Things Looking Up

9/10/2012

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog in so long. I’ve tried to write blog updates but they all inevitably turn into me being a bitter old sourpuss. If there’s one thing worse than hearing someone complain, its knowing that you’re the one doing the complaining. Figured it be best to save myself the little self-respect I had left and save you all from the torture of hearing my self-pity dialogue.

And thank you for all the uplifting and reality-smacking emails from friends and family – support and re-grounding were exactly what I needed in order to swallow that lemon in my throat. I thought for a while that my larium medications might have had something to do with my negative outlook on my newly found situation (one of its side effects is depression) but then I realized that pointing the blame on my prophlyaxis wouldn’t get my very far (besides in bed with malaria if I went off them). Instead I’ve been learning to make the best of my situation instead of moping around thinking of what could have been if I’d pulled another straw in life.

Things to be happy about:

-  My host family has been great giving me my personal space and it seems to be going pretty well! Still a ways to go before we’re completely comfortable with one another but it’s much better than I’d originally feared! I have to say, they’ve been amazingly patient and understanding with my crazy American ways (cooking for 1 person and keeping company with a book is considered pretty crazy in a culture centered around the community.)

-  a friend lent me his electric stove while I still wait to find a gas tank so I can move off my peanut butter + bread diet (thank goodness too because my pants were starting to get real tight there!)

-  for 2 of the past 4 weekends I met up with my neighboring peace corps volunteers to explore the scenery of my new home (and by scenery I mean beaches :) Plus being able to relate my fears and concerns with other foreigners has helped me tremendously to see how silly they are and to brainstorm ideas on how to get over my obstacles

-  I have a bed frame! Another week on the wet cement and I think my mattress would have been moldy through and through

-   a friend made me a make-shift closet (he jammed a laka-laka branch into the kiddy-corner and I put hangers on it) it’s the first time since May I haven’t had to store all of my clothes either in my suitcase or a cardboard box! Ahh the simple pleasures of life 

-  My neighbor’s cat had kittens and they’re going to give me one (!!) They say they’re going to give me a little black one – my parents back home say they’ll tell my cat Lilly back in the states about her adopted African sibling (fun name ideas are welcome so send ‘em on over!) 

-  A friend who’s a farmer here has been kind enough to give me a few big bags or mulch, peat, manure, straw, coconut shells…. So I had my first go at  making some compost piles this weekend (one above ground of brown materials, green materials and manure and one in-ground for food scrapes) and I planted a bunch of seedlings of herbs and veggies. I’ll keep you posted on whether my garden experiment is a bust or “bloom”! (yea yea yea, I know) 

-   I’ve found tutors to help me continue to improve my Portuguese and to begin to learn the local language here: Citswa. This latter language is pretty important for even though most everyone here can speak Portuguese, almost 99% of the conversations are in local language – from meetings to casual catch-up and gossiping. If I want to become part of this community I need to master this new language, which is a bit tricky because it’s my first non-romance language I’ve ever tried to learn 

-   I’m not supposed to start any work for the first 3 months here (it’s my “community integration” period), and then not expected to start any real projects the first year…. Yeah. Needless to say, after these first few weeks I’m already done with this crazy no-work concept (pshhhh). To fill in some of the vast amounts of free time I have (and to respond to an over-whelming demand here) I’ve decided to start………. an English club! Not much to do with health or even community development, but at the very least it’ll give me something to do in the evenings and help me to meet more people in the community, plus like I said, every other person that stops to talk to me on the street asks me to teach them English. I’m going to work with a local English professor who’s willing to volunteer his time as my counterpart, we made up fliers to put around town, and today I was even interviewed on the town’s only radio station to tell people about our exciting new club (I was so nervous!!) haha, not sure what exactly this will turn into but I’m hoping it will be a stepping stone to future bigger and more serious projects in the community! 

-   A friend of mine is opening a restaurant in town and I’ve been helping her paint the doors and walls. She’s really open to different ideas on what to do with the restaurant and I’m excited about what we’ve been throwing around. We’re talking about experimenting with American dishes to put in the menu, having themed days of the week… I think this could be fun way to integrate into the community and also experiment with the second goal of Peace Corps: “helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served.” 

-   In 2 weeks I’m going to travel to another PCV’s site for the weekend to help paint a mural on HIV/AIDS with a group of adolescent girls. I’m hoping one day to start up my own  youth group here and maybe painting a mural of our own in my town, but for the time being I’m excited to help with this project and take mental notes on how to recreate it here. 

-   I’m starting to see my little ant-infested, leaky, and perpetually LOUD hut as home J 

Baby steps, but already I’m feeling much better than when I sat around pouting. I honestly don’t know what had come over me those first few days at site but I certainly am glad to get over myself and focus on what I came here to do!

Sending lots of love from Mozambique

Mailing Address!!

I opened a PO Box!!! Well, technically I'm sharing a box with about a dozen current PCVs in the area, being the resourceful / economically challenged folks that we are :) Good news is that they've had a perfect track record with every box that's been sent to them so fingers crossed we keep that record clean!

Please direct all future correspondence the following address:

Emilia Varanay
Corpo da Paz
C. P. 31
Maxixe, Inhambane Provincia
Mozambique

And as always, email updates are very VERY much appreciated :)

xoxo

And the fun begins.....

8/19/12

1 week in, 3.5 books down, 3 marriage requests declined, and I’m already tired of peanut butter and banana sandwiches…

I’ve learned a few things about myself these past few days. Like for example, I like my privacy. A lot. I’d always assumed I was an introvert, but something about having my boss be my next door neighbor be my surrogate mother and her children, grandchildren, nieces, uncles , etc. be my coworkers, neighbors, and surrogate brothers and sisters…. Well, you get the picture. They’re an absolutely wonderful family; very welcoming and friendly. I suppose it’s the stark contrast in expectations that has thrown me these initial few days. After these past 3 months of training where I was a guest in someone else’s home I was looking forward to a safe space to nest in and make my own; meanwhile they were looking forward to adopting a new member to their family and had already taken the liberty to decorate my home (which I finally took down today). While I was excited to take baths when I wanted and have a say over my own diet, I arrived to my new home with a steaming bucket waiting for me and the family patiently waiting for me to bathe so we could eat the dinner they’d prepared. Not only do we share the small yard, water supply, bathroom, and kitchen, but many people in the immediate and extended family all work in my boss/ “mother’s” organization.

Needless to say, this first week’s theme has been trying to find the delicate balance of disentangling myself enough to keep my sanity, but not too much to compromise a relationship I very much cannot afford to scar.

I have to remind myself that the fact that I have been welcomed with open arms into a new family is not the worst problem one could have; really it only has to a problem at all if I label it as one. Rationally, I know that in time we will all learn how to live with one another - but it’s just so much harder to remember when I’m living every awkward pull and tug between what they want and what I will give. Once I can build my own kitchen, get a door in the bathroom to keep the kids out, put a screen on my house’s door to keep the chickens out of my bedroom… once the family realizes I’m not going to join their church (no matter how much they try to convince me) and that I’m perfectly capable of going to the market without a chaperone… and of course once I bring down my own walls and accept their hospitality – well THEN we’ll be the happiest little family/ neighborhood/ organization in the whole village J

I’ve also learned that I had expectations about my service that I didn’t realize existed - and unsurprisingly, reality is much less romantic than my imagination’s version of where I would be right about now. Somehow I hadn’t expected so little space – physical and personal. The first few days I was no less than terrorized by children. They’d stick their faces and arms through my barred door and windows to watch every little thing I did, they’d run around my reed 2-room home screaming and hitting the walls, or they’d just sit on my veranda in front of my door crying, laughing, and/ or yelling things I couldn’t understand in their high-pitched Portuguese. Also, I’d never lived in a neighborhood where every house is arm’s throw from the other, where I can constantly hear the music from at least 3 neighbors’ homes at all times. Where is my garden going to be? Where can I put my compost? Where will my dog run free? Well, my future pup will just have to run around my neighbor’s yards.

Sorry to be complaining so much. If you couldn’t tell from the tone of this post, this first week has been a tad bit tough, both emotionally and mentally. I can’t quite put my finger on what about this experience living abroad in a foreign culture is different from all of the other times I lived alone in other countries. Perhaps it’s because it’s a longer time frame. Or perhaps it’s because for the first time I don’t have a clearly defined role. I’m not an exchange student and I’m not here to do a specific job. I’m a volunteer. My current objectives for the next 3 months are to observe and integrate, to understand and find places for improvement not just in my organization but in the entire community. It’s such a broad and open task that you’d almost assume that no matter what I did or didn’t do that I’d eventually learn about my surroundings and integrate to some degree or other. And yet, I find myself second guessing my every action. Which people are the most respected in this community that I should become close with? Who/ what/ where should I avoid that could potentially cause some people to not want to work with me? What will my work be? Where should I focus my energy? Should I paint murals downtown about malaria prevention methods? Create youth groups that focus on gender equality? Gather people together to start income generating projects. Try to build a library? Build an orphanage? Maybe I’m struggling because I have no direct supervisor to tell me what to do; the lack of direction is both exhilarating and terrifying. I can go anywhere and do anything I want and technically most everything I do will fall under my overarching goal of settling into my new home. Time is both a blessing and a curse for while I need time to understand what my role is and what my work will be, I can’t help but wonder if I could or should be doing something/ anything more productive at any given moment. Does staying home to cook fish curry and coconut rice with my host family count? What about shopping with my coworkers? Visiting different churches? Can walking around town talking with people really be considered work? Will simply going for my morning run every day and saying good morning to everyone I pass help the community get to know and trust me?

It’s funny. I knew I’d have difficulties here and there during my services but I never expected that simply beginning would be so challenging. Blegh! Okay time to wrap this up– it’s way past my bed time, almost reaching 9:30pm!!

But I supposed before I finish this post I should come clean and disclose the unfortunate news I’ve recently come across. No. My village doesn’t have a beach L . We have a dock that’s half a mile from my house, but alas, my neighbors discourage swimming with the mangrove trees. There are a good amount of lovely beaches within an hour from me, but none in my immediate vicinity. Whew, glad I got that off my chest. Family and friends – this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still visit!!! I’m surrounded by palm, mango, banana, avocado, papaya and cashew trees, the ground is all sand, and there’re crabs, fish and prawns everywhere you look – so basically it’s as if I’m in a beach town without the mess of getting sand in your swim suit J

Até pronto (and feel free to email/ call WHENEVER YOU’D LIKE!!! Seriously. Call on me.)

-Ems

DAY ONE!!!

I passed all of my technical tests and knocked out my LPI exam with an "advanced-high" Portuguese language score (don't ask me how...!!!) 

After how many weeks of training? How many months of application writing? How many years of years of prepping for this momentous day? ... Today the newly appointed US Ambassador to Mozambique celebrated his first official act in his new position by swearing in the 18th group of Mozambique Peace Corps Volunteers, of which yours truly was indeed 1 of the lucky 28 members :)

So yes, today starts the 1st day of the next 2 years of my life as an official Peace Corps Volunteer in Mozambique!!! Said some teary goodbyes to my host family this morning, had the official swear-in this afternoon, will have my supervisor's conference this Friday + Saturday where I'll meet my future boss and/ or coworkers, and will head out on Sunday morning for my new home  (of which I know NOTHING about!!!) 

Big moves a-happening, but soon enough I'll FINALLY be settled down and be able to start my new life. It's a bit daunting to think the hard part hasn't even begun yet, but this process has been so incredibly long in the making that it almost feels a bit surreal and deja-vu since I've already daydreamed and imagined it so so so many times over. I've tried to keep any expectations at a minimum, but I'd be lying if I said I don't have some hopes and fears of what next week will bring. I'll be sure to keep you all updated with every little development, but please don't forget to write me a personal email  updating me on your own life   accomplishments and struggles!!

A hundred thanks to everyone who helped me along the way to this momentous day, I love you all and will continue to think of you often as I begin these first steps in my new chapter :)

xoxo

BIG NEWS!

Big news in the exciting world of mosquito nets and bucket baths…

Ready for this?

We received our site placements! [insert gasp] The decision written on that single sheet of paper held my entire future for the next 2 years of my life, no big deal. But yeah, I had a few nerve wracking days and sleepless nights leading up to the announcement (!!) Will I live by the coast in the south or in the mountains of the north? La out in the matu (which is portuglish for way out in the middle of nowhere) or in an urban city? Will be closest Peace Corps neighbor live next door or 9 hours away? WHO will my closest Peace Corps neighbors be? Will I work for a religious faith-based organization, a disorganized budding community organization, a structured international organization, a hectic underfunded hospital…? Will my house be in a quintal of another family (like a family compound), in a straw hut, a cement block, or a tin shed? Will I have electricity? Running water? Thousands of what ifs to consider, and if you know me then you know I’m a chronic planner (just a little bit.)

Okay, enough of the background info.

My new home town: the small rural district capital of Morrumbene in Inhambane province!! It’s near the coast which is nice because a) I’ll have access to fresh sea food and b) I’m pretty close to some dang beautiful beaches (and some awesome scuba diving!) The town is on the national highway so I should also have regular access to fresh local fruits and vegetables which is a biggie for me. I’m about 20 minute from Maxixe which is a bigger town/city where I can purchase anything not found in the smaller villages. From Maxixe I can take a 30min boat ride to Inhambane City, the provincial capital, which I’m told is a cozy beach town with a pretty ethnically diverse population. The city is 20min from Tofu beach which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the country. That’s all I’ve gathered thus far on the town, but I’m sure I’ll be able to fill you all in with some more information once I get there in 2 weeks (I leave training on Aug 8^th, will stay in Maputo for a conference for a few days, but should be all moved in by the 13^th!)

My new job: I’ll be working with an organization called Kuvuneka that runs an OVC center (OVC = orphans and vulnerable children). The organization provides home based care and community outreach for PLWHA (people living with HIV/AIDS), and income generation projects. I’ll be doing activities with the kids, capacity building with the activistas, designing projects, monitoring and evaluating programs, writing grants, networking, and occasionally working with the larger organization ICAP at the local hospital.

Yep. Eight more days. Eight more days until I meet the community which will become my family for the next 2 years of my life. Where will I be 1 month from today? 14 months from today?  BAHHH!

On an unrelated note: I ran the 13mi loop last weekend with my minimalist shoes, a loaf of Namaacha bread, and my nalgene water bottle. It was mostly to scope it out so we decided to take our time and walk parts of it. Took us a solid 3 hours up and down and up and back down again the mountains of the south east Africa - it was absolutely gorgeous. I wish I could have brought my camera, but I didn’t want to risk having it stolen / didn’t want an extra item to carry. I have to say, not a single Mozambican was even slightly impressed with our run. It’s probably because us telling them we ran 21 KM equals about the normal amount they’d have to walk in a day anyways. Regardless, it was an amazing experience and I hope I can keep up running along the Mozambican countryside after I lose my 5am running buddies.

And in less uplifting news, my computer has a “short-cut virus” L which is why I wasn’t able to update you all on my site placement sooner. If anyone with regular internet access and half a brain for computers has any ideas on how to get rid of it I’d be much obliged! I’ve already ran all of the free anti-virus software I have on my computer (even on safe-mode) but they haven’t been able to remove it. I’m going to try to purchase and download real anti-virus software once I get to site and can get a modem to buy secure and steady internet connections, so if anyone has any recommendations on which one to go with please send me a line!

Okay, that’s the gist of things right now. Hope everyone back home is doing well - big hugs and kisses!

Okay, I’ve got to brag a little bit.

We had our Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) last week that evaluates our language proficiency based on the American Council of Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale. The possible rankings are: Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Intermediate Low, Intermediate Mid, Intermediate High, Advanced Low, Advanced Mid, Advanced High, and Superior. We need to reach Intermediate-Mid rating by the end of training in order to become a volunteer, and they give us one LPI mid-way through training in week 5 and then a final LPI at the end of training in week 10 in order to assess how we’re progressing and change things up if they notice anyone is struggling.

Considering the fact that I could barely say hello in Portuguese before coming here, I didn’t have very high expectations for my LPI results. I assumed that my mid-service LPI goal would be to reach Intermediate-Low, which is a pretty ambitious goal after only 5 weeks of a studying a new language. Reasonable.

Ready for this?

Advanced Low. Right??? At first I thought it was a mistake, but then I read the ACTFL blurb of what that level entails and I was shocked to realize that, yeah, I’m totally there! Granted, I still have a looooong way to go, but it was such a self-esteem boost to see how far I’ve progressed already in such a short time-frame. It definitely is a positive affirmation that I CAN do this, because if by “this” I mean go out to the middle of nowhere on my own and actually be productive/ make a difference/ help someone… then the first step I need is to be able to communicate with that person.

Okay, I’ll quit tooting my horn now.

Até logo!

“Welcome to travel in Mozambique"

Sorry for the hiatus in blog updates; things have been, well, busy. This past week had been our “site visit” week where all the current trainees go out in the field to spend a week living with a currently serving volunteer. The intended purpose of this activity is for us to get a better feel for what it will actually be like living alone in the “matu” (matu = waaaaay out there in the middle of nowhere) and working with our future organizations. It’s a reality check, a much-anticipated break/ vacation from the monotonous training schedule, and also a chance for us to figure out what is really important for us (like for example: having electricity in your home; having access to a big market; living close to a fellow PCV; working for a faith-based/ community/ non-governmental organization; being close to a beach… etc.) After the site visits we then have our site placement interviews, and thennnnnn (drum roll please…..) our site announcements!

So in some countries PC tries to send trainees to the sites where they will actually be serving, but since Mozambique is so dang BIG and so many darn volunteers, that’s impossible for us. Instead, all the trainees closed our eyes and picked names out of a hat to find out who would be randomly visiting whom. I picked the name of a girl up in Nampula province, which also just so happened to be the farthest northern site visit possible, which also just so happened to mean that I got to fly to my site instead of take a 9hr chapa (chapa = bus) like some other trainees, and to boot, it JUST SO HAPPENED that I got to spend nights in a hotel in the capital before and after my flights – pretty cool right?

I know that probably doesn’t mean much to 99% of the people reading this, but remember that the girl writing this blog entry has spent the past 5 weeks bathing by candle-light from a bucket of boiled water and a cup. Remember that this girl has had no say in her diet and has had her breakfast, lunch, dinner and every snack picked out, cooked and given to her – portions and all. Remember that she’s been living a as guest in a Mozambican family who gives her a 7pm curfew, makes her sweep her floor every-other day, scrub her flip-flops every week, re-make her bed every morning, hand-wash her bed sheets every 2  weeks…. Yeah. A flushing toilet, shower, and option in WHAT I want to eat and how much seemed like heaven. Needless to say, the rest of our training group hated me more than a little bit, but I was a-okay with that.

Me and 2 other trainees who were also flying to other sites left a day early, got to our hotel in Maputo, took our hour-long showers, and went out to a surprisingly delicious Filipino restaurant where I celebrated my good fortune with a glass of wine. Ahhh blissful ignorance.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30am to get to the airport at 5:30 for our 7am flight. And then it began:

First they said our names weren’t on the list, and that we weren’t on that flight. I showed them the printed out paper that clearly said our tickets were confirmed, and the man waived me away and told me to come back in a few hours to see if there were any free seats available after they boarded all the passengers. Now, my Portuguese has definitely progressed over this past month, but I knew it was no match for arguing my way onto a flight. I called up a PC staff to see if they could explain over the phone that there was a mistake and that I WAS on that flight, waited in line all over again, but when I got up to the counter the second time the man refused to talk to the guy on my cell phone and just ignored me standing in front of him. Fast forward a few hours when a total of 3 PC staff have all come to the airport personally to try to get us on the flight, after the first flight leaves, the second flight of the day’s boarding time comes and goes, and we’ve been sitting at the airport for 5 hours waiting. Luckily we’re able to get on the stand-by list and get on a 10:00am flight up north!

Only 3 hours late, no harm done!

Not quite. Flight leaves an hour late, has an unexpected pit stop half-way up, and then tells everyone to get off. I get off, get lost in this new airport, and eventually make my way back and flash my old ticket stub as I climb back into the plane (kind of had the feel of sneaking into a 2^nd movie at the movie theater).

Aaaaand we’re off again – whew!

Except after 10 minutes in the air the plane turns around and lands again to re-pack the luggage.

Yep.

That’s right.

So maybe an hour later we try again, and yes, eventually, by 4pm we get where we were supposed to be at 9am. Unfortunately there was still another leg of the trip via chapa to my site and by that point it was too late in the day to continue traveling so I crashed the night in a hotel (2^nd night in a hotel > 10 hours in an airport??)

The site-visit was wonderful: I ate lots of delicious food, met some lovely current volunteers, and had a great, albeit short (I got there Sunday afternoon and had to leave by Tuesday morning), visit! Only downside was that I was eaten alive at night – by what, I’d prefer to not know. I counted 29 bites on my left foot, 42 on my right foot, 12 on my left hand, 4 on my right hand, 3 bites on my left eye lid, 4 bites on my left cheek, 2 bites on my right cheek and 1 on my ear. You can just imagine what a looker I was by the time I left that village; I probably gave the poor children nightmares when they saw me. Again, not sure if they were mosquitos, fleas, spiders…. But regardless of where they came from, they itched and were ugly which was bad enough for me. BLAGH!

So Tuesday morning I make my way back to the airport, go to check in, and – what do ya know? – name’s not on the list again. Deja-vu. Same ordeal: you can wait on stand-by until a flight has room for you. So that’s what we did…. From 12:30 to 8pm, in an airport where conveniently every kiosk was magically closed and there just so happened to be no place at all in the immediate vicinity to go. Luckily I had bought a big bag of cashews earlier that day as a gift for my host family – needless to say it didn’t take very long for me to decide that I could buy them another gift in Maputo. I chowed down on those for a good few hours, walked in circles, lots of card games…. Of course the bathroom didn’t have toilet paper, running water, or soap, but it DID have a functioning automatic hand dryer!

Got on an 8:15pm flight. To add insult to injury, of the perhaps 100 seats available on that flight maybe 15 of them were occupied. Busy busy busy. I splurged and bought a 50Mt beer on the flight, and almost considered demanding seconds of the dessert to compensate me for my misery.

At the Maputo airport I almost chewed off a taxi driver’s head who wanted to charge me more than I thought the ride to the hotel would cost, and then, just to add a final layer to the cake, when I got to the hotel they didn’t have any reservations under my name. Up until this point I’d kept a relatively good sense of humor about the whole affair, but if it hadn’t been for another trainee who jumped in to help negotiate I probably would have lost my cool.

Of course, the room I was able to finagle my way into had no cold water in the shower so I took a quick scalding hot shower, and when I woke up that next morning in the hotel I had a HORRIBLE cough and sore throat L

I got back to Namaacha this evening and, let me tell you, no place looked more inviting than mai Cecilia’s house. I was SOSOSO happy for that lovely bucket bath, enjoyed every bite of rice and matapa, and am now all cuddled up warm and safe under my mosquito net. No more traveling, nope, no thank you. I’m staying put in Namaacha until I travel to my site next month (except maybe for day-trips, by land, far away from airports.)

Hopefully my next blog entry will include information on where I’ll be living and working for the next 2 years (!!!) and hopefully I’ll be bite-free and sick-free by then too… so much to look forward to eh?

Até pronto!!

xoxo