This next week we have model school. I should be planning my 45 minute class, but instead I’m writing a blog. I guess teachers procrastinate too. Tomorrow I will be teaching a class of eighth graders the importance of Chemistry. In Portuguese. I think I lack motivation because it’s so hot and humid here my room feels like a rainforest, complete with cockroaches, lizards, and one very elusive, but noisy mouse. I’m also unmotivated to plan a Chem lesson because I found out this week I’ll be teaching Biology instead of Chemistry. YAY!
We got our site placements this week. I will be staying in southern Mozambique in Gaza Province about an hour outside of Xai-Xai (pronounced Shy-Shy) in Chibuto (Shee-boo-too). I’ll be living with another Peace Corps Volunteer named Mary. She’ll be teaching English and Computers at one high school and I’ll be teaching Biology at a different high school. Apparently the house we’re moving into has had many volunteers before us so we are the proud owners of a gas stove (unfortunately there is a gas shortage in Southern Africa, so although we have a fancy stove we may be cooking on charcoal for the first few months). We have electricity, but according to the current volunteer living there it goes out when it rains, when its windy, when its hot, when its cold, all the time really. My school does not have electricity. Our bathroom is outside and is basically just a hole in the ground. My roommate is determined to build a toilet. I told her I wouldn’t stop her. We plan on getting a puppy and making a garden. I plan on eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a week (SO. SICK. OF. RICE.). My friend Anna is going to live about 2 hours away on the ocean with nuns and flushing toilets. I plan to visit her and her toilet every weekend. My host mom is so excited I’m staying in the South because she seems to think I’ll visit her every weekend. I told her, maybe. She’s also trying to teach me the local language Changana. I can say thank you (kanimambo=kah-nee-mam-bo) and good morning (lixile=lee-she-lee). Only 2 and a half weeks left until I move to site!
The funny thing is I went on site visit to Chokwe, which is only about 45 minutes from my site. Good thing I had fun on site visit…
Time for the sad news: We are down to 2 baby ducks. We started with 10. I definitely think this is why we have so much grief and loss training. I really hope Chompy and Skoofus make it. After the loss of Snoop (the dog) and 8 baby ducks, I don’t think I could handle any more casualties. Also I think we ate the pet chicken that lived in the kitchen. I’m not so upset about that one though. She just pooped everywhere. Wasn’t ever her number one fan.
Last week we went to the orphanage in Namaacha. I’ve never been pet and prodded so much in such a short period of time. We played with 5-8-year-olds all morning. We played duck, duck, goose. I seemed to always pick the future Olympic sprinters to chase me. Still not good at duck, duck, goose strategy apparently.
Next week is Thanksgiving and I will attempt to make banana bread pudding (no pumpkin here ☹), apple crunch cake, and peanut brittle. We’ll see how this works with no oven or dairy products. I smell a challenge! All of the UW-Madison alums (there are 4 of us) are also trying to figure out how we can watch the Packer game this Thursday. Fingers crossed for satellite TV at the swanky hotel…
MozamBLACK MAGIC
Today I ate lunch with my teenage host brother, who’s really my host uncle (Still figuring out this family tree). He informed me a lot of Mozambicans believe in Black Magic (Voodoo), including my host dad. The other day I was sitting in our outdoor kitchen with my host mom while she made dinner. It started to storm. Almost immediately I found myself surrounded by my entire host family in this tiny kitchen. My host dad was convinced if he went back outside he’d be struck by lightning sent by someone who wanted him dead. My host mom and grandma wouldn’t let me text because they were convinced I’d be electrocuted. So there we all sat, in silence, watching my host grandma kill and clean 6 chickens because none of us were allowed to leave the kitchen (or text) until it stopped lightning. The power went out 3 or 4 times during this chicken slaughter and I definitely got splashed with chicken goo. My host family also unplugs the refrigerator during storms, but unfortunately forgets to plug it back in. That fridge gets real funky by the next morning. Just another reason not to eat mayo…
Although I have a long list of possible puppy names, I’d like your suggestions. E-mail them to me at lenajenison@gmail.com. Or just tell me about your life. I’m dying for American gossip/news/stories. I’d like to thank Papa Jenison for his daily haikus. The rest of you, however, have been lacking on the e-mail front (grandparents and mom excluded). No excuses, you have trustier interwebz than me. If you want me to blog more, harass me via e-mail (that’s what Mama J does and it seems to do the trick). MISS YOU!
Not that I’ve received any packages yet, but if you felt compelled to send me letters, nail polish, Cosmos, coffee, gum, yourself, etc, you can sent it to 345 Avenido de Zimbabwe, Maputo, Mozambique. I will love you forever.
I forgot to mention my host mom and grandma have decided it's totally cool to walk around the house in the morning topless. Holy sag-fest. It also doesn't help my host mom is like a foot taller than me, which puts her "mamas" at my eye level. And I can't show my knees in public? Seriously?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Mozamphone update
Here is my entire phone number in Mozambique (earlier post did not have the country code).
011-258-82358422
If you are reading this you should be sending me email at LenaJenison@gmail.com.
011-258-82358422
If you are reading this you should be sending me email at LenaJenison@gmail.com.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
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
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
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