Site Announcement Day

Thursday, July 18 was the day we have all been waiting for since we arrived in Mozambique seven weeks ago.  It was Site Announcement Day, which is pretty much the most anticipated, feared, nerve-racking day of Peace Corps training.  It is the day that decides your fate for the next two years. 

Before I even arrived in Mozambique I had thought I wanted to be in the Northern part of the country, mostly because I wanted to live in a place that had some Swahili influence and I thought it would be really cool to live in a place that had a majority Muslim population.  And being the geography nut that I am, the days leading up to Site Announcement Day were just brutally painful for me.  I knew where I wanted to be placed, but I also knew that I had absolutely no control over where Peace Corps would place me (aside from the occasional comments I made about how cool Niassa and Cabo Delgado Provinces would be). 

Rachel, our Associate Peace Corps Director for Health (or APCD), handed everyone an envelope which had a somewhat sentimental letter about how we are nearing the end of training and it is time to start preparing for real life as a volunteer in Mozambique.  But honestly, no one really cared to read that letter because underneath it was the paper that held our fates.  Would we be placed where we thought we wanted to be?  Or would Peace Corps throw us a curveball and give us the challenge of a lifetime? 

Because I was so nervous during the 20 minutes leading up to site announcements, I decided to open my letter extremely slowly and wait for just about everyone else to open their letters before I had a chance to look at my own.  I don’t know how this actually made me feel more comfortable, but it did.  I really didn’t even read the letter.  Rather, I scanned the text looking for the name of a geographic region that I recognized.  And when I finally saw that name in the second paragraph and it said Cabo Delgado I just felt a huge grin creep across my face as I tried to keep at least a bit of a straight face – especially for those who didn’t get the greatest placements.  But to say I was excited would be an understatement.  I was stoked, ecstatic, overcome with euphoria.   

So a little bit about my placement:  I will be living in a city called Montepuez for the next two years.  Montepuez is the capital of the eponymous district.  There are about 75,000 people in the city, making it the second largest city in Cabo Delgado Province.  There is a wonderful climate table which can be found on Montepuez’s Wikipedia page (which provides no more information about the city than what I’ve already posted here.  Except the incredible climate table.  I can comfortably say I am going to love the weather in Montepuez).  I have just one work placement and it is with a Non-Government Organization (NGO) called Ariel.  Mostly it works with HIV/AIDS patients in Cabo Delgado.  I still don’t know what my exact role will be, but I’m excited to finally know where I will be and with which organization I will be working. 

For those of you who would now like to book your flights to visit me, Pemba offers the closest airport.  Pemba is supposed to be an amazing city and Montepuez is located about 4 hours to the west. 

I will try to update soon on what has been happening throughout the past few weeks of training and preparations for real life as a volunteer in Mozambique!  Stay tuned!

Getting Into the Swing of Things

So I wrote this post probably 2 weeks ago, but I am just posting it.  I am going to try to update the last 2 weeks by the weekend!

There have certainly been a lot of crazy things that have happened in Mozambique in the past few weeks.  Not just within the Moz20 group and training, but throughout the entire country.  As for training and learning Portuguese, we are all getting there – slowly, but making progress.  I am getting to the point where I can actually understand my mae the first time she asks me something.  And I have just about gotten over Spanish to the point where I am thinking in Portuguese before speaking rather than thinking and Spanish and then translating it to Portuguese before I open my mouth.  So that seems like it is a good thing.  I’m not going to lie though, sitting through the technical training sessions – those that cover health and education in Mozambique – has been pretty rough.  It’s usually for 2-3 hours each day and I feel like there is only so much we can/want to absorb before it becomes too much.  Otherwise, like I mentioned before, this group is amazing.  We are all getting along so well and we almost go out of our way to hang out with one another.

We spent Friday and Saturday of this week perma-gardening.  Basically we learned how to make a garden that can be reused over and over.  My group’s garden was about 5 meters by 5 meters and had two beds that were about 2 meters wide each.  The first thing we had to do was make a compost pile that included green and brown materials and manure.  This pile will be used after the first harvest of the garden takes place in order to replace the nutrients and soil used by the first set of crops.  Then we dug our garden and made the beds which took way more effort than any of us would have anticipated.  The soil was absurdly compacted and hard (but I guess you’re asking for that when its 75 degrees every day and it hasn’t rained in 2 months…).  We came back on Saturday and planted corn as our main crop along with onions, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, and sweet potatoes.  All in all the whole process took close to 8 hours, but it was a ton of fun and now I know how to make my own garden and care for it! (I think).

Last Saturday we went to Maputo for a few reasons: first, those people who didn’t have phones yet had to buy themselves some phones, and also just to get out of Namaacha for a day.  Even though I brought a phone from home, I wasn’t able to get on the internet at all so I had to get that resolved while in Maputo.  After more than an hour at the Vodacom (service provider) store, I finally got my phone working correctly and it was a huge relief.  We were supposed to spend the day with our language professors seeing different sights and using the Portuguese we had learned in the first two weeks to manage our way around the city.  Unfortunately, the Ministry of Health was on strike (which in and of itself is not so awesome for us considering we are health volunteers) and had a march in Maputo the same day.  So we were confined by Peace Corps to a small section of the city and we weren’t able to do much outside the phone store and lunch.  But it was still great to do something different for a day. 

I doubt if any of the significant events that have taken place in Mozambique have been covered in the US – or anywhere outside of Southern Africa for that matter.  A brief history may be necessary:  Mozambique gained independence in 1975 from Portugal.  After the first elections there were tensions between the ruling party (FRELIMO) and its main opposition party (RENAMO).  By the end of the 1970s there were isolated instances of violence that became more frequent and Mozambique ultimately fell into a civil war that lasted until the early 1990s.  (Some accounts end it as early as 1990 while others take it all the way until 1994).  FRELIMO maintained power and has become even more of an overwhelming power in the past 20 years.  Anywho, last week there was an attack on a military base in northern Mozambique (like 800 miles from me) for which FRELIMO blamed RENAMO.  RENAMO in retaliation decided it was going to use its own military to block a 100km stretch of the EN1 (the main highway in Mozambique which runs from the southern border with South Africa north to Tanzania).  Nothing happened for two days, but on Thursday a bus was pulled over and RENAMO’s military opened fire on the bus killing two people.  Since then tensions have been extremely high, but Peace Corps’ director Carl still maintains that nothing is going to come out of it. 

There were dozens of marches all over Mozambique on Saturday pretty much to declare that no one wants another war and that RENAMO and FRELIMO need to get over themselves and do what is best for the people of Mozambique.  There was even a march in Maputo composed entirely of children who chanted “Nossa criancas queremos paz” (We children want peace).  Pretty amazing if you ask me.  However, I also experienced the other extreme in Namaacha where people pretty much went on living their lives as if nothing had happened.  Walking around town the last two days you would have no idea that tensions were rising in other parts of the country.  The only mention of the events of the last week has been on the national news (which is controlled by FRELIMO).  Anyway, that is what has been happening the last week, but be assured that we are completely safe down south in Namaacha (and most other Peace Corps Volunteers are as well as there are no volunteers placed around the city of Beira, RENAMOs headquarters).

But not to leave anyone worried about me or Mozambique, things are good!  Like I said, I can kind of speak Portuguese, the weather is beautiful, and the people in Mozambique have been nothing short of welcoming.  I will also try to post some pictures soon, but first I have to start taking some! 

PS. If you have WhatsApp or want to keep in touch more easily then download WhatsApp and add my number. +258848279093.  It’s free.  So do it.  I’d love to hear from people!