Week 6 Recap!!

Ola minha familia e bonitos amigos!

Time flies when you’re having fun! No, seriously.  With six weeks of PCV training completed, our swearing-in date of December 4 inches ever closer.  In only three weeks and three days (but who’s counting right?), I’ll be raising my right hand and taking the Peace Corps pledge at the ambassador’s residence.  Thankfully there’s still much work to be done – the continuation of language classes and model school sessions remain a wonderful distraction from the weight of what us new volunteers are about to take on. As of now, I’m in the middle of that blissful honeymoon stage where everything is wonderful and frankly I’m totally fine with that. Over the course of two years, I know I will encounter incessant challenges to not only my day-to-day happiness, but also to the reasons that motivate me to serve. I imagine it’s common to find ourselves at points in our lives and wonder what crazy ideas compelled us to make such big decisions. However, as of now, I still wake up and find moments to marvel at in my everyday life, like watching the sun come up on my early morning runs along Namaacha’s rolling green hills, or the huge thunderstorms that tear across the night sky and whip the red earth into sticky sheets of matope (mud), or even the simple fact that I can navigate life “mais or menos” in Portuguese (and even tell a few jokes/poke fun at myself) - it feels so surreal to be living in the constant beauty that is Mozambique. I am grateful.

Yet the realization of how little time is actually left until we’re thrown into the thick of Mozambique’s toughest problems (a struggling, under-supported school system, high drop out rates, corruption, poverty, gender discrimination, and HIV/AIDS amongst other things), has spurred a scrambling of sorts amongst the ranks of PCV trainees. There are soooo many things we don’t know yet – where we’re living, how we’ll be living, what access to other volunteers we’ll have, how large our classroom sizes will be… Juxtapose the list of things we don’t know, to the rumors and info we’ve acquired through the vibrant PCV grapevine and you can imagine the type of electric uncertainty that is sparked.  Undoubtedly, the “Greatest Unknown” remains to be our site placements, and given that volunteers are largely excluded from the assignment process, it has of course become the hottest topic to gossip about.  The fact that we’re receiving our placements on Wednesday only heightens peoples obsession with the unknown. After all, it’s the unknown that can prove most exciting ;) While we all love conjecturing however, I am definitely trying to remain as open-minded as possible. Inevitably, no matter what I think the most “perfect” site would be, essentially the next two years will be determined by someone in the Peace Corps office in Maputo, not me, and that’s probably for the best. Whether I get placed in the “mato” middle-of-nowhere village and live in a hut without electricity and running water, or am placed in a beach town and live in my own house, I’ll have to adapt to the different challenges each scenario entails. And, it’s about at this point in sharing my logic with other volunteers at the bar that I reach this diplomatic conclusion for the millionth time and subsequently change the subject and order myself another beer ;)

All this being said, the last two weeks since my last email have been eventful ones!  One major theme? Illness (boo!). After being taken out at the knees by strep throat, only a few days after I finished the antibiotics another nasty virus wreaked some havoc on my immune system.  It’s so strange to feel vulnerable to illness, especially since I rarely ever got sick back in the states. And as a side note, being sick in a county without basic amenities sucks. There’s nothing like having a high fever and having to squat over a bucket to pee because you were too weak to walk outside to the latrine. Perspective man, perspective.  On the bright side, I am very lucky to have not been hit with any gastrointestinal distress, a condition that apparently immobilizes 97% of volunteers in Moz at least once during their two years of service (seriously, Peace Corps collects stats on all this type of stuff and then feed it to us in endless power point presentations, no joke!) . That being said, if any one feels like sending me packets of Emergen-C, it’d be greatly appreciated!

For those not wanting to hear more details about the more unsavory realities of life, you’ll be pleased to hear that there were numerous other more palatable highlights  ;)

Most recently, I escaped Namaacha for six days to visit two active Peace Corps sites. Site visits provide PCV trainees with an opportunity to “job-shadow” the lives of current Peace Corps volunteers and essentially provide a short trial run for service life. I was sent to visit two sites in northern Inhambane province – Vilankulos, a semi-touristy beach town, and Mapinhane a very rural, rustic and dusty town along the national highway.  When we arrived in Vilankulos after a ten hour bus ride north, a stunning view met our tired eyes. Imagine a beautiful turquoise ocean lapping up onto white sandy beaches, palm trees rustling in a light breeze, and a blistering hot sun. We couldn’t have escaped Namaacha’s rain at a more opportune time (there was a point when even freshly washed (wet) laundry became moldy because it never dried out!), so of course, the first two days were spent lounging on the private beach of the Baobob Backpackers hostel, drinking fresh coconut with the locally made rum, and eating our first pizza (a rare find!) since leaving the USA. Such luxury quickly became a bit boring however, and I was excited to be moving on to Mapinhane, the village of our hosts Laurie and Chris.

Mapinhane couldn’t have offered a better contrast to the indulgences of Vilankulos. It’s rural with a typical small-town feel where everyone knows everybody, and even with new cell towers topping the horizon (a sign of an ever encroaching globalized world), most of the villagers live in thatch huts and cook over carvao (charcoal). Moreover, in not having electricity or running water, the village kids or their mothers collect water from a few communal pumps multiple times per day, carrying their heavy jugs of water home in wheelbarrows or on their heads.  It’s undoubtedly a life of continuous hard work, from sunrise to sunset.   While it was fun to have been a part of the “Po$h Corp$” (haha!) for a few days, it was a much needed reality check to visit Mapinhane and experience the more typical day-to-day life of the average Mozambican (and relatedly very often the life of a Peace Corps volunteer).  Just to provide some context: Mozambique is rated 184 out of 187 on the Human Development Index (HDI) – the lowest HDI rating of all Peace Corps host-countries. The HDI, developed by the United Nations Development Programme, is a comparative tool that evaluates factors such as health and life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living. Thus, while Moz may be viewed as a foreign aid “darling” receiving around $400 million per year from the US government alone, the HDI signifies to the Peace Corps volunteer that there’s definitely much more work to be done at the grassroots level.  That’s both a humbling and exciting role to be in, especially when Mapinhane modeled a town brimming with an incredible amount of potential. During our visit, we got to tour the first newly-built public secondary school and talk with the pedagogical director (aka, the Headmaster). He’s currently in the process of bending over backwards to get a Peace Corps volunteer placed at his school (free, skilled labor anyone??) – and he wants an English teacher no less!! I’m crossing my fingers…

In any case, we all returned to Namaacha not only refreshed and ready to take on the last few weeks, but with a healthy dose of perspective and readiness to take on the next phase of Peace Corps service. 

And now, all we can do is wait to receive our official assignments.

I’ll keep y’all posted about the big news!