Apparently I’m a MozamBABY

Week 4 is infamous for cracking volunteers. I now see why. We’re all
on language overload, host family overload, and rice overload. Not
only has this week dragged on, but most volunteers are exhausted,
cranky, and anxious to get out of Namaacha. We’re all living for next
weekend when we get to go on site visits and get a little relief from
our families. Don’t get me wrong, I think my family is great. It’s
just that I’m ready to be treated like a real person and not an
infant. Last night I set the table and gave myself a fork and knife
(we were eating pork, normal right?). My grandma took one look at my
place setting and announced the fork I gave myself was way too big, I
would stab my mouth, and swapped it out for a spoon. Then during
dinner when I was struggling to cut my pork chop with a spoon, my mom
gave an exasperated sigh and cut my meat for me. Silly American. Also
I’ve been banned from doing anything in the kitchen besides watch my
mom cook because I don’t know how to cut vegetables correctly (which
is cutting the vegetable in your hand, towards yourself with a giant
and completely dull knife). Mozambicans don’t really believe in alone
time either so I can’t spend time in my room by myself or they think
I’m depressed and knock on the door incessantly. Ooof.

MozamBOUNCING BACK

Week 5 has begun and I’m out of my week 4 funk! I apologize for the lack of mozamblogging, but funk plus 3rd world internet makes for tricky updates. SO HERE IT IS MOM, THE BLOG YOU’VE BEEN BEGGING FOR! Let’s talk Halloween weekend.
In a valiant effort to keep us Americans from having a massive Halloween party, Peace Corps arranged for us to garden all weekend. However, as volunteers, we have been trained to be resilient, flexible, and creative in zero resource situations, so, sorry for partying Peace Corps. The day did not start out so well though. Let’s rewind to Friday night. Thursday, I got the news my host dad’s uncle had died so Friday my host parents and grandma went to Maputo for the funeral. If you recall, parents in Maputo is the equivalent of Mozambican ‘Home Alone.’ My house was crawling with neighborhood children. Friday night I tried to sneak into my room after class unnoticed because I was so not in the mood to speak Portuguese, but my teenage host brother and his 3 friends spotted me and guilt-ed me into sitting in the kitchen with them while they made me rice for dinner. I spent the next 3 hours speaking Portuguese, translating American rap songs, and convincing 4 drunken 18-year-old Mozambican boys my American dad does not own an Escalade. It was exhausting. I was starving. The rice was crunchy. I didn’t go to be until 10, which is SUPER late for my new granny lifestyle.
Saturday morning was just as messy. We needed to meet at 6:30 for gardening (an attempt to tire us out/deter us from celebrating) so I woke up at 5. There was no electricity. There was no food. Both doors leading outside were locked and my little brother and sister didn’t know where the keys were. I begged them to wake up the older brother (who was hungover, I’m sure), but they didn’t understand me. “You want to take a bath?” “NO, I WANT OUT OF THIS HOUSE!” “You want to drink coffee?” “NOOOOO I HAVE CLASS RIGHT NOW! LET ME OUT!” “You want to play hide and seek?” It went on like this until I pounded on my brother’s door and asked for the key. Sans breakfast and bath, I headed to the science hub. Once we all gathered they drove us across town where we gathered brown and green material for composting. It was pouring rain and we were all carrying about 10lbs of mud on our shoes by the end. The rest of the day we spent constructing a compost pile, creating a permagarden, and planting sweet potatoes. This gave me a chance to show off my expansive potato knowledge, which probably only furthered my weirdo status. We were finally allowed to leave around 4, which gave us more than enough time to run home, take bucket baths, improvise costumes, and meet at a volunteer’s house to celebrate Halloween. My babysitter was very upset I would be missing dinner with her, but I explained Halloween is an incredibly important American holiday. I also assured her it is Halloween tradition to cook a big meal together. I failed to mention it was a meal of sugary (boozy) treats. The Mozambicans just stared at us, wide-eyed and open mouthed, as we paraded through town in our costumes. One little girl face planted, another burst into tears. Crazy Americans. I was really impressed with the creativity displayed by the volunteers. There were some fantastic homemade costumes. I won’t give away too many party details, but I didn’t get home until 1A.M. and my babysitter had locked me out. I had to knock on my brother’s window. Luckily, he still felt bad for not getting me breakfast (or packing lunch) that morning so he let me in without saying anything. Dodged that bullet. Sunday was a rough one. We had gardening again, but we pushed it back to 9 (we anticipated a slow morning). What should have taken us 30 minutes took us 3 hours because we were all moving in slow-motion. I’ve learned my lesson: No more hangovers in countries without Netflix, unlimited safe drinking water, and Qdoba burritos.
Yesterday (Monday) my host aunt from South Africa came to visit. I think technically she is my half host aunt because her dad is my host dad’s dad, but she has a different mom because he has two wives? I don’t really know. It sounded messy. Good news was she didn’t speak ANY Portuguese. This meant 1. I wasn’t the only one with a blank stare on my face and 2. I got to play interpreter/sound smart! I never wanted her to leave, but she left today so I’m back to being the baby/dummy of the house. Whatever, normal.
Today (Tuesday) all of the science volunteers and language teachers gathered at our science hub, separated into language groups and had CHORE OLYMIPCS! For the past 4 weeks we’ve been learning house chores so we’ll be able to survive on our own in 5 weeks. The chores included: breaking open a coconut and shaving it to make coconut milk, crushing peanuts with a giant mortar and pestle and sifting to make peanut powder, lighting charcoal, ironing with a coal iron, hand washing clothes in buckets, and sweeping the yard. My team took 2nd. I’m convinced the first place team slipped the judges 100 meticais and/or was on steroids. I can’t know which for sure. My team was called the MozamBULLIES (who do you think came up with that one?). It has been raining non-stop for the past 3 days so all of Namaacha is just one giant muddy slip-and-slide. It’s also super cold here. I’m laying under 2 fleece blankets and wearing Yutaka’s flannel right now. I thought it was supposed to be summer? Namaacha, you tease.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) we find out were we are going for site visits. I AM SO EXCITED TO GET OUT OF NAMAACHA AND SEE REAL VOLUNTEERS DROOOOL!
Also if anyone is interested in sending me sweet nothings via text my number is 823548422. Once I have your number I will give you personalized and sassy updates since it’s cheap for me to text America. I also appreciate Skype/Google Voice calls. Internet access should improve once I get to site, so I might actually be able to check my e-mail more than once every 2 weeks!

Found out I’m going to Chokwe, Gaza on Saturday. VACATION