Hi everyone! My mom told me that people have been asking how my fellow
volunteers are doing so I thought it would be cool if I posted some of their
blogs for you to read!
Cabo Delgado Volunteers
1. Mariri Volunteers: my roommate.
Liz: http://lizlovesmoz.blogspot.com/
2. The Montepuez Volunteers
Anna: http://aiweaver.blogspot.com/
Will: http://usswilly.blogspot.com/
3. Balama Volunteers
Rafael is an amazing photographer. Check out his beautiful pictures!
rhexperience.wordpress.com
Other volunteer’s blogs who don’t live in Cabo Delgado:
Helen: http://my-life-in-africa.blogspot.com/
Nick: http://oddonick.blogspot.com/
Enjoy :) Until next time I have electricity/internet!
Sunday, February 3, 2013
February 3, 2013
Hi everyone! Back in Montepuez this weekend. Liz and I were
lucky and got a ride from one of the three missionary families who live here in
Montepuez. He came right to our door and dropped us off at Anna’s house. It was
really nice! The ride itself was quite an adventure again though lol we were on
a dirt road for most of the trip because Chad has his own car and was dropping
off friends who lived in random small villages between our house and Montepuez.
We saw a beautiful old abandoned Catholic Church that use to have a school and I
am very very glad he asked us to sit in the front with him. Having a slight
motion sickness problem is starting to be more of an issue living in a third
world country lol i made it safe and sound though.
Let’s see. I’ve started teaching here in Mozambique finally!
Because our school is in the middle of nowhere, Liz and I didn’t go to school
on the first official week of school. There were hardly any students and no
point in teaching /giving a syllabus when only 5 or 10 of your students are
present. This year I’m teaching one class of 9th grade biology
(plants) and 11th grade biology (phylogeny). I am also teaching two classes
of 11th grade English, which I’m very glad I have. I still don’t
feel like my Portuguese is really adequate for teaching biology yet but I’ll
get there. My 9th grade students are quite and sweet but my 11th
grade students are ALWAYS correcting my pronunciation and spelling. If anyone
remembers not understanding the teacher with the strong accent in most of our
science classes, that’s now me. Because of our limited resources (chalkboard
and chalk) and the fact that my students don’t have textbooks, I’m forced to
either read my notes out loud or write them on the board. My students couldn’t
understand me when I tried to read out loud and it just takes forever when I write
things on the board and wait for them to copy it down. Must work on
pronunciation…
But yes. Teaching itself has been a lot of work for me. This
is the first time I’ve ever taught in my life but I think I’m starting to get
the hang of it. There have been a lot of ups and downs so far. All of my
students are so excited to learn English! This skill is so useful for them,
especially because all the bordering countries all use English as a national
language so they are always trying to practice. I asked my English students to
write a paragraph so I could see what level they are at and apparently they
think I’m a good teacher (self esteem boost!). I was about to go on a rant
about some of the other teachers too but I think I’ll wait. One of the things I
will talk about, however, is punctuality. On Friday, Liz and I signed a paper
saying that we will go to a meeting on Saturday at 7am about. One of the topics
was, surprisingly, punctuality, so we thought it would a good idea to show up
on time. I started getting a little worried when we told our neighbors (who are
also teachers) that we were going to the school and they said they weren’t
leaving yet. Liz and I waited with two other teachers for an hour before
finally signing a paper and leaving without even doing the meeting. Five out of
the thirty two teachers showed up.
I am teaching 15 hours a week now and both Liz and
I don’t teach on Fridays so hopefully we’ll have more time to travel! With my
ninth grade class, I made the outline of a plant cell on the wall and drew organelles
on post-its and handed them out to my students. They all really enjoyed coming
up to the board and sticking their pictures up. I also found out that we have a
microscope in our biology/chemistry lab! I was so shocked and excited when I found
it! We don’t have electricity so it has a mirror underneath. I brought my
flashlight in and took a leaf from outside and showed them what it looks like
when you look through a microscope and they all got pretty excited! The two
things I’m missing, however, are slides and slide covers. There are simple
experiments (onion skin and cheek cells) that I could do with my kids if I can
find some. One of the biology teachers suggested buying some from a lab in a
hospital so I will try that when I get a chance. Liz and I are pretty excited
about the fact that there is a “laboratory” (empty room with a few chairs and counters)
here though! We want to make a science club eventually and hopefully decorate
the place. If anyone has any suggestions for simple easy experiments I would
love to hear them. I was thinking about using some Science Olympiad activities
if I can. Wish me luck!
Liz, by the way, is teaching chemistry and English. She is
teaching 10th grade chemistry, which is… wait for it… Organic
Chemistry. What!? Lol and all of her students don’t know what a periodic table
is. The book we are suppose to be teaching from doesn’t even have a period
table in it anywhere! Liz, also, did a review with her students and a lot of
the teachers gave her a hard time about it. They kept telling her that she was
teaching 9th grade level material. But where do you draw the line?
How can she get her students to understand this material when they didn’t learn
the basics the year before? Memorization I guess. The school system here is
very strange. Students could potentially learn chemistry for five years (I only
took one year of high school chemistry and I have a minor in it!). They are all
also expected to learn Portuguese, English, and French in school and none of
them speak any of these languages originally. Here in Cabo Delgado, at least
where we live, people speak a local Bantu dialect called Makua. Students are,
therefore, expected to know four different languages by the time they graduate
high school. I, personally, can barely speak two! Also when are students
suppose to be learning this material? When I was in high school, I spent all of
my time studying at night. How can you expect students to do this when there is
no electricity? Also if they girls are living at home, they are also expected
to do household chores as well (taking care of the family, cleaning, and cooking).
It’s no wonder its so hard for them to graduate.
Oops. I ended up ranting. That’s all I want to say about the
school for now. I took a few pictures though of my school for everyone to see!
The front of my school. In English it’s Mariri High School.
The inside quad where the students sign the national anthem.
The door to our biology and chemistry lab!
The view of the lake if you are standing in front of the
school. I was going to take a few more photos but my camera ran out of battery.
Next time :)
February 1, 2013
Liz and I are still having a lot of difficulty with our
director. The main problem, at the moment, is that our house still is not even
close to being done. We are still missing mosquito netting on our windows, I don’t
have the keys to my bedroom, our walls need to be repainted, and we still don’t
have our own bathroom! Our director promised us a bathroom within two weeks of
moving it and it’s been two months. We’ve been using the communal bathroom with
all the other teachers. It’s getting really annoying and inconvenient. We can’t
really do much else with our house until our bathroom is made. Peace Corps made
a deal with our director that they would pay for the materials if the school
paid for the labor. Now, all of the materials are bought but nothing still has
been done, of course. A couple weeks ago we told the man in charge of the dorms
that Peace Corps already paid the school so they installed a grate on our front
door. The man who did it, however, still has not been paid. I feel so bad but
Liz and I really don’t want to start paying for this out of pocket. Everyone already
thinks we have a ton of money and it’s the school’s responsibility to get the
work done. There has been some progress though. We finally have a front grate
and the other day they spent a few hours tossing giant slabs of concrete into
our backyard.
The chunks of concrete with our solar panel off to the side.
We would be completely cut off from the world without it. Thanks again Nick :)
We’ve had a lot of success with our basil planting endeavor though!
I brought a few small sweet basil seeds from back home and we were able to get
about 8 shoots of them growing! We didn’t want to plant them in the backyard
yet (still not 100% sure where the bathroom is going and we didn’t want our
plants to be crushed by flying concrete) so we turned one of our basins into a
temporary pot. Anna had three giant basil plants in her yard as well and we
took two sprigs of it home with us. I left them in water for a little over four
days and they started producing roots! They are all doing pretty well so far (except
for the basil that got eaten by a worm) and hopefully we can plant them in a vegetable
garden soon! We want to try growing other plants to and would love to take any
seeds if anyone wants to send some, especially sunflowers. Thanks everyone!
Hope all is well!
Me and our basil!
One of the frogs who lives on our window.
A giant snail. They use seashells as their shells. It looks
really cool!
January 25, 2013
I woke up to a text from Nick saying that he was being
evacuated due to flooding! Has anyone else back home heard about this?
Apparently there was too much water and South Africa released water into
Mozambique to relieve pressure from a damn. Haven’t done my research as well as
I should have but I did hear there was a lot of looting in the city of Chokwe.
Reminded me a lot of what happened to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Nick and five other volunteers are now stuck in Maputo waiting to see what will
happen to communities and homes. Hopefully they’ll find out their future living
situations soon. Here are a few links with more information anyone wants to
read more about what’s been going on:
BBC Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21206347
More information on the Flood Water:
Nick’s blog. There should be more info about the flood soon: http://oddonick.blogspot.com/
Food stories now. Sorry that all of our silverware/bowls are
the same haha limited resources at the moment!
We bought veggies last time we traveled. Cucumber curry on
rice.
A quick dinner in the dark. Bread, mayo, and cucumber. Not bad!
The second vegetable we bought was eggplant. It was so good!
Eggplant parmesan.
And grilled eggplant with sweet and sour sauce on pasta. The
picture doesn’t do it justice but this was one of my favorite meals so far!
My attempt at making African style Pho. Lol
Potato soup (with fresh basil on top :) )
Liz and I also made mango jam the other day! It tasted kinda
like applesauce but it was so good.
We also made a delicious tuna melt the other day too. (Our
velveeta cheese is running out so if anyone wants to send us more we would be
very grateful! :) )
Me being very un-lady-like and sitting in our hallway. At
least my knees aren’t showing! Also funny things about acne. Everyone here
thinks they’re mosquito bites lol the perks of having nice skin.
Liz also loves to bake. We have a homemade version of a
dutch oven.
And Liz made delicious buttermilk biscuits! Yum!
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