“Desculpa Frango”

So last Tuesday we had a cooking day for our language and cross-culture lessons.  My language group and another language group combined too cook for our Maes.  We were supposed to make an American dish and the Maes were going to make a Mozambican dish.  We decided to make chicken tacos and desert crepes (one of the girls in our group lived in France for a year so she wanted to make these).  We were hoping that the Maes would kill the chicken for us to make our food, but nope, that was not the case.  We were told that one of us would be killing the chicken.  That person was not me, I was going to try but when it actually came time I realized that there was no way I would be able to do it.  I could watch but doing it was not going to happen.  Luckily one of the girls in our group had no problem doing it and she actually ended up killing the chicken for our Maes’ meal too.  After killing the chicken she said “Desculpa Frango” which basically means, “I’m sorry Chicken” and the Maes and other Mozambicans around loved that she apologized to the chicken and laughed for a long time and kept bringing it back up throughout the day (and several days later).  After the killings, we had to pluck and clean the chicken.  I pulled some of the feathers off but I have to say that the whole thing was disgusting, more reason for me to be a vegetarian.  For those of you who have never had the pleasure of plucking a chicken... first you put the whole chicken in boiling water for a few minutes then you start plucking.  The smell of the chicken and the fact that I am plucking feathers off of it was gross!  If I never have to participate in that again, I will be extremely happy.

Learning how to scrape the inside of a coconut

Once all the cleaning was done, we had to cut up the chicken, which I had no problems doing ( I cut through those bones like a champ).  One of the professors was impressed with how easily I cut it for how squeamish I was about killing it, my thoughts were that it looked more like the chicken I’ve dealt with when I was doing it… i.e. DEAD, featherless, and inside-less!

Making our tortillas

            While our chicken cooked we learned how to cook some of the food the Maes were making.  And then continued cooking our tortillas, cutting up our veggies and cooking the chicken.  I have to say, for our first time cooking in Mozambique, I was thoroughly impressed.  Our tacos and our crepes turned out delicious!  All our professors and PC staff that were there wanted to know how to make them and some of the Maes even said that we would be making them in our houses again!  So whoever thought I couldn’t cook, surprise I can!  

            Since then Minha Mae has let me help cook a little and at least make my own egg in the morning for breakfast. Other than that, she and my sister still do most of the cooking.  

The Mozambican meal... couve and rice, xima and chicken

Está frio

Ok So I'm back, just want to give you a little update before I post about my life.  Internet here is very, very different from in the states... and I think I've finally got it figured out.  Basically I have this little modem thing (basically a USB drive) that has a sim card in it.  Yep, thats right, like what you put in a phone.  And I buy credit from a guy on the street wearing a vest with one of the phone companies.  Yes, it feels like what I'd imagine a drug deal feels like.  It doesn't matter if it is the correct company cause each guy has all three companies, Vodacom, Movitel, and MCell.  You buy different incraments of meticias (the currency here).  When you hand over the correct amount of Mets the vest wearing guy hands you a teeny tiny scratch off card.  The card has a Pin number under the scratch off stuff and if you are buying it for phone credit you put this Pin into your phone with another number and call and boom you have credit.  For Internet you do the same thing on your computer and then you have to text (all on a program on your computer) a number with which internet package you want.  You can get so many MB for X amount of time (a day, a week, or a month).   Then finally you have internet.  It took me a little bit to figure out how to convert the Meticias credit into MB, but we had a current PCV come to training and he explained it with nice charts for us to copy.  So this is why I have been MIA from the internet for a while and hopefully that won't happen again.

I don't really know what write about right now, so I will probably mainly post for the sake of letting you all know that I am alive and well.  I still love it here, minus the fact that it has been raining on and off since Saturday.  Also... Mozambique is COLD!  Ok not like Iowa winter cold, but when it's been raining and you don't have heat in your house and the temperature is in the 50s... it's cold.  Also since you were moving to Africa, so you brought mostly short sleeved things and skirts... it gets cold!  But apparently the weather is supposed to get better Thursday and Friday, and it will probably be 100 degrees!  It is a little different in Namaacha where I am staying currently because we are in the mountains and the weather is very very random.   Literally one morning I woke up and got ready to go to class and it was misting and cold.  Then around 12 when I went back home for lunch it was sunny and very warm.  Then about an hour later it was freezing.  Basically I've learned to always have at least a sweatshirt if not your raincoat with you at all times here, because you never know what the weather is going to do.

Last weekend a group of us climbed to the three points.  This is where Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa all meet.  It was a long hike, I'd say it took about 2 hours both ways and was well worth it. It was beautiful.  I am constently blown away by how pretty it is here.  I love the mountains (minus the effect it has on the weather).  We hung out at the top for a while and enjoyed our lunche (snack in portuguese) then hiked back down.  I don't really know what to write about it so I'll just post some pictures now.  

Peace Corps Problems: I’ve developed a Portuguese stutter!

        So with a little over a week of language lessons, I have learned a lot but there still is a large language barrier.  There is a lot of talking in circles and basically using my small, but growing vocabulary, to say everything, but I am using complete (maybe sometime incorrect) phrases to talk with people now.  This has resulted in what I like to call my new Portuguese stutter. 

Basically when I am talking and I am not sure of a word, the pronunciation, or the conjugation… I began just spouting out different ways to say it.  I don’t even give anyone any time to correct me or help me until I have exhausted all options.  I blame this stutter on my friend Dione, because she started this trend of just saying word after word after word in our small language class.  For example, I was trying to figure out how to say, “Where were you running yesterday?”  and I said… “ Ontem, Onde corremos, corria, corriamos, corriava, corrias, correr?”  Then I finally took a breath.  This is usually followed by some laughter and then sometimes, but not always a correction.  In the case of my family, often they just answer the question and ignore my new stutter.  I guess I can take it as a win, that I know all those different forms of to run… even if they aren’t all real conjugations or the correct one. 

       I also have another Peace Corps Problem… I don’t have a mirror!  There is only one that I have access to in my house and it is the back of a china cabinet, which is very full and the mirror is warped (at least I hope so, otherwise I have all sorts of new problems) and the room is very dark.  For a while I was getting ready with nothing and then when I got somewhere with a mirror, the first thing I’d do was check what I looked like, usually it was ok.  What I realized a week into this was, my computer has a camera and I can use that like a mirror.  It still isn’t great, but I can at least see myself.
         Now I know I’m in the Peace Corps, because I got really resourceful today.  I felt like putting on a little eye makeup, just some eyeliner and mascara… but my room is not very well lit so it was even hard to see what I was doing on my screen.  So I thought of what I’ve used in the states, and one of those light up mirrors came to mind.  So I took my headlamp and made the strap as big as possible, put it around my screen and WA-LAH… I had a light-up makeup mirror!  If that isn’t a win for the day, I don’t know what is!

The result... and I figured you'd all want to actually see me :)

Refer to Blog Name (aka I'm still here)

Ok everyone, I finally got an internet modem for my computer so I will be able to keep you updated more!
It has been a crazy 2 weeks filled with meeting new people, language classes, technical classes, learning about Mozambique and the PC, and exploring this new place (Namaacha) that I will call home for the next few months.  I have some blogs that I wrote throughout the last few weeks that I have posted to catch you up and I will be able to post more often now.

Let me just say that Mozambique is beautiful and I absolutely love it and the people so far.  The language barrier is the biggest challenge for me, but I have made a lot of improvement from when I first got here.  I have to keep reminding myself that I have only been here for 2 weeks and really I have only been learning the language for about a week.  When I started I could barely understand anything people said, and was only speaking the very few spanish words I remembered.  Now I am able to speak in some complete sentences and get my point across, as well as I understand WAY more now.

That is all for now!

My name is Catya

(Written Oct 05, 2013)

So I have been in Namaacha for one week.  I can’t believe that is all the time I have been here, it definitely feels like longer because so many things have happened and changed in my life in the last week/week and a half since getting to Mozambique. 

First of all, my name has changed since being in Namaacha.  Something in the middle of my name is very hard for Mozambicans to say and I was warned of this by one of our Medical Guys at the hotel during our health interviews.  He said most volunteers here named Caitlin end up being Catya.  So when I got to my host family and introduced myself as Caitlin and no one could say it, I said that they could call me that.  So to my family and many other Mozambicans I have met, I am now Catya. 

I also have a whole new family I'm living with.  I have Minha Mia (my mom… in Portuguese), her name is Ecinet, two host sisters, one host brother and two nieces.  Because of communication barriers, I don’t know a whole lot about all of them yet, but I am slowly learning.  The oldest sister, is a professor of crianças (of little kids) and is only at our house on the weekends.  She has two girls, Matild, 10 years old, and Kelly, 6 months old.  My other sister is 17 and her name is Suzette, I feel like she is my babysitter.  She also does basically all the cooking and cleaning and will never let me help her.  My brother’s name is Jose, he is 16 and loves to hang out and play with Matild when she is here. 

My yard

The front of my house

It is very strange living with them because of how limited my Portuguese is and they only know a few words in English.  It has been a challenge, but I still love it here.  They are super nice and help me do basically everything even though most if it I could probably do on my own. I always ask and try to help make my food and wash dishes but they refuse to let me.  I was able to wash my own clothes on Friday but Suzette was instructing me the whole time and basically trying to do it for me. 

The house is pretty small but has a pretty big yard to hang out in.

  And of course I’m sure you are all wondering about my bathroom situation.  I don’t really mind the latrine because everything can go in it, as opposed to the volunteers with regular toilets who have to flush by dumping a bucket of water into it, they have to throw all their toilet paper in the garbage. 

My bathroom

I was also digging the bucket baths (in the same room as the latrine in basically a little out house in my yard) until last night.  Basically I heat up some water, dump it in my shower bucket, put the perfect amount of room temperature water in it so I can stand dumping in on my skin, take it outside to the latrine and start showering.  It took a little practice to be able to wash my hair because it’s hard to get my hair wet, and get all the soap out.  I don’t wash my hair everyday (more like every other/every few days) and I have only conditioned my hair once, because that was WAY too much work!  I’m pretty sure I still have a few layers of soap on my skin but I really feel very clean after each bath, plus I have to bathe twice a day, once before breakfast and once at night before dinner.  I have already tried to get out of bathing at night some days, because I just don't feel like I need to, but Minha Mia will not let that fly.

Ok now for the reason I am now uneasy about my latrine/bucket baths at night.  Up until last night I had only seen a few cockroaches and some lizards, and I can deal with those.  But last night when I went in to take my bath, I turned on the light and there sat a HUGE mouse!  It was more the size of a rat but looked like a mouse!  Surprisingly it was kinda cute, but I DID NOT want to be in a small contained room with it!  So I panicked ran out of the room, composed myself went back in and it was hiding behind a water bucket.  So I made a bunch of noise, and in ran all the way along the wall to another bucket of water.  This is when I moved into the room, away from the door, so I wasn’t blocking its exit and kicked the bucket it was behind.  Mister Mouse tried to jump and climb the wall right there and then ran out of the room climbed up the wall and was gone.  Needless to say I took a very quick and bad bath and am now a little scared to go back to the latrine in the dark.  YIKES!  I guess welcome to Africa!

(10/6/2013 Small update.)  So after seeing a giant rat/mouse thing (not sure which one it was, looked more like a mouse, for those of you who knew about Millie, the dwarf hamster I had in college with my roommates, it kind of looked like that, but giant and had a big gross tail) I’ve been kind of scared of going into my latrine, especially in the dark/at night.  So of course today (the day after the sighting) the power is out for the evening.  Now I usually take my night bucket bath around 7ish, so I was hoping tonight that they wouldn’t make me take one since it was dark.  Well I must have forgotten I was in Mozambique and this happens all the time, so life goes on as normal… because sure enough 7 o’clock roles around and I’m instructed to go take my bath and that my sister had heated up my water for me.  I cautiously went into the bathroom with my head lamp, shined the light all around by the door then where I could see from the door and finally all over.  No mouse and only saw one cockroach.  So I quickly bathed, while continuously shining my head lamp all over the place in case I had missed something the first time.  Needless to say, I did not take a very good bath again tonight… good thing I’ll be taking another one tomorrow morning! 

Jose and Matild having a water fight while doing laundry

Staging/First Few Days in Mozambique

(Written Sept 28^th, 2013)

These last few days have just flown by and been a whirlwind of craziness.  To start with I AM FINALLY IN MOZAMBIQUE!  But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll start at the beginning for you.  

The view from my hotel balcony in Maputo, Mozambique

Monday after I got to our hotel in Philly, I met up with some other volunteers who also arrived a day early.  We went out to eat, got a few drinks and then just hung out and got to know each other.  We were all pretty exhausted because most of us got very little sleep the night before because of nerves and excitement, so we went to bed relatively early.  Then Tuesday, everyone arrived and our staging officially started.  It included some icebreakers (although not as many as I expected and honestly, was dreading), and then going over some general PC things.  It was great to finally meet the people who would be going on this adventure with me.  We have 50 people in our group and all of them are amazing.  After our 7 hr staging we all split up for our last meals and then came back to the hotel and played some cards and had some more bonding time.  At about 11:30 we went to do one of 3 things; either go get some sleep, repack, or just chill until we left at 2AM Wednesday morning for the airport.  I figured that it wasn’t a good idea for me to go to sleep since it was already about 11:30, so I repacked, took a shower and relaxed until it was time for me to head to the lobby to check out. 

After making sure everyone was in the lobby, we all loaded up two big charter buses (which was great because everyone had 2 seats to themselves so we could stretch out and sleep if we wanted to), and then the fun really started around 2:30.  We left the hotel, drove about 2 hrs to JFK, then had to wait until about 7:30 when the check-in finally opened, got through security and then had to wait until 11 when we boarded our flight.  (PS  I only got about 30 minutes of sleep on the bus.)  Our flight, 15hrs to Johannesburg, South Africa, was filled with lots of movies, games, bonding time, eating, and finally sleeping.  By the time we were in Johannesburg we were all in such a haze.  We had no idea what time it was, what day it was, or really where we were.  After figuring out that it was already Thursday and that we had basically lost Wednesday completely in the air and figuring out the time with the +7hr time zone change, we realized that we had a 4 hr layover until we boarded our flight at 1:05pm to Maputo, Mozambique.  This flight was much easier.  It was about 45 min. and I slept almost the entire way.  We were greeted by the Country Director and some of the other staff, and surprisingly, we all got every piece of luggage with everything in it.  (1 point for Moz 21). 

All 50 of us crammed into 3 vans, while most of our luggage was put into the back of a pickup with a trailer hooked up to it.  Then took a short ride through the town and checked into our hotel.  And then, of course more fun started, our first round of vaccines took place and then dinner. 

View from my balcony in Maputo, Moz

Today, was full of lots of icebreakers and general information about Mozambique and PC, and of course more time just to hang out with everyone.  We met some of our PC Mozambique staff and someone from the embassy came and basically told us everything that could go wrong and all the issues that there are in the country.  Generally, I feel that Mozambique is a very safe country, and PC has a very good handle on what is going on and where it is not safe for us to be.  Then we learned how to put together and use our water filter and all about the Peace Corps Moz Medical Office.  The PC Moz staff seems awesome. Of course following this… was more vaccines!  So far my in country vaccines only total 4 but my arms are still pretty sore, should be fun moving my luggage tomorrow! 

I still don’t feel like I'm in Mozambique.  We have been staying at a very nice hotel overlooking water and its beautiful here.  We’ve had showers, air conditioning, a pool, running water, and pretty good food for the past 2 days.  Tomorrow we leave for Namaacha (na-ma-sha), which is about 2hrs away to meet our host families.  I am very excited to start this journey and feel as though it will be a reality check, since it will be more like my life for the next 27 months.  I have very little Portuguese skills so it should be very interesting communicating for the first few weeks and will probably be a lot of pantomiming.  Wish me luck!

Another View from my balcony in Maputo, Moz

View from my balcony in Maputo, Moz