August 15, 2013
These last few weeks in Mozambique have been nothing short
of hectic and crazy. After Site
Announcement Day, there was very little that was going to bring us back to
level-headedness. Except class at 7:30am
the very next morning. But for the 10
hours that followed site announcements we certainly lived it up. Getting super stoked with the people that
were going to be your closest neighbors, sulking with those who were placed 2
or 3 days travel away; but it was a time to celebrate everyone’s hard work over
the first seven weeks of training and finding out our sites certainly made becoming
a Peace Corps Volunteer that much closer (I will explain how we weren’t quite
PCVs yet later).
As can be expected it was extremely hard to find motivation
to go to language and technical classes after we learned our sites. The final two weeks of training you could
certainly feel the itching to get out of Namaacha and move to our permanent
sites. If the first seven weeks flew by
like your life flashing before your eyes, the final two weeks dragged on for
what seemed like an eternity. However,
it was also during these two weeks that friendships tightened and Moz 20 became
a very close knit group.
Tuesday August 6 finally came and we all left Namaacha
bright and early. After we said our
goodbyes to our homestay families we were on our way to Maputo for our Swearing
In ceremony. Here is the part about
finally becoming a PCV. I didn’t realize
until like the fifth or sixth week of training that we were officially Peace
Corps Trainees and did not become PCVs until after we swore in with the US
Ambassador. Anytime we claimed to be
‘Peace Corps Volunteers’ during training, especially during the last two weeks we
were promptly reminded that we were still Trainees becoming a PCV is not a
guarantee (playfully told this, of course).
When we finally made it to the Ambassador’s house in Maputo it was
chique (pronounced SHEE-key – self-explanatory). It was a beautiful three-story home
overlooking the Indian Ocean. Quite a
serene backdrop for swearing in as Peace Corps Volunteers.
While there we sang the Mozambican National Anthem (titled
‘Patria Amada’) followed by the Star Spangled Banner and listened to speeches
given (in Portuguese) by the Peace Corps director in Mozambique, the
Ambassador, and one of our fellow Moz 20ers, Edmund. Edmund’s speech absolutely blew us all away
(we knew he was really good at Portuguese, but damn). He told a story of an ongoing conversation he
had with his host mom in Namaacha. More
or less the story goes that during the first week of training Edmund’s mae told
him, “Edmund, I have stress.” This
phrase was repeated by his mae throughout his stay in Namaacha and Edmund eventually
got to talking to her about her family and where the stress came from. As they talked about the stress that everyone
has – not just in Mozambique, but people all around the world – it became
evident that just because you have a lot of stress – or something else that
makes your life a little more difficult – does not mean you cannot keep
pushing. There are always going to be
things that try to tear us down but we cannot give into those things. We have to rise above and continue living our
lives. Life is not easy, but we cannot
allow things we have no control over control us. Because really, what is the point in living
if we are going to bow down every time something petty gets in our way? Because no matter how big your problems are,
somewhere there is somebody who has bigger problems that he is overcoming. It is up to us to make the most of everything
in our lives.
And for me, listening to Edmund
tell his story really reinforced why I joined Peace Corps – because for so many
people around the world stress never goes away.
Most of us in the United States have lived pretty easy lives. Power goes out, but comes back a few hours
later (usually – unless Hurricane Sandy comes through). No cell phone coverage so you turn your phone
upside down or walk ten feet to your right and you have a few bars of
service. I am only 22 years old (almost
23!), but for 22 years I have always been on the receiving end of
everything. An education was practically
handed to me on a silver platter. I
played team sports for more than a decade.
There was never a time (mom and dad correct me if I’m wrong) when I
didn’t know if there would be food. I
went on vacations, read books (kind of), watched movies, played video
games. And these were the things that
stressed me out. And all of this because
of where I happened to be born. It
wasn’t that all of these things were necessarily ‘given’ to me, but I had the
opportunity to do all I have done for the simple fact that I was born in the
United States. We never stop to consider
how miniscule our problems may be compared to those of other people. For millions – billions – of people around
the world the stressors we have at home are unheard of. Imagine what a young boy in Bangladesh would
do to play in a youth soccer league or how a girl in Congo would react if she
found out she was going to school tomorrow.
Or a teenager in Indonesia had a TV and could play video games all
afternoon. These are things the rest of
the world would kill to have. And we get
stressed out over them. For me, joining
the Peace Corps was about living in solidarity with different people. Learning about their lives – what makes them
happy, sad, excited, motivated, stressed.
There will never be mutual understanding in this world until we know one
another’s stories. I hope I can use this
opportunity to not only learn more about Mozambicans and their culture (and
share their stories when I return home), but also share what part of American
life with Mozambicans (goals 2 & 3 of the Peace Corps!) – not like what
they see in the media. Ultimately, it’s
time that I stop ‘getting’ and finally start ‘giving’ something to the
world. Because as they say here in
Mozambique, ‘Estamos Juntos’ (We are together).
The world belongs to all of us, and we really are all in this together.
I digress.
There was way more I was going to write tonight, but I will
make another post about the most recent week.
I wasn’t planning on saying that much here!
