Building Part 2

22^nd of August, 2017

I put the water on my back

 

Building part 2!! Who knows, by the end of my Peace Corps service I may be ready to open a carpentry shop in the states! In this issue of keeping up with Daniel, I’m going to briefly give an update, share two stories, and then explain my latest building projects.

This week is the first week of the third trimester. We’ve been on break for 5 weeks because of the national census. It can always be an adjustment getting back into the swing of things. I’ve prepared my lessons for the next few weeks and so far these two days of teaching have gone surprisingly well (aside from terrible attendance yesterday). Since I had so much downtime at site, I continued making my house my home. In about a week, I leave Namuno for Maputo to help with training. The new group of education volunteers arrive next week and I get to help welcome through and support them through their arrival and first week of training.

Okay, now for two stories. I was in the market yesterday buying some potatoes and onions to go along with our steak dinner (shout out to my parents who bought me some meat while they were here!). I was out of Namuno for a weekend trip so I just returned early yesterday. Whenever I return from a trip, everyone tends to ask, “where were you? What were you doing?”. Every day when I go to the market I pass a street corner where things are sold in bulk and I always greet the people there – specifically this story is about Felisberto, one of the people on that specific corner. Anyway, I was in the market section buying vegies and Felisberto came up to me to greet me. We spoke in Makua a little and then he said something I didn’t understand and he held out a 10 met coin. Realizing I didn’t understand, Felisberto said, “Here take this! Buy something to eat for yourself. Maybe a piece of fruit or some peppers for your dinner”. I was left speechless. Another market vendor saw my confusion and repeated what Felisberto just said. Here was a young man offering to give ME MONEY so that I could buy something nice for myself. A young man who is not wealthy. I’m not usually lost for words. But every time I think I’ve experienced it all, I’m wrong. Felisberto wasn’t asking for money, he was trying to give me money. I was taken back, my heart melted, and my mind was blank. In a community where I constantly have people asking me for money, this is the first time I have had someone offer to give me money. Eventually, I was able to say “Thank you so much Felisberto. But I would prefer it if we could buy some fruit together and share some food. How about later this week we buy some bananas or oranges and share them? Right now I need to go home and cook dinner”.

Kindness and generosity can be found in the most unexpecting places. It can come from anyone at anytime. I still struggle with expressing how Felisberto’s action makes me feel. It makes me feel like he is a part of my family here. He is a part of my support system here.

Story #2 – I was walking home from school greeting people as normal. One of the young children said     “A cunha!” which means “white person/foreigner” and I haven’t been called “A cunha” in my town in a very very long time. My current reaction is to respond, “A Cunha!?! Where!? Where!?! Oh me? No I’m Daniel”. But this time, the child’s mom turns to her and goes, “No that’s not A Cunha, that’s Daniel! Call him Daniel”. I feel less and less like a foreigner every day. With each day, I feel more supported and normal in my community. A few less stares, a few less “A cunhas”, and a lot more compassion.

Hence, on an emotional level I love being at my house and in my community. I belong here. Now to transition to my building projects!! A while back, my roommate and I splurged and split the price of a power drill. Since the last set of building, I’ve re-built my bed, built kitchen counters, tons of shelves, a workout gym, clothing rack for my site-mate, and poured a concrete pad (on top of which will be a power rack – something to do bench press/squats/deadlifts). In the future, I will be adding a playground type structure outside for the neighborhood kids. I will also be building a picnic bench for the kids and students that come over to learn and play. Hopefully I’ll have enough money in my next monthly stipend to finish those two items, if not it’ll take me two months to finish.

This week I’m adding more outlets to our kitchen area (I’ll be doing that re-wiring right after I finish this post!) and I’ll be building a nicer table/desk for my site-mate. We have an outdoor water spigot that works about once every week or two and broke. The city said they would come this week to fix it. If they don’t, I have already bought the parts to fix it myself and will do so if they don’t come soon. Fortunately, I have experience with piping from back in the states so it’ll be a quick and easy fix.

  

Kitchen Upgrade

 
 
 
Two new shelves and a new kitchen table/prep table! Also note the coffee pot… If you know me, I think you know how incredibly deeply excited I am for a coffee pot. It’s a mess right now, but it is making life so much easier. At the right part of the table are three small black objects on the wall – those are the outlets I am currently installing. I just need to finish the wiring and it’ll be good to go!

Tools, tools, tools!

 

This is our outdoor veranda area. Another shelf and tools that are hanging up on the wall!! They were just on the ground taking up a ton of space. It is quite exciting to realize that we have enough tools to justify having a tool shelf! Little by little my house continues to feel like a place where people would want to live, not have to live.

 

All about dem gains (get big or go home)

 

Ignoring my clothes drying in the background, we have the current workout gym/playground area on the right. It’s all rope & lashings but very sturdy! On the left side is the concrete pad a friend and I poured. It’ll be the base for another workout gym. Normally in the states, one would buy concrete mix. Here in Mozambique, you can only buy cement mix. The difference? Concrete is made from cement mixed with sand and sometimes gravel/rocks/dirt. For every cup of cement, generally 3 cups of sand are added. I know understand why we have machines to mix concrete. It’s exhausting work! It took my friend and I 7 hours to pour this pad – 7 hours of nonstop work. Plus, a local army of neighborhood kids to go out and fetch a few hundred pounds of sand…

Well those are the recent building projects! Building things by hand is exhausting, time consuming, and quite exciting!

Looking toward the future, after being in my site for 9 months, I finally feel like I know my community and the issues here well enough to start some projects. In my experience, the biggest issues in my town are in this order: nutrition, malaria, HIV-AIDS, education, and young pregnancies. I’m looking into the potential of starting some type of nutrition program by using Moringa Trees to supplement one’s diet. It’s always a struggle to convince people that they should change their lifestyle and always requires proof. I have an outlandish idea to motivate people into growing their own moringa – and if I can economically convince them to grow it then maybe I can inadvertently convince them to eat it for themselves too. I don’t want to throw all my thoughts here because it is quite outlandish. With 100% certainty I know it’s possible so if I’m able to get my idea out of my head and started, I’ll write a blogpost more in-depth about how I understand the issues of my town and how I plan to approach a sustainable solution.    

 

As always, thank you so much for reading to the end of my post and for your constant support.

With all my heart,

Daniel Bladow

 

P.S. Let’s follow the simple example of Felisberto - May we be a fountain of compassion and source of acceptance for all of those around us.

When Parents Visit

August 1, 2017 (and continued on the 4^th and finished on the 9^th…)

 

Another month of adventures! With July came the end to the second trimester and the arrival of my parents for a two-week vacation in Mozambique! I’ll give some brief wrap-up information about he trimester and then jump straight into the parental arrival.

The end to any trimester in Mozambique brings a lot of stress and frustration to light amongst education Peace Corps Volunteers. As I shared back in April, a lot of grades get changed. My policy is to offer make-up work for any students not passing – if they complete all of the make-up work perfectly I will pass them. But, they have to do ALL OF IT and they must get everything correct. I allow them to sit outside my house and ask me as many questions as they want. I tell them when their answers are wrong and help explain the process. This trimester, I had 7 students complete the make-up work. Sadly, I know many of my grades will be changed anyway.

My roommate had written his grades in his gradebook and went to turn it into our assistant principal. They looked at the book and said “grades written in pen? Curtis, we need you to come back next week for the consulting of notes so you can approve any necessary grade changes. You can come back this afternoon with Daniel so we can explain this to both of you”. The assistant principals knew full well that both Curtis and I had travel plans since they had to sign off and approve our leave from site… Curtis came home frustrated, re-wrote his grades in pencil, and we returned in the afternoon. “Grades by Pencil! Curtis, when do you leave again? Have a great trip!” was their only response to him. They turn to me and say, “Make sure you also turn in your grades before leaving on your trip!”

Fast forward to the day I turn in my grades, I walk to campus and upon arrival am surrounded by teachers asking about the grades of students in my classes. I tell them they can talk to the assistant principal because I am leaving my grades with him. I walk into the assistant principal’s office and hand him my grades. Before I had even left the room, he and another teacher began marking the names of students in my gradebook that “needed to be changed”.

Similar to last time, I have my own personal record of what my students’ grades should be. I will be checking to see which grades were altered and by how much. Small changes will result in me talking to the student and the student completing the make-up work. There are a few students that I intentionally failed for a variety of reasons (showed up to class twice the entire semester, showed up to class for the provincial exam and never even came to any of my classes, etcetera). If the students whom I wanted to fail somehow magically passed, my plan is to work with the assistant principal on re-adjusting their grades back to the original marks. With all that said, I still have 3 weeks until the next trimester starts, so it will be awhile until I need to fight any battles or have any teacher-student conversations.

Moving onto the more riveting part of the month of July, my parents came to visit!!!! First and foremost, maddddd props to them for making the travel, taking all of that vacation time, and spending all of that money to visit me in a place they would ordinarily never consider visiting. Upon arrival at the airport in Maputo, they had their first interaction with the Mozambican system. After passing through the initial customs check, an officer asks them for their “yellow card”. My father did not have one because technically they should not have needed one. You only need a yellow card to enter Mozambique if you have recently been to or are currently travel from a certain set of nations. My dad being confused turns to mom, and she pulls out a plastic sleeve that has her yellow card in it. The customs officer then passes them through the checkpoint. Point being that 1) there was only one yellow card 2) The agent never read the yellow card so it literally could have just been a piece of paper 3) They should not have even been checked for a yellow card…

Adding to the initial adventures of traveling across 9 time zones to visit a country where neither of my parents speak any of the 40+ languages/dialects, we had rented a car for my father to drive to assist with our logistical plans while in the southern part of Mozambique. To further make matters more exciting and adventurous, one drives on the left side of the road in Mozambique. So after 36 hours of traveling, my father drove from the airport to our hotel, which is about 20 minutes by car. While we were preparing for the vacation I had asked my parents if there is anything else they would want to know to be better prepared. I told my dad driving here is fairly different than in the States, to which he replied “I’ve driven in Mexico so I can figure out driving there”. And he did consequir (succeed) – but he was also constantly challenged while driving in the environment here.

The following day, we drove about 2 hours to the city of Namaacha were I had my 3 months of training so we could spend the day with my host family. We ate, we played, my father’s Spanish came back to him poquito poquito as he tried to pick up some Portuguese, I did a lot of back and forth translating, and we ended the night with a marvelous local based dinner prepared by my host family – fish in a coconut & peanut sauce with a bean stew served over rice. As the night drew to an end, my host father arrived home with deserts for the family! He was in Maputo for work and did not realize we had to leave the same night we arrived to Namaacha. So, he changed his work plans so that he could meet my parents. He brought fresh fruit, cooked peanuts, and cashews for sobremesa (desert). Already being full, my host father said “well if you don’t eat the desert, that means you don’t like me” to which my dad and host father broke out laughing. What followed next was a discussion about welcoming people with open hearts and learning about different cultures.

Our next adventure took us to the pristine northern beaches of Pemba, Cabo Delgado where we stayed in a palace and I got to use a washer and dryer to clean my clothes!!!!  We relaxed, rejuvenated, and had a few adventures around town. My mom and I went to the main market, did some shopping, and ate a plate of local food (rice, tomato salad, fried squid, bean stew, and a leafy dish called matapa). Near the end of our walk, I suggested we head to the Portuguese café because of the 270 degree view of the bay and port plus they have REAL coffee – as in french pressed coffee! My mom asked how far away it was, so I said “It’s just up this hill, then we turn right and pass the high school, then the catholic college, then the industrial school, take a left at the fork and it’s right there!”. I guess I’ve integrated to the local sense of distance because it was an hour long walk at 1 PM. Even though it’s winter here the low is in 60s with a high in the 80s. Even though we walked an hour just to have a coca-cola and a cup of coffee through the blazing winter sun when I made it seem like it would be a short walk, my mother did not complain – not a single word.

Next up, we traveled to Namuno where I live! We had hired a personal driver. At the 5^th police checkpoint, the officers decided to write our driver a 5000 met (about 86$) for a sticker that was expired. Our driver had no idea what the sticker was for – it wasn’t car insurance, it wasn’t the emission checkup, and it wasn’t registration. This was the first time I had ever seen a police office write a ticket without first asking in some manner for a bribe. As we began to leave it started to make sense – the officer said he can drop us off in Namuno and when he returns they can settle the issue. Which to me feels like the officer did not want to handle bribes in front of three Americans; he’d handle it when our driver returned without the foreigners.

 

Upon arrival in Namuno, my father’s exact words were “Wow! This is like camping every day!” to which I could only help but reply, “sure but this is my daily life”. We walked around the town, cooked over wood charcoal, and my mother had some capulana made (capulana is a material they sell here in 1m x 2m pieces and you bring it to a seamstress to have it made into clothes). The following morning, my crianças (children) found out I was back home! We had a play party in my backyard consisting of coloring, playing on the new gym, and dad teaching bits and pieces of English to some of the 8^th graders that came over.

The following day of our travels ended up being the hardest yet. It was the one day we were going to take public transportation, and it should have been easy. The ride out of town was simple, we just all arrived in Montepuez with a pigment change to our hair -brown from the dust of the 60km dirt road. Next we had bought tickets for a bus that would take us to the ADPP. For whatever reason, the bus did not leave. After being 45 minutes late, they shuttled us into a standard 15-passenger van that in this country seats 21 to 28 depending on the number of babies in the van. Next they attempted to reimburse everyone’s bus tickets which turned into a disaster… It took another hour before we left because of a lack of change. Somehow they had a lot of 1000 and 500 met bills but not enough smaller bills to reimburse everyone. Finally we get on our way and the first 3 police check points are completely normal – “Look at this big white guy in the passenger seat! You don’t speak Portuguese? (speaking to my father) – oh your son speaks Portuguese? How? What in the world are you 3 doing out here? You live out here!?! Wait you speak Makua too? Wow you teach out here!!?! Oh wow that’s really cool. Do you have any money to give me so I can go buy a drink?”

But the 4^th checkpoint was completely different… Apparently the transit police had decided to actually enforce every law of the road today and there were two transit police check points! We’re about to enter the city of Metoro and a chapa coming from the opposite direction stops us – “hey they’re writing tickets. Make sure you only have 15 people in your van”. Technically, the 15 passenger vans are only legally allowed to carry 15 people. Our chapa and the following 3 chapas unload passengers 1km before the checkpoint and then continue. At this point there’s about 40-50 people walking on foot into the town of Metoro. We get to the checkpoint and wait, and wait, and then wait some more. After 20 minutes all of the passengers we had unloaded pass us… After another 10 minutes we’re allowed to continue and they drop us off in Metoro to wait for a bus to come and take us the rest of the way to the ADPP stop. A bus comes, we get on it, and then arrive to a second transit police checkpoint!!!! We wait there for another 56 minutes (I rarely get frustrated here but waiting in a bus with no room and not knowing why we are waiting or how much longer we have to wait got me in). Eventually we go on our way, arrive at the ADPP stop, take another chapa to the boat docks of Tanganyangue and get into a boat to Ibo Island.

If you’re still reading to this point – MAD props and shout outs to my parents for agreeing to do public transportation, for doing it, and for complaining and being less frustrated than myself.

 

Ibo Island was nothing less than incredible. We relaxed, ate some of the best food I have probably ever had in my life, went on a snorkeling tour to swim with dolphins, snorkeled through an old shipwreck, explored the old Portuguese fort, went on a day trip to the untouched and perfect beaches of the Matemo Island, and spent time with another group of 6 peace corp volunteers who were also there. Our lodge manager, Chris, was also the head chief and had about 4 options for appetizers, 6 for main entrees, and 4 deserts. We would have to place our lunch and dinner orders at breakfast. Most of the deserts took him over 24 hours to prepare so those we would have to ask for the night before. We ate like kings and queens. Chris used to manage 7 restaurants in Sweden until he sold them to travel around Africa. He’s worked for NATO in Afghanistan and has spent the last 15 years working in restaurants around Africa in 2-3 year stints. Easily some of the best food I have ever eaten in my life or at least in the top 5.

Following Ibo, my parents and I returned to Maputo and they began their 36 hour travels across 9 time zones once again to return home. As we said our goodbyes and our “I love yous” my dad said “I’m already thinking about coming back visiting next year during your next winter”

To my dad, thank you for making the trip and traveling to a part of the world you had no interest in visiting – you’ve been to developing nations and you’ve engaged with other cultures and languages. Thank you for doing it again – thank you for doing it for me. When I first decided to join Peace Corps, I know it was not the decision you expected. Going into industry with my degrees would be extremely lucrative and seemingly the logical and most reasonable decision. Thank you for being supportive of my decision regardless. (Side note – you should definitely work on relearning Spanish. You clearly have a passion for it).

To my mom, thank you for deciding from day one that you were going to come and visit me! Thank you for your loving support and care throughout everything. Thank you for the care packages, the 70% dark Ghirardelli chocolate, for convincing dad to join, for helping me plan the logistics of the vacation, and for so much more.

To both of my parents, thank you for the loving and caring support you continue to demonstrate throughout my entire life regardless of the decisions I make; whether they be smart or stupid decisions thank you for supporting me either way. Thank you for enduring the public transportation, engaging in the local culture, and enjoying it all. I love you both.

~Daniel

 

P.S. This blog post is clearly very delayed. Stay tuned for another issue to come out in a week or so! It will be highlighting a slew of house improvement projects.