thought I would be a teacher, but teaching nutrition is really a lot of fun.
Most of you who are reading this might know that I love ice-breaker games. I like making people do silly things to feel more comforatable around each other. It turns out primary schoolers might like playing games even more than me.
The first school I worked in was in the town of Mademo. If you want to look on a map for Mademo, look for the district of Panda, then find the capital city, also called Panda. About 35 kilometers south east lies Mademo. The small town is situated right on a river, which is probably why people live there. Unfortunately, hippos also live near the river, so many people's crops have been destroyed in the last few months. Despite the river, water is a big challenge for the people of Mademo; many people walk up to five kilometers just to get water. What's more, they have to do this twice a day.
The school I was working at was Mademo's primary school. The school has 450 students in grades one to seven and only eleven teachers. The school also owns the towns only improved water pump, put in by some foreign NGO in the last few years. Water at the school opens many doors for agriculture projects, and the school director is passionate about agriculture, making my work fit well into his vision for the school.
Upon our first meeting, the school director indicated that he wanted each student to have a plant for which they could take ownership. I thought it was a great idea, but told him 450 plants was a lot all at once, but that we could start with one plant per class. He loved the idea and we scheduled a week for me to work with each class separately.
Each lesson started more or less the same. I started with a silly dancing game. I had all the kids stand in a circle and sing a song that translates to “now we will see who can dance the potato!” They loved it. The rest of my week in Mademo, I could not walk past the school without little kids yelling “agora vamos ver!”After the song, we played a game with lions and gazells. The game is a lot like tag. All the lions try to eat the gazelles. The gazelles have to run from one side of the field to the other without being caught, but once they are caught they join the lions' team. Once the kids are sufficiently tired of running and all the gazelles are eaten by lions, we head back into the classroom.
I should describe a bit about the school in Mademo. A government school, the building has recently been renovated. That said, the renovations are not yet finished, and there are not yet windows or doors on the rooms (except for the director's office). Furthermore, in each classroom, there might only be two or three benches, most kids sit on the floor. For whatever reason, in almost all of the classes, girls sit in the front and boys in the back. I joked with the boys about how they just wanted to goof off, but they still did not move to the front.
Anyway, once inside the classroom, we talk about the lions and gazelles game. I use it as a symbol for the body. When the body is healthy, with good food and hygiene and enough sleep (lots of gazelles on once side of the field), it is hard for us to get sick (harder for the lions to catch the gazelles). But when we are not eating well or sleeping well or bathing, it is easy to get sick (when there are less gazelles its easier for the lions to catch them).
I use the game to lead into my nutrition session. We talk about foods the kids like to eat, their food groups, why its important to eat a variety of foods, and what each type of food does for our bodies. Then I focus on one plant, talk about the nutrients it provides, why those nutrients are important, why the plant is important for the community (most of the plants we chose are hearty perennials that do not need much water and grow well in heat and sand), and we close with a discussion of the steps in planting a plant. We talk about manure as a soil additive and I liken it again to our bodies (like people need more than just rice, plants need more than just soil). Usually the kids are very participative and attentive. Some classes are harder than others; for me the first grade was a challenge because they hardly spoke any Portuguese. Since my sessions are very interactive I would wait (in vain) for a response until the teacher would finally help translate to Changana and the kids would all answer in unison.
Planting the plant is one of the best parts of the class. I will ask, “Who wants to help dig the hole?” and all the kids will scream, “Me! Me! Me!” We plant the plant and them I ask them who's plant it is and the class responds whichever grade they are in.
At least the above is what happens with all the classes except the seventh grade. In the seventh grade, the kids made fun of my mistakes in Portuguese, did not want to dance the potato, did not offer to help, and left me wanting to apologize to Mrs. McLaughlin.
But out of nine classes (two first grades and two sixth grades), if only one gave me a hard time, I suppose I should be pretty glad. I couldn't leave mad, anyway, because as soon as I walked out of the seventh grade classroom, I was greeted by third graders chanting, “agora vamos ver, quem danca mazamban!”
I sat down with all the teachers at the end of the week to get some feedback. Mademo's primary school was the first school I had worked with, and I was not sure how the teachers received the program. I joked with all the teachers about the seventh graders and they agreed that since they are the oldest they are always up to something. The seventh grade teacher apologized and said now I know what its like to be him everyday! The teachers all said that they knew the kids enjoyed the class and that they even learned something from my lessons. The female teachers then asked me how I like to cook the plants I had taught, and I talked with them for a while about the many ways to cook chaya.
I left Mademo excited to come back to see the plants after they had grown. I am already planning the second part of the Mademo lesson. I want to teach how to dry the leaves and
I am also strategizing how to deal with a classroom full of seventh grade Naomis.
The last two weeks I have spent teaching primary school kids nutrition. I have to admit I never thought I would be a teacher, but teaching nutrition is really a lot of fun.
Most of you who are reading this might know that I love ice-breaker games. I like making people do silly things to feel more comforatable around each other. It turns out primary schoolers might like playing games even more than me.
The first school I worked in was in the town of Mademo. If you want to look on a map for Mademo, look for the district of Panda, then find the capital city, also called Panda. About 35 kilometers south east lies Mademo. The small town is situated right on a river, which is probably why people live there. Unfortunately, hippos also live near the river, so many people's crops have been destroyed in the last few months. Despite the river, water is a big challenge for the people of Mademo; many people walk up to five kilometers just to get water. What's more, they have to do this twice a day.
The school I was working at was Mademo's primary school. The school has 450 students in grades one to seven and only eleven teachers. The school also owns the towns only improved water pump, put in by some foreign NGO in the last few years. Water at the school opens many doors for agriculture projects, and the school director is passionate about agriculture, making my work fit well into his vision for the school.
Upon our first meeting, the school director indicated that he wanted each student to have a plant for which they could take ownership. I thought it was a great idea, but told him 450 plants was a lot all at once, but that we could start with one plant per class. He loved the idea and we scheduled a week for me to work with each class separately.
Each lesson started more or less the same. I started with a silly dancing game. I had all the kids stand in a circle and sing a song that translates to “now we will see who can dance the potato!” They loved it. The rest of my week in Mademo, I could not walk past the school without little kids yelling “agora vamos ver!”After the song, we played a game with lions and gazells. The game is a lot like tag. All the lions try to eat the gazelles. The gazelles have to run from one side of the field to the other without being caught, but once they are caught they join the lions' team. Once the kids are sufficiently tired of running and all the gazelles are eaten by lions, we head back into the classroom.
I should describe a bit about the school in Mademo. A government school, the building has recently been renovated. That said, the renovations are not yet finished, and there are not yet windows or doors on the rooms (except for the director's office). Furthermore, in each classroom, there might only be two or three benches, most kids sit on the floor. For whatever reason, in almost all of the classes, girls sit in the front and boys in the back. I joked with the boys about how they just wanted to goof off, but they still did not move to the front.
Anyway, once inside the classroom, we talk about the lions and gazelles game. I use it as a symbol for the body. When the body is healthy, with good food and hygiene and enough sleep (lots of gazelles on once side of the field), it is hard for us to get sick (harder for the lions to catch the gazelles). But when we are not eating well or sleeping well or bathing, it is easy to get sick (when there are less gazelles its easier for the lions to catch them).
I use the game to lead into my nutrition session. We talk about foods the kids like to eat, their food groups, why its important to eat a variety of foods, and what each type of food does for our bodies. Then I focus on one plant, talk about the nutrients it provides, why those nutrients are important, why the plant is important for the community (most of the plants we chose are hearty perennials that do not need much water and grow well in heat and sand), and we close with a discussion of the steps in planting a plant. We talk about manure as a soil additive and I liken it again to our bodies (like people need more than just rice, plants need more than just soil). Usually the kids are very participative and attentive. Some classes are harder than others; for me the first grade was a challenge because they hardly spoke any Portuguese. Since my sessions are very interactive I would wait (in vain) for a response until the teacher would finally help translate to Changana and the kids would all answer in unison.
Planting the plant is one of the best parts of the class. I will ask, “Who wants to help dig the hole?” and all the kids will scream, “Me! Me! Me!” We plant the plant and them I ask them who's plant it is and the class responds whichever grade they are in.
At least the above is what happens with all the classes except the seventh grade. In the seventh grade, the kids made fun of my mistakes in Portuguese, did not want to dance the potato, did not offer to help, and left me wanting to apologize to Mrs. McLaughlin.
But out of nine classes (two first grades and two sixth grades), if only one gave me a hard time, I suppose I should be pretty glad. I couldn't leave mad, anyway, because as soon as I walked out of the seventh grade classroom, I was greeted by third graders chanting, “agora vamos ver, quem danca mazamban!”
I sat down with all the teachers at the end of the week to get some feedback. Mademo's primary school was the first school I had worked with, and I was not sure how the teachers received the program. I joked with all the teachers about the seventh graders and they agreed that since they are the oldest they are always up to something. The seventh grade teacher apologized and said now I know what its like to be him everyday! The teachers all said that they knew the kids enjoyed the class and that they even learned something from my lessons. The female teachers then asked me how I like to cook the plants I had taught, and I talked with them for a while about the many ways to cook chaya.
I left Mademo excited to come back to see the plants after they had grown. I am already planning the second part of the Mademo lesson. I want to teach how to dry the leaves and
I am also strategizing how to deal with a classroom full of seventh grade Naomis.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
my first REDES meeting
When I was in high school, what I wanted to do more than anything was host Saturday Night Live.
I sat down with my REDES girls, my girls youth group that I started a few weeks ago at the secondary school, and asked each girl to draw a picture of themselves in ten to twenty years.
There were big houses with pools and huge farms. Some girls drew themselves as doctors or architects. Some were married with children and some had two or three housekeepers.
The girls fought over who would get to share with the group first. Each was excited to show their peers how successful they would be. It was really fun to see them joke about how one would be the mayor and make sure her friends would be taken care of and about how the teacher would make sure everyone's children had a good education.
It was really just fun to see them looking toward the future. Manjacaze, since it has a secondary school, has lots of students who come from rural parts of the district to go to school. If they can pay their school fees, these students will most likely finish school and will have lots of opportunities. The problem, is so few girls make it to this point. The girls in my REDES group have already proven they are driven and are willing to work to get ahead. I hope that through our group, they have a support system to encourage them to stay in school, despite pressures from home to help with daily chores, get married, and start families of their own. One week, when not very many girls showed up to our meeting, I asked one where everyone was. She said they were probably home with the children.
When I was in high school, my parents supported nearly everything I did. I rarely made my bed, let alone harvest plants, wash clothes, prepare dinner, or care for the neighbor children. Being asked what I wanted to do when I got out of school was a question I grew tired of having to answer. I would go to college and then find a job (never made a timeline for that job part...) It was what was expected of me. Thinking about my future was normal.
For my girls, I am not sure if people really ask them what they want to do when they grow up. Since I shared my drawing first, and it included a world (because I hope to travel) and a clinic (because I hope to work in health), half of the girls drew worlds and hospitals on their drawings. I do not think they had thought about what they wanted to do when they grew up. No one had asked them.
One of the girls asked if she could keep her drawing and hang it up in her room. I hope its a reminder to her of the things she can do if she wants.
I told the girls I was going to save the pictures, if they wanted me to, and show them all in a year what it was they had wanted. I put mine in the folder, too, so we will see what it is I want in a year. I still would like to host SNL, but I am not sure how I will get around to doing that.
I sat down with my REDES girls, my girls youth group that I started a few weeks ago at the secondary school, and asked each girl to draw a picture of themselves in ten to twenty years.
There were big houses with pools and huge farms. Some girls drew themselves as doctors or architects. Some were married with children and some had two or three housekeepers.
The girls fought over who would get to share with the group first. Each was excited to show their peers how successful they would be. It was really fun to see them joke about how one would be the mayor and make sure her friends would be taken care of and about how the teacher would make sure everyone's children had a good education.
It was really just fun to see them looking toward the future. Manjacaze, since it has a secondary school, has lots of students who come from rural parts of the district to go to school. If they can pay their school fees, these students will most likely finish school and will have lots of opportunities. The problem, is so few girls make it to this point. The girls in my REDES group have already proven they are driven and are willing to work to get ahead. I hope that through our group, they have a support system to encourage them to stay in school, despite pressures from home to help with daily chores, get married, and start families of their own. One week, when not very many girls showed up to our meeting, I asked one where everyone was. She said they were probably home with the children.
When I was in high school, my parents supported nearly everything I did. I rarely made my bed, let alone harvest plants, wash clothes, prepare dinner, or care for the neighbor children. Being asked what I wanted to do when I got out of school was a question I grew tired of having to answer. I would go to college and then find a job (never made a timeline for that job part...) It was what was expected of me. Thinking about my future was normal.
For my girls, I am not sure if people really ask them what they want to do when they grow up. Since I shared my drawing first, and it included a world (because I hope to travel) and a clinic (because I hope to work in health), half of the girls drew worlds and hospitals on their drawings. I do not think they had thought about what they wanted to do when they grew up. No one had asked them.
One of the girls asked if she could keep her drawing and hang it up in her room. I hope its a reminder to her of the things she can do if she wants.
I told the girls I was going to save the pictures, if they wanted me to, and show them all in a year what it was they had wanted. I put mine in the folder, too, so we will see what it is I want in a year. I still would like to host SNL, but I am not sure how I will get around to doing that.
papaya and coconut
“I had no idea that things like papaya were actually good for me.” The comment from Mama Dina, one of my favorite “Plant of the Week” class participants, remains my favorite feedback on the classes.
For the last month, we have focused on a different plant each week and had a short lesson on the plant, its nutritional value, medicinal value, and how to cultivate it here in Manjacaze.
My first class, papaya, was only four people. Though I was disappointed, I was excited to have people show up at all (it was a rainy day, which often means anything that was set to happen is expected to be canceled). We had a great time talking about the nutrients in papaya and you can use it on wounds, for diarrhea, and how you can use the roots to treat bad coughs.
After the session, Mama Dina suggested that I should repeat the class the next week, since so many people had not come. I asked if she thought more people would come the next week, and she said she would make sure they did.
At church that Sunday, Dina announced that everyone should come to my classes because they could really learn something. I was so flattered. It’s often hard for the women at the church to take me seriously. At 24 years old, I am still not married and have no children. What can I teach them? Mama Dina's comments got me excited for that week's session.
When Thursday came around, I made a couple of big posters and hung them on the poles in the church (the church is under construction and has no walls). By 12:30, fifteen participants had congregated, and we started our lesson. I started off with a general nutrition lesson. We talked about food groups and why it is important to try to eat a variety of foods each day. I gave each person a drawing of a food and asked them to put it in the right food group. We then had a great discussion about why foods like fish and eggs were not base foods (carbohydrates) but that they were high in protein which was very good for the immune system, etc. People took notes! I couldn't believe it. Everyone thought what I was saying was important enough to write down.
After the first part of the lesson, we returned to the papaya session. I let Mama Dina and Mama Melita help me teach it, as they had both been present the week prior. It was so fun to see them talk about the things we talked about the week before.
We had a great discussion about papaya, about why vitamin A is important for children and about why women are vulnerable to iron deficiency.
After the session, Mama Lusida, who had been translating to changana for me, asked if she could have a copy of my notes, as she had been too busy translating to write anything down. I told the class that the posters would be hung up in the office and they should come by anytime to look at them and we could talk about the plants again. Everyone thanked me and promised to show up the next week.
For the next week, I wanted to have a couple of prizes. I asked Gerhard for some coconut plants to give out to people who answered questions right. We started the class off brainstorming different plates that included each of the food groups from the week prior. Anyone who answered questions right during this review got a coconut. When we then talked about how valuable coconuts were, Francisco raised his hand and asked why everyone didn’t get a plant. I explained it was a prize for people who had studied. He promised to study for the next week.
I hope to continue the classes, but I am also looking to do them with a few different audiences. I am working on a few sessions for the hospital and am going to spend a week with a primary school nearby. I also think I am going to do a few sessions in the market. Mama Dina thinks this will work well, since people are already there to buy things, I should convince them to buy things they take fore-granted. I just like the idea of talking about food right in the market. Its like nutrition information on packages, Mozambican style.
For the last month, we have focused on a different plant each week and had a short lesson on the plant, its nutritional value, medicinal value, and how to cultivate it here in Manjacaze.
My first class, papaya, was only four people. Though I was disappointed, I was excited to have people show up at all (it was a rainy day, which often means anything that was set to happen is expected to be canceled). We had a great time talking about the nutrients in papaya and you can use it on wounds, for diarrhea, and how you can use the roots to treat bad coughs.
After the session, Mama Dina suggested that I should repeat the class the next week, since so many people had not come. I asked if she thought more people would come the next week, and she said she would make sure they did.
At church that Sunday, Dina announced that everyone should come to my classes because they could really learn something. I was so flattered. It’s often hard for the women at the church to take me seriously. At 24 years old, I am still not married and have no children. What can I teach them? Mama Dina's comments got me excited for that week's session.
When Thursday came around, I made a couple of big posters and hung them on the poles in the church (the church is under construction and has no walls). By 12:30, fifteen participants had congregated, and we started our lesson. I started off with a general nutrition lesson. We talked about food groups and why it is important to try to eat a variety of foods each day. I gave each person a drawing of a food and asked them to put it in the right food group. We then had a great discussion about why foods like fish and eggs were not base foods (carbohydrates) but that they were high in protein which was very good for the immune system, etc. People took notes! I couldn't believe it. Everyone thought what I was saying was important enough to write down.
After the first part of the lesson, we returned to the papaya session. I let Mama Dina and Mama Melita help me teach it, as they had both been present the week prior. It was so fun to see them talk about the things we talked about the week before.
We had a great discussion about papaya, about why vitamin A is important for children and about why women are vulnerable to iron deficiency.
After the session, Mama Lusida, who had been translating to changana for me, asked if she could have a copy of my notes, as she had been too busy translating to write anything down. I told the class that the posters would be hung up in the office and they should come by anytime to look at them and we could talk about the plants again. Everyone thanked me and promised to show up the next week.
For the next week, I wanted to have a couple of prizes. I asked Gerhard for some coconut plants to give out to people who answered questions right. We started the class off brainstorming different plates that included each of the food groups from the week prior. Anyone who answered questions right during this review got a coconut. When we then talked about how valuable coconuts were, Francisco raised his hand and asked why everyone didn’t get a plant. I explained it was a prize for people who had studied. He promised to study for the next week.
I hope to continue the classes, but I am also looking to do them with a few different audiences. I am working on a few sessions for the hospital and am going to spend a week with a primary school nearby. I also think I am going to do a few sessions in the market. Mama Dina thinks this will work well, since people are already there to buy things, I should convince them to buy things they take fore-granted. I just like the idea of talking about food right in the market. Its like nutrition information on packages, Mozambican style.
so I slapped him.
There are few days that go by that I do not get marriage proposals. Usually they come in the form of the men who work at the construction shop near my house yell “Hello, girl. I am fine. Take me home with you.” So romantic.
Usually I can shrug these things off. Its easy when its an annoying man yelling at me from a bar. I can yell something equally ridiculous and the whole bar will laugh. Sometimes when people “estou a pedir” (translates to “I am asking”) my telephone number, I respond I am estou a pedir-ing a hippopotamus before I give my number. Usually the man is so surprised he lets me leave.
Sometimes though, you get trapped. The worst is being stuck on a chapa with a man who thinks it is his right to hit on you for the duration of the ride. Because the bus is cramped anyway, there is little you can do.
A couple of weeks ago, I was heading back from Xai Xai after picking up a few things for my office. It had been a long day and I was not in the mood to deal with anyone. As I arrived at the chapa stop, a bus for Manjacaze was just pulling away. Just my luck. I had to wait for the next one to fill up, which often takes over an hour.
Silver lining, I got to pick my seat first. I am partial to the front seat. You only have to talk to one other person, you have a window, and you are guaranteed no chickens on your lap. I put my bag on the seat and went to get a coke.
When I returned a man, who smelled like his afternoon had been spent at a bar, told me he was going to sit by me. Just the way the man spoke should have been a red flag to me, but I said okay and continued drinking my cold beverage. A younger guy came by and we joked about how this older guy was annoying and I asked if he wanted to sit in front and switch seats with me. He laughed, but told me to keep my seat, I had been there first and I should have a good seat.
He was right. When the bus finally pulled away, the drunk man expected that I was going to sit in the middle. This is a common problem. For whatever reason, Mozambican men think the middle seat is no place for a man. Always trying to break gender barriers, I always argue this point and explain that since I was there first, the man can sit in the middle or wherever he wants, but I am sitting by the window. Usually the driver will support me on this, but on this particular day, the driver just laughed and let me deal with it.
Eventually the man got in the middle seat. He started talking to me about how beautiful my hair was (mind you I had been shopping in 90 degree heat, my hair was lots of things at this moment, but beautiful was not one of them). I told the man I was tired and that I just wanted to rest. He responded (in English now) that we were fine, friends and he was not going to give me stress. I put in my headphones.
This is when things started to really turn. This guy put his arm around me and I told him he could not do that. He continued to do it and I continued to move out of the way. Then he had the audacity to put his hand on my leg. I was furious. I moved his hand and told him if he touched me again that I would slap him.
Now, I should add here that this tactic of warning someone about what is to come I learned from my brother. I think the man, like me as a kid, thought the warning was empty. When he put his hand back on my leg, I turned around and slapped him across the face.
The entire chapa laughed. I should add here that I had not kept my feelings about this man to myself. I had been vocalizing my frustrations and the full chapa had failed to help me out. When they all laughed I realized no one was going to help me. I had an hour left on this bus next to this annoying man and I had nowhere to go.
The man turned to me after I slapped him and asked if I was playing with him. He had not taken my assault seriously. To prove I had not offended him, he told me “we are fine, you are testing me” and put his hand back on my leg. At this point, I turned to the driver and asked for his help. The driver said it was not his problem, that he was just a driver. The rest of the bus, now completely engaged in my battle, continued to watch and not help me.
Finally, I turned around to the bus. “God knows.” I said. “No one here is innocent. I am battling this man and no one is helping, and God knows you are not helping me.”
The bus fell silent. The man laughed and put his arm around me. Finally, the young man, from the bus stop, said, “leave this girl alone.” The man, though dejected, gave me a little space and did not speak to me the rest of the ride.
Usually I can shrug these things off. Its easy when its an annoying man yelling at me from a bar. I can yell something equally ridiculous and the whole bar will laugh. Sometimes when people “estou a pedir” (translates to “I am asking”) my telephone number, I respond I am estou a pedir-ing a hippopotamus before I give my number. Usually the man is so surprised he lets me leave.
Sometimes though, you get trapped. The worst is being stuck on a chapa with a man who thinks it is his right to hit on you for the duration of the ride. Because the bus is cramped anyway, there is little you can do.
A couple of weeks ago, I was heading back from Xai Xai after picking up a few things for my office. It had been a long day and I was not in the mood to deal with anyone. As I arrived at the chapa stop, a bus for Manjacaze was just pulling away. Just my luck. I had to wait for the next one to fill up, which often takes over an hour.
Silver lining, I got to pick my seat first. I am partial to the front seat. You only have to talk to one other person, you have a window, and you are guaranteed no chickens on your lap. I put my bag on the seat and went to get a coke.
When I returned a man, who smelled like his afternoon had been spent at a bar, told me he was going to sit by me. Just the way the man spoke should have been a red flag to me, but I said okay and continued drinking my cold beverage. A younger guy came by and we joked about how this older guy was annoying and I asked if he wanted to sit in front and switch seats with me. He laughed, but told me to keep my seat, I had been there first and I should have a good seat.
He was right. When the bus finally pulled away, the drunk man expected that I was going to sit in the middle. This is a common problem. For whatever reason, Mozambican men think the middle seat is no place for a man. Always trying to break gender barriers, I always argue this point and explain that since I was there first, the man can sit in the middle or wherever he wants, but I am sitting by the window. Usually the driver will support me on this, but on this particular day, the driver just laughed and let me deal with it.
Eventually the man got in the middle seat. He started talking to me about how beautiful my hair was (mind you I had been shopping in 90 degree heat, my hair was lots of things at this moment, but beautiful was not one of them). I told the man I was tired and that I just wanted to rest. He responded (in English now) that we were fine, friends and he was not going to give me stress. I put in my headphones.
This is when things started to really turn. This guy put his arm around me and I told him he could not do that. He continued to do it and I continued to move out of the way. Then he had the audacity to put his hand on my leg. I was furious. I moved his hand and told him if he touched me again that I would slap him.
Now, I should add here that this tactic of warning someone about what is to come I learned from my brother. I think the man, like me as a kid, thought the warning was empty. When he put his hand back on my leg, I turned around and slapped him across the face.
The entire chapa laughed. I should add here that I had not kept my feelings about this man to myself. I had been vocalizing my frustrations and the full chapa had failed to help me out. When they all laughed I realized no one was going to help me. I had an hour left on this bus next to this annoying man and I had nowhere to go.
The man turned to me after I slapped him and asked if I was playing with him. He had not taken my assault seriously. To prove I had not offended him, he told me “we are fine, you are testing me” and put his hand back on my leg. At this point, I turned to the driver and asked for his help. The driver said it was not his problem, that he was just a driver. The rest of the bus, now completely engaged in my battle, continued to watch and not help me.
Finally, I turned around to the bus. “God knows.” I said. “No one here is innocent. I am battling this man and no one is helping, and God knows you are not helping me.”
The bus fell silent. The man laughed and put his arm around me. Finally, the young man, from the bus stop, said, “leave this girl alone.” The man, though dejected, gave me a little space and did not speak to me the rest of the ride.
a trip out of town
A few weeks ago, Peace Corps had a medicinal plants conference. I work a lot teaching medicinal uses of different plants to our beneficiaries, so I was excited to learn about how to make different salves, syrups, teas, and herbal baths. Plus, as Peace Corps Volunteers, we always look forward to conferences. I know I will stay in a hotel with a shower. I get to see my friends and I get to shave my legs. I have a few days where I do not have to worry about my leaking roof and I can turn on an air conditioner if I want.
This conference I went to last month was, perhaps, my favorite conference yet. The volunteers participating were all good friends of mine, and I hadn't seen a lot of them in a while. Best though, was watching all the Mozambicans at the conference.
Each Peace Corps Volunteer got to bring one counterpart from his or her community. The idea was to bring someone who could help you disseminate the information from the conference one we arrived back at site. I was bringing Mama Louisa. When I told her about the trip, she had many questions. Did she need to bring a blanket? Would there be food there? Could she bring her daughter? I told her that she needed to leave Geralda at home, but that everything would be provided to her when we got there. She did not seem to believe me, but agreed to participate.
The conference took place in Namaacha, Peace Corps Mozambique’s training headquarters. About an hour an a half from Maputo, Namaacha was quite a trek for a number of people. It was the first time some of the participants had left their provinces, ridden on a plane, or been to their nation's capital.
The first night, we had a great time showing our counterparts how to turn on the shower (for many of them, they had never stayed in a hotel before), how to ride in an elevator, and how to use the air conditioning if they wanted it. At dinner, the buffet impressed all of us (there was chocolate pudding for dessert, you can bet I had seconds), and the conference organizers explained we should sit down with our counterparts to discuss the goals we had for the week.
I met Mama Louisa in her room after dinner. We talked about what she wanted to learn that week and what things we wanted to share with the group. As we talked, she kept looking into the mirror. In the hotel rooms were big, full length mirrors. As we talked, the mirror was right in her view, and like I did as a kid, she could not focus on anything but her reflection. I then realized that apart from the hand mirror I had seen in her house, she had probably never found herself in front of a mirror, trying to have a conversation. I could relate, it is really hard to focus on someone else when you can look at yourself making ridiculous faces.
The conference went really well. Mama Louisa was excited to get back and share with everyone what she had learned. We got a lot of resources and ideas for different projects we could start in the community. I think, though, she was equally excited to brag about the hotel we stayed in and the fact that she had been waited on the whole week. Pastor Ricardo, Louisa's husband seemed a bit jealous and asked if he could come to our next conference.
This conference I went to last month was, perhaps, my favorite conference yet. The volunteers participating were all good friends of mine, and I hadn't seen a lot of them in a while. Best though, was watching all the Mozambicans at the conference.
Each Peace Corps Volunteer got to bring one counterpart from his or her community. The idea was to bring someone who could help you disseminate the information from the conference one we arrived back at site. I was bringing Mama Louisa. When I told her about the trip, she had many questions. Did she need to bring a blanket? Would there be food there? Could she bring her daughter? I told her that she needed to leave Geralda at home, but that everything would be provided to her when we got there. She did not seem to believe me, but agreed to participate.
The conference took place in Namaacha, Peace Corps Mozambique’s training headquarters. About an hour an a half from Maputo, Namaacha was quite a trek for a number of people. It was the first time some of the participants had left their provinces, ridden on a plane, or been to their nation's capital.
The first night, we had a great time showing our counterparts how to turn on the shower (for many of them, they had never stayed in a hotel before), how to ride in an elevator, and how to use the air conditioning if they wanted it. At dinner, the buffet impressed all of us (there was chocolate pudding for dessert, you can bet I had seconds), and the conference organizers explained we should sit down with our counterparts to discuss the goals we had for the week.
I met Mama Louisa in her room after dinner. We talked about what she wanted to learn that week and what things we wanted to share with the group. As we talked, she kept looking into the mirror. In the hotel rooms were big, full length mirrors. As we talked, the mirror was right in her view, and like I did as a kid, she could not focus on anything but her reflection. I then realized that apart from the hand mirror I had seen in her house, she had probably never found herself in front of a mirror, trying to have a conversation. I could relate, it is really hard to focus on someone else when you can look at yourself making ridiculous faces.
The conference went really well. Mama Louisa was excited to get back and share with everyone what she had learned. We got a lot of resources and ideas for different projects we could start in the community. I think, though, she was equally excited to brag about the hotel we stayed in and the fact that she had been waited on the whole week. Pastor Ricardo, Louisa's husband seemed a bit jealous and asked if he could come to our next conference.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
a luncheon and a lesson plan
Some of the people reading this blog may remember how frustrated I was a few months ago when I really wanted to be working, but all I seemed to be doing was becoming a pro at cracking open coconuts and eating mangos without looking like a slob. While I can call those two activities successes, my first few weeks in Manjacaze have been much more productive, if you are measuring productivity based on work tasks. This post is rather lengthy, as I have not had access to a computer/internet. If you are like me and have no patients for long blog posts, I would just skip to the last two paragraphs.
I think it might be helpful to give a bit more detail about what Mozaic does (as I am still learning myself, this will be an ongoing process). Mozaic is a network of South African churches that works in different Mozambican communities building capacity for church leadership as well as in the areas of agriculture and nutrition. It probably does not surprise any of you that my work is mostly focused on the nutrition rather than on building leadership capacity of local pastors (but who knows, maybe my years in USY have prepared me to be a great church teacher. I just don’t know if the Mozambican pastors would have as much fun dancing during the kaddish as I did. Worth looking into…)
Anyway, Mozaic’s nutrition project faces some serious challenges, most of which can be traced back to the weather. Gaza is very hot and dry and the soil is very sandy. No matter how many agriculture seminars you attend, you cannot change the fact that this complicates plant growth. To that end, Gerhard has identified a number of perennial plants and fruit trees that are high in nutrition and miraculously grow year-round in this sandy soil. Chaya, moringa, katuk, cranberry hibiscus, and garlic chives are a few that we are working on getting people to incorporate into their everyday diets. Getting people to try new things (aka behavior change) is definitely not the easiest thing, especially when it comes to a diet that has been almost unchanged for decades. Some of our beneficiaries, however, have seen how well the plants grow and have started to use them, sometimes even when other options are available in the market.
In addition to learning a lot about plants and trying to greenify my thumbs, I have spent the last few weeks talking with Gerhard and various people from the church to try to identify what sorts of things Mozaic might like me to work on. My first week here, Gerhard took me to see a dried up garden at the hospital. The hospital garden had great space, but also was getting way too much sun. Almost everything that we had planted (we being Mozaic, the garden was initially dug last year) had died during the dry, hot months of Febuary, March, and April. As we were looking in at the garden, we met a woman named Felicidade. We explained who I was and I added that I would be very excited to work with the hospital in the future, if she thought there was a place for me. It turns out that Felicidade is the hospital’s nutritionist, and she was fairly excited at the prospect of working with us.
That weekend, Gerhard and I arranged a lunch for Felicidade, Pastor Ricardo and his wife Louisa (the two leaders from the church in Manjacaze who I work most closely with, Louisa is in charge of the nutrition project and will be my counterpart throughout most of my projects), and a man named Sereigo, a local agriculture guru who is wasting away working for Save the Children where he is paid well but not really using his expertise. The six of us sat down to talk about the future of Mozaic in Manjacaze and about how, ideally, Mozaic would start working on more projects in the greater community. We had a nice lunch of m’chaya (so named after matapa, a traditional Mozambican dish, but this one was made with chaya) and a salad made with cranberry hibiscus and moringa. After lunch, we took a tour of the garden, and Felicidade looked genuinely impressed to see that some of the plants had not died and even asked to take some cuttings home. At that point we knew we had sold her and planned to re-work the hospital garden the coming week.
The next week, another group from South Africa came and was able to help us plant the hospital garden. We filled the garden with moringa and chaya and added beds of chives and katuk. Some brilliant person (yours truly) thought it might be a good idea to plant these perennials first and let them grow a bit to provide some shade to the area. Then, once the plants are growing and producing leaves, we can return and plant vegetables (I should give some credit to the permagardening training that I had last fall, but I really feel the genius idea was my own). We plan to continue monitoring the garden and I am hoping to come back and work with the women who cook for the patients to talk with them about how to prepare the plants in a nutritious way.
To keep up our connection with the hospital, I have been going everyday this week to watch palestras that the local activistas put on everyday at 7. Though the palestras are mainly in Changana (which I really need to and intend to learn), I think the opportunity to meet the activistas has been great. Everyday is a different group of six, and each day the group seems excited to be talking with people about HIV prevention and care. A lot of health volunteers are placed with an organization called ICAP (I honestly forget what this stands for but it’s a project out of Columbia’s School of Public Health), and I am pretty sure these activistas are also ICAP funded. I hope to look more into this and maybe work with this group in the future. Yesterday I had a great time with two older ladies who were talking with people waiting to get HIV tests about how to use condoms. Though the women they were talking with blushed at the idea of a female condom, the activistas knew all about it and showed the women how to use them. After their demonstration, I explained how you can use a papaya to do the demonstrations and the ladies were totally impressed.
The other big project I am working on is starting up a “Plant of the Week” class at Mozaic’s training Center. (I actually forgot to mention, Mozaic is just finishing a beautiful training center where people will be able to come and stay for week-long seminars. The first seminar was held two weeks ago, despite little things not being finished. In the next couple months we hope to put some last final touches on the place and make it something like a community center. In my mind it will eventually be like a Visitor’s Center at a National Park, with lots of things to look at and read about and learn from. We have a great garden outside that we are going to make placards for, so people will be able to walk around and learn about the plants that do grow well here in Manjacaze. We are also hoping to get funding for a fooze ball table, but that might be years down the road.) Last Sunday, I met with Mozaic’s beneficiaries and we spoke about the challenges they have in the area of nutrition and agriculture. After our discussion, I suggested that we start up a seminar series about different plants and agriculture techniques that might help address some of their problems. With Louisa’s help, the group agreed on a day for our first class, and I have spent the past few days brainstorming what we can have as our first subject. While we are going to start the seminars for the direct beneficiaries of our project, we hope to eventually expand and invite members of the community. In my head, sometimes the seminars will be technical (like learning how to make a drip irrigation system) and sometimes they will be a bit lighter (like how to make really delicious brownies without an oven). We will see how it all works out.
On a more personal note, I am really growing to like Manjacaze. It is great to be able to walk down the street and recognize the kids or to go to the market and walk right to the lady who gives you the best deal on tomatoes. I am starting to meet people and have become very close with a girl named Celest, who works for Mozaic doing mostly administrative things. She took me to my first ever Mozambican wedding a couple weeks ago, and though all I did was sweat it was a fun ceremony and we had a great time. She told me she wanted also wanted big wedding and I told her she better have it within two years so that I can go!
I have also started playing soccer somewhat regularly. I am pretty decent on defense, and though my team never wins, we always have a great time. Last week we decided to take the whole team out for ice cream afterwards, but the ice cream machine wasn’t turned on. 25 cokes later, everyone was happy and I went home with only a few bruises on my legs. Maybe by the end of the two years my team will eventually win.
I think it might be helpful to give a bit more detail about what Mozaic does (as I am still learning myself, this will be an ongoing process). Mozaic is a network of South African churches that works in different Mozambican communities building capacity for church leadership as well as in the areas of agriculture and nutrition. It probably does not surprise any of you that my work is mostly focused on the nutrition rather than on building leadership capacity of local pastors (but who knows, maybe my years in USY have prepared me to be a great church teacher. I just don’t know if the Mozambican pastors would have as much fun dancing during the kaddish as I did. Worth looking into…)
Anyway, Mozaic’s nutrition project faces some serious challenges, most of which can be traced back to the weather. Gaza is very hot and dry and the soil is very sandy. No matter how many agriculture seminars you attend, you cannot change the fact that this complicates plant growth. To that end, Gerhard has identified a number of perennial plants and fruit trees that are high in nutrition and miraculously grow year-round in this sandy soil. Chaya, moringa, katuk, cranberry hibiscus, and garlic chives are a few that we are working on getting people to incorporate into their everyday diets. Getting people to try new things (aka behavior change) is definitely not the easiest thing, especially when it comes to a diet that has been almost unchanged for decades. Some of our beneficiaries, however, have seen how well the plants grow and have started to use them, sometimes even when other options are available in the market.
In addition to learning a lot about plants and trying to greenify my thumbs, I have spent the last few weeks talking with Gerhard and various people from the church to try to identify what sorts of things Mozaic might like me to work on. My first week here, Gerhard took me to see a dried up garden at the hospital. The hospital garden had great space, but also was getting way too much sun. Almost everything that we had planted (we being Mozaic, the garden was initially dug last year) had died during the dry, hot months of Febuary, March, and April. As we were looking in at the garden, we met a woman named Felicidade. We explained who I was and I added that I would be very excited to work with the hospital in the future, if she thought there was a place for me. It turns out that Felicidade is the hospital’s nutritionist, and she was fairly excited at the prospect of working with us.
That weekend, Gerhard and I arranged a lunch for Felicidade, Pastor Ricardo and his wife Louisa (the two leaders from the church in Manjacaze who I work most closely with, Louisa is in charge of the nutrition project and will be my counterpart throughout most of my projects), and a man named Sereigo, a local agriculture guru who is wasting away working for Save the Children where he is paid well but not really using his expertise. The six of us sat down to talk about the future of Mozaic in Manjacaze and about how, ideally, Mozaic would start working on more projects in the greater community. We had a nice lunch of m’chaya (so named after matapa, a traditional Mozambican dish, but this one was made with chaya) and a salad made with cranberry hibiscus and moringa. After lunch, we took a tour of the garden, and Felicidade looked genuinely impressed to see that some of the plants had not died and even asked to take some cuttings home. At that point we knew we had sold her and planned to re-work the hospital garden the coming week.
The next week, another group from South Africa came and was able to help us plant the hospital garden. We filled the garden with moringa and chaya and added beds of chives and katuk. Some brilliant person (yours truly) thought it might be a good idea to plant these perennials first and let them grow a bit to provide some shade to the area. Then, once the plants are growing and producing leaves, we can return and plant vegetables (I should give some credit to the permagardening training that I had last fall, but I really feel the genius idea was my own). We plan to continue monitoring the garden and I am hoping to come back and work with the women who cook for the patients to talk with them about how to prepare the plants in a nutritious way.
To keep up our connection with the hospital, I have been going everyday this week to watch palestras that the local activistas put on everyday at 7. Though the palestras are mainly in Changana (which I really need to and intend to learn), I think the opportunity to meet the activistas has been great. Everyday is a different group of six, and each day the group seems excited to be talking with people about HIV prevention and care. A lot of health volunteers are placed with an organization called ICAP (I honestly forget what this stands for but it’s a project out of Columbia’s School of Public Health), and I am pretty sure these activistas are also ICAP funded. I hope to look more into this and maybe work with this group in the future. Yesterday I had a great time with two older ladies who were talking with people waiting to get HIV tests about how to use condoms. Though the women they were talking with blushed at the idea of a female condom, the activistas knew all about it and showed the women how to use them. After their demonstration, I explained how you can use a papaya to do the demonstrations and the ladies were totally impressed.
The other big project I am working on is starting up a “Plant of the Week” class at Mozaic’s training Center. (I actually forgot to mention, Mozaic is just finishing a beautiful training center where people will be able to come and stay for week-long seminars. The first seminar was held two weeks ago, despite little things not being finished. In the next couple months we hope to put some last final touches on the place and make it something like a community center. In my mind it will eventually be like a Visitor’s Center at a National Park, with lots of things to look at and read about and learn from. We have a great garden outside that we are going to make placards for, so people will be able to walk around and learn about the plants that do grow well here in Manjacaze. We are also hoping to get funding for a fooze ball table, but that might be years down the road.) Last Sunday, I met with Mozaic’s beneficiaries and we spoke about the challenges they have in the area of nutrition and agriculture. After our discussion, I suggested that we start up a seminar series about different plants and agriculture techniques that might help address some of their problems. With Louisa’s help, the group agreed on a day for our first class, and I have spent the past few days brainstorming what we can have as our first subject. While we are going to start the seminars for the direct beneficiaries of our project, we hope to eventually expand and invite members of the community. In my head, sometimes the seminars will be technical (like learning how to make a drip irrigation system) and sometimes they will be a bit lighter (like how to make really delicious brownies without an oven). We will see how it all works out.
On a more personal note, I am really growing to like Manjacaze. It is great to be able to walk down the street and recognize the kids or to go to the market and walk right to the lady who gives you the best deal on tomatoes. I am starting to meet people and have become very close with a girl named Celest, who works for Mozaic doing mostly administrative things. She took me to my first ever Mozambican wedding a couple weeks ago, and though all I did was sweat it was a fun ceremony and we had a great time. She told me she wanted also wanted big wedding and I told her she better have it within two years so that I can go!
I have also started playing soccer somewhat regularly. I am pretty decent on defense, and though my team never wins, we always have a great time. Last week we decided to take the whole team out for ice cream afterwards, but the ice cream machine wasn’t turned on. 25 cokes later, everyone was happy and I went home with only a few bruises on my legs. Maybe by the end of the two years my team will eventually win.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
is that a borehole youre digging or are you just happy to see me?
I drove into Manjacaze with Ofelio, the dearest of Peace Corps staff who always seems to get stuck doing things that I highly doubt were in his job description. We had been driving for two days, all the way south from Chimoio, through Inhambane province, into Gaza until we reached the turn off to Manjacaze.
Coming from the north, the road into Manj left me happy Peace Corps invested in 4-wheel drive vehicles. After about 45 minutes on the bumpy dirt road, we passed a sign indicating we had reached the “Municipio de Manjacaze.” “You are going to live in a municipality!” Ofelio told me. “This is a big place!” Unsure that “big” was the word Ofelio meant, we road into town to wait for Gerhad (Geraldo) at the gas station. The center of Manjacaze had a single gas pump, a market, and a post office. Ofelio and I drove around a bit before meeting Geraldo and saw that the town was also equipped with a bank and another gas station (this one with more than one pump and a convenience store), a bakery, a variety of small shops, and an old train station. We waited for Geraldo under a big cashew tree and lamented about how much hotter Gaza was than Chimoio.
From the shady cashew tree, we followed Geraldo to his house. He had warned me that a group of South Africans were with him on a mission trip for the week, but to not be overwhelmed. I got out of the car to be greeted by 25 excited volunteers, just back from a morning of digging a well in one of Mozaic’s beneficiary’s houses.
The following week flew by. I was kept busy by the visiting group, and any spare moment I tried to talk with Geraldo about Mozaic and what it is he wanted me to work on in the coming months. The visiting group worked in a number of beneficiaries houses, planting different plants, erecting fences, and working on a well. Unfortunately, the drill bit for the well got lodged in the sand and the group spent a lot of time trying to just get the drill bit back out of the sand. Unsuccessful, the borehole debacle became somewhat of the joke of the week.
But the failed well did not keep the group from having a great time. We visited a pre-school in the nearby town of Chokwe (“nearby”, read: two hours drive). We helped the pre-school by laying out a vegetable garden that the kids can get food from year round. We also played with the kids and tried to teach them a little about nutrition. As I helped translate for the group, I was so excited to feel needed, even just for translating. Though I had only been in Manjacaze a few days, I was being utilized. I was not just sitting beneath a mango tree (though don’t get me wrong, some of my fondest Dondo moments were beneath that tree), but I was talking with kids about nutrition, I was helping a group of volunteers with their work, I was getting my hands dirty planting perennials that will feed people in this sandy region all year round. The more I worked, the more I was excited to be in Manj, the more excited I was to be able to work with this organization and in this communitiy.
The week ended with an exciting futbol game, which we obviously lost, but not for lack of trying. The "South Africans" (in quotes because I was also part of the team!) lost 0-4 to the Mozambicans. Important note: I do not think anyone on the Mozambican team was over 16 years old, we should have gotten some kind of handicap.
Throughout the week, I was luckily able to learn a bit more about what Mozaic does. Mozaic works in Manjacaze as well as some other rural communities in the areas of agriculture/conservation farming, nutrition, and health. While the agriculture project is well established in the community, Geraldo hopes to build the nutrition project to get people more excited and committed to using the nutritious plants he has helped them cultivate. He has identified a number of important plants, especially perennial varieties that are packed with nutrition and are easy to use. Now it is just a matter of getting people to use them.
In the next coming weeks I will focus on learning about what Mozaic has done in Manjacaze and the other communities in which we work. I will be working closely with a few volunteers from the local church (Mozaic partners with local churches to carry out its work) who act as activistas in the community. I am really excited to work with the volunteers and even more excited to be working with Mozaic. We are going to try to put together weekly seminars on different plants and agriculture techniques, and eventually I also want to start up cooking classes. There is so much potential for growth with Mozaic and the whole team is excited to support new projects.
People say everything happens for a reason. I think I was meant to be here in Manjacaze. Despite the stress of the last couple weeks, I feel like there is good work for me to do here with Mozaic and I am excited to explore what that work will look like and figure out ways that I can help Mozaic’s mission.
As an added bonus, the town of Manjacaze just received an ice cream machine. What more can I ask for?
Coming from the north, the road into Manj left me happy Peace Corps invested in 4-wheel drive vehicles. After about 45 minutes on the bumpy dirt road, we passed a sign indicating we had reached the “Municipio de Manjacaze.” “You are going to live in a municipality!” Ofelio told me. “This is a big place!” Unsure that “big” was the word Ofelio meant, we road into town to wait for Gerhad (Geraldo) at the gas station. The center of Manjacaze had a single gas pump, a market, and a post office. Ofelio and I drove around a bit before meeting Geraldo and saw that the town was also equipped with a bank and another gas station (this one with more than one pump and a convenience store), a bakery, a variety of small shops, and an old train station. We waited for Geraldo under a big cashew tree and lamented about how much hotter Gaza was than Chimoio.
From the shady cashew tree, we followed Geraldo to his house. He had warned me that a group of South Africans were with him on a mission trip for the week, but to not be overwhelmed. I got out of the car to be greeted by 25 excited volunteers, just back from a morning of digging a well in one of Mozaic’s beneficiary’s houses.
The following week flew by. I was kept busy by the visiting group, and any spare moment I tried to talk with Geraldo about Mozaic and what it is he wanted me to work on in the coming months. The visiting group worked in a number of beneficiaries houses, planting different plants, erecting fences, and working on a well. Unfortunately, the drill bit for the well got lodged in the sand and the group spent a lot of time trying to just get the drill bit back out of the sand. Unsuccessful, the borehole debacle became somewhat of the joke of the week.
But the failed well did not keep the group from having a great time. We visited a pre-school in the nearby town of Chokwe (“nearby”, read: two hours drive). We helped the pre-school by laying out a vegetable garden that the kids can get food from year round. We also played with the kids and tried to teach them a little about nutrition. As I helped translate for the group, I was so excited to feel needed, even just for translating. Though I had only been in Manjacaze a few days, I was being utilized. I was not just sitting beneath a mango tree (though don’t get me wrong, some of my fondest Dondo moments were beneath that tree), but I was talking with kids about nutrition, I was helping a group of volunteers with their work, I was getting my hands dirty planting perennials that will feed people in this sandy region all year round. The more I worked, the more I was excited to be in Manj, the more excited I was to be able to work with this organization and in this communitiy.
The week ended with an exciting futbol game, which we obviously lost, but not for lack of trying. The "South Africans" (in quotes because I was also part of the team!) lost 0-4 to the Mozambicans. Important note: I do not think anyone on the Mozambican team was over 16 years old, we should have gotten some kind of handicap.
Throughout the week, I was luckily able to learn a bit more about what Mozaic does. Mozaic works in Manjacaze as well as some other rural communities in the areas of agriculture/conservation farming, nutrition, and health. While the agriculture project is well established in the community, Geraldo hopes to build the nutrition project to get people more excited and committed to using the nutritious plants he has helped them cultivate. He has identified a number of important plants, especially perennial varieties that are packed with nutrition and are easy to use. Now it is just a matter of getting people to use them.
In the next coming weeks I will focus on learning about what Mozaic has done in Manjacaze and the other communities in which we work. I will be working closely with a few volunteers from the local church (Mozaic partners with local churches to carry out its work) who act as activistas in the community. I am really excited to work with the volunteers and even more excited to be working with Mozaic. We are going to try to put together weekly seminars on different plants and agriculture techniques, and eventually I also want to start up cooking classes. There is so much potential for growth with Mozaic and the whole team is excited to support new projects.
People say everything happens for a reason. I think I was meant to be here in Manjacaze. Despite the stress of the last couple weeks, I feel like there is good work for me to do here with Mozaic and I am excited to explore what that work will look like and figure out ways that I can help Mozaic’s mission.
As an added bonus, the town of Manjacaze just received an ice cream machine. What more can I ask for?
Monday, March 7, 2011
moving south.
I am a pretty light sleeper. So when I woke up to two men jumping out of my window, I was pretty surprised that I had not heard them come in.
More surprised, however, that I had not heard them steal my valuables right off my bed. Pretty sneaky banditos.
After being surprised and annoyed about the fact that my computer was gone (and that I was only half-way through season 3 of Dexter), I sat down to realize that I also did not have a phone, and it being 2:30 in the morning, I had no way to contact Peace Corps or anyone from ASVIMO to sit with me or help me handle the situation. So I waited. At the time, I did not know what else I could do, but I spend the next few hours thinking about my options and about how I could have stopped the situation. The guys had cut the grates off my window (I think they must have done this another day and I just had not noticed) and climbed in. I had been in the process of fixing my windows so they would close and lock, and if I ever wished I had been more proactive about something, this was the moment.
Anyway, I sat there and thought about the situation until it was light enough to feel safe outside of my house. I went for a run, and if there is anything that makes you run fast, its the prospect of finding the guy who had the nerve to break into your house. I was a volunteer, after all. I was here to help this community, not get robbed by it.
It was not until after I had showered and was talking to my neighbor that what had happened really set in. As I explained to my neighbor, I just burst into tears. Crying is not something Mozambicans do in public, so she was justly surprised as she agreed that stealing from others "nao e vida."
Around 6:30, I decided to see if anyone was at ASVIMO yet. Most of my neighbors do not have phones, so I would have to wait until one of my counterparts arrived to call Peace Corps and explain what had happened. Luckily, we were starting March food distribution that day, so Esperanca had come in early to prepare a few things. As she nonshelantly asked how I had slept, I started crying again (I don't know why I could not keep it together, but I couldn't), and she sat me down and had me explain. She then called Gimo who called the local police to come to talk with me. I was able to track down the Peace Corps emergency number and explain what had happened.
The morning from then on out happened very quickly. Peace Corps communicated with Gimo and decided that Dondo, and its proximity to Beira, was not a safe place for me. Break ins are very common among volunteers in Mozambique, but break ins in which the person actually enter the house are very uncommon. Anyway, by mid afternoon, there was a Peace Corps car waiting to pack up my house and take my to the office. I refused to put everything in the car, convinced that I could negotiate with Peace Corps to let me stay in Dondo. I locked all of my things, save the charger for the computer (which they had not stolen, joke is on you!), and clothes for a few days, in the warehouse at ASVIMO and promised my activistas I would be back by Monday.
When I arrived in Chimoio, at the Peace Corps office, it was clear that I would not be going back. Peace Corps had already officially closed my site due to security reasons, and I would no longer be working in Dondo. I really had spent the last three months becomming a part of the community of Dondo, and especially of my bairro, Mafarinha. I hated the prospect of leaving. If for no other reason because this community clearly had people who were living in a state of desperation.
But nothing could convince Peace Corps to let me stay. The next week, I returned to Dondo and had to explain to my neighbors that I would not be coming back. It was really hard to say goodbye, especially to the women next door and to the activistas I had worked with. It does not really make sense to just leave when your house is broken into. If that happened in the states, you would get a better security system or a taller fence. Explaining to my community that though I wanted to help, the community was not safe enough for me was very hard. Especailly since I was not convinced. But I gave each of the kids a hug and the women my regards, and I drove away.
A few days later, I heard from Peace Corps that they had found me a new site in Gaza province, in the south. My new town is called Manjakaze and I will be working with a South African NGO called Mozaic. The work with Mozaic seems very interesting and after speaking with the director of the organization I am really excited to get to move down and start working. I will be working on building capacity for the organization on their nutrition and food security projects.
I do not have many more details at this point, but I will keep everyone as up to date as I can.
On a lighter note, packing up my house in an hour was quite an adventure (as some of you who have lived with me or helped me pack in the past know, try as I can, I somehow always tend to accumulate a lot of things, especially compared to most Mozambicans). George and Maria helped me, and I hope they know how much I appreciated their help. Throughout the whole packing up, anything from the states, Maria would hold up and ask what it was for. She tasted soy sauce for the first time and thought my Burt's Bees shampoo smelled great. When she found my deodorant, she asked what it was for, and after I told her it was to smell good, she asked how to use it. I showed her how and she was totally impressed. I told her she could take the stick (Tom's lavender hops deoderant is so delightful) and her entire face lit up.
I am pretty sure Maria will be the best smelling person in Mozambique.
And I am positive that I will miss her.
More surprised, however, that I had not heard them steal my valuables right off my bed. Pretty sneaky banditos.
After being surprised and annoyed about the fact that my computer was gone (and that I was only half-way through season 3 of Dexter), I sat down to realize that I also did not have a phone, and it being 2:30 in the morning, I had no way to contact Peace Corps or anyone from ASVIMO to sit with me or help me handle the situation. So I waited. At the time, I did not know what else I could do, but I spend the next few hours thinking about my options and about how I could have stopped the situation. The guys had cut the grates off my window (I think they must have done this another day and I just had not noticed) and climbed in. I had been in the process of fixing my windows so they would close and lock, and if I ever wished I had been more proactive about something, this was the moment.
Anyway, I sat there and thought about the situation until it was light enough to feel safe outside of my house. I went for a run, and if there is anything that makes you run fast, its the prospect of finding the guy who had the nerve to break into your house. I was a volunteer, after all. I was here to help this community, not get robbed by it.
It was not until after I had showered and was talking to my neighbor that what had happened really set in. As I explained to my neighbor, I just burst into tears. Crying is not something Mozambicans do in public, so she was justly surprised as she agreed that stealing from others "nao e vida."
Around 6:30, I decided to see if anyone was at ASVIMO yet. Most of my neighbors do not have phones, so I would have to wait until one of my counterparts arrived to call Peace Corps and explain what had happened. Luckily, we were starting March food distribution that day, so Esperanca had come in early to prepare a few things. As she nonshelantly asked how I had slept, I started crying again (I don't know why I could not keep it together, but I couldn't), and she sat me down and had me explain. She then called Gimo who called the local police to come to talk with me. I was able to track down the Peace Corps emergency number and explain what had happened.
The morning from then on out happened very quickly. Peace Corps communicated with Gimo and decided that Dondo, and its proximity to Beira, was not a safe place for me. Break ins are very common among volunteers in Mozambique, but break ins in which the person actually enter the house are very uncommon. Anyway, by mid afternoon, there was a Peace Corps car waiting to pack up my house and take my to the office. I refused to put everything in the car, convinced that I could negotiate with Peace Corps to let me stay in Dondo. I locked all of my things, save the charger for the computer (which they had not stolen, joke is on you!), and clothes for a few days, in the warehouse at ASVIMO and promised my activistas I would be back by Monday.
When I arrived in Chimoio, at the Peace Corps office, it was clear that I would not be going back. Peace Corps had already officially closed my site due to security reasons, and I would no longer be working in Dondo. I really had spent the last three months becomming a part of the community of Dondo, and especially of my bairro, Mafarinha. I hated the prospect of leaving. If for no other reason because this community clearly had people who were living in a state of desperation.
But nothing could convince Peace Corps to let me stay. The next week, I returned to Dondo and had to explain to my neighbors that I would not be coming back. It was really hard to say goodbye, especially to the women next door and to the activistas I had worked with. It does not really make sense to just leave when your house is broken into. If that happened in the states, you would get a better security system or a taller fence. Explaining to my community that though I wanted to help, the community was not safe enough for me was very hard. Especailly since I was not convinced. But I gave each of the kids a hug and the women my regards, and I drove away.
A few days later, I heard from Peace Corps that they had found me a new site in Gaza province, in the south. My new town is called Manjakaze and I will be working with a South African NGO called Mozaic. The work with Mozaic seems very interesting and after speaking with the director of the organization I am really excited to get to move down and start working. I will be working on building capacity for the organization on their nutrition and food security projects.
I do not have many more details at this point, but I will keep everyone as up to date as I can.
On a lighter note, packing up my house in an hour was quite an adventure (as some of you who have lived with me or helped me pack in the past know, try as I can, I somehow always tend to accumulate a lot of things, especially compared to most Mozambicans). George and Maria helped me, and I hope they know how much I appreciated their help. Throughout the whole packing up, anything from the states, Maria would hold up and ask what it was for. She tasted soy sauce for the first time and thought my Burt's Bees shampoo smelled great. When she found my deodorant, she asked what it was for, and after I told her it was to smell good, she asked how to use it. I showed her how and she was totally impressed. I told her she could take the stick (Tom's lavender hops deoderant is so delightful) and her entire face lit up.
I am pretty sure Maria will be the best smelling person in Mozambique.
And I am positive that I will miss her.
Friday, February 11, 2011
january food distribution
Two weeks ago, I was visiting some of ASVIMO’s beneficiaries with Maya, one of our activistas. Maya was very patient and translated the conversations he was having for me (most of our beneficiaries speak only Sena, the local dialect) and also translated any questions I had. Of the twelve families we visited, nine complained of being hungry.
After our visit, I asked Maya if he thought we should increase the amount of food each of our beneficiaries receives (each families that is visited by our activistas receives a monthly food subsidy, a program run through ASVIMO with the help of the World Food Program). Maya responded that maybe we should increase the amount each person gets, but what is more important is that the food is delivered each month.
Someone went on vacation in January, and no one in Dondo received any food.
ASVIMO provides food to over 2,000 people in the District of Dondo. In January, those 6,000 people did not receive anything. On the 25th of January, a truck from the World Food Program (WFP) showed up at our office. The truck was stacked with food for the months of both January and February, and the representative from the WFP apologized for not having come earlier. Though it would be a huge undertaking for us to organize food for two months, the representative really should have apologized to our beneficiaries who had been hungry all month.
With hundreds of 50 kg bags of beans and corn (which will be pounded, usually by hand, by women into a powder and then used to make xima, a filling rice substitute), I helped the activistas organize for the distribution last week.
I never thought I would say this, but I miss Microsoft Excel.
Each beneficiary is registered by our activistas on a list. Some activistas keep this list fairly organized in a notebook or folder and others have five or six sheets of paper with hundreds of names written haphazardly with numbers next to them signifying ages and family members.
Somehow, these lists all had to be transferred onto an official document that would be turned in both to the Mozambican Social Services and to the WFP. This document, mind you, is only as official as the emblem in the upper left hand corner. It is just a word document with a table that requires you to manually insert each name, the amount of food to be received, and the date it will be received. There was no automatic numbering system, no alphabetizing of names to make the process of distribution easier, no sum function to easily report back to the WFP how much we had leftover or still needed to receive.
I could have easily copied the emblem onto a new document and done the whole thing in excel, but that would not be very sustainable. Plus, I would have to interpret the previously mentioned sheets of names, and I would certainly make every Dominga a Domingo and assume Joao Jose is a complete name though his full name is truly Joao Jose Jose, son of Joao Jose.
Since Monday, I have been sitting with each activista, typing in each name of beneficiaries as the activista makes a card by hand which will be given to the beneficiary and serve as a kind of receipt. With one flash drive (I tried putting my bosses flash drive in my computer and was immediately met with seizure on the part of my computer), one other person who knows how to type, and thousands of names, I have spent the entire week helping to create these documents.
On Wednesday morning, I joined my co-workers in our large gazebo (at our office, we have this covered gazebo-like building which is where I spend most of my workdays), which had been turned into a food distribution site. Three neighborhoods worth of beneficiaries sat in the shade nearby, and waited for us to be ready to give them their food. First, people came to my table, with the handwritten cards we had made during the previous week. I found their name on the database list and had them sign that they received their food (for most people, this meant a thumb print, but for the people who could write, it was really fun to see how excited they were to write their name, especially older women, a demographic of which few can write, being able to write was clearly a source of pride). After they had “signed,” the beneficiaries went to George, one of the boys who works at ASVIMO, was standing in the center of about 100 of the 50 kg bags of corn, about a foot of corn on the ground below him, with a bucket that with each scoop into the sea of corn gave the beneficiary 5 kgs. Tio Nhemba (who now I understand his name, nhemba is the local term for red beans) was the man of the hour, measuring out beans on our brand new scale and then giving them to our patient beneficiaries. Each child receiving food got 15 kg of corn and 2 kg of beans. Each “doente” (sick person) received 75 kg of corn and 15 kg of beans. Some people came prepared with bikes (rare) or wheelbarrows (very rare), but most people hoisted their provisions on their head and walked home. It should be reiterated here that people were coming to our location from three neighborhoods in Dondo, a fairly spread out town. Some people were carrying 50 kg bags of corn on their heads for close to 15 miles!
After three days of distribution, we were excited to be done. George was covered in “poera” (corn dust) and exhausted, the woman who sells popsicles near our office was out, and I had been given more mangos than I knew what to do with (older doentes, especially women tend to arrive with gifts, and this time of year, these gifts are in the form of mangos).
Though it was exhausting work, it was well worth it when you saw how thankful people were to be receiving food. Older women would take my hand and say how glad they were that I was there helping out (this is my own interpretation, most of them speak only Sena and I am only just learning, they could have been saying I was a total moron and smell like Beira), then they would wrap their beans in their capulana, put the satchel on their head, and march home.
Next month they will be back, and they will be just as happy to wait in the shade all day as I interpret our activistas handwriting.
After our visit, I asked Maya if he thought we should increase the amount of food each of our beneficiaries receives (each families that is visited by our activistas receives a monthly food subsidy, a program run through ASVIMO with the help of the World Food Program). Maya responded that maybe we should increase the amount each person gets, but what is more important is that the food is delivered each month.
Someone went on vacation in January, and no one in Dondo received any food.
ASVIMO provides food to over 2,000 people in the District of Dondo. In January, those 6,000 people did not receive anything. On the 25th of January, a truck from the World Food Program (WFP) showed up at our office. The truck was stacked with food for the months of both January and February, and the representative from the WFP apologized for not having come earlier. Though it would be a huge undertaking for us to organize food for two months, the representative really should have apologized to our beneficiaries who had been hungry all month.
With hundreds of 50 kg bags of beans and corn (which will be pounded, usually by hand, by women into a powder and then used to make xima, a filling rice substitute), I helped the activistas organize for the distribution last week.
I never thought I would say this, but I miss Microsoft Excel.
Each beneficiary is registered by our activistas on a list. Some activistas keep this list fairly organized in a notebook or folder and others have five or six sheets of paper with hundreds of names written haphazardly with numbers next to them signifying ages and family members.
Somehow, these lists all had to be transferred onto an official document that would be turned in both to the Mozambican Social Services and to the WFP. This document, mind you, is only as official as the emblem in the upper left hand corner. It is just a word document with a table that requires you to manually insert each name, the amount of food to be received, and the date it will be received. There was no automatic numbering system, no alphabetizing of names to make the process of distribution easier, no sum function to easily report back to the WFP how much we had leftover or still needed to receive.
I could have easily copied the emblem onto a new document and done the whole thing in excel, but that would not be very sustainable. Plus, I would have to interpret the previously mentioned sheets of names, and I would certainly make every Dominga a Domingo and assume Joao Jose is a complete name though his full name is truly Joao Jose Jose, son of Joao Jose.
Since Monday, I have been sitting with each activista, typing in each name of beneficiaries as the activista makes a card by hand which will be given to the beneficiary and serve as a kind of receipt. With one flash drive (I tried putting my bosses flash drive in my computer and was immediately met with seizure on the part of my computer), one other person who knows how to type, and thousands of names, I have spent the entire week helping to create these documents.
On Wednesday morning, I joined my co-workers in our large gazebo (at our office, we have this covered gazebo-like building which is where I spend most of my workdays), which had been turned into a food distribution site. Three neighborhoods worth of beneficiaries sat in the shade nearby, and waited for us to be ready to give them their food. First, people came to my table, with the handwritten cards we had made during the previous week. I found their name on the database list and had them sign that they received their food (for most people, this meant a thumb print, but for the people who could write, it was really fun to see how excited they were to write their name, especially older women, a demographic of which few can write, being able to write was clearly a source of pride). After they had “signed,” the beneficiaries went to George, one of the boys who works at ASVIMO, was standing in the center of about 100 of the 50 kg bags of corn, about a foot of corn on the ground below him, with a bucket that with each scoop into the sea of corn gave the beneficiary 5 kgs. Tio Nhemba (who now I understand his name, nhemba is the local term for red beans) was the man of the hour, measuring out beans on our brand new scale and then giving them to our patient beneficiaries. Each child receiving food got 15 kg of corn and 2 kg of beans. Each “doente” (sick person) received 75 kg of corn and 15 kg of beans. Some people came prepared with bikes (rare) or wheelbarrows (very rare), but most people hoisted their provisions on their head and walked home. It should be reiterated here that people were coming to our location from three neighborhoods in Dondo, a fairly spread out town. Some people were carrying 50 kg bags of corn on their heads for close to 15 miles!
After three days of distribution, we were excited to be done. George was covered in “poera” (corn dust) and exhausted, the woman who sells popsicles near our office was out, and I had been given more mangos than I knew what to do with (older doentes, especially women tend to arrive with gifts, and this time of year, these gifts are in the form of mangos).
Though it was exhausting work, it was well worth it when you saw how thankful people were to be receiving food. Older women would take my hand and say how glad they were that I was there helping out (this is my own interpretation, most of them speak only Sena and I am only just learning, they could have been saying I was a total moron and smell like Beira), then they would wrap their beans in their capulana, put the satchel on their head, and march home.
Next month they will be back, and they will be just as happy to wait in the shade all day as I interpret our activistas handwriting.
Monday, January 31, 2011
my neighborhood kids.
Kids love playing in my yard. I think they like it as much for my mango trees as they do for the opportunity to play with the neighborhood’s mazungo (the Sena word for branca, white person; this word completely annoys me as I feel its offensive, but here it is completely acceptable to use instead of a name). There are a few groups of kids that come by, and each has there own distinct characteristics.
There is Five (who when he introduced himself said “como (like): one, two, three, four, five; it is one of my favorite English word names, second only to my friend “Give”) who comes by with three little girls. They like to play with Nehru and always tell me when I have ripe fruit on my trees.
There is a group of about eight seven-year old girls who like to come by and see if I will dance with them. They always ask if they can have my hair and tell me the days when I am looking particularly “sheiky.” I see them sometimes on their way to school and they get so excited that I will say hi to them on the street because it makes them look very cool in front of their friends. I also taught these girls how to whistle with grass, a talent that has now become somewhat of my trademark as they clearly told their friends who told their friends, and all of whom have come by to learn how. I never knew the trick my dad taught me when I was little would soon become such a hot commodity.
My next door neighbor has two quiet girls and Nino, a two year old boy. Nino always brings Nehro home when he walks into their yard, and the girls are always joking with him about it. Unlike the other neighborhood children, these girls rarely come to play in my yard, except when there are lots of mangos falling or when they are playing tag. Twice, however, I have gone and helped them have a “picnic” (a word they use) in which they cut coke cans in half, put a little bit of charcoal in the bottom of one have and random leaves and water in the top half and cook them until they are ready to “eat.” This is perhaps one of my favorite Mozambican games as it reminds me of the “stews” I used to make out of dandelions and grass when I was little.
And lastly there are the boys with the tires. These boys were my least favorite group until recently when we reached an understanding. The group consists of about seven boys under the age of seven. As you can imagine, a group of this demographic has the potential to be great playmates, but they also have the potential of being little brats. When I first moved in, the boys would roll up with their three old tires, which they always seem to have and can do some pretty awesome tricks with, I have to admit. They sometimes stack three of them against a tree and use them to climb up and then jump back down into the center. They can also clear the three stacked up if they run and jump (all but one who usually falls and makes everyone laugh). Anyway, they would show up and just stand outside my house chanting “mazungo, mazungo.” I tried to tell them that my name was Naomi, and they seemed to love the fact that calling me mazungo seemed to frustrate me, so they obviously kept doing it. They also did not treat my kitten very nicely, which is common here, but I have no patience for. I eventually just started telling them to go home and that made them laugh even harder. They would leave and then come back and repeat exactly what I had said to them. They were infuriating.
Finally, last week, one of the boys came up to my house by himself. I talked with him about calling me “Tia” instead of “mazungo” and he agreed. Then I taught him how to play rock, scissors, paper and played in the sand with him for a while. The next day, he brought one other friend and we all made faces at each other for about an hour until their moms called them home for dinner. I was finally getting through to them. Little by little more boys would come, call me Tia, and play for a little while at my house. They still like doing things like hitting each other and throwing sand in the littlest ones faces, but I think they were starting to understand when I would tell them that was really not a nice way to play.
I sometimes feel like I have about 15 kids. Sometimes I do not understand how I can possibly be entertaining enough for them to hang around all day long, but for some reason they do. Though I sometimes wish I didn’t have so many little kids around all the time, its pretty nice to have the company, even if the company sometimes throws sand.
There is Five (who when he introduced himself said “como (like): one, two, three, four, five; it is one of my favorite English word names, second only to my friend “Give”) who comes by with three little girls. They like to play with Nehru and always tell me when I have ripe fruit on my trees.
There is a group of about eight seven-year old girls who like to come by and see if I will dance with them. They always ask if they can have my hair and tell me the days when I am looking particularly “sheiky.” I see them sometimes on their way to school and they get so excited that I will say hi to them on the street because it makes them look very cool in front of their friends. I also taught these girls how to whistle with grass, a talent that has now become somewhat of my trademark as they clearly told their friends who told their friends, and all of whom have come by to learn how. I never knew the trick my dad taught me when I was little would soon become such a hot commodity.
My next door neighbor has two quiet girls and Nino, a two year old boy. Nino always brings Nehro home when he walks into their yard, and the girls are always joking with him about it. Unlike the other neighborhood children, these girls rarely come to play in my yard, except when there are lots of mangos falling or when they are playing tag. Twice, however, I have gone and helped them have a “picnic” (a word they use) in which they cut coke cans in half, put a little bit of charcoal in the bottom of one have and random leaves and water in the top half and cook them until they are ready to “eat.” This is perhaps one of my favorite Mozambican games as it reminds me of the “stews” I used to make out of dandelions and grass when I was little.
And lastly there are the boys with the tires. These boys were my least favorite group until recently when we reached an understanding. The group consists of about seven boys under the age of seven. As you can imagine, a group of this demographic has the potential to be great playmates, but they also have the potential of being little brats. When I first moved in, the boys would roll up with their three old tires, which they always seem to have and can do some pretty awesome tricks with, I have to admit. They sometimes stack three of them against a tree and use them to climb up and then jump back down into the center. They can also clear the three stacked up if they run and jump (all but one who usually falls and makes everyone laugh). Anyway, they would show up and just stand outside my house chanting “mazungo, mazungo.” I tried to tell them that my name was Naomi, and they seemed to love the fact that calling me mazungo seemed to frustrate me, so they obviously kept doing it. They also did not treat my kitten very nicely, which is common here, but I have no patience for. I eventually just started telling them to go home and that made them laugh even harder. They would leave and then come back and repeat exactly what I had said to them. They were infuriating.
Finally, last week, one of the boys came up to my house by himself. I talked with him about calling me “Tia” instead of “mazungo” and he agreed. Then I taught him how to play rock, scissors, paper and played in the sand with him for a while. The next day, he brought one other friend and we all made faces at each other for about an hour until their moms called them home for dinner. I was finally getting through to them. Little by little more boys would come, call me Tia, and play for a little while at my house. They still like doing things like hitting each other and throwing sand in the littlest ones faces, but I think they were starting to understand when I would tell them that was really not a nice way to play.
I sometimes feel like I have about 15 kids. Sometimes I do not understand how I can possibly be entertaining enough for them to hang around all day long, but for some reason they do. Though I sometimes wish I didn’t have so many little kids around all the time, its pretty nice to have the company, even if the company sometimes throws sand.
the hospital.
Visiting hospitals is something we did during training. We visited two different health centers and compared the services available. We talked about how many people were waiting to be seen and how many resources we would have expected to see were just not available. Both of the health centers we visited were small, local health centers. Granted, these “small health centers” serve hundreds of thousands of Mozambican residents a year, but they are not the big, fancy district hospitals.
Last week I visited Beira’s central hospital. I walked onto a huge campus that overlooks a beach. With four different buildings including an entire maternity ward, I was impressed. To get in, I had to pass through a gate and talk to a guard (well, he really just said hello to me, but in Mozambique, as a white person, that is what most guards to do me when I walk into a buildings, one of the perks). Once inside, however, the fancy aspects of the hospital seemed to disappear.
I was there to visit Adelina. Adelina became sick about two weeks ago and last week took a turn for the worst. Catassefo took her to the hospital last Monday and as she was still in the hospital on Friday and I had decided to visit her. I walked into the main medical building and there was no formal registry of the patients. There were two women sitting at an “information” table who seemed annoyed to have to answer my questions, but told me a person with her symptoms would be on the third floor.
I walked upstairs (despite the fact that it was not visiting hours, another perk of being a well dressed foreigner) and entered the women’s ward. The man standing at the doorway did not know which room Adelina would be in, but he told me I could just walk down the hall until I found her (the idea of patient privacy does not at all exist in this country). I walked down the hallways and peered into rooms full of emaciated women sitting or sleeping on beds close together in the hot hospital. Each room had about six beds and one sink. There was one bathroom in the entire hall and at the end of the hall there was an employee room. After peering into all of the rooms (two of which were labeled “private rooms” but had three beds in each), I did not see Adelina. I went back and asked the man if he by chance could look on a registry for her name and he seemed uninterested. He told me she might be in the building next door.
The next thirty minutes consisted of me walking through most of the buildings of the hospital asking for my friend. Each hospital worker seemed as uninterested in helping me as the last and I finally gave up. I called Adelina’s sister and told her I would be waiting outside when she arrived.
Soon her sister found me and we walked back into the first building and down the same first hallway I had walked down. At the end of the hallway was Adelina. I had not recognized her. She had lost a lot of weight and her arms were extremely boney. Usually a sarcastic and fun person, she could barely talk with us at all. I sat with her for about an hour and she just kept asking me why, if she had not eaten anything in days, was her stomach so big and painful. I had no idea how to respond.
It was one of the hardest hospital visits I have ever made, and I have made quite a few. The doctors were doing nothing her Adelina, she was not receiving fluids or even any medicine. I decided to use my foreigner card one more time and marched up to the doctors’ table and asked why she was not receiving any medication and why her family still did not have any results from any tests. The doctor told me he had done a test a few days ago, but it being Friday, was unsure when he would receive any results. He told me they did not have any more fluids to give her at the time. Frustrated, I went back to her room and rubbed her back. I think she appreciated that I was not afraid to sit with her. I do not know the culture of caring for the sick here, but her brother and sister also appreciated that I sat with her for so long and tried to make her feel better. I just felt like there was not a thing I could do to help, and it was horrible to realize that is the way the system here is.
But that is the way the system here is. This week it affects my friend, but everyday it affects Mozambicans. There are no resources. There are not enough doctors or lab techs or cleaning products. There is no privacy. The walls are not painted bright colors and there are no tvs to watch Jeopardy during the day. There is no call button for when your pain increases because there are no pain meds to make you feel better. I was told to be prepared to realize these things, but it does not make it any easier when you have a sick friend. I have sat for hours wondering whether it is even worth it for her to be in the big, fancy central hospital, or if she should not just be at home, in a private bed, with a fan and clean sheets and her son at her side. And I still don’t know the answer.
Last week I visited Beira’s central hospital. I walked onto a huge campus that overlooks a beach. With four different buildings including an entire maternity ward, I was impressed. To get in, I had to pass through a gate and talk to a guard (well, he really just said hello to me, but in Mozambique, as a white person, that is what most guards to do me when I walk into a buildings, one of the perks). Once inside, however, the fancy aspects of the hospital seemed to disappear.
I was there to visit Adelina. Adelina became sick about two weeks ago and last week took a turn for the worst. Catassefo took her to the hospital last Monday and as she was still in the hospital on Friday and I had decided to visit her. I walked into the main medical building and there was no formal registry of the patients. There were two women sitting at an “information” table who seemed annoyed to have to answer my questions, but told me a person with her symptoms would be on the third floor.
I walked upstairs (despite the fact that it was not visiting hours, another perk of being a well dressed foreigner) and entered the women’s ward. The man standing at the doorway did not know which room Adelina would be in, but he told me I could just walk down the hall until I found her (the idea of patient privacy does not at all exist in this country). I walked down the hallways and peered into rooms full of emaciated women sitting or sleeping on beds close together in the hot hospital. Each room had about six beds and one sink. There was one bathroom in the entire hall and at the end of the hall there was an employee room. After peering into all of the rooms (two of which were labeled “private rooms” but had three beds in each), I did not see Adelina. I went back and asked the man if he by chance could look on a registry for her name and he seemed uninterested. He told me she might be in the building next door.
The next thirty minutes consisted of me walking through most of the buildings of the hospital asking for my friend. Each hospital worker seemed as uninterested in helping me as the last and I finally gave up. I called Adelina’s sister and told her I would be waiting outside when she arrived.
Soon her sister found me and we walked back into the first building and down the same first hallway I had walked down. At the end of the hallway was Adelina. I had not recognized her. She had lost a lot of weight and her arms were extremely boney. Usually a sarcastic and fun person, she could barely talk with us at all. I sat with her for about an hour and she just kept asking me why, if she had not eaten anything in days, was her stomach so big and painful. I had no idea how to respond.
It was one of the hardest hospital visits I have ever made, and I have made quite a few. The doctors were doing nothing her Adelina, she was not receiving fluids or even any medicine. I decided to use my foreigner card one more time and marched up to the doctors’ table and asked why she was not receiving any medication and why her family still did not have any results from any tests. The doctor told me he had done a test a few days ago, but it being Friday, was unsure when he would receive any results. He told me they did not have any more fluids to give her at the time. Frustrated, I went back to her room and rubbed her back. I think she appreciated that I was not afraid to sit with her. I do not know the culture of caring for the sick here, but her brother and sister also appreciated that I sat with her for so long and tried to make her feel better. I just felt like there was not a thing I could do to help, and it was horrible to realize that is the way the system here is.
But that is the way the system here is. This week it affects my friend, but everyday it affects Mozambicans. There are no resources. There are not enough doctors or lab techs or cleaning products. There is no privacy. The walls are not painted bright colors and there are no tvs to watch Jeopardy during the day. There is no call button for when your pain increases because there are no pain meds to make you feel better. I was told to be prepared to realize these things, but it does not make it any easier when you have a sick friend. I have sat for hours wondering whether it is even worth it for her to be in the big, fancy central hospital, or if she should not just be at home, in a private bed, with a fan and clean sheets and her son at her side. And I still don’t know the answer.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
first month.
So, I have been at site for over a month now, and it is starting to feel like home.
I recently bought some beautiful capulanas at the market (and I think I made the vendor’s day when I decided to buy seven capulanas) and then I spent an afternoon hand sewing curtains. The curtains look great with the paint I got, and my house is starting to look very much like a home. I am starting to put things up on the walls, and as soon as my friendly carpenter starts moving on his work, I should have a dresser and a nice shelf.
Ghandi never returned, but my neighbors felt terrible about me losing my child and I have helped me adopt a street kitten whom I have named Nero. Nero is adorable, has a little scratch on her nose, and loves when I give her a cup of milk (now to be specific this is reconstituted dehydrated milk, she is really quite laid back about her food). She is not at all vicious, and will probably thrive a lot more in my house than she would have in the wilds of Dondo, but I am still hopeful that I can teach her how to attack cockroaches and to scare away mice.
My neighbors have become my favorite part of my house. I can sit for hours with my neighbor Ana, who will often come over to talk with me about her boyfriend problems or about how she is nervous to move to Maputo for police school. Her mom has informed me that when she leaves, I will be inherited as her daughter. I pointed out that neither of us would be alone, as we will have each other. She laughed and said she would be spending a lot of time with me in my house. My next-door neighbor has a beautiful two-year-old boy named Nino. Nino loves to run around and loves it when I chase him. I think his mom appreciates someone else playing with him and has begun to look after me like an older child. She helps me pick through vegetables from the market, gives me cooking tips, and alerts me when it is about to pour and I should take my laundry inside.
Dondo itself is proving to be a great city to live in. It is big enough that I can always get just about everything I need, and I have already found my favorite cucumber lady, the best deal on eggs, and the cutest bread boy. I have become fast friends with the owner’s of the internet shop. Last time I went in, they called me by name, cleared off a table for me, and brought me a cold Fanta. It was great.
I have been trying to dedicate a few afternoons a week to exploring new parts of the city. I have found an amazing pineapple farm, a soon to be high class hotel, and a lot of fertile farm land. When I go on long bike rides, I always get funny looks (because why would you ride just to ride around aimlessly) but I have found it’s a great way to see the town and its outskirts. I bet the fact that I am not only one of few white people riding around town (there are some American missionaries whom I have met), but I also tend to wear shorts on these rides, both out of comfort (its too hot for pants and wearing a skirt on a bike can get tricky) and to make it seem like I am doing something truly athletic. After my first week with my bike, and my Peace Corps obligatory helmet, one of my co-workers explained that in Mozambique, only true cyclists, who ride for sport, would wear a helmet. Since I have to wear the helmet (not wearing a helmet is one of ten ways you immediately get sent home, along with riding on a motorcycle, being active in political protests, etc), I figured if I paired it with shorts, maybe I could make people think I was training for the Tour de Mozambique. If they stopped to think about it, training for any event on my single speed beach rider would be pretty impressive, but if I don’t have them fooled, at least I have them totally confused.
Work with ASVIMO is starting to become more interesting. With a slow December month because of the holidays, we are finally starting to think about what exactly my role will be within the organization. I am learning to take slower steps in each process of my work here, as everything happens much slower than it would in the states. Most days, I arrive at the office at 8, unlock and open my office door, and sweep the inside. Then I sit around reading various documents until about 9 when other people start showing up. We all sit in the shade and chat until about 10 or 10:30, when someone brings mangos or a coconut and we have a break (from all of our hard morning work). Around 11, we go over something work related as a group. At 12, all the neighborhood kids show up for lunch, I go to say hello to the kids and talk with the great lady who lives next door to ASVIMO (who herself has eight kids and likes to think of herself just like my mom ever since I told her I was the seventh of eight; I never thought being one of eight would be an icebreaker). Around 1 or 2 we all decide it is way to hot to work, and we all go home.
There are obviously days that are different. On “trabalho do campo” (field work) days, I can accompany one of the activistas to the houses of our beneficiaries and talk with them about whether or not they are adhering to their medication, how their nutrition has been lately, and whether or not their kids are registered for school. I am also hoping to start working in the district hospital in Mafambisse (another community, about 30 minutes from Dondo). ASVIMO is starting nutrition workshops at Mafambisse once a week, and I am hoping to use that as an opportunity to work in the hospital in whatever way I can. I am also hoping to start a youth group, which I think I will be able to start in the next month or so.
I am excited for the next few weeks, as I am hoping I will be able to do some exciting work. Katasefo, my counterpart, is excited for me to meet the community, and I think he will be a huge asset in the next few months as I am starting work. Everyone respects him and he knows what is going on in all corners of the city. My other co-workers are also doing well, and excited for me to feel like I am being productive (I think they sense my lack of patience). While I love eating mangos every day, I would rather do so as a celebration of work, rather than yet another thing that must happen before we work.
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