Check that off my Life to do list

                By living overseas and joining the Peace Corps I have been able to do many things that I have always wanted to do.  You could say I’m crossing things off my bucket list, my life goals, however you want to put it, I have been checking things off left and right since arriving here.  Since I only have about 8 months left here and I haven’t written anything in a while, I figured I’d share a few of the wonderful things I’ve been able to do with you all.  This will also get my mother to stop giving me “subtle” and not so subtle hints to write on here… let’s just call this my Happy “you gave birth to me day” to you Mom, I mean it is a pretty important day for you as well as me.  So with that all said, here is some things that I have always dreamed of doing that this experience has allowed me to do.

1.       Join the Peace Corps- For a very long time, since I heard about Peace Corps I thought that it sounded cool.  Moving to a new place, meeting new people and experiencing new things… right up my alley.  Then in college we had a guest speaker in one of my classes who did the Peace Corps and I pretty sure I was sold then and there.  It was perfect for me, everything I’ve always wanted to do.  Travel… check, learn… check, meet new people… check, adventure… CHECK.  So just by joining the Peace Corps and starting this journey was my first step to crossing off things on my Life to do list.

2.       Traveling and living abroad- Ok this is a general goal, but I’ve always had the travel bug.  Be it the family vacations every summer that has allowed me to visit all 48 of the continental US, the Spanish trips to Costa Rica, or just my interest in traveling the world that has been in my head forever, that wanderlust has always been there. Obviously, I am now living and working in a different country on a different continent so that meets all of my wishes and dreams right there.  Also in my free time and school breaks here, I have been able to see much of this country as well as some of the surrounding ones.  My goal in the next year is to visit all the countries that boarder Mozambique, So far I have 2 out of 6 and plan on visiting 2 more in June or July.

3.       African Safari- Ok I think I can trace this back to a magazine I used to get as a kid.  I have this image of the magazine Zoobooks that we used to get as kids and the one that always

sticks out in my mind is the one with an elephant on the cover.  That is my first memory of loving elephants and wanting to visit places where they live in the wild.  Then at some time around then I discovered or comprehended what the continent of Africa was and something called a safari, where you drive around and see animals.  My family can attest to the fact that I’ve always loved animals and seeing different animals, judging by the amount of zoos and aquariums I begged and threw fits to go visit during our aforementioned trips.  So the thought of seeing animals in their natural habitat sounded better than anything I could imagine.  And finally at the age of 25 I got to experience this dream and in the Serengeti of all places.  Let’s just say it surpassed my expectations… the first animal that we saw upon entering our first park, the Tarangire Park in Tanzania, was a herd of ELEPHANTS!  I could have been done there and been happy, but luckily that wasn’t the case and I got to see all your typical animals that you think of when you think of a safari.  The only one that we didn’t see up close was a rhino, that one had to be looked at through binoculars, but other than that, the animals were all so close, if I had wanted to lose a hand or start a stampede, I could have reached out of the car and touched a few lions and elephants.  Instead of describing all of the animals, I will share a link to an album on google drive, where I have many of the photos I took.  It truly was a dream come true.  The parks we visited were Tarangire the first day and the Serengeti the second. We camped in the middle of the Serengeti and were told before leaving our tents at night for the bathroom, we should shine our flashlights around to make sure there were no animals around and then we were told stories about lions coming into the camp.   The third day was the Ngorongoro Crater, where we also camped and had an armed guard to protect us from animals, especially elephants that often come into the camp!
Holiday/Safari Pictures   

5. Teaching - So this hasn't always been my dream.  I went through the phase of wanting to be a garbage woman/ part time ballerina when I was 3 or 4, the long period of time where I either wanted to live on a farm or be a veterinarian or a dolphin trainer at sea world.  For several years of high school and my first year of college I was going to be a psychologist but then I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to teach.  Sure I could have worked in schools in America and made my mother's life a little easier, but when have I done that.  Being here and teaching, although working in a school system like the one in place is very difficult, I have realized how much I enjoy teaching.  I love working with my students and I stay here on the rough days because of them.  I now know that I have to teach, its what I want to do with my time and that I miss teaching children.  That's what this experience has done for me, allowed me to know what I want to do with my life.  I still don't know where or exactly how I'm going to continue this, hey I didn't say I had everything thing figured out.  Just the profession or that I need to be able to teach people something.

6. Learn a new Language- I've always thought it would be cool to be able to speak different languages, but after 4 years of high school Spanish and a year in college with the result of not even knowing how to have a simple conversation in Spanish, I realized that the classroom was not how I was going to learn new languages.  I'm the type of person that needs to do things to learn them and I'll admit, I'm often quite lazy, so if I'm not forced to do something, I may not do it.  So the situation I'm in, was the best chance for me to learn new languages.  I was thrown into a situation where in order to talk with my colleagues, to buy food, to make friends, to travel and to tell people to leave me alone and things like "no I won't marry you" or "no I'm not giving you my bread or money", I had to learn a new language.  I am in no way fluent and if I went to Portugal or Brazil I'd probably be laughed at and asked where I learned Portuguese, but I am no longer afraid to speak it and I can have a conversation with people and get what I need done.  I have also learned a few phrases in the local language here and even learned some phrases in Swahili.  Here's to 8 more months of learning.

7.       And finally the reason I wrote this blog, I solved a RUBIK’s Cube.  Ok this isn’t the reason but my mom used my facebook post about this feat to hint that I should right a blog, so I have to include it.  Let's start at the beginning, my roommates parents sent her a few Rubik’s Cubes to pass the time for us and we’ve both been working every once in a while to try to solve our respective cubes, and this last week I have been working on it at any free moment I had.  Finally on March 13, 2015 I finally did it! I went all mathematician, code breaker and even drew diagrams and possible patterns to figure it out.  I wasn’t about to ruin my progress by just turning sides haphazardly when I was one part away from solving it.  This has been a goal of mine because it always seemed impossible and I finally had the time to try and actually work toward it.  Now that’s done and I can move on to mastering the art of juggling.

This experience so far has definitely had its ups and downs.  I've had some very low points where I asked why I was here and at some points didn't want to work with people or even talk to people other, but I have never regretted this experience or wanted to finish early.  I have had so many wonderful experiences, ones I'd never dreamed of as well as one's I'd been dreaming of since I was a child and couldn't even imagine actually accomplishing them.  I have some plans to cross a few more things off my "Life to do list"  in the next year and I'm so excited for them (also a little terrified) but I won't give anything away, because then what will I write about.  Until the next big thing... tchao

You flush your toilet... I have water for a day.

I realized after talking to some family and friends, that the last update I gave was about not having water or power.   Well in early October, we got electricity back the IFP and our home.  No more late night trips to the guard house to fight for an outlet to charge things, no more cooking on carvão (charcoal), no more silent days without music because all of my electronics are dead and I have nowhere to charge them until night.  We still don’t have running water in our house so that has been an (quick) adjustment.  We are very lucky that the IFP has a large water pump right on the campus and it is very easy to get too.  We are also lucky that many times when we ourselves go to fill up our buckets of water (often we have our empregado do it) our students will be around and will always offer to help.  Occasionally in the past, I would refuse but let’s be real… I really don’t like carrying water, so if I don’t have to, that’s great.  Plus it’s how they show us respect, by offering their help… it’s what students here do for their teachers, so who am I to say noJ.

                I was talking to my dad the other day and he asked how much water I used per day, and while it varies each day depending on how many dishes we have, if Sam or I do laundry, if our empregado comes, if I bathe and if I wash my hair that day, and any number of other things.  When I told him what I thought, his response was, “that’s what we use to flush the toilet here.”  This got me thinking and I started measuring on average what all of my activities use for water.  So here we go… here is what I use for water daily.

Drinking: I try to drink at the very least 3L of water a day because it is very hot here and I sweat a lot and walk a lot as well.  Some days I drink more, some days less but this is my goal each day.

Shower:  If I don’t wash my hair, I probably use about 1.5L of water or so, if I wash my hair maybe 2.5L at most.  I’ve gotten very good at using very little water.  We also collect the dirty water from our bucket baths and laundry to flush our toilet with… that’s right our toilet is a dump flush now.

Washing hands/brushing teeth/ things like this:  I probably only use about 3 Cups of water a day for this all. 

Laundry:  This is where we use a lot of water.  We try to use as little as possible and if I’m being completely honest, I don’t do laundry nearly as much as I should considering how dusty and sweaty I get walking into town.   To do laundry I probably use about 20-30L or so.  And again we save this water to flush the toilet. 

Flushing the Toilet:  As I said, we use the water from our showers and laundry that is already dirty.  We never use clean new water for this. 

Washing Dishes: Depending on what we cook we probably use about 2L on average to wash our dishes.

Cleaning: Once a week our empregado washes the floor and he probably uses about 9L of water for this.  And we probably use about a Liter the rest of the week for cleaning

Cooking: again depends on what we cook but probably only a few liters for this at most during the day.

As these are mostly estimates, I decided to measure in one average day what I used.  So I filled up this bucket to the 25L mark

25L to start

The bucket full of water at the beginning of the day

and we only used water from this bucket for the entire day.  This day included both Sam and I taking bucket baths (and both of us washed our hair), as well as cooking, doing dishes and boiling water for our filter.  So the result; we used about 12L of water in one day, for those of you who don’t want to do the conversion, that’s about 3 gallons of water. 

Update: Ironically yesterday, I was sitting in our main room when I heard a unfamiliar rumbling and clang-ing from our pipes... the water is back.

End of the day about 13L left.

Here is a chart that I found at http://www.wsscwater.com/home/jsp/content/water-usagechart.faces with some average household items and the average water use of them, so you can get an idea of the difference in my life now.  

Indoor Water Consumption

Activity	Gallons Used (Conventional)	Gallons Used (Water Saving*)
Toilet Flushing	5 - 7 gallons per flush	1½ - 3½ gallons per flush
Shower (water running)	7 - 10 gallons per minute	2 - 4 gallons per minute
Bath (full tub)	36 - 50 gallons (conventional)	30 - 40 gallons (conventional) 40 - 80 gallons (whirlpool)
Laundry Machine (full load)	60 gallons top loader	42 gallons top loader
Dishwasher	15 gallons normal load	7½ - 10 gallons normal load
Dish Washing by hand	30 gallons tap running	10 - 20 gallons tap running
Shaving	20 gallons tap running	2 - 5 gallons tap running
Brushing Teeth	10 gallons tap running	2 - 3 gallons tap running
Washing Hands	2 gallons tap running	1 - 2 gallons tap running
Bath Shower	30-50 gallons 7-10 minutes	Average shower = 12 -15 minutes A 15 minute shower = 150 gallons Many people shower more than 15 minutes During hot weather, we tend to shower more often

Posh Corps is no more.

I know, I know everyone… it’s been a while.   At least for the last 2 weeks, I have a good excuse.  So as most of you know, if you have been following my blog or talked to me, I have lived a pretty chique life for the last few months, it’s what we in the Peace Corps like to call the Posh Corps.  I have had running water, a shower that works (although it is cold), energy and I live on an IFP where we have a guard so things are fairly safe here.   However, I am here to tell you, that my Posh Corps life is over for now.  

               About two weeks ago, Sam and I were sitting at the table doing work and eating lunch, when we heard a loud BOOOOM!  I’ve never heard an actual bomb but I kind of imagine that’s what they sound like in the distance.  In tandem with the sound, the power went out and shortly after the running water stopped.  We weren’t quite sure what had happened but we’d become semi-used to the power outages once in a while so we just hoped it’d be fixed in the next day.  Unfortunately, it was not. 

                We went about 5 days, then they fixed it for about 12 hours, and then it went out again.  Upon further investigation, turns out, we need a new transformer, and to get that first we need the money and permission from some higher ups.  Also, it sounds like the IFP has to order this part from another country, so we are looking at no water or energy for a while here.

                Granted many of the other PCVs here in Mozambique live this way every day, so some of them are probably rolling their eyes and saying, "Catia, welcome to my world. However, in my defense, they have had the opportunity to set up systems for this and are prepared to have to cart water and store water and cook without energy, we were not.  We did have a small backup storage of water that lasted a while and we have carvão (charcoal) and a charcoal stove now, but it took us about a week to accept that this problem was going to be long term and so we put off buying carvão.  Before we gave in and bought more carvão we suffering a lot and had about 6 veggie sandwiches a day.  For those of you who know me well, you know tomatoes have never been a favorite of mine, I’ll eat them cooked with things and sometimes on sandwiches, but last week my daily consumption of food included, a sandwich with butter, tomatoes, sometimes onion, parmesan cheese, and a variety of spices.  I got to the point where I would also just eat slices of tomato plain.  Strange I know!  I find myself now craving those sandwiches and wanting to just eat tomatoes.  Peace corps changes you man!

         Just wanted to give you an update on my silence lately on all forms of internet communication.  I'm going to be living the Matu life for a while... wish me luck!

You just (pick 1) got married, had a baby, got a new job, bought a house, ate a pizza. And I'm .... being called Akunha 24/7.

So recently I've been reflecting a lot on my time here and some of the not so good parts of it.  In this post I am going to talk about something that I don't always talk about especially when people in the US ask how things are going.  Usually I respond that things are good and tell them about whatever I can that has been good in my life at that time.  For me this has been the hardest part of my experience here in Mozambique, it is homesickness.  Two of my closest friends since preschool/kindergarten went through some pretty big life changes recently, which I had to miss, one got married and one had her first child, and many others in my life have had some major life events. 

I knew signing up for the Peace Corps that I would end up missing many important things in the lives of people back home.  I knew I’d miss big life events such as, new jobs, new boyfriends/girlfriends, engagements, marriages, babies, etc.  I knew this going into it and some of these things, I knew specifically were going to happen and I’d be missing them while I was in Mozambique.  I thought long and hard about what I’d missing before I accepted this volunteer position.  It wasn’t easy, but I decided I needed to try this experience otherwise I would regret it, and wonder what life would have been like if I had taken this chance.  There was never going to be a perfect time to do this, a time where no one back home was going to be moving on with his or her lives, where there would be nothing important happening in my friends and family’s lives.  However, this was the time when I needed to do this, because otherwise, I would get a job and it would be harder for me to leave, and maybe I’d meet someone that would make it harder to leave. 

Making that decision and accepting what I would be missing was probably the hardest part of this process for me, but I accepted it, and knew that this experience was what I wanted from my life.  Just like all my friends who were getting married or having babies, that is what they wanted from life and that is what makes them happy.  What I didn’t realize was how hard it would to be to actually miss these events.  I knew my oldest friend would be getting married, and I love a good wedding and wedding reception with my friends and that was very hard for me to miss.  Luckily I was helping with a conference and we had  a lot of problems and things to deal with, so I had a lot on my mind trying to fix those and didn’t really have much of a chance to think about it. 

I’m not the type of person that likes to admit when I cry or let people see me cry, but this is where I’m about to get real.  When I found out my friend was pregnant a while ago, I shed a few tears and then again when she had the baby.  I don’t know if I was just having a tough day when I found that out or was particularly homesick that day, but here I am… telling you that I cried a little when my friends back in the states had some pretty exciting happy news.  I would not change this experience for anything.  I love my life here.  I love the people I have met, my students, my work (most of the time), Mozambique (most of the time), but I didn’t realize how much I would miss people from home.  I knew I’d miss them, but I’d never experienced homesickness, and I definitely have now. 

Technology now, is both a blessing and a curse.  It allows me to talk with friends and family (although not as often as I’m sure some of them would like *cough, cough* Mom and dad … sorry).  It will allow me to meet my friend’s new baby and see him grow, even before I get to meet him in person.  It allows me to keep you updated on life here and share parts of this wonderful country with the world.  But it also is a constant reminder of things I am not a part of.  I see all my friends and everyday things that they are doing together, that I might have been part of if I was still in the United States.   I hear about the holidays spent with family, which I usually am part of.  I see the great things that my friends and family are continuing to do, while some days I feel like I’m just sitting in Africa.

This is part of the Peace Corps experience that not everyone talks about, but if you’ve done this, you probably know what I’m talking about.  This is the part that you may have been told about before going to your country of service, or may have thought you were prepared, but when wedding days pass without you, you may not have been completely prepared.  This is part of the reason that us volunteers have such strong bonds with each other, we each have our own experiences, but we can understand the general feelings that we all go through.  We struggle to understand the new culture and languages that we are immersed in.  We struggle to not feel homesick, or to not feel like we are missing out.  But we get to speak English at a normal speed together (not the slowed down version we put on for most of our students and people who want to learn English from us).  We get to meet new people, we may have never had the chance to know otherwise.  We get to make friends from all over the world.  We get to have amazing, scary, wonderful, and new experiences all the time.  So although I miss everyone from the states, and I have missed a lot of my closest friends major life events, and some days I wonder what I am doing with my life, I wouldn’t trade this in for anything.   

Stories by My Students: A Little Bit About My Life...

INTRODUCTION ABOUT MYSELF

My name is Osvaldo Ângelo, I am 19. I started studying in 2001 when I was 6, and I finished grade 12 in 2012 when I was 17. I come from Mecanhelas district, at Nicaca area.

     I like talking with people from outside like; Malawi, Britain, America and Tanzania, to exchange ideas.

     I like playing with children and eating rice mixed with chicken.

     One day when I was 4, I almost died because I went in the well to take water by myself. I fell into the well and I did not know how to swim. Luckily, my mother was coming at the same time and she threw a rope to me and pulled me out.

   When I was 6, on February 14^th , 2001 my mother and father were removing the kernels from maize. I was playing with them. One piece of maize got in my nose and it was difficult to breathe. My father transported me to the hospital and the doctor helped me. First, he tried to pull the kernel out with a tool, but it did not work. Next, he held the top of my nose and he told me to blow air out of my nose, and it worked. Blood came out too, so the doctor put something in my nose to help heal the wound. Then we went home and after a week, I recovered. I didn’t play with the maize ever again.

  One day when I was 8, I was walking in the mountains and I was looking for sticks. I needed sticks for the roof of the house I was building. I stepped on a big snake, called a python. I was afraid but the python didn’t do anything to me. I was still afraid so I ran home to tell my parents.

Dance Competitions and Reproductive Health

     Tania made the trip back to Cuamba with us after our trip.  Just like after any trip, I was not ready to go back to work.  So I decided to take advantage of having Tania there and we would do some activities with her.  Another PCV was coming to Cuamba to give some classes on Sexual Reproductive Health as well but I was not sure if she would make it to my classes or not.  I figured if she made it in time, Ariel could give the reproductive health lessons, because that is very important for these students, otherwise Tania and I would do some activities with my 11th graders.

My students and Tania... they loved her

The next day came and Ariel had gotten to Cuamba late the night before, so she wasn’t going to make it for my first class.  So it was all Tania.  I decided we would let them ask her questions and just practice speaking English.  Right before we got to class we decided it would be fun to pretend that Tania does not speak any Portuguese, so they would have to work and only speak English.  This was fun.  We got there and they questions began.  Started with the standard, how old are you, are you married, where do you live, what do you do, what do you like to do in your free time, etc.  Then what kind of music do you like, her and I gave a little beat and did a little dance… my students got to see a new side of me.  I am usually pretty serious in my classes because one of my classes does not listen to me if I joke around; this first class is not the same.  I think I’ve gained a little more respect over the last few months with them.  Part way through the questions we decided we wanted them to “teach” Tania a little Portuguese.  So we started having them translate some of the things that they were asking and some of her answers.  This was great, until one point when I wasn’t listening and someone translated what she said wrong.  I didn’t hear it, but Tania handled it well… she was like, is that really what I said and looked at me.  I had them repeat it and I realized it was wrong.  She said her response again and this time someone got it right… I should really pay attention more haha.
Toward the end, after Tania and I talked about how much she liked to dance and how much she liked music, one of my students raised his hand and asked…. “Can we have a dance contest?”  Tania said she would, so I said it was fine.  We put on some Michael Jackson and had 5 of my students and Tania as contestants.  I knew, in general, Mozambicans are very good dancers… but these students were amazing.  They were pulling some serious Michael Jackson moves.  Luckily, I got a short video of some of them, you cannot see great because most of the students ended up standing up.  When Tania disappears, she is doing the worm.  At the end, we voted it was a close one, but Tania ended up winning.  I’m not sure if I agree, Tania was great but these kids have some skills.

The dance-off.. 

The dance contestants 

For the next class, Tania talked to them for about 15 minutes and then Ariel came.  She taught about the reproductive systems of both a male and a female, talked about pregnancy and answered several questions.  These kids did not know a whole lot.  I wish she would have had more time, but the next teacher was ready to teach his class.  The next day she did the same thing for my other class.  Again, they had so many questions for her that she only got through a fraction of her material.  That was ok, because it is important to answer their questions and address the wrong information that they have been given, but they need more classes like this.    I hope that she will be able to come back sometime, maybe for a week and give lessons for the entire week.  We talked with the director and she was able to give these classes to some 9th and 10th grade classes in the afternoon for teachers who were either sick or who did not show up.  Each time, she said she got through only a fraction of her material, due to students questions.  All of my students said that they wanted her to return some day and teach them more.

Everything the light touches is our kingdom.

Disclaimer... this post was written at the end of April... and for some reason I never posted it.  so when it starts last saturday that doesn't actually mean yesterday or last week.  It means about 2 months ago... anyway here it is)

Last Saturday, Rich (our site mate/neighbor), Sam and I finally went for a hike up what we call Church Mountain.  I guess it is mountainish, but I’d say it’s a very big hill.  At the top, you guessed it, is an old small church built a while ago.  It was absolutely beautiful up there and we were able to see so much of our beautiful site. 

We left the IFP around 7:30am and started the trek to the base of the mountain.  It isn’t too far from the IFP and probably only took about 15-20ish minutes to get to the trail.  Finding the actual trail was difficult, it was very grown over and neither Sam nor I knew where we were going, but don’t worry Rich found it and we started the hike.  It was a fairly easy hike to the top, minus one part that had all the tall grass and other plants flattened and was very steep.  It didn’t help that it was still early and the grass was wet, so that part was a little slippery and we had to be careful not to slip and slide all the way back down.  No worries though everyone (ie Mom) we made it safely up and were a little concerned about the way back, until we realized there was a much easier path that we had missed on the way up.  I don’t want to think about how the people who built the church were able to get all the materials to the top, I’m just glad it wasn’t my job.  It was so pretty at the top, there is something about old buildings that I just love, they are just beautiful.  Instead of trying to describe everything I’ll just post some pictures.

See that white grouping of buildings... that's the IFP

Gosh this place is BEAUTIFUL!

The Church at the top of the mountain

The church at the top of the mountian... not sure how they got the materials to build it all the way up there... 

Inside

Take a look out that window...

The other side

On the side of the church... 

 Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom. (a Lion King reference felt appropriate while we were sitting up there on the ledge) 

An ants view...