ONE YEAR!!!

As of yesterday, I have been in Mozambique for a year. I am not really quite sure how I feel about that statement because it doesn’t seem real, but it is a fact. I arrived in Mozambique on October 2, 2008 and went from staying in a luxurious $450 USD a night hotel in Johannesburg to flying into the Maputo airport and driving through the slums surrounding it. One really interesting thing that has changed in the past year is my perception of the Maputo Airport. When we first flew in on Oct. 2, I thought “THIS is the LARGEST airport in the WHOLE COUNTRY?!?!?!? It is a total dump.” Then in July, when my family was visiting, we flew to and from the same airport and I found myself really impressed on how nice and comfortable the airport felt.

I can honestly say the past year has not only been a great experience, but it has been really fun and everyday I thank whoever decided that Mozambique would be a good placement for me. At times, living here has been a challenge, but the good moments always outweigh the trying ones and I am really looking forward to my second year.

In a few months, I will be returning to the States and I have already made a list of everything I want to eat (too many restaurants to list), drink (imported and light beers and frozen drinks), and all of the places I want to go (I am pretty sure Pat O´s piano bar is on the top of this list or maybe it is my parents´ house). Thinking about home has really made me appreciate everything I love about the States and everything I love about Mozambique. So here is my list of 4 of the best things about Moz and the U.S.:

What Mozambicans do right:

Enjoy Life
The clock in Mozambique definitely moves slower than it does in the States. After being here a year, I have learned to appreciate (or at least accept) the hours I spend waiting for things that would take less than 5 minutes in the States. I am beginning to understand why things move as slowly as they do. Mozambicans take every possible chance they get to enjoy life and if that means waiting for a store to open/chapa to leave/someone to use an ATM, they take the opportunity to get to know the person waiting with them. One the weekends (or during the week if a person is unemployed) Mozambicans spend hours “passear-ing.” Passear means to go for a walk with no specific destination in mind. They pass through the market and chat with anyone and everyone and then visit their friend’s houses or the local barraca (bar). I found this really great quote in a book I was reading set in Botswana and written by a Zimbabwean.

“and every morning she could sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn’t do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eat grass?”
pp 162 “The No. 1 Ladies´ Detective Agency” Alexander McCall Smith

Say it like it is.
Some people find this a less than attractive quality, but I really appreciate the acceptance that comes along with it. If you are fat, people call you fat. Here is the best part: to your face. There is no hiding it. It is the honest to God truth. If you are ugly, they will call you “aquela mulungu feia” (that ugly white chick). The only small hint of trying to soften the blow is when they add “inha” to the end (e.g. gordinha – a little fat). Which leads to:

Appreciate what their momma gave them.
Negative body image is something Mozambican women only read about in the South African version of Cosmo. Women here love their bodies. Short. Tall. Fat. Thin. It doesn’t matter. They take what they get and flaunt it.

Ask and you shall receive.
One of my favorite things about Mozambique is that if you ask a person to do something for you, they will. Sometimes this comes for a price (usually somewhere around $0.20 USD), but most of the time, it is done with a big smile and a “até a próxima” (until next time). If you are willing to pay for convenience, then this is the perfect country for you. You can pretty much pay anyone to do anything for you. If I want a set of specially carved coasters (they are beautiful FYI) then I come back the next day and they are ready (for a slightly higher price than we agreed on the day before). If I am looking for this one really special capulana I have had my eye on for months, I can ask anyone in the market and they will help me find a stall that sells it. If I want a coke/cashews/piece of bread/beer/egg sandwich/orange on the chapa, I just ask one of the kids hanging around to go get me one. The downside: transactional sex (exchange of goods and services for sex).

After being away from “America” (which is what everyone here calls the U.S. with a sense of awe and wonder in their voices) for a year, I have really had the chance to think about all of the things I really miss/appreciate about the “land of plenty” (which is what I have started to call it).

What The U.S. does right:

The Service Industry
Free water and refills at restaurants and good quality napkins. Enough said.

Customer Service
It is nice to know there are people out there who actually care (or at least pretend to care/get paid to care) if I am satisfied with what I bought or the manner in which it was given to me. This is not really a problem on an individual level in Moz, but just with the huge monopoly companies that could care less if people are satisfied with their company’s product or service. For example, the telephone service provider I use is so unreliable and ridiculous. I spent 20 minutes on the phone (which is really expensive here) with customer service and traveled 12 hours roundtrip because my text messages were not working. I ended up waiting for two minutes while the clerk at a store that looks just like the one I have in my town, punched a 5 digit code in and magically my texts were working again. Please tell me why the customer service lady could not have told me the exact same thing in under 5 minutes?!?! This leads to:

Complain
Let’s face it. Americans are whiners. This statement may offend you, but I strongly believe it is the reason why the U.S. has such great customer service and a helpful service industry. Complaining gets stuff done. I wish that more people in Moz would complain about anything and everything. If people here complained about the crappy cell phone service instead of just accepting it as a way of life in Africa, maybe things would get better. This is not to say that complaining by itself makes things better. If a person complains, they need to make a commitment to see it through to the end.

Serial Monogamy
One of the factors that place Mozambicans at such a high risk for HIV is the cultural norm of concurrent relationships. A concurrent relationship is one where one or both of the partners are sleeping with one or more people on the side. This allows HIV to spread at a much higher rate than it does in the States because so many more people are involved in the sexual networks. Serial monogamy only puts two people at risk of acquiring HIV (until an infected partner begins a new relationship) unlike concurrency where pretty much anyone who is currently involved in a relationship is at risk.

So that’s all folks! Hope my first year of blog entries weren’t too terribly boring and I hope to see you all again in December! Happy One Year Moz 13!!!!!

TIA III

One of my favorite Mozambican superstitions:

"There is a huge serpent that lives in the Atlantic Ocean and when it wants to travel it goes under Africa to the Indian Ocean and that is what causes an earthquake."

A snake is a very unusual birthday present (thank you Africa), but makes me feel like a real PCV!

(In case you were wondering, the score is snake 0, guard 1)

Rough Moments = Personal Growth

If you had to tell someone that from this moment on, their life will be, now and forever, changed and it will affect not only their health, but potentially the health of their sexual partners and children, their ability to work and provide for their family, and then to top it off, their closest friends and neighbors may begin to look at and treat them differently, how would you do it? Do you apologize first? Or does that make it seem like you are apologizing to yourself for getting into a situation like this? Or do you act like it doesn’t mean anything to you to deliver life changing news? Would that make you appear callous and uncaring?

In reality, it isn’t about you. Does the manner in which the message is delivered make any difference to the receiver? Or do they only hear “your HIV test came back positive” and the rest just becomes background noise?

During training, 8 months ago, my language group took a “field trip” to the hospital to experience what happens before, during, and after an HIV test. I remember asking a lot of questions about the tests used and why you should get tested every three months, but I never thought that my curiosity in the nitpicky details of the process would be so incredibly useful. Little did I know, I would be the person explaining to another the process of taking an HIV test. First, pre-test counseling and then, the inevitable question: do you feel prepared for whatever the outcome of the test? (I am not even sure that is a realistic question. Can you ever be fully prepared for something like HIV?) Next, the finger prick and finally, the results of the test appear. One line: negative. Two lines: positive. If the test only has one line, the person is told to make sure they always use a condom, try to limit the number of partners they have, and to get tested again in three months. If there are two lines, however, the person is told the test came back indeterminate and a second, more accurate test is performed. Once again, one line means HIV negative and two lines indicate a positive test result. If two lines appear, then the counselor must tell the person in a sensitive, yet indisputable manner, that they are HIV positive.

Most of the time, this is just a process I observe, but when I was the only person who spoke English, I found myself looking for answers to all of those questions I addressed earlier. I wish I could say I thought only about the people to whom I was delivering this life changing information, but part of me kept thinking about how unprepared I felt. I kept thinking that I should have been taught how to say this the right way. How should I feel about the situation? How do I feel?

But, again, it isn’t about me. It is about the people who have an enormous decision to make. Do they keep living their lives as they did before they were tested? Or do they make the necessary changes and live a longer, healthier life with a few small sacrifices along the way?

ATSC

It has been awhile since I have talked about what exactly I do every week day 8am – 5pm, but recently, I can finally say that I LOVE my job! I know that love (especially in capital letters) is a strong word, but what I am doing right now not only keeps me from being absolutely and totally bored, but makes me feel like I have the opportunity to make a difference in peoples’ lives. To be honest, my job description is still not perfect or complete by any means, but every month I am given more and more responsibilities and my boss seems to really value my opinion and gives me positive feedback.

Over the past few months, I have been responsible for contacting the lodges/resorts/hotels in the area to ask them to ask their employees if they would be interested in voluntary HIV counseling and testing. If the employees respond positively (they all have so far) then one or two of the ATS-C counselors (Aconselhamento, Testagem, e Saúde – Comunitário) aka Community Counseling and Testing counselors and I go to the lodges and give an HIV/health session (around 30 minutes) and then test people. My role in all of this is to contact the lodges and speak to the managers who pretty much all happen to be South African or Zimbabwean and therefore, all speak English. I also organize all of the ATS-C activities and make sure we don’t forget to bring condoms to hand out after the tests and basically supervise the team. The pre-session counseling is usually given in the local language which means that I just sit there and nod my head while the counselors do their thing. Occasionally the pre and post-test counseling are given in Portuguese, but the counselors are trained to give it in the local language since only a small portion of the population speaks Portuguese.

Community Counseling and Testing is, at the present, only facilitating activities in the Vilankulo District, but eventually, ATS-C will spread to Inhassoro, Mabote, and Govuro (there are four districts in the northern part of the Inhambane Province where CARE works). CARE works through the hospital which means that the counselors were hired by the hospital and trained according to Ministry of Health (MOH) guidelines. If a person tests positive for HIV, they will be given a referral form to take to the hospital to have a CD4 count test taken. A CD4 count test determines if the person needs to start taking anti-retrovirals (ARVs) immediately or if their immune system is strong enough to delay treatment. One of my personal goals with this project is to determine if the people who test positive are actually making it to the hospital and if they are not, what are the barriers and how can we help them overcome them. Ideally, information that CARE collects will be given to the MOH and used in the 2009 HIV/AIDS report in Mozambique. In 2008, the prevalence rate of HIV in the Inhambane Province was reported to be 12%. Unfortunately, the data we have collected so far indicates that the HIV prevalence is higher than expected.

A random guy who wanted to be in the picture, one of the ATSC counselors, and me

TIA II

So the STRANGEST thing happened to me yesterday and I find the timing to be as close to perfect as possible. This Thursday is my nine month mark here in Mozambique and whenever I hear anyone mention 9 months I think about the fact that I could have had a baby in that time. Yesterday, strangely enough, I "gave birth" (don´t get too excited/worried mom, it was not human).

My empregada Anita pulling out "pulgas" (fleas - well, technically flea eggs)

from the bottom of my foot. TIA

The Bazaruto Archipelago

A lot of people have asked me if I am one of the only mulungus in my town and the answer is: definitely not. Vilankulo is one of the top three tourist destinations in Mozambique which means that during the South African and Zimbabwean school holidays this place is full of white tourists (this doesn't even include the white ex-pats who own pretty much own all of the businesses here - don't get me started on why I hate this). The main reason why Vilankulo is such a popular tourist destination is because it is the gateway to the Bazaruto Archipelago. The Bazaruto Archipelago is a small chain of 5 islands (Bazaruto, Benguerra, Magaruque, Santa Carolina and Bangue) off the coast of Mozambique in the Indian Ocean. The archipelago is known as the "Pearl of the Indian Ocean" because it is one of the last (nearly) untouched paradises on earth.

There are several companies that run day trips to the islands and one of the most popular ones, Dolphin Dhow, is owned by one of our (Mozambican) neighbors. A dhow is a traditional Arab sailing vessel that is really common in Mozambique and most of them have been equipped with motors so that people, especially tourists, don't get stuck in the middle of the channel during low tide. It takes about an hour to get to the islands (about 10km away) with a motor and without a motor I have heard of people being stuck for days. We went to the closest island to Vilankulo, Magaruque, for the day.

Our beach gate from the boat
(the one with the new wood posts and tall trees)

The dhow

Getting ready to go snorkeling.

My roommate Courtney and I

Magaruque

REDES

Raparigas em Desenvolmento, Educação, e Saúde

Adolescent Girls (in Secondary School) in Development, Education, and Health

REDES is a Peace Corps sponsored project that focuses on giving young Mozambican women the opportunity to participate in activities that teach them life skills such as leadership skills, how to implement and monitor programs in the community, and negotiations skills for safer/healthier relationships. REDES also concentrates on gender issues and women's rights.

My education site mate Laura and I are in the process of starting a REDES group at her school (The Secondary School of Macoque). At our first meeting, we asked the girls what kind of things they would be interested in learning about and they came up with ideas ranging from sewing and photography to SRH (sexual and reproductive health) and women’s rights.

In April, I attended the REDES conference in Barra. Barra is a beautiful beach town (well town is kind of a stretch, but beach community made up of fancy South African owned lodges) near Inhambane City and Tofo. Fifty-two girls and 12 (female) PCVs participated in the conference. The conference was set up a kind of a camp environment which was especially exciting for the girls because going to camp in Mozambique is not an option. The conference focused on issues such as self-esteem and setting goals for the future and more specific topics like early pregnancy, HIV prevention, and an in-depth look at the female reproductive system (which unfortunately is never addressed in schools). One of my favorite parts of the conference was getting to be a “counselor” with my friend Gracey. We had 10 girls in our cabin group from all over the southern part of Mozambique who really opened up to us after we let them braid/cornrow our hair. I was immediately reminded of why I have not done this since 8^th grade when my family went on a cruise to the Caribbean. It hurts like hell. But, I have to say, I have never been hit on here in Mozambique like I was that day. I had Mozambican men following me around Inhambane City and Maxixe asking me to let them help me run my errands and carry my bags. Even the women in the market gave me the real price instead of the mulungu price without any negotiation. It was pretty surreal and almost made me want to get my hair re-braided every week for the rest of my two years. And then I remembered the pain and how my hair breaks off into this lovely little halo of short hairs around my head. Maybe I will just do the G.I. Jane look and buy fake hair like the women here do who can afford it. Or maybe not.

One of the highlights of the conference for the girls was our guest speaker this year. Dama do Bling, a famous Mozambican female rapper, came to the conference to speak and then gave a performance later in the evening. She was chosen as the guest speaker because not only is she a hugely successful performer (she is known as the Lil Kim of Mozambique), but she is a certified lawyer. There are very few female lawyers in Mozambique (very few female professionals in general) and even fewer female role models for young girls. One of my favorite things about her (besides being incredibly nice and patient with the shyest of girls) is that she is starting her own clothing line of highly fashionable clothes made partially with capulanas (large pieces of colorful cloth the women here use for everything). Chique Chique. (chic in Portuguese)

Caitlin, Abby, Gracey, and I having a little too much fun with a cardboard cutout at TOT (Training of Trainers) for REDES

Gracey and I and our cabin group

The three 11th grade girls Laura and I brought with us to the conference

Dama do Bling let a couple of the girls dance with her to her song "Remexe"

Mardi Gras in Moz

Since I missed Mardi Gras for the first time in 5 years, I decided to turn my favorite week of debauchery into one night. Here is a quick recap of the evening:

The Vilankulo Girls hosting our first "official" party.

I made King Cake (and a hat)

We played Beer Pong

Like I always say: Mardi Gras is a marathon, not a sprint.
Some people just can't handle the heat
(or maybe it was the hurricanes).


Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

TIA (This Is Africa)

Africa is a far off and mysterious land where cats know what it means to be a cat...

Meet Cooper. Yummy Rats.

All She Wants To Do Is. . . Work, Work, Work?!?!

So, I figured it was about time to give you an update on my everyday life and more specifically what I do at work. To be honest with you, these past four weeks were really the first real work I have actually done so you have not missed anything exciting. The first five weeks I worked consisted of me reading hundreds (seriously 100+) pages of documents in Portuguese, other documents in English, reacquainting myself with Facebook, and online shopping (just ask Mastercard – they threatened to shut me down). Apparently when you are in Africa you cannot buy things online from the States because it makes it seem like a) you are no longer in Africa or b) someone stole your card. I personally think that they were being a little close minded. Just because I am in Mozambique does not mean that I cannot be a proud supporter of the U.S. economy.

Like I said before, I work at CARE International which is a big NGO (non-governmental organization). I work 8 – 5 Monday through Thursday with a one hour lunch break from 1 – 2 and 8 – 1:30 on Fridays. CARE's mission/vision is, in simple terms, to help women help themselves, their families, and the community at large. I am working/going to be working on three different projects. The first project is called Comprehensive Civil Society Responses to HIV/AIDS (COCISO) and is part of the broader OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) project. COCISO works with local CSOs (civil society organizations) to help them build their capacity to better serve their beneficiaries (or OVCs and their families or guardians). COCISO provides financial backing to help the CSOs implement sustainable programs that focus on prevention of HIV and impact mitigation. I will mostly be working with the M&E (monitoring and evaluation) supervisor to form the tools needed to monitor the number and types of activities that take place in each of the CSOs and later I will be helping crunch numbers in the evaluation process.

The second project I will be working on is the CDC funded Mais Vida (More Life) project. Mais Vida is a HIV and AIDS treatment program that focuses on ARV (Anti-retroviral) treatment in both adults and children, PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission), treatment of OIs (opportunistic infections) like TB and PCP (pneumocystis carinii pneumonia) that tend to come along with the onset of AIDS, and a community counseling and testing component. I have not officially begun my work with this project, but I am going to be involved in the community counseling and testing which I think is pretty exciting and challenging at the same time. Right now, I am helping re-write and edit the continuation application for funding from the CDC.

Finally, the project which has recently saved me from eternal boredom (internet surfing tends to get old if you can believe it) is called Crescer Bem (Grow Well) or Ku Kula Kuatsi in Xitswa (the local language in northern Inhambane). This project falls under the larger HIV/Education project that CARE is working on all over the world. So KKK (I know, I can’t believe it either. It needs a new name) or as I refer to it as the HIV/Educação project is going to be my main project. The HIV/Educação project focuses on keeping young girls in primary schools (focusing on girls in sixth and seventh grade, somewhere around 11 - 15 years old) especially those who have married young or are pregnant. The project will work in 20 EPC (Escola Primaria Completo – complete primary schools which are those that include sixth and seventh grade) in the Vilankulo district.

The first two weeks of “real work” I had were spent working on the baseline survey in seven of the twenty schools. Week one consisted of several days of training in interviewing skills for the group of eight men and women in their early to mid 20s hired to partake in the interviewing process. During this time all of the instruments (surveys) were translated into Xitswa. On Wednesday and Friday of week one, we went to two pilot schools (one rural and one urban) to test the instruments and get down a routine of how week two would work. During week two of the baseline survey, we went to a different EPC everyday (three rural and two urban schools). My primary role in the baseline survey was to help the consultant keep things running smoothly (she was American who spoke perfect Portuguese, which was pretty exciting because there are not that many Americans floating around in Moz or very many ex-pats in general are able to speak the local language). I was also able to take part in the classroom observations which was really fun and exciting. The main point of classroom observations is to try to get an idea of the gender relations in the classroom and how the teacher reacts depending on whether he or she is interacting with a boy or a girl. During the two weeks, I sat in on two math classes, one visual arts class, a class on natural fabrics vs. synthetic (?), a morality and civil duty class, one Portuguese class, and two English classes. My favorite classes to watch were definitely the English classes. I think it was so good for me in so many different ways. First of all, it gave me an idea of the pace and level the kids were learning English. Secondly, it was fun to watch and listen to the students interact with each other in English and to see them actually enjoying doing so. Finally, I realized that when people come up to me and begin every conversation with “my sista” (which really annoys me to no end) it is not because they are trying to speak some version of American slang to be cool, it is because it is what they learn in school. That was a needed reality check and is a huge relief (well kind of, except how many generations of Mozambicans will learn to call mulungu women “my sista?”).

Here are a few pictures of some of the schools I visited over the past two weeks. I have even included a little multiple choice question for the end in case you are losing interest.

Which of these classrooms is the most suitable for a group of 40-90 Mozambican students?

A)

B)

C)

D)

Correct Answer: D

Not only is this building material (wood and canhiso) much cheaper than the concrete fancy classrooms, it is 100% cooler. The temperature in week two hovered right around the 40°C (104°F) mark. Granted, these classrooms will have to be replaced sooner than the concrete ones, but I easily would trade 50 minutes of intense sweating (the kind where sweat rolls down from your forehead, into your eyes, down your nose, and onto your notebook where you are trying to listen and take notes, but all you can think about is escaping the hot oven you are being forced to sit in all day) for one week of rebuilding a classroom. No contest.

p.s. February 2nd was my five month anniversary of my arrival in Moz.

Vilankulo (my new home)

My Hut/Home

The top of the grassy hill in my compound

(my "front yard") and my colleague´s house

The Beachgate

(there is a coral patch right in front, but there is a swimming area about a two minute walk from my house)

Photo by Courtney Alev

(she also took the photo in my blog headline at sunrise)

Simba

Christmas Dinner

(From left back to right: Vic, Anthony, Courtney, and Emily)

PST Pictures

My house in Namaacha where I spent the first ten weeks of my life here in Moz


Casa de Banho

My "Toilet" (which I secretly loved)

My mãe, Brigeta, in the sala (living room/dining room)

My brother Chris, his wife Zelia, and their children Wilson (5) and Sarah (1mo)

Sarah (or as I like to call her Sarita)

Zelia and Sarah

Tia e sobrinha

My family

(they insisted that the wheelbarrow I bought them be in the picture)

Bettie (one of my favorite Bairro 25 de Septembre kids)

Casa Dos Dois - our favorite hangout spot after "school"

Swearing In

Abby, Gracey and I with our two language teachers: Carlos and Emidio

Courtney (my roommate), me, Michelle, Laura (my sitemate), Caitlin, Abby

(bottom row) Liz G., Little Liz, Gracey, Charlotte