Hey Mikey, I think he likes it!

There is a difference between being broke and being 
poor, and I hadn’t thought about exactly what that was until a recent conversation with a fellow volunteer.  For starters, here’s what my dictionary has to say about the matter: broke-having completely run out of money; poor-lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in society.  Let’s just say I agree with those…in part.  Even in those moments back home mulling over a bite of Life cereal, I never considered the difference between the definition of poor between different countries.  Before moving to Mozambique I was wholly ignorant to the world outside of the United States.  This was my biggest goal leaving the US, to learn about the world from a different perspective; to open my eyes shielded by naiveté.  I have not had any drastic revelations to make my eyes wide open; right now I’d say I’m more at a sunlit squint.

Well, here’s my input on the situation now, in a nicely packaged nutshell: A person who is broke, doesn’t have money but has other value in their life.  For example, recent college graduates in the US.  They do not have any money, they have piles of loans to pay off, but they do have their education, they do have a computer, a cell phone, and clothes on their back.  These people that are broke do not have any money, but they do have the means to get money, by using their education.  On the other side, people who are poor, don’t have money, but they also don’t have the means to make it either.  In the US, even those who didn’t complete college, or even high school can walk to their local library, read books or use the internet (for free) and self educate.  We are so fortunate for these possibilities in the United States.   I’m not saying the US is anywhere near perfect, but I appreciate it much much more after living in Moz for 6 months.  Books are far and few between to come by here, and when you do, they are priced exorbitantly; there are no local library’s, it is rare that a school has a library.  There are more computers here than I thought (but I do live in a neighborhood of the upper class, so my sample population is slightly skewed), but students do not have access to free Internet.  Let’s have a quick sidebar. 

I have been shocked at the lack of critical thinking here in Mozambique.  Coming in I knew that they predominantly used rote education; I just didn’t know how drastic it was.  For example, Daniel, Hannah’s and my empregado, is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he definitely tries.  One day he came over to ask for homework help, and on principal, I never give the student the answer.  I help them think about what they learned in class, I’ll point them to the right page in their notebooks, I’ll do endless similar examples, but I will not flat out give a student an answer.  So we were sitting in my living room and he had worked the problem down to be x + 2 = 0.  For the life of him he was not able to figure out x.  He can do x² + 4x – 8 where x = 5, but he can’t find what the value of x in the equation x + 2 = 0.  I tried everything, similar examples getting it down to x – 4 = 0 and showing him how to move the -4 to the other side, I tried explaining that in order to find x, we wanted to get x by itself, that means moving everything else to the other side of the equation.  So how do we move that +2 to the other side?  He had no idea, literally, there were no connections being made.  The gaps in the education are so surprising sometimes, and I can’t believe they can do the high level of math that they can without many of the simple, rudimentary level math being forgotten about, or just not taught. 

What I’m trying to say is that in the United States, we have access to free books and free internet, so that even if hypothetically we didn’t have a government issued documentation that allowed a person to go to school, that person could still receive an education, by reading, and reading, and reading.  Here in Mozambique, and I’d have to assume (which can be dangerous), many other third world countries don’t have access to books and internet, or even if they did, transportation to the areas with these privileges. 

            Poor is relative to where you are.  Poor in a first world country I would like to safely say is a little different than poor in a third world country.  The reason I say this is that in a first world country people still have access to free knowledge, and have a greater possibility to leave the poor bracket behind.  In a third world country it’s much harder to do that.  I’m going to use Mozambique as my example for obvious reasons.  Here, a government documentation means that you are able to receive an education, but there are the lucky few that have enough means to pay some people off to get into the system without one, or even to buy one later in life.  The problem is, is that the families that tend to have children born outside of hospitals (and therefore no government stamp of approval that this child exists) also tend to be the families that don’t have the money to pay people off to get their child educated.  The parents aren’t educated, they are barely scraping by as it is, and then they have their children who aren’t able to go to school, and it’s just a bad cycle that continues to repeat over and over again.   Another thing is that Mozambicans have to pay to go to school.  Each year the government doesn’t give money to the schools so that the students go for ‘free’, it’s more similar to a boarding school or a university where you have to pay to attend.  There are no scholarships for primary and secondary school, and there are barely any for university. 

            What is to be done here, or any other places in the same problem.  Should education be the first thing to be solved, or health care?  Should money be pumped in from the top down or the bottom up?  Mozambique has the means to develop rapidly, but there is just too much corruption happening for it to go anything but at a snail’s pace, and sometimes development is going backwards.  So my question is what is to be done and in what order?  How can I personally help the poor get out of this cycle and how can I help Mozambique develop more?   I would love for everyone to take a few minutes while eating their nice bowl of life cereal with cold milk tomorrow morning and think over about what to do.  I would dearly love your thoughts on this matter.  My next post will be about my thoughts on this matter as well, but I wanted to give you all a few days to think about your thoughts before I put my thoughts on this matter into your head. 

All in all, I want to help change this country for the better, but I know that my position in Mozambique is pretty small in the grand scheme of things.  What I can do those is help those students in my community, teach them about self education, teach them life lessons, and try to help my community in any way possible. 

As always, a few random gems:

I had midterms this week, apparently one of my students has some thoughts they would like to share with me.

I went hiking last weekend and found this little guy

I'm starting to experiment with my shutter speed. I'm learning! 

For those of you without other internet entertainment, this is a new one of me with Kainda.  She's quite the lazy dog at times, I had to carry her down the mountain...she was fine going up.  Also, that's the new length of my hair with 6 inches off. 

Oh the small joys of travelling through Mozambique.

Travelling is always an experience, normally not the most comfortable thing in the world, but I always learn something new. 

This past weekend I went to Mocuba, the second large city in the province of Zambezia, where I live.  I was heading to a JUNTOS conference with a fellow professor from Invinha.  He asked me to accompany him, because historically JUNTOS* is predominately run by Peace Corps volunteers.  I think it is absolutely wonderful and much more sustainable having a Mozambican run the JUNTOS group.  Volunteer lead groups rise and fall with the volunteers that come and then leave.  Needless to say, this weekend was a training of trainers.  This means jumping on the 4 lane highway and zipping down the interstate to Mocuba, right?  Well, not exactly, but almost.  

People need to go to the chapa station in Gurue the day before and buy a spot (ticket) in the chapa for the next day, I learned that we would be leaving Gurue at 4 AM, oh dear.  I woke up at 3:45 and walked very quickly with a hood up and long pants to the station.  While I honestly do feel safe walking around by myself during the day, I would be a little scared walking around at 4 AM anywhere, including the US, so fear not!  What was great was a call at 3:55 making sure I was awake by someone very dear, thanks for attracting attention to the gal trying to not draw attention to herself He Who Must Not Be Named, and no, I do not mean Voldemort.  Speaking English on the phone definitely doesn’t attract attention to other people, cough cough.  Anyways, back to the story! 

I get a relatively good spot in the back row next to the window.  The other window 3 window seats on the good side of the chapa were already taken and I needed to save a spot for my colleage.  At a little before 5 AM we roll out of the station (yes, it would have been tempting to show up later knowing the chapa wasn’t actually leaving at 4, but then that means no window seat, and it’s definitely worth it).  Zipping down the highway, through the fog, I slightly felt like I was playing real life frogger except instead of avoiding cars, we were avoiding potholes.  The nice thing is, in Moz, people don’t really have to stay on their side of the line, so it’s basically like riding on a multilane highway, well at least a two-lane highway.  Rarely we would hit some monster pot holes, but very frequently we jumped, literally leapt, I might even be tempted to call it actual flying, right over many of the smaller ones.  Is this good for the car? Probably not, but time is money. 

            Nearing the end of our trip my fellow passengers and I come to a halting stop, what happened you might ask?  Well, we lost a wheel, naturally.  It was actually unbelievable, literally incredible.  The driver and the cobrador (the guy collecting the money) jumped out, and I kid you not, twenty seconds later a new tire was popped on and we were on our way.  NASCAR doesn’t know what they’re missing.  These Mozambicans would make those teams eat their dust.  After a safe arrival, we get bombarded by ‘taxi’ drivers.  More like mini-motorcycles that drive people around the city for pennies to the dollar.  Benvindo (the other teacher with me) looked at me quizzically, it was a test, do I go on foot or jump on the back of a bike.  I choose walking by foot; he seemed disappointed.  Now it was my turn for the quizzical look.  I asked him if he wanted to go on the bikes and his response was along the lines of “I figured you would want to.  I laughed at him and said, well sure, but I have feet too.  Benvindo: But, you’re white, you have the money to pay, so why don’t you? Me: Why pay when I don’t have to, it’s a ten-minute walk.   Sure I have the money, but why use it?   For a developing country sometimes I wonder at their lack of frugality. 

            This response seemed to stump him a little.  I was under the impression that he wanted me to jump on the back of a bike and offer to pay for his ride to.  Hey, if you won’t want to walk, hop on my back, I’ll carry you.  That would have been a site to see!  We show up at the hotel where the conference was being held.  I get showed to my room and the hotel worker looks at me extremely ashamed saying, “I’m sorry ma’am, the air conditioning works, but we don’t have running water.”  .  I give a small laugh of relief (it’s pretty damn hot), but I was a little confused…that’s all fine  news.  I am happy, because I definitely was not expecting air conditioning.  The man started to cower away a little bit when I started to laugh, he was confused.  I stop laughing trying to figure out what is wrong.  We both just stare at each other, me waiting for bad news, and him waiting for me to get extremely angry.   I hesitate before asking “is there anything else?”  (At this point I’m expecting a cockroach colony swarming into my room hundreds at the time.)  His response was not what I was expecting for sure and it made me sad; “ma,am…you’re not mad at us?  I said we don’t have running water.  Do you understand my Portuguese, that means the water doesn’t function.”  I start to laugh again, explaining that yes, I do understand and that it’s not a problem.  I even let him in on the secret that I have been living taking bucket baths for the last 5 months now.  He was wholly shocked; “but you’re white!  Your people need to use running water.  They don’t like to come here and find out they can’t.  Most of them leave…you’re going to, stay?”  I couldn’t figure out who was more confused at this point.  I gently explain to him that not all white people need running water and that bucket baths work just as well, he seemed impressed, but he did sneak me an extra soda later that day. 

              Anyways, the conference went pretty well, I had fun, it was nice to see and meet other volunteers and learn more about JUNTOS .  That night Benvindo says we can leave the hotel at 8:30 to catch a chapa.  Knowing Mozambique, I showed up fifteen minutes late, let’s just say I shouldn’t have set my alarm.  At 9:45 we leave the hotel and it’s hot, I mean, really hot.  We walk to the station and I jump in a window seat, the first thing I do is open the window.  The Mozambican in front of me grumbled about getting Malaria.  (This will be a wonderful topic for another post.)

 I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never sweat so much in my entire life just by sitting there, not moving.  It took over 2 hours for the chapa to fill.  2 hours of sitting on the sunny side of the chapa without sunscreen on a blistering day.  My right arm is not the happiest.  While I think the thought of being able to stand on the side of the road and waving your hand and being picked up is awesome, I don’t think it’s awesome when it’s a 4 hour ride that turns into a 6 hours ride because every 2 minutes we were stopping and going, stopping and going, people coming and leaving.  Normally the ones that stop and pick up people on the side of the road are the local chapas, and the long distance ones just drive by, not wanting to waste time.   I tend to just breathe deeply when Mozambique doesn’t run as efficiently as I would like, but when the locals are screaming at the driver, I know that something definitely is not right. 

All in all, 8 hours sitting in the same position, being stuffed in like a tetris piece, with no wiggle room really did it for me.  I officially have a bruised tailbone and bruised knees.  Thank you very much for these lasting presents Moz, I truly will cherish them.

On the plus side, Moz has incredible fast food service, I mean better than McDonalds.  Dang, what I wouldn’t doo for a double cheese burger, fries and a McFlurry right now.  Every time the chapa stopped in a town market to trade out passengers, dozens of people sprint up to the windows screaming prices at you, elbowing their way to the front, all while balancing everything they are trying to sell

on their heads.  That’s talent.  12 oranges, 33 cents; 6 passion fruit, 17 cents; hard boiled eggs with a dash of salt, 20 cents; an ice cold 1.5 L water, $1.  They sell sunglasses, flasks, underwear, bike chains, phone credit, phones, shoes, and little cakes.  It’s pretty astonishing the things you can buy.

P.S. I got a new hair cut!  5 or 6 inches gone.  Picture soon to come. 

This is a Golden Orb Spider, a beautiful species.

Their webs are unbelievably strong.

I went on a hike a few weekends ago and we brought these two along.  Meet Kainda and Ronnie.

Kainda is breathtaking.  

And Brianna, she's a few month old Rhodesian Ridgeback!  She is going to be HUGE.

Anyone know what type of moth this is?  One unnamed man back in the states and I disagree.

*JUNTOS-Jovens Unidos No Trabalho para Oportunidade e Successo.   Translation: Teens United in the Work for Opportunity and Success.  

My hat tips off to you little one

I think you can all tell by now that I am in full time work mode by my frequency of posts.  Starting tomorrow, week 5 of school will start.  There are midterms this week.  I feel as if I just got on the plane for Moz, and here I am almost 5 months later, a teacher.  I do apologize for the infrequency of blog posts these last couple weeks, I didn’t know how long making three different lesson plans would take, and then translating them into Portuguese took a solid amount of time as well.  I’m getting fast and faster each day and my Portuguese is drastically increasing even more.  But enough of that, this post is about the children, not teaching. 

The children of Mozambique are wonderful hellions.  The neighborhood children—consisting of professors children, nephews, nieces; other children from across the street, and then some of the younger students living in the internato—have vast stores of bundled up energy.  They run in gangs, the oldest leading the youngest trailing behind, but never left behind.  Yet, you can see the chain of hierarchy within the gang.  Here, the younger children are included and looked after much more so, rather than being left behind for their lack of maturity or ‘coolness’.  I have never heard one child here say that another is annoying, it’s incredible.  I want to correct myself, they don’t run around like a gang, they run around like a pack of wolves.  The alpha male leading, the others following loyally behind, even the youngest are always protected and taken care of.  It’s pretty wonderful to sit back and observe. 

Many are not old enough to be in school just yet, so while the older ones are studying, the younger ones run around, jump in puddles, run into the trash pit, find old cans or plastic cups and go to town digging through mud puddles.  Once the older kids arrive, the efforts are coordinated in buscaring (finding) things to make houses for grasshoppers or makeshift swings.  The older ones set the idea, but then everyone plays an equal part in the finding of supplies and making of the houses. 

One of the best (and sometimes worst) parts of my day is when the children are on our porch yelling “tia Ana, tia Amanda!  Queremos escrever” (translation: auntia Hannah, auntie Amanda.  We want to color!)  In the beginning they would just keep yelling our names until we came out.  Now, they have upgraded to saying PLEASE we want to color.  Next month they need to ask us how we are doing before telling us that they want to color.  Manners manners manners.  All in all, they are a handful, but they are always so excited.  They are always yelling about wanting this color or than color, that will probably be dealt with next year, sharing that is.  Baby steps. 

(Above is Manuel.  He is a wonderful growing boy.  He is 10 years old, and is the alpha pack of the group.  He has amazing manners and is constantly patient and mature with the younger ones.  I really enjoy talking with him.  His parents sent him to school here, so he likes in the internato, but he plays in our neighborhood.  He also knows a a solid amount of english considering he isn't old enough to have learned it in school yet.)

Now that the older children that attend school are living in the neighborhood (before only the ones too young to travel for holiday break were around, so it’s refreshing to have older ones we can communicate with), they want to read books as well.  The volunteer before us left behind a few children’s books in Portuguese that they love to read.  The older ones read out loud to the younger one’s, and occasionally they ask the definition of a word which is slightly ironic considering their first language was Portuguese where as we’ve only been speaking for less than 5 months. 

Gigantinho, son of Gigante, eating sugar cane 

 The House of Grasshopper.

 

                                                                             Flor, the sweetest little girl.  

I call this little guy Poop Face, but in reality his name is Alonie.  One day he tottered over to our porch when all the children were coloring and just stood there, pooped with his shorts on, and then walked away.  The other children had a riot with giggles and horrified faces running to get his mother.

The two pictures directly above are of Zemi.  He is absolutely adorable, with the cutest smile ever.  Now if just learned that he can't grab markers out of other children's hands...

They're pretty amazing children.  I’ve realized that when I have my own children they don’t need the bells and whistles on all the toys to be happy.  Give them a stick, plastic bags, and cups and they’ll be entertained for hours.  They are incredible at finding new ways to pass the time whether it be playing a  version of cops and robbers, or finding free ways to make 6 swings to hang out of trees.  They’re pretty ingenious too.  A few weeks back I saw them playing with sticks attached to balloons.  In reality the stick was a banana leaf stem that they used rubber bands to attach to the opening of the balloon.  Apparently they are easier to blow up like that.  Also, one of them found their parents condom collection, or rather their parents gave them the condoms to play with.  I haven’t figured out which is the truth yet.  It makes sense though, parents have to buy balloons, or they can give their children (more or less) the same exact toy for free because condoms are so widely available to battle HIV/AIDS rates. 

                                 

Another example of their ingeniousness is in the bikes.  There really aren’t bikes widely available for 2-4 year olds, and then another size bike for 4-6 years, and so on.  There are basically only adult sized bikes that are widely available.  This means that if the smaller children want to ride one, they have to adjust things a little…

 

This kid was amazing.  I’d give him 3, maybe 4 years max.  His head is barely above the seat of the bike.  In comparison, my legs are about 3 or 4 inces above the top of the seat.  There he was riding a bike that is a perfect fit for an adult.  Unbelievable.  He started by running along the handles getting the bike moving, then he jumped onto the pedal on one side of the bike.  As the bike glided slowly along, he slipped his other foot under the bar of the bike and placed his other foot ontop of the other pedal.  Then instead of completing full cycles (circles) with the pedals he brought his left foot down a quarter turn and then he back pedaled a quarter turn with his right foot and stopped, returning his feet to their original position.   Then he would continue this over and over: leftt foot a quarter pump down, right foot a quarter pump back, left foot a quarter pump down, etc, etc.  It was pretty unbelievable.  In America I would wonder where on earth this child’s parents were, here I just want to applaud him for learning how to overcome and adapt.  I tip my hat to you little one, and all the other children of Mozambique.  

First week of classes!

What we’ve all been waiting for, the first week of school!  Here’s a summary of the week.

Friday (T minus 3 days until classes): I get a list of what teachers are teaching what.  I’m teaching 11^th grade math just as I was told I would, and SURPRISE!  10^th grade English as well.  I have 4 classes of math and 2 classes of English.  I’m actually pretty excited (minus the extra lesson planning) because while I will really enjoy teaching math, I will be able to have a little more fun in my english classes.  They’re easier to prepare for and to teach, but infinitely more miserable to grade.  (There will be times where I don’t know what language they were trying to speak on their homework and tests, but it definitely will not be English-or Portuguese!)

Saturday (T minus 2 days until classes):  We are supposed to do the schedule for all the teachers today…needless to say, that didn’t happen.  My director told us to come back Monday afternoon to make the schedule. 

Monday (First day of classes): The morning starts with a school wide ceremony welcoming the students and the new professors at 7 AM.  Now, we’re in Mozambique, so 7 AM means 7 after 8 AM, and if you’re really lucky, 7:30.  That being said, the ceremony didn’t start until 10:15.  Naturally, Hannah and I were two of a very few that even showed up around 8.  Thankfully our empregado Daniel warned us to come at 8 and not 7.  (To bad he didn’t tell us 10!) The ceremony lasted a little over 2 hours and then it was lunchtime.  Monday afternoon rolls around, we head to the school to do the dreaded scheduling for over 30 teachers.  Oh wait…they’re still not ready for us to do the scheduling.  Please come back tomorrow at 7 AM.

Tuesday (Apparently today and not Monday was supposed to be the first day of classes…):  Enter 7 AM: Hannah and I waiting at the school outside the locked doors of the directors’ office.  Enter 8:10: My director* shows up not looking surprised that we’re waiting for him.  Okay, finally the scheduling.  8 hours of straight work (they were aghast that we worked straight through the normal 2 hour lunch time)  the schedule is finally done.  It took a lot of finagling around, but we tried to ensure that no teacher had a terrible schedule such as coming in at 7 AM for a class and then not teaching again until 2 PM.  My schedule is GREAT!  I only teach between 7 AM-12 and I don’t teach Fridays.  I’m lucky because Segundo ciclo and 10^th grade are taught in the mornings, so I’m done by lunchtime.  Hannah is spread out throughout the day, but we did the best we could. 

Wednesday (classes are finally starting!):  I show up at 7 AM to teach my first math class and half the school is locked.  Students are standing around, only one other professor is there as well (yep, he’s a new guy).  I work on perfecting my Portuguese for the next hour while we wait for other professors and the pedagogy directors to show up.  Around 8 my director strolls in and asks me to help him print the schedule for all the professors.  Between 9:30-11:30 professors are walking in and picking up their schedules.  Many appear to be happy, or at least not displeased at the times they are teaching.  95% of the teachers found out what they were teaching that day.  I think only Hannah and I really knew what we were going to teach.  Many knew their discipline, but not what grade or how many hours.  So much for lesson planning.  So, some of the shock had nothing to do with the schedule, but a surprise in the discipline they were teaching.  Shocking…we’re not starting classes today.

Thursday (okay, I promise…classes start today!): Hey, what do you know, I get to school at 6:45 (my first class is at 7) and I wanted to know what room I would be teaching in first.  There’s only one other teacher there, and he was shocked I was at the school so early.  I get to my first class and there’s maybe 6 students.  Side note: I’m a bag full of nerves…I wish I could have started with an English class, I at least know that language.  I had planned to just get to know the students today.  I was warned not to teach or give homework in the first week of classes because the majority of students don’t show up.  I start giving a quick introduction of myself: I work for the Peace Corps, I studied engineering (I left out the biology part so they wouldn’t be confused as to why I am their math teacher) for 4 years in the United States, I’m going to be here for two years, here are my two rules for the class: 1) Your grades will reflect only, wait, give me a second, I mean…your grades will reflect only your hard work and effort, nothing else; 2) It is your choice if you want to learn math or not.  If you do, fantastic, I’ll be more than willing to help you down that path, but if you aren’t interested in learning it, I can’t force you.  The door is right there, you can leave whenever you want because if you stay in the classroom then you’ll be distracting all the other students that are there and that want to learn.  That’s not fair to them.  They seemed to understand both of my rules and they also agreed to be patient with me when I fumble a little bit with my pronunciation and Portuguese.  We made the deal: I help you with math, you help me with Portuguese.  They seemed to like that.  They also were happy when I told them that I was taking Portuguese lessons outside of class to get better.  I want to be a great teacher for them, but I won’t be able to be anything better than adequate until my Portuguese is better.  Then I asked them the types of movies, singers, songs, anything with pop culture that they liked.  I’m planning on using the names of these titles and people to make homework more interesting.  I can either do boring, un-relatable word problems, or I can have word problems about Akon, Justin Beiber, Jet Li, and Rihanna.  Which would they rather do? 

            My next two classes were 10^th grade English.  The first started with one girl sitting at the desk when class started.  She was horrified to be the only one and that shook her confidence levels a little bit.  I still don’t know if her English is adequate or not up to par because she was too petrified to speak.  I started out with her writing things down in her notebook because she didn’t want to speak out loud to me.  A second student trickled in and his English was much better than I was expecting.  (Yay!) Five minutes later a third student came in, his English was middle of the road between the other two students.  We went over food they liked to eat and singers they liked (in English of course).  We also went over the numbers 1-20 and the date.

 My second English class started with the good English speaker from my last class following me in, asking questions.  It was just me and him for maybe five minutes.  I kept on telling him that he needed to go back to his classroom for his next class and that I would see him after classes or next Monday.  He just went to a desk and sat down.  His response “no other teachers are here.”  I also didn’t find out until after class that he actually was in that class, and the first English class he went to he went in because he didn’t have a teacher next door.  By the first ten minutes of class I had 8 male students and it was a lot of fun.  Their level of English was shockingly higher than the two other students from my other turma.  I’m a little confused about that because the classes should be at the same level, but I guess I’ll have to see when the rest of the class shows up next week.  Since I try to keep speaking Portuguese to a minimum it’s a lot of acting and motioning.  It’s actually pretty fun! 

My second math class had a ton of students.  I think that the students that didn’t show up to my 7 AM math class all came to this one because they didn’t have a teacher in their room.  Anyways, my confidence (after successfully making it through three classes and not having a student walk out shaking his head in a hopeless way at the year to come) and therefore my Portuguese was much better.  This math class ran much more smoothly, everyone was involved and I really am excited to teach both my subjects.  I finished the class with a square puzzle (thanks mom!) that they LOVED.  The highest any of my students got was 24.  Let’s see what you get! 

How many squares can you count? 

Class: Why did we just do that?

Me: Did you enjoy it?

Class: Yes, definitely!

Me: The part of the brain that you use to solve those types of problems is the same part of the brain you use to do math.  They were utterly shocked that I had just made math fun for them.  Hopefully I can continue to do puzzles like that once a week or so as a warm up while I’m setting up the class.  (There’s only 5 minutes in between classes and I’m going to have students wanting to ask me questions after a class, so I won’t have very much prep time inbetween classes.)

Here are some highlights of the day:  During each class I asked the students if they had any questions for me.  Well, yes, of course they did.  Here were the two that I got in every class: How old are you?  Are you married?  In response to the first question I told them that I wouldn’t tell them…just yet.  I asked each and every one of them to guess how old I was.  Between all four classes the range was between 16 and 30 with the average around 20-21.  Sigh, sometimes I hate looking young for my age.  Especially when some of my students are as old as I am.  As for the second question, from the reactions of some of my male students, I broke a few hearts that day when I said that I had a boyfriend from the States, but that I wasn’t married.  It could either be a very long year or it will fly by. 

*There is a pedagogical director for 8-10^th grade (Primero ciclo) and then a pedagogical director for 11-12^th grade (segundo ciclo).   Since Hannah is only teaching 9^th and 10^th grade English, the director for segundo ciclo is my director and the primero ciclo is both of ours as well. 

Below I included two little highlights of the week.  

Hello, my name is Zuria, but sometimes I like to be called Zuzu.  I am two years old, and I love hanging out with tia Amanda and tia Ana.  My mom, Cristina, is close friends with tia Amanda and tia Ana.  Isn't that great?  

This rainbow decided to stick around for about 45 minutes.  This was the same day I taught my first lessons.  Good omen?!  

At this rate, I'll be home in no time

               Okay, so here it goes!  I woke up today and looked at the calendar on my computer: January 10^th. Wait, JANUARY 10^th?!?!?!?!?!  Yep, school starts in 4 days.  Here, let me write that out-four days, as in 1,2,3,4.  Damn, what happened.  I came to Invinha a month and two days ago.   While the days pass slowly (you know, 6 hours of paper snowflakes one day.  The cooking takes an hour to prepare a meal between lighting the charcoal stove or bleaching all the vegetables.), the month(s) pass quickly.  Hannah and I don’t know where the time has gone. 

                So that being said, half of the neighborhood (all professors housing) hasn’t moved back in from the holidays.  Many teachers don’t know what grade they are teaching; some don’t even know what subject they are teaching.  A few math teachers from last year are under the belief that they are still teaching math, but according to my school director and director of  pedagogy, that is definitely not the case.  Currently I am the only math teacher for 11^th and 12^th grade.  Since the school Director, Irma Isaura has been away on vacation (and still isn’t back yet) we have to ask our questions to the next in command.  My pedagogy director today said I would only be teaching 11^th grade.  Hallelujah!!!!!  I don’t have the added pressure of preparing students for their 12^th grade national exams.  AND I don’t have to lesson plan for 11^th and 12^th grade, only 11^th.  Double hallelujah.  Yet, the school still doesn’t have a math teacher for 12^th grade.  I also asked him if he knew when the school holidays would be, he doesn’t.  Technically, the school year is already set, but I’m in Mozambique.  This means that the holidays marked on the calendar aren’t actually correct, it’s more of a ballpark and then people just let each other know when they’re going to be without actually changing it on paper.  For those waiting on dates for me, I truly am sorry, this is just how Mozambique works. 

Quick side bar: poor Hannah knows she’ll be teaching English and TICs (computers) but has no idea what grades, so she can’t lesson plan yet!  Anyone want to apply for our school?!  I heard there’s a math opening available. 

                Even better, the school is going to give us all the professor’s names and what they’re going to teach (grades included) on Saturday.  Our assignment: to make the schedule for the entire school.  What professor is teaching in what classroom at what time…oh goody!  This will take the better part of the entire weekend.  That means we won’t really have time to lesson plan this weekend either. 

[Enter nice and smooth transition here.]  In Mozambique it is summer, also known as the rainy season, and by rainy season, I mean rainier season.  (We have two wet seasons here, but summer is more so.)  The past four days have rained, but that’s normal.  What isn’t normal is having it constantly rain the entire day with maybe 15-20 minute breaks of blue skies.  Before that it would be blue skies all day and then two quick, but powerful rainstorms.  The neighborhood is talking about the amount of rain coming in.  Man are things green here!  I have a few pictures of what Invinha looks like in the rain. 

                                                        

On the right are a little brother and sister playing in the rain.  Side note: Many children (and adults) bath outside during the rain storms to conserve the water.  

    

Here's an after-shot of my escapades in the rain.  Sweats, mismatching colored socks, and hot cocoa.  Yes I will!  

     Here's Invinha's one road...and that's me standing on it, or
                 should I say, in it? 

               Today is just not my day for creative transitions; I keep on coming up with blanks.  Maybe it’s because my mind is going a million miles a minute trying to make lesson plans, translate them into Portuguese, realize that my dictionary doesn’t have the math vocabulary I need, searching for it in the textbook, thinking about the scheduling, etc.  Anyways, another side note.  I’m learning how to cook, and I’m having fun!  A few times I’ve made some really great soups where I just sort of throw things into the pot and then I dash (or dump) in a few spices and voila!  Today was especially fun where I made caramelized onions and pepper sauce for spaghetti and then also stuffed peppers with a nice colorful salad on the side.  Yum!  Anyways, for everyone at home, if you like making things from scratch and have the recipes written down, send them my way!  (walker.akw@gmail.com) I have plenty of downtime to try them out! Also, this downtime is not referring to the first few weeks of school! 

Oh look, a pretty moth!  

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.