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!
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| Tools, tools, tools! |
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| 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.
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