Thursday, March 12, 2009

Swanky

Hello!! I am currently at a super swank hotel in the capital of Mozambique (Maputo) for inservice training. It was mind boggling to arrive! I was delivered to my room in a golf cart, I have air conditioning and the food is AMAZING. I will be here until Sunday...then it will be a rough adjustment back to site, haha. Anyway, my daily life is much less glamorous, but much more fulfilling (most days). My school has a relatively small number of classrooms, but all classes are divided into morning, afternoon and evening so that hasn't been a huge problem. The classrooms don't have windows or doors, but that just means you always have a nice breeze while you teach! There are about 40 teachers at my school. They all have been very nice and helpful. I'm still amazed by how young they all seem! It leads to a light-hearted and laughter filled atmosphere to work in. I am one of 4 English teachers. As I said in my last post, I teach 8th grade English at the Escola Secondaria de Morrumbene. By 8th grade the students have been studying English for 2 years. On my first day of teaching, however, I had to do the alphabet. My frustration is not with the students, but with past teachers. Or maybe a mixture of both. There are obviously some students that put more of an effort into their education than others (just like in America) and I can easily understand how learning English can be on the back burner compared to other challenges and duties my students face on a daily basis. My daily routine is, mais ou menos, as follows: I wake up at 5am (I teach only in the mornings Monday through Friday so I have to arrive at the school by 6:45 but I am done with teaching by noon each day), I heat up water for my ricoffe (a coffee and chickory blend that I have grown to loathe with a passion that I did not know I could possess) and I partake in some high fiber kellogs cereal that, I think, has saved my life/digestive track since I discovered it. I make breakfast for my dog, Lucy, which consists of white rice and dried fish or shrimp. I make sure that I have all my materials that I will need for my lessons that day (maybe visuals, a hacky sack to throw around to practice conjugation, and my lesson plan notebook), put on my bata (a long, white, polyester lab coat that I have to wear everyday to teach in. It is incredibly warm and makes me sweat buckets, but it's uniform) and then I'm on my way! The school is only about an 8 minute walk from my house. I'm always the first teacher to arrive, which I don't mind at all. At 6:45 the cow bell is rung to signal the students to line up in order of turma in front of the school while we raise the flag and sing the Mozambican anthem. It's always a process to get the students organized, and if it's raining we don't sing. At 7am the cow bell is rung again meaning that the students should be in class and ready to learn. Lessons are 45 minutes, but the cow bell never rings at the exact time to signal the starting or ending of a lesson each day. My busiest day is Tuesday- I teach 2 lessons, then have the "turma meeting" (I'm director of turma and we have to hold meetings once a week where the students can complain to me about any absences they may have received or problems that might be having with other teachers). After that, I teach 3 more lessons back to back. This may not sound like a lot because I'm still done by 11:55, but it is so exhausting to maintain such a high energy for 5 lessons! Noon is the "siesta" time so most shops in Morrumbene are closed anyway. They reopen at 2, and that's when I go out and buy my vegetables, fruit and bread for my lunch and dinner. I'll plan my lesson for the following day, grade any homework I collected and walk around my community. If the weather is nice I might wash my clothes. I am usually in bed around 8pm...Africa has turned me into an old woman! My life isn't too terribly exciting, but I'm starting to enjoy the slow pace of Mozambique more and more. In the states I had to become a master multi-tasker. Always juggling 2-3 things at once, especially in college. Mozambique is just not a place to multi-task. Things just move a lot slower here, and I certainly don't view that as a bad thing (most of the time) but it has definitely been an adjustment. I'm slowly learning to draw out my daily activities after teaching so I'm not too terribly bored for the rest of the day. At night, I've taken to watching the geckos hunt on my ceiling for entertainment. Like I said, life moves a little bit slower in Mozambique. Unless, of course, you are riding in a chapa. I know I have mentioned the infamous chapa before, but I think it's time to describe it in greater detail. the chapa is my only form of transportation (unless I hitchhike, which I do, on occasion. It's much easier to do here than in the states and I plan on traveling to northern Mozambique at some point in my service only by hitch hiking. Should be fun!). Chapas are about the size of the old VW vans and are usually worse for wear. I've ridden in many where I could see the road through the floor or the door fell off every time it was opened. There are 4 rows of seats in the chapa, meant to sit 3 people in each row, plus space for 2 people in the front next to the driver. In all, the chapa is supposed to hold about 15 people. This NEVER happens. There are always, at minimum, 20 people in the chapa- usually 24-25. The chapa will not leave until there are at least 4 people sitting in each row, so I spend quite a bit of time just waiting for it to fill up. I have yet to ride in one that has left before it was full. It doesn't matter if you have to wait for an hour. Even after it gets going, the driver still stops along the road to pick up people in random areas. So, you get the idea that people are crammed like sardines in the less than up-to-code van (oh, if you were wondering, the idea of seatbelts is laughable. I think I've worn a seatbelt once since arriving in Mozambique). On top of the 20-some odd people, you have their "stuff." Jugs of water, bags of who knows what, blankets, babies, chickens (alive, noisy, and pooping) and even the occasional goat. I was on a 4 hour chapa ride a few weeks ago where we kept stopping every 10 minutes to pick up random stashes of 2x4's that were hidden along the road. It is not uncommon, especially on longer trips, for people to be getting drunk en route. And driving! It is acceptable to pass another car on any kind of road, at any speed and without any real regard for how close oncoming traffic is. I've very often thought "This will be my last chapa ride," but I keep surviving. I've actually grown to like the chapa experience, and if any of you visit, you'll have to go on one. A few months ago, I went on a 10 hour bus ride (larger bus than a chapa, called a machimbombo-that might be incredibly incorrect spelling-but just as packed). Every time we stopped the engine died and people would get out to start pushing the bus along the road until the driver could get it going. All chapas slow down significantly when going up hill and greatly accelerate when going down. It's a real adventure and quite a unique experience. I am learning the tricks of the trade to living in Africa...for example, it's important to keep your skin moisturized (especially your feet because there are many little critters that can crawl in through cracks in your feet). Unfortunately, lotion literally melts off you once you start walking. It VISIBLY melts off. I quickly learned that it's much more practical to put lotion on at night, in front of the fan and underneath the mosquito net. This may seem silly and probably not worth mentioning, but my life is now full of these weird lessons that I could have never anticipated before coming here. I've also learned that it's vital to keep a flashlight near you at all times. Electricity cannot be described as reliable. I've come to terms with the spiders, ants, roaches, mosquitos, geckos, rats and large flying insects that sound like wind up toys that I share my house with- but I'm still working on accepting the snakes that live in the rafters of my ceiling. It's never too quiet because coconuts and large seed pods are always falling on my tin roof. It still makes me jump every time...especially when I'm sleeping. Living by myself has been a huge challenge sometimes and it is very easy to feel incredibly lonely. I think it can only get easier, though and the good days I have make up for any bad ones. I hope this has been fun for you all to read! Please keep in touch! I always love hearing from people. Much love to you all. Estamos juntos. PS. If you write letters, be sure to put "air mail" on them! :)

Saturday, March 7, 2009