Ending the Trimester and Living it up in Lisbon

I realized I am cutting it very close to not making my monthly blog quota, so another dose of Laurie and Chris’ adventures are coming at ya! The good news is that a lot has happened in the past month and a half, so I won’t bore you with filler material. No, instead I’m going to tell you about the end of our first trimester, a visit from Chris’ cousin, Passover #2 in the bush, and a reunion with my dad in Lisbon. Get excited, people!

We finished our first trimester of school with little fanfare, which is good because we officially feel like we know what the heck is going on now. All the standard administrative stuff, although tedious when not using a computerized system like a developing country would, is now second nature. Instead of being taken aback with a one day notice that provincial exams would happen, we planned our classes with the assumption our last couple weeks of the trimester would be a wash do to standardized testing.  And the ridiculousness of the tests themselves, well, where do I begin? The content rarely includes topics on the government issued curriculum even though it is the government who is administering these tests. Huh? How are teachers supposed to know what to teach then? And the content is so high above the student’s level, it’s just silly. For example, the 11^th grade provincial exam for English had a reading passage about the complexities of green energy and biofuels, which I was having trouble understanding even as a native English speaker! Ok, but enough of my bitching. Really the point that I am trying to make is that despite the head-scratching things we’ve faced in the Mozambican school system, at least we know what to expect. And really, that has been the theme for us during this second year of service. Our living situation, our job, our life has just become so normal. I’ve realized that no matter how nutty or different it may be, your life simply becomes your life once you get used to it. But then an outsider comes along prompting you to think that indeed, it is not normal to view the stunning Indian Ocean on a weekly basis or to ride in public transportation with live chickens. Jess, Chris’ cousin, reminded us of that when she came for a visit at the end of March. She was lucky enough to be placed in Mozambique for a few weeks to finish up her medical school requirements. Although her assignment location was at a hospital in the capital, Maputo, she still wanted to make the 10 hour bus trip to see us. So for her first time in Africa, she braved getting on a 4am bus where no one was speaking English in a completely unfamiliar country. Man, she is a trooper! As a side note here though, she probably could win an award for the number of family members who have served in the Peace Corps which includes her mom, sister, aunt and uncle (Chris’ parents), other uncle (her mom’s bro) and her cousins (Chris and I) and I am probably forgetting someone. But you get the idea that Peace Corps is kind of in her blood so maybe that’s why she was so low key about this kind of traveling! Once she reached our site, I took her on a quick tour of Mapinhane, we visited Chris’ classroom full of students who later said they hoped to make her their wife someday, then cooked up fresh beans, tortillas and guac to share our favorite burrito feast. We then spent a couple of days in Vilankulo, where we got to show her around our “big” city and relax on the beach. She also got to meet some other PCV friends of ours who were in town for the weekend. All in all, we had a really great couple of days with Jess. Having someone from your old life come to check out your new one can really put things into perspective.  And of course, it’s great to see family after being so far away for so long. After Jess left, I hosted our second annual Mapinhane Seder and it turned out even better than last year! The complete Seder plate, hardboiled eggs and matzo ball soup all made an appearance again. I was able to find almost all the traditional fixins’ I needed to pull off practicing Judaism in the bush except for horseradish. So, I did what any seasoned PCV would do, I improvised. I did find wasabi which actually turned out to be a fine substitute. Yes, haroset and wasabi on matza tastes great!  We were getting bored with our standard grilled chicken, so another change up this year was shish kabobs. Chris marinated chicken pieces with veggies and grilled them for a delicious Passover main dish. Oh, and we were so fancy this year, we even had a flourless chocolate cake for dessert made by chef TJ! It was a great evening with food and friends from our region who traveled here to be a part of it.  Like last year, we passed around the Mad Men era haggadah so that everyone could participate in the Seder readings. NEXT YEAR IN ISRAEL!...Ok, probably not but at least it will be in America! And I can tell you that now that I’ve pulled off two Seders here, it’ll be a piece of (flourless chocolate) cake to do it back home.

After the excitement of cousins and matzo and kids whining about their grades calmed down, we got to check out a new continent, Europe! My Dad and his girlfriend, Chris (Yes, that’s right, we both awkwardly have significant others with the same name), took us on a vacation to Lisbon, Portugal. The main purpose of the trip was to spend time together because we hadn’t seen each other since our departure in September 2011. But also to explore a cool city that none of us had ever been to. So we hopped on our 11 hour plane ride from Maputo to Lisbon and settled in by watching movies and eating pasta from mini trays. This alone felt like luxury as we’re used to spending the same amount of time in a cramped, uncomfortable bus with no beverage service just to travel to Maputo. But once we got to our beautiful hotel, we felt even more extravagant than we did on the airplane!  The week’s amenities included hot showers, an awesome breakfast buffet and comfy robes. When you live like we do in Moz, simple things can be such a treat as you’ve heard me get excited over seemingly minor comforts shared in this blog. I think going to South Africa in December broke our “OMG, we’re back in civilization” seal so the impact of first world comforts wasn’t as dramatic this time but we’re still suckers for hi-speed internet and air-conditioning. So ok, I realize I am getting a little too excited about our accommodations so let’s move on to other things about the trip:)… The week began with a slow motion run and a hug for my Dad in the airport since it was the first time I saw him in 1.5 years. It was a good way to remind him that I’m still kind of a wiredo too :).  We headed to our hotel (which you’ve already learned ALL about) in a great location in the city that had tons of restaurants and shops around. Or if we wanted to venture elsewhere, Lisbon had no shortage of public transport options: Buses, subways, cable cars and trains, inclines, elevators, GEEESH. We spent our days site-seeing in different areas of the city like Belém and Sintra, which all included walking uphill on narrow classic-looking European streets and checking out a castle built hundreds of years ago. We’d end the day at a restaurant where I indulged in things like spinach ravioli and garlic shrimp. And we’d top off the evening with a pastry from one of the many delicious pastelarias (bakeries) around town.  That’s the summary of our trip, but let me share two interesting tidbits we learned while in Portugal #1. My Dad is a hash magnet. Apparently, middle-aged American men are coming to Lisbon to get their smoke on because every time we’d go to the main square, dealers would seek out my Dad to ask if he wanted to buy hash or marijuana and the occasional offer for Coke. Really?  He’s walking with 2 Peace Corps Volunteers and they make a b-line for him? So weird. But, it did make for good jokes throughout the week. #2. Everyone will speak English to you, even if you speak Portuguese. Initially, I was a little nervous about speaking my Mozamba-fied Portuguese but I certainly wanted to give it a try. But everywhere we went, the Portuguese people wanted to speak English, even when we’d try to switch the language. When Chris and I were off by ourselves, we had an easier time of it and there were a couple of occasions where people assumed I was Portuguese just by my look so that afforded us the opportunity to speak. But overall, we really didn’t use it as much as we thought we would or as much as we wanted to. I will say the accent is MUCH different than what we are used to here in Mozambique but we were able to figure most things out.  Unfortunately, Chris got a lot of speaking practice in the TAP airlines office since our flight back was messed up. Long story short, our flight was moved to a day later and no one at the airline bothered to tell us. Chris had to argue with them to put us up in a hotel room, but they finally did. And the good news was we had an extra day to spend in Lisbon. So we had an awesome time laughing and catching up with my dad and Chris, and gallivanting around in the beautiful city.  After the long flight back to Moz, then another 10 hour bus ride back to our home we were surprised at how the travel just didn’t seem like that big of a deal. Flying from Columbus to Chicago seemed like a big deal to me back in the day. I guess becoming an easy traveler is a perk of living real far away from home and doing tons of traveling in crappy cars with no entertainment options except staring out the window. And cute babies.

That’s all to share for now in the land of Moz. I don’t have a witty ending for you this time so I’ll just practice my Portuguese with you since I didn’t get to do it as much as I wanted to in Portugal. Ate a proxima!

Things that go Bump in the Night (and During the Day, too!)

Applying for Peace Corps is a long and trying process. We had to fill out an extensive application and endless forms, write essays and do a few interviews.  A benefit to this requirement of constant introspection is that it makes you really think about why you want to do Peace Corps. And for me, one of the things I kept coming back to was that I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and raise my level of tolerance.  I kinda felt like I had become a wuss in the states. I worried too much about little things that shouldn’t bother me from small daddy long-legs in the kitchen, to thinking the slightest bit of vertigo meant there was something seriously wrong. In some ways, it felt like I was already an 80-year-old! I found myself thinking about my younger, reckless teenage years when I threw more caution to the wind and took a lot more chances.  Now, I’m not saying I always made the smartest decisions then and that there’s some things I’m glad have changed since those days, but I missed my “eh, don’t worry about it!” attitude. I had a sneaking suspicion that moving half way around the world to a new continent, full of bugs, would do the trick.

My initial glimpse of creepy crawlies happened during the first 10 weeks here while in training in Namaacha.  During our first night of homestay, a cockroach, almost the same size as my hand, made an appearance on our bedroom wall. We were lying down, about to go to sleep when we spotted him in the corner. I let out a girlie yelp and instinctively stood up on the bed for fear that it would find my feet (we hadn’t hung our mosquito net yet). Chris quickly grabbed a shoe and smashed him, and thus began our life full with bugs. Aside from cockroaches, Namaacha also had an abundance of long, chunky brown millipedes they called “Maria Cafés”. I would later learn these are actually called the African Giant Millipede and are all over Mozambique. Sighting one of these on a weekly basis is pretty common.  I was lucky that Namaacha broke me in easy, because the nasty bug friends came out in full force once I got to site. My very first night in Mapinhane, I had a close encounter with some bats. Maybe they’re not an insect, but a creepy crawly none the less. Although it was a dark and stormy night, the adrenaline from finally arriving to our site gave me courage. Our bathroom was outside of our house and had no electricity, but I would brave the storm with a lantern and go take a bucket bath before bed. I had already dealt with cockroaches and millipedes, how bad could it be? I was just pouring the last cup of water for a final rinse when I heard something above my head. I couldn’t tell what it was but it sped up the bathing process none the less. Then, the creature landed on my foot which caused me to abruptly run out of the shower house, screaming, with the towel barely concealing my lady parts. When I reached the house, breathing heavily, I told Chris I had encountered something, although I wasn’t sure what it was. He took a flashlight into the bathroom, like the dutiful husband he is, to investigate. He returned only to say, “Uhhh, you don’t even want to know”. Turns out bats were flying overhead and crawling on the floor, and apparently wanted to let me know they were sharing the bathroom with me. Shortly after the batty night, I found a scorpion chilling inside the house which I promptly killed with one of my favorite toxic substances, Bygone (a spray that kills insects) but it was still quite jarring. Then, a special guest appeared during my very first day of teaching in my very first lesson. A big-ass (and I mean HUGE) hairy tarantula was crawling on the wall in the back corner. The kids said “não faz mal, teacher”, meaning it won’t do any harm but I still wanted to crawl out of my skin. Tarantulas, in my opinion, are the DEFINITION of all that is creepy/scary/gross about bugs and insects. They really hit that biological instinct of danger for me. When I was a kid, I thought gremlins were hiding in my closet but it changed to tarantulas when I got older (although I won’t lie and say I’m no longer scared of gremlins, because they still freak me out. Seriously. Watch the movie. Sooooo not for kids).  It was not an uncommon theme to see these hairy beasts in my nightmares, as this was the visual form my subconscious chose for my fears. So knowing all this, you would think I’d have run out of the classroom screaming, just like I did with the bats, but surprisingly I didn’t. A part of me sure wanted to, but I actually kept my composure much better than I would have if I was not in front of my new students. I couldn’t have them think their new American teacher couldn’t handle a stupid spider that wasn’t even harmful. So I breathed, tried to forget about it, and was lucky enough to have a camera with me that day to get photographic evidence. And I survived. The classroom tarantula gave me a huge boost of confidence that my tolerance had gone way up. And might I add, since that day, I haven’t once had a nightmare involving a spider.  After the initial incidents, human and bug life lived pretty harmoniously for a while. We shared our house with tons of geckos, cockroaches and termites. We found all kinds of spiders like daddy long legs, the charging variety, and wall spiders spanning the size of a small drink coaster. But they no longer bothered me. In fact, I’d watch the geckos and spiders eat pesky, buzzing house flies and mosquitoes and found myself cheering for them! And now, I’ve even taken to naming some of the critters that make a daily appearance like Norman, the wall spider who lives behind the truck in my bedroom or Raul, the gecko who hangs out by the front window at night. We did have a few surprises thrown in the mix. A rat who really enjoyed dry pasta. And the moth larvae that were falling through our mosquito net at night. Or the sand fleas that set up shop in the bottom of our feet, requiring a morning of digging with a needle (all together now, “EEEEEWWWW”). But these were really more of a nuisance then cause for fear. In the last week though, our creep-tastic bug cred has gone through the roof. Chris and I were sitting on our front porch, cooling down after a long run, when suddenly I hear Chris say, “oh.my.god”. “WHAT, WHAT?”, I yell. “It’s a snake! Go get the machete!” Sure enough about 50 feet from us, a large snake with its head rearing, is staring in our direction. I run inside per Chris’ request but then ask him if it’s really a good idea to kill this thing. But if we’ve learned one thing from our Mozambican neighbors, you can never let a snake live because of the poisonous factor. So Chris slowly tip-toes behind the snake’s line of site and WHACK!!!!!!!!! He cuts the dude’s head off with a machete. Yeah, that happened. He throws down the machete a few more times just to make sure he’s dead, then we find out it needs to be burned so his friends don’t come looking for him. All of this too, has been photographed if you don’t believe me by the way. Afterwards, we went on the internet to see if it was that infamous Southern African snake, the black mamba, which is not uncommon around our village in the bush. From our Mozambican eye-witnesses and the picture on wikapedia, we’re pretty sure it was. Chris earned major badass points that day, and it was one of those situations where you think, “wow, I can’t believe this is my life!”. Then a few days ago, my bug tolerance was put to the ultimate test. It was a normal night in our electricity-less house, when I wanted to put something away in a small room we use as a pantry.  I opened the door and shined the flashlight in, and there he was, as if he wanted to be spotted. Another big-ass, hairy tarantula. Not as big as the one in my classroom, but still quite large and ummm, oh yeah, THIS ONE IS IN MY HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My natural reaction is what told me I’ve definitely graduated from daddy-long-leg worries. I breathed in, shut the door and calmly told Chris that there is a spider in the room. And I mean a big one. He opened the door to take a look and confirmed that my eyes were not deceiving me, that indeed, a tarantula was hanging out in our pantry. Unsure of how to kill this thing, we called our Mozambican friend to come over. He said that while they can bite, he assured us they’re not aggressive and “não faz mal”, but suggested we take a machete to if we, understandably, didn’t want it living in our house.  He took a swing for it, but it bolted too quickly into the corner. And believe it or not, that’s the end of the story. Yes, you heard that right. There is a living tarantula somewhere in my pantry.  And I’m not having a panic attack. Our friend thinks that he’s probably been living there for quite some time based on how big he’s gotten, so I keep telling myself if he wasn’t a problem before, he shouldn’t be now. I used to pop in at night without a flashlight, which I will no longer do since we spotted him, but I will still go in there. l wonder if he’ll make another appearance every time I open that door, but I still have the courage to open it. So today I feel a sense of pride. I’ve come face-to-face with one of my biggest fears, living in my house no less, and did not go crazy. Now, maybe I am jinxing myself and there will be a much scarier part #2 to the tarantula in my pantry story. But as of now, I’d still say that fits the requirement for stepping out of my comfort zone. Of course, there are endless opportunities to do this here: speaking a new language, being in a new culture, living with no electricity, dealing with sickness and being the weird foreign language teacher in a classroom of 60 kids. So, while I still may have problems with gremlins, I think my teenage self would be very proud of my progress.

And Were Off and Running Again

Not only have we begun our second school year, but we’ve finally started to pick up one of our favorite past habits. We can proudly call ourselves “runners” again, now that we’re braving the African summers to clock a few miles a day.

Before we came to Mozambique, we were both pretty dedicated to hitting the pavement several times a week. Our hope was to continue here, but our motivation got lost with the countless adjustments we were dealing with last year. Then after 15 months of a carb heavy diet, we were starting to see the results of our slacking. The physical aspect is a part of it, but it’s mental too. Running was a release of tension and a time to unwind after a long work day or way to get your mind right first thing in the morning. Happily, our Moz life is generally much calmer and the stress level is way down, but regardless, I was missing that time of tranquility and the endorphins that follow. So during the lull period after our South Africa trip and waiting for school to start, we begrudgingly laced up our Nike’s and headed outside. The first few times were a bit of a struggle but very quickly I remembered why I used to like to run so much. It’s not easy while you’re doing it but the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction you feel when you’re done can’t be beat. I definitely needed that burst of good feeling too because at the end of December while sitting in my house with nothing to do except sweat in the unbearable heat, I started thinking, “whoa, I’ve got one more year of this?” I’ve heard it’s not uncommon to hit a wall between your first and second year of Peace Corps service, but I was sure I wouldn’t be one of those people. I figured if I didn’t go home for the holiday break, I’d be immune to the mid-service slump but that wasn’t the case. For months on end, time seemed to run away from me and then all of the sudden, I was counting every hour.  I’d made it through much harder times during this experience, so I had enough foresight to know I’d be out of the funk shortly. Putting back on my running shoes helped to put things into perspective. You see, Running for miles can require you to play a sort of mental game in order to make it to the end. There are times when you’re hot, tired and the ipod has died on you, making it seem impossible to take one more step forward. So, you tell yourself if only you can keep running until that tree in the distance, you can walk the rest of the way. It’s all about tricking yourself into a new goal so you don’t feel so bad about stopping. But the surprising part is that 99% of the time, you don’t start to walk when you reach that tree. In fact, you keep running until the end, to that mile marker you initially intended to reach. My mid-service slump forced me to seek out a “tree”, the first time I had to do so since the initial challenges I faced during training and first getting to site. As of today, I already reached that tree and I’m still running to the 27-months-of-service finish line.

Starting to teach again brought me back to the reason I am here and reminded me of the satisfaction I so frequently feel. And the beginning of the school year gave another reminder as to how far we’ve come. Now, we understood both the language and cultural context of the school’s opening ceremony and parents meeting. We already know school policies and procedures, most of the teachers and students, and are bracing for our schedule to be changed numerous times. It’s really cool to be at a point where we are no longer doing something new, but starting the cycle over again. We can finally put all of the lessons and experiences to good use.  This year, we walked into our classrooms for the first day of school with confidence and poise. I can already feel a difference in my teaching and it’s only been a few weeks.  My style and timing are much more natural, I’m not afraid to switch to Portuguese to discipline if needed and lesson planning is a breeze. Chris is no longer clutching his notebook to read a Portuguese script for his Chemistry lesson. Instead, he’s got a command of the language and knows which activities will work for a science class. We’re happy to be teaching the same subjects as last year except for one minor change. I teach 11^th and 12^th grade English and Chris teaches 8^th grade chemistry and 9^th grade math (instead of 10^th grade biology). He’s excited about math since Peace Corps trained him to teach in that subject and he enjoys it more than biology.  Another welcome change is less classes and less overcrowding, both due to the new secondary school in our village. We’re hoping this weeds out the kids who only want to “brincar” (to play around) and our school regains its reputation as one of the best in the country.

Aside from running and teaching, there have been a few other positive events that have brought us to the upswing. Mapinhane is lively with teachers and students and although the privacy during the summer vacation was nice, it’s even nicer to feel part of a community again. Our new site mate, Karina, is settling into her new life. We’ve enjoyed helping when she needs it and having another American just around the corner.  I got to see one of my favorite Americans, TJ, after a 2 month hiatus due to our South Africa trip and her visit back in the states. It was an exciting reunion with beef tacos (a rarity here) and a swim in the ocean.  Then back at home, we received a very special Peace Corps guest.  The director for all PC countries in the African continent made a visit to Mozambique and we were lucky enough to have him check out our humble abode in Mapinhane. He came with our Country Director (the head of PC Mozambique) and we showed them our school and house and chatted about our experiences. It was encouraging to meet someone so high on the PC ladder who was genuinely interested in what we were doing and open to our opinions. And today, I’m writing this blog during the conclusion of the kicker of positive events, and one of the main reasons for my rejuvenation. We just finished our Mid-Service Conference, where my training group shared successes and plans for the next year. It was the first time all members of Moz 17 had been together in over a year, and man did it feel good! Everyone is more cool, calm and collected and we’ve finally all seemed to find our way in Mozambique. Not only did we have an awesome time hanging out together which included dinners out and voting on group superlatives, but I gained some solid ideas for what I want to accomplish this year. I’m getting my plans together for my girl’s empowerment group, English theater crew, and children’s book readings. And I’ve got to get a move on because if you can believe it, I’ve only got 10 months left in country and that finish line doesn’t look very far at all.