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 :)

Peace and perfect timing

God and Peace Corps have perfect timing....

Lately, I have been struggling with homesickness and missing important events going on in America. I’ve missed quite a few life-changing events in my family and friends’ life…and recently one of my best friends got engaged and is planning her wedding. I was having a really hard time knowing that I was going to miss all the planning by being in Mozambique. I was really having doubts about whether or not I could stay in Mozambique for the 2 years knowing I was going to miss all of these big events. Thankfully, I have really great friends/family both at home and in Moz who put up with me during my craziness.

Someone gave me good advice last week when I was having trouble thinking about being gone for so long and whether or not I could do it. They told me that whatever I feel peace about (whether that be staying in Moz or going home early) I should follow that peace and trust in God. I have been thinking about that and praying lots these past few weeks about this and I think I finally know what I feel peace about. I know I’m missing events in America but I truly feel peace about staying in Mozambique. I was struggling with feeling like I’m not doing much at site and didn’t know how I would change things in the future. After some time….and lots of phone calls with my PCV friends I realized I need to give myself more time. I have been at site for 3 months now and I still feel like I’m just getting used to Nacucha and trying to start secondary projects—I need to give myself more time to accomplish these groups. When I am having hard days I like to read this quote to help me remember to give myself time and the courage to keep going.

“There will be good days. And there will be bad days.
There will be times when—
you want to turn around, pack it up, and call it quits.

Don’t give up at that time. Don’t quit.
Its an opportunity to prove your worth.”

Life in Mozambique gets easier when I have plans to travel home and see family and friends. Now that one of my best friends is getting married I’ll be home twice—in October (yay for fall weddings!) and in December for Christmas—it’s given me lots of things to get excited about. I’m still trying to figure out how to make all the arrangements work out with my classes and supervisor but I’ll get it done. Better talk to my nun supervisor and ask for more time off…hopefully she understands me and my Portuguese this time :) 

So all that rambling was basically just to say that I’m sorry for all my craziness lately but I’m really determined and staying these 2 years. I really want to start secondary projects and help my students learn English. I need to start these projects so I have things to look forward to outside of classes!

Anna and I have found a counterpart to start our REDES group in April. REDES is a national organization that promotes the future of women in Mozambique. The group talks about sexual health, the prevention of HIV, equality between genders, the importance of education, self-esteem, and other important themes that promote independence. I also want to start a project at the primary school or start helping out there. We have a break during the second week of April so I’m going to visit the primary school and get acquainted with the teachers and students. I miss teaching elementary aged students so I’m really anxious to get started with a project there. As far as I can tell they have no resources besides chalkboards, desks and chairs. They need lots of things and I’m hoping I can help them out with that.

Today after sitting at home grading all day and cleaning around the house, Alfredo, our Safety and Security officer from Peace Corps made a surprise visit to our house. He looked around our house, took us to Nacala to look for a hotel for him and went out for dinner to catch up. We had chicken burgers (first real meal I’ve had in a long time!) and got to update him on our site—the challenges and positives of Nacucha.

We haven’t been to Nacala in a few weeks so it was really nice to get out of Nacucha, speak English and enjoy good food. Alfredo is so nice and told us that he thought we should leave site every 2 weeks for a break. It was really nice to have a Peace Corps staff member tell us that since we don’t leave much because of transportation difficulties. Nacucha is out of the way for PC visitors so it was a really great surprise to have Alfredo show up and take us out to eat! Peace Corps really does have good timing….Anna and I were both wanting to go to Nacala and eat food besides just bread and peanut butter for a change and then out of the blue a Peace Corps car shows up outside our door. Little surprises like that show me Peace Corps really cares about their volunteers and gives us a nice change to our boring life in Nacucha.

One more week of classes and then (hopefully) a week off of school! Let’s hope I can get all my grades finished and turned in on time (whenever that is…I’m hoping the other professors can fill me in on those little details). Happy Easter! :) 

Next month is World Malaria Day so PCVs all over will be blogging about Malaria—get ready to learn some facts and stories of Malaria!  

Palm Sunday-Domingo de Ramos

This week went by quickly yet again. I tried to prepare my classes their tests next week. I also caught quite a lot of cheaters during the tests this week. I think they are scared of me now that I walk around with an orange pen and take off points every time I see them cheat. A lot of times they’ll look at me with sad eyes and just say “Teacher, no, please!” I just tell them sorry you shouldn’t have cheated…maybe next time you’ll think twice. I know I’m a tad harsh.

I found out that the Ministry of Education is coming this week and all the new teachers have to attend a mandatory training Monday-Thursday. I can’t teach any of my classes this week since I have to sit in at the meetings so this weekend I’ve been trying to prepare tests and assignments for my classes. I also just found out that we only have 1 more week left before grades are due. Seeing as how I just learned about this I do not have enough grades for some of my classes. So, this week they will be busy writing assignments for me to grade so I don’t get in trouble for not having enough grades. Oh Mozambique…if only you could give me a little bit more warning than that. :)

When I was walking into my 8^th grade class on Friday two students came up to me and asked if they could come over after classes to speak English and ask questions. Friday afternoon the two students showed up and we started speaking in English and I asked them what kind of stuff they wanted to work on. A few minutes later another student shows up and asks if they can come and talk with us….and another…and another. None of these students are in my English classes—I do know two of them from my Informatica classes though. They seemed really enthusiastic about learning English and practicing to speak. Most of them even came over on Saturday and stayed for over an hour! It wasn’t exactly an English lesson—we looked through magazines, they had questions about words they didn’t know and we just practiced speaking.

They are a really good group of students and they even asked me if I had questions with Portuguese words to write them down and they would help me with them. I think we’re going to make it a weekly thing to come over, read magazines, ask questions and practice speaking English. One of the boys, Quizito, really wants to study at a University after he’s done in Nacuxa so I want to help him practice and get better with English. Having time with these students outside of class made my week. I felt good just sitting with them speaking in English and getting to know them better. I’m excited to get to help them speak English and they are going to help me with my Portuguese and also to learn Makua!

Today was Palm Sunday in Mozambique—it was a little different than in Omaha. We started over by the seminarians’ house where they distributed palms to everyone and blessed them. Then we processed over to the church with three students in the front carrying a large cross and all the community members following with their palms. After communion a lot of the students started singing loudly in Makua (the local language) and waving their palms around. It was really nice even though I had no idea what the song was about. The music and the spirit of the people at church every Sunday reminds me a lot of Sacred Heart  :) I do miss church in Omaha a lot but it’s nice to be reminded of it by the drums and the people singing and dancing.

This week since it’s Easter we have Thursday afternoon and Friday off of school and will be having church services. I’m excited to see what Easter Sunday mass will be like—I’ll try and take more pictures! I also talked to the nun in charge of the primary school and she told me I should come over one day and check out the school. I told her in the U.S. I used to teach at a Primary school and I’d love to come over! I’m hoping one day this week or maybe when we have a break in April I can go hang out at the primary school!

Starting next month I won’t be teaching Computers anymore! I didn’t feel like a good teacher and my Portuguese really needs some work. So now I have time to practice Portuguese with my students/a tutor and won’t be teaching Informatica until next year!

Best news of the week: 268 days until I’ll be home for Christmas!!! I got my dates approved by my Peace Corps Program director (APCD) and will be traveling home December 17^th until January 7^th! I’m very excited to see everyone back home and to celebrate Christmas with my family! Can’t wait to make those Christmas cookies :)

Some pictures from the past couple of weeks....

My roommate, Anna, and Irma Sandra enjoying the hammock.

On the drive back to Nacuxa...Mozambique before the sunrise

The crianças love their new coloring books!

My room...I think I'm going to feel lost without my mosquito net when I go home.

Elsa showing off her Dora picture :) She is one of my favorite crianças!

Picture from Gurue (at my friend Hannah's site) in Zambezia 

“I Will Survive”

This week in my 11^th grade English classes we were learning about the simple past tense. I wanted to make it a little more interesting than just taking notes and doing practice exercises so I started looking online for some ideas. I came across ideas to use songs to help teach grammar topics—and of course for the simple past tense it said to use the Gloria Gaynor song, I will survive. I absolutely love that song and already had it on my iPod so I thought hey why not try it! I had no idea if I would be making a huge mistake or if the class would get out of control but I wanted to try.

I have now played it with all four of my 11^th grade classes and they loved it. Most of them even heard the past tense verbs that she said in the song. Other students just wanted to dance but that was okay too. It was funny to hear them later in the day walking around singing “I will survive”…it made me smile. One of my students requested Nicki Minaj for the next class. That is not likely to happen but they can hope!

My APCD, Assistant Peace Corps Director, came to visit my site this week and he was so kind—he brought us chocolate and ice cream! I didn’t even remember the last time I had ice cream so it was a very nice surprise. I haven’t been eating the healthiest of dinners….last night consisted of cinnamon roll oatmeal (from America!) and ice cream. 

This weekend my roommate and I are traveling to Gurue for a St. Patrick’s day party with other PCVs. I’m really excited to get together with other Moz 19ers and eat good food! I’m also happy to have a long weekend away :) 

Last week marked 3 months in Nacuxa. Some days it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long and other days it feels like it’s been much longer! I do feel pretty proud of myself for getting through these first 3 months at site. They say it is the hardest time for PCVs since you’re trying to get integrated into site, teach in Portuguese, make new friends and are still improving your language skills.

When I look at the big picture of being here for 2 years I start to get very overwhelmed…it feels like an impossible task for me to be away from my family and friends for that long. To give you some perspective I have never traveled out of the country or away from home without my family. The longest I had ever been away from home was during college….which still was probably only a month since we had lots of breaks. I’ll admit I was that kid at summer camp that would cry because I missed my mom and being away from home. It just so happened that the camp was in Omaha (my hometown), my sister was also in the camp sleeping a floor above me and yet I still made my mom and Sittee (grandma) come to see me twice during a 5-day overnight camp. Yes I can look back now and realize how lame that sounds…what can I say I was/am one weird girl.

I’ve been gone now almost 6 months and I’m pretty proud of myself that I have yet to call my mom and make her come take me home like I used to when I was a kid. Some days are hard but I have to keep reminding myself to take it day-by-day. When I look at the big picture of being away from home for 453 days before visiting at Christmas (yes I counted—don’t judge) it does make me a little sad. But when I take it a day or week at a time it seems to go faster than when I think in terms of two years.

So I’ve been taking it a day at a time and trying to think of fun things for my students to do in class. I don’t think I’ll be playing them Nicki Minaj anytime soon but I’ll try to make it interesting for them. Happy early St. Patrick’s day! I’ll be celebrating a bit early this weekend but I’ll be wearing green!

P.S. Don’t worry mom I won’t make you come and bring me ice cream and eat lunch with me like I made you do at camp. No matter how much I’d like that I think the flight would be a little pricey for a lunch date. :) 

Maggie—1 Mozambique—0

This weekend after a crazy week of school and lesson planning and confusion I decided to travel to Nampula to visit my friend and get my packages. I was really nervous to be traveling by myself and wasn’t quite sure how it would go…but surprisingly it didn’t go half bad!

The part of the trip I was most nervous about was the 15Km stretch from my site to the highway where I would catch a chapa to Nampula. Normally we don’t see many chapas driving on that stretch of road, only motorcycles. On Friday, I was able to drive with the students and professors heading back to Nacala and they dropped me off at the highway. On the ride to the highway we saw a mother with her baby fall off a moving motorcycle-we kept driving so I’m not sure if they were all right but it didn’t look good. Then 5 minutes later we saw that a student had fallen off a motorcycle as well and hurt his foot so we picked him up. Between the 15km of a washed out road and people driving way too fast on their motorcycles it can get dangerous.

Another student and I caught a chapa from this nice family to Nampula. It was dark by the time we got there and they didn’t want to drop either of us off at a random spot so they drove us both right where we needed to go! They were really nice people but I will admit I was hesitant during parts of the drive. One of the ladies I was sitting next to, Amelia, was trying to teach me some words in Makua during our drive. Of course the question of whether or not I was married/had kids came up as usual. When I said I didn’t have any kids and wasn’t married the guy driving asked if I wanted to have a baby with him….I politely told him no thanks. Later on during the drive they asked me if I liked the music and when I said yes they told me that I should sleep in the car with the driver for the night. I really don’t understand that train of thought but thankfully I think they were just joking!

During the 3 hour drive to Nampula we stopped to “passear” (hang out) on the side of the road a few times. At one of these stops the women in the family bought beer-by some miracle only they started drinking and not the driver. I was really thankful I got there without any problems and in one piece :)

Being in Nampula was so different than Nacuxa! They had actually stores that sold bread (I even bought some sliced bread)! And places where you could get chicken take-out and grocery stores with so much food it was overwhelming. And of course I was able to hang out with one of my really good PCV friends, Hannah, while I was there so it was a very good weekend!

I also got 2 care packages from my mom and one of my best friends from back home! Now I have some good American cereal and Sunday Comics I can enjoy while I lesson plan today! They were absolutely perfect and are helping to keep my sanity for a few more weeks :) Thank you Schu and Mom for those wonderful care packages!!!

The trip back to Nacuxa was a little crazy. On the way to the bus stop I needed to buy another phone charger but we couldn’t seem to find a store that sold them. Finally I asked a nice older Mozambican woman where a store was that sold phone chargers. She was so sweet and actually walked us all the way to the store and helped me pick one out then took us to where I could catch a ride to the bus stop.

I don’t practically like taking chapas out of Nampula because you have to wait a long time for them to fill up before you can actually leave. But, since I was traveling by myself I didn’t really want to try and boleia (hitchhike) alone and had no idea where to find a boleia inside the city of Nampula.

As I was sitting on the chapa waiting for it to fill up I was texting some friends when out of nowhere some guy reaches in my window and makes a grab for my phone. Thankfully, (I’m sure it was a small miracle), I held on tight and he gave up and didn’t succeed in stealing my phone! I was a little nervous after that but I shut the window (even though it was sweltering inside the bus) and waited for an hour before we actually left Nampula.

The trip went pretty fast and when I was dropped off at the highway I was trying to mentally prepare myself to have to walk 9 miles back to site if no cars drove past me. After only a few minutes walking on the road a truck passed me and then stopped. It was a car full of some nuns and a new student heading directly to my school! Seriously, I don’t think I could have had better luck with my travels yesterday! You can bet that I prayed extremely hard and am thanking God for all those miracles that helped me travel to and from Nampula safely (still with a phone and without walking 9 miles)!

At least now I have another traveling experience under my belt and hopefully won’t be as nervous next time. Now to crack down and lesson plan for the week….maybe I’ll treat myself to a Nutty Bar from one of my packages! :) Happy March!