Life is a highway...or a rollercoaster

Happy New Year!  I hope that you all had a wonderful time seeing family that you don't see as often and that you had a very white and beautiful christmas.  Christmas here is celebrated a little differently.  Because most people don't have a lot of money, or any at all, presents are not something you see on Christmas day.  It is solely a religious holiday and if you are lucky you get chicken and goat on the table.  Meat is expensive here.  For New Years, it's just plenty of dancing and for those who can afford it, drinking.  No New York Times Square ball dropping, just a few shoddily made fireworks.  

That being said, it has started off very bitter sweetly.  My family and friends from back home (you know, the ones reading this!) have been absolutely wonderful.  I definitely had saudades (Portuguese word for homesickness more or less) for the US with all the snow, stories, seeing, and talking with all of you.  Thank you so much for all your love and support. 

I know that most of my posts have been very upbeat and positive with plenty of pretty pictures to make my experience seem more than wonderful.  For the most part it has been, but I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t let you all know about the good and the bad.  

Today has been one of those days that I was dreading to have: where the highs are high but the lows are lower than low.  During training and reading other volunteers blogs I had only heard about those days, and until today I had been extremely fortunate.  I have a wonderful site, school, and director.  My immediate community speaks Portuguese very well, and Hannah and I have already made a solid handful of friends.  We have access to plenty of healthy foods, water, and even electricity.  Today, I have to take a deep breath and force myself to remember these things and how lucky I am. 

            This entire last month has been one long holiday for Mozambique.  There are holidays, and school isn’t in session because it’s the summer holiday.  Many people have been drinking the last ten days or more to celebrate.  My day started with making Hannah pancakes and syrup from scratch as a Happy New Year to you roomie!  We ate, a colleague of ours who has become our friend stopped by to chat, our empregado (housekeeper) came and was cleaning around the house, it was a normal day, except for the heat; today was hot.  I studied a little bit of Portuguese and took a quick nap before being invited to our empregado’s, Daniel’s, house for lunch.  It was wonderful.  Tasty Mozambican food and we met his beautiful, but pregnant girlfriend as well. 

            The lunch conversation was really nice and interesting.   We were talking about how to deal with problem students and how strict we should and shouldn’t be in different situations.  Even though Daniel is 22 (my age) he is just beginning 11^th grade, so he will most likely be my student.  I’ve been thinking about what my lessons will look like, and I’ve been trying to prepare for my first classes.  I asked Daniel what they would be like and how many students came to class in the first week…apparently half or less is the answer.  Here in Mozambique, the first week of classes is meet and greet.  The professors introduce themselves and don’t give homework, they don’t even teach real lessons.  This is why the students don’t really come, because there isn’t an incentive.  Any ideas on what I should do for the first week of class? 

I’m thinking it’s a good time to see what level my students are actually at in math, but I want to make it fun for them.  Even though I want all my students attending my class, the reality of that just won’t happen.  The students that do come tend to be the ones that receive the higher marks, so even if I do find out what level my class is at, it won’t be an accurate representation.  I don’t even know if I will be able to start teaching my 11^th and 12^th grade material if they haven’t mastered 9^th and 10^th level material.  Yes, you might be able to tell, but I am slightly nervous about teaching.  In America, this would be much easier in some respects.  I would at least know a little bit more, what to expect.  I’m in a new country, with a vastly different education system and culture, I have no idea about the actual level of the education system and I am worried about understanding my students.  They say things in math differently and they write their numbers differently and have different symbols for some things.  I can speak Portuguese adequately, but I still am having a hard time understanding when others are speaking.    This could be due to the majority of people mumbling or not speaking up, but the female students especially whisper at the loudest here.  How am I supposed to teach if I don’t know what my students are confused about.  Portuguese studying is starting to go into overdrive. 

After leaving Daniel’s for lunch, Hannah and I were on the side of the road trying to catch a chapa into Gurue to buy produce and other necessities.  While walking to the road locals were coming up to us saying ‘boas festas’.  The literal translation is good parties, or happy holidays, but what they really are saying is, we want money, food, or some other type of compensation.  Daniel (housekeeper-empregado) taught us that when people say boas festas we are expected to give people a piece of bread or a juice box or money.  Thankfully because we are so new to town we can still feign the ignorance and make them think we don’t know what they are really saying and asking for.  There is a difference between giving cookies and breads we make to friends, neighbors, and colleagues versus random people that only see that we are white, don't care about us as people, and just want out money.  Here, when people see skin color and they see money.  

Two of the neighborhood dogs (not Deven) followed us to the side of the road and were attacking family's chickens, bicyclists, and motorcyclists.  Thankfully the chickens and riders all got away safely.  As we were waiting under the hot sun for a car to pass by children were throwing mangoes and rocks at the dogs to keep them away from their houses.  Me saying that Mozambicans don’t like dogs is an understatement, the are petrified of them and hate them with a passion.  Hannah and I are just lucky enough that all the dogs in all the neighborhoods decide to ficar (hang out) on our porch and follow us wherever we go.  We're pretty sure dogs are racist here.  Back in Namaacha and here too, all the dogs follow around the white people wagging their tails, but they run away and growl at all the locals.  All the locals (besides our immediate neighbors whom know better) believe that we own all the dogs that follow us.  

            Families were yelling at us to stop our dogs from terrorizing everything and everyone.  Since Hannah’s Portuguese is stronger than mine, she was explaining to them that in fact they aren’t our dogs, we didn’t want them to follow us, and that they don’t listen to anyone.  They didn’t care; we are responsible for the dogs according to them.  We had a man with a catana (more or less a machete) come up to us, waving it around, yelling at us, at one point one of the dogs actually bit one of the teenagers driving past on a bicycle.  More men started coming up to yell at us, half of them speaking unintelligibly or in the local language, I was completely at a loss for words.  They were half yelling in the local language and half yelling in broken portuguese.  I had no idea what these people were saying, Hannah was a god send.  

At one point a man came up and tried starting to defend us and help us out.  He scared away all the men and told us to walk further down the road to move the dogs away from these families’ homes.  While we were thankful, it is also hard in this culture for us to accept help from a man because we don’t know if he has ulterior motives.  If I accept a beer from a man, a man does a favor for me, sometimes if I even smile at a man that is taken as I am willing to have sex with him.  This culture is very male dominated, and when a man wants to have sex with a woman, the women tend not to be in positions to refuse.  That’s how it is here.  

Luckily because we are American and didn’t grow up in this culture we can be more forceful about refusing things from men, and be smart about what we accept from men.  The men here don’t really know how to just be friends with a woman here and since Hannah and I are the only unmarried or non-pregnant woman that I know of, it’s even harder.  They don’t mind or even care that I have a boyfriend back home.  “He’s not here, I’m here” is the only response I get when I say that I already have a 'man'.  (Side note: men call their wives their women here.  As in, ‘I already told my woman to start making dinner.’)

Sorry about that sidebar, my point being, while that man was extremely helpful, he very easily could have expected something in return.  After five minutes some of the men came back for round two.  I just told Hannah that we should go home and go to the city the next day.  With a pack of Mozambican men trying to accompany us back, we said ‘we knew where we lived, we didn’t need help, and we were passing by the market to buy things before going home.  No in fact, we still don’t need your help, we know where everything is thank you very much.’ 

Upon returning to our house, less than a minute later we had two men outside our house from earlier wanting to talk.  They saw us in the window and we couldn’t really pretend we weren’t home after that.  We went outside to meet them and locked our door.  The teen that was bit was accompanied by one of the men that was making a bigger scene talking to us earlier, oh great.  What do they want: money, a trip to the hospital, for us to bring him to America?  After seeing the teen’s leg, his jeans had two little teeth holes in it, but other than that no skin was broken.  The teen that was bit was mute, so he wasn't able to yell at us.*  The man was making a big fuss about the dogs saying that we needed to do something.  Thankfully Herminio, our friend and neighbor, was outside and I casually walked up to him explaining the situation.  He instantly came to our help and was yelling at the men to leave us alone and that it wasn’t our fault.  Herminio, thank you very much, you are wonderful.  The men went away and Hannah and I went back inside.  

On another side note: white girls are very easily interchangeable   Here's what I mean.  The night before a neighbor and colleague of ours (all our neighbors are colleagues or their family members because we live in a professors neighborhood) stopped by to chat.  He brought his 20 year old nephew.  The nephew had fantastic english and was definitely well educated for Mozambican standards.  While Hannah was talking with Gigante, the nephew was chatting with me.  He was telling me how he was just here for holiday and that he was about to move to Maputo (country capital) to start studying to be a priest.  Here's the conversation we had:

Him: You are beautiful.  Are you married?

Me: No, but I have a boyfriend.  

Him: Well, that's okay, I'm not allowed to have a wife anyway because I'm going to become a 

 priest.  Where is you boyfriend now? 

Me: He's in America, but he visits here often. (I'm slightly okay with telling lies here to defend

 against interested men.  Sometimes I'm married, sometimes the Peace Corps doesn't allow us to

 have relations with the locals, sometimes like today, my boyfriend visits often.) 

Him: Would you like to move to Maputo with me? 

Me: I'm a professor here, I have a job, so no thank you.

Him: really?  You don't want to come with me? 

Me: No, but thank you.  It's very expensive, I don't have the money, and I'm excited to be a 

 teacher. 

Him: I will pay for you.

Me: You're not allowed to be with woman, isn't that against your religion. 

Him: I don't want to be alone.

Me: You'll make friends and have fun. 

Him: No, I don't want to be alone alone. 

Me: I'm sorry, my boyfriend is coming in two days for the holidays.

Him: What about her, does she have a boyfriend as well?  

Me: I don't know, we started living together a few weeks ago.  I know that she had a boyfriend

 back in America, so I think they might still be together.  (This was my way of lying about her 

 not having a boyfriend.  It's better for now that our entire neighborhood doesn't know she's 

 single.)

So far, it’s been an interesting 24 hours.  The previous night was typical, the morning was great and the afternoon was a horror, I’ll have to see what is in store for tonight. 

The two culprits of the day are off in the distance...going to chase after a car most likely.  Deven, my dog, is in the forefront.  Misty sunrise again. 

                       Misty sunrise

What my community's church looks like from a distance in the early morning

                                                            Since you all liked the sunrise with trees before.  Try 2! 

This is my favorite.  A sunset picture through my neighborhood. 

Looking back two days later, the highs were definitely highs and the lows were lows.  Some of the things that shook me a little never would have in the states.  Completely changing my world and flipping it upside-down is harder sometimes than I thought it would be, BUT all in all, I am having a wonderful time.  Many of these new experiences shouldn't be that hard, they're just a first for me, and adding it to the language, teaching, new cultural traditions, I'm constantly thinking 'am I allowed to do this in this culture?' before I do it.  Small things like not sitting indian style or always doing everything, and I mean everything with my right hand, even cross my pointer and middle finger in the 'I hope so!' sign is very bad in this culture.  

Explanations, sorry if I mentioned some of these before: indian style is very provocative here, even if a woman is wearing pants, showing the inside area of her legs to men isn't acceptable.  It essentially is me telling every man in the room that I want to have sexual relations with them if they see me doing it.  The right hand, oh boy.  The majority of people (very high majority) here don't use toilet paper here, they call it their left hand.  While I'm used to grabbing something from someone with whichever hand is closer, it's highly unacceptable to accept or especially give things with my left hand.  It doesn't matter if I use toilet paper or not (which I promise you, I do!), it's just a tradition to use the right hand always, even if you are hygienic.  The crossing of the fingers here is done by men in the streets here when they are looking to pay a woman for her body.  The men walk or drive by waving his hand in the air with the pointer and middle finger crossed to signal this.  This is the thing I probably have to be the most careful with because as my language is still adequate, but not incredible, I constantly am acting things out when I'm saying them to make sure the people are understanding.  I didn't realize how much I say 'I hope so!' until I learned what the fingers crossed meant.