Questions: Rd 1

*Always accepting questions you may have about my life and experience here in Mozambique! Feel free to comment on this post or send me a message via social media!

LIFE:

Do people that live in Tete ever travel places?

Short answer: yes… But Tete is a huge province so… Long answer: yes/no

There are a lot of people who live in Tete who will most likely never leave Tete. There are a lot of people who live in Manje who don’t have the money to even go to the capital city. There are also a lot of people in Tete who may never visit the rest of Mozambique but will travel to Zimbabwe, Zambia, or Malawi to see family (as borders work very differently here than we as Americans are used to). There are also people with government or industry jobs that get to travel frequently! And plenty of other people who just have money and are able to own a car and go wherever they like. The reality for most people though is similar to a situation that just happened to my host family… my host brother who recently turned two was battling malaria for yet another time (believe he has had it four to five times now) and got very very ill. The local hospital in Manje wasn’t able to help – so they found the money to go to Tete City, but the doctors there were also not able to help. They decided to go to Malawi where care is better… but this was very expensive. My host mom and cousin went to Malawi with Elias and stayed in a border town, Zobue, for a month. During that time my host father was working and trying to care for the other five kids left at home. My host mother wasn’t working (aka going to the farm) so no food was being brought home daily – and nothing to sell either. All the while they were spending money on transport, lodging, food, and medical bills far away from home. The reality of travel for most Mozambicans is out of necessity or for family time to celebrate the holidays. A lot of citizens travel far from home to try to further their education and others have government jobs which force them to move to other provinces. Tete is a relatively rural province and a lot of people who have higher paying jobs travel to and from their work communities and the capital city but only long breaks, big holidays, and emergencies are cause for travel for leisure.

Who owns cars?

The wealthy… cars are few and far between in Manje. Likewise in the capital Tete City. Nowhere near as many cars as in the States. Doctors/some teachers/government officials/police/industry workers tend to have vehicles. In Tete City there are a lot of businesses that work in the coal industry – most of the higher up mine workers have trucks. However, a lot of the Mozambican employees get bussed to and from work everyday. Public transport accounts for the majority of travel within province. Walking accounts for the majority of travel around town… to and from sites. Many of my students walk an hour or more to school from nearby towns. Most people walk hours to their farms each morning. Walking is the reality. For long trips, say to the city, you take a chapa…

How far away is a major city?

Tete City, the capital of the province, is approximately 2.5 to 3 hours away in a chapa. In a private car the trip is much faster but the roads are also slowly deteriorating which makes the trip longer no matter what your mode of transportation. Chapas are like the airport vans that have four rows… only here you fit four people to a row and then four people in the backwards facing row behind the front seats as well. All chapas have at least 24 people (including the two in front, the driver, and the cobrador or the money collector/door opener/people finder). Oftentimes, chapas are full of 24 adults plus any number of children sitting on laps and any combination of baggage and animals (chickens, goats, pigs). Depending on the number of stops for drop-offs and pick-ups the trip takes longer.

What do you do in your spare time?

What do you do in your free time?

Spare time and free time sound the same but they feel very different. Spare time here is rarely free… usually in my “downtime” there are people at my house. Whether a neighbor stops by to chat for at least an hour (neighborly visits are never quick) causing me to stop what I’m doing and entertain, or kids come by to ask to play, or teenagers come by and want to watch Harry Potter (which selfishly means I can’t watch Peaky Blinders) it feels like there is very little alone time. And to be fair – that’s part of the deal, that’s what you sign up for in a lot of ways. But sometimes you just need to be alone in the silence. I’ve gotten very good at ignoring people who come to the door. The custom here is the say “com licensa” which is like excuse me… nobody knocks here. Kids will stand at my door and say “licensa” or “censa” for what feels like an hour. I’ve always wondered why they hold out hope for so long. In theory, no one knows if I’m actually home or not… I could be in the market, I could be at my site mates house. But nope, they yell into my windows forEVER. In the beginning, I always answered… now I know that 8 times out of 10 someone wants something from me. It could be a fellow teacher asking me to get him an American phone and he’ll pay me back, or students asking for water (there is a well on the school grounds they could use), or kids asking for candy or to borrow my soccer ball (which I would probably never track down again). In the beginning, I was much more open to all of these requests… but now it just feels like I’m a “renewable resource” for people to use use use. It can get old quick. Granted, I do have an incredible amount of shit compared to most Mozambicans and I would probably ask me for things too. I wish I would have started posting earlier so I could compare my posts from early on up until now. At 18 months in – I’m just tired. The PCV 24/7 line isn’t a joke… and it does start to wear on you… even when you’re just being lazy most of the time. I feel lazier than ever and simultaneously drained always. SO, in my free time… I like to travel around Moz and other countries and see as much as I can! I also enjoy getting to the beach when possible because it always soothes my soul for a little bit. Free time is spent with fellow PCVs and friends. Something we all talked about recently at mid service conference was how hard it is to make true deep lasting friendships with people in our communities. Often because of the language barriers and differences in everyday life… I feel the most connected to two teenagers who hang out at my house pretty regularly. Because I get to be sassy and candid and don’t have to overthink everything I’m trying to say – and they understand my Portuglish. So in conclusion, sometimes I make up tasks so as not to have spare time… but I cherish my free time and the ability to hang out with friends and get a taste of my full personality again.

Do you see wild animals everyday?

Do dogs count? Short answer, no. Long answer: there are goats EVERYWHERE. They just run around wild all the time. So probably not the wild animal you meant…. But… there are also guinea fowl, some really ugly sheep looking animals, cows, pigs, ducks, chickens, and cats that are always on the loose. However, safari type animals, no. There are stories though of elephants killing people and you can hear hyenas at night (which my students think are the spirits of the dead). At the end of the day, we are in the WILD so to speak… and there is always the possibility of the “wild” getting too close but for the most part there are enough people in my town that animals don’t traipse through on a regular basis. Also, snakes. They’re the worst.

FOOD:

Where do you go grocery shopping?

I will be the first to admit when it comes to food I am bougie beyond belief! One thing Ro and I agreed on early on was that we wanted a fridge with a freezer. Thankfully, this allows me to buy food in the city and store it for as long as I please! Once a month when we get paid I go to the city and go shopping at a South African grocery store called Shoprite. It has everything you could need… they also have Caribbean Onion & Balsamic Vinegar Lay’s and let me tell you Y’ALL ARE MISSING OUT! I am going to miss this splurge so much when it comes time to leave! But anyway, I buy peanut butter, chick peas, coconut milk, chicken/beef, (recently) frozen shrimp (I told you bougie), fresh veggies that I can’t get at site like… peppers, green beans, carrots, and fresh fruits… (Manje is severely lacking in the fruit department!) apples, peaches, grapes. Lastly, yogurt and cheese when I’m feeling like a splurge which is always. It’s nice though to have some “American” style snacks to supplement my diet here because it is very hard to feel healthy on just the market diet. I like to make chia pudding for breakfast, coconut curries, and hummus. The nice thing is by freezing a lot of these things they can last the whole month, especially when I’m only cooking for one! Cooking has become such a stress release for me here and I love experimenting with new dishes. The market in Manje has: bread, noodles, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, bananas, mangoes/guavas seasonally, rice, dried beans, dried fish, and an abundance of bolos (little cakes/doughnuts that everyone eats as a snack). Some of the seasonal foods in Manje are: pumpkins, green peppers, papayas, cucumbers, and watermelon (not pink). A staple in most of Moz is corn. People eat it raw, grilled on the cob, dried/ground into a flour that they use to make xima (sheemah) which is most often compared to grits… but it is just a flavorless flour/water mixture that plumps up. People eat it with EVERYTHING. Or rather, it is the everyday meal… for a lot of families rice and beans are too expensive and so nutrition levels are low. Keep an eye out, I’m currently working on a food post.

How do you cook your food?

I am incredibly lucky to have electricity and therefore I can use an electric stovetop. The majority of families use carvao (charcoal essentially). I will get into this more in the food post.

What appliances do you have?

Again, I am SO LUCKY and also incredibly bougie. I have a fridge/freezer, electric stovetop, chaleira (hot pot/electric kettle), a fan to use when it gets over 95/100 degrees, and I recently bought myself a birthday blender (which has been a GAME CHANGER). I would say on average; Mozambicans maybe MAYBE have a deep freeze (but this would be wealthier families where I live). The nice thing about PC houses though is that they get passed down. So not everything in my house I bought… although a lot of it Rossana and I did buy together which also made it easier. Some PCVs live alone and have to front the cost all themselves, also, some PCVs are first generation volunteers and so they live with significantly less. The older the site (longer it’s been open), the more volunteers that have contributed to it. Whoever moves in after us is going to have it GOOD! Rossana and I really spent a lot of time making improvements in order to make the house feel like a home! It’s really important to have a cozy home base. We got shelving units built for our rooms/storage, shelves for the living room for all the books and toys the volunteer before us had. We had shelves put in around the house for kitchen ware, we repurposed a desk as the main kitchen area, I recently bought a wicker couch and end table. We had a fence put up both for security and privacy (our house has two doors one on the front and back). Little by little, our house has become a true home.

HOUSE:

Where do you go to the bathroom?

I have a pit latrine in my backyard. It is in one half of a cement building. The other half is the concrete square room where I take bucket baths (on occasion). I’ll try to post pictures. But, it’s not that bad really… you get very used to it.

SCHOOL:

How many different classes do you have a day?

It depends. High school here is set up more like college in the States. You don’t have the same classes everyday… so for example I teach Tues, Wed, Thurs and my schedule is like this:

TIME	TUESDAY	WEDNESDAY	THURSDAY
12:30 – 1:15	9A	------	9D
1:20 – 2:05	9A	------	----
2:10 – 2:55	9B	9D	----
3:15 – 4:00	9B	9D	9B
4:05 – 4:50	9C	------	9C
4:55 – 5:40	9C	------	9A

That is actually my schedule, times and everything, this year I have a lot of down time! Last year I taught all 6 tempos T/W/Th and had 18 hours, this year I have 12 hours. But I am so appreciative that my school lines up my schedule the way they do so that I teach my dupla (hour and a half) classes first and then give my soltas (forty-five minutes) second each week. It allows for me to stay on track with all of my kids and not get mixed up with lesson plans… some teachers get reallllly bad schedules and could have for example 4, 8^th grade classes that meet three times a week but none of them are in order or line up… so that teacher has to keep straight what each class has been taught already. (Also, I only teach English)

How many kids per class?

This varies on the day, but enrolled on each class roster is around 50-75 students. I would say on average I have 40-45 present in the classroom.

What age are your students?

This is also very different than in the States. There is no set age for certain grades… for example last year I had a 26 year old in my 8^th grade class. This year I’m not sure of everyone’s ages yet but 9^th grade usually varies from 13-24.

Do you have school 5 days/week?

School is in session five days a week but I am very lucky to have Monday’s and Friday’s “off”. These are days I use to get my planning done for classes, work on grading, and structure/plan my secondary projects.

PEACE CORPS:

How do people treat the PC people?

We are treated so so well! Oftentimes too well. There is definitely an attitude towards white people that allows for extreme privilege. This is difficult question to answer to be honest. Some days I feel like people think I can’t do anything and I could easily feel like people think I’m more qualified for a task than I actually am the next day. There are a lot of ways that day to day life is drastically different in Mozambique and people can assume that because I come from a life filled with amenities that I am underqualified for simple tasks. An example of this would be when I lived with a homestay family who assumed I didn’t know how to hand wash laundry. But then there are times where the school wants me to do some big time consuming project because they think it would take me less time because I have a computer or some magic software. It’s a balance. Overall, we are treated very well. The people in Mozambique are incredibly kind and always so giving.

What has been your most rewarding experience thus far?

I really enjoy working on secondary projects outside of the classroom. I feel the most fulfilled when I get to teach students about malaria, HIV, and pregnancy prevention. Those projects feel really good when they’re done and you know kids are actually walking away more educated about a topic! I also love showing kids Disney movies -  they get so into it and love the songs! Lastly, just living in Manje and being in a community where I get to experience a culture and language different from my own has been very rewarding.