Today marks one week since Moz 20 got together in Philly for
our Staging event before departing for Mozambique. (Moz 20 is what we will forever be called as
we are the 20th group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Mozambique). It also means that we have only been in
Mozambique for 5 days! Which is insane
because it feels like it has been so much longer.
We spent our first 2 days in Maputo (the capital, pronounced
mah-POO-too) recovering from jet lag and getting acquainted with Peace Corps
while staying at what must be the nicest hotel in Mozambique (our rooms were
$250/night and they were the cheapest available rooms!). On Sunday, the group packed up for training
in Namaacha, a small town on the Swazi border, and we met our host families where
we will be living for the next ten weeks.
As one could imagine, the anticipation of meeting my host family was
characterized by nervousness and the obvious expectation that it would be
extremely awkward given my lack of Portuguese and their lack of English. However, it was so much better than I ever
imagined. My mae (mom) is a super sweet
lady named Cecelia and she has already spent countless hours helping me with my
Portuguese and showing me how to do different things around the house and my
pai (dad) is an older man named Horacio who I really haven’t seen much but he
is the President of the Clube do Namaacha and he is apparently a huge Detroit
Red Wings fan, as evidenced by the wearing of his only hat. My Spanish has helped carry me through the
first two days, but I have found so many new ways to communicate. Most times I literally play charades with my
mother while she tries to figure out what this crazy ‘brianco’ is doing, but it
all works out in the end.
In the two days of training thus far, we’ve spent close to
eight hours on Portuguese alone, including six hours on Tuesday. It’s amazing that when you spend so much time
learning a language how quickly you are able to pick it up. I’ve even been able to make a few complete
sentences with my mae which I thought would take at least a week or two to
accomplish. As a comparison for how
quickly we are moving: I took Spanish for
eight (8!) years and didn’t learn the preterit tense until my fourth year; I
have been taking Portuguese for two days and have already learned the preterit
tense! It’s obviously a lot to learn in
such a short period of time, but I’m not sure it could be going better. (Obviously it has only been two days, so it
could go way downhill from here. But so
far, so good.)
When I signed up for Peace Corps I knew there would be some
things I would have to do, eat, see, learn, etc. that I had never experienced
before. Specifically I was prepared to
eat a lot of fish and different fruits that I generally don’t eat at home. And I was hit with it my very first day in
Namaacha. I have already had four things
for the first time here in Mozambique: spam, papaya, avocado, and lastly (and
my mom’s personal favorite) tea. Let’s
be honest, spam is actually as horrible as it sounds, but there is no way I cannot
not eat it when my mae wakes up at 6am to make it for me (along with some
eggs). And I know you’re thinking, “How
could this kid never have eaten avocado?!” especially since I love Mexican
food. I’ve now had it twice and it was
much better the second time around. And
I somehow made it 22 wonderful years and through four years of college without
even a sip of tea or coffee and now even that has changed. Again, when my mae gives me a pitcher of hot
water, teabags, sugar, and milk at breakfast, how can I let it sit there
without touching it? So every morning in
Namaacha I have a cup of tea to go along with my egg and spam. Sounds like the best breakfast!
I could go on and on and on about how awesome the 26 people
in Moz 20 are, but I will save you the time.
There are so many different backgrounds in the group - people who have
lived in China, the Netherlands, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Colombia and
Canada. Nine of the 26 have Master’s
Degrees and one even has a J.D. There
are three volunteers over the age of 50 and three who graduated from college
within the last month. It seems like all
the volunteers have a huge interest in International Relations/Affairs/Development,
and it is so nice to be surrounded by so many people who share the same
interest as me for the first time. We
can actually have conversations that go beyond, “North Korea is bad,” “Can you
believe the Eurozone,” or “Gas costs so much money.” So that’s been nice. But the one thing that we all really share is
the fact that we are doing Peace Corps.
Together. And it seems like it is
not our interest in one another or our collective interest in IR that bonds us,
but it is our desire to do Peace Corps that has brought us so close. We all have different pasts but our pasts
have led us to do this together and that is an amazing thing.
We learned on Monday that two Peace Corps Volunteers (or
PCVs in this acronym crazed world), one from Zambia and one from Ghana,
recently passed away. Our Country
Director, Carl, showed us a video and song made by the Country Director in Togo
in honor of the two volunteers. It was
seriously one of the most moving songs/videos I have ever seen. In one photo of the video was a mural that
read, “Dare to Change Your Perspective” and I think our entire group fell into
tears together. So I think from here on
out that will push me to keep going when things get tough.
I don’t want to end it on a sappy note, so to conclude -
Mozambique has been AMAZING so far. The
Portuguese is still intimidating, but we are all getting there. Slowly.
The people are wonderful, the food is great, the scenery is beautiful
and I couldn’t have asked for a better group to be serving with. This is just the beginning, but it is shaping
up to be an amazing ride.
