A visit to the primary school

Today I visited the primary school to watch a class and to talk to Irma Rita about a new program PC is starting this year.  The program is about engaging communities to improve early grade reading by having after school tutoring sessions as well as a community library. The application is due this May and 25 PCVs will be able to participate in the program starting in July. I even found a counterpart today who will help me start the program (if selected) and would continue it after I left. Tomorrow I’m going to talk with the 3^rd grade teacher, Cristina, about her students’ reading levels so I can get more information before filling out the application. The school has no library or any other resources for that matter and I think it would be a great help to the students to have some books to read. 

My visit to the school went really well—I sat in on a 3^rd grade class in the morning and was able to see what a typical school day looks like. Boy oh boy was it different from elementary schools in the U.S. The younger grades go to school from 7am until noon and the older students have classes from 1pm until 5pm. I thought this was pretty different than in the States when elementary students have classes from 8am until 3 or 4pm. But there just are not enough classrooms or teachers to have the students go all day. While I was observing the students were learning math and then did a quick review of the Alphabet. A few of the students did not know the correct order of the letters and they are in 3^rd grade! 

3rd grade classroom where I student taught in Liberty, MO

Just sitting in the classroom I noticed so many differences about primary school in Mozambique and the United States. As you can tell from the pictures the classrooms themselves look like night and day. Back home a typical elementary classroom has bulletin boards, books, colorful posters, lots of resources for the kids, desks and chairs for all the students, technology and has a homey look. The primary school classrooms in Mozambique are quite different—many of the desks and chairs are broken, or there aren’t enough chairs so some students have to sit on the floor. The classrooms have no colorful posters or anything on the walls, no resources or books for the kids to use, and if they students don’t have a pen to bring to school they are out of luck and can’t take the notes. Many times other students let them borrow pens but it shocks me that the simple things we take for granted in the states are not a given here. I knew school here would be different and look different but it hit me today just how different life is for the kids in Mozambique. Despite all these hardships they have and the lack of resources they are always smiling and happy and taking care of their younger siblings as they carry water from the well and do their chores. Being a kid in Mozambique is a lot more challenging than in the United States…there is no comparison.

  

3rd grade classroom in Nacuxa

I have never worried about not having a pen or pencil, books, technology or other resources to learn from when I was a child. After seeing both the primary and secondary schools in Nacuxa it makes me wonder about things. I wonder why I was always so picky with my food and wouldn’t eat things because I didn’t like them…while children here don’t get the option and at times are looking around in the school’s trash pit for items to take home or want the scraps we would normally throw away. I wonder why I was blessed with a family that read to me every day and a school environment where I learned so much and had so many things/resources; whereas the students here only have classes half a day and do not have books at home for their parents to read them a bedtime story. I wonder why I complained ever about anything when these children who are just 6 or 7 are walking very long distances carting water on their heads while carrying their baby brother or sister on their backs. And yet I never hear them complain—they just smile and keep working so hard. I wonder why I can’t seem to motivate myself to get up early when the secondary school students get up at 4:30 every morning to do their chores at the school. Can you imagine high school students in the United States getting up at 4:30am every morning and not complaining? I don’t think I would be able to do that as a teenager…heck even now I don’t know if I could do that.

I feel so lucky to have been brought up with so much stuff. I just want to try and have a little bit of that stuff brought here. I don’t know how I’ll accomplish that but I know one thing…these children deserve books! I can’t imagine my life without books and I want to give them that option of reading for enjoyment. I’m really hoping the new PC program works out to start a community library. Honestly, even if it doesn’t I’m still going to try and write some grants to get a library started for the primary school students. I feel blessed to be who I am and have what I have but at the same time feel so guilty for having all that I do. I know it’s a pretty common feeling among PCVs but it’s not a good one. I know I can’t change what I have but I can try and make a difference and give these students and my community some things that can improve their education and their lives. I hope I can walk the walk and actually do something about the lack of library and resources at the primary school. Wish me luck!

On a very different side note—my roommate and I finally found the puppies that Pepa had in a tree at the primary school. They are only about a week old and didn’t even have their eyes open. Anna and I decided we are going to get one of the white spotted ones to have as a pet. We’re not quite sure logistically how we’re going to make that happen but hopefully in a few weeks we’ll have a cute little puppy! We’re definitely getting a boy puppy because we don’t want to have to deal with our dog having puppies. Now to think of good boy dog names :) 

Finally found Pepa's puppies hiding in a tree at the Primary School

BAMM

Today is World Malaria Day and in honor of that, PCVs all over Africa are blogging about malaria (BAMM...blog about malaria month). I don’t have much experience with malaria myself but have had a lot of students that have gotten malaria as well as my supervisor. One of my best friends in PC actually got malaria last month and from her experience it is NOT a fun thing to go through. She was lucky because we talk daily or weekly prophylaxis and have treated mosquito nets to use in order to reduce our risk of getting malaria. However, many Mozambican children and adults are not as lucky. They don’t have the means to get these medicines or bed nets and therefore their chances of getting malaria are very likely.

Some quick facts about Malaria:

• Malaria is a life threatening disease transmitted caused by parasites that are transmitted through bites of infected mosquitoes
• Malaria is the leading cause of death in Mozambique—it accounts for 29% of all deaths and 42% of deaths among children under five years old.
• Malaria is preventable and curable
• People who are at a greater risk of malaria are young children, pregnant women and people who HIV/AIDS
• Diagnosing and treating malaria at an early stage helps in reducing the disease, preventing deaths as well as reducing malaria transmission.
• Malaria is the #1 killer in Africa
  (Statistics from stompoutmalaria.org and WHO)

I haven’t been affected by malaria in the sense that I have had the disease but have seen the side effects in Nacucha. Many of my students have had to miss multiple weeks of school to recover from malaria; children of our neighbors and friends have died due to malaria and many students and professors still don’t know the causes or prevention methods of malaria.

This week in my Informatica class I asked my students to write about a problem in Mozambique. Among the many different topics quite a few students wrote about malaria. It was really great to see all their knowledge of the disease and to get to talk with them about this. I was also very impressed with the other topics my 11^th graders wrote about: the water crisis in Nacala, HIV/AIDS, other diseases in Mozambique and domestic violence. I’m looking forward to reading all of their papers about these topics. I’m hoping to have more conversations about malaria and HIV/AIDS with my students to spread awareness and discuss ways to prevent these diseases.

Last week I had a PC conference in Nampula to talk about sites, get new ideas and see other Moz 19 PCVs that I hadn’t seen since December. It was so nice to get out of site and talk with my friends about classroom ideas and secondary projects. After being gone for over a week it felt nice to come back to site. The guard at the school was so excited to see me Tuesday night that he greeted me with a hug. My students seemed really happy to have me back as well—I forgot to mention to one of my classes that I was going to be gone for a week so they were apparently worried I wasn’t coming back. Oops :) It was really nice and rejuvenating—I feel ready to start some new projects and get teaching again!

My plans for the coming weeks:

• My roommate and I are starting a REDES group (girls group to promote sexual health and awareness, empowerment of women as well as other important life skills) and holding an informational meeting this weekend. I hope some girls show up!
• I decided even though I’m not a huge fan of Informatica class my students really enjoy that time on the computer. Therefore, I’m going to start a computer club so they have more time with the computers and can practice their typing skills (which really need some work). 
• Next Monday I’m going to visit the primary school with Irma Rita and talk to her about a new program PC has called EGRA, which works to improve early grade reading. I’m really excited to hopefully get more involved with the primary school and do some work there.

Hope you learned some new facts today during World Malaria Day!  

                                      How will you Stomp Out Malaria in 2013?

Women’s Day

Today, April 7^th is Dia de Mulher in Mozambique or Women’s Day. I’m not quite sure how they celebrate this National Holiday besides getting school off on Monday. I saw lots of capulanas just for women’s day so I’m sure all the women in Nacucha will be wearing those today in the market and at mass. I’m not celebrating too much…one of my friends, Anna, gave me the idea of making capulana flowers to give to the women at school—since I’ve had some free time I decided to make some and give them to the nuns today. It’s pretty cool that Mozambique has a day to celebrate all women!

This weekend my roommate left to go on a trip and then two Peace Corps conferences and will be gone 10 days. It’s only day 2 and I’m already feeling lonely. I’m really glad I have a roommate at site—I don’t know how I’d do it if I was by myself…guess I’d make some Mozambican friends very fast. I’m hoping I don’t see any big spiders or scorpions because we normally attack those together with the bug spray…not quite sure how that would work with just one person.  We’ll see how it goes :) At least in 8 days I get to go to Nampula for my own Peace Corps conference and see all the other North Moz 19 PCVs! I’m really excited to get out of site and see my other 19ers that I haven’t seen since December. I better talk to my supervisor about missing class…I talked to her a month ago but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t remember.

Next week we are starting a new schedule for the trimester (no week long break like I thought though)…I’m excited for the new schedule because I’m supposedly not teaching computers anymore. When I got my schedule last week can you guess what I was teaching? The same amount of computer classes and two less English classes! Oh Nacucha. The schedule is supposed to change again since Peace Corps talked to my supervisor. We’ll see if that happens on Tuesday when classes start.

Nothing else too exciting or new going on…I need to organize all the tests and evaluation sheets the students use into a binder for my 11^th grade classes. In Nacucha after every module is completed they have someone at the school verify the grades and work and also someone outside of the school to verify it. I’m sure my binders will be missing some important documentation and/or probably won’t be done right...guess I’ll find out Monday.

Trying to keep myself busy by lesson planning, reading and watching tv shows while my roommate is gone. I spent an hour Friday night talking to some of my students in English. They are great and they really want to learn English! They got a good laugh at me because it started to get dark and since my porch light was on all the bugs started swarming and the lizards starting eating them. I really don’t like bugs and they know that. Of course then they start to tell me that those bugs flying are actually very tasty and they eat them. I tried not to look too grossed out because that probably would have been culturally inappropriate. One student even told me he was going to prepare the dish one day and bring it over for me to eat. I’m really hoping he doesn’t follow through with that! I do really enjoying speaking English with them and learning about their lives. They are really great students and are very respectful.

Off to go do some laundry before mass, not quite sure exactly what time mass starts…knowing my luck I’ll probably miss it like last week. Then I better lesson plan for the new classes. 255 days until I’m home for Christmas!!!!! :)

P.S. If you have any ideas on how to keep busy and not get lonely let me know :)