Week #2

Feels like it’s already been months since I left the U.S., crazy to think I’ve only been in training for 2 weeks. 8 more weeks to go until my assignment actually STARTS! I don’t quite know my own feelings towards whether I want the next 2 months to go by quickly or slowly. On the one hand I’m very eager to not be a guest in someone else’s home, to meet my new community, to start actually working instead of sitting around all day watching lectures… But then that means I’m all alone. No more mama Cecilia, irmã Nelly, no more Peace Corps staff next door or fellow volunteers to work out with and  hang out with. Scary!! Ha, no point even thinking about time I suppose. Time will go on however it wants regardless of my wants or fears.

Okay, enough of the mushy feelings. I know a lot of people have been asking me to post pictures  - and I certainly have enough to quench your thirst – problem is that internet in Namaacha, well, it doesn’t exactly exist. There’s one computer in town with internet that you can pay to use but it takes about 20 minutes to send one email, so uploading pictures is kind of out of the question. There’s also a hotel in town with wi-fi, but unfortunately the owner of the hotel has some sort of vendetta against Peace Corps volunteers and chewed me and 2 other volunteers out when we asked to pay to use it. Even though the lobby and café were completely empty and we offered to purchase food/ beverages and pay to use the hotel’s wi-fi, somehow this was still unacceptable to him.

Evidently he’s never heard of the theory of supply and demand.

It’s the only place in the entire village with wi-fi, and because he refuses to let us 28 internet-starved Americans buy it in his hotel, the only option we’re left with is to go to a nearby bar and try to pick up any wandering connection from the hotel anyways. Only works sometimes, and is always pretty weak, which makes uploading anything at all a painstaking test of patience. I asked our Peace Corps staff if we could set up wi-fi in our PC “hub” but evidently the PC Washington office won’t finance it because we’re not official volunteers yet L So, long story short is that y’all going to have to be patient with the pictures!

This morning I washed my weeks’ worth of clothes. I swear, I’m going to be so dirty when I don’t have mama Cecilia forcing me to wash everything all the time. No way I’m taking 3 baths a day, sweeping the floor every other day, or washing my sheets every 2 weeks (by hand mind you) when I’m living solzinha. Nu-huh. This new life makes my life back in Washington DC look like a pig-house! Ha, no, I’m sure it’s warranted since there’s so much dust here. It was a little sad; after a few hours and countless buckets of water washing my sheets, towels and clothes this morning, when I went to hang it all up on the wire in the yard I noticed how windy the day had become. Walls of dust swirled around the yard, and mama Cecilia just shook her head and told me my clothes were all going to get dirty again while they dry. Alas, at least I tried to be clean.

Another thing I think I’ll do differently when I’m solzinha is left-overs. We don’t do them, at all, and it blows my mind. We spend hours cooking everything from scratch then to just discard everything we don’t eat.

I mean, like the other day we made this matapa dish that took all afternoon to make… we have this huge mortar and pistol (the pistol is a huge wooden stick that comes up my shoulders) where we grind bags of peanuts into a fine flour –NOT EASY. It takes your entire body to crush the nuts and at least half hour of repetitive up and down and up and down… then sift it out, then repeat…. Next step was to crack open a few coconuts and spend another 20-30 minutes shredding all the meat from inside by hand. Course you also have to boil the cassava leaves, add all those other secret magical ingredients, and make the soup, and the salad, and the rice…. For dessert we usually have fruits, my favorite is when we mash up avocados with lime and a little sugar (I slice up bananas with it.)

All this food and preparation for the three of us, every meal, every day.

Not to mention the huge effort it is to just GET the food and haul it back to the house – I went with mama Cecilia to the market yesterday. It’s at least a half hour walk away to get to “Shop Right”, which despite the deceiving name is a huge bee hive of a market spreading out as far as you can see. You can find anything from dry legumes, fresh produce, boxed cereals, yogurts and milks, dried fish, live chickens, shoes, clothes, bags, jewelry, cloths, cleaning supplies… anything you can find in Namaacha you’ll get at Shop Right. We spent an hour or two wandering around there, and by the time we left mama Cecilia had several huge bags of goods to bring home. One of the heavier bags (which I could barely carry with 2 hands) mama tied up tight and, defying the law of gravity, picked it up over her head and balanced it on top of her head, like no big thing, then walked along with it perfectly balanced on her head. She even tried to take the other heavy bag to carry in her hands but I had to put my foot down and I told her there was no way in the world I was going to let her carry both heavy bags with my hands empty. A mixture of “ingrate” and “weakling” are the words I’d generally use to describe myself most of the time here.

Anyways, moral of the story is that when I live by myself I’m totally going to make every meal I make last as long as possible.

I’ll be a dirty, lazy cook J Apologies in advance for anyone who’s planning on visiting me!

Okay, I’m going to try to get to the bar and upload this post before dinner prep starts – me and Nelly are going to make mama Cecilia dinner tonight, we’re also going to try to make a cake. Not sure how that’s going to go without an oven, but I’m excited to try!

Xoxo,

-          Emily

PS: HAPPY FATHER’S DAY pops! Love ya old man, hope Michelle & Stephanie made you your favorite peanut butter cookies and mom let you play video games and work out at the gym all day J big hugs!