It’s easy to forget, at times, that I am in Africa. The interactions during training only seemed abnormal for a week or two, and then the unexpected became the expected. Cultural norms and differences became fun stories told among both the Americans when we were together and by the Mozambican families when they were chatting. Fofoca became the favorite activity of home stay families and trainees. Fofoca is gossip, and it flies like nothing else in small towns like Namaacha. One example of how fast Fofoca can spread is illustrated in the fact that one morning I told my Moz. Mom that Peace Corps would be by today to pick up my boxes (caixas), at least that’s what I thought I was saying. Evidently I told her Peace Corps would be by to pick up my coffins (caixáos). Before lunch that day, she had spread this funny story to at least one family in a different neighborhood, by that evening, the other host mom shared it with her daughter (my colleague), who shared it with my girlfriend (Stu), who shared in a laugh about this story with me when we were hanging out that same night. I came to love Fofoca by the end of training. The home stay families had reunions (meetings), often, after which I would always ask my mom what the latest Fofoca was about my fellow trainees. She always had juicy stories for me.
It’s interesting to me, during the times that I forget where I am, when I actually take a moment to look around and remember that I’m not in the USA anymore. That I’m actually living in a place that before Peace Corps invited me here, I had never heard of, and that I’m now speaking a language I never thought I would need to know (Portuguese). As I walk to the market to buy bread, rice, beans, fruit, or whatever I’m craving for dinner or lunch that day, the “boa tardes” become normal. Seeing children running around playing only to be distracted by the foreigner, which in the mind of a child is only entertaining for a quick 10 seconds stare, is even becoming a new norm for me. I just smile, stick out my tongue or make a funny face, and they giggle and run back to whatever game or activity they were doing to pass the time. I continue my walk and it’s when I look up at the mountain range to my North, or the mud houses with straw roofs to my left and right that I realize that life has surely lead me somewhere special.
My Grandma and Grandpa bought me a Kindle book reader for a graduation gift. I loaded it with about 100 books from Amazon before leaving for staging in Philly at the end of September. Majority of the books are classics, Shakespeare, Poe, Twain, so on and so forth. I just finished reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” by Oscar Wilde. It’s a great book, wonderful read, and a semi-predictable, but interesting twist of an ending. From this book, I take away two quotes; “We practical men like to see things, not to read about them…” and “It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.” These two quotes describe a part of the reason that I am here. The idea of experiencing something instead of reading about it, and the fact that there is such mystery in everything I encounter on a day to day basis here, that the odds of life becoming dull is very unlikely. Don’t confuse my optimism with me being naive. I know that there will be more than enough boredom to go around throughout the next two years, but boredom is a state of mind that can be altered through conscious thought. Well, at least I hope so; and I’ll have many opportunities to test this to be true or not.
There have been a few moments that are notable and worth mentioning, which afterwards I laughed to myself about how I doubt I would have experienced such a thing in the States, but I’ll share the most recent only. While sitting and talking about the upcoming weeks plans with Quito, my PSI counterpart in Ribaue, I noticed my neighbors had just come out for dinner. My neighbors are a bunch of chameleons that live in my roof, and top of my walls (my floor and walls are concrete, and the roof is made out of local materials…a thatched together wood). Dinner (for them, not me) was going to be a wonderful assortment of bugs that were flickering around the light in my living room. Our conversation drifted to silence as we both sat and watched one of the chameleons slowly creep down the wall and wait for a chance to strike at one of the bugs. Surely enough, the time came quickly, and he didn’t miss a beat. He swallowed the bug like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Quito and I watched this go on for about 20 minutes. The chameleon ate bug after bug, until Quito stood. The motion startled my neighbor and he ran back to safety in the roof. The next night, as I ate dinner in my house, I noticed a giant roach running across the floor. Unluckily for this roach, my neighbor was already out watching me eat. As soon as his dinner arrived, he again, did not hesitate in joining me for a nice healthy meal. I like these neighbors. I think I’ll keep them around since they clean up pretty well and give me a great deal of entertainment throughout the evenings.
I’ve held up really well emotionally, physically, and mentally since my goodbyes in September. I haven’t had super bad days, or missed family a terrible amount (yet), and I wonder if I’ll make it through the next 2 years and be able to say this at the end of service. Granted, the Peace Corps of today is not what it used to be, thanks to technology and the fact that our programs are much more developed now (courtesy of trial and error over the years). Let me elaborate on both. Technology: when we landed in South Africa, I was able to call my family from a skype program I had downloaded on my blackberry (iSkoot). It allows a person to call from their skype account, through their phones internet. So, it was about 2c a minute to call. Throughout training, I’ve had instant access to email and internet on my phone the entire time. Honestly, for majority of the time, I only sent the occasional photo or email to family checking in, and used the internet to stay up to date on current events (msnbc, cnn, bbc, etc.). I have around 150-200 movies that I copied off other volunteers hard drives, and can watch them whenever I want. I have both new movies and classics. I watched X-Men Origins (a movie that was in theatres when I left the states) on my laptop just last night. We have cell phones, ability to link these phones to our laptops and connect to the internet at a pretty nice speed; I can text USA cell phones for free through yahoo messenger, make phone calls through skype, etc. Program development: We’ve had several speakers and trainers talk about their service in the Peace Corps, and it sounds like what I expected to run into during our service. Dropped in the middle of no-where, no communication, and no idea of what they would be doing. That is far from the case for our training group. Keep in mind, I’m speaking about the Health sector (as Education will be more standard and structured, because they are serving in the school systems). With my experience, so far, I know exactly what organizations I’m working with, and what their mission is throughout the community. Who they’re funded by, who the directors are, who my supervisor is, and much more information is available. Granted, there are times, even just in the last group of volunteers, that the person was dropped off and their group was basically nonexistent (by this I mean only one person makes the “group”). It does happen, but less and less frequently.
The most difficult part of service is being away from family and friends. Holiday seasons especially make this harder than the average day. Just today I looked through my photo album (bad idea) and started to think about the babies in the family (5 nephews and 1 niece), and the crisp, fresh, bone chilling air that accompanies winter every year in Oklahoma. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the smell, the feel, what I’d be doing if I was back there right now. The feel and what I’d be doing were easy to picture. Driving my 1990 regular cab, black Chevy Pickup (350 V8 of course), on my way to buy gifts from Quail Springs, Crossroads, Penn Square, and every other shop on the Belle Isle. I’d definitely spend at least one night walking through the botanical gardens, enjoying the Christmas lights there, and then depending on the roads, would drive out to Yukon or Northern Oklahoma City in search of one of the many houses that have set up a light show with music. I’d probably meet up with Rusty or Tony (assuming they aren’t shopping with me) and have a cup of seasonal coffee from Starbucks. This would be one day only. There are so many people to visit during the holidays that every day (after work) could be spent very similar to this one. Small, intimate conversations warming up over a cup of coffee…hot chili and corn bread, decorating the Christmas tree with the young kids and trying my best to preserve their innocent belief in Santa Clause. The smell is something my imagination isn’t strong enough to duplicate. Every country I go to, and every state for that matter, I always close my eyes and take a moment to appreciate the different sensations (air on my skin, scent in the air, noises, etc). When I came back from a month in Lebanon, the first thing I remember was how happy I was to smell the Oklahoma air. My point is that it doesn’t feel too much like Christmas right now. I did listen to holiday music all day and have “This Christmas” “Elf” and “Love Actually” to remind my tough man heart that I miss family more than my mind is ready to admit. I’ve had some of the current PCV’s tell me “make sure you’re with people on Christmas. When you get that call from home, you’ll need people around you.” I doubt it will be that hard on me, but if it is, I can rest easily knowing that Stu will be there with me. There’s always a silver lining. :o)
Merry Christmas in advance everyone. Happy New Year as well. “Feliz Natal e ano novu propsero”
G
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Hello Everyone,
Sorry I fell off the grid there for a while. I had access to internet for majority of the time while in training, but I didn't have much desire to use it. I've put off sending an email updating you all on what I've been doing, because...its hard to put everything into words. I began typing email updates a few times, but was never felt that I was capturing my true experience. However, I will share a few thoughts, and photos, and hopefully you'll get a small vision of what life in Africa is like for me.
Training took place in Namaacha, in the Province of Maputo, Country of Mozambique. We spent 10 weeks cramming language, culture, learning about the health sector (and lack of basic forms of infrastructure), as well as simply adjusting to a life away from friends, family, and everything that I've known. A typical day I would wake up around 6am, shower, iron my clothes, eat breakfast, and walk to school. The walk the first few weeks would take me about 20 minutes one way, but once I learned the roads in the neighborhood, I was able to cut off 5 to 10 minutes, depending on where we were going that day for lessons, etc.
My homestay family was basically me and my mozambican mom. We have family that lived down the street from me, and once in a while they would come and visit or have dinner with us. There is a neighbor that lives right beside our house, Felix, and he helped me out a great deal from the very beginning. We spent many nights walking around, playing cards, working on my homework, and once in a while playing soccer.
So Namaacha is a pretty nice little city. Its on a small mountain range, and has a beautiful waterfall, which, of course a company bottles and sells while the city of Namaacha is going through a "drought." Gotta love capitalism, but thats another story. The town is bordered by Swazi, and there is a point where Mozambique, Swazi, and South Africa all three meet. The health people lived in Barrio 25. Its the poor end of town, with no paved roads in the neighborhood, tons of hills, the same color and texture dirt you find in Oklahoma (red dirt :-p)and when it rains an unbearable amount of mud to walk through. But its all fun if you make it so.
We celebrated Thanksgiving, and were also given our 2 year site placements that day. It was really exciting. We combined 2 of my favorite past times, with the one thing I've been looking forward to for the past year....eating & thanksgiving with the knowledge of exactly where I'd be for my Peace Corps service. My site is Ribaue city, in Nampula Province. Its in the NorthEast part of Mozambique and is absolutely beautiful. There is a chain of mountains that runs right here to my North and West. I'm also in a coastal province, so traveling to see the ocean isn't unmanageable. Granted, its 7 hours by chapa (local form of transportation...small busses or trucks that get jammed packed with people, animals, babies..etc etc.) but when you think of the fact that the closest ocean to Oklahoma is Galveston, you'll appreciate my excitement that in a short 7 hours I can be on one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever come across.
My job: I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, and I will work with two International Non-Government Organizations. One is PSI, Population Services International (funded by USAID, and works in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Mozambique) and the other is GHC, Global Health Communications (funded by the CDC). PSI is an organization that distributes and sells condoms, water purification products, mosquito nets, and does a ton of advertising and label recognition in an effort to create behavior change through social marketing. Its a really interesting concept. One that I clung to after hearing the presentation early on during training from a PSI representative. GHC works with MARP's (most at risk populations..ie transactional sex workers, drug users, etc) and from what I gather this is more behavior change, "hands on" type of work. I'll get to know a target group and over time start to identify things they feel need to be changed or worked on, place them in contact with help, which should include personal plans for success. Now, that probably sounds very very vague, but that's pretty much what I have to go on. The first three months are basically to get to know the community and re-adjust. GHC told me they probably wouldn't be in contact with me until February or March. I've already began observing and working with my PSI counterpart in Ribaue. I also met the leaders of the government here, the district hospital director, the director of education for the region, the chief of police, and today am going to meet all the neighborhood leaders.
My house is much nicer than I ever expected. I have 3 bedrooms, a living room, front porch, big yard that is fenced in by bamboo, the view from the back of my house over looks the mountain chain. Interestingly enough, the mountains run to my West and North, if its not raining, I get to watch the sun set behind the mountains. The mountains turn pitch black and there is a red glow around them. Its an amazing site.
Christmas I'll spend a few days on the Island of Mozambique with Megan Stuart (Stu), and then we're going to another Esther and Vonnies site to meet up with everyone else. We can't lave our province for the first 3 months of service. We're doing secret santa and will probably have lots of games, etc to entertain those of us stuck in Nampula for the holidays (to be honest this is where I would have wanted to come anyways..so it's definitely win win). I was the only guy from our training class sent to Nampula Province, and the ladies that were sent here are all really good cooks :-D so...christmas dinner should be great.
I do have pictures, and I was trying to load them, but its taking a long time. I think I was able to load one picture, but I'm not sure.
I hope everyone is well! Sorry about the lack of structure to this email, but I've put off an update for long enough.
Oh, before I forget, Stu told me I could share the link to her photos on snapfish. You'll have to set up an account (which is free & takes only about 2 minutes) and then you'll be able to see a good deal of what we did during training.
http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=644870028/a=605359028_605359028/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME
Sorry I fell off the grid there for a while. I had access to internet for majority of the time while in training, but I didn't have much desire to use it. I've put off sending an email updating you all on what I've been doing, because...its hard to put everything into words. I began typing email updates a few times, but was never felt that I was capturing my true experience. However, I will share a few thoughts, and photos, and hopefully you'll get a small vision of what life in Africa is like for me.
Training took place in Namaacha, in the Province of Maputo, Country of Mozambique. We spent 10 weeks cramming language, culture, learning about the health sector (and lack of basic forms of infrastructure), as well as simply adjusting to a life away from friends, family, and everything that I've known. A typical day I would wake up around 6am, shower, iron my clothes, eat breakfast, and walk to school. The walk the first few weeks would take me about 20 minutes one way, but once I learned the roads in the neighborhood, I was able to cut off 5 to 10 minutes, depending on where we were going that day for lessons, etc.
My homestay family was basically me and my mozambican mom. We have family that lived down the street from me, and once in a while they would come and visit or have dinner with us. There is a neighbor that lives right beside our house, Felix, and he helped me out a great deal from the very beginning. We spent many nights walking around, playing cards, working on my homework, and once in a while playing soccer.
So Namaacha is a pretty nice little city. Its on a small mountain range, and has a beautiful waterfall, which, of course a company bottles and sells while the city of Namaacha is going through a "drought." Gotta love capitalism, but thats another story. The town is bordered by Swazi, and there is a point where Mozambique, Swazi, and South Africa all three meet. The health people lived in Barrio 25. Its the poor end of town, with no paved roads in the neighborhood, tons of hills, the same color and texture dirt you find in Oklahoma (red dirt :-p)and when it rains an unbearable amount of mud to walk through. But its all fun if you make it so.
We celebrated Thanksgiving, and were also given our 2 year site placements that day. It was really exciting. We combined 2 of my favorite past times, with the one thing I've been looking forward to for the past year....eating & thanksgiving with the knowledge of exactly where I'd be for my Peace Corps service. My site is Ribaue city, in Nampula Province. Its in the NorthEast part of Mozambique and is absolutely beautiful. There is a chain of mountains that runs right here to my North and West. I'm also in a coastal province, so traveling to see the ocean isn't unmanageable. Granted, its 7 hours by chapa (local form of transportation...small busses or trucks that get jammed packed with people, animals, babies..etc etc.) but when you think of the fact that the closest ocean to Oklahoma is Galveston, you'll appreciate my excitement that in a short 7 hours I can be on one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever come across.
My job: I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, and I will work with two International Non-Government Organizations. One is PSI, Population Services International (funded by USAID, and works in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Mozambique) and the other is GHC, Global Health Communications (funded by the CDC). PSI is an organization that distributes and sells condoms, water purification products, mosquito nets, and does a ton of advertising and label recognition in an effort to create behavior change through social marketing. Its a really interesting concept. One that I clung to after hearing the presentation early on during training from a PSI representative. GHC works with MARP's (most at risk populations..ie transactional sex workers, drug users, etc) and from what I gather this is more behavior change, "hands on" type of work. I'll get to know a target group and over time start to identify things they feel need to be changed or worked on, place them in contact with help, which should include personal plans for success. Now, that probably sounds very very vague, but that's pretty much what I have to go on. The first three months are basically to get to know the community and re-adjust. GHC told me they probably wouldn't be in contact with me until February or March. I've already began observing and working with my PSI counterpart in Ribaue. I also met the leaders of the government here, the district hospital director, the director of education for the region, the chief of police, and today am going to meet all the neighborhood leaders.
My house is much nicer than I ever expected. I have 3 bedrooms, a living room, front porch, big yard that is fenced in by bamboo, the view from the back of my house over looks the mountain chain. Interestingly enough, the mountains run to my West and North, if its not raining, I get to watch the sun set behind the mountains. The mountains turn pitch black and there is a red glow around them. Its an amazing site.
Christmas I'll spend a few days on the Island of Mozambique with Megan Stuart (Stu), and then we're going to another Esther and Vonnies site to meet up with everyone else. We can't lave our province for the first 3 months of service. We're doing secret santa and will probably have lots of games, etc to entertain those of us stuck in Nampula for the holidays (to be honest this is where I would have wanted to come anyways..so it's definitely win win). I was the only guy from our training class sent to Nampula Province, and the ladies that were sent here are all really good cooks :-D so...christmas dinner should be great.
I do have pictures, and I was trying to load them, but its taking a long time. I think I was able to load one picture, but I'm not sure.
I hope everyone is well! Sorry about the lack of structure to this email, but I've put off an update for long enough.
Oh, before I forget, Stu told me I could share the link to her photos on snapfish. You'll have to set up an account (which is free & takes only about 2 minutes) and then you'll be able to see a good deal of what we did during training.
http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=644870028/a=605359028_605359028/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME
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