Beyond the Institute

Jesse and I got to share ideas and experiences with other volunteers at a regional Peace Corps conference last weekend. Following that, I participated in a REDES (and JOMA) "Training of Trainers" conference. Peace Corps volunteers working with REDES (which stands for "Girls in Development, Education and Health") organize an annual national conference to discuss issues of interest and importance for the lives of women in Mozambique, including facts about sexual and reproductive health, self-confidence, professional opportunities available to women in Mozambique, and the rights of Mozambican women. Mozambican teachers involved with the REDES program were invited to this conference to prepare them to facilitate the sessions for the girls at the national conference next month. Generally, someone who is originally from Mozambique can better relate to and discuss important issues with Mozambican girls and REDES wants to empower them to be leaders of the conference. More than that, the five women I met at this conference are awesome. They are assertive, animated, fun - great people and great role models. A trainer from the Brazilian NGO, ProMundo, led much of the gender training at this REDES/JOMA conference (http://www.promundo.org.br).
In addition to enjoying our professional work, Jesse and I are also appreciating this beautiful country. A few weekends ago, we got to camp with a couple friends on a beautiful, unknown, and practically deserted island just a few minutes of the beach in Maputo. This island, called Xefina, was a military base and jail during the colonial rule of the Portuguese. It was abandonned at the end of the colonial period. Big cement buildings and canons are sideways, tilted by the moving sands and some are under water. Now only ten or so families live on the island, though we think that there are immenent plans to develop it into a resort. We asked a fishing boat to take us across and enjoyed exploring. Our tent was surrounded by a herd of goats at sunrise. The water was low when we returned so we waded half the distance back to Maputo from the island. So, again, Mozambique is amazing.
In addition to being amazing, Mozambique can be a tough place to live. We recieved an email from a fellow Peace Corps volunteer in the northern region of Mozambique, Alex, who wrote about the destruction cause by Cyclone Jokwe in Angoche. She is organizing to personally purchase immediate aid for this community. She provided information about how to make monetary donations in case you're interested in supporting in this way. Email me and I can forward you the details, or check out her blog site - http://alexkruzel.blogspot.com.

Teaching

Jesse and I are continuing to enjoy teaching. Here's a picture of some of my students working as a team.
The school does not have any textbooks so Jesse and I have the flexibility to develop the curriculum outlined by the Ministry of Education using whatever resources we can find by ourselves. The weekly themes of the curriculum are broad enough to allow us to integrate information about health and discuss important issues during our lessons.
Our students are eager to continue learning outside of class. Jesse and I are beginning fun activities like a weekly English movie night, lunch bunch speaking English, English discussion group, and, of course, English at the beach. Interest is high.
One evening we met with our students for an informal "English hour" where we brought to the classroom a bunch of magazines that Justin and Mike (the returned volunteers) had collected. I was struck by how enthusiastically the students devoured the magazines. The loved paging through the articles and advertisements. Many were unfamiliar with the format of a magazine because access to printed resources is so limited. We are beginning to collect resources in English - education textbooks, teacher idea books, and a variety of other books at a variety of levels. We are hoping that people who come to visit us will use some of their suitcase space to bring the books here. In this way, we're hoping to gradually collect and organize a resource library for the students here, both to enrich their study of English and to offer resources for their teaching of English. Please send us emails if you have resources or ideas or connections for this project.

First Weeks of Teaching

Jesse and I began teaching classes a couple weeks ago. It´s going well and we´re enjoying it. Our students are at different levels, but they´re enthusiastic. (Last week, the theme of the lessons was elections. At one point, my whole class was chanting "Obama! Obama!") We´ve submitted a bunch of proposals for opportunities for the students to practice English outside of class. Hopefully they´ll be approved by the director of the school and we´ll be even busier soon.
The English track of the teacher training program has 3 classes of 30 students each. The students stay in one room and the teacher of each subject goes to them. Jesse is teaching Speaking Class and I am teaching Listening Class. Most of the students live on campus in a boarding house. They have a disciplined schedule of waking up at 4:30 to exercise, gathering to sing the national anthem at 6:45 before class, and filling assignments of work in the gardens after classes. Some of our students are in their late teens, many in their 20´s, and a few even older. Many have families of their own and are motivated, giving up a lot of time with their families to be here.
If anyone is interested in corresponding with one of our students, we have some motivated students who would be excited to correspond and practice their English. Send us an email to let us know if you would like to do that.
One of my favorite parts of Peace Corps so far is that I´m living in the community as a neighbor, not just a visitor. That´s why I love it when the kids stop by after school to kick the soccer ball with Jesse, when the neighbor´s baby toddles in the door to visit, or when when I can share dinner samples or cake recipes back and forth with my friend.

Chicken Dinner

Jesse and I are continuing to love our neighbors. On Satuday, we shared dinner with our friend, Veronica, and her family. We spent the afternoon preparing. First, we walked together to the roadside to buy a couple live chickens, which we held by their wings to carry to the house.

Then, with one foot on the chicken´s head and the other foot holding down the wings, Jesse cut the neck. After the chickens stopped wriggling, their feathers were pulled off and the chickens were washed and cut. Almost all of a chicken can be eaten, even the intestines after they´re opened and cleaned well. The dinner was delicious - even for me, a vegetarian, who enjoyed xima and knowing that the chicken on the table wasn´t from a factory farm.

Photo below: Super cute kids at Veronica´s house.

Painting in Xai-Xai

Emily left Xai Xai for a REDES meeting in Maputo this past weekend, leaving me in charge of buying paint and painting the kitchen and living room of our house. Now, I can imagine that some of you, especially those of female persuasion are cringing slightly knowing that Emily left me, an admitted man, in charge of selecting the paint scheme and color that will adorn our house for two years. To that I say, your fears are groundless – I knew what I was doing. I also brought 2 other men along with me to help me choose the paint. Our friend Dan was down for a visit and quickly enlisted into the painting project along with Rustino, one of our friends who lives nearby.
We began the project on Friday and I had high hopes that we would be putting the finishing touches on the last wall by dinner time on Friday. This conservative estimate was thrown out the window almost immediately as we did not get into town to buy the painting supplies until after lunch and did not return with the paint until around 7 Friday night.
Paint supply procurement was interesting but uneventful. It was the purchasing of the paint that turned the whole outing into an adventure. The best way to buy paint here is to buy a couple gallons of white paint and then add little bottles of “tinter” until you have approximately the color your wife told you would match the pretty curtains she bought the second day we were at site. I even had a sample of the curtains with me and was feeling pretty confident.
The goal was to have a sand colored living room and maroon colored kitchen. Luck was with us because there was a bucket of approximately the correct color for the kitchen already mixed sitting out as if waiting for us. The sand color was not as easy. It took a long time to agree on the quality of white base paint that I was willing to pay for (paint is pretty expensive here, especially good paint). I quickly learned that to the people who were selling me the paint, their concept of a nice sand color is an ugly gray that would not in any circumstance look good on a wall. This was unfortunate because my ace in the hole had been that I had made sure I knew how to say sand in Portuguese before arriving at the paint store which was really the back of a trailer.
The next hour or so was spent trying to make a couple of primary colors do what wasn’t really physically possible. At one point we were mixing red yellow black and brown together hoping that the end result would look like Emily’s curtain sample. Out of desperation I jumped all over a color that was a definite improvement over the green brown and black that was the previous attempt. I think I liked it because it was so bright. Dan and Rustino quickly agreed that this was definitely the best color possible. Their opinion probably mostly being turned by the fact that we had already spent an hour or so matching paint. I held the sample next to the curtain and grimaced but said “Yeah, close enough” and the paint mixing began.
Now, it is one thing to mix a bit of paint together on a piece of cardboard. It is a lot harder to match that color in a ten gallon bucket of paint. For the next hour and a half I watched as more and more tinter was added and the paint color departed from the color sample we had agreed on as if it were an inverse correlation. My favorite part about the paint mixing was the guy who was holding the red tinter. Without much consultation with anyone else he would from time to time dump in a bunch of red. This would elicit a reaction from the woman who was stirring that the red was too strong and we needed yellow to balance it out. I alternated from hysterical laughing to extreme panic. When I finally called an end to this study in primary colors and decided to deal with what we had, I would call the color reminiscent of a dirty traffic cone but was not extremely displeased with the outcome.
Some of the advice for application and storage of the paint was lost in translation as the woman who was selling me the paint alternated between two local languages that I have not had the opportunity to pick up in my month here. Rustino speaks both of the languages and was still a bit confused: “She says you have to mix the paint with petrol”. And we would have, but the gas station had just closed. Rustino left Dan and I that night looking forward to helping us the next day.
In the middle of dinner that night Dan and I spontaneously broke out in laughter after it finally dawned on us that we would be painting the walls of the house the color of the paint that was in the bucket in the corner of the room. We kept laughing because there was nothing we could do. The paint was already purchased, we were committed.
The next day the paint was applied generously in 4 coats. It doesn’t look bad. Seriously. The contrast between the maroon in the kitchen and the orange living room inspires description such as “funhouse without the mirrors,” but what is important is that Emily likes it, or is very good at controlling her emotions.
The next improvement Dan and I are interested in now is lime green borders and a lime green stripe running at about eye level around the room.

REDES

This past weekend I was in Maputo to attend an organizational meeting for an established project of Peace Corps Mozambique called REDES. REDES stands for "Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educacao e Saude," or "Girls in Development, Education and Health." Volunteers organize groups of girls in secondary schools across the country for this extracurricular activity. Groups of girls come together to have a supportive place to talk freely and learn and just be girls. The group leaders facilitate education and discussion sessions about important life issues - gender roles, women´s health and STDs, self esteem, healthy relationships, women´s rights, future planning, and goal setting. Each group also does activities that interest them - whether it´s forming a girl´s soccer team or making a craft for income generation.
One highlight of the REDES program is a national conference. Sixty young women from all over the country will meet together in April for a week of education and leadership activities that they will be able to share with the women of their communities when they return. This weekend we planned the conference schedule and logistics. It´s exciting to be part of it!
Jesse is hoping to get involved in the brother organization called JOMA (Jovens para Mudanca e Accao - or - Youth for Change and Action). JOMA has a website - http://joma.pcmoz.org/

Happy Holidays

Best wishes to all for a very happy new year! Jesse and I spent the holidays with our new neighbors. Everyone contributed dishes to summer-barbeque-style potluck parties in our communal backyard. We listened to music and danced until late into the night. We enjoyed incorporating some of our holiday traditions into the celebration, like making pierogies and baking Christmas cookies.
Jesse and I are continuing to enjoy cooking delicious dinners and exploring our community. We found a beautiful spot to walk and ride bikes in the Limpopo River Valley, which is very close to our house.
Many of Justin and Mike´s friends have extended their friendship to us. Our friend, Viegas Sergio, invited us to a family party celebrating the graduations of his brother and sister. The night was filled with great food and lots of music, singing, and praying with thanksgiving.
We are continuing Justin and Mike´s project called "English at the Beach." Participants meet us at the beach on Saturdays to practice English in a low stress environment. Often this includes frisbee and soccer in English. Jesse is trying - without success so far - to teach the concept of Ulimate Frisbee. Our house is a convenient stop for traveling Peace Corps volunteers so we´ve seen a lot of people. The bed frame was successfully cut and fit through the door so our guest room is fully functional and well-used now. Below is a picture of our Peace Corps friends Erika, Katie, Lindsay, and Zach helping to make New Year cakes.

When Dan and Russell visited, they worked with Jesse to sharpen their spears and go crab stabbing at the beach. They successfully speared several teeny crabs which went smelly before the next night´s dinner.

We have also visited the sites of a couple nearby volunteers. We got to spend a couple days with our friend, Russell, who lives in Macuacua, a very rural site a few hours away from the city down bumpy dirt roads. The truck that brings bread to the town only comes twice a week, so each time it swarmed with people. Here is a picture of Russell in front of his school, which is kept in great condition by a wealthy man in the province.
We worked conducting admission interviews last week at the testing site in Chokwe, which is where our Peace Corps friends, Sinead and Andrea, live. After we finished proctoring exams for each day, we were able to visit with them and get to know the town.
We corrected admission exams this week and are preparing to begin teaching at the end of January or the beginning of February. We´re getting used to being summoned by phone calls at unexpected times to go help with work at the school.
Our school, called the IFP (Instituto de Formacao de Professores), provides a one-year training program for graduates of 10th grade who plan to be future teachers of 6th and 7th grade English. Jesse will be teaching the Reading and Speaking components of the course, and I will be teaching the Listening and Writing classes.
A couple weeks ago, Jesse and I carried a new kitten home in a rice sack. After a few baths and hours of attention with tweezers, he is flea-free. The kitten´s name is Xingove, which is the word for cat in the local language of Xangana. We´re trying to encourage this tiny kitten to become a killer cat to rats, spiders, roaches, and whatever else tries to invade our house. The kitten is also very affectionate and will help us to welcome you when you come to visit.
We bought a P.O. box in town. Please note our new address and send letters to C.P. 270, Xai-Xai, Mozambique. We´d love to hear from you! Also, we´ll be having more consistent email access now that we´re settled here. Thank you for your messages!