Written July 21, 2012

Posted – not to sure.

Good mid-morning all!

I hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of his or her weekend – its Saturday morning here in Namaacha, the end of week 7 coming to a quick close. Where has the time gone? On one hand it feels like I was just saying goodbye to everyone, on the other, I feel like I’ve been here for an exorbitant amount of time.  The language is coming along, as I knew it would, and I find that I am only truly frustrated every now and then.

My frustrations have turned elsewhere. . .

So ok, as much as I have enjoyed living with my host family here, ten weeks is a long time to be a guest in someone’s house. Too long in my opinion. While I am a young adult, and in the eye of people in Mozambique, a child because I have neither a baby of my own and am not married, this does not mean I am an incompetent individual. I know how to boil water. I know how to sweep my bedroom floor, I know how to bathe myself. I have reached a point here where I am truly sick of being told what to do.

In addition to this, I am not enjoying the fact that I have to ask to boil water for tea, that I am on someone else’s time schedule, and often times belittled for having a life of my own. I know my family here means well, but I have just reached a point in this experience where I am ready to say a fond farewell.

So yesterday we had a “test” of sorts. It was with our language groups and mothers. The volunteers and I were tested on our competency for domestic chores. These included; using the pilar to crush peanuts, sifting the peanuts after smashing, grating coconuts, washing clothes, lighting the charcoal stove, and ironing clothes.  For many of us, this was not only an insult to our intelligence, but we found it mainly an unnecessary waste of time. Personally I would have much rather used those 3 or 4 hours to study more Portuguese or read, or do technical training, but instead we preformed these tasks in front of our host mothers and a supervisor.

We were criticized about everything, and because not many of us showed much excitement in this task the host mothers stepped in to “correct” us in how to do tasks. It was annoying more than anything. I am not sure why we had to prove to anyone that we can do these tasks, when many of us do not plan to use them in our 2 years of service. If I cook with coconut (which I plan to) I already know how to use the grater. I’ve been living with a Mozambique family for 7 weeks. I know how to do these things. I have asked to learn the things I know I will use, and have gone through the motions of those that I won’t. (for example, I did not pack  any clothes that need ironing for a reason)

Needless to say, last evening over dinner, my host mother was not happy with me. She can be a very critical woman, which is another reason why I am extremely ready to leave. She was upset that I didn’t show much excitement in the challenge, ignoring the fact that I received full marks for all of the obstacles (5 out of 5 for all). I explained to her that I don’t plan on using a carvao “stove” for cooking, instead I would use a gas powered mini-range, and explained that throughout the 7 weeks here, I have learned to wash my own clothes (reminding her that I do it every Sunday) and so on. . she kept coming up with scenario’s where I would need to do things the Mozambique way. . . and I kept responding with answers that I find suitable and perfectly acceptable. Needless to say, the evening was a tense one.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say “So it goes.”

This morning started off lovely. I got up early and walked to the German bakery here in Namaacha with a fellow volunteer, we bought some fresh sweet bread for breakfast, and I purchased a loaf of Mozambique style raisin bread (not the same as at home sadly) as a gift for my family, hoping to clear the air. Then I had a few hours of language class – things are going well there, I can write basic compositions, and carry on a conversation describing things in the past, present and future tenses (there are considerable amounts of past tenses in Portuguese, similar to those of Spanish). Am I fluent? Hell no. but I will be after 2 years here.

I came home, to find a house full of children and no adults. . . story of my life here in Namaacha. (that’s the other complaint for the day, I didn’t sign up to play babysitter. I could do that in the states) but I went about my chores that I set out for my day; cleaning/scrubbing my water filter, boiling more water for the now-clean filter, sweeping my room, folding and organizing my clothes, airing out my sheets and remaking my bed, and fixing a tear in one of my dresses. . . sadly all of this took me about 3 hours to complete. And its barely noon.

I need to start pacing myself when it comes to these types of days. In my mind, I thought that would at least take me to early afternoon, whoops haha. So now, here I am, writing a nice little blog post to you all listening to Xavier Rudd  - Fortune Teller (great song) and other music. I like putting my iTunes on shuffle and seeing what strange stuff will be played while I’m going about my business. (if someone wants to send me a small pair of speakers, I wouldn’t complain)

But onto the really exciting news! SITE PLACEMENT!! Thursday we were all given our site placements! (finally!) I am heading to Quissico in Inhambane Provience. This is the site I went to for our “site visits” in weeks 5/6  of training. Its absolutely stunning, it has these great lagoons that are secluded from the masses (no touristy stuff) and is a nice small town, even though it is considered a district capital. It is a replacement site, meaning I will be overlapping with a current health volunteer, thank goodness she is a wonderful individual who I connected with during the visit. I will be living in a temporary house on the other side of town for the first month, and then moving into her old house. I’m really excited to “set up house” and make it my home. I have some pretty cool ideas about utilizing space (it is a very small two room house, one living room, one bedroom). And surprisingly I am super happy that I have an outdoor bathroom area. I have found that pit latrines are far cleaner than dump flush toilets, and that I prefer having my bathroom/shower are separate from my house.

I will be working with three organizations; ICAP – which works with the hospital in Quissico, I will be working with peer educators, to help develop projects, capacity building, and health activities in the community. ACUMUZA- which focuses on home based care of those who are chronically ill, capacity building, and income generation projects. And Despertai – an organization that focuses on needs assessments, income generation, orphans and vulnerable children support, and home based care as well.  The first listed is an INGO, while the other are CBO’s. I think this is a perfect mix of experiences, and am really really looking forward to starting work.

Now, when I say “work” I am using that in a Mozambique context. This is hardly an 8 hour work day (or more, depending on who you are in the states). Most volunteers here, spend about 4/5 hours “at work” and the rest of the day is free to experience the culture, prepare palestras (speeches) bond with the community etc. it’s a totally different work environment than what you all may envision. Personally, I am really looking forward to having a more relaxed daily schedule. I don’t know if that makes me lazy or what, but in my mind, this experience is all about getting to know your community, learning their needs, facilitating sustainable ideas and capacity building (promoting sustainability) and in turn, giving them cross cultural information and experience of an American lifestyle.

So if that means that Sunday’s I spend all day down at the lagoon so be it. Twist my arm why don’t ya? But seriously, I have full intentions on starting a co-ed soccer team for kids here, and getting secondary projects going. . which reminds me- I need to buy a day planner. Totally forgot to get one of those before I left.

How is everyone doing? Send me some emails with updates about life (personal and country wide). I don’t want to be too far behind the times when I do decide to return home.

With that, I say farewell. Parting song for the afternoon – Back to the Earth by Rusted Root.

Sending you all laughter, light and love-

t