In today’s
edition of keeping up with Daniel we will be discussing carpentry skills with
the youth, how peanut butter can be used to incentive patients to take their
medication, my daily routine, and a church opening far out into the bush.
Starting in September, every Saturday some of my friends and
students come over for a work day. They help me work on many of my yard
projects, I teach them the carpentry skills I have acquired thus far, I show
them how to properly use various tools, and I provide a full day of food and
drink. Starting at 6am, we begin with the exhausting tasks in the yard where
the cashew tree is unable to sheath us from the sun. By about 9 or 10am we take
a small coffee, bread, peanut butter break and then return to working – but hopefully in the shade! By about
2pm it’s lunch break a soda! By
about 5pm we’re cleaning up and showering.
If you’ve stayed up with my blogs,
you may have noticed that building projects have been discussed in almost every
single one and two of my posts were solely about these projects… I started doing work days as a tool
to teach an applicable skill and so that I could get many of my projects
completed faster.
In the past 4-5 weeks, we’ve
finished a 1m by 1m compost pile, a set of 7ft long monkey bars, dug a hole and
lined with rebar/chicken wire for a 1200 Liter concrete tank (we’ll pour the concrete when we have 3
consecutive days to complete the project), built a 6ft picnic table, started
construction on a solar dryer, and lastly begun building a power rack (it’s a structure for weight lifting. We’ve done all of the cuts and have all
of the parts and just need to assemble now). As always, my hands are still
pretty torn up with a few blisters that are well on their way to healing. I’ve broken another two drill bits (the
small ones of course) and the wooden handle on the hammer has snapped…
All in all, I am falling in love with doing once a week
workdays. It reminds me of being a Boy Scout all over again and working in nana’s yard back in Oregon. The difference
this time is I spend most of the day cooking and showing people how to do
things. The majority of the labor is left to them. Honestly, I could probably
get some things done faster if I did the labor and had one or two people
assisting me – but I have until January
until the rainy season so I have plenty of time to finish my projects. However,
we are getting into the heat of the summer… It’s starting to hit high 90s and
breaking 100 on most days.
Moving right along from building and work days, I am more
involved in a peanut butter project: Associação
Ukumi Unawaviya – The Health Seekers. The
first Peace Corps Volunteer, Stephen Pope, about 4 or 5 years ago started a
peanut butter project with a health association. HIV positive patients who
continue to take their medication will receive 6 months of free peanut butter.
Stephen helped the association become self-sufficient. Until my health site
mate, Camila, and I become more involved in the association in mid-September,
the association functioned independently of Peace Corps involvement for nearly
two years. Now, we are getting involved again to help improve and expand the
program. Camila is helping to reform their health practices – they have not been as effective with
keeping HIV patients on medication as hoped. I am helping grow the business
relations and functions with the hope of becoming financially independent of
international aid funds within the next 11 months (count down let’s go!). Since getting involved in
mid-September, they have now sold over 200 USD worth of peanut butter. It’s an excellent start. However, the
goal is to hit 12,000 USD per year so we need to step things up by about 6-7
fold. I’m helping to get the ball
rolling with local mining companies in the city 60km north of Namuno. It’s a South African company looking to
buy more locally sourced food –
largely because it makes their Corporate Social Responsibility look reaaaaal
good. Plus, our peanut butter is just slightly cheaper than the other two
options available in our province – those
options come from India and South Africa.
Until recently, I had no idea the amount of peanuts that
were produced in Namuno. Just the other week, a semi-truck was loading with
50kg sacks of peanuts. I asked where the truck was going and the response: “Maputo”. JAW
DROPPED. Maputo is about a 48 hour drive away from Namuno. Currently, 1 kg of
peanuts costs 30 mets (50 cents USD) in Namuno. In July, I was outside of Cabo
Delgado (my province) and someone was trying to sell me peanuts for 120 mets
per kg (2 USD). I thought they were trying to scam me and initially got pissed
until the volunteer living in that town confirmed that 120 mets per kg was the
normal price. Namuno is a peanut hub. Within a year, Namuno will also become a
PEANUT BUTTER HUB! To briefly summarize my focus: I’ve been helping with sales, data recording, teaching and
understanding the numbers, and applying for grants to expand educational
outreach and production quality. I’ve made
3 year financial documents but have yet to explain the importance of such
documents – little by little we’ll get there.
It’s
incredibly exciting to be involved in developing a social enterprise – and I’m being
very intentional with that phrase. We’re
focusing on the three Ps: People, Profit, Purpose. In University, I was in an
Honors program through the school of Business focused on Entrepreneurship.
Having the opportunities to live, experience, and apply our discussions and
readings is exhilarating. Considering how in the past 4-5 weeks we’ve sold more peanut butter than the
last one year combined, we are making visible progress. We’ve made sure to use much of the sales
money to reinvest in growth and in the employees who make the peanut butter (we
are currently using a hand crank – but we
also sort, clean, dry, roast, peel, and then grind the peanuts). As you may be
aware, no one eats breakfast and many do not eat lunch until 2PM. So, everyday
we now spend 100 mets (1.5 USD) on buying a snack for the works. Sometimes it’s bread and peanut butter and
sometimes it’s veggie rice. They decide
what they want to spend the money on. They directly see the fruits of their
labor. The workers also decide what supplies are important to buy next in order
to speed up and increase production levels (from some guidance by the program
coordinator and myself). Overall, this is their project and they are making the
decisions.
Moving on from peanut butter, I had another really awesomely
dope experience with some of the missionaries from Montepuez (the city 60km
north of me). Chad was going out to a suburb 60km south of me to attend a
church opening ceremony. He asked if I wanted to join, and duhhh of course! I
came here to learn and experience. He picked my up at 6:30 AM and we went out
into the middle of nowhere. It’s also
changed my definition of “Middle
of nowhere” because before this trip I
thought my town was in the “Middle
of nowhere”… It’s a Church of Christ so Lutheran (aka Christian). The
nearest 6 churches all came to the ceremony. Some of those churches were a
20-30 minute drive away (I know this because we drove the women and babies home
after church and after lunch). I should also clarify that the missionaries
working out of Montepuez are not pastors and never act as pastors. On this trip
there were 3 missionaries and they brought their kids too. Two of those missionaries
are on a church development program which means they help lead bible study
classes and help pastors learn more about leading a church and incorporating
the bible. The other missionary, Chad, is working on translating the bible into
the local language of the Montepuez/Namuno area (it’s called Makua). During the service, the pastor asked Chad
and one of the other missionaries to explain two of the readings for the
congregation which they did in perfect Makua – which
is insane because we were in a region where the dialect of Makua had changed
but they still knew how to switch to the other dialect.
Mass and the ceremony took about 4 hours which is about what
I expected. Afterward came lunch. Being the special and honored guests, we were
served goat liver first!! Not nearly as exciting as those exclamation marks,
but in the cultural context it means a lot. They had slaughtered a goat and pig
that morning for all 300 people who attended this mass. Afterwards, Chad and I
starting taking women and babies back to their towns. Another incredible
experience – all the woman began singing.
Chad would translate the parts he would be able to hear. The harmony was
something I had not heard before and they were able to make melodies I was
unfamiliar with. I am very grateful to those communities and to Chad for
involving me in such a unique experience.
And now for my daily routines!! Well first of all, sometimes
life here is rough and just sucks. I like to think I know myself pretty well so
I’ve adapted 4 things I do every day to
help keep my balance and rejuvenate my spirits and soul. Every day, I do 20
minutes of Portuguese studies (I’m still
trying to get better), 20 minutes of Makua flash cards, a workout (I rotate
cardio and anaerobic), and 20 minutes of meditation. Between teaching classes,
building projects, and peanut butter I have a full plate. If you ever want to
know how busy I am, ask me if I’m
meditating about daily. If I’m
making time to meditate daily, odds are I’m
pretty dang busy. There just has to be something ironic about that, but hey it’s how I keep my center. Doing these 4
things every day helps me see small improvements over periods of time and helps
me stay centered. Even when it comes to one of my workout cycles – it’s 4
cycles of bodyweight exercises meant to be a full body workout. The first
exercise is plank to fail, and the first weeks of this back in July my plank to
fail would be about 90 seconds on the first cycle and 60 seconds by the last
cycle. Just a few months later, my first cycle is now 3.5 minutes and my last
cycle 2.5 minutes. Before now, I have never held a plank for more than 2
minutes. It’s amazing seeing the physical
progress I’ve made. The small amounts of
progress help get me through everyday and help me enjoy all the little things
of each and every day.
In the next issue: school! It’s been
a whirlwind and a lot has happened with my students, the administration, and
fellow teachers. I’ve found unique ways to
interact with my students and attempted different techniques. I’ve also confronted aspects of
corruption and continue to struggle with deciding where I need to draw the
line. I have two more weeks of teaching which is cra-ZZZIE. So, stayed tuned
for next month’s juicy details on Daniel and
School.
As always, thank you for following along with my journey,
Daniel
“Challenges are what makes
life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” -Joshua Marine
