Living the Life

Friday October 23rd, 2009
Today we met up with our language groups to cook several traditional Mozambican dishes for lunch. It took a while and we didn’t really know what we were doing most of the time, but luckily our host mom’s were there to help us along (it was actually sort of funny seeing them constantly bumping heads over the different ways to prepare these dishes that each of them make on a daily basis in a slightly different manner). I don’t know if I’d be able to prepare any of the food by myself tomorrow if I tried, much less in 3 months or so down the road, but it was a lot of fun and gave me hope that I MIGHT be able to survive when cooking for myself after I leave my host family at the end of Pre-Service Training.


My language group taking a second to pose for a picture. Look at the beautiful mountain scenery in the background.

My host mom and me taking a moment to laugh together after preparing the food.

We cooked three sauces (Matapa, Cove, and Cacana) and prepared two base carbs (Xima and Rice), which are covered with your sauce of choice. I had already eaten all these foods before, but this was the first time that I was able to try them in a short span of time and really compare their tastes, ingredients, and consistencies. Even though I liked them all, I discovered that I liked Matapa the best (for now), although I think that Abóbora is pretty similar and I might like that more (we didn’t fix that sauce this time).

The three sauces we prepared all had crushed peanuts and coconut milk in them, but are distinguished according to the final main ingredient. Their ingredients look like the following:

Matapa: ground Matapa leaves, peanuts, coconut milk, onion, tomato, salt, garlic, and stock chicken powder
Cove: diced Cove leaves, peanuts, coconut milk, onion, tomato, salt, and stock chicken powder
Cacana: Cacana leaves, peanuts, coconut milk, salt, and stock chicken powder


Matt grinding up some peanuts with the help of his host mom.

Me striking a pose as I'm getting ready to break open a coconut by smashing it against a big rock.

As you can tell, I relish the small successes... even in grating out a coconut.

To clarify, Xima is a staple Mozambican food that is loved by all here, minus a lot of PC volunteers (Note - I prefer rice, but I don’t dislike Xima). To completely describe its majesty would take a Mozambican a short novel, but my best attempt is that Xima is a finely ground cornmeal mix poured into hot water and stirred until it produces a thick, paste-like final product that sits heavy in your stomach… for hours. Although I’ve stuck with utensils thus far, my whole family eats xima (and the sauce that accompanies it) with their hands and my host mom is adamant that it just tastes better that way (sounds like some advice from Ronak, eh?).

Anyways, near the end of the cooking session we were adding tomatoes and onions to the Cove and Matapa, but while I was cutting one of the onions I let the knife slip and slightly cut my left thumb. It seems like all is good, but I don’t have any antibiotic ointment, so I’ll just have to keep it as clean as possible and hope that everything will be okay for the weekend at least.


My friend Yohko with the entire lunch spread laid out behind her.

Chowing down on some Xima and Matapa.

The entire lunch crew with all the PC trainees and their host family members

After the 4 servings of lunch (!!!) and then cleaning up our mess, we celebrated the end of the week by going out to “Palusha’s”, a bar/hangout spot near the edge of the town to grab some drinks. It was pretty fun to see so many PCTs together at once without having any training to worry about, not to mention the fact that the venue is pretty balla’ for Mozambican standards. Not only does it have a pool, it even has a flushing, western-style toilet!

I am excited looking forward to going back to Palusha’s and I know I won’t have to wait long because on Halloween the PCTs are going back there to party it up American style (minus the skanky costumes)! I don’t know exactly what my costume will be yet, but an earlier leader is the Chiquita banana woman. I’ll keep you all posted…

Saturday October 24th, 2009
So today was a pretty big day… It started off with a written Portuguese exam that went… mas ou menos. I finished up early, came home, washed my clothes, and hung them up to dry (I’m getting better at it) before eating lunch with the fam. After lunch, my host family and I went to Namaacha’s flea market, called Shoprite by the locals (which is a Mozambican chain equivalent to Wal-Mart). At the market I bought two capulanas to make into t-shirts and my brothers bought a bunch of lightly worn clothes with English words on them (which kept me wondering if they had possibly come from some household in the US and if so, how cool it would be to “know their stories”). Before leaving Shoprite my mom made sure we bought 4 live chickens so that I would get plenty of practice at killing and preparing them to eat. We had to carry them home from Shoprite and, even though chickens weren’t that heavy, they get to be quite a burden after walking for over a mile with them. Today was a really hot day and against my better judgment I took my brother up on his offer to buy me a freezypop from a streetside vendor on the way home from Shoprite. The cherry-flavored ice tasted/felt amazing while it lasted, but I’m not sure if I’ll still think it was worth it when I am plagued with diarrhea for the next 2 weeks (btw, thank you for the immodium Mariah)!

When we finally got home from Shoprite we had to wait around for 20-30 minutes before we could kill the chickens while we heated up some water on the stove. It gave us a nice chance to relax after the long walk home. The chickens were dazed from being carried most of the way by their feet and just sat there, unaware of what lay ahead. When the time finally came around to do the dirty work I had already had a long time to try and rationalize the killing of the animals and felt a lot more at peace with it than I thought I would have… weird, I dunno… After having actually killed the chickens, I can definitely see why so many spiritual rituals have developed in so many cultures around the world regarding the killing of animals for food and/or sacrifices. To say the least, it is a very intense moment to realize that you are taking the life of another being!

I’m constantly going back in forth with this in my mind and I’m not entirely sure where I stand on it. I think that when I get back to the US I could very easily become a vegetarian, but I’m not sure if my stance is even that firm on the matter. I think that killing of animals in the US is largely unnecessary because there are plenty of options for other nutritional substitutes and it is such a waste of resources compared to other sources of nutrition. Before killing the chickens today I guess I reasoned that it’s important to the diet of the Mozambican family because they have very limited options to select a variety of food and I know that my family in particular really doesn’t have many other sources of protein in their regular diet besides the occasional meat.

At the time I guess I felt I had it figured out pretty well in my head because my brother showed me how to kill a chicken and after the first one I think that he was surprised when he saw that I was willing to continue with the other three. One thing going through my head was that since I’d be eating the other three chickens at some point during my homestay here, I’d be lying to myself by saying that I didn’t really participate in their killings just because I wasn’t the one actually using the knife. After the decapitation, I had to hold the chicken’s main body still for several moments before it stopped moving. At that point we brought out the piping hot water we had to wait for initially and dunked the chicken’s body in to it to loosen the feathers from the skin so they could easily be plucked. After all the feathers and skin on the feet were removed, I had to cut open the chicken’s belly to remove the organs, being careful not to accidentally cut into the intestines and let feces spill out (Note - I was doing all this with my left thumb having a gash on it from yesterday’s cooking lesson that I was supposed to keeping clean. Oh well! It’s PC Africa!). Finally, the feet were cut off at the knees and at that point the chicken pretty much looked like something you’d find at Publix. Yummy!

Actually, as I finish typing this up, I’m about to go in to the dining room and guess what we’ll be having for dinner… you guessed it! Talk to you later.

One Love,
Michael

Sunday October 25, 2009
I went to church again today and since I had already done my laundry on Saturday I was able to relax around the house until we went to the service at 10:30. The majority of the service, as normal, was in Shangana, but a lot of it was translated for me by a young man visiting from South Africa who speaks some of the local dialect and a good bit of English.

The topic of the sermon was “Jesus Cristo é Salvador” (Jesus Christ is the Savior). The pastor put a lot of emphasis on the miracles performed by Jesus during his ministry (ie the woman who was a hemophiliac and the blind man who were both healed by faith in Jesus). Although a lot of the scripture was translated very literally (with the emphasis being that faith can heal you physical ailments more so than the way I usually think of it healing my emotional/spiritual issues), not all of the metaphorical language was lost. The pastor briefly talked about how our faith in Jesus can heal our souls, but really harped on the potential for physical improvements. Dovetailing perfectly with the sermon, there was a time for people who were sick or injured to come forward and have hands placed on them while being prayed for (this always happens, but was particularly notable because of the sermon topic today). I think that the sermon and the prayerful healing afterward at least somewhat reflects the health status of the average person in Mozambique. People who are sick here really do rely on small miracles to make it through because oftentimes getting treatment is too expensive (even though a lot of the actual treatment is free, someone still has to pay for transportation and other incidentals involved with traveling to receive care).

Over the past 3+ weeks during PST, guest lecturers been telling us a lot about the health issues that people in Mozambique are facing and I’ll spend the next paragraph giving you all some background just so you can get a sense of the situation. It is estimated that 1.7 million people, or 16% of the population, are living with HIV/AIDS in Mozambique. However, this is not evenly distributed throughout the country because there are actually provinces where nearly 3 out of every 10 people are infected (crazy huh?!). In addition to HIV/AIDS, the prevalence of Malaria is known to be extremely high, but is hard to pinpoint exactly because many people who have been previously infected by the parasite are asymptomatic carriers. That said, a study of children under 5 (a population that has little immunity to the parasite) showed that about 65% of the population in the northern region were infected. In addition to these two issues, general health is hard to maintain because malnutrition and adequate access to sanitary a water source are also huge concerns.

That all said, I can just begin to understand how someone feels in this country based on their health status. As I said earlier, I cut my hand on Friday and continued onward the next day by killing several chickens and removing their insides with an open wound on my finger. I am pretty sure that I’ll be able to get medicine to treat the wound, but I can tell it’s already become slightly infected even though I’ve been very vigilant about washing my hands over the past several days (how sad is it that I’m comparing the cut on my hand to Malaria… pathetic, I know).

Anyways, the point is that I’ve grown up in the U.S. covered under my dad’s insurance plan and have never felt in danger of not being able to receive treatment for even little injuries, much less big ones. Now I find myself in a country where huge public health concerns are prevalent and some people, even relatively wealthy families, might not be able to get treatment simply because of lack of health infrastructure and staff.

Even though my church here in Namaacha seems like it can’t get any farther away from what I’m used to in the states, it is crucial for me to appreciate the different draws to Christianity/religion due to people’s perspective. I have only just begun to adjust my perspective from that of college-educated, white, middleclass American and thus I know my opinion will continue to change with time. Taking a step back and thinking about it, the fact that Jesus is able to appeal to so many people on so many different levels is incredible. Although we in the U.S. may tend to focus on Jesus’ philosophical appeal, it’s important to note how Jesus provided his followers with their basic needs as well (curing illnesses and providing food/drink) and how that is just as important, if not more, depending on what your current needs are.

If I don’t get another blog up before Halloween, have a great time everyone and be safe (especially if you are going up to Jacksonville for the game… Go Gators!).

One Love,
Michael

Check out the new photos of my family:

My host family!

My host family... with me in it!

The End of the Party

Saturday October 17th, 2009
I found out yesterday that, because of a series of events, my language group of 5 doesn’t have class today… so this weekend we actually have 2 days free! Well, actually, I know that I’ll be staying busy doing things around the house and such, but it should give me at least some extra time to reflect on my experience thus far and what I have to look forward to.



My language group mid-session outside under a mango tree

Here in Mozambique, today is first day of consistent rain (last weekend in Maputo was more off and on), which signals that the summer (rainy season) has started to overtake the cool, dry days of winter. Even though I’m surrounded by my host family members who are running around the house washing dishes, cleaning clothes and sweeping the concrete patio, the scene is sort of eerie. With the coming of the rainclouds, the mountain town of Namaacha has been encompassed by a thick mist that barely lets you see the outline of the neighbor’s house. People walking by on their way into the city center come and go, disappearing in to the fog as they pass our house. Adding to the effect created by the mist is the presence of the water/clay mixture streaming through the eroded dirt streets. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Blood Diamond” with Leonardo DiCaprio you might remember the part where the characters are transfixed in the dark red color of the clay that omnipresent across most of Sub-Saharan Africa. Well, the clay really is everywhere and with the coming of the rain, it is all quickly turning to mud. The clay is only able to absorb so much water, however. The rest of the water, meanwhile, is sent streaming down the mountain side, picking up clay residue along the way, making it appear like a steady rushing stream of blood coming from a recent puncture wound that Mother Nature dealt to the mountains high above... overly dramatic? I know… but eerie nonetheless!

So with 2 ½ weeks in Mozambique under my belt, I believe that the country is more westernized than I thought it would be. From my limited interactions with Mozambicans so far, I’ve taken note that most people like to watch TV (from Mozambique, Portugal, and Brazil), listen to music (from Mozambique, Europe, and America), cell phones are prevalent, and even computers with internet access are available in most small cities. Even though the country is very poor (I read somewhere that it is considered to be the 5th poorest country in the world), you can tell that there has been a significant influx of western thoughts and values, especially through advertisements. I’m not entirely sold, however, on the fact that the advertisements depict the mindset of the country. For example, one concept that still hasn’t changed much despite the influence of western cultural ideals is beauty. Even though skinny and midsized women are frequently idolized on TV commercials, all the Mozambican women that I’ve met keep telling me how much fatter they want to get. In fact, full-figured women are held in such high regard that if you are an overweight American who comes to this country, don’t be surprised when a Mozambican women loudly declares how much she wishes she could be fat… like you!

Looking ahead, the Peace Corps trainees who are health educators (like myself) will be completing a practical experience in the next few weeks where we interact with our host families and community members to outline community resource maps (highlighting the strengths, weakness, threats and opportunities in the community), design daily and seasonal calendars (to see what events are regularly affecting our target populations), conduct needs assessments (to see what needs the community has) and finally planning/executing a series of health education sessions. Basically, we will be acting like the next several weeks are our first weeks at our actual permanent site placement and trying to navigate through all the hoops and see how it goes. We are supposed to get a sense of the important places and people in the community, attend a few community meetings, and ultimately hold a series of polestras (informal lessons) in the community on our subject of choice. I’m a little nervous about the presentation, but excited. Now that I’m actually looking the experience in the face, it makes me wonder how big, if any, of an impact I’ll be making on my future community. Hopefully, things will go well over the next few weeks and I’ll feel energized going into my service!

Sunday October 18, 2009
Mozambican lesson 1: ALWAYS check your room for rodents, bugs, and other critters!

I had been told by family to clean my bedroom floor every weekend, but last weekend I was busy going to Maputo, washing my clothes, helping prepare dinner, etc and never got around to it. This morning when I started taking things off the floor to wipe it down finally, all was going well until I moved my camera backpack from the corner of the room and found, literally, thousands of ants piled on top of each other reaching more than a foot off the ground. I let out a small shriek and then mumbled something about “homigas” and my host mom came running. Only a few moments later, with a few calculated moves with our kitchen knife, she scooped most of them into a bowl and quickly took them out of the house without any more incidents. We later discovered that the ants had made their way into our house from a small crack in the house foundation and proceeded to fill it in with cement. I’m optimistic that they won’t come back, but I might be sleeping with one eye open for the next week or so!

*Note to self: the lone kitchen knife that my family has is a very useful, multipurpose tool! So far, I have seen it used for cutting various foods, decapitating a chicken, removing ants from my room, and (most recently) used to shovel wet cement into a hole in the floor. Don’t worry though, we wash it between uses ;-)

Tuesday October 20,2009
WARNING: Some parts of this blog describe the killing of a chicken in semi-vivid details. Please do not read the text below if this might disturb or offend you…

This past Sunday afternoon Donna, a PC friend from SoCal, threw a small party at her host family’s house to have an excuse to cook up some authentic Mexican cuisine to share with her fellow PC trainees and host family. Donna had already started preparing the food by the time I got there and I knew right away from the smell that it was going to be an awesome meal. Even though I think the party was supposed to be small and low-key, the group of Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) kept on pouring in as the food got closer and closer to being ready. In fact, by the time the food was actually served we were worried whether we’d even have enough food for everyone. It was a close call, but when ended up having just enough.

After everyone had been served and people were getting ready to head back home, all of a sudden Donna’s host sister pulled out a live chicken that they were going to eat for dinner that night and pandemonium broke out when we found out that Donna was being asked to kill it at that very moment. Although several PCTs had already killed a chicken, or at least heard gossip about the killing of a chicken, everyone quickly gathered around to watch the spectacle. Looking back on it now, the killing of an animal that I eat on a regular basis was sobering to say the least.

I believe that we, in the US, often forget the fact that meat that we regularly buy neatly and cleanly packaged in the grocery store down the street is actually from an animal. My generation, especially, has grown up daily eating hamburgers, fried chicken, bacon, etc and yet I doubt that even 5% of people my age have killed any one of those animals with their own hands. The death of the chicken was gruesome and yet slightly quicker, easier, and less climatic that I thought it might have been. The chicken didn’t fight that much, not that its efforts would have likely been very fruitful, and once its throat was slit it quickly lost consciousness and went limp. Donna cut the chicken’s neck until she reached the spinal cord, but at that point the bird’s twitching reflexes kicked in and scared Donna. She dropped the knife and sank back, but without missing a beat Donna’s host sister stepped in and finished the job by completely decapitating the chicken. Even then, we had to continue to hold down the chicken by its legs for a minute or so as the body continued to twitch and convulse on the ground as blood poured out from its freshly cut neck. As the recently decapitated bird’s movements lessened and the plucking began, somber PCTs began to file out of Donna’s yard and back home. It wasn’t until the next day that I discovered that, for many of us, this deflating event was the capstone to the end of a tough weekend for many PCTs who realized that the party (our honeymoon experience where everything seems new and good) in Mozambique was now over.

Speaking about the passing of the honeymoon phase, I arrived to the Health Tech classes on Monday and Tuesday hearing several stories about PCTs crying, having second thoughts about committing the next 2 years to PC, and just generally not enjoying themselves. I think that we are all trying to stay positive, but it’s tough! The PC staff is doing a good job at helping us with the transition process, but there is so much going on in training and a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed. I think most people are getting to the point where they know they are committed to PC, but just want a few minutes/hours back with their friends so things can just be “normal” again, even if for only a moment.

While all the PCTs here are great, we are all still feeling each other out and trying to find a group of close PC friends that we really can connect with. This is especially difficult though, because all the while we know that our permanent site placement will limit a lot of interaction between groups of friends formed during training.

Obviously, Peace Corps is not all about making friends with other Peace Corps volunteers though! I think that we are all feeling a little vulnerable right now and thus we are reaching out to each other. In this effort, however, I think that some people (myself included) aren’t doing a great job of balancing the friendship aspect of PC with professional aspect. Of course there are a lot of job benefits to having connections with other PCVs in other parts of the country who we can call up and talk to as colleagues to pick their brains, but we need to be diligent in reminding ourselves about why we are here.

If you are reading this blog and thinking of me, please pray for me to remain determined, have patience, and continue to keep focused on the reasons why I am here.

One Love,
Michael

Week 2 Training Update!

October 12th, 2009
I just kicked my brother Lissaio out of the room because I was exhausted and about to pass out, but then I went outside really quickly to brush my teeth and got a second wind. So here I am now, sitting down to type out a few thoughts before nodding off for the night…

So after all the hype, our chapa ride from Namaacha to Maputo on Saturday morning turned out to be slightly anticlimactic in the end. All 65 Peace Corps volunteers ended up at the same spot, at the same time to take some chapas into the city. So instead of us being broken up into our small language groups and mixed intermittently with Mozambicans, we ended up completely filling 4 chapas (still sitting 4-deep on 3-deep seats mind you!), but we didn’t get the authentic chapa experience for sure. I mean, there wasn’t even a single person standing! That said, we all had a lot of fun on the ride into the city. In fact, as we were entering the city, I led the whole chapa in singing “Wagon Wheel” and “Country Roads” and I couldn’t help but think of the times I’ve sang those songs with you all back at home while strumming my guitar… sigh…

Anyways! The day in Maputo was a success for one reason: I got a cell phone! In case you want to call me sometime via skype, give me a shout at 82-294-8201. I don’t know the country code, but I think that you can look it up on Wikipedia and/or I think Skype will automatically figure it out for you if you tell it to call Mozambique (I’ve been told it only costs you 16 cents a minute from Skype). Other than coming back to Namaacha with a cell phone, the day in Maputo wasn’t too great. It rained the whole time we were there and we had a lot problems at the cell phone shop and ended up wasting a lot of time. Another highlight, though, was the food (nod yes now if you feel like that last sentence reminded you of every entry on Ricky’s Europe blog ;-)). We went to a pizza place for lunch and even though the pizza isn’t comparable to Hungry Howie’s… it was more than sufficient to meet my needs!

Following up the busy day in Maputo, yesterday was the first “free day” of the weekend since we actually “had” to go to the city on Saturday. Sunday morning church not starting till 11am in the States is usually a great opportunity to sleep in. Not so here in Mozambique! My entire family was awake and working outside the house by 6am and I finally realized that God also really wanted me out of bed when the neighbor’s rooster meandered over and decided to make camp under my window at 6:30am. When I finally stumbled outside my house on my way to the bathroom, I barely had time to say “Bom Dia” to my family before my mother jumped in front of me and informed me that she was going to be teaching me how to wash my clothes this morning. Still dazed and sleepy, I had to think quickly to struggle to communicate to her that I HAD to go to the bathroom. While lingering in the bathroom, I hoped that she had gone and continued her morning routine and that I could possibly get away from doing my laundry at that moment, but when I came out a few minutes later I saw upon exiting the bathroom that she had been patiently waiting… like a lion ready to pounce! I’m not going to go into the process of how to wash clothes by hand (it actually pretty complicated and a lot harder than it looks), but I’ll say this: after all the pain that it took to get the dirt stains out of my clothes(literally my knuckles rubbed raw), I now know why people really didn’t want to get their clothes dirty back in the day… it’s a LOT of work to get stains out of clothes… especially white ones! On that note, why did I bring so many white shirts again? GAH!

Finally, after washing my clothes, taking a quick shower, eating breakfast, and ironing my clothes, I made it to church just in time for the start of the service. The service was pretty quick compared to the previous’ week, just as beautiful with the songs but with less of an incomprehensible sermon in Shangana. Sitting in my seat and enjoying the service, everything was going smoothly until I realized that as the service was coming to an end the pastor was, in fact, asking me to close the service with a prayer (luckily I got to do it in English). I’m not going to lie… The prayer started pretty rocky and anyone who could speak English probably would have been confused by the haphazardness of it, but in the eyes of the congregation the prayer went off without a hitch and everyone seemed happy with my contribution even though I’m not sure if they understood more than a few words here and there… Note to self: never make a foreign exchange student say a prayer for the congregation at his second church service, even if it is in his own language… it’s just awkward!

The church service got out a little after 12 and I still had to go home to eat lunch with my family so I knew that there was no way I’d be able to meet up with some of my PC friends who were taking advantage of the free day by trekking out to Namaacha’s legended waterfall around noon. I got a text from another friend, though, who was trying to get together a game of Frisbee at 2pm and, even though my host mom and several people from the church had invited me to go to a local church coral competition that afternoon, I make the executive decision to get some exercise and play some Frisbee instead. The one big problem being that only two people showed up to play Frisbee, including me! So here I am, out in the middle of a field, missing out on the awesome trek to the waterfalls, ditching my mom’s coral competition, and looking like someone who is really out of place, decked out in gator gear, with a Frisbee in hand. Even though it was well after the time the event was supposed to start, I could hear people in the distance warming up for the coral competition and felt an extreme sense of anguish at the idea of missing out on my host mother’s singing. And at that moment, I realized that I should make it a point to take better advantage of the cultural opportunities which present themselves to me while here in Mozambique with Peace Corps. With only a few words of goodbye to my fellow Frisbee friend, I jolted for my house to change my clothes to go to my mom’s competition and as it turned out, the coral competition had been delayed so that I only missed the very opening act. In fact, in the end, the whole afternoon worked out for the best because not only was I able to make the concert, but the lack of rainfall had turned the waterfall into more of a trickle and left all the trekkers relatively deflated when returning home… That said, I know that I really want to go to the waterfall later on once in starts raining and I’ll make sure to post some pictures!

October 13th, 2009
Today I went hiking along the Mozambique-Swaziland border with my language group and afterward, feeling inspired, I decided to take out my camera at home tonight and snap a few shots of my brothers and sisters. Check the out the photos below!



My language group and I out near the Swazi border


Ramandane, Eunicio, and Abu lounging around


My family sitting around playing UNO in their livingroom

Training Week 1 Update

October 4th, 2009
I’m typing this on my computer as I’m lying down, getting ready to pass out on my bed. I’m exhausted and the Peace Corps’ schedule has me waking up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to study Portuguese and Mozambican culture. In reality, since tomorrow will be the first day of 10 weeks of training, it’s likely that it’ll be a lot orientation stuff rather than classroom learning and practical training. Training is supposed to end somewhere around December 12th and after that I probably will have more internet access, but it’s not like I’m looking forward to ending training because if it is anything like the past day, it’s going to be awesome! Let me try to explain…

I just spent my first full day with my Pre-Service Training (PST) family and they are so cool! I’ve been able to communicate really well with them and they are VERY supportive and patient with me. I’ve definitely had to deal with some short comings in my language capabilities, but it is AMAZING how much my Spanish background has helped me. If I ever get to somewhere where I can’t express myself in Portuguese, I say the word(s) in Spanish and generally it has been almost the exact same and they totally understand me. I’m only a day and a half into my home stay and I’ve already been talking to my family about marriage, my travels, our families, world history, and so much more. Actually, at dinner tonight we talked about my host mom’s family and how her parents both died during the country’s civil war while she was growing up. Later when her sister died, she left behind her two children who now live in my host mom’s house along with her own 4 children. While saying all of this, she expressed to me how important it has been to surround herself with family since as a child she was alone and, moreover, that she applied to host a Peace Corps volunteers because she always is seeking to expand her family and is so glad to have me (I almost cried right then at the dinner table!).

Everything hasn’t been as serious and moving though. Actually, a lot of it has been pretty hilarious and I’ve had to laugh off my own mistakes and cultural adjustments. So far, my family has taught me a lot: how to start the coal burning stove, filter my water, properly clean my fruits and vegetables, iron my clothes, and even take a bath. The last one, luckily, they only had to explain it and didn’t feel compelled to show me or help assist me (which I hear has happened to other Peace Corps volunteers before and isn’t too uncommon!). On that note, in case you all don’t know, a bath/shower here in Mozambique is a prolonged ritual that starts by boiling some water that is stored throughout the house in large containers and adding it to some cold water in a bucket, then taking the bucket outside to the separate bathhouse, using a small cup to pour water over your body to remove the soap and, in my case, doing all of this in a crouched position so you don’t splash the water everywhere! It’s amazing how much you take for granted running, hot water!



Lissaio teaching me how to cook on a coal burning stove

Today was Sunday and, as I quickly found out, my family likes to attend a neighborhood evangelical church every week. I’ve been in a few churches outside the U.S. now, but this was different and SO COOL. First off, they don’t primarily speak or sing in Portuguese in the church. Instead, they speak Shangana, a local language, and while it was tough to listen to a person lecturing for extended periods of time because I didn’t understand it, it was sooooo beautiful to listen to in the songs. The service consisted of more than an hour of songs that were led by a woman who would start the verses with a call and the congregation would complete the response with the full verse. After this organized singing, a church layman asked if anyone in the congregation wanted to sing a song in which case they would start singing, stand up and move into the middle of the aisle, and then anyone who wanted to sing with them would do the same, singing and dancing the whole time (it was SOO cool!). When they finally finished singing, the whole church was filled with the mixed sounds of the whole congregation suddenly bursting into their own individual prayers out loud. It took me by surprise at first, but after a few moments it seemed very natural and unforced for the people and I tried my best to participate without being too self conscious of being the only person in the congregation speaking English.

A few other observations about the church that struck me as interesting were that, at first before the church filled us, all the females were on one side of the aisle and all the males were on another. As the women continued to come in, the women filled in the empty spots in their section and overflowed into the male section. Then, when the people were still pouring in midway into the service and there were no more seats, the usher started kicking all the kids out of their seats and onto a mat on the floor located near the front of the church. After they had kicked all the children out of their seats, the rest of the people stood by the church’s entrance way watching or simply listened from outside the church. However, about 2/3 of the way through the service, a woman showed up carrying a baby and the usher decided to ask me to give up my seat (which I was okay with), but instead of asking me to stand in the back of the church or sitting on the floor, the usher reseated me on the church’s “stage,” seated alongside all of the church’s elders. I was very surprised to say the least, but very honored too (my host mom later told me that I was moved up there because I was very well dressed and they assumed me to be well educated). The experience wasn’t too scarring until about 2 hours into the service my host family decided it was time to return home and my brother proceeded to escort me out of the church while the pastor and the whole congregation silently watched me walk off the stage, down the aisle, and exit.

Everything is going well! Don’t worry about me :-)

One Love,
Michael

October 7th, 2009
It’s Wednesday night tonight and that means that my first week of training is actually halfway over. My brothers Eunicio and Ramadane are sitting next to me on my bed while I am writing this letter. Thinking about the comfort level that has formed between us makes it seem impossible that it has only been 6 days since we first met. Eunicio is only 3 years old and he is sooo cute! Right now is sitting here listening to my Brazilian music on my headphones and gyrating his body back and forth like crazy while dancing. Ramadane on the other hand is 11 years old, very serious, and is trying with all his might to be remain above the childish dancing motions that Eunicio and I are doing. Also in my host family are Carlota and Antonio (my parents), Lissaio and Lionor (my cousins), and Abu and Elisa (my other siblings). I’ll talk about the rest of my host family another day…



Abu, Ramadane, and Eunicio hanging out in the hallway

Anyways, as I was getting ready for my Peace Corps experience, one of my biggest worries was how much weight I might lose while here in Mozambique. Although I don’t know what the future will hold for me when I get permanently placed in a community somewhere else in Mozambique, the thought of being able to lose weight here in Naamacha during PST seems laughable to me now. I have had to practically throw a tantrum to get my host mom to let me stop eating when there is still food in front of me (and for those of you who know me and my eating habits really well, you all know that I don’t not finish my meals very often). Before you get the wrong impression though, the food I’m eating here in my host family’s house is GREAT and pretty similar to what I eat back in the states. In fact, today for lunch I even had fried chicken! The only big difference is that my family is feeding me like 5 times as much here as I would normally eat! Mentioning how much I eat actually brings up the fact that this all makes me feel pretty awkward because the rest of my family doesn’t seem to be eating nearly as much as I am. It’s not like any of the kids in my family are starving, or even hungry, but I am definitely getting more, especially of the more expensive food (ie chicken vs. rice).

On another note, after my initial encouraging start with speaking Portuguese here at PST, I’ve found myself very frustrated over the past few days because of constant shortfalls when trying to express myself more fully. I’ve noticed that later in the day I tend to be less attentive and less able to pick up on the small things. It is also really difficult when having to deal with several people speaking at once especially I’m meeting new people and dealing with groups of Mozambican people who tend to speak fast. One thing I’m worried about is having to remember people’s names when I finally get to my community in December. Right now it’s tough for me to understand people at first and it’s especially difficult to remember/pronounce names because many of them sound quite foreign to me. That said, I keep hearing my dad’s voice echoing in my head “Don’t be so hard on yourself Michael!” and that imaginary reassure makes me feel a little better.

At the end of the day I know I’m trying my best!

One Love,
Michael

October 9th, 2009

We just finished up our first week of training classes and tomorrow we are being rewarded by waking up early (5am) and taking local van/bus transportation, called a chapa, from Naamacha to Maputo. We haven’t gotten the chance to take a chapa yet, but their infamy and uniqueness has already reached our ears from current Peace Corps Volunteers (PVCs) who are helping out with training and from brief encounters as they speed by on the main road cutting through Naamacha. Chapas are an affordable means of travel for the average Mozambican and thus it is almost always overflowing with people to compensate for the lower price (when you think of riding in a chapa between cities, imagine a 15 passenger van with every row sitting 4 deep and then people sitting/standing in front of people are seated, for an hour!). I am not sure exactly what we are planning on doing in Maputo, but I think we are going to try and buy some stuff at a big market or mall area. I know that a lot of us are hoping to purchase cell phones, but we’ll see where my language group goes.

So yeah, even though all 65 of the Mozambique Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) are in Naamacha for training, we are usually all together only 1 day a week for large group presentations. Otherwise, we are divided into two large groups: health and education. Then, within those two large groups, we are subdivided into language groups of 5-6 people. We meet daily in our language groups at one of the group member’s host family’s houses and typically join up with the larger health group later in the day to cover health related topics. Somehow I actually tested into the most advanced Portuguese language group and, although I might argue about my Portuguese speaking abilities, I guess I’ll have to thank Rosetta Stone for that one. The people in my language group, as are all of the PCTs, are very nice. Most of them have a very extensive background in Spanish and several of them are actually native speakers.

I need to wake up early, so I have to get to bed in a second. Just to let you know, I haven’t taken out my camera yet in Naamacha, but I think I will this upcoming week and then I’ll be able to upload some photos of my house, family, neighborhood, etc. for you all to see.

One Love,
Michael

A quick update on my mail situation…

If you already have sent me packages or letters to the previous address, the Peace Corps staff members tell me that I might or might not end up getting them. Sorry! The address you should send things to, effective immediately, is:

Michael Tudeen
Corpo da Paz Nº 345
Av. do Zimbabwe
Maputo, Mozambique

However, this address is only good until the 5th week of training or so (mid November). After that, please hold off on sending packages until I get my permanent site address for you all.

ALSO, the current Peace Corps volunteers have suggested that if you have to estimate the value of the package when sending something, never estimate it to be worth very much (>$20-30) because I’ll be the one who ends up having the foot the import fee when I try to pick the package up. On that note, if you have to indicate what is inside the package, don’t write things that are easily recognizable and make the package a target for thieves (ie. write ”Snacks” instead of “Food” or ”Educational materials” instead of ”movies/dvds”). Finally, if you want to increase the probability of the package not being tampered with EVEN MORE you can (apparently this works) write ”Jesus Saves” and/or put crosses all over the package/envelope.

Once again, the communication I´ll have with all of you for the next several weeks will be spotty at best. Thank you for the support! I love you all!

Arrived Safe in Maputo!

It’s Friday night here in Maputo and after 3 days of travel I can finally get another good night of sleep in a comfy bed. The Peace Corps has us booked in Hotel Cardoso (a sweet, high-end hotel located on top of a hill overlooking the bay) until Saturday, when we leave for Pre-Service Training, or PST.

A view at Cardosa's pool from my room's balcony.

Luis, an soon-to-be Education PCV, passed out by the pool.

Dov playing his violin during some downtime

The past several days have been a blur… after saying a final goodbye to my friends on Monday night, my family and I woke up at 4:30am on Tuesday morning and drove to the Gainesville airport to make my 6am flight. We got there a little late, but still with plenty of time to make the connection to Atlanta. When we got to the check-in counter, however, the attendant informed us that I would have to be bumped to the 12:40 flight. Although he never explicitly said that I couldn’t get on the 6am flight because it was full, my mom and I read between the lines and inferred that I was simply the odd man out when he informed us that there probably wouldn’t be room on the 7am flight because it was overbooked by 4 people. After a little struggle, we took my luggage back out to the car, loaded up, and drove home.

After the initial disappointment of missing the early flight subsided, I quickly realized there were a lot of benefits to it: I got to sleep for a few more hours, my goodbyes were delayed slightly, and the experience of my flights was changed (even though I wouldn’t realize it for the better until later in the day). When I showed back up at the airport at 11:30am, I checked in my luggage with ease and waited for the security check point to open up. As I said goodbye to my sister and dad, I was gladly surprised when I noticed that Alvaro, Ricky’s dad, was standing a few feet away from me and ready to board the same connecting flight to Atlanta that I was. As I waved goodbye to my family from the other side of the security checkpoint, I was comforted by Alvaro who enthusiastically talking about how great my upcoming journey would be. Although we weren’t able to sit together on the plane, Alvaro’s presence calmed me as the plane left the ground and ascended into the sky. As I looked out the window, I choked back the tears as I said goodbye to Gainesville and all the people who make it sooo special. Alvaro and I said a quick goodbye in the Atlanta airport as we headed our separate ways (he was going to a different terminal to go to California).

When I got on the next flight I was pleasantly surprised to be welcomed by a relatively empty flight that left the empty seat between me and another man empty. After the flight took off I started up some small talk and we quickly established why we were boarding a flight to Philadelphia. When he heard about my trip to Mozambique he grew very interested because he had just recently arrived home from a church mission trip to Mozambique and wanted to tell me about the experience that lay ahead of me. Overall, the trip to Philadelphia was a great success! Although I missed the flight and arrived very late to the Peace Corps Staging orientation, the two plane rides and their benefits definitely outweighed the negatives.

When I finally got to Philadelphia I was able to hit the town with a few Mozambique Peace Corps volunteers and chow down on some Phili Steaks before hitting the hay for 1 whole hour. The reason we got so little sleep was because the very next day we had to wake up at 2 am and take a bus to New York to catch our flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight was pretty uneventful. I tried to adjust myself to the new time zone waiting for us when I got off the 15 hour flight by trying to sleep according to the new time, but it was a super fail. I ended up going to sleep almost immediately once I got on the plane and then being unable to sleep during the “night time” of the upcoming time zone. Gah!

When we finally got to Johannesburg it was a great feeling! My feet and legs were ridiculously swollen from staying so immobile on the flight, but that didn’t stop me from doing a little jig when I finally touched ground in Africa for the first time. The flight from Johannesburg to Maputo was quick and easy, but as we made our final descent and looked out at the country that I would be living for the next two years I couldn’t help but tremble in anticipation and feel so much excitement about what lies ahead.

Since being in Maputo we’ve pretty much just chilled in the hotel and gone through long days of meetings and vaccines. They interviewed us today to see how our Portuguese was going and I think I did alright… we’ll see! Tomorrow we’re leaving Maputo for the training village and I can’t wait to meet my host family who I’ll be staying with for the next 10 weeks!


The Moz 14 PCT group!!!

I gotta go, but I’ll be keeping you up to date about things as they come around.

One Love,
Michael

P.S.- I will be getting a cell phone WITH INTERNET in like a week or two and you should be able to call me from skype or I might even be able to call you from skype! Who knows! Crazy that I go to a “third world country” and become more technologically advanced with my cell phone capabilities… :-)