This past Sunday I went to my first
fiesta. My mom told me that my
aunt and uncle (my dad’s sister’s family) were accepted to receive a loan for
some much needed money. They were
going to use this money to open a new store and buy some clothes for their family. What I don’t understand about
Mozambicans is that many people spend money they don’t have because it is
expected. In this case, my aunt
and uncle need this money to buy new clothes and open the store, so they spend
a lot of money putting on a fiesta.
Many families also pool their income each month. Let’s say for example there are four
families sharing part of their income.
Each month a different family gets all the money so that they can buy a
bigger item like a refrigerator or to fix a car’s windshield or the likes. That family is expected to put on a big
party for all the families that month, which costs a great deal of money. What was once a good idea in
theory, just turns into a bad one after they spend most of that money on the
party. I’m still trying to figure
it out.
Anyways,
back to the fiesta. A few
different families showed up to the party including one of my close volunteer
friends and another volunteer’s family.
Our families instantly tried sitting us next to each other telling us we
could speak English to each other and have fun. While that was great, we also wanted to meet the locals,
work on our Portuguese, and learn from their culture. There was plenty of food, beer, ducks, goats, and children
running around. Later in the night
I was dancing with my two younger sisters’ and my mom and aunt even came in for
a little while. Zinha, my
13-year-old sister is a really good dancer, and I was trying to learn some of
the local dances. Let’s just say
‘trying’ was the key word in that last sentence. My friend Yuri also got roped into learning one of the male
dances, which was pretty funny to see.
Below
is a picture of my siblings in the back of my dad’s chapa (the local taxi’s) on
our way to the fiesta. Left to
right is Zinha, Zulmira, Yula (in front), and Miguel.
Other
than the fiesta, this week has been pretty similar to last week. I am starting to have mini break
throughs with my Portuguese, where I am just beginning to have full
conversations without a pauses where I ask them to repeat, or I ask them how to
say _____ in Portuguese, or I just can’t think of the right word. I am also beginning to understand when
they talk in Portuguese much more, which has been infinitely helpful. It was pretty exciting when I realized
it was happening!
The
only other topic of note this week was that we visited different schools around
the region and had a history lesson on Mozambique. The school visit was fascinating and different than I
expected it to be. I went to a
pretty nice, private secondary school (high school) that had an agricultural
base rather than the normal four year public secondary schools. Agriculture schools are only
three years and don’t have as many specific subject classes like we do in the
US. Instead they learn more about
raising animals, growing plants, and maintaining properties. The students there took care of
hundreds of chickens, dozens of cows, they worked in the fields every class day
(each class had a different plot of land), they were even taught how to cross
two different species of trees so that a fruit tree had a stronger and
healthier base. They were using
some pretty advanced techniques. I
was also shocked, and jealous that the teachers butcher a cow and the class
dissects is as part of a science lab on organs and the body. Here are a few pictures of my
visit.
I was also able to sit in on one of
the classes at the school. There
was a 4:1 male to female ratio in the class of about 25 students. Normally class sizes are much
bigger. The teacher had all the
important topics on the board, she used examples, and she asked the students
for more. It was obvious
they had already learned this subject, so I don’t know if they were trying to
make a good impression on the Peace Corps Trainees or if they were reviewing,
but I’d have to take a guess that it was the first. The class was on grammar, how to make words plural, and the
exceptions for masculine and feminine nouns. For those of you how don’t know other languages, many other
languages have a feminine and masculine form for the same word. For example, females use obrigada and
males use obrigado to say thank you.
The only difference is that feminine words tend to end in –a or –as if
plural and masculine words end in –o or –os. This is something the English language doesn’t do, which I
really like. I know that I was
definitely taking notes during this lecture. It was pretty useful stuff to know!
Inside
the classroom there was a bird’s nest.
One of the windows was broken, so birds were constantly flying in and
out, chirping away throughout the class period. Outside of the classroom there were a few weaverbird’s
nests, enjoy!
Well, it’s pouring here and it’s
been quite cold the last few days.
I know back home it’s getting colder and colder in the autumn weather,
but here in Namaacha it is spring and it’s supposed to be sweltering. I learned on my drive over to the
school that spring is the hottest season here because summer and winter are
rainy seasons, and it just isn’t hot in the summer because of all the
rain.
The only other fun thing that has
happened in the last few days was that I got on my first chapa ride! Yesterday morning (Wednesday), my
language class learned about transportation. Normally during language days, the
class learns a topic, and then applies what they learn after lunch. Since the local transportation are
chapas, each of us were given two locations within Namaacha and we needed to
get on and off by ourselves. It
was pretty scary at first after hearing all the horror stories and seeing 20+
people drive by in the back of a truck.
When I say truck, here in Namaacha there aren’t any Ford F350s, there
are dinky, smaller than Toyota style trucks. Now picture people sitting on the sides, 5 or 6 people
across on each side and then everyone else standing in the middle. My first destination was fronteria,
which in Portuguese means the border.
I was petrified that somehow my chapa would fly across the Swaziland
border and I would be stuck in Swaziland with no way to get back into
Mozambique, but thankfully that didn’t happen. After my successful first ride, I needed to get a chapa back
into town. I was ‘lucky’ enough to
get in one that quickly packed in a ton of people after me. I was heading down the road at a fast
clip with two locals with their arms wrapped around my waist for support
passing by all my other volunteer friends laughing and pointing at my as I
zoomed by. They were also trying
to flag down their own chapas.
It’s unbelievable some of the prices here. To get from one end of town to the other (the chapas only
drive on the main road) it’s 5 mets, which is about 16 cents for over a
mile. I might be tempted to jump
on a chapa or two in my time in Namaacha with those prices!
Before I go I’ll leave you with one random fact. Mozambicans are supposed to have 20% of
their income go to the government, but supposed to is much different than
reality here.
No comments:
Post a Comment