swingg!

Written Thursday, March 14, 2013

Do you all remember the “swing” metaphor I was describing in some past blogs? I think this week is a prime example of how one can go from having a week that is totally frustrating, annoying, and disheartening (last week) to having a productive one that is filled with happiness. SWING!

Monday I had a productive meeting with the hospital director, and some of the head doctors about my hopeful Moringa nursery inside the hospital grounds. It was good, informative and productive. That afternoon I met with my REDES counterpart, and we planned out our REDES meeting for the next day.

On Tuesday I returned to the hospital waiting to meet with a gardener that was scheduled to come to the hospital. . .unfortunately he never made it, but that’s ok, because I was able to get some work done on my computer at the hospital- started making a power point presentation about Moringa, organized some paperwork for Peace Corps, started looking a bit more into grad school programs, and did some other “life admin” stuff. That afternoon we had our REDES (my girls empowerment group) meeting at my house. We talked about some possible projects to do this upcoming year, trying to get more girls involved, when our conference for trainers is going to be (mid-April I believe).

Once our meeting ended, the girls stayed for a bit just to chat. . . at first I was all about this, who doesn’t love some girl chat? But when it turned into a question session about why I don’t have kids/don’t want them, and them lecturing me about how I need to have at least one baby – because according to Mozambique, when I get back to the states I will have SO MUCH money, and need to have baby to spend this money on. Plus, what man would ever want me if I don’t want to have babies? And we all know just how IMPORTANT it is to have a man in your life. Heaven forbid I be single.

Sigh.

I did my best to explain that I’m living in the same situation that they are here in Moz- sitting in front of my reed hut you think that would have been clear- and that when I go home, I will be beyond broke, and in no way ready to have a child/be married. It didn’t translate.

Sigh (again).

I was and still am hesitant about having a REDES group. It is a huge responsibility on top of the work that I am doing here at site already – yes I have my days where there is nothing to do, but overall I have had a very busy and productive service here in Mozambique. So to commit to this project that I am not completely interested in is just a commitment I’m not sure if I am ready to make. I promised a friend here that I would stick it out for a bit at least. . . so we will see.

Wednesday I was at ACOMUZA for our weekly meeting. Finally I got to present about our seminar in Manjacaze a few weeks back. We went into great detail about some new plants, new forms of planting them, new nutritional information, medicinal plants, and finally a solar dehydration box. By far one of the most productive meetings I have had with them the past month or so. It felt really good to share and impart this knowledge. Knowing that this form of teaching will help to change lives for a healthier better.

After this productive meeting, I wandered through town a bit, did some grocery shopping, stopped in to say hey to Dona Julia (of course) and headed home. Unfortunately upon my return home, I noticed Lua’s stool contained worms. After a quick online diagnosis, I have decided that she has tapeworms, which aren’t a good thing at all. So I took her immediately to the Agriculture building in town, of course the technician wasn’t there, and I was sent on a wild goose chase back through town to try and find “some guy” who sold meds. Well I finally found him, and he was out of the meds, but he gave me the number for the technician, so hopefully today I will be able to get her vaccinated. And if that doesn’t workout, I am heading down to Macia/Bilene beach tomorrow, and I know that they have a vet in Macia, so I can take her with me there.  

I was severely startled by this discovery, as I know tapeworms can infect humans, and cause intensive damage. Its not like I have been playing with her poop, or ingesting it, but I know that it can be caused by fleas as well, and as I spend the better half of a day a few weeks back de-flea-ing her, I could have easily swallowed one.  So I called PCMO (peace corps medical office) and found out that I have medication available to me if necessary, and will be given a "poop test" in August during my mid-service conference. I also would have shown some serious symptoms, like fever, nausea, and weakness. So far, I’m ok. But will be continuing to take my temperature and monitor my health.

Again, any sort of medicine for fleas, heartworm meds, etc for the puppy would be greatly appreciated in care packages. Its just too hard to find such things here, and when I do, it is wayyy out of my price range.

Now I know that some of you may be rolling your eyes at the extent to which I am caring for this animal, as some may not agree with me having one in the first place- but I will say this. The months living in Namaacha, then the two months spent living in my temporary housing, and then the few weeks here without Ceu, my life didn’t feel normal. Having a dog here is good mental and emotional support. I love my little girl, and it gives me something to care and love for. Not to mention, the unconditional love given to me in return. – so for me, its all worth it.

Today I have a few things to get organized with my organization Despertai, and hopefully all goes well with Agriculture this morning with Lua. Some friends are coming down tonight, so I’m going to do some good cooking for them. Tomorrow morning, heading down to the beach for a nice relaxing weekend with friends. 

xoxo -t

just a recap

Written March 12, 2013

Morning all! It’s a cloudy and rainy, yet lovely Tuesday morning here in good old Quissico. I’ve got my coffee, oatmeal (with a touch of peanut butter thrown in) and some good music to start my day. Its been chilly here the past few days, rainy and overcast – I have been loving it. It’s such a glorious change from the constant heat and sun.

So this past weekend was much more laid-back than the one before, Friday night I traveled to the next town north (Inharrime) to visit a very good friend. We spent the night cooking, watching a movie, cutting my hair, and playing with our respective “babies”, I had brought Lua with me. It was exactly what I needed after a terrible week. Relaxing time spent with a very good friend here. I don’t know what my life would be like here without her – I literally turn to her for just about everything. She’s an incredible woman who is going to do great things with her life. Lookout world.

I headed home the next day, making it back to Quissico just in time for the heavens to open up and start the rain that would last all through the weekend and into this morning. Sunday was pretty uneventful, I hung around the house, composed some emails, looked into grad school programs, talked with people from home a bit - my best friend finally got “whatsapp” – a free texting application that uses data, and doesn’t cost to text/talk internationally. It literally made my day when she texted me.

That evening I went to meet the new JICA volunteer in town for dinner. Nice guy, hes a bit older than Sota is – almost 40yrs old. He is still very very uncomfortable with life here in Mozambique. I introduced him around town Monday after work at the hospital, took him to some of my favorite people in town- and we did some shopping for his house (plates/silverware etc) afterwards I made us lunch here at my house. Compared to his beautiful house, mine is just another hut made out of sticks. . .  but that’s basically what it is haha. But it was a nice time spent together, we communicate in broken English, as his Portuguese is about as good as mine was when I got to site (aka- terrible) and we make do. Its defiantly not going to be the same type of relationship as Sota and I had – grabbing drinks and cooking together, but hopefully it will be a nice friendship.

Work is finally starting to show some progress – I’m working on getting this big Moringa project started at the hospital, getting one of my CBO’s involved . . . its taking a lot of time, but you know what they say “what takes a week in America, takes 3 months in Africa” or something like that. Either way, I believe it.

So the remainder of this week will be spent working on this project, being at the hospital, and trying to get my REDES group up and running again. I’ll be a bit busy!

xo - t

frustration

Written March 7, 2013

Morning everyone, how has the week been? I hope that everyone is staying warm and safe from the massive snowstorms rolling through, or enjoying the snow out on the slopes!

So life has been pretty par for the course here, nothing too crazy exciting. I had a terrrrrrrriiiibblllleee day on Tuesday. Nothing seemed to go right, and I almost broke down in tears in the middle of the market. I am finding my work in the hospital to be very stressful, not sustainable, and overall generally very annoying. I don’t really enjoy spending time there, and I think it shows. I greet my Peer Educators with aplomb, because that is who I am there to work with, but then everyone splits off into their respective areas to work, and I head into reception to help try and organize the clusterfuck (pardon my french, but that’s what it is) of paperwork. Shaking my head on a daily basis the amount of disorganization and chaos that ensues searching for a specific persons file, while overhearing phrases like “where did that pile of papers from yesterday go” to find out that that “pile of papers” are people’s CD4 counts- something rather, um I dunno, IMPORTANT, to knowing if they should be given the ARV medication or not.

Ugh.

So my work there is frustrating, and I keep saying that I cant continue to do what it is I am doing – that’s not my role, nor my responsibility – that we should hire someone for me to train, and get another few people in the reception area to work with the ONE receptionist. This usually falls on deaf ears with under the breath mumbles “we don’t need to hire people if we have you to work for free” its infuriating.

So I left the hospital, and walked across the street to my CBO (community based organization) to find that they are planning an entirely new project. Which is great, it really is wonderful that they are making plans, moving forward and doing sustainable work, its just annoyed me that this was never even mentioned in our weekly meetings, or the many times I stop by there during the week. So I sat in the meeting with a dumbfounded expression on my face, not able to contribute anything to the process. Making me feel worthless for the second time that day.

With all that said and done, I said to myself “self, you deserve a nice cold coca-cola at Dona Julia’s shop”.  So I took my frustrated, sweaty self down into town – to find that her shop was just overrun with people, and that she was incredibly busy. FAIL.

The next brilliant idea that popped into my mind – “self, go buy some avocado’s and have one for lunch”. So I went over to one of the ladies selling avocados, and started selecting 4 that I liked. Now to get a good mental picture of what is about to happen, please imagine small pyramids of 4 avocado’s on top of a tarp, most of the time, the purchaser can select whatever avocado’s he/she wishes . . . . NOT THIS TIME. The woman started yelling at me that I was taking all the big avocado’s. I promised her that I wasn’t, I was just selecting the ones I wanted to eat (some had bumps/bruises). She continued to yell at me and told me that I was only to take the pile from which I selected my first avocado. I demanded my money back while other women in the market were yelling that I could go over to them to pick any avocado that I wanted. The woman refused to hand over my money – playing hide and seek with it, much like a 3 year old does when they don’t want to give something up (mind you this woman was probably in her mid 60’s). finally I snatched the money from her hand, assured her I would never buy avocado’s from her again, and marched out of the market.

It was possibly the most frustrating experience I have had in the marketplace since first getting to site when I didn’t speak any Portuguese and was still incredibly intimidated.

After all of this, I finally make it home (no neighbors in sight to help calm me down) thinking to myself “self, you deserve a nice glass of wine, and a movie in front of your fan”. . . to find that my fan is broken beyond repair. FAIL

It was not a good day for me.

I went to bed early, shaking my fist at this crazy place called Mozambique.

The week has since turned around a bit, but I am still generally frustrated with many things, and wishing I had a bit of an escape. I am looking forward to tomorrow night – I’m going up to Inharrime (the next town north) for the evening to hang out with Jasmin and Veronica. We are going to have dinner, watch a movie, and hopefully I’ll get my hair trimmed! I need a little escape from life here. I really hope this will help.

Its great to hear from those at home. Keep the emails coming

Xoxo

t

42 americans in quissico

Written March 5, 2013

Holy hell. . . what a weekend

Just a quick recap for all you kiddies at home my house is very small, two rooms in fact. I live comfortably because its just me and the puppy. . .neither of us needing very much space.

This past weekend, I had 42, yes that’s right 42 people in and around this house. Quissico was overrun with Americans. It was downright crazy.

Overall the party (which was thrown in the honor of two fellow Moz 18ers birthdays) was a huge success. People showed up Friday, tents were set up, beers were cracked, an the merriment commenced. To avoid having to cook for 40 some people I went to a local restaurant and asked if we could rent out the kitchen for both Friday and Saturday nights. It ended up being very affordable for everyone involved and it gave us a place to cook, eat, dance and be merry a bit a ways out of town. Which is good for me, as it sort of helped to “save face”. Later that night we went back to my house and set up a projector/white sheet on my wall, and watched superhero movies. It was a very chill atmosphere, not sure how many people watched the movie, most were just talking amongst themselves, but it was still a wonderful way to end Friday.

Saturday everyone woke up from the odd places they slept Friday night, and we all had a quick but filling breakfast of apple cinnamon oatmeal. Then we all mobilized and headed down to the lagoon. Sadly it is a bit of a complicated walk, and because we split into two groups, some got lost. It all worked out in the end though, and we were together and happy on the beach. Storm clouds started rolling in, so again, some of us decided to pack it in, and head back up the hill. We made it almost into town before the heavens opened up soaking us – which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there was no water running all weekend in Quissico, therefore bathing was not an option for people. Sad smelly truth about Peace Corps life. . . sometimes you are just gonna have to be smelly. After our good ‘rinsing’ everyone came back to try and air things out (tents having gotten wet etc) and we changed into our “superhero/villain” costumes, and snacked on some guacamole.

Yours truly, was the “Ultimate YINZER” I made a skirt from my two terrible towels, had a steelers hat, and other little things that made me the ultimate fan. There was a girl who was a “Philly Fanatic” so we were archrivals haha it was perfect. Everyone had a costume so I feel it was a successful theme for the party. That night we went back to the restaurant had dinner there, and again, people got merry and danced the night away. I packed it in with a group of people somewhat early, and we headed for home. Around 2am everyone else rolled in, and I had to be the “bad guy” and shut the party down (people were a bit rowdy) but I think it all worked out because people had to leave early – the downside to pc life is traveling on Sunday when you are hungover. So we got almost everyone out by 11am. Then the big clean happened. Not too many things were broken, and after about 2 hours of intensive cleaning and organizing, my house is almost back to normal. It’ll take a week or so until I get everything aired out, clean, and back to how I usually have it. But it was all worth it.

Yesterday I went back to work, I had a meeting with Despertai (my one community based organization) where one of the doctors from the hospital came to talk about a project we are trying to start, working in tandem with community organizations, I was also able to present our information from our agricultural seminar (the week spent in Manjacaze) and we all made plans for the months future – health workshops to be given in local schools, our gardening project, finishing our office building etc. it was a very productive meeting.

The rest of the day I stayed in bed –feeling a bit under the weather (all of the stress finally caught up to me) – with movies, and my puppy dog.

Lua is continuing to thrive, no fleas, worms or any sort of bad stuff that I can tell. We have fallen into a good routine I think, and I am planning to take her to a vet in the near future, to get her vaccinated, and talk about when I can come back for the rabies vaccine.

Anywho . . . . I suppose that’s all for now.

I’ve loved getting emails and updates from home. X’s and O’s always

tay

what i'm really thinking

Written March 1, 2013

Well well well. . .here we are in March.

I’m officially 9 months in-country as of yesterday, which means I’m a 1/3^rd of the way through my service. It was the last single digit month I’ll have here in Moz. Kind of a mind-boggling concept.

There has been a lot of discussion within my friend circle about the passage of time here, how days can feel like forever, weeks seem like they are never ending, and yet here we are, already 9 months in. For me, the weeks seem to go by quickly, I am always staying busy with work, going out into the town, hanging with the neighbors etc. I may not always have the most productive workweek, especially by western standards, but for me it’s an OK pace of life.

In my time here, I’ve developed this funny little “inner monologue” that plays constantly throughout my day. I don’t know if this is because a different language, culture or what, surrounds me. Either way it happens on a daily basis. I can have a full conversation with someone in Portuguese about something like the weather or how my dog is doing, all the while running this little inner monologue about something totally wild.

For example, Wednesday during my weekly meeting with ACOMUZA – which lasted 5 hours, and was totally done in local language (talk about time to think about things). I started comparing my puppy to babies. As many of you know, I am not the biggest fan of babies, kids I like, I enjoy hanging out, playing, teaching them etc, but when it comes time to go home, we can go our separate ways and be fine. I’ve never had that internal desire to have children, and probably never will. Sorry – a bit off topic. Anyway. . . .

So I was sitting there comparing my new puppy who was sound asleep on my lap, to the baby sitting on my coworkers lap beside me. After my organizations general excitement and bewilderment of my new pup (including questions like, “does she pee/poop?” “where does she sleep?”) Lua snuggled down on my lap for a nice long nap. She was the perfect calm little puppy, waking up only once in the 5 hours to go to the bathroom, I took her out and we walked around for about 20 minutes or so. Much unlike the human baby sitting next to me. That little nugget managed to poop on his mothers lap (literally, she had poop on her clothing) had to be breast fed twice, threw two temper tantrums, and was constantly making noise/acting unruly. Yes I know they are two totally separate concepts, a human baby and a puppy, but my inner monologue was going crazy with questions like – “why are you concerned that my dog is going to poop on me, when your baby poops on you? My dog already is better trained than your child.” Or just the general question about what the heck is so appealing about having a baby??

Ok – my little rant is done. Thank you for bearing with me.

Also during my downtime here I tend to compile lists, lists of all kinds – to-do lists, bucket lists, shopping lists, wish lists etc. you get the picture.  During this insanely long meeting I updated my Love/Could do without list about life here in Moz. here it is.

LOVE:

-       sunrises

-       my house/neighborhood

-       drinking coffee on my porch

-       my neighbors/community friends

-       my organizations

-       the ability to pick my nose in public

-       looking like a total slob, and still being called “beautiful”

-       my site, Quissico

-       hanging out in the market

-       cold coca-cola and conversation with Donna Julia

-       sitting under a mango tree

-       napping on my esteria

-       experimenting with cooking

-       when my projects finally come together

-       how peoples clothing here never matches

-       how my personal style has gone out the window (when did a beater and cuffed jeans become a style? Oh that’s right, never)

-       speaking a second language

-       music and dancing

Could do Without:

-       5 hour meetings done entirely in the local language, Chopi

-       constantly being the center of attention, just because of my skin color

-       constant comments/questions about my relationship status

-       the confusion and wonderment about why I take such good care of my dog

-       children and babies (that goes for being anywhere really)

-       “passing the buck” people not taking responsibility for their actions

-       the hissing noise made at me when I walk through town to get my attention, do I look like a cat??

-       kissy noises

-       “Estou a pedir”

-       how everything here is in a constant state of disorganization

-       why it is ok for a baby to pee on the floor in the middle of a meeting, while people are terribly concerned that my dog may do the same

-       how, no matter how hard I try, my feet are constantly filthy

-       rats and gigantic spiders (still not ok with that part of PC service)

happy march everyone!

-tay