MozamBUGS in my MozamBED

10/9

Today I watched a chicken die. Ooofta. It’s Sunday, which means it’s chore day. I got to sleep in until 6:30, but the minute I left the safety of my room it was work time. I spent the next 6 hours sweeping the yard (which is rocks and dust and chickens), sweeping the house, polishing the floors, washing my clothes, washing dishes, and bleaching lettuce for lunch. Only after all these chores were done was I allowed to take my bucket bath and eat food. Woof. Washing laundry took forever even though I maybe had 10 things to wash. It involves lathering in one bucket and rinsing in 3 to 5 subsequent buckets of water. Unfortunately, I was competing with my host grandma for buckets and I had 2 loads. Luckily, I was allowed a nap after lunch. Post-nap my mom and I went on a hunt for butter. After the hunt proved unsuccessful, my mom dropped the bomb we’d be killing a chicken. I like to think I’m super tough, but watching that chicken slowly bleed out with its head half severed was a bit much. Cleaning it was disgusting. First we threw it into a bucket with boiling water and plucked its feathers. Then we scooped out guts and emptied the intestines. EW BARF OH MY GAWD SMELLS I NEVER WANT TO SMELL AGAIN EVER. In the end though, the chicken was indeed delicious. Guess I’m not turning vegetarian.

10/10

Ooooof long day. Class was at my house, which meant I had to get up early to clean the house. Class was rough. Also the house smelled like chickens (aka poop) the entire time. Snoop (the dog) broke free of his chain and was terrorizing the neighborhood (aka my class). I broke down and had to take a nap (aka visit my happy place).

10/11

My host mom told me I’m getting fatter. We’re totally in a fight. My body is rejecting me diarrhea style. ALSO IN A FIGHT. Is it too soon to open my real mom’s “Open when you’re having a bad day” card?

10/15

Okay, okay, bad week turned into good week. My language teacher had me teach the future tense to my class and give a 50 minute lecture on sanitation. In Portuguese. I have to say it went pretty well. My teacher said he was pleasantly surprised, I was already a teacher and he could understand my Portuguese. HELLO POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS! I also gave a mini Chemistry lesson in Portuguese, which went just as well. This weekend my host parents went to Maputo for a 3 day party. Apparently this was a signal for EVERY neighborhood ragamuffin to come over and binge on soda and Brazilian telenovelas. My host mom also hired a 15-year-old babysitter for me. Today babysitter had me kill another chicken. BAH THE STANK!

10/16

1:00AM. I just chased world’s biggest cockroach out of my bed (which I have now made impermeable with my mosquito net) and will be sleeping with my eyes open from now on. I have half smashed said cockroach and left it to suffer and die as a warning to all its crunchy friends. I just hope I didn’t trap anything else in here with me…HOLY HYPERVENTILATION…Wow, I’ve never been awake at this time before. There’s a lot of really funky drunk caroling happening. Pretty.

Just finally starting to get over ROACHSCARE 2k11. Also starting to get over seeing my host grandma topless. This morning (after finally falling asleep) PC volunteers and a family counterpart cleaned the high school. It was disgusting. I don’t know how kids learn. The desks are falling apart and students have to double or triple up on desks. There is also trash and broken glass EVERYWHERE. Teaching should be interesting…

10/17

Holy dogs it was an early day. I got up at 4:30 to take a field trip through Swaziland to South Africa to see the Samora Machel Memorial (he was Mozambique’s first president who died in a mysterious plane crash in South Africa 25 years ago. Wikipedia it.). They sang. They danced. They danced topless. They cried. They prayed. It was a big deal. Also my host sister informed me that dear sweet Snoop (the dog) died today. Rough day for Mozabicans and Mozampets all around.

10/18

My sister is a little liar. Snoop is not dead.

Today I trekked 20 minutes to Patrick’s house in the rain carrying a chicken so we could cook with our moms. We were supposed to cook traditional American food, and our moms would cook Mozambican food. We chose to make tacos. Super American, right? We made our own tortillas over a charcoal fire and killed our own chickens. They were some fine tacos and our moms were absolutely shocked we knew how to cook.

10/19

ALL I WANT FOR LUNCH IS A PEANUT BUTTER SANWICH AND MY HOST MOM WON’T LET ME MAKE ONE. Tough times.