9/25/2017
Once again, I’m
sitting down after a weekend full of arduous manual labor – fun yet exhausting. And once again,
my hands are fairly cut up from the last set of building projects. This
blogpost is going to be a little more of a hodge-podge of things. This is one
of the first times I don’t have
anything planned or anything I feel like I need to say. So we’ll start with a time sequential
update and go from there!
We’ve
started the 3rd trimester and are well under way! I gave my 11th
graders a choice – we could continue to meet 2
days a week and I could try to follow the syllabus/curriculum as dictated by
the province, or I could take their free periods, we’d meet 4 days a week, and I’d teach
them where they are at but give a ton of homework. I had about 27 respond yes
and no one respond no…
Granted, this was the last question on a homework assignment that only about 40
students (out of nearly 90) did. So, we went with option 2! I show up 4 days a
week and we re-learned addition/subtraction. We touched on order of operations
and just finished up solving one step equations. This week we move into two
step equations, which is about the equivalent of 8th grade math.
Right now I’m using the same lesson plans
for my 8th and 11th graders, just giving a lot more
homework to my 11th graders.
Along similar lines within the school, I had some very
drastic issues with grade changes. To put things in perspective, all grades are
out of 20 and the system is based on a European style. Hence, a 10 is passing,
a 12 is passing pretty well, a 14 is DAMN YOU SMART, 16 DAMN YOU SMART AND WORK
HARD, 18/19 is where the professor is supposed to be, and 20 is God-like.
Hence, an 8 is you’re struggling and a 6 is you
have no idea what the heck is going on. Several of my grades were changed from
3’s to 12’s and 6’s to 14’s. I
spoke to my assistant principle who spoke to the professor responsible for my
grades being entered into the system. This professor told me he changed grades
for any teacher that asked a grade to be changed (side note, professor just
means teacher. It’s the Portuguese word for it
and sometimes it’s hard for me to not
write/think in Portuguese). Then this professor said next time we need to leave
the book with the assistant principle because he does not want to be
responsible for my grades. To be fair, he was acting in accordance with common
culture at the high school. I’m
planning on meeting a second time with my assistant principle because the
students in my classes who received a 3 or 4 and those with 6s deserve to fail.
And just because their parent is a fellow professor does not mean I am going to
pass them.
After the first week of September, I had the marvelous
opportunity of flying down to Maputo and helping with the initial training of
our new group of education volunteers here in Mozambique! Even more exciting,
one of those volunteers will be my future roommate come December!! I had the
privilege to greet them at the airport after their 36 ish hours of travel and
spent the first week and a half with the new group. It was slightly nostalgic
going back to Maputo and watching many of them have similar experiences as I
had. However this time, I SPOKE PORTUGUESE. Namaacha and Maputo are completely
different cities when you understand the culture and the language. It’s amazing and fun and exciting.
September 7th is a Mozambicain holiday and I was able to understand
the speeches and songs. One of the songs (translated) was about our
togetherness “We may speak many languages
but we are one people”. I
remember hearing them sing and dance that chorus again and again – it struck a cord with me. There is something
that engages all of us - as humans. We are all united, maybe not in our
languages, thoughts, opinions but rather we are and always will be united by
our shared humanity.
All in all, being with the new group of education volunteers
(one of whom will be my future roommate!) was energizing. Plus, getting to
spend a little time in the big city of Maputo was refreshing. For some odd
reason, I had been craving greasy nasty pizza. Like a 5$ little ceaser’s take away pizza. Greasy yet oddly
delicious. For whatever reason, low quality high grease pizza is not common in
this country, at least where I live. I can get pizza in the cities in my region
but they tend to be higher quality pizza. Anyway, I was able to go to Pizza Hut
and buy some greasy ole pizza. When I’m back
in the states, definitely going to Costco to buy a large 10$ greasy pizza.
Returning to site after being down south, Steven Pope, the
first volunteer in Namuno, visited. I am the fourth volunteer in Namuno, my
current roommate being the third. While Pope was in Namuno as a Peace Corps
Volunteer, he started a Peanut Butter project with an association (health
group) that works in the area. To paint a background, Namuno is one of the
largest exporters of peanuts in the northern region of Mozambique. Namuno is
full of a few things –
peanuts, a super nutritious plant called moringa, coupled with high rates of
HIV, malaria, and malnutrition. So, Pope started a project to make peanut
butter! The health organization is called Ukumi Unawavia which translates to
Health Procures. They started using the peanut butter to form an incentive
program for HIV patients. The medicine for HIV leaves the body exhausted and
drained. Coupled by a tendency to not eat enough calories or variety of
vitamins, many people stop taking HIV medication (I mean, if you’re already hungry and tired why take
medicine that’s just going to make you more
tired?). So a simple solution – make and
give peanut butter to patients who come to the hospital to receive their HIV
medicine. (side note here – I’m hoping to start doing some fun
stuff with Moringa and I’m
hoping to do it with Ukumi Unawavia. So far, I’ve been
playing around with Moringa in my backyard).
After Pope left, no volunteer continued helping this
organization run. Before August, they had been running independently of any
outside input for 2 years. Camila (my health sitemate) and I have begun helping
the association record their data and expand their program. Peanut Butter is
extremely expensive in the north – they are
two peanut butter options that can be bought in Montepuez and Pemba (two cities
in my province). Outside of those two cities, there are no other places to buy
peanut butter. They cost 240 mets for 800kg by one company and 400 mets for
800kg by the other company. Before the past few weeks, Ukumi Unawavia had been
selling a large container of peanut butter for 200 mets. They were averaging
less than 5 sales per month.
Since getting involved a few weeks ago, they have sold over
8000 mets worth of peanut butter (nearly 130 USD). I’m working on helping them expand their sales. We have
drafted a label for their containers and will soon be printing labels,
recording batch numbers, and increasing sales as well as outreach. Currently,
Ukumi Unawavia depends on monthly stipend funds from Ariel Glaser, a larger
health organization that operates throughout Mozambique. The hope is that one
day Ukumi Unawavia could become a social enterprise – an organization independent of international aid funds.
They have 6 staff on salary and another 20 “volunteers”. In USD, their staff get paid about
70-100 USD per person per month. Their “volunteers” receive about 20 USD per person per
month. I do not know where the poverty line is drawn in this region, but my salary
is about 200 USD per month –
however I have no family to support. A teacher at my high school with the same
level of education/qualifications as me receives about 500 USD per month. Our
hope is to help Ukumi Unawavia pay their employees a fair wage and be independent
of external aid funds.
My main role currently is helping with sales, writing
another grant for more supplies (mainly supplies that will improve the quality
of their peanut butter), and possibly come December/January I may write a
software program. The software program would help track HIV patients and send
reminders to patients to come into the hospital to grab their medication/peanut
butter. So we’ll see!
Lastly, some friends and I just finished building a Picnic
Table!! That table is the reason why my hands are so cut up, but hey totally
worth it. It came out really well. Sturdy with plenty of seating for the local
neighborhood kids when they come over to draw or when students come over to
work. Sometime this week I’ll have
the neighborhood kids help with a final sanding job and then apply a finishing
varnish. My next set of building projects include: Power Rack (for lifting
weights), new playground structure for the neighborhood kids, and a 1000 liter concrete
water tank. Pouco a pouco.
Well, this post may not have had a single theme, but I do
believe it has been a comprehensive update on a busy month!
As always, thanks for staying updated with my journey!
~Daniel Bladow
A single stick snaps in half with ease. A bundle of sticks
will not snap in half.
