tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3775599870301616792024-02-07T05:15:45.720-08:00Tudo Bem!Asia. My next frontier. These are the voyages of Valerie Cooper.
My continuing mission: to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where few muzungos have gone before.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger69125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-50221045570355459382014-09-07T02:30:00.001-07:002014-09-07T02:30:44.605-07:00Here We Go Again.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Once upon a time when I was 19 and a half,
the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran an article that featured a full-page photo of
the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. I can’t recall what the article was about or
why it even struck me, but I remember promising myself then that, someday, I
would see the Eiffel Tower in person.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The next day, I grew impatient for someday
and got applications for scholarships to study abroad and for a passport. When
I was 19 years and 364 days old, my passport came in the mail. On my 20<sup>th</sup>
birthday, I got on a plane to Paris, France.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">One thing you should know: I am lucky
beyond what anyone has a right to be. And I acknowledge this. Through phenomenal
work opportunities, scholarships/studentships, and great jobs that allowed me to
save up money and happily wish me well on month-long sojourns and that all
seemed to just fall in my lap, I have visited 15 foreign countries and now
lived in six cities in four countries on as many continents in the past seven years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I arrived in England in September of
last year, I fell in love with my fine medieval town of Norwich and the people
I met there. So much so that I fancied sticking around to do my PhD there – the
longest I’d be in one place since leaving my parents’ house at 18. Thanks for
all the traveling, World, but I think I’ll just stay here for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And the World laughed and said, You must be
mistaken. You said you wanted travel. I’ll help you travel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Which is how I found myself here, in Hong
Kong, preparing to do my PhD in international media development over the next
four years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-40tnsE3hCpnjeGbz877IaTzTpH5Xbh2Ck7b5Ms_xOp7GXN-7Q9nsp0uSXhzKF_GGKeBWgHGygWIRSF6TXhCeTa37w2CVL9PJ-0mdTZLpitNUtS2dUnK-y8BRBidMRcY6AIzlNIK0_wA/s1600/DSCN4341.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-40tnsE3hCpnjeGbz877IaTzTpH5Xbh2Ck7b5Ms_xOp7GXN-7Q9nsp0uSXhzKF_GGKeBWgHGygWIRSF6TXhCeTa37w2CVL9PJ-0mdTZLpitNUtS2dUnK-y8BRBidMRcY6AIzlNIK0_wA/s1600/DSCN4341.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">The
Degree<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Except that, oh no, I can’t stay in one place for
that long. Four years in one place is just too much commitment for me, apparently. Which is why my PhD
programme goes like this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOta1eZZF6x3iZOWEcYcLgiuHjk0b6dhhgWbnJ_SGOFqkJ4an_PjOLC_UPzB9czpGkTqHbT2mrX0t1xSP_Y81atqYPAAyQxkNSynhplJ9V4nvJdYF2qMgNL8XC90JgHZsonllES_NaUkc/s1600/2014-09-05+17.43.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOta1eZZF6x3iZOWEcYcLgiuHjk0b6dhhgWbnJ_SGOFqkJ4an_PjOLC_UPzB9czpGkTqHbT2mrX0t1xSP_Y81atqYPAAyQxkNSynhplJ9V4nvJdYF2qMgNL8XC90JgHZsonllES_NaUkc/s1600/2014-09-05+17.43.38.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">Year 1: Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong
Kong<br />
Year 2: Haimen Institute of Science and Technology, near Shanghai, China<br />
Years 3&4: University of Westminster, London, with time spent doing
research in sub-Saharan Africa<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This particular dual-degree programme is a
new endeavour by the universities involved. Though HKBU and Westminster are
both known for their communication programmes and there are 16 other communication
PhD candidates doing their degrees exclusively at HKBU, myself and my three
colleagues – from Pakistan, the Philippines and China – are the guinea pigs to
this very international and quite well-funded multi-university programme.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR76eHHO9GLEsisLrCwe96_XldCiSE4YuiPu_ietTcn46uVYVJ3pLJdmJXFsBJzLSe7kTykC2pnGtFvd95GbjkYmxv1ZTFYlcf4WuwHZLbpNxwfrxTjcRAc54lSWoBmyMRaXrmw-J9WU/s1600/DSCN4334.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSR76eHHO9GLEsisLrCwe96_XldCiSE4YuiPu_ietTcn46uVYVJ3pLJdmJXFsBJzLSe7kTykC2pnGtFvd95GbjkYmxv1ZTFYlcf4WuwHZLbpNxwfrxTjcRAc54lSWoBmyMRaXrmw-J9WU/s1600/DSCN4334.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from the top of the HKBU communication building</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This programme is described as a hybrid between
the American and British PhD systems – the American system being lots of
classes and a short thesis, the British system being fewer classes and a long
thesis. Which means we get the best of both worlds – lots of classes and a long
thesis. This semester, we have 9 hours of classes and 12 hours of working as
teaching assistants each week. This will mostly be the case for the next two years
in Hong Kong and Haimen. The final two years I’ll be based at the University of
Westminster in London focusing on my research and doing field work wherever
required. Upon completion, I will have degrees from both Hong Kong Baptist University
and the University of Westminster. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">The
City<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">My beloved town of Norwich was a small,
sleepy community on the banks of the River Wensum, where, in the city centre, you
wouldn’t see a soul after 7pm except in a pub, and you’d always carry an
umbrella and a jacket because it rarely got above 20C/70F.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Hong Kong is not quite like that. They say
it’s incredibly safe, because absolutely everywhere you go, day or night, there
will always be hundreds of people with you. EVERYWHERE. My umbrella has now
turned into a parasol to ward off the constant sun and a water bottle must be
carried at all times to prevent dehydration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Right now, I’m staying with an AirBNB host,
which strangely harkens back to Peace Corps homestay – I’m cheap, so the room
is barely larger than my bed, there’s no real designated shower area but just a
drain on the floor beside the toilet, conversations with the housekeeper are
via pantomime as I don’t speak Cantonese, and instead of chickens running
around I keep accidentally tripping over the host’s pet turtle (including,
awkwardly, in the shower). But as it’s in the Mong Kok district (ranked the
busiest district in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records), I can
step outside the building and find funky street food and fresh coconut with
sugar cane juice any time of day or night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This week (fingers crossed) I’ll be moving
to my more permanent </span>(read; one year) home, a three-bedroom,
two-bath flat on the third floor I’ll be sharing with two local teachers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Fun Note: I found it strangely difficult to
find flats with kitchens. Even now, my future flat has just a sink, a
microwave, a small fridge and a hotplate. Why is that, I asked a friend?
Because it’s so much cheaper and easier to just buy delicious and healthy food
everywhere that no one really bothers to cook. To which I responded,
why have I wasted my adult life living anywhere else?!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The fact that a two-course meal with a pile
of rice and a lemon tea costs less than $30HK ($4 USD) also proved extremely
beneficial this week when my podunk Texas bank decided I didn’t need access to
my money for three days and I had to survive off my emergency stash. I’m over
that now.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While I'm strangely a bit homesick for Norwich (strange because I don't get homesick. ever.), I also know that getting decent pay to do my PhD research and travel the world more is a greater opportunity than I could have hoped for. So here's to another country, another culture, and another four years of putting off getting a 'real job' while getting to know people from across the world and feeling like the darned luckiest person on earth.<br /><span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqXskiNdjpCaiGbBIzCYNloBw7AKGzIbavoEu9Iy06mZvCNKqi7-dPonUZIj89amRO1hiwT6h4Tb0ypButz6n9q29W_ewsJtMemWQmqUgsopoEs9qQArSEqfWozLqRTHHQEkqGEm1BYw/s1600/DSCN4353.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqXskiNdjpCaiGbBIzCYNloBw7AKGzIbavoEu9Iy06mZvCNKqi7-dPonUZIj89amRO1hiwT6h4Tb0ypButz6n9q29W_ewsJtMemWQmqUgsopoEs9qQArSEqfWozLqRTHHQEkqGEm1BYw/s1600/DSCN4353.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-9646144992345921782013-10-05T12:09:00.002-07:002013-10-06T01:56:23.630-07:00Concerning the New Home<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>Concerning the Flat:</b></span><br />
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35LylcftWDmmODaov3v6IyuQ17kJFZ2CNx162SzGEMc-GMaIlO12R25sB6zqJrZn8dfnfs7BQl36CKKkzQdDl3kRoxrFOMK-cgGPFurew2m4AuAT-q5AEmBW4gV1UpmfXbv9lKYYBpCw/s1600/DSCN9392.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg35LylcftWDmmODaov3v6IyuQ17kJFZ2CNx162SzGEMc-GMaIlO12R25sB6zqJrZn8dfnfs7BQl36CKKkzQdDl3kRoxrFOMK-cgGPFurew2m4AuAT-q5AEmBW4gV1UpmfXbv9lKYYBpCw/s400/DSCN9392.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Chapman Court, Duke Street. Complete with resident swan.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I once tried to count the number of places I've called home and got up to six houses with family, three houses with roommates, four college dormitories and three apartments before I got bored and stopped counting. Regardless, this is the first "flat" I've had the pleasure to call home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Mary Chapman Court is the student accommodation, primarily for grad and international students, settled along the river in the heart of Norwich city. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In contrast to where I was living a month ago, the flat is a bit of a downgrade - farewell dishwasher, television, personal bathroom with a tub that could accommodate a small horse, etc. Not to mention I'm having to start from scratch with furnishings (curious how often that happens), so I have precisely one pot, one pan, plastic dishes intended for a garden party from the "Everything </span>£<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">1" store and no real personal items in my room due to luggage constraint. Then I think about where I was living at this time last year. And I really appreciate my little flat a little bit more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUo_e__JN1HD1MB_Y29AbaFV-B5El5usCGp4knM2e0jT1izL9rqu2JWBl1Z1fKSpAmGlNlImQtwMKRHs0yDVkWJLQNz-bk0vwcFb7FC_6O-5zavnFgBs-f4n7sR-D4lXUNkoWaeRuGpi0/s1600/DSCN9386.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUo_e__JN1HD1MB_Y29AbaFV-B5El5usCGp4knM2e0jT1izL9rqu2JWBl1Z1fKSpAmGlNlImQtwMKRHs0yDVkWJLQNz-bk0vwcFb7FC_6O-5zavnFgBs-f4n7sR-D4lXUNkoWaeRuGpi0/s400/DSCN9386.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">While I was expecting a bit of a cultural shock with the living situation, it wasn't in the way I had foreseen - I have three Chinese flatmates. :) Miranda, James, Roy and I make our home on the third floor in 24A, and you can usually find one of two of us in the kitchen, usually cooking delicious and healthy Chinese fare. Or, you know, heating up microwave meals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3T2oBE1lcQMC3qdA3qFc876czfO_yMfZBdydbtPGdktdGHGqlsLi4VL-zjqqNB7tlCC4cVxdccfgQJiAfCfrfamhSHhGSovT7ACEa_zg_2Dz1PigWYGwYmV4rxB5VLF957e86jfC1mZw/s1600/DSCN9389.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3T2oBE1lcQMC3qdA3qFc876czfO_yMfZBdydbtPGdktdGHGqlsLi4VL-zjqqNB7tlCC4cVxdccfgQJiAfCfrfamhSHhGSovT7ACEa_zg_2Dz1PigWYGwYmV4rxB5VLF957e86jfC1mZw/s400/DSCN9389.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pots, pans, furniture - pah. We all know what really makes a home.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span>
<b> <span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Concerning the University:</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">To get to the university (the
"uni," as it's called here), I have a five-minute walk through the
city center followed by a 15-minute bus ride to the campus.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The founders, it seems, tried to
the find the most beautiful green, hilly, gorgeous piece of land alongside a small lake that you could imagine...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5MQanyZZ2dpCMB4cJxDxZ_f4eYrstQYrDmji73a_zKVBZQLbkxiI353pZzWH6vIDk-yjuJEeGJnZwhsJG2Wfux2wwdaYnyir6iczrGB8oDNFOkh5Mx-8O6EFzXHTyaK1oTAd1qDoJuw/s1600/DSCN9350.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5MQanyZZ2dpCMB4cJxDxZ_f4eYrstQYrDmji73a_zKVBZQLbkxiI353pZzWH6vIDk-yjuJEeGJnZwhsJG2Wfux2wwdaYnyir6iczrGB8oDNFOkh5Mx-8O6EFzXHTyaK1oTAd1qDoJuw/s400/DSCN9350.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">...and promptly dumped a mass of multi-leveled concrete on top of it. Apparently massive grey squares were all the rage 50 years ago.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipDcO_9CFiK1sLEqAGQEzx5fq0aPCV4ARQMdE_XmSfxTjXEH05wtil1nFh9QcfSVldXPgJYks7LZMR_9KqKBFJILxfEG0lHYD5En8ywJzN0E8UukPq7Fjjlbm1-_EirDcH37m-PNhyphenhyphen3TE/s1600/DSCN9338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipDcO_9CFiK1sLEqAGQEzx5fq0aPCV4ARQMdE_XmSfxTjXEH05wtil1nFh9QcfSVldXPgJYks7LZMR_9KqKBFJILxfEG0lHYD5En8ywJzN0E8UukPq7Fjjlbm1-_EirDcH37m-PNhyphenhyphen3TE/s400/DSCN9338.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That's okay, because somewhere along the way cement went out of fashion and it's covered in greenery wherever possible.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvnVRt6E_zj5lpwtinFmPNUi283_QZF9u777GVRZ5QEQivXLlt_zGO0PlaCIJkKe96ZFZcDZW7hmUztGboQ7G_DiljbV9K61cC-frhq1PUoRQ2VANVGEWmH2HO1jkpKfmf0tDd13dVF8/s1600/DSCN9339.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicvnVRt6E_zj5lpwtinFmPNUi283_QZF9u777GVRZ5QEQivXLlt_zGO0PlaCIJkKe96ZFZcDZW7hmUztGboQ7G_DiljbV9K61cC-frhq1PUoRQ2VANVGEWmH2HO1jkpKfmf0tDd13dVF8/s400/DSCN9339.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">That aside, it really is a great place - not to mention accommodating. Not only does it offer a range of
shops and banks and whatnot, the university union also houses a pub that offers drinks from open to close (for those really rough lecture days, it was
explained to me), and on weekend nights doubles as a right proper nightclub that
frequently sells out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">On an unrelated note, the library is also open 24/7/365.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5D_V1VI98bfr24RC8wOHVXQ-dK0GwLqLMnaIR9lrBrQ8Gq2jGQ6eb3Hq9aUfujl1htmPnJ98zNC8GajqUoV3TfsiIU43KoJKFU-0cDuI86QjghkHf3xgwfGJCVamnOTi3VQSA3h977YQ/s1600/DSCN9348.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5D_V1VI98bfr24RC8wOHVXQ-dK0GwLqLMnaIR9lrBrQ8Gq2jGQ6eb3Hq9aUfujl1htmPnJ98zNC8GajqUoV3TfsiIU43KoJKFU-0cDuI86QjghkHf3xgwfGJCVamnOTi3VQSA3h977YQ/s400/DSCN9348.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Also, we have a volcano.*</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQamCa6AMNuSfV3IwSdnTltBoJcOcfnoptyp2WvIJ-joL8Hf_N30jOkUMPFv8I-uRs36XflzGL6RV74jUOmu4YU1B7Hhkzgh-pjF6wFp-lU2yqI51WZwGXc4y5FRcC5AYEvDe6Io2j_g/s1600/DSCN9371.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQamCa6AMNuSfV3IwSdnTltBoJcOcfnoptyp2WvIJ-joL8Hf_N30jOkUMPFv8I-uRs36XflzGL6RV74jUOmu4YU1B7Hhkzgh-pjF6wFp-lU2yqI51WZwGXc4y5FRcC5AYEvDe6Io2j_g/s400/DSCN9371.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">*not a real volcano.</td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Concerning the People:</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I have yet to meet an unkind or
unhelpful person here. On the bus when I first arrived, I immediately met Clive
the postman and his wife, who felt it his duty to bestow his intimate knowledge
of the city ("Nobody knows better than a postman, you know," says
Clive as he taps the side of his nose, a gesture whose purpose still eludes me)
and the surrounding area upon me, and then invite me to go fishing.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">UEA, like any other uni, has a hundred different clubs ("societies") you can join - I bypassed the Quidditch team in favor of the salsa dancing society. Interestingly, these do not include sororities or fraternities. Moreover, all the societies are considered separate entities that do not receive uni funding and are completely independent of academics - meaning that the American football team is the same as the football (read: soccer) team is the same as the knitting society is the same as the horror film society. Bizarre, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">One of the more lively groups is the international student society. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The uni boasts more than 3,000
international students (of which, odd as it seems, I am one). My course alone is home to students from Kazakhstan, Colombia, Malawi, Mongolia, Guyana, South Korea, Switzerland, a handful of Chinese and Japanese, and me, the token American. On the bus going out with friends the other night, we counted the number of countries represented (six) and the number of languages spoken (seven). There were eight of us total.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">There's a marked difference between making friends as a college freshman ("fresher" here) and as a graduate student - namely, that it's easy because grad students are nice and open and mature. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Ironically, the very first student I met here was an American living two floors down who's spent the past three years living in rural Ecuador and is an avid reader, writer and traveler (I'm like, did I really travel 5,000 miles just to meet myself in male form?). It's amazing to be able to meet people from all over the world who are interested in the same things you are. After leaving the pub with a Brit and Brazilian from my course the other night, we realized we'd spent the past two hours talking about our respective countries' most ridiculous news sources.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And we liked it.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJLqwXirtWrjwy3Eg4jZ9w3HzvC40BQSUzR3EY0QVO6JKxMzzlxCoFro6YjgIIjcMBb1swtJzxjsqWa3UxuRSHtZNE3K2lvFlkD-SHW-g_C1vgq0qq_Dp3henqMfW6AVTDO__vTQ-2V0/s1600/DSCN9429.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQJLqwXirtWrjwy3Eg4jZ9w3HzvC40BQSUzR3EY0QVO6JKxMzzlxCoFro6YjgIIjcMBb1swtJzxjsqWa3UxuRSHtZNE3K2lvFlkD-SHW-g_C1vgq0qq_Dp3henqMfW6AVTDO__vTQ-2V0/s640/DSCN9429.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Represented in this photo (l-r): Brasil, Philippines, China, Malawi, South Korea, USA, Turkey, Colombia, Mongolia, Japan, England</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-111650443998005152013-09-22T05:24:00.000-07:002013-09-22T05:40:21.499-07:00Concerning the Next Adventure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hullo from Norwich!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seems as though the adventures continue, just in a much different setting. While I'm not planning on continuing this blog beyond this post, I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a little bit about my newest home (and try to convince as many of you as possible to come visit!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My path has led me to Norwich (pronounced "nor-itch"), Norfolk, a few hours northeast of London in an area known as East Anglia. I'll spend the next two trimesters working towards my master's degree in Media and International Development at the University of East Anglia here, and spend my final trimester out there somewhere in the world putting it to use.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So here's really all you need to know:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Concerning the Flight</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">* I had a brief stopover in Edinburgh (pronounced "ed-in-burro"...apparently they like to add and delete syllables on a whim here), Scotland. The highlights here included: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 1) Flying over during the day and seeing lots of big, old castles, lots of big, old churches and lots and lots of sheep.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 2) the Scottish accent. I simply CANNOT HANDLE how cool it is to listen to and possibly asked a few too many questions just so the wonderfully friendly Scots would keep talking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 3) A man about my age wearing a kilt in the airport. Complete with boots and a popped-collar polo. The jury's out on if he wore it in the traditional fashion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 4) THIS:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBO81uomhCV4xLm9SeqUEHol0_91RUFznRtLWJUH7fokZ2dw4_ssBDPTolWwpQmeUxQD8mnrN-sKJrB-O8MnV9Fl-m6ZoLDH1hvyW7ufyAlzbn1ZDTGjLnY35G16pOPxwYYQyFVm-dXJA/s1600/DSCN9274.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBO81uomhCV4xLm9SeqUEHol0_91RUFznRtLWJUH7fokZ2dw4_ssBDPTolWwpQmeUxQD8mnrN-sKJrB-O8MnV9Fl-m6ZoLDH1hvyW7ufyAlzbn1ZDTGjLnY35G16pOPxwYYQyFVm-dXJA/s400/DSCN9274.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why yes, this is an advertisement for an all-redhead flight to an all-redhead festival. Guess where I'll be this time next year? Reconnecting with my long-lost equally genetically mutated brethren.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Concerning Norwich</span></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzi15hUPLujJQt-a3JwPllJViTA8p8iWxgyvqFa5yqHDg0S21M5lUnMH8tlncwHAzTNuol9rqM4tydIOjC7kfknWklJqzOlmAQZ5s1BJrP4YC6hYmrQVJNjvOWJ7cpaQ7gM35YrY-ZO78/s1600/DSCN9276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzi15hUPLujJQt-a3JwPllJViTA8p8iWxgyvqFa5yqHDg0S21M5lUnMH8tlncwHAzTNuol9rqM4tydIOjC7kfknWklJqzOlmAQZ5s1BJrP4YC6hYmrQVJNjvOWJ7cpaQ7gM35YrY-ZO78/s400/DSCN9276.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Picture every stereotype of a British town that you can. Welcome to Norwich.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Red telephone boxes? Check.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tiny streets bordered by countless tiny, adorable stores and cafes with ancient-looking fronts, large chimneys and slanted, tiled roofs? Check.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Churches older than the whole of my country around every corner? Check.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fish and chips (and sometimes just chips) stands and cafes? Check.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ubiquitous and charming old pubs always whose names always seem to be decided by a roulette-style matching of adjective and noun always accompanied by "the" (i.e., "The Loddon Swan," "The Walpole Arms," "The Armored Pig," etc.)? Check.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zebra (pronounced like "Debra") crossings? Check.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJrc2yfbWHVS03TwTzGyCZaTwvGM3STXBQ6Ki9I_9cbyxNtr_yVwC2B9_zvcy2v15tLPTLpoQdTmVncqLXf-9tn51aohguKKk_HCvwrJ1ueYVFq-w_ALbdZMdgZM2APB0c8QuSdWXLnU/s1600/DSCN9278.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJrc2yfbWHVS03TwTzGyCZaTwvGM3STXBQ6Ki9I_9cbyxNtr_yVwC2B9_zvcy2v15tLPTLpoQdTmVncqLXf-9tn51aohguKKk_HCvwrJ1ueYVFq-w_ALbdZMdgZM2APB0c8QuSdWXLnU/s320/DSCN9278.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Living, keep right."</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cobblestone streets? Double-decker buses? A 12th century castle, for goodness' sake?! Check, check, check.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...and this is ALL within about a 15-minute walk from my flat. Not to mention two shopping malls, a movie theater - sorry, theatre - a puppet theatre and a theatre theatre.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The stores in the central all-pedestrian area go beyond and all seem to cater to the most eccentric tastes - there's the Top Hat Costume Hire, The Rasta Room, a store that seems to sell exclusively Dr. Who merchandise, a store that seems to only sell frozen dinners (appropriately called "Iceland") and a store that seems to merely serve as a congregating area for Dungeons and Dragons-style board and card games.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYcsvDOXy8ifr63HgFbsyZ2H-1SpadoLDAtF3Ap1rd_5zD4ZUKpIQhJhg7Y5CDdvfKh084WRLKGrQ3n_uADNNp_1VosK1GniNJY2WE_dsyaYVZkKIQ_oef30SZ_UkXACINon2IkpbJOc/s1600/DSCN9277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMYcsvDOXy8ifr63HgFbsyZ2H-1SpadoLDAtF3Ap1rd_5zD4ZUKpIQhJhg7Y5CDdvfKh084WRLKGrQ3n_uADNNp_1VosK1GniNJY2WE_dsyaYVZkKIQ_oef30SZ_UkXACINon2IkpbJOc/s640/DSCN9277.JPG" width="392" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another perk? The obligatory campus security introduction went something like this: "Norwich has less than half the crime of other cities in England, and UEA has less than that. If something happens to you, it's probably because you're doing something stupid and you should stop. But we're here 24/7 just in case. Oh, and you really should consider locking your doors when you leave your flat."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If that's not enough to tempt you, I'll simply leave you with these:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7V12kDyIjDEDdy4tJS41-1dfx4XEFuDaNWhGith_EAepFX0tkX2C6xN1mToj8I-YTFaMlFe5nDFkHBFStw3gW657mHIzhb427IDjetd732SUJywaGSJGlcgfSY7IdstMffkpJAmO-Uto/s1600/DSCN9280.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7V12kDyIjDEDdy4tJS41-1dfx4XEFuDaNWhGith_EAepFX0tkX2C6xN1mToj8I-YTFaMlFe5nDFkHBFStw3gW657mHIzhb427IDjetd732SUJywaGSJGlcgfSY7IdstMffkpJAmO-Uto/s640/DSCN9280.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mind your step. You never know when a British-style street fight will break out.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUxKyjzE7Gj6yDo7LcZNCQUn8o1l0-WPm2FUX6_SHP7dcugxARKCtqWFrpCiy9eurGEY4kScH99cnxCLvm6OBWuQ2mN7NxDdV9H2-ismLrwx3Y1d3erSj9h6q3dC4nS6Jc_mQdNcV5TM/s1600/DSCN9285.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvUxKyjzE7Gj6yDo7LcZNCQUn8o1l0-WPm2FUX6_SHP7dcugxARKCtqWFrpCiy9eurGEY4kScH99cnxCLvm6OBWuQ2mN7NxDdV9H2-ismLrwx3Y1d3erSj9h6q3dC4nS6Jc_mQdNcV5TM/s640/DSCN9285.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3sr8pczjLgfcsTnE5NFTRaiIgDvjufx4zAluDkUxVedxX8rssOxFuFHazS4Td1OmDIp4t2QKS5VSzPJjVGbCNB-_KprFipwc1g3asEv0Jfiw0TzUdJtnZvBmdcyMbx8xeXSHKsjlo_g/s1600/DSCN9286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3sr8pczjLgfcsTnE5NFTRaiIgDvjufx4zAluDkUxVedxX8rssOxFuFHazS4Td1OmDIp4t2QKS5VSzPJjVGbCNB-_KprFipwc1g3asEv0Jfiw0TzUdJtnZvBmdcyMbx8xeXSHKsjlo_g/s640/DSCN9286.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Norwich Castle, built by the Normans circa 1100</td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-87435750725130299392012-12-07T00:56:00.000-08:002012-12-07T00:56:53.192-08:00The Next FrontierHello. My name is Valerie. And I'm a bloody coward.<br />
<br />
Three years ago I got on a plane with very little idea of where I'd be living or what I'd be doing for what I thought would only be two years. Though it was a tearful farewell...well...I was too excited to ever reconsider or second-guess my decision. And I haven't really looked back at all.<br />
<br />
Except now. Since looking back is now looking forward.<br />
<br />
I'm terrified.<br />
<br />
Venturing into the great unknown with almost no preparation (remember, I was on a plane to Turkmenistan the week before I got to Moz)? Exploring strange new places and meeting strange new strangers? Forcing myself to learn another language in order to survive on a daily basis? I'll take it!<br />
<br />
It wasn't any sort of bravery that brought me here in the first place - it was part boredom, part wanting to see more of the world, part wanting to have a job in my field without having to cover dog and pony shows as an entry-level reporter at a local paper.<br />
<br />
...But what happens now?<br />
<br />
Nine-to-five desk job with hour-long morning commute? Sterile grocery stores where finding a box of Corn Flakes suddenly isn't the highlight of my week? Getting in trouble with police for standing on the side of the road and waving my hand in an attempt to get a free ride to the other side of the country? What happens when I go from being "whoa, a white girl!" to just another white girl? When having a college degree is a given instead of a specialty? When every day isn't a constant challenge just to get by? Will all the personal growth I've experienced over the past few years slowly melt away along with my Portuguese?<br />
<br />
Completely new experiences are always worth the risk. Even if things go horribly wrong, at least you'll end up with a lesson learned and some great stories. But do I have the courage and motivation to go back to what I already know, and try to make the best of it? Do I have the guts to sleep in my high school bedroom (still adorned with Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter) while waitressing tables and filling out countless applications for jobs and schools? Am I brave enough to start at whatever entry-level position I can find, no matter how mundane it might seem?<br />
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<br />
I know life in the States has so much to offer and that - especially now - I'll do everything I can to make the most of it. I also know how many times I complain about the guy sitting on top of me in the chapa not wearing deoderant, and the criancas chasing me up the street shouting "muzungo!," and arriving at a big project meeting only to find no one else came because it was raining. Moreover, I know I'm going back to an incredible system of support from family and friends that I've sorely neglected over the past two years, and I can't wait to make up for lost time and see how much they've changed and grown.<br />
<br />
At the same time, I'm giving up a job that I could see myself doing for life. I'm quitting a beautiful culture and a simpler way of life that I've finally come to understand and even adore. I'm moving out of my own three bedroom house with a yard full of cherimoya, guava, papaya, grapes and passionfruit. I'm acabar-ing being able to constantly improve my second language. I'm leaving behind some of the people on which I depended on a daily basis. Once again, I'm ending a relationship to move continents.<br />
<br />
So bear with me. Be patient when I start every other sentence with "In Mozambique..." Don't laugh when I ask where the bucket is to take a shower. Correct me when I use "negar," "ja," "conseguir," and "epa!" in daily conversation. Don't judge me when I use half a bottle of oil to fry an egg. Remind me that people still like me even though I don't get three marriage proposals a day.<br />
<br />
I've put off returning long enough - even signing up for another year in a new province. The easy, cowardly thing to do would be to just go to another country and see what trouble I can get into there. But I'm going to try to be brave. I'm going to say farewell and boldy go where I've been before. I'm going home.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1yck5EObr8ZTmvxvCfdQ4Du-k58xKJIzrJ2udU68Wgpk2N9sxAVd1Xs1T9Z8tONJTp_1xKt9UsKCCYOlx-cqTEV1ypARpEbIJgsNMgwfWLNku_mr7sKweum_WFkZC0zsJUliblUq4Q4/s1600/Texas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1yck5EObr8ZTmvxvCfdQ4Du-k58xKJIzrJ2udU68Wgpk2N9sxAVd1Xs1T9Z8tONJTp_1xKt9UsKCCYOlx-cqTEV1ypARpEbIJgsNMgwfWLNku_mr7sKweum_WFkZC0zsJUliblUq4Q4/s400/Texas.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-61719327358455788302012-12-07T00:28:00.003-08:002012-12-07T00:28:48.581-08:00DevelopmentAfrica will bewitch you, a boleia once told me. I don’t remember the when or where or why, but I remember him saying it and I remember chuckling to myself. I remember it was the dry season where even the rivers are brown, unquestionably over 100 degrees out and we were clunking down the road with the windows down for lack of air conditioning. You would have to be bewitched, because no one in their right mind would willingly stay in a place like this.<br />
<br />
<br />
And yet here I am.<br />
<br />
Back home, I would never be in such a situation. Riding in the air-condition-less beat-up car of a guy who just picked me on the side of the road through a land that was abandoned due to drought. In the States, things are clean, they’re efficient, they’re organized, they’re safe. They’re everything Africa is not. And that’s where Africa gets you.<br />
<br />
Africa is gritty. Most of the time, it’s really not pretty. It’s not here to impress. It’s here to be survived, through whatever means possible. In the cities, there are layers of bureaucracy. Outside of that, you wouldn’t know there was a government. Concerning how you live your life, there really are no rules. There’s no FDA to tell you what not to eat, no Surgeon General to convince you to stop smoking, no guard rails on cliffs, no fences around wildlife parks. If you decide to do something dumb, there’ll be no one to stop you and no one to sue afterward.<br />
<br />
As such, you can get as close as you dare to the hippopotamus in the river behind your house. You can eat rats on sticks. When you go hiking, you can make the trails. You can cannonball into the water off of a random boat you find anchored in the middle of the lagoon in the middle of the night. You can wander where no one’s been before. And no one will know or care. It’s just you, your imagination and – hopefully – your common sense.<br />
<br />
It’s gritty and it’s dangerous, but you’ll never feel more free.<br />
<br />
But, it’s not complete chaos. There’s probably more people looking out for you in Mozambique than anywhere in the first world. In the States, when you fall on hard times, or need to get to the hospital in an emergency, or need to locate a resource, there are organizations, entities, programs to help you out. Here, there are friends and family – which are essentially one and the same. When you hit rock bottom, you move in with a relative who – no questions asked – will take care of you and give you all the tough lovin’ you can take until you’re back on your feet. There are no firetrucks or ambulances – there are neighbors who will share with you if they have the means. In cases where the police simply aren’t sufficient, mob justice does more to deter crime than any jail. And when you’re too busy to take care of your own kids, it doesn’t matter – there’s 20 other kids in the street who will look after each other and the younger ones. When you want to see where a road goes, there’s no Google maps. You have to ask someone or go down it yourself to find out where it leads. <br />
<br />
Of course, this has driven me crazy at times over the past two years. When teachers don’t show up to class because they simply don’t feel like teaching and there’s no real accountability, it’s enough to drive anyone crazy. But it is awfully helpful when your boleia breaks down on the road home after a beach weekend.<br />
<br />
That attitude has been infectious among PCVs and pretty much anyone you befriend along the way. I've always prided myself on being as independent as possible and never asking for help. But here, I'm okay with being dependent, because I know I'll just pay it back - or forward - in some way. People stay at my house that I’ve never met before they showed up at my door. My Chimoio family includes a married couple that doesn’t hesitate to offer their house, car or other resources to us PCVs; a Lebanese businessman that refuses to let us pitch in money for the near-weekly BBQ nights at his house; my adopted Canadian father that makes sure I never lack anything – including parmesan cheese; of course, my site mates, whom I see more than I ever saw my family in the states. We’re connected only by the fact that we’re strangers in a strange and difficult land, and we need that support system.<br />
<br />
Africa might be considered wild and "undeveloped" by some standards, but in some ways I think that's exactly the way it should be.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4YPyqFXlKEfkpeWwsO2sBvD1jw-SoA5jVxhrOYIQl9-1yNTl8_M6xTbNqCcPwq60JCHSkLiWf2U7JLAJrszsRx2xcdCQKTECysm2ih3CDBcvhbokJWDkoWZWGUp5FaWr5jJpnhMJ0JY/s1600/Trevor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4YPyqFXlKEfkpeWwsO2sBvD1jw-SoA5jVxhrOYIQl9-1yNTl8_M6xTbNqCcPwq60JCHSkLiWf2U7JLAJrszsRx2xcdCQKTECysm2ih3CDBcvhbokJWDkoWZWGUp5FaWr5jJpnhMJ0JY/s640/Trevor.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-91869123569910995872012-10-10T04:28:00.000-07:002012-10-10T04:49:40.930-07:00Khanimambo Jesus!<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am not Catholic by any stretch of the imagination.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But somehow, Catholicism has been a surprisingly prominent part of my Peace Corps service, even before joining the Catholic University. The Portuguese started converting Mozambicans to Roman Catholicism when they arrived in the 1500s. Around 28 percent of the population currently follows Catholicism to some degree, according to the CIA World Factbook. You can find mission compounds for various orders in almost every town, which often run schools and orphanages with an effeciency that makes NGOs green with envy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I personally encountered this on my second day in Moz, I was woken up far too early for being so jetlagged to Mama C chanting “Igreja! Igreja!” at me. As I had been studying Portuguese for a grand total of three days, it was not until Junior brought me to the large steepled building that I connected the word with “church.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Chokwe, as part of that much-preached “community integration” I attended every church I was invited to. And after a few Sundays of shouted group prayers, live exorcisms, mandatory dancing with hands on head, etc., I found myself willing retreating to the comparatively familiar and drastically calmer rituals of the Catholic mass.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Somewhere along the way, one of the Brazilian priests got my phone number and for a few months I taught basic English lessons to Padres Armando and Jose, two of the most chipper and friendly Catholic priests you’ll ever meet.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the university, it’s inescapable. Every meeting starts with a prayer and every major gathering includes a mass. I once walked into my office to find a plastic bag of twenty 3-in plastic Virgin Marys (actually intended for the pastoral head and food science teacher in the office down the hall). In the communication department alone, Sister Esperança teaches Portuguese, Brother Bambo teaches Ethics, Father Juliasse teaches Methodology and Father Jorge teaches Theories of Communication. Since they’ve fixed the projectors to point directly above the chalkboard in some classrooms, there’s now a crucifix smack dab in the middle of every PowerPoint presentation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve seen some pretty cool Catholic churches.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjobb_xYoeWQQb59EQc0e7F0fLa_7tyECRPv0cVLKbBnIQ1KZH6CkrmMAiJfwUJdVO56MunovvGS1QDrEQ9YQh4mYIBqp0rNG__OL8n7bg4L61wifplitC7VfYA2QP_s4Yo5d9A4mTW6ko/s1600/National+Cathedral_USA+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjobb_xYoeWQQb59EQc0e7F0fLa_7tyECRPv0cVLKbBnIQ1KZH6CkrmMAiJfwUJdVO56MunovvGS1QDrEQ9YQh4mYIBqp0rNG__OL8n7bg4L61wifplitC7VfYA2QP_s4Yo5d9A4mTW6ko/s400/National+Cathedral_USA+(600x800).jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border: currentColor; text-align: center;">National Cathedral, USA</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMU-yjLU1jMsmCjLkGVFfXNZB5JAjAKLpoXJvfa-eQnP-Oah-FZKoNFrgLuNetSYYCScg_aPPKUzLtNOzbkKqVeIp0fpXEbxuwakKc-4bwsu-HsosMrGkM3tIo8c1MJ7ks9Jui82TL-YQ/s1600/Notre+Dame_France+(532x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMU-yjLU1jMsmCjLkGVFfXNZB5JAjAKLpoXJvfa-eQnP-Oah-FZKoNFrgLuNetSYYCScg_aPPKUzLtNOzbkKqVeIp0fpXEbxuwakKc-4bwsu-HsosMrGkM3tIo8c1MJ7ks9Jui82TL-YQ/s400/Notre+Dame_France+(532x800).jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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Notre Dame, France</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRjZJvwJToaEvVb83L_1GZXA3J_6tZ6bz68TZ4CHtih3jejV3g4sXQhfBmOe9KlvhaswXNil8fmNV_3lqGDh7y1LPmE6jgIhuWuqkW3ZdjiLkgjvSPQCPDx29YDDQlVVevYIonI-iPYc/s1600/Sacre+Couer_France+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjRjZJvwJToaEvVb83L_1GZXA3J_6tZ6bz68TZ4CHtih3jejV3g4sXQhfBmOe9KlvhaswXNil8fmNV_3lqGDh7y1LPmE6jgIhuWuqkW3ZdjiLkgjvSPQCPDx29YDDQlVVevYIonI-iPYc/s400/Sacre+Couer_France+(600x800).jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sacre Couer, France</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtGs7dHJ8apZmHK3KvvRUX-yUluCELeLd2F5iuh_VviiQqXjnEoqDJwBYcPMjy0goMRzrA3jqaotEwQ2Nynliv-cqhCQtnJzVPXoBYkcZpuKxPTdH9fzPpIjVQs6SrKQzX7MFlY3fXvw/s1600/Segovia+Cathedral_Spain+(534x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCtGs7dHJ8apZmHK3KvvRUX-yUluCELeLd2F5iuh_VviiQqXjnEoqDJwBYcPMjy0goMRzrA3jqaotEwQ2Nynliv-cqhCQtnJzVPXoBYkcZpuKxPTdH9fzPpIjVQs6SrKQzX7MFlY3fXvw/s400/Segovia+Cathedral_Spain+(534x800).jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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Catedral de Segovia, Spain</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHpcJsUdg0qX1A6al8_Ucv-Rg8pEnVh3YHN_fsN_IHGpdVyXUJHfMEH9FJQNcZSWYHHs5kSfeu80N_GwxJAZXDg6l-KPOWKyGAqCr6pCkbABukbWGBIQF1KNqU4RM-gSnE1htv0o6EwY/s1600/IMG_6200.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXHpcJsUdg0qX1A6al8_Ucv-Rg8pEnVh3YHN_fsN_IHGpdVyXUJHfMEH9FJQNcZSWYHHs5kSfeu80N_GwxJAZXDg6l-KPOWKyGAqCr6pCkbABukbWGBIQF1KNqU4RM-gSnE1htv0o6EwY/s400/IMG_6200.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catedral de Santo Domingo, Peru</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Moz churches are a little different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOtx62ZA_0wT-5z9JsGh3apBx-veuLAtePCnGVFqjFrc2kHy2lVdzORS5zn6UuXdEnsEu3UwMt0hKjQP4WACSZfyhx3nStbXdWAb_plklHDlyZJj4g2YoLVOs3BeO-gYej7i-u_3Mahk/s1600/DSCN5915+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimOtx62ZA_0wT-5z9JsGh3apBx-veuLAtePCnGVFqjFrc2kHy2lVdzORS5zn6UuXdEnsEu3UwMt0hKjQP4WACSZfyhx3nStbXdWAb_plklHDlyZJj4g2YoLVOs3BeO-gYej7i-u_3Mahk/s320/DSCN5915+(600x800).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catholic church, Chimoio</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinH5fjmaNqtHB-6KVQ4R7CewfGfoXJzNIs1TalakCKBVuipHxulAEMr0CeCg55Hfcqh6ldoYgutRuFvqaxXZTLMbpcNwHb6S3vG0f0r219KdfuxyBSq-m3YxqVpuiu5Zh0xnXhTSlyfbo/s1600/IMG_0552+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinH5fjmaNqtHB-6KVQ4R7CewfGfoXJzNIs1TalakCKBVuipHxulAEMr0CeCg55Hfcqh6ldoYgutRuFvqaxXZTLMbpcNwHb6S3vG0f0r219KdfuxyBSq-m3YxqVpuiu5Zh0xnXhTSlyfbo/s320/IMG_0552+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catholic church, Namaacha</td></tr>
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<div style="border: currentColor;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The structures themselves are incredibly simple. Painted concrete, exposed lights, clear glass windows (when there are windows), and pews made of 2x4s, with a few inches of wood across your upper back and, if you sit up straight, a few more across your lower back. The pews on the sides don’t have backs, and some of the mothers sit here so their babies can stay in the capulanas on their backs. The older ladies sit on reed mats at the front to stretch out their legs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The altar is usually a wooden table covered with a white table cloth. Unlike the gilded statues in some churches, there’s usually nothing behind the altar but wooden chairs for the priests and a wooden cross. In the Namaacha church, there were blue paper die-cuts sticky-tacked to the wall in an arch that read “Adorai o Coração de Jesus.” For the congregation’s wardrobe, anything goes. Shiny silky pink prom dresses, blue jeans with sweaters, capulanas, t-shirts from Huntington’s Science Camp in 2002.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Padre Jorge and Brother Bambo, who both teach in the communication department</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then there’s the actual worship. Of course there are no hymnals. Instead, one single voice in the choir starts, a capella, and establishes the melody. Others in the choir pick it up if they know it, and by the second line most of the congregation has joined in. Then the maraca-type instruments start, and then the drums. If you’re at a really fancy church, they might also have an electric keyboard that chimes in around now. By the third line, everyone is clapping, swaying, and singing together. If the song really heats up, a few of the ladies might let loose the celebratory Mozambican yell that I can only equate to what you hear on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Xena: Warrior Princess</i>. There’s no such thing as a bad singer in church here. You just belt it out and it’s beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of the songs and the sermon are in Portuguese, but every church has a varying level of the local dialect. In Chokwe, the Brazilian priest would give the sermon and was immediately followed, line by line, by a Mozambican translator into Xangana. All the readings from the Bible were done first in Portuguese, then in Xangana. Missionaries are the absolute best at integrating and adapting to new languages, and Catholics are the most die-hard of all. The only book I’ve ever seen in Xangana is the Bible. Those people are determined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Chimoio, a slightly more metropolitan setting, most of the service is in Portuguese, but the songs go back and forth. Some of the melodies are distinctly African. But at least once a mass I’ll get chill bumps when I hear the melody of “How Great Thou Art” or “Great is Thy Faithfulness” with words I can’t understand and accompanied only by drums. Sometimes I sing along in English anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The offering is much more enjoyable – and sometimes downright entertaining – than the services I’m accustomed to. Of course, there’s a few people who stand alongside the priest in front of the altar with baskets waiting to receive the coin and small bills (no envelopes here!) that people give. But then there’s also the procession. Usually it’s led by girls in matching capulanas doing an orchestrated dance down the aisle, stepping forward, raising hands, bowing, stepping back, spinning, all together. After them comes the actual offerings – the ones which must be carried on heads: 25 kilo bags of rice and beans, baskets of vegetables, bottles of oil, boxes of bolachas. They actually bring in the best of the harvest. And on really good days (usually Easter or Christmas), there’s also the lucky kids who gets to drag in the goats. Just try to give them plenty of space. And watch where you step when you leave. But everyone is still belting it out, dancing going down the aisle, and you just kind of want to jump in like a congo line and join in the praise. Just ahead of the goats.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZw-cyhN8Q4UXwAVWb_A9I97ckai-L5S0MObNDcFypsk8S5OQJTgexMV5AxLSXmQrh3GLBAzVcMNVH6L_LsiU-Ofdp2lcEssL_asQy5AcS1l-B3BlE1iPeZPtfk0nnlR3BNM_uaIsFmGk/s1600/SAM_1056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZw-cyhN8Q4UXwAVWb_A9I97ckai-L5S0MObNDcFypsk8S5OQJTgexMV5AxLSXmQrh3GLBAzVcMNVH6L_LsiU-Ofdp2lcEssL_asQy5AcS1l-B3BlE1iPeZPtfk0nnlR3BNM_uaIsFmGk/s400/SAM_1056.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Though there’s still the excessive amount of standing and kneeling, the mass is one of the most beautiful ways to experience Moz culture. So much so that you can’t help yourself but worship.</span> <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-84375820762469979902012-09-25T08:58:00.003-07:002012-09-25T08:58:32.708-07:00Ewwwwwwwwww.<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This fountain is the bane of my existence and the embodiment of everything that is wrong in Mozambique.</div>
It is a moldy, stagnant, bacteria-and-malaria-breeding eyesore in the midst of a lovely grove of trees. But that’s not the problem.<br />
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I walk by this festering fount daily. One day a few months back, however, I noticed as I passed that it had been drained. Finally! I thought, no more disease-ridden water reserve. It’s about time.<br />
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When I passed a day later, city workers were painting the inside of the fountain blue. That’s nice, I thought, people won’t even notice the lack of water.<br />
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The next day, the faucet was on and the fountain was filling up. Ever the optimist, I thought, well, maybe somebody finally decided it’s worth the upkeep and will actually maintain it for a while.<br />
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The fourth day, President Guebuza came to town. His caravan of tinted, black SUVs passed rows of cheering citizens and a beautiful, sanitary, fully-functional fountain.<br />
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The following day, President Guebuza and his troop of important government officials left. The fountain was turned off. With the exception of cigarette butts, doomed insects, empty plastic bottles and malaria-laden mosquitoes, it hasn’t been touched since. It has returned to its original state.</div>
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Unfortunately, this is what I see as one of the biggest flaws in the Mozambican culture – the obsession with empty appearances.</div>
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It is the reason why my school has sanitary hands-free automatic soap dispensers mounted on the walls that have never once held soap.</div>
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It is the reason why people will eagerly agree to attend a meeting set for Tuesday though they know they’re going out of town for a week on Monday.</div>
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It is the reason why school directors will give speeches on women’s rights but turn a blind eye when teachers blatantly sleep with their students.</div>
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It is the reason why the government education department shows glowing grade reports to international donors, after local teachers have spent the past week adding points to tests so 80% of their students don’t fail as they should.</div>
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It is the reason why so many people die of “an illness” rather than the super-taboo HIV/AIDS.</div>
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It is the reason why nothing ever changes – because it’s so much more pleasant to make things appear better to those outside than to do the work to actually correct it on the inside.</div>
<br />It's certainly not a problem unique to Mozambique. But it is something I pointed out to my journalism students. Maybe someday they'll start asking questions and someone will realize the regular people who see and live next to it on a daily basis are much more important than the big-wigs that occassionally pass by.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-22742960676524819392012-09-07T23:40:00.000-07:002012-09-09T04:36:25.511-07:00The Other 90 Percent of the PC Experience.<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is primarily to reassure my parents that there is more to my life than hitch-hiking around Africa, weekends at the beach and hosting traveling PCVs at my home.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I like to work. A lot. Always have. To the extent that if I did not have friends around, I would only work and thereby be the most boring person on earth. But here I wouldn’t notice because what I do – for the most part – makes me happy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the Universidade Católica de Moçambique, through one of those bizarre-but-oh-so-blessed twists of fate (original coordinator fled back to Italy), I am the Director of the Communications for Development program. I had very little idea what this meant originally (else I might have fled to Italy, too). I spend a depressing amount of my day right here, in the office I share with the head of the food engineering department:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the “coordenadora,” I keep the department running. I decide what classes they take. I find the professors to fill those classes and submit their payroll. I propose the budget. I am in charge of ALL of my students’ grades – which includes getting the class grades from the professors, calculating the averages, posting them for the students, dealing with the backlash. During exam time (also known as "Avoid Val Week"), I’m responsible for determining who has an average too low to even take the exam, writing the exams, making sure professors are always there to proctor the exams (which means being there for every exam), coding the exams so the professors grading the tests don’t know whose test it is (yay corruption-fighting methods), posting results…and then doing it all over again for the “second chance” exams the following week. Any issues that the professors have, any concerns that the students have, any administrative issues in the communication program…that’s my job. Oh, and to attend two two-hour meetings a week. <span style="line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I am always at school by 8 and sometimes don’t leave (except to buy peanuts from Mana Elisa on the corner around 10:30) until my last night class is over – at 9 pm. </span>It is a daily lesson in time and chaos management.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But that’s all okay. Because I also get to teach.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps it’s only because I spent the past two years teaching whiny high-schoolers a discipline they (and sometimes I) could care less about and so I therefore have low standards – but I enjoy teaching. The first semester, I taught Introduction to Communication, which included the history, theories and means of media and communication throughout the world, as well as random trivia about everything from Sesame Street to Bob Schieffer. This semester (because I’m the coordinator and decide who teaches what), I’m teaching a Techniques in Writing class which focuses on practicing different writing styles and (yay!) grammar. After recieving entire compositions without a single punctuation point and having to continually correct glaring spelling errors (in Portuguese...), there was no doubt I could not rest until I had tackled this course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's a lovely sample of what I subject my students to daily:</span></div>
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/104761888/EE2-Jornalismo">http://www.scribd.com/doc/104761888/EE2-Jornalismo</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/104761888/EE2-Jornalismo" style="-x-system-font: none; display: block; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/normal Helvetica, Arial, Sans-serif; margin: 12px auto 6px; text-decoration: underline;" title="View EE2 - Jornalismo on Scribd">EE2 - Jornalismo</a>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="1.33333333333333" data-auto-height="true" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_65308" scrolling="no" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/104761888/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-xk6s38sa5xiiyfcyslb" style="height: 294px; width: 56.6%;" width="100%"></iframe><br /><br />In case you missed it, I’m a huge nerd. Which is why I’m so stoked about teaching things like proper spelling, nouns and verbs, editing marks, logical organization, etc. That and this is all COMPLETELY new to my students, so they don’t even realize how much they’re supposed to hate it yet. The resources – PowerPoint, projectors, the Internet with a Portuguese writing style guide, etc. – also make it a bit more manageable and therefore enjoyable.<br />
</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the actual writing is where I feel the most need and the most useful. There’s simply not the same culture of reading and writing. Creative writing, poetry, prose that’s as good as poetry, writing concisely and directly…don’t care who you are, this is exciting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">It also helps that I have a great group of students. They take pride in being future “communicadores.” I didn’t even realize til what extent until I was invited to the 50th birthday party of one of my students and found so many of my other students there, and then was asked to give a speech (it happens at parties…think Hobbits) about the birthday student, the whole class and communication in general. Here’s one of the countless communicadores photos we took that night:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span> <span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pursuing higher education, and particularly at the second-ranked university in the country (doesn’t matter if there’s only three), is a defining point for them. And this is why I can’t complain too much when one asks for the bizillionth time in one day when their grades are going to be posted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">I also teach five classes of English a week. Which is what I was originally brought here to do. And I do it. Just perhaps with a bit less gusto.</span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Having colleagues who are just as enthusiastic and don’t let my age deter them from showing me the utmost respect is also a huge perk. My fellow American and director of civil engineering, Hoang, is especially good at keeping me sane and we inevitably end up in each others’ office a fair share for therapeutic venting. Other professors are from Poland, Togo, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and at least a couple got their PhDs in the States. Their work ethic only encourages my own. It's a great feeling. </span>
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But hey, it's still Mozambique. We still know how to have a good time. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francisco and Hoang on Dia de Santo Agostinho</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francisco and Filomena in the obligatory Congo line at the UCM graduation.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UCM at the Dia de Trabalhadores parade</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyxkNNgXIwQROPMRpnsOnM-ZrPMqlW017j-Wey1oo5hAxrd3zv9HWE3bSFhsVdbwMJsDgYS4aTEGduI8GNvPIP9EPIaBI5zje6RXZdE40npN1n3bcU2piQGcGODj89BasMiOnfwKrZEs/s1600/DSCN5943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" hea="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyxkNNgXIwQROPMRpnsOnM-ZrPMqlW017j-Wey1oo5hAxrd3zv9HWE3bSFhsVdbwMJsDgYS4aTEGduI8GNvPIP9EPIaBI5zje6RXZdE40npN1n3bcU2piQGcGODj89BasMiOnfwKrZEs/s320/DSCN5943.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ever-eloquent Mr. Phiri and Texas A&M alum Dr. Ferrao</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-55389523106103030672012-08-29T05:58:00.002-07:002012-08-29T05:58:52.022-07:00Great Northern Adventure! Part IV<strong>July 31</strong><br />
<strong>Ilha de Mocambique - Pemba = 407 km</strong><br />
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Won’t lie – Pemba originally wasn’t in our plans. We had another, closer, beach lined up for the last leg of our journey. But while enjoying our time in Ilha the conversation went something like this:<br />
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Emily: Woooo! We’ve done five provinces in less than two weeks!<br />
Val: We’re so awesome! In fact, there’s only one province in the entire country I haven’t been to now.<br />
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Emily: Me too! And it’s…</div>
Emily & Val: Cabo Delgado!<br />
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(*moment of silent realization and plotting*)</div>
Emily: So…how do you feel about Pemba?<br />
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Val: Let’s go! Woo!</div>
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Thus, we found ourselves on the side of the road in a truckstop of a town called Namialo early the next morning (after two rather unfortunate chapas incidents involving so many people the cobrador couldn’t shut the door and a box of fresh crabs), back to doing our boleia dance for cars to Pemba. While waiting, we called up PCV Ellen and Christine, whom we’d never met before and whose numbers we’d gotten from PCV Patrick and whose house we’d be staying at the next couple of days.</div>
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We landed a sweet private car straight to Pemba with a businessman from Nampula and quickly passed out. I was just awake enough to see the sign right before a large bridge that read “Provincia de Cabo Delgado.” At which point, three years after stepping foot in Moz, I had officially visited every province in the country. Finally. I’ll tackle the states next.</div>
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The boleia dropped us off in town and after a lunch of beans at the market, we hopped a chapa to Ellen and Christine’s place. They work and live at a teacher training school, and so their house is outfitted not only with all the essential furniture (fridge, stove, pseudo-couch, etc.) but a room with two sets of bunk beds. PCV Derek was also in town to get some work done (his site, two hours down the road, doesn’t have electricity). We chilled at their place the rest of the afternoon and walked down to a restaurant called FrangoAssado (Grilled Chicken) for dinner. Complete with two options on the menu (chicken with xima, or chicken with rice), a full fridge and no silverware, it’s a chicken joint after my own heart.</div>
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<strong>August 1 & 2</strong><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0v55x51Jwx_A-ya4YXA28N1mYBsYEn0k6ECRr4llpBsA1_TynTVgHvJVSuldIF-cH3iGH9ujnX09NTw96E7hyKFR-qeFknO5_qVy-z7SGHoUzLY1U5axuz9zAkNKo9TMkzhcUEjbeT0/s1600/DSCN7234+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc0v55x51Jwx_A-ya4YXA28N1mYBsYEn0k6ECRr4llpBsA1_TynTVgHvJVSuldIF-cH3iGH9ujnX09NTw96E7hyKFR-qeFknO5_qVy-z7SGHoUzLY1U5axuz9zAkNKo9TMkzhcUEjbeT0/s400/DSCN7234+(800x600).jpg" width="400" yda="true" /></a>The next two days were spent relatively the same way – here, a 20-minute walk from Ellen and Christine’s place. It was us, the sun and water, boys selling chocolate bars, and our books and a year’s worth of People magazines (a la Ellen). So here’s all you really need to know:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdh-suXWUt8ldDgc9g3Zm8_Q3AKjqSmQOUy0cKcXAnPyGaGZadaxDwqnS6IkqEwzM6kFMMAqkLspBOOVRKK3O9jU9OFqxA-hZJopgeDi6Bj1KMee82ST1htx-_eR0XpfoNyPHMDyrIB0/s1600/DSCN7230+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdh-suXWUt8ldDgc9g3Zm8_Q3AKjqSmQOUy0cKcXAnPyGaGZadaxDwqnS6IkqEwzM6kFMMAqkLspBOOVRKK3O9jU9OFqxA-hZJopgeDi6Bj1KMee82ST1htx-_eR0XpfoNyPHMDyrIB0/s400/DSCN7230+(800x600).jpg" width="400" yda="true" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZC64Dj_KNGzLfgGx_y0VUCrZQfeG_5DrCkfeL668ycVcvGah8An5cYAPaNGZoRGSWfhhYLQhNQVrCouXsa2bTaXc2EyZu10FsVhvvmIwbhIIyG9ml184VPGkARUWJhI-Ngw7D3Lih7Cg/s1600/DSCN7249+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZC64Dj_KNGzLfgGx_y0VUCrZQfeG_5DrCkfeL668ycVcvGah8An5cYAPaNGZoRGSWfhhYLQhNQVrCouXsa2bTaXc2EyZu10FsVhvvmIwbhIIyG9ml184VPGkARUWJhI-Ngw7D3Lih7Cg/s640/DSCN7249+(600x800).jpg" width="480" /></a><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUzxu1w3qz8gp4_5xj1LQeV4bKxnkOWiL9zCiZmXSBUUweDS2vxYwA7kyv5evfVyHrX67jTHcYZe5RyymQ78TsDjMWY_7R95h46zQKZXZv53ABrsQy9lmR33KadgPYs06htZtxZKCCug/s1600/DSCN7272+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUzxu1w3qz8gp4_5xj1LQeV4bKxnkOWiL9zCiZmXSBUUweDS2vxYwA7kyv5evfVyHrX67jTHcYZe5RyymQ78TsDjMWY_7R95h46zQKZXZv53ABrsQy9lmR33KadgPYs06htZtxZKCCug/s400/DSCN7272+(600x800).jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PCV Derek in a palm tree.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXSebBy7Fow8-ZLMliqA4eMl_wmlZ9MYDepJG4pWvaKBYH5V6zklDjpqLoWw2xhx1huTTSTrXGe8bgNUDOH6LjFIFaoiJAlwTLG-lo03HkJY04hh0o2HP6zWb_ZnVSS6iqXo3tEA4piE/s1600/DSCN7218+(800x624).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXSebBy7Fow8-ZLMliqA4eMl_wmlZ9MYDepJG4pWvaKBYH5V6zklDjpqLoWw2xhx1huTTSTrXGe8bgNUDOH6LjFIFaoiJAlwTLG-lo03HkJY04hh0o2HP6zWb_ZnVSS6iqXo3tEA4piE/s320/DSCN7218+(800x624).jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">found him on the beach. he moves.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeo4Cw88qBNTlagYY6POYsT-EUCYavfPSlHRSDZ8K6ZDSM3sfnruzHCV-Ub93Z1FvEHr-sEW7vbchb9i5HU5cXe0jZzcr4rir-Q-ujGiXR2v_3zw0_roUeEccTpjKGQGcrViTO89NXr6s/s1600/DSCN7262+(800x533).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeo4Cw88qBNTlagYY6POYsT-EUCYavfPSlHRSDZ8K6ZDSM3sfnruzHCV-Ub93Z1FvEHr-sEW7vbchb9i5HU5cXe0jZzcr4rir-Q-ujGiXR2v_3zw0_roUeEccTpjKGQGcrViTO89NXr6s/s400/DSCN7262+(800x533).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">homemade HotWheels</td></tr>
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<strong>August 3</strong></div>
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<strong>Pemba – Alto Molocue = 613 km</strong></div>
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We leave Ellen and Christine’s before dawn and walk to the main road. We have a vague plan to get as far as we can to PCV sites and finish up in Chimoio the day after that. After an hour, we catch a private car with a gentleman headed a few hours down the road. At that town, we settle for hopping into the back of an open back chapa headed to Nampula. Despite the potholes, bumps and wind as we cruise down the road, I manage to bury myself in Lonesome Dove and not think about how far we have to go.</div>
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In Nampula four hours later, Emily and I take a detour to get apas – a fried egg folded in a tortilla-type wrap and drizzled with sauce, only available in select places in the north. We catch a chapa to the edge of town and wait for an hour before settling for sharing the front seat of a large truck that pokes along around 40 mph.</div>
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We arrive in Alto Molocue after dark to find the two PCVs who live there – education PCV Sam (who had site visited with me during training back in Chokwe last November) and health PCV Dylan. We head back to Sam’s after a quick chicken dinner and Emily and I crash on his makeshift couch-bed for the night.</div>
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<strong>August 4</strong></div>
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<strong>Alto Molocue–Chimoio = 809 km</strong></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtX6irepKmGSj-eoKJx13NUxkuZHCacsWD7OutAL7TtPE58KuryYdDsWODZdqVihZXM7ddaypZYpDvto5XSt7QKZjDnIRicCxkoWTJjT76iZOLLiF2RXBH_wrwkcpKk47Ruij6MO8qSI/s1600/Alto-Chimoio.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtX6irepKmGSj-eoKJx13NUxkuZHCacsWD7OutAL7TtPE58KuryYdDsWODZdqVihZXM7ddaypZYpDvto5XSt7QKZjDnIRicCxkoWTJjT76iZOLLiF2RXBH_wrwkcpKk47Ruij6MO8qSI/s320/Alto-Chimoio.PNG" width="286" /></a></div>
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Sam sees us off around 5 and we hike through the hilly streets back to the main road. It’s 7:30 before we finally catch a private pick-up going to Macuba and climb in the back. In Mocuba we barely start to boleia when a couple of gentlemen from Maputo stop by and we chat the next couple of hours to the turn-off in Nicoadala, where one road goes to Chimoio and the other to Quelimane, the provincial capital of Zambezia. Here we have the great fortune to flag down a chipper Spanish family and stretch out in the bed of their pick-up.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH-PqlxjyD1s5b3uZE7HP5WhEQeM40qZy1hAcGvlyDOyL1u7Q9-eoNcSFtBfMdUCPOdzQ8NLbHY2O0EWJk2vTHVlKaEA-IoUDhhyphenhyphenIRwVnIxW7cpZ2KQwV2naupOrMtyqkUjetPrcWxDE/s1600/DSCN7277+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglH-PqlxjyD1s5b3uZE7HP5WhEQeM40qZy1hAcGvlyDOyL1u7Q9-eoNcSFtBfMdUCPOdzQ8NLbHY2O0EWJk2vTHVlKaEA-IoUDhhyphenhyphenIRwVnIxW7cpZ2KQwV2naupOrMtyqkUjetPrcWxDE/s400/DSCN7277+(600x800).jpg" width="300" /></a>On the way, we stop for a photo-op at the Arvore Milagroso. The lady in the front seat, who has a bit of a beard, tells us thatthis particularly tree is incredibly rare and drops only one leaf each year. If you climb up and tear one off yourself, she says, the tree bleeds.</div>
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We continue with the family until Gorongosa Park. We’re dirty and disgusting from so many hours in the back of vehicles, but still having a good time and knowing that we’re only a few more hours from our own beds (as much as I enjoyed snuggling with Emily and various other PCVs throughout the trip) where we can sleep in past 5 am.</div>
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At Gorongosa we manage to shove our way into a chapa and I spend the next two hours with my arms pinned against me, the cobrador standing over me and so many legs underneath me I’m certain I’m standing on someone’s feet the whole trip but can’t see them to know and don’t have anywhere else to put them anyway (it’s okay, they go numb quickly and then you don’t have to worry about it until you try to stand up). Back in Inchope, we immediately get a ride inside a private truck that drops us off at the Peace Corps office an hour later.</div>
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We walk home. Though it’s after dark in the coldest month of the year in one of the coldest cities in Mozambique, I take a cold shower just to be able to have running water, which I haven’t experienced since Malawi. I wash over 600 kilometers of road dirt off and don’t shut off the shower until the water running off my feet is clear again.</div>
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However, we only have about an hour. Two friends of ours, a British couple, are leaving Moz to head back to the UK, and we’re having a good-bye party at their place. In an hour, we manage to magically transform ourselves from dirty hippie-zombies to civilized party-going human beings again. It’s right around the corner from my house, so we walk there, and afterward return to my place along with PCV Shane to avoid their having to pay for taxis home. Finally, we pass out in my enormous bed, but inevitably are awake around 6 the next morning.</div>
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<strong>Grand total: 3899 km</strong><br />
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Until the next adventure!<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-22157714421677400152012-08-20T08:28:00.003-07:002012-08-20T08:29:16.381-07:00Great Northern Adventure! Part III<div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 27<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Cape Maclear - Cuamba = 279 km<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes I lie awake at night and dream about driving a private car.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And on this particular Friday morning, I awoke from such a dream to climb into the back of a pick-up with 12 other people a a massive box of dried fish on the way back to Monkey Bay. At one point, a lady even tossed her bundled baby into <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my lap so that she could climb over people to get in (thankfully, she took him back after only a couple not-so-subtle reminders). From Monkey Bay we caught a chapa to Mangochi, and in Mangochi (after realizing the open-back chapa was practically empty and therefore not leaving for quite some time, we had a godsend – literally, we got a boleia with two Italian nuns. Religious boleais are almost as good as South African boleias: they don’t lack for funding and so have top-notch vehicles with seatbelts and A/C, and while they might not buy you things as South African are prone to do, they usually drive very safely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the way, we had even better fortune to spot a congress of these along the side of the road...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>(Stole this from Google image. But this vaguely resembles the mental image I took. Close enough.)</em> <br />
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A boleia in the back of a bread truck, another bike taxi across the border and we were back in good-ole Portuguese-speaking Moz.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At which point we boarded the Open-Back from Hell. Hell, because I imagine Heaven as being a very clean place, and this was the exact opposite.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have never in my life been dirty to the extent that I have in Mozambique. At the end of this particular day, I would take a bucket bath where the bath pooling around my feet was so brown I couldn’t see my toes. But that’s later; at this point in the story, it was simply me, Emily, Annie, a looooooong stretch of dirt road and the open sky.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The trees and bushes along the side of the road looked like they were carved from copper because the layer of red dirt was so thick on them. You could feel the dirt hitting you and sticking to the mixture of sunscreen and sweat on your skin. You could write words on your forehead simply by rubbing with your finger (lasts about thirty seconds, then turns brown again). And God forbid you have an itch because your fingernails fill with all kids of indescribable gross when you scratch. When Emily took off her sunglasses at the end of it all, it looked like she’d had a particuarly intense session in the tanning bed. This is what dirty means. And this is how we sat for four hours (minus the ten minutes where we stopped because our driver hit and killed a goat crossing the road and he had to run back and pay the goatherder).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When we finally arrived in Cuamba, Emily and I said tchau to Annie, who was catching another chapa back to Gurue. The two of us then sought out lunch and the train station, our plan being to spend the night with PCV Jama and hop the 5 am train to Nampula the following morning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The train arrives anywhere between 15h and 19h, and it is only then that you can buy your tickets. Emily and I planted ourselves in front of the ticket window around 16h and passed the time reading, resting, dreaming of showers, and chatting with fellow travelers we met – a young couple doing a sub-Saharan Africa tour from France, and a middle-aged couple traveling Mozambique from Spain. And we waited, as the plaza slowly filled up with people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m still not certain how people knew the train was coming. But all at once, there was a mad rush for the ticket window. People don’t really believe in lines, so it’s just kind of however many people can mass into a marked area and then force their way through whatever means to the destination, be it ticket window, chapa door or ATM. We had worked out a plan, and while Emily raced for the throng.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thankfully, before the even started selling the tickets, I receive a message from Jama saying that she was friends with the station master, had reserved our tickets, and needed only to find and pay him to get them. So I moved in the opposite direction of the throng, found the man who was quite amiable, and had the tickets in my hand before the ticket window opened. This is why PCVs are awesome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once we got our tickets, we found our way to Jama’s house, where she and PCV Zacarias had already prepared dinner. I finally rinsed that layer of dirt of my skin. And we crashed in bed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 28<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cuamba - Ilha de Moçambique =531 km<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF44_jlCIP4FmlQOVN8hpkGTQnaKymYlB-6oDTX2_f9i4SB4ZgliC_9PJGQwyhLZv8oaanpxo08Uevxp_QUqEku1JpPVdpTK5GFwUr6BKqlNs72UprLRpX8hH8o4pqj5B1HkMwZq8SUjg/s1600/Cuamba-Ilha.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF44_jlCIP4FmlQOVN8hpkGTQnaKymYlB-6oDTX2_f9i4SB4ZgliC_9PJGQwyhLZv8oaanpxo08Uevxp_QUqEku1JpPVdpTK5GFwUr6BKqlNs72UprLRpX8hH8o4pqj5B1HkMwZq8SUjg/s640/Cuamba-Ilha.JPG" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Think Hogwarts Express. Think the Orient Express. Think AmTrack. And then think that it hasn’t had a change of upholstery or anything else for about thirty years. That is the train that runs from Cuamba to Nampula.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLyI7iJu9lQG6JWO5uYhgyQQh-kaRY3x-yXHA80wXdgfB64NhPG44ljvZnrOTtAdlHXN-BO5bz47jLADaGl2qekLZvBMmF_DdbUC4p4JQWfD2LQJS2sPakCNG7L-zaE4RXw4rN673a3PI/s1600/DSCN7131+(732x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLyI7iJu9lQG6JWO5uYhgyQQh-kaRY3x-yXHA80wXdgfB64NhPG44ljvZnrOTtAdlHXN-BO5bz47jLADaGl2qekLZvBMmF_DdbUC4p4JQWfD2LQJS2sPakCNG7L-zaE4RXw4rN673a3PI/s320/DSCN7131+(732x800).jpg" width="292" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We arrived at the train just before 5 (and remember, this is the middle of winter). Passing by the cargo cars, you could see people moving things around in the dark using the light their cell phones. Emily and I splurged for second-class tickets, which meant we were in a compartment. I could just make out four other gray-ish shapes in the light from the train station coming through the window in compartment G – our cabin mates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We snuggled into our cozy compartment for the 11-hour ride, most of which was spent chatting, reading, sleeping, snacking and watching the mountains fly by the window. By far the best way to travel in Moz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmVfom3PqzebwTuzKGhAWPrACQrVoo7Fitqv2_3lEGe0cuUFTWxgx9XOUF5Mr24-02pc_JVlBx4JiceED18CNzxArwsy537Du9_IuX_7idShxgLxt2sIq_ReuMP55elnueIrZoX_kLxU/s1600/DSCN7137+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSmVfom3PqzebwTuzKGhAWPrACQrVoo7Fitqv2_3lEGe0cuUFTWxgx9XOUF5Mr24-02pc_JVlBx4JiceED18CNzxArwsy537Du9_IuX_7idShxgLxt2sIq_ReuMP55elnueIrZoX_kLxU/s320/DSCN7137+(600x800).jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The villages along the train track seemed only to exist because of the train. Each place we stopped would already have a crowd of people, and not just to board. Instead, people flocked to the windows with baskets and buckets on their heads piled high with fruits, veggies, cokes, water, whatever, to sell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unfortunately, a large number of the vendors were kids, which made the whole money/goods exchange out the side of the window a bit tricky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCEF4_aitgSAMDTArzT7SrSan_Klc5Z1o6xB2_FKAMKGpUcu6OXZiSt-QiTb6azlu7LnMeaztiRfXuFsrewjvnIw9cp3MI4HCNEG7kEMzPdSgfZ-6CLWPETFzm8y3B5vCZrHKEHiEtiU/s1600/DSCN7144+(534x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtCEF4_aitgSAMDTArzT7SrSan_Klc5Z1o6xB2_FKAMKGpUcu6OXZiSt-QiTb6azlu7LnMeaztiRfXuFsrewjvnIw9cp3MI4HCNEG7kEMzPdSgfZ-6CLWPETFzm8y3B5vCZrHKEHiEtiU/s320/DSCN7144+(534x800).jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other tricky part made me wish that I hadn’t bought the bottled water from that kid… I didn’t take a picture of the bathroom, but allow me to describe: closet with hole in the bottom. A decent-sized hole at that, big enough to lose your leg in if you’re not careful. When you first enter, it’s actually a bit mesmerizing to watch the tracks fly by through the hole. But then you get over the fascination when you realize this is absolutely all you have to work with. And then begins the fun task of bracing yourself against the walls over said hole, trying to maintain both your balance and your aim as the train bumps along the tracks while trying not to think about all the others who have attempted (some without success, as is plainly marked) the same before you.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfVUN7-lucfpqphbrZZCDBIHPbofHA2pjElnmmewQpBfvuRhLUtQkSE-mAu6LtPui6sllwFF6ebeMk-Kee2S0aP6WUoIngfwjgKgfhr3OJYtZN5HvITJOxWS4m3XUB4mR4lgzA6_U-rkM/s1600/DSCN7141+(532x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfVUN7-lucfpqphbrZZCDBIHPbofHA2pjElnmmewQpBfvuRhLUtQkSE-mAu6LtPui6sllwFF6ebeMk-Kee2S0aP6WUoIngfwjgKgfhr3OJYtZN5HvITJOxWS4m3XUB4mR4lgzA6_U-rkM/s400/DSCN7141+(532x800).jpg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We arrived in Nampula around 17 and walked to the chapa station with the Spanish couple to catch a chapa to Ilha de Mozambique. The magical transport with plenty of space, cushy seats, and food walking up to the window was gone. But not before an obligatory train photo was taken. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And we were off to Ilha.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">J</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">uly 29<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24rth8xUnOV4A0aaVwWxzPktxVk-duNDxXNPtYTkVwzdW88RyVGPNX_Kd4Otb8rp7DKfj2OsySAHbnC5KxJqRsjsymiHAdbEbJvia4rqkb3f0xnldtFrXrSLQo2rVBUvu9Po1jEoEDDI/s1600/DSCN7198+(600x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24rth8xUnOV4A0aaVwWxzPktxVk-duNDxXNPtYTkVwzdW88RyVGPNX_Kd4Otb8rp7DKfj2OsySAHbnC5KxJqRsjsymiHAdbEbJvia4rqkb3f0xnldtFrXrSLQo2rVBUvu9Po1jEoEDDI/s320/DSCN7198+(600x800).jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">First, a bit of history about Ilha de Moçambique…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Ilha is known for being the first place in Moz colonized by Europeans, but it was actually an Arab port before that. In fact, the island and subsequently the country got its name from an Arab trader, Musa Al Big. In 1498, the Vasco de Gama of fifth-grade history class legend arrived and Ilha became the capital of the Portuguese East Africa company, which traded in slaves, spices and gold.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The Portuguese have long since been chased out and the tiny island’s 14,000 current inhabitants are 95% Muslim, but the fort, hospital, churches and narrow streets that look like they fell straight out of Europe still stand. The island is reached via a 3km bridge from the mainland, and can be traversed end-to-end in a little over an hour. It’s so narrow that in places without buildings, you can do a 180 and see both shores.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">I’m pretty sure even de Gama himself wasn’t as excited as I was about finally arriving in Ilha.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nCNukd6_Ls7Ou04q1drb2ocQNmTh6MYLnAEj6CzTwL4KQAnuS9KW0v5UMgXxQxLwcFQhjGNO8ZRBtuBPtr-jDJ713tBm45CPLBg54S6tMr23ZOW2avD-M1a8ybJekhfVJv5h4rsQ1UI/s1600/DSCN7205+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nCNukd6_Ls7Ou04q1drb2ocQNmTh6MYLnAEj6CzTwL4KQAnuS9KW0v5UMgXxQxLwcFQhjGNO8ZRBtuBPtr-jDJ713tBm45CPLBg54S6tMr23ZOW2avD-M1a8ybJekhfVJv5h4rsQ1UI/s320/DSCN7205+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The end of the island closest to the bridge, Makuti, is full of traditional Moz-style houses (cinder blocks and tin roofs). The entire neighborhood sits a few meters below the road, as this area was stripped of stones to build the fort and town on the ritzier end. Emily and I crashed with PCV Patrick on this side of town, and set out the first morning for the side known as “Stone Town.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Most of the streets that cut through the multi-story, multi-colored stone buildings are barely wide enough for cars. Some of the buildings are well maintained, with bright shutters on the windows and flower pots on the tiny balconies. Others, however, have been home to only squatters for so long they’re literally caving in on themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkKeDPfpoz0zcsLjhVqbLEWyCy0ph19Y09pvDWPqPFGZuYDkh7ypDeHJ6IIAV6eId24Z7oTA8CpAe7fXAiloU_uEOiqnKvGkPr9rNs3eUCkmRZZYsjK7f85EpIEWhgQSsVJRp4JUWRG5w/s1600/DSCN7154+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkKeDPfpoz0zcsLjhVqbLEWyCy0ph19Y09pvDWPqPFGZuYDkh7ypDeHJ6IIAV6eId24Z7oTA8CpAe7fXAiloU_uEOiqnKvGkPr9rNs3eUCkmRZZYsjK7f85EpIEWhgQSsVJRp4JUWRG5w/s320/DSCN7154+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The old governor’s place – complete with statue of de Gama out front – is a museum, now in the process of being rehabilitated. Emily and I stopped by the palace to purchase our tickets to visit the Fortaleza São Sebastião. The fort was built between 1558 and 1620 and is the largest European fort in Sub-Saharan Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A guard just outside the entrance took our tickets, then Emily and I had free reign to poke around in the old soldiers’ barracks, chapel, officers’ houses, kitchen, firing wall, etc. And perhaps a sunken ship at the edge of the slave auction site?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">We also found that, after the fort ceased to be used and prior to being named an UNESCO protected site, other people had seen fit to utilize the area for different purposes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"trancas," i.e. where people go to get their hair did</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Beyond that, the fort was in surprisingly good repair. At least, enough that you could let yourself imagine what it must've been like to arrive at the fort a few hundred years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Hidden in a corner of the fort is another gem: the Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte. Constructed in 1522, it’s considered the oldest European building in the southern hemisphere. The previous inhabitants were even still hanging on in the walls. It seriously felt like we’d somehow fallen through a rabbit hole and out of Africa altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Brother Fern...???"</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">But then we went and ate matpa de siri-siri – matapa (see previous entry) made with seaweed – and all was right with the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Afterward we wandered around (literally, we pretty much walked the circumference of the island) til we found a nice spot on the water to park it, read our books, and watch the sun set.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">July 30<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Have I mentioned that a perk of crashing with PCVs is that they always know people? The next morning, PCV Patrick (who apparently has a lot of guests…) called up a friend and Emily and I set off for a cruise on a dhow boat.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">What distinguishes a dhow boat, you ask? Imagine if Gilligan and his crew had built a sail boat – without the help of the professor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">It’s essentially a wooden hull with slats across the middle to sit on. The “mast” is made of a series of long, thin poles lashes together with once-colorful rope, and they hoist it up using only a primitive pulley system that involves only more ropes. The mast itself is a patchwork of off-white canvas. One guy sits in the back guiding the hand-carved rudder, and the other one hops around directing and tying the sail. During launch and landing, you as a passenger might be asked to sit on different sides of the boat several times to help out the whole balancing process. In fact, for most of the ride back, one of our guides had to perch himself on the end of a stick wedged into the hull and hanging a good three feet over the water in order to balance us out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Once the sail was tied down and we started cruising toward the mainland, Emily and I were free to kick back and dip our hands into the water as we sailed back to the mainland.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The place we landed, though back on the mainland, can only be reached by boat. Our guide took us across the thin peninsula to the open ocean on the other side. There was a tide pool just over a small hill, and this is where we broke out the snorkel gear PCV Patrick had lent us and dived in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">The pool was only about 30 meters across and of varying depths and mostly covered with vegetation at the bottom. And it was FULL of fish.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">My favorite sighting? This guy:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OUCV1dDFC0c/UDEpjnOzRLI/AAAAAAAAAb8/YfD5ZuShrg8/s1600/Lionfish.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OUCV1dDFC0c/UDEpjnOzRLI/AAAAAAAAAb8/YfD5ZuShrg8/s400/Lionfish.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Again, stolen from Google because my camera doesn't take kindly to water.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">After exploring every inch of the tide pool, we wandered to the open water and spent the afternoon swimming, snorkeling, reading and sun bathing before our guy found us and took us back to the island.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We wrapped up the day meeting with two newly arrived PCVs, Megan and Caitlin, and Patrick at a rooftop restaurant. Emily and I split a giant lobster which they prepared over a charcoal fire a few feet away. Then we crashed in bed to get ready for the final leg of our trip: Pemba.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-19181569111792422732012-08-15T00:41:00.004-07:002012-08-15T00:41:30.474-07:00Great Northern Adventure! Part II<div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 23<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gurue, Zambezia</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mandimba, Niassa = 317 km<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next day was not quite so pleasant. At 4:30 in the morning, Annie, Anna, Emily and I snuggled together in the back of a friend’s pick-up for the brief, frigid ride to the chapa stop in town. Bags in tow, we piled into the chapa and waited for it to fill complete up (chapas don’t leave until all 15 seats are filled with 25 people). After a few hours we were able to stretch our (now numb) legs in Cuamba before we got on another chapa to Mandimba, on the border of Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We arrived shortly after noon and went to the currency changing station (the place where the guys with huge wads of cash stand around and shout “American dollar! American dollar!” as you pass). The rate from the Malawian kwacha to the Mozambican meticais is about 10 to 1. The meticais to the American dollar is about 27 to 1. But if you didn’t know that, this would look incredibly impressive:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Mandimba, we planned to stay with PCV Kyla. When we arrived, she said she was one town over waiting for a chapa to leave. So we sat down to have lunch and wait.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lunch turned into afternoon snack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Afternoon snack turned into dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dinner turned into late-night drinks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And after countless games of King’s Corner, Solitaire, Snake on the phone, and anything else we could think of…we continued to wait.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinhkIoUl7rb67JSp5Wm-hlRFTUKwhfWY_WpsC8pjX5vWwGbQc6kSktbDv2UJ67PnYPbXitflmUJ8SC56Cumvydhu3eeQkIND_BLfHnO9BMlD6fJtZ31DUqA1OhL8KyU4lROaNeMs5u0rU/s1600/DSCN7050+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinhkIoUl7rb67JSp5Wm-hlRFTUKwhfWY_WpsC8pjX5vWwGbQc6kSktbDv2UJ67PnYPbXitflmUJ8SC56Cumvydhu3eeQkIND_BLfHnO9BMlD6fJtZ31DUqA1OhL8KyU4lROaNeMs5u0rU/s320/DSCN7050+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s Mozambique. After three years, you just kind of roll with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Kyla finally arrived after 22 and we headed back to her place to crash on a mattress on her floor. Which was great because the next morning…</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 24<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Mandimba - Cape McClear, Malawi = 129 km</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When you don’t have a car at your disposal, you get really creative about modes of transportation. But by far the coolest mode of transportation in Moz: the bike taxi.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which is exactly what it sounds like: you pay a guy (who hangs out in packs on the main street, much like the reputable money-changers) to take you somewhere on his bike. The bikes are perfectly outfitted for such endeavors – the metal square behind the seat normally reserved for transporting boxes of gin and goat is covered with a pad suitable (though not recommended) for sitting, and the pegs on the back wheel are reinforced to allow you to put your feet on them. While in transit, you are encouraged to hang onto your seat, or pretty much anything other than your driver. Biker. Whatever. And you comfortably sit and take in the view and try not to be offended when the biker starts huffing and puffing and having to stand up when you go up a slight incline. It’s really quite pleasant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ3-q5tFVzFA7LflhlScmC55Lpojt09MUSDpuSMfSMchXdgY5HSrrDJHxvHGNe41gfzYo9djITzT7FSqRG5kquTZ45u1uotdeJmZ8fWLvNKMw7Rp3KhhLjPYVIrlK9NSNhlLBelo5XiK0/s1600/DSCN7054+(532x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: left; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ3-q5tFVzFA7LflhlScmC55Lpojt09MUSDpuSMfSMchXdgY5HSrrDJHxvHGNe41gfzYo9djITzT7FSqRG5kquTZ45u1uotdeJmZ8fWLvNKMw7Rp3KhhLjPYVIrlK9NSNhlLBelo5XiK0/s400/DSCN7054+(532x800).jpg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We said our farewells to Kyla and Anna and hopped on our respective "taxis." The ride to the Moz border took about 20 minutes. After having our passports stamped, we boarded our bikes again and crossed the gate into No Man’s Land, similar to the Demilitarized Zone between Romulan and Federation space. The ride between the two country’s gates took another 20 minutes, before we found ourselves getting our passports stamped again and surrounded by more (aggressive) bike taxis, money changers and people speaking what they claim is English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After paying our taxis, we moved on to the next mode of transportation. Please note: we had very credible sources (other PCVs) advise us on traveling to Cape Maclear. One of the most important things they stressed was transport price “negotiation.” So when we went to the chapa (an open-back truck with a few people already on), the conversation went like this...<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Annie:</em> How much to Mangochi?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Driver:</em> 1000 kwacha.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Annie:</em> No, it's 500.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Driver:</em> Ok, 750.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Annie:</em> No, it's 500.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Driver:</em> No, best price, 650.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Annie:</em> It’s 500.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Driver:</em> No, it’s 650!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Annie:</em> It’s 500.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Driver:</em> Okay, it’s 500.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And we get in and wait for them to drive the exact same 500 meter loop five times to pick up more people before we actually start in the direction of Mangochi. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The official languages of Malawi are Chichewa and English. Which means the government is run in English and everyone really speaks Chichewa except for when they see white people who they assume speak English and want something from them. However, in the back of the truck, we were pleased to find a Malawian that also knew Portuguese and amused ourselves by learning Malawian English.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Us:</em> How do you say “capulana” in English?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Him:</em> “Fabric.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Us:</em> Oh, wow! Fabric! What about “cobrador?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Him: </em>“Money collector.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Us:</em> Brilliant! And how do you say “boleia” in English?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Him:</em> “Lift.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><em>Us: </em>Whoa!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unfortunately, we were also distressed to discover that they could also partly understand our English. I’m kind of ashamed to admit that Moz PCVs take it for granted that no one around them speaks English, so when we’re together we typically don’t filter our conversations as we should. (i.e., “Whoa, the man sitting next to me seriously smells like my latrine!” etc.) So, in this case, we simply reverted back to Portuguese. (i.e., “Epa, este homen ao meu lado cheira como minha latrina!”). It also made interesting reads along the way, as we passed the “God First Warehouse” and the “Fear Allah Market” and other such fun stores.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">From Mangochi, we caught another chapa to Monkey Bay, and from Monkey Bay found a pick-up going to Cape Maclear. We arrived at the backpacker’s in the late afternoon. We put down our bags and stretched out for the view at our lodge on the shore of Lake Malawi.</span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 25<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAYvbgLHfBBjtfpI7dkpUMIpPtpfxO0RvA7ZI_6aI5ejGVIebXjsdW1g00NuqUd_D1D8mzkBWbb54lotHmvVt9Rz-rCwVvEKBUJ4Tkejd3V8e1_UEvVLDO1qW4iFB_GGSRjYfWvSWCsI/s1600/DSCN7058+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: left; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibAYvbgLHfBBjtfpI7dkpUMIpPtpfxO0RvA7ZI_6aI5ejGVIebXjsdW1g00NuqUd_D1D8mzkBWbb54lotHmvVt9Rz-rCwVvEKBUJ4Tkejd3V8e1_UEvVLDO1qW4iFB_GGSRjYfWvSWCsI/s320/DSCN7058+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lake Malawi (Lago Niassa on the Moz side) is Africa's third largest lake and the eighth largest lake in the world. More interestingly, it's said to be home to more species of fish than any other freshwater body in the world. And on top of all that, it's absolutely gorgeous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cape Maclear is situated in a small peninsula on the southern end. The village is filled with backpackers and lodges along one main road, yet it’s still a relatively undiscovered and so doesn’t feel like a tourist destination. Walking along the beach, you’d pass the typical lodges with bars and wicker furniture and hammocks and landscaping – and then pass a fence and suddenly be in someone’s back yard, where women were busy washing clothes, dishes and children in the lake water. Alongside the kayakers, you’d see canoes made of hollowed-out logs and filled with fishermen and nets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksIOiIalIHW8S2G6CMoSqVMgYsP3CNrSWTGHHLCRhJlXcXJZkPlR4_7pXrLqQOvwJtSlFhVmup7yNj0RK882ZwBnRKdXanJOmQ9FmHYg59Oz-tbIA7m63o3gCKr_jRdbAU4Aiua8t7NM/s1600/DSCN7086+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksIOiIalIHW8S2G6CMoSqVMgYsP3CNrSWTGHHLCRhJlXcXJZkPlR4_7pXrLqQOvwJtSlFhVmup7yNj0RK882ZwBnRKdXanJOmQ9FmHYg59Oz-tbIA7m63o3gCKr_jRdbAU4Aiua8t7NM/s320/DSCN7086+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On one side of the road were the lodges with high fences and gates and signs that read “Guests only,” and on the other side it looked like the bush, with the addition of giant Baobob trees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another PCV characteristic is that we pride ourselves on not being tourists or just passing visitors – we live here, doggonit, and in Moz we expect you to treat us like any other Mozambican and address us in Portuguese (it’s a nice dream, anyway). So it was a little bit of a shock when we realized that people could speak pseudo-English to us, then turn to each other and speak Chichewa and we’d have no idea what they were saying. Oh yeah – suddenly, we were just more white tourists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But we embraced it while walking around the small town and settled for learning “thank you” in Chichewa (“zikomo”). In the afternoon, we rented kayaks and snorkel gear from a nearby lodge and set out for an island less than a kilometer from shore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After a lap around the island, we pulled our kayaks on shore and dove into the shallows. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you have never been snorkeling or scuba diving, I encourage you to do so. There’s simply nothing quite like hanging out in the water, alongside tons of gorgeous and brilliant fish, and just being a part of the underwater world for a while. Sadly, there are no pictures of this part. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">After watching the sunset on the water, we returned to the lodge for potato skins and a chicken dinner before crashing in bed – around 9 o’clock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">July 26<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxPi12bKRLg2J6pJKQD84dxatRL7q-3R2Srsj8cQ_r5_TMgNiL3xW6g1NdGx0XYQGnlN3SVKwTetkn2Ytxkb4cMacEUE5Fitu9bDFN_h6RvrGIK-eThZdoY5kYCI1DPD589RVGBHVMQfw/s1600/DSCN7118+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxPi12bKRLg2J6pJKQD84dxatRL7q-3R2Srsj8cQ_r5_TMgNiL3xW6g1NdGx0XYQGnlN3SVKwTetkn2Ytxkb4cMacEUE5Fitu9bDFN_h6RvrGIK-eThZdoY5kYCI1DPD589RVGBHVMQfw/s320/DSCN7118+(800x600).jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our final day in Cape Maclear was passed mainly eating delicious bean burrito-type dishes you can’t find in Moz and in perusing the jewelry and crafts in the countless stalls along the main road. One gentleman with a Bob Marley-type hat over his dreads tried to sell us his very own line of “Happy Pants,” and proceeded to sing us his Happy Pants Man jingle. I admire his marketing strategies, but got the impression his happiness had very little to do with pants.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEanrlyF5TMMxtvyrGUrCbVw4XIhL3kZq52T7JFaA9LjUFcu4-PxM-kuJVd1WBE221nHmV-Paxd_vOJiJGx4MTjdYkPwYMhkCQkiV90grdBut0zZTVENivVUOj3oMvZnGAlbZjrMXioR8/s1600/DSCN7077+(534x800).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEanrlyF5TMMxtvyrGUrCbVw4XIhL3kZq52T7JFaA9LjUFcu4-PxM-kuJVd1WBE221nHmV-Paxd_vOJiJGx4MTjdYkPwYMhkCQkiV90grdBut0zZTVENivVUOj3oMvZnGAlbZjrMXioR8/s320/DSCN7077+(534x800).jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In addition Malawi’s fine tourist-geared cuisine, we also sampled the country’s brew. One, Carlsberg, is a Danish beer bottled in Malawi. It’s light, refreshing, and sold for 250 kwacha. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other, the true Malawian brew, is sold in 1-liter milk cartons for 150 kwacha and tastes like liquefied fermented dirty socks. And also vaguely resembles it. Called Chibuku, you are encouraged to shake it before drinking, and if you wait too long the milk carton-esque container starts to swell with the excess gas. We all took an obligatory sip and promptly chased it down with something else more fit for human consumption. Like, pretty much anything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Overall, not a bad life on the shores of Lake Malawi.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-6319869933165260652012-08-11T01:09:00.000-07:002012-08-15T00:46:02.557-07:00The Great Northern Adventure! Part I<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">During the school’s winter break, my sitemate/now roommate Emily and I decided to take a little trip up to Malawi and the Mozambican provinces we had yet to visit. Armed with a backpack each, a jar of peanut butter and no solid plans, we took off on the morning of July 21 on an excursion of more than 3,900 km - our Great Northern Adventure!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Chimoio, Manica - Gurúe, Zambezia = 814 km</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>July 21</strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We got up at 2:40 in the morning (careful not to wake the three sleeping people and one sleeping dog also crashing at my house that night) and headed to the chapa stop to see about buses north. They only had standing room on the big buses leaving at 3:30, so we opted instead for a small chapa to take us to the main road where we could boleia. Go figure, there’s not a whole lot going on at a chapa stop at 3:30h – at least nothing we wanted to be a part of – so we settled for finding our chapa and snuggled into the backseats to asleep until more people showed up and we left at 5h. Around 6:30, we arrived in the town of Inchope on the National Highway 1 (EN-1), which starts in the southernmost province and capital and stretches to the northernmost. After doing our boleia dance (flapping our hands at oncoming cars and looking desperate) on the side of the road for an hour, we had the great fortune to land a Chinese business bad English and worse Portuguese. Which didn’t deter his conversation and frequent chuckles at all. With limited vocabulary, a lot of gestures and five hours on the road, he told me about his work with cotton in Moz, how he misses his family and hopes to go back home (the Xindan province…?), and then explained that one of the songs we listened to (in between the Chinese boybands) was a song of praise (he broke out the English/Chinese dictionary on his BlackBerry and showed me the word – “Buddhism”). He turned off the road in the village of Zero (no joke) and Emily and I resumed our dance until a bus with two open seats pulled over around 13h. We settled in with books and iPods for the next few hours, until we got down at our turn-off at the electricity-less truck stop village of Nampevo around 18:30h. We walked to our next boleia spot using the light of our cell phones and the moon, where we had the incredible fortune to catch a small truck headed our way. An hour and a half later he told us that we were coming up on the village of Invinha, just outside the city of Gurúe, where fellow PCV Annie lived. Annie had given us directions to her house ahead of time (Invinha doesn’t have cell phone service), but we had been in town all of two minutes when we saw a flock of mzungos headed for the car – four PCVs. They had dinner ready and waiting for us, and after catching up we finally snuggled into the house’s two beds – for Emily and I, a difference of about 20 hours and 800 km from where we’d started the day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><strong>July 22</strong></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyPpuRU_BXttByoTkXPaD8Qq6OqjidPT7ppAETpKM-pN5VEo2iDv9poKdoVaUlQW-MfFCMZ2JRGWsQNnz6iWCfmbLsT5B56eWsbdQpqe7IJqgQ4dySeRWOdUxySM2RpnjvUMKovD_skc/s1600/DSCN7039+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKyPpuRU_BXttByoTkXPaD8Qq6OqjidPT7ppAETpKM-pN5VEo2iDv9poKdoVaUlQW-MfFCMZ2JRGWsQNnz6iWCfmbLsT5B56eWsbdQpqe7IJqgQ4dySeRWOdUxySM2RpnjvUMKovD_skc/s640/DSCN7039+(800x600).jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gurúe is renowned for its rolling hills covered with <em>chazeiras</em> - tea plants. It sits at the base of Namuli Mountain, the second largest in the country, and this and the waterfalls make it a superb hiking destination. As such, the six of us got up the next morning to check it out for ourselves. We hopped a ride on a truck transporting wood (pokey sticks…ow), about 20 other people and a bike.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As luck would have it, the truck ended up taking a shortcut that got us way off track and hopped off in the middle of one of Gurúe’s endless tea fields . (“Peace Corps – never the adventure you think you’re going to have,” Allison says.) With the help of our good friend Buffalo (who we picked up on the side of the road), we decided to try to find a lake buried on some random trails.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">After a detour through a bamboo forest (seriously , it’s like CandyLand: Africa Edition), we found it!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPm0XNJ8YxcKC6uD_DnBEFUQuLbgBsKV_HfGsNjLRDvju1S1Tp410HeOTvG2GcWBRExL9dpIO5dXVvij2dz7ZbLBODYoDHBYyydFZjPgBTdYfcDJeqWWYxQdtGr0INUPl_rJYuThjOa0/s1600/DSCN7011+%2528800x600%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPm0XNJ8YxcKC6uD_DnBEFUQuLbgBsKV_HfGsNjLRDvju1S1Tp410HeOTvG2GcWBRExL9dpIO5dXVvij2dz7ZbLBODYoDHBYyydFZjPgBTdYfcDJeqWWYxQdtGr0INUPl_rJYuThjOa0/s320/DSCN7011+%2528800x600%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqwZCnyT1ighH586t_xWjhsOVDECIJRECP9lFiLqIzgIAhpiX2RWCCaJAtUgZwXgjF9VVwk2giUPM7knfH3xrydcytrogH4rhNu9d8X71xHrR3_2NSkISrr428smeussXd36TGgQdm6Ts/s1600/DSCN6999+%2528600x800%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqwZCnyT1ighH586t_xWjhsOVDECIJRECP9lFiLqIzgIAhpiX2RWCCaJAtUgZwXgjF9VVwk2giUPM7knfH3xrydcytrogH4rhNu9d8X71xHrR3_2NSkISrr428smeussXd36TGgQdm6Ts/s320/DSCN6999+%2528600x800%2529.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We hiked back into town to meet up with another PCV, Julia, and have an early birthday celebration involving red velvet cake and puppies. Seriously, you simply can’t beat that. Happy Birthday Julia!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We hopped in the back of a pick-up moving furniture for the 20 minute ride back to Annie’s house and said farewell to the gorgeous Gurúe and its infinite tea.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWs4LPmZOQB0ZwVSrC9CyuqPh577k3jV0kk7xMrXnP4gy8n0KlsnpvL6Ki4z_d95qoQjJa8_XOZhKKVP9ws6-E9lkojBp-3SC3uT6iq8t-MOL4FfjwWLBhIHfT5YPvsrQtZSaYeRaonQ/s1600/DSCN7038+(800x600).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWs4LPmZOQB0ZwVSrC9CyuqPh577k3jV0kk7xMrXnP4gy8n0KlsnpvL6Ki4z_d95qoQjJa8_XOZhKKVP9ws6-E9lkojBp-3SC3uT6iq8t-MOL4FfjwWLBhIHfT5YPvsrQtZSaYeRaonQ/s400/DSCN7038+(800x600).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">back row: Anna, me, Emily, Allison, Caitlin, Annie<br />
front row: Julia and friends</td></tr>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-35015772893840612592012-08-09T02:14:00.002-07:002012-08-09T02:14:31.257-07:00A Mzungo’s Guide to Other MzungosMzungo/mulungo is the native word for “white person” or “foreigner” used in much of southern Africa. It is an endless source of annoyance to PCVs. People tend to shout the word at us as we pass, as though sounding an alarm (which is true in the case of many small children, who either run away or simply start to cry at the sight of us) or making absolutely certain we’re aware that we stick out.<br />
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However, the fact is undeniable: mzungos are uncommon - and PCVs can become rather territorial about their sites. So we, like our Mozambican counterparts, often want to know exactly what foreigners are doing on our turf. Thus, I’ve created the guide below to identify the random white people that cross our paths. Simply answer the series of yes/no question and follow the course to determine just what kind of mzungo you’re dealing with, without even having to speak to them (aside from shouting “mzungo!” as they pass, of course).<br />
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1. Is the mzungo…<br />
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a. Female (Yes = proceed to Question 2)<br />
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b. Male (Yes = proceed to Question 6)<br />
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c. Mixed group (Yes = proceed to Question 11)<br />
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2. Is there more than one? (Y = Q3; N = Q5)<br />
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3. Are they all wearing full length skirts? (Y = Q4; N = Q5)<br />
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4. Are they all over fifty? (Y = missionaries from Tennessee; N = Jehovah’s Witness)<br />
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5. Is she wearing Chaco/Keens/other sporty outdoor sandal? (Y = Peace Corps Volunteer; N = expat)<br />
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6. Is he wearing a button-up shirt? (Y = Q7; N = Q9)<br />
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7. Is he wearing a tie? (Y = Jehovah’s Witness; N = Q8)<br />
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8. Does he have rugby-player shoulders, a beer belly, buzz cut, unnecessarily short khaki shorts and a neutral-colored button-up shirt? (Y = South African on holiday; N = Q9)<br />
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9. Is he heatedly spewing rapid-fire Portuguese? (Y = Portuguese businessman; N = expat)<br />
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10. Is he wearing chacos? (Y = Peace Corps Volunteer; N = expat)<br />
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11. Are the women in the group wearing long skirts? (Y = Q12; N = Q13)<br />
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12. Are the men in the group wearing ties? (Y = Jehovah’s Witness; N = other missionaries)<br />
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13. Are they wearing Chaco/Keens/other sporty outdoor sandal? (Y = Q14; N = Q15)<br />
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14. Do they emit a curious odor? (Y = backpacking hippies; N = Peace Corps Volunteers)<br />
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15. Are they heatedly spewing rapid-fire Portuguese? (Y = Portuguese businessmen; N = expats)<br />
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Whatever the reason for the mzungo’s presence in PCV territory, he/she should be approached with caution and only after consulting local store owners/other fofoqueiros for more information.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-55073585878996403162012-07-03T07:25:00.000-07:002012-07-03T07:25:18.895-07:00PortuglishDon’t get me wrong – I adore my mother tongue. But even I have to admit there are simply some things it faltas – er, lacks – when compared to other languages. So for PCVs, we just incorporate these essential Portuguese words into English. Here are a few of the need-to-know phrases if you ever hope to have a coherent conversation with a Moz PCV.<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> já<br />
<strong>English:</strong> already<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> simplest way to say that something is/has already been done.<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong> <br />
“I já saw this episode, how ‘bout the next one?”<br />
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<em>Person A: </em>“I’m going to the market to grab some tomatoes.<br />
<em>Person B:</em> “Já.”<br />
<em>Person A: </em>“Oh okay, nevermind.”<br />
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<em>Person A:</em> “Check out that chique guy at the next table.”<br />
<em>Person B: </em>“Jaaaaaaa.”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> negar<br />
<strong>English:</strong> to say no, deny<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> pretty much that, only simpler<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong> <br />
“Wow, I only had to negar three marriage proposals at the market today. Do you think maybe they’re starting to take the hint?” <br />
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<em>Person A:</em> “Check out this awesome Michael Jackson jumpsuit I found at the calamadadies market!”<br />
<em>Person B:</em> “Yeah, sorry, I’m going to have to negar your ever wearing that in public…”<br />
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<em>Person A:</em> “You want to buy some bolachas?”<br />
<em>Person B:</em> “I’m negar-ing.”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> conseguir<br />
<strong>English:</strong> to manage to do<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> anything that you manage to do or attain, usually some sort of accomplishment<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong><br />
“Hey, did you conseguir the matapa?”<br />
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“I conseguir-ed the most amazing boleia to the beach yesterday – seatbelts and air conditioning!”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> pedir<br />
<strong>English:</strong> to ask for<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> anytime you need or want something; in Portuguese the phrase “Estou a pedir…” literally means “I am asking for…” and is used instead of a request with “please”<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong> <br />
“Estou a pedir tomato sauce.” (real English: Pass the ketchup.)<br />
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“Check out that guy’s Obama shirt! I’m going to pedir him for it.”<br />
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“That lady by the chapa stop pedir-ed my hair – I’m selling it to her for 3,000 mets!”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> faltar<br />
<strong>English:</strong> to lack , to be lacking<br />
<strong>But really…: </strong>whenever you are missing something, or feel the absence of something; in Portuguese to “sentir falta de alguem” means to feel the absence of someone, or to miss them<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong> <br />
“We’re falta a chicken plate – go pedir the waiter.”<br />
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“I sentir a falta de Khanimambo. The house just isn’t the same without him.”<br />
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<em>Person A:</em> “When does this meeting start?”<br />
<em>Person B:</em> “Falta five minutes…or 95 minutes, Mozambican time.”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> estamos juntos<br />
<strong>English:</strong> we are together<br />
<strong>But really…: </strong>the most sure and polite way to end a conversation, or reassure a person you’re on good terms.<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong> <br />
“Oh, that’s nice, you have a decent job and are looking for a wife. Okay, estamos juntos.” (and walk away quickly)<br />
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<em>Person A:</em> “Estamos juntos?”<br />
<em>Person B: </em>“Estamos juntos.” (smile, nod, high five, walk away feeling good)<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> aproveitar<br />
<strong>English:</strong> to take advantage of<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> exactly that<br />
<strong>Examples: </strong><br />
“Could you turn in my grades for me Friday? I’m aproveitar-ing a boleia straight to Maputo on Thursday.”<br />
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“This bathroom has toilet paper and running water! You should totally aproveitar.”<br />
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<strong>Portuguese:</strong> tudo bem/bom<br />
<strong>English:</strong> everything’s good<br />
<strong>But really…:</strong> used in greetings, as an agreement or just as reassurance; also overly used in annoying Vodacom adverts<br />
<strong>Examples:</strong><br />
<em>Person A: </em>“Hey man, tudo bem?”<br />
<em>Person B: </em>“Tudo bem.”<br />
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<em>Person A: </em>“Haven’t seen you in forever! How’s life?”<br />
<em>Person B:</em> “Tudo bom.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-38472654939053228522012-05-21T00:43:00.001-07:002012-05-21T00:43:49.115-07:00Comida de Mozambique!<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-fGakGUx8BObYK4TCZx5GVONCpVPATAVb2Mgki_Evktg8YNgSRlcglgE7iJ1ygegUIqDAXnPueh5q2zbo3flcSFpbd6v2TFJQQps1t8ptsjD2fQAByWB3iL3DwAEbyh9CuhtZmVX8yk/s1600/038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" qba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-fGakGUx8BObYK4TCZx5GVONCpVPATAVb2Mgki_Evktg8YNgSRlcglgE7iJ1ygegUIqDAXnPueh5q2zbo3flcSFpbd6v2TFJQQps1t8ptsjD2fQAByWB3iL3DwAEbyh9CuhtZmVX8yk/s320/038.JPG" width="320" /></a>What traditional dish involves machetes, logs and spiked wooden benches? Matapa, of course!</div>
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One of the greatest bakers and most wonderful people I know has a blog about her goodies and let me write a guest entry about how to make my favorite Moz dish! Check it out: </div>
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<a href="http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/matapa-guest-post-by-val/">http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/matapa-guest-post-by-val/</a></div>
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And while you're at it, check out these other fine concoctions I stole from her site and made while here in Moz. This is part of my cultural exchange, bringing a little slice of American heaven to Africa. Enjoy!<br />
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<a href="http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/mexican-hot-chocolate-cookies/">http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/mexican-hot-chocolate-cookies/</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/easy-peasy-chicken-curry/">http://www.toffeebitsandchocolatechips.com/easy-peasy-chicken-curry/</a><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-3848198231636324362012-05-20T08:45:00.001-07:002012-05-20T08:45:26.300-07:00In MemoryFive months ago today, PC Mozambique faced the worst tragedy in its twelve-year history. Five days before Christmas and less than two weeks after being sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers, two Moz 17ers, Lena and Alden, were killed in a car accident and three others were injured and medically evacuated out of the country. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGA25Rs7unIigkjE-8lpwOUXQ7XKG5NOIeLvDmux6bOtiHPpfmvDRI9QZuingq3kgWAtv9yb-OxDUp6WOTv8hNNkqCMxxukdOGsOZjhgSJDZw7rA1iiPpPcrITY5ci8M9k3hrXSgMIh4Q/s1600/Lena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGA25Rs7unIigkjE-8lpwOUXQ7XKG5NOIeLvDmux6bOtiHPpfmvDRI9QZuingq3kgWAtv9yb-OxDUp6WOTv8hNNkqCMxxukdOGsOZjhgSJDZw7rA1iiPpPcrITY5ci8M9k3hrXSgMIh4Q/s1600/Lena.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lena</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8ZECjFqCx41eKrm6T68CxYKBku4bmdZeclbhN3PQsfMCaFMBf9W28g1vtP3lNPfjem6bn0gDZjT_rrd_sLz6d-dLSSqAzHY08xJ9JrhPmrtV-mqqv9wDjx6ZGN08yVJVDKuvZ_ByFjA/s1600/Alden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu8ZECjFqCx41eKrm6T68CxYKBku4bmdZeclbhN3PQsfMCaFMBf9W28g1vtP3lNPfjem6bn0gDZjT_rrd_sLz6d-dLSSqAzHY08xJ9JrhPmrtV-mqqv9wDjx6ZGN08yVJVDKuvZ_ByFjA/s1600/Alden.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alden</td></tr>
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<br />The Moz 17ers had only just finished their training in Namaacha, where for ten weeks they lived, trained and tried to adjust to life in Mozambique together. After this, they dispersed to their new sites around the country. As December is the summer holiday, some arrived at schools without electricity, water or with hardly any people. Adapting to life alone at that point is difficult enough.<br />
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And then the accident happened, December 20. So while many PCVs were in the states celebrating with their families for the first time in over a year or more, two families were told they would never have another Christmas with their daughters.<br />
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The PCVs were returning from Bilene beach - a road I traveled regularly from Chokwe - in a private car. The driver was speeding and even after they asked refused to slow down and refused to let them out. They took a turn too fast and the car overturned. One PCV broke both of his arms. Another suffered a neck injury. Lena and Alden didn't make it through the night. The driver fled. The police are still searching for him.<br />
The incredible staff of PC Moz gave up their holidays to see that Lena and Alden had a proper memorial in Mozambique and that their friends and family on both sides of the ocean were supported. Three candlelight memorial services were held in country, and all the Moz 17-ers were flown to Maputo to have a memorial together. Several Moz 17-ers went home. A few have since returned, but, understandably, some will probably never step foot in Mozambique again. It's cliche to call the PCV group a family. But really, the others are the only family - and at the beginning, the only friends - you have in a very different and often very rough world. They're going through an experience with you that people stateside can never fully understand, even with blogs or Skype or visits.<br />
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Moz 17 – and any PCVs who knew Lena or Alden – will always be marked by the tragedy. But from what I’ve seen of the group in the five months since the accident, they’ve done an incredible job of honoring the memories of the two and still thriving in their new sites. PCVs as a whole are really an impressive group of people and I’m continually amazed at their resiliency. It’s pretty inspiring and humbling all at once. <br />
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I never met Alden, but Clancy and I had the fortune of hosting Lena in our home in Chokwe for a week during training. As soon as the site visit list went out, another PCV texted me to exclaim “You’ll love Lena, she’s my favorite!” After a short time with her, I understood why. She’s one of those people who have the will and ability to make the best of any situation. Even when tensions ran high – as they often do when traveling around Moz – she was the one to crack a joke or keep the conversation going in order to try and keep everyone sane. I knew she wouldn’t have any problems adapting to site. She texted me when she found out she would be teaching just down the road. I spoke to her the day I got on the plane to return home for Christmas. And then I got an email with her picture a few days later. I can’t do justice to Alden or Lena’s memory, but there is more information at the Fallen Peace Corps Volunteer site (<a href="http://fpcv.org/fallen-pcvs/">http://fpcv.org/fallen-pcvs/</a>).<br />
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Being a PCV isn’t dangerous by nature – honestly, life in the middle of nowhere can be downright dull and no one really wants to mess with the American government (everyone thinks we’re really specially trained FBI agents, anyway). The risks come with the lack of development in the countries where we serve, especially regarding transportation. Most cars come from a time before airbags and haven’t been serviced in all that time, anyway; roads look like games of Whack-A-Mole more often than not;any sort of dangerous driving infraction (speeding, drunk driving, not having headlights, etc) is ignored for the right amount of mets. Add to that the fact that when something does go wrong, there is no 911, no ambulances, and even arriving at a hospital doesn’t guarantee proper equipment or competent staff. We’re not soldiers, we’re here just to work and live – but the risks, for all that the US government and our local staff tries to mitigate them – are still there. But, we feel it’s worth it, or we wouldn’t be here.<br />
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Both families have set up memorial funds through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, with the proceeds going to support fellow PCVs' projects. Alden's family is working on a project to increase road safety for both PCVs and Mozambicans, and Alden's mom and I exchanged several emails as she tried to get more information about transportation in country. The plan is to include more training on selecting safe chapas and boleias during the training next year.<br />
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My thoughts and prayers will remain with Lena and Alden’s friends and families.<br />
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<a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=SPF-ALF">https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=SPF-ALF</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=SPF-LJF">https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=SPF-LJF</a><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-78331298263833744312012-04-26T07:39:00.000-07:002012-05-17T02:47:03.535-07:00World Malaria Day 2012!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTlrsje-0lFRCAtLaLH7orcLQplMpKkizqtgoStwUE4nj_UPmtBmK7615ALLws2cSfVvF8wjlnIGJGEl1lCr3gR4E_5-v5Z6dXLXy9hLbHXdWHa12u1u-XQ0plf_udraPZM2tELCINL00/s1600/BAMM+Facebook+cover+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTlrsje-0lFRCAtLaLH7orcLQplMpKkizqtgoStwUE4nj_UPmtBmK7615ALLws2cSfVvF8wjlnIGJGEl1lCr3gR4E_5-v5Z6dXLXy9hLbHXdWHa12u1u-XQ0plf_udraPZM2tELCINL00/s320/BAMM+Facebook+cover+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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April 25 is World Malaria Day, dedicated to raising awareness of the disease and how to prevent it. The beautiful thing is, malaria <em>can</em> be eradicated and we know how to do it. It once existed in North America and Europe, where it's now all but nonexistent. More recently, a focused effort by the government to remove mosquito breeding grounds has made malaria practically extinct in Maritius, an island east of Madagascar.<br />
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To commemorate the day, my English students made informational signs (using the imperative tense) and wrote about their experiences with malaria. I've included some of the best ones below (with some minor grammatic edits).<br />
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And for an American account of a brush with malaria, check out my blog from last July: <a href="http://pcvaleriecooper.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-statistics-cant-tell-you.html">http://pcvaleriecooper.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-statistics-cant-tell-you.html</a>.<br />
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Use your mosquito nets kids!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBoYl8vh98kmrDl0kVaWkMc8cgtDbYBr-6-pnFaFh72klbYVjwTHiYHlektfajiPOMFX3uqR9pYMTtDB-SeQAhzV60TSoVcW1HSzGSWKfk0mibqAc45giPpeuQjApypP3N8K5UIqY-Xeg/s1600/2012-04-29+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBoYl8vh98kmrDl0kVaWkMc8cgtDbYBr-6-pnFaFh72klbYVjwTHiYHlektfajiPOMFX3uqR9pYMTtDB-SeQAhzV60TSoVcW1HSzGSWKfk0mibqAc45giPpeuQjApypP3N8K5UIqY-Xeg/s320/2012-04-29+002.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teodora, Emilia, Milton and John</td></tr>
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<em>I was born and grew up in Mozambique and I have never been exempt from getting malaria, as any citizen of Mozambique. At 19, I had a dramatic experience with malaria, showing that to get it there's no age. It was 2 pm when I felt a headache; I went home to take parecetamol. That night I was feeling so bad with a headache, nausea, vomiting, weakness and hallucinations. My parents took me fast to the hospital. There I was treated. I started to get better the next day; I could talk and eat normally. I suffered from an illness that I could take care of. I had good luck, because my uncle had malaria and was treated within a week, but he died. The malaria that he had was cerebral malaria. After I almost died, now I prevent malaria, dreaming one day of Mozambique without malaria, such as in Texas….Working all together we can finish malaria.</em> </div>
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- Emilia</div>
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<em>This is a very common disease in our country, every year thousands of people get sick because of malaria. I already had malaria, in my case it was not necessary to stay in the hospital but I confess that the feeling of having the disease is not pleasant. Our bodies become brittle, usually the mouth is bitter, which makes us not want to eat.</em><em>Unfortunately, my father died because of malaria. He was indifferent to the symptoms which left him so weak and the medications were ineffective. </em><em>Now, more than ever to protect myself from malaria I use insecticide in the house, I keep the house and surrounding area clean and I always use a mosquito net to keep me safe while I sleep. It is always good to remember “Better safe than sorry.”</em></div>
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- Teodora<br />
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<em> It started off with a dry cough, tiredness and a flu-like illness. Little did I know that I was invaded with the dreadful bacteria. The next morning a strange new setup was in me, I was shivering, sweating, vomiting and as if it wasn’t enough a terrible headache attacked me. I became weak, lost my appetite and my eyes turned yellow. Due to being alone and not quickly realizing that it was malaria, I thought of sleeping with layers of all my warmest blankets. It wasn’t comfortable enough in the blankets. I called 911 and they didn’t pick up. I never knew what happened next. A few days later I woke up in a beautiful, air-conditioned white painted room. I thought it was heaven, moreover seeing the nurses in white I thought they were angels. I asked, “Is this heaven?” One of the nurses said to me, “This is the hospital, and you were in a three-day coma because of malaria.” They later told me that they followed the link of a missed call I did to 911 and found me already in a coma.” </em></div>
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- John (from Zimbabwe)</div>
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<map id="Map" name="Map"><area alt="Roll Back Malaria" coords="89,10,178,102" href="http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/worldmalariaday/" shape="rect"><area alt="World Malaria Day 2009" coords="0,10,89,102" href="http://www.worldmalariaday.org" shape="rect"></map>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-39409067719218989062012-04-21T06:29:00.001-07:002012-04-21T06:33:55.229-07:00Couchsurfing - Without the Couch<span style="font-family: Calibri;">James’ alarm breaks into song at 3:19.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hear him immediately turn it off and then nothing. Thirty
seconds later, mine vibrates against the window will where it sits and I turn
it off before it can announce the time, and I hear James’ feet on the floor.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He’s one of the most efficient travelers I’ve seen, even by
Peace Corps standards, and within four minutes his water bottle is filled and
his backpacked and sandals are strapped on. I grab the keys off my nightstand
and escort him through the gauntlet that is the front of my house – first the
front door with the chain and three full turns of the key to open the deadbolt,
followed by the padlock on the grates immediately beyond that, the lock on the
door of the enclosed porch and finally down the steps into the yard to the
locked 8-foot gate that’s topped with an explosion of thorny bushes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He says he’ll let me know when he’s on his way back and I
wish him a safe trip and we hug before he steps out onto the street – still
completely dark outside range of the streetlight – and disappears down the
sidewalk in the direction of the bus station. His leaves at 4, and he’ll be in
Zambia by nightfall and Victoria Falls the day after that. I get a strange
feeling of déjà vu: James lives two hours from Chokwe and had been a regular at
our house when Clancy and I lived there – especially, he’d joked over dishes
the night before,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when he ran out of
water and didn’t want to have to haul it up from the river.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But even more than that, this is a déjà vu because it also happened the day prior with another PCV, and though I don't know it at the time, it's going to happen the following morning, and the morning after that, and the morning after that...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">At this point in time, though, as I go back through all the locks, I don't realize this. In fact, I'm thinking I might be alone that night. Which is also what I thought the day prior, before getting James' text that he was coming into town. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the day before that, before
Emiliy and Laura and I had decided to celebrate finding cilantro by having a
Tex-Mex dinner and movie night. Though the night before that, I’d known Ian and
Hannah were staying over because they had for the couple nights in a row,
including the night that Joanna, Dereck, Adrienne and the other Emily had also
been there. Prior to that had been a jumble of Mona and the two Emilys back up
until that night over a week ago I’d crashed at Joanna and Mary’s in Catandica,
a few hours north of Chimoio.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that’s how it goes, having a massive house in the largest
city with PCVs for 400 km and being a five-minute walk from one of three Peace
Corps offices in the 801,590 km2 country. And that’s just how it should be.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Youth groups, sororities, marching band – they’ve got
nothing on the instant and endless camaraderie of Peace Corps Volunteers. You
show up in Philadelphia before flying out to your new home for the next two
years and it’s like the first day of kindergarten: no one knows each other, no
one really has any idea what to expect but you look around and know that these
are the people you’ll be depending on to get you through whatever’s ahead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of course, once at site, we all strive to become as
“integrated” (key PC term) as we can in our community, and some manage to an
impressive extent, but you really can’t replace being able to speak your first
language with others from a similar culture and going through the same trials
and tribulations as you. As such, destination get-togethers (usually at a PCV
home) and mass PCV travels are common. Those travelers usually determine their
routes based on how far they can travel in a day between PCV sites, and it’s
pretty much an expected open-door policy. I can’t count the number of PCVs whom
I met for the first time when they showed up on my porch – Chokwé or Chimoio –
to spend the night.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">There’s an unspoken etiquette to be followed – it’s best to
advise the host at least a day before, and if there for dinner the hostee will
usually offer to pick up stuff from the market for dinner on the way in, and
visitors should be pretty self-sufficient overall. In the case of high-traffic
PCV sites (the beach, big cities, middle-of-nowhere where there’s simply no
other option), coordination between guests is advised to avoid inundation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For me, it provides a nice balance to living alone. Having
the house that I do, I almost feel obligated to share the wealth, or “spread
the blessings,” as a college church member put it. I have certainly been
blessed, with electricity, running water, two completely empty rooms, a bed the
size of some PCV houses. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir4KoYndpPTwEwhr3h4QmRg3eaHVROlN1-NjSJM15NMoZqmmTC0X-JvPX0DDFFS4IYPmgm4szsYYxXIvrpd3DdANVsJ62oONo_-HhNtaG1Dz0XO763ijXXXBBBBW-m5DWT8qI1aQqWNEM/s1600/DSCN5957+(640x480).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir4KoYndpPTwEwhr3h4QmRg3eaHVROlN1-NjSJM15NMoZqmmTC0X-JvPX0DDFFS4IYPmgm4szsYYxXIvrpd3DdANVsJ62oONo_-HhNtaG1Dz0XO763ijXXXBBBBW-m5DWT8qI1aQqWNEM/s320/DSCN5957+(640x480).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With two people in the bed, you can toss my stuffed dog
Rosco in the middle and never know the other person’s there. We’ve comfortably fit four people so far, and when that isn’t enough we toss any combination of
reed mat, yoga mat, standard-issue PC blankets, sleeping bags and capulanas on
the floor. And in extreme situations, there’s always a PCV tent in the PC
office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHZ1K65Fczg0ycxAUgExLYQvlRGzOxBkJ_hFHAPbmmf50AD6oTSvsVkrnOzhYTTj_lbekSHoQHvA1-0f11QxDuzM_G6dMJXQaM5mshIqDOyj1G-kImuntWEOOiPyISnYmLcm_OUhLc-4/s1600/DSCN5958+(640x480).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTHZ1K65Fczg0ycxAUgExLYQvlRGzOxBkJ_hFHAPbmmf50AD6oTSvsVkrnOzhYTTj_lbekSHoQHvA1-0f11QxDuzM_G6dMJXQaM5mshIqDOyj1G-kImuntWEOOiPyISnYmLcm_OUhLc-4/s320/DSCN5958+(640x480).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ironically, this might be one of the ways we’ve integrated
most. When Mozambicans travel, they never stay in hotels. On top of being
pricey, only the biggest cities have them. Instead, there’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> a “cousin,” “aunt” or friend of a
friend of a friend who’s practically family with whom you can crash. That’s
pretty much how I see other PCVs.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is one cultural exchange I’d love to send back across
the pond. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to travel in the states without
free boleias for transport and a guaranteed place to stay every couple hundred
kilometers.<o:p></o:p></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-15095455931648103622012-04-08T09:34:00.000-07:002012-04-08T09:34:40.911-07:00<div>
I’d really like to be able to give you crazy stories about lions and chickens and funny natives and whatnot…but I really don’t have any right now.</div>
<br />Teaching at the Universidade Católica de Moçambique is another world. I have a desk in an office I share with Dércia, the director of psicopedogogia (I have no idea how you say that in English); Francisco, the director of public relations; six crucifixes and eight Virgin Marys. I use PowerPoint presentations and a projector for most of my lessons. This week we had an all-staff training on how to use new software to access thousands of scholarly journals. I have a logo polo – white and blue, for the communications department. There are at least two meetings every week that I use to catch up on the New York Times on my phone. I have a three-minute walk to the school from my house along a tree-lined sidewalk and take the university’s shuttle back when it’s dark after night classes.<br />
<br />Aside from regular power outages and the fact that you still have to bring your own toilet paper to the casa de banho, it’s just like being back in the developed world.<br />
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Granted, I certainly wouldn’t put it up next to my university experience at TCU. The fact that I’m directing the entire communications department and don’t yet have my master’s degree makes that pretty clear.</div>
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But I’m teaching something I enjoy and am completely comfortable with – and that makes a big difference. The Press Freedom Index. The Inverted Pyramid. Nellie Bly. Watergate. Hemingway-esque prose. Even KONY 2012. Writing lesson plans is – dare I say it? – fun. Countless times, I’ve gotten sidetracked because I started researching something simple on the Portuguese Wikipedia and then became too engrossed in it to stop - though aware that I’ll never have the time to convey it all to my students.</div>
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The students themselves are on another level than I’m accustomed to. They’re paying money, they’re working in a field they’re interested in, and they know having a degree will give them a huge advantage once they graduate. In short, they want to be there, and it drives me to do even more to make it worth their while. Though I nearly had a stroke while reading their first compositions (“Staying informed on world news is important because it’s good to know what’s going on in the world. I like to stay informed. I use the internet. Everyone should stay informed. It’s very nice.”), it’s reassuring to know I have my work cut out for me. They know I have an open-door policy when I’m in the office and make use of it, they text me when one of their teachers for another discipline doesn’t show up, they are patient when it’s late and I can’t find the Portuguese to explain myself, and many of the older ones (most of them are) end up teaching me things about the state of journalism in Mozambique.</div>
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In my Introduction to Communication class, I have a different student present national and international news and another one do a presentation about a different country in the news every day before I start my lesson. They write in journals on a daily basis with critical thinking-style topics I assign and classes include a lot of debates. I pretty much dug up everything that I loved about my journalism classes from TCU and tried to replicate it. I have never been more appreciative of the incredible journalism and English teachers I’ve had since high school – oh, and Uncle Bob. The students are already quite familiar with the namesake of the Schieffer School of Journalism.</div>
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Next on the agenda, I’m working with Francisco on starting a student-run newspaper. Woo!</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeH2qF88uzAabl1lwEpXYJo0bHCrxBag2tdOZK2TdTj0Xmu5njXn9mLYMD1fIbi3I2kH24-7sykANZwocjH48gW6U9-OF7SBZGekBpLVK08LnbwIX675huVlXsyanZGCpP2eC7hXOnjoM/s1600/DSCN5800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeH2qF88uzAabl1lwEpXYJo0bHCrxBag2tdOZK2TdTj0Xmu5njXn9mLYMD1fIbi3I2kH24-7sykANZwocjH48gW6U9-OF7SBZGekBpLVK08LnbwIX675huVlXsyanZGCpP2eC7hXOnjoM/s320/DSCN5800.JPG" width="240" /></a><br />
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But let me assure you, outside the walls of my little haven of a university, Mozambican life continues unchanged. There are still random chickens in my yard that eat all the guava that falls off my trees. I still resort to bucket baths when it’s just too cold for the running water in the shower. I am still greeted with “mzungo!” (“white person!” in Shona, the local dialect) everywhere I go. And I’m always on the prowl for whatever next excitement comes along. But for now, I’m just reveling in normalcy. I can't tell you how excited I was simply to have a desk again. Ahhhhhhh...</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-50305537849334955862012-04-04T23:48:00.000-07:002012-04-04T23:48:26.577-07:00Adventures of the Peace Corps Car<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ENWu2T6Mz0IkyyZv7rO-Tg17-H7y4CnQNEOPmPyLSAJWPBui6e2cXc8FrAWLHDDfVG-1ChO6Ssbvt61V12WGiim37VGbBc_xcL95PaVNYJtYWXjUGLdw6SfGLR4ZgubVnAAfoKQdjyc/s1600/DSCN5629.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ENWu2T6Mz0IkyyZv7rO-Tg17-H7y4CnQNEOPmPyLSAJWPBui6e2cXc8FrAWLHDDfVG-1ChO6Ssbvt61V12WGiim37VGbBc_xcL95PaVNYJtYWXjUGLdw6SfGLR4ZgubVnAAfoKQdjyc/s320/DSCN5629.JPG" width="320" /></a>One of my responsibilities as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader this year is PCV support – which means going out to where they are to check out their housing, teaching, as well as a plethora of other administrative issues. </div>
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In the Chimoio office, I work with Osvaldo, who’s in charge of housing, and Ofelio, who’s in charge of the central region and developing the food security program. So every once in a while, we’ll load up the PC car super early and take off to visit the sites in the Middle of Nowhere, Mozambique. </div>
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I get to poke around PCV houses. </div>
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I get to see them at work in the classroom. </div>
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I get to take tours of their villages and meet their "families." </div>
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Mainly, I get to sit and chit chat with some people who rarely if ever receive English-speaking visitors and just see what I can do to make their lives a little easier, be it bring them a package that’s been sitting in the office for a month or check on the possibility of PC funding a new latrine because the current one’s almost full. </div>
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But going into the bush, even in a swanky white 4x4 with air conditioning, isn’t without its risks. Like when we were getting ready to leave and discovered that we’d accidentally parked on top of an old latrine hole that promptly gave way under our back tire and we had to have a tractor pull us out. </div>
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Or when we went to put grates on the house of two PCVs who live in a site without electricity. And then discovered the generator wasn’t powerful enough to power the welding tool. And that the second, bigger, generator wasn’t working. And then it started to rain. And then the PC car refused to start, and the nearest other car was a seven-kilometer walk away in the city. Along with the town’s one mechanic. Who spent a couple hours trying to figure out what the problem was. </div>
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This is why, as much as I might love these guys, I would probably never visit them were it not for the PC car. </div>
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But it’s quality bonding time with other PCVs, Ofelio and Osvaldo. And since I'm living the high life in a big city now, it's a nice little reminder of what real life is like for the rest of the country I call home. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-44310883142914840512012-03-12T04:28:00.011-07:002012-03-12T05:57:37.349-07:00Toto, I get the feeling we're not in Peace Corps anymore...<div>There’s running water.<br />There’s an office with air conditioning.<br />There’s a projector in my classroom.<br />I haven’t ridden in a chapa in a week.<br />My colleagues have college degrees. And a sense of responsibility.<br />There’s a supermarket that sells cheese. CHEESE.<br />My house has two bedrooms.<br />There is a restaurant that delivers pizza.<br />Heck, I even wear pants and shirts with sleeves to work willingly because the weather is positively bearable.<br />I don’t know when they kicked me out of Peace Corps, but I hope they don’t realize I’m still receiving my living allowance anytime soon.<br /><br />OK but seriously, Chimoio is a different world, in terms of my house, my work and the town itself.<br /><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993399;">A Minha Casa</span></div><br /><div>After a month of living out of a hotel, I finally moved into my house. I had often imagined that moment when the man hands me the key to my new front door. However, I wasn’t expecting this. </div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718972903221506530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis-tGLDmxbGy2NB9TEUVXiStpU6W9x1mA1j8n5Gr_J-KhKUKGhkS8PRMndSBpP1nSj009YoBTIqo7x-v-RT4a4uCU6oolJHxQ5PkwMNNkdlgMrDeN7PnedI7j0OxrC61BDSvVakqcmYoI/s320/House+01.JPG" />But this is what you call security. It takes four different keys to get from the street to my front door. Each outside door – three in total – come with a deadbolt, a locking grate on the outside and a bar across the inside. The porch doors close and lock. And there are two locking gates on a fence that reaches several feet above my head and ends in a spray of purple flowers. Meant to be.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>And here's the inside...</div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718979663352520002" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9F-GRD5u7t29Xu2nz7fJnBFANRgqFAj0Blgxkhp_yZhKPy2opPGuKDnAdSeaQ03UF39vKY1r8ERcCFVxBGaRGjq0LWS_RKBTaHw-fvmdJtYIh02ePbPPjdpRCGQ85U9AClESuPYriV4/s320/House+02.JPG" /> <img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718981517494277714" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgssPLvJ4NOtQ5ex2Bi9P6HkZ7I5-XDZ1DM6bFnTPpCo_VFoNLK7iew7J1ziGHfGeTOypD3KzgD02nTUW8PBgbxY2CWak2nRBxVNxy62-wgy-KO3OpepX-gUGU8cw7eAWSst4DSpr9pCs/s320/House+03.JPG" /> <img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718983695315469154" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRKrvsmzDONH2dWWf4a9Wr4sUhQR-ub-KX6_8vszaqNliBGII9h8WP8aIxOSCN5NxmKAerQTGZa41KTg1lxkkDLTY05Ow8e1p8NudonTRHwx3psdkUnGWFUcRTbdXHoGSco2WMutX2U54/s320/House+04.JPG" /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:130%;color:#993399;">A Minha Escola</span></div><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718986167750943762" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_LiA3dcJG8cZTP0IHY4R8PBDaVQlqu59BCZLFpu5VHPWMZSXSt8p64IT8GadaiXne95PuqjpAvZreZntsLBgCsRbf-QfcAXPaZ1hzJRsCOIwU5ghLQ8G13BhEjWlFfyaFhcel1el9tXQ/s320/UCM+01.JPG" /> There are certain times where I simply have no idea how things came to be...but I'm grateful for them, anyway. At the Universidade Catolica de Mocambique, where I was originally brought to teach English, I am now also the Director of the Communications program (something about the director they had in mind deciding to quit the week before classes started...).</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So, I've got a group of students starting the first year of the new communications program that I get to introduce to ideas of press freedom, writing skills, accuracy, brevity and timeliness, and all those other things that made me fall in love with journalism. Unfortunately, I don't get to beat them over the head with AP Style and the First Amendment, since those don't exist here. Here are a few of my students representing in the communication's department white and blue.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 234px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5718991042470548130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcC1icSnm4ThSh7Kbm3YK94EN58FuUT3lL5lUitmpZ9Yu7AhEuPopzhF0UvBdamNUai4QDQvecsuz3d5KrYAeEY-MBqkervRDk0BzQtq7KzuIAkKZC-_I6dz6J_t-TYxHI1wm-KS6XzoU/s320/UCM+05.JPG" /></div></div></div><br />Again, I have no idea how I just happen to luck into these things...but I won't ask questions and just work and hope they keep happening.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-87388136997204588892012-02-01T06:26:00.000-08:002012-02-02T01:52:30.510-08:00Back in Moz!I’m back in Moz for Year 3! I arrived just in time to kill a few days at the beach, catch up with old friends, help with a PC conference and am now settling into my new role in the Maputo office before I move to Chimoio next week.<br /><br /><div><br /><div><br /><br /><div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 160px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 155px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.cocacolasabco.com/Content/uploads/Image/26/mozambique_map_uncropped.gif" /></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>One fun aspect that met me upon arrive was Cyclone Funso, sliding down the channel between Mozambique and Madagascar. Really, all this meant for me was that a little rain during the night, frequent paranoid text messages from the PC Safety & Security officer and a little trouble getting back down to Maputo, thanks to a missing bridge that was miraculously “rebuilt” in 48 hours (there is one highway in southern Mozambique, so the capital was essentially cut off from the rest of the country – it’s amazing what can be accomplished with the proper incentive).<br /></div><br /><div>So here's the lack of bridge...</div><br /><div></div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 180px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5704472759072520402" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfojqFuJMAvFW5p-Fd2aXOyPvGAMAKjlSu18EbiM17kGTlBmxHORNd66XZ7kZh9JmbMnVJswwvmmBsgO3wnbStGYa2JfAP6wc1ra3mphb16NxfyMGGWJfDy38jPHb38s9Zh5dyWr6C1Q/s320/flood.jpg" /></div><br /><br /><div>And here's what we drove across three days later...</div><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5704473368543183282" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41nO1j47aseelxZzDPpDS06syd-2C3d_1cQg7G2yZDjAnFAy6TFlumaNETg4zaoO48hWrr8XEARwtVDpJsYSYsyNYSihMvvEgyGAFlyNsDv5IAGZ1oeVbppkdRWH_HJR5nWTVdaIznj8/s320/Moz+055.jpg" /><br /><br /><div><br /><div>Once I eventually get to my new site, I’ll be working as a sort-of adjunct professor at the Universidade Catolica de Moçambique; but the majority of my time will be spent with Peace Corps, working through their office in Chimoio (staff of three, when you count me…). I’ll keep you posted here, so keep checking back for updates! </div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-76594991843684378072011-11-10T00:47:00.000-08:002011-11-10T01:00:05.471-08:00Border CrossingWhile boleia-ing home one afternoon, I had the great fortune of attracting the attention of a white SUV with a license plate from Gauteng Province – I had succeeded in what is typically thought impossible: the much-coveted South African boleia.<br />“Are you going to Chokwe?” I ask when they pulled over.<br />The middle-aged couple take a moment to consult their map before confirming that yes, they are headed to Chokwe.<br />“Great!” I say, and start to open the back door. I quickly realize it’s locked. And then I remember… oh right, South Africans. I lean back over to the passenger window and after running through a list of possible English translations for “boleia” settle for asking, “Um…could I get a ride?”<br />“Oh sure!” And the man unlocks the door and I climb in the backseat amid ice chests, bags of canned and processed food, fishing gear, suitcases and, miracle of miracle, air conditioning. I had found the four-leafed clover, the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, the star power in the question box, and now my road would be easy.<br />Of course, the questions start.<br />So, you’re not afraid to hitchhike here? Not at all, it’s very common, and much safer than public transportation. Do you speak their language? Yes – I teach in Portuguese. What are you doing here? And the standard spiel about volunteering with Peace Corps, etc.<br />At this point, the wife turns around in her seat, and I can see the concern spilling out of her eyes as she ingenuously questions…<br />“Your students at the school, are some of them…black?”<br />(pause)<br />She’s speaking English, so I know there’s not a translation issue. But I suddenly feel like these people are so far from the world I know that I’d have more in common with a Portuguese-speaking Mozambican boleia.<br /><br />Oh, South Africa.<br /><br />This was one of my first real eye-opening experiences with the people who look like me living in the “developed” country next door, the one with the highest per capita on the continent and, startlingly, also one of the highest crime rates. I’ve only spent a brief time there myself – enough time to relish in efficient customer service and commercialism, but not enough time to have any idea about the culture. While answering questions and explaining a little about my life in Mozambique to the beach-bound tourists I often encounter, I also learn a lot about their country. Questions like these speak volumes.<br /><br />At first, I thought most of the South Africans I encountered were simply the elite – they drive through Mozambique in their caravan of SUVs stuffed with food and water from their own country and their boats or trailers hitched on the back, not getting out of their cars from the border crossing to the resort run by their fellow South Africans except to fill up their 50-gallon tanks at the legit gas stations where the Indian owners accept credit cards and speak English better than they do. Naturally, these types are probably just as sheltered in their own country and completely unaware of how the other 95% of their fellow citizens live, and so I shouldn’t judge their country based on such a select group.<br /><br />But then you run into the working class guys, usually here in Mozambique to make use of the country’s natural resources, so they can send the gas or water or sweet corn back to South Africa to be processed and packaged and sold back to Mozambique for triple the price, without Mozambique actually seeing a penny of profit.<br /><br />One South African friend, who invited us to a barbeque (“braai” in South Africa) on the beach one day, comes from a family of farmers, far from the tourist hubs of Cape Town or skyscraper-lined Johannesburg. He told us about the atrocities black South Africans commit against his fellow farmers, burning the land and raping the white women, and how they had assassinated the president of the white-only Afrikaans farmers’ union. He told us about how these horror stories never made the newspapers because the media was corrupted by the government, run by a black president. He told us about how things were so much better during apartheid – less crime, less fear, more breaks for hard-working white folks. He told us about how he used to be friends with a volunteer up north, until they meet for a drink one day and she brought along her boyfriend – a black Mozambican – and he hadn’t spoken to her since then. He told us about how his niece goes to a preschool where a black kid also goes, and his brother forbids her to play with him and tells the teacher that he’ll take her out of the school if the black kid even touches his daughter. He told us how blacks are more like animals than whites, not even using a fork when they eat, but just using their hands. He told us how blacks just don’t deserve the rights they have in South Africa.<br /><br />(At this point I think back to Mama Celeste, and remember the countless times she ate with her hands – there were three forks in the house, including a plastic one saved from a neighbor’s fancy wedding some years back, and when everyone was home those three weren’t enough to go around, so Mama C always made sure I had a fork and opted to wait until we were finished before cleaning one and using it herself or simply eating with her hands when possible.)<br /><br />The one thought that kept running through my mind during this enlightening conversation was that South Africa today sounds exactly like what I would imagine from a pre-Civil Rights era United States. And it makes sense. Apartheid – the South African law of strict separation between whites and blacks – was eliminated less than twenty years ago. The majority of the blacks in South Africa have relatively new-found liberties after centuries of suppression, lack of decent education and generally being seen as less than human. And the whites are dealing with the fact that they are no longer entitled to all the perks of being superior and unquestionably in charge. Though the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution made African Americans legally equal to whites in the late 1800s, it wasn’t until well after the Civil Rights movement that things really started to change there. <br /><br />And the things he had to say about Nelson Mandela – did people once think the same thing about Martin Luther King Jr., who is today heralded as a hero of peaceful change in our culture? And do people honestly believe they have a God-given superiority over an entire race of people – to the point that they don’t even consider them to be the same race? <br /><br />But being judgmental would just be hypocritical. I know without a doubt that had I been born in the US a century before, I would have the exact same view as these South Africans. These opinions are a reflection of society more than the individual. It's purely cultural.<br /><br />Though I grew up in podunk Azle, with a larger number of trailer parks than African Americans, I also grew up watching The Bill Cosby Show with my grandparents, learning to count in Spanish on Sesame Street, celebrating Black History Month in schools, and singing “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…” at Sunday school. It has been ingrained in me since childhood that people of any race, belief, culture and country are created equal, and deserve respect accordingly. I’m not naïve enough to think that America is free of racism, discrimination and its fair share of race-based hate crimes, but I've never encountered someone my age who so adamantly held these beliefs, which I consider to be "old-fashioned."<br /><br />Moreover, he was equally surprised that I, also being white, did not hold the same beliefs. We live in Mozambique as the average citizen does – we have the same cookie-cutter concrete houses as our colleagues, we speak (more or less) the same language they do, we also lament when water stops running or stretch out on our esteiras when it’s just too unbearably hot inside the house, and they are the people we turn to when we need help. <br /><br />We told him these things. He seemed puzzled. Not really sure how to respond.<br /><br />Of course, we also have South African friends living in Mozambique who are trying to learn the language, make friends and respect the cultural differences, frustrating as they might be at times. They make the effort, and they enjoy living in Moz because of it.<br /><br />But when the South Africans from the aforementioned boleia stopped to drop me off at the market in Chokwe, they at first refused on the grounds that it wasn’t safe. I could understand their concern – the market is a mass of mud-and-stick stalls next to a chapa stop, where your car is swarmed by people wanting to sell you pirated phones, cheap plastic jewelry and homemade egg sandwiches out of a bucket when you stop. I have to assure them that it’s okay – I’m here every day, they know me, and I’m perfectly safe.<br /><br />“You would never leave a white girl at a place like this in South Africa. There’s no telling what they’d do to you,” the man says as he reluctantly unlocks my door.<br /><br />Unlike Mozambique, South Africa has an airport with more than one baggage claim, they have more than one TV channel, they have multiple-lane highways with brdiges and wastewater treatment plants, they have oatmeal, sanitary packaged meat, grapes and peaches, as well as big, clean cities where they hold world sporting events like the World Cup. But I feel perfectly safe in my town here in Mozambique. I’ll take that over McDonald’s any day.<br /><br />My friend says he’s sure that all the racial tension and violence will lead to a full-on war between South African whites and blacks. I say I’m certain things will get better – it just might take a few generations.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-51194417371397629122011-08-26T10:44:00.000-07:002011-08-26T11:13:27.251-07:00OBRIGADA!Muita obrigada!
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<br />A huge thanks to everyone who supported and contributed to the Books for Kids Africa project for the Escolinha Estrela da Manha! On August 9, BKA delivered 200 children’s books in Portuguese and gave a full-day training on the care and use of the books.
<br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 214px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645223604850303762" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgiKNQfYc4M9jN98Cdgnh9l7pL_Zp7V5cxp5TzhbK74SuRUxYOK_cx0mpCt7BZbXatY2MZ7dsxBakdXkdzb71b-KB_mRhJykAgOYeovA2w1vJT-cjRvHU5HzV4Zhhkpy9jTY1Glk2DrpQ/s320/DSCN2735.JPG" /></p>
<br /><p>The collection includes everything from fairy tales and fables to Mini Laruousse dictionaries on dinosaurs and the human body. These books and accompanying activities will be incorporated into the curriculum in addition to individual reading (picture-looking) time.</p>
<br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645223607321254178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqn14YZ6fkz_ryl6h4TLL4_4Z1-driGT76Codwt_DIppPE5tB5kp_gU_AsoHXURRfSe3QOMLe2JD1SPnNLM3tdZfF7JSKGaeR9We8rpR3Std5ob4Z4-xu8MBg4gtmqBO0X9vCYv6HCuKY/s320/DSCN2744.JPG" />The goal is for the books to open up a whole new world through reading for the students. But the kids aren't the only ones who've been deprived of quality reading material.
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2Kf3aKGOoGO8aYGRJbg5xg5-ogiRVJo4_-H6N6JUkctMctKFmCGMAKOVsNueut_48EigOHYQVPeBEmdn8PVUtdiGSpWQvZQOzR4mkyJBQlgjFoV3-Zpg-Lj-Lej_lM4cSwFJf6EYDLM/s1600/DSCN2711.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645223598960320530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2Kf3aKGOoGO8aYGRJbg5xg5-ogiRVJo4_-H6N6JUkctMctKFmCGMAKOVsNueut_48EigOHYQVPeBEmdn8PVUtdiGSpWQvZQOzR4mkyJBQlgjFoV3-Zpg-Lj-Lej_lM4cSwFJf6EYDLM/s320/DSCN2711.JPG" /></a> You’ve never seen 10 women more excited to discuss “O Arvore Generoso” – “The Giving Tree,” by Shel Silverstein. <img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645223592995763938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi157u4TY-lcIPtwuD4Y-2QYjkkW_whsqH_XD6NwpTT2_QrGvyFN0HaYBZIJ5fTH9H_Z2f7eEEBJpABz2pvDhgnDOoqD2IXDAeyfe4QYsukrd5ZVqRyBVBeX2lmcfvRD9JmCM-7v9UHbOw/s320/DSCN2705.JPG" /></p>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377559987030161679.post-86808644516661692332011-08-26T10:16:00.000-07:002011-08-26T10:42:45.473-07:00I found a baby goat under the kitchen sink.
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<br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 214px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645216292710253634" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKE2ZdIeMcxxnJH4YtdVJK1QNpvFvWKMk1EId2bNtnjsXh9b47-G6xWLU3E72yAnm9CXnxeNgekvUXXaxbc2TBlPtKCHwu1WGm7_9qGLTDEWLRIxBw_EF1VV_LWz9rAcVlXo-7oQ9kLfo/s320/DSCN2905.JPG" />Actually, Khani found him. But he wasn't particularly sure what to do with him. The feeling was mutual.
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<br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 214px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645216282983038738" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlHPY66UFNi-3CrDbLM37QaXG_x95LB_U9HfGg84X4gy2PKbe_BEbHwsCDqQoMzEbDbqBZJp_Zpva8euJ5QjZ7gjUfYXoOnUF_AgODqnYYxinEow2vl3ep4u0AoLYqJTsMXTcyG_Ga1g/s320/DSCN2902.JPG" />
<br />He had no interest in leaving his new nook. Clancy had to show him to the door.
<br />
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0OuWzheRDBhAsG3kAekTMbczu7AyYi7HTvS7yZbwILIgv9EG0pUZBz9sXePeN9-deqBb-ESjFADFW1LUWo7MtxOKssCzWA2HsjIfdxwjaX6fq7EnWdqzTKJJ7unE7pZSJkyBVQYCG1wM/s1600/DSCN2907.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645216290076438434" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0OuWzheRDBhAsG3kAekTMbczu7AyYi7HTvS7yZbwILIgv9EG0pUZBz9sXePeN9-deqBb-ESjFADFW1LUWo7MtxOKssCzWA2HsjIfdxwjaX6fq7EnWdqzTKJJ7unE7pZSJkyBVQYCG1wM/s320/DSCN2907.JPG" /></a> Now when he comes over, he just hangs out on the porch.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0