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