(it can get cold here!!)
10/18/2016 (Full disclosure – because of procrastination,
logistics, and life it took me an extra week to finish this)
I am currently in Nampula City attending a 2-day conference
with our future school supervisors before heading to “phase 2” where we visit
our future sites for 2-weeks before completing training. To provide some
structure, I will start this post with an executive summary for all of the busy
folks out there, share some stories, discuss how my expectations have been both
accurate and inaccurate, share about the hard aspects of my experience, and
wrap up with a bit of logistical information on my life!
Executive Summary
-Tomorrow I head to the city of Namuno in the province of
Cabo Delgado. I will be there for 2 weeks, return to Namaacha for 1 month to
finish training, and then begin my service in December. I will be teaching high
school Physics & Math (my subjects have been more or less confirmed for my
first year) in Namuno. Namuno is 60km or a 2-hour ride away from Montepuez. My
town has a market and some shops, but no bank.-I had a conversation with a man in a grocery store about cheese (in Portuguese!), ordered a taxi (in Portuguese), helped my family prepare for a wedding, made “xima de batatas” aka mashed potatoes, and rode on a bus sooooooooo packed I could not move. I miss things like coffee, showers, tea, and pizza but there are places to get them and I knew I would miss them. I had no idea how much I would miss having clean feet. I wash them daily/twice a day but the dirt stains don’t seem to go away no matter how hard I scrub. As a white male, I receive attention, honor, respect, and special treatment that I do not deserve. Downside: prices magically get more expensive when I want to buy things. Lastly, I have received some mail and I sent some out while in Nampula!!
Story Time
The day before I flew from Maputo to Nampula, my host family
had a wedding. Technically the wedding had started on Wednesday, but Saturday
was the main day for the ceremony. The cake had been cut on Thursday.
Unfortunately, because of the location of the wedding and the amount of time
required for transportation, I was not able to attend the ceremony. Instead, I
helped my mom and a few others prepare all of the food for after the services.
I spent about 2 hours just turning biscuit dough into biscuits… I also helped
carry the 20 (living) chickens to the house and helped build a large roof
covering for the yard to provide shade. During one of the Portuguese classes we had, our class made American food for our host moms and our host moms made a traditional dish for us. My class made mashed potatoes and chicken sandwiches. My host mom loved the mashed potatoes so much that she had me make a batch for after the wedding so her parents and the bride/groom could taste them!!
Transportation for the whole wedding event was a blast!! And
I mean that in the exhilarating adventure type of excursion – by no means was
it comfortable. It took us 2 chapas and 1 bus to get to the reception location.
(a chapa is a 15 passenger van that seats 21 people in this country). In High
School, I used to bus a fair amount. In the US there have been times where I
was unable to get on buses because they’ve been too full. That 3rd
chapa brought too full to another level. It was my host mom, 3-yr-old brother,
1-yr-old baby and I traveling together. When we got on (and we had to push hard
to get on), someone picked up my 3-yr-old brother and just put him on their
lap. I climbed my way to the back (literally climbed) because there was enough
space for me and my duffle bag (my 1 duffle bag with all of my stuff for 3
weeks – talk about learning how to pack light). During one of the curves in the
road during this rollercoaster of a ride, I thought I was going to fall down.
But I couldn’t fall down because there was nowhere for me to fall… All sides of
me were held up by the other people on this bus. Yay transportation!!
That evening, my host father came with me to the hotel so he
could help me get there. We were in a suburb of Maputo about 15km from my hotel
(my flight to Nampula was at 6am). It took us 3 or 4 chapas and 90 minutes to
get there. On the 2nd chapa, my host dad and I were seated at the
back. A young kid took a seat in the front row and my host dad ends up yelling
at him to come back here and sit with us. There was a mother with a baby behind
the “joven” and the kid had taken the easiest seat. When the kid got back to
our row in the chapa, my host dad was very kind – he explained that the kid
needed to pay more attention and let the mother carrying a baby have the easy
seat. He then struck up a casual conversation with this kid just about their
days.
From these two experiences I have obviously learned that it
is customary to look out for each other. Whether it is a 3-yr-old who needs a
lap on a bus or a mother with her baby trying to fit into an over packed chapa,
people lookout for each other.
The first night in Nampula, some of us went to a restaurant
about 1-mile away from our hotel. On the way back, some criancias (children)
asked for money to buy food. We said no. But myself and 2 others said – “if
there’s a bakery still open we’ll buy you some bread”. It was 4 children
probably ranging from 3 to 6/7 years old. They followed us the ½ mile to the
bakery and we bought bread for them. Of course other people say this and asked
if we could buy them bread too. Our response was simple: this bread & water
is for the children. Normally, people never stop asking for stuff/money.
Amazingly enough, they nodded and did not bother to ask us again. What amazed
me from this entire experience was how understanding people are.
The large cities in Mozambique have well sized grocery
stores that have just about every commodity one could want. Being in Nampula
has been the first opportunity to visit one of these miraculous stores. As a
small group of us volunteers began our journey to the grocery store, a man
started following us. Before we knew it, he was waving a stick and shouting at
us. I still have no idea what he was shouting about. He followed us all the way
to the market.
If you don’t already know this, I love cheese. So, I was standing in front of the cheese section for a solid 5 minutes trying to decide what I wanted. A man came up to me and started talking about his favorite cheeses (all in Portuguese) and convinced me to buy Gouda and Brie. As we left the market, the man with the stick was waiting for us!! He continued to shout and wave his stick at us all the way back to our hotel. Quite the odd experience.
(Give me a week or so to upload my blogpost about my site and oh boy do I have some more stories to share)
Expectations
- As with any experience, it is best to not have
expectations. As with any human, it’s pretty near impossible to not have ANY
expectations. Like I said, I miss things like coffee, showers, tea, and pizza but there are places to get them and I knew I would miss them. But don’t you worry, once I get to site permanently I’ll be able to feed my coffee addiction once again J.
I had no idea how much I would miss having clean feet. I wash them daily/twice a day but the dirt stains don’t seem to go away no matter how hard I scrub. Dirty/clean feet are probably the biggest expectation I did not even realize I had.
In the US, I feel comfortable pulling my laptop out in public. Today is the first time I’ve brought my laptop out of my room (I’m finishing up this blogpost 1-week late so I’m currently with my host family in Namuno). My host family in Namuno is fairly wealthy compared to the standard here. I try to be careful with electronics such as my laptop because of how valuable it is. It’s not just the monetary value that comes with electronics. It’s also that most technology here is 3-8 years old. I’m not worried about anyone knowing that I have a laptop – 99.9% of people wouldn’t even think about stealing it. Rather, it’s the status that comes with things like laptops that I don’t want. I don’t want people placing me on a pedestal (just wait for my next blogpost… LOL). And I certainly don’t want people thinking I’m rich (I plan on doing a post about prices and living wages in Mozambique sometime in December).
Adjusting
Overall, I have been adjusting well. I’m happy and love the
constant adventure and learning experiences. Before leaving Namaacha for
Namuno, I had a daily routine. Morning run, breakfast, class, lunch/play with
my host siblings, class, hangout with volunteers for a bit, help prepare
dinner, help do the dishes, eat dinner, practice Portuguese, go to my room to
wind down, and go to bed. My host mom started calling me “querido” which means
darling. She’s been an absolute blessing helping me adjust to a different
culture.
Logistics
I’ve made it safe and sound to Namuno!! In about a week and
a half I’ll upload another blogpost about my experiences here. Namuno is in the
province of Cabo Delgado. If you want to come visit me, I promise to take you
to Pemba!! For the month of November, I’ll be back in Namaacha to complete
training. In December, I move to Namuno for my 2 years of service. I will be
learning Makua, the local language spoken in Namuno. I will be teaching high
school math my first year, and maybe physics too. I will have a roommate who is about to finish first year of service. - Daniel -
Se quer ir vai rapido, vai sozinho. Se quer ir vai longe, vai juntos. Lema de Mozambique – Estamos Juntos. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Mozambiquen Motto – We are together.
