22 months in Mozambique, Africa

So I have been living in Mozambique, Africa for 22 months now. I can hardly believe it myself. I remember arriving in Mozambique and thinking that time was going to drag and it would feel like I would be living here forever. Today, that is not so true. Don't get me wrong. I believe we all have days here where we want to jump on the next plane out of here, but for me, I have a lot of moments where it will be very hard to leave.

My first year, I was ready to leave this place. Getting terrorized for 8 months can do that to a person; but I will always love the site I started out in. My roommate and I were the first volunteers at the site so it was really cool, but we didn't realize the hardships that came with that. I created a boys and girls club there that is still operating today without me and I couldn't be more proud. It is the main reason I have been trying to stay, but safe housing has been an obstacle. I would love to go back and really try and develop this club. I worked with Boys & Girls Club of the East Valley in Arizona before I came to Mozambique and it was the most life changing experience. Until that point, I didn't realize the effect I had on kids and teens. I know I wasn't the only one who was changing attitudes of kids in the club but I knew I was a part of something big. I loved seeing kids who were uninterested in things, suddenly participate and enjoy activities and really get something out of that activity.

 I could honestly complain on and on about the education system here in Mozambique and honestly I am tired of complaining to myself about how much I dislike the system here, but I started to realize recently, that it is just not about the information I am giving the class, but about how I present the information and just my presence, in general, in the classroom. In my opinion the typical Mozambican classroom is very stiff and uninviting. I may not be the best teacher but I try and make my classes inviting and fun. I don't want them to be afraid of making mistakes and then be insulted about it. I try and make it fun and open and safe! I think kids thrive more on that freedom! I experienced it a lot while working with Boys & Girls Club! I love the freedom I have when it comes to influencing kids positively. I have four months left here in Mozambique and honestly I am ready to head back to the U.S. and just lay everything I have learned out there, but there is always going to be a part of me that stays here in Mozambique with my students and my friends that I met along the way. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity that I have been given and I hope that I can share that opportunity with everyone that is interested.

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement! Please check out bgca.org on ways you can help out your community! Cheers!

Ummm...Was That A Car?

So this post is going to be short. I just wanted to get a couple things written down before I forget. Yesterday I had come back from my morning art class and was working on some things on the laptop, when my roommate and I heard this loud pop sound. We thought it might have been a car but then we heard it again pretty close to our house. "Dude, that was definitely gunshots!" I said. We slowly peer out the door and seeing children and people walking over to the bush area. Arden decided to try and find out what was going on. All I could think was, 'I wish I would have packed a bulletproof vest.' Here is what she found out. A guy robbed some house and the cops were close to catching him then he fled and they shot two shots at him, with a bunch of pedestrians around, mind you. This all happened about 200 feet from our house. We don't think they caught the guy and we also don't think anyone got shot, thank God!

Later that afternoon I had to teach math. I was giving them a test. Being the nice teacher that I am and the fact that their homework grades for the past two weeks were atrocious, I let them take the test home and do it there. I don't know what my deal was but I was in a goofy mood. It could have been the fact that I don't have to teach Thursdays and Fridays so technically Wednesday is my Friday. I was having a lot of fun with the kids. One of the girls in my class, Agnecia, a very sweet girl, went out and bought me an orange! It was so nice. Here, students give teachers oranges and mangos, apparently, and not apples. They actually don't give teachers anything because they are too scared of their teachers a majority of the time. I felt special. I like bonding with the kids because I know even though I am not the best teacher, maybe I could still make a difference outside of the classroom that has nothing to do with my teaching.

Lastly, this morning I hitchhiked my way to the city of Gurue to do some shopping and get online. I was down at the vegetable market, when a gentleman came up to me with a photo album and a picture of me in it. Creepy, right?! A few months ago, I had been in the city when the former President came to visit. I got stuck in the city for awhile and as I was trying to leave, I got "kidnapped", by a group of woman hanging at a bar. "Filha! Anda ca! (Daughter! come here!)" I ended spending the afternoon drinking with a group of feisty Mozambican women and didn't know there was a town photographer, who was documenting our good time. You better believe I bought that picture off the guy! The last thing I need here is all these people knowing how fun and cool I am. I am already hounded by kids all the time. I do not need the adults following suit.

That is all for now. Stay cool!

8 Months To Go....

It is crazy to think I have only 8 months left in my service. Some days I feel like I just got here and other days I feel like I have been here forever. It has been one crazy ride! I haven't posted in a long time so I will try and some up my life since the last post.

I went back to the states for Christmas and New Year's. It was a lot of fun and I got to spend a lot of time with friends and family. Before heading to the states, I was worried about not wanting to return to Mozambique, but the cold and snow took care of that thought! I was actually surprised that I was ready and wanting to come back to Moz. I had a crazy first year. After returning to Mozambique my group had our Mid-Service Conference. A week of medical stuff! It was great seeing my whole group together again! Mozambique welcomed me back with flooding, destroyed bridges and roads, and noooooo electricity. Bridges are still not repaired in my area so traveling is difficult. We have one road that we can take and it is dirt so you can imagine all the fun we have with all the rain we have been receiving. Energy is finally back but weak.

School started back up. I am teaching 9th grade Math and 8th grade Art. It is nice teaching different subjects. I don't have to speak English and focus on improving my Portuguese. I only have classes Monday-Wednesday so I am going to enjoy my four day weekends this year and try and travel a little more...if it ever stops raining.

We got a kitten. A black one and named it Professor Buttercup! She is a beast! She has already gotten two mice and few lizards. It has been a great investment and nice having another friend around. Buttercup is very playful but also very cuddly. She likes helping us lesson plan and work.

I know this post is short but I can't honestly remember everything that has been happening. My life has become somewhat normal if you can believe. I feel like I am home and I never thought I would get to this point here. I am starting to freak out a little about going back to the states. What am I going to do? Where am I going to end up? These questions will eventually work themselves out but in the mean time, I am stressing out! I like the simple life I am living here.

Thank you all for you continued support and encouragement! Hugs!

14 Months and Going Strong!

    Do you ever have one of those breathtaking moments that just take you over? You are just filled with so many emotions and you literally lose your breath. It really is a great feeling. I have been able to experience these moments on more than one occasion here in Mozambique. These past 14 months have been filled with so many ups and downs that I can only compare to the largest roller coaster that has ever been conceived. A roller coaster, so large that it really is impossible to build. I think most, if not  all Peace Corps volunteers go into this experience a little naive, no matter how prepared they think they are. If you think about it we are committing to the unknown for 27 months. Twenty seven months that consist of learning new languages, integrating into completely different cultures, battling our know-it-all attitudes, fighting off unwanted advances from the men in our communities, trying to stay healthy, etc. etc. etc. The list really goes on and on and on and on...

    Now I just listed a few of the not-so-positive aspects of volunteer life (specifically for me; like I said the list goes on). Let me try and paint you a picture of the positive aspects of volunteer, specifically mine. I am typing this as I sit in the bar area of a  pensão (think bed and breakfast/hostel) drinking a Manica (Mozambican beer) with a view of the mountains, watching people prepare to receive the former president of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza. When I found out that my roommate and I were moving from our close-to-the-beach site to a more inland site, I was pretty devastated. I love the beaches here and even though we suffered 8 break ins, I still loved Liúpo (my old site). My roommate and I opened that site. They had never really seen a white person before and we thought the opportunities and possibilities were endless there (they still are!). We gained a group of friends and I achieved a part of my dream, which was to create a kids club for the local crianças (kids). A club that is similar to the Boys & Girls Clubs in America. I am so proud of that club because it took a lot to start it then have to close then reopen it with actual Mozambican people running. I am happy to stay that after I left, it is continuing to run without me being there. I remember walking into the club the first week it reopened and watched my students teaching the kids math and Portuguese and experienced one of those breathtaking moments. I sat there, eyes watering, just in awe of the group of students who volunteered to help these kids. It is a moment that will stay with me forever. I will do whatever I can to keep that club going! 

    The first Sunday that we were in Liúpo, we went to a service at the catholic mission. I am catholic but never went to church on a regular basis. Religion has always been a weird thing for me. I think that all religions have a little to offer everyone. We were really close to a family from Yemen and got a little taste of Muslim and our community was also populated with Muslim families. You will see a higher concentration of Muslim in Northern Mozambique. Islam is a really beautiful religion and I witnessed its beauty in our friends. Anywho, back to the church service. We walked into is elongated, single room, where people were sitting on benches or on the floor. It was a pretty plain room. The service was done in both Portuguese and the local language (Makua). There was a lot of singing. I took communion that day and I remember sitting down and tearing up. I'm tearing up as I speak. I remember thinking, 'I wish Grandma Kearney was still here so I could tell her all about it.' She passed away around 17 years ago. She was an amazing woman, so artistic and kind and loving. I do not remember everything about her but the memories I do have I will cherish forever. After that experience, I have thought of my grandmother often and I know that she is with me on this journey. She would have loved to hear about my experiences and I have dedicated my service to her memory. She has been having a profound effect on my service so far. I went to church for the first time here at my new site (Invinha) last Sunday. The church is called Diocese do Gurué. I had another breathtaking moment there. I went with our empregado, Fornelio. An empregado is someone who does household chores. The church is quite beautiful. There was dancing and singing and it was great. I was the only white person there but I didn't feel like it. I felt like I was a part of the community. I teared up a lot throughout the service. It was just so surreal. 

    Last week, we had visiting volunteers from Cabo Degado and Tete, Mozambique. We decided to celebrate Thanksgiving together a little early. We made pilgrim hats and Native American headbands out of construction paper, had a delicious meal and listened to A Charlie Brown Christmas. We ended the night with a drinking game....haha. We also did a little hiking. Like I might have mentioned in a previous post, I now live in the mountains. The are I live in now is known for the mountains and the tea fields. We hiked through the tea fields and up the one of the mountains to a waterfall (cue breathtaking moment). It was gorgeous and I am so happy I did it with friends! The sunburn was totally worth it! I will try and update my photos as soon as I can. 

    These are just a couple of my favorite moments. There are quite a few more but I don't want to bore you all. Thank you all for your continued support and Happy Holidays to you all! 

To new beginnings!

'Wow! Where to begin?! I am quickly approaching my one year mark in Mozambique and can honestly say where has the time gone?! There are days where I feel like I just arrived and others where I feel like I have lived here forever. It has been a pretty challenging year; more so than I expected. I have never been challenged mentally/emotionally so much in my life. Going into this experience I know I was naive but I also tried to not have expectations. What can one really expect in a completely different culture anyways? 

Here is a brief summary of the challenges I have come across so far....

1.  Bucket baths...were different at first but nothing beats a cold bucket bath after a scorching, dusty day! 

2. Cohabitation with creepy crawlies and such...I started off being super freaked out at the site of lizards roaming around everywhere but eventually realized that they were cute compared to the rats that liked to cuddle with me in bed and eat holes through all my things. Grosssssssssssss! I also think spiders and cockroaches here are on steroids! What else would make them sooooooooo huge...again....Grossssssssss! 

3. Life in a developing country....We all go through trying times, myself included before moving here, but a lot of 'first world' people have no idea how great they have it...clean water is scarce as well as food security, corruption, medical assistance...what's that?, walking miles to get where you need to go, etc. All I can say is look at the obstacles and challenges in your life and rise above them! It may seem impossible but it can be done! I witness it every day! 

4. The world is soooooooooo full of unnoticed potential! I have had the chance to know some pretty brilliant people who live, what some would say 'mediocre/sub-par lives, and have very little resources at their disposal. I have felt that there is no way I can help these people here without resources but I am slowly realizing that just by giving my time and inspiration, that I am helping and that is enough and can really make a difference!

5. I am a very resilient person...most of you know of our burglary problems. I lived in a house that was broken into 6 times and then moved to a safer house where two more attempts were made. I have never been so emotionally/mentally vulnerable. I still really can't explain my thoughts/mentality through the whole ordeal. It definitely left me exhausted! 

Due to our security issues in Liúpo, we were forced to move. I will be living in Invinha, a small village in the Zambezia province. This whole experience and process has been really difficult. I hated having to leave Liúpo, my home for the past 9 months, due to our situation. I felt like I was punishing all those who benefitted from my work just because there were some bad apples in the bunch. It was very tough to say goodbye to the friends we had made. I am looking forward to helping more people and experiencing more of this beautiful country! Invinha is in the mountains and absolutely gorgeous! 

On another hope I am spending Christmas and New Years in the states! I am looking forward to eating my way through my little break and sharing my experiences with family and friends! 

I still want to thank all of you for your prayers, kind words and support! Muito obrigada! 

What Am I Doing?!

Hello one and all! It has been quite some time since I last posted and I apologize. Life gets in the way a lot nowadays! I hope all is well wherever you are! My life in Mozambique has been quite interesting to the say the least. In about 4 weeks I will have been in this country for 1 year. It is really hard to believe. Some days I feel like I just got here and other days I feel like I have been here forever! I knew going in to this adventure that it wasn't going to be easy and boy oh boy ain't that the truth! In July I got really sick. I woke up one day and was running a high fever and it didn't seem like it was going to go away any time soon. After contacting our doctor here, I was told I needed to head to the city. Imagine running a high fever and having to travel about 3 hours in a truck with 30 Mozambicans. I was lucky enough to be able to sit in the cab with the driver but my body still was not happy with my traveling decision so as we were leaving the vila I was throwing up out the window (sorry for the mental picture!). I made it, though, to the city. After a week of tests and barely getting out of bed, I was treated for malaria. Malaria is some serious stuff! I take malaria prophylaxis every day, sleep under a mosquito net and use repellant, but the little sucker (no pun intended) still got me. I survived....whew!

My community integration has been lacking ever since our experiences with the break ins at our old house. It has been really hard for me to deal with. I didn't realize it was going to take this big of toll on me. There are days I just want to hide in the house and not see any Mozambicans. I keep trying to tell myself that I shouldn't be punishing everyone when just a couple were terrorizing us, but it is easier said than done. I suspect everyone now and my trust has gone way down. It has only gotten worse recently. Last Thursday another attempt was made at getting into our house...while I was home. It was some kids and couple of teenagers. It was still a scary experience even if it was just kids involved. I feel like that was how everything started at our old house and then it all escalated to the point where we were scared for our physical safety and had armed police guarding our house. What am I doing? I ask that a lot. Why am I putting myself through all this? I can be back in the states eating whatever I want and hanging out with my friends and family. I tell myself daily that if I am not here doing what I am doing, whether my doings are big or small, then this community wouldn't be getting any help. I know some of these people don't deserve our help (pesky robbers) but a lot of people do and appreciate it. They have so little here and if I can help and inspire them to be better people then I need to do just that. As the one and only Dory says, "Just keep swimming!"

On a happy note, Clube de Aprendizagem is doing well. The kids are really enjoying themselves and I think are getting a lot out of being taught by my teenagers. I am really proud and I can't say it enough, with my teenagers' commitment and dedication to the club.

Now on a random note, I was staying at a hostel a couple of weeks ago and met a cool South African guy who took me to this place called Montes Nairucu just outside of Nampula City. It is this cool little camping place with a restaurant, bar, donkeys, ostriches, a lake and...crocodiles! It was pretty cool! Who can say they had cocktails with crocodiles lurking yards away in Mozambique!? 

That is all for now...keep your peepers open for some BIG news! Again, thanks for all your support, encouragement, care package items, etc. You all are making my service that much more enjoyable!

Happy Sunday

The fact that I am posting this blog on Sunday is pretty ironic. I have never been one to religiously go to church and pray. In fact, religion and faith has been something I have struggled with for a long time. It was hard for me to believe in a higher power when there was so much hate and terrible things around the world. Why could a higher power make His people suffer so much if He had so much love for us? My experience here in Mozambique has really got me to stop and take a breath and reflect on my experiences. I think I talked about my experience in the catholic church my first weekend here at site. I took communion and it really was emotional experience for me. Here I was standing in line, a white girl from the midwest, with a bunch of Mozambicans taking communion. If you have been keeping up with my blog you will also know that we have had some major problems with safety and robbers. I think it was after the 4th time and a lot of our school administration were at our house well into the night supervising a guy reattaching the bars to my bedroom window. I had taken a call and left the yard to make my way to the front of the house. As I was talking with our Safety and Security person, the secretary of our school came out of the yard with a bucket of water. I had no idea what he was doing with our bucket. He then proceeded to take off his sandals and wash his hands and feet and began praying. This was my first up close experience with Islam. Living in the north part of Mozambique adds to the uniqueness of the PC experience. The northern part of Mozambique has a high population of Muslim. To be honest, it made me really nervous to know I was going to be living in such a high population of Muslim people, but watching that man pray for us right there on the spot opened my eyes and cleared my mind of a lot of the preconceived notions about Islam. It really was a beautiful moment despite the circumstances. One of our good friends here owns a shop that we frequent. He is from the middle east. His family is really wonderful. The family treats us like family and are very protective of us. I made a play date with the kids. The kids are super intelligent and unfortunately for them because of the school system, they are being severely held back and not really able to explore their potential. Fasal, the father, is trying to change that. He has a private tutor for them and has asked that Arden (my roommate) and I help out as well. They feed us soooooo well too. You have to roll us out their door and to our home. Fasal really believes in education and making sure his family gets the best. He even wants to go back to university and if his wife wants to go back to university then he wants to support her too. Arden was playing with the kids last weekend and it was getting time for them to pray. Arden politely asked if they would like her to leave. Fasal told her that it was no problem for her to stay. He told her that he respected all religions. We thought that was really great. Like I said his family is just great. We borrowed some books about Islam from him so that we could learn more about it. A friend of mine sent me some devotionals and they have really been aligning with my experiences here in Mozambique. Like I said before I haven't been able to really wrap my ahead around it all. Things are starting to become more clear for me though. I read a devotional recently that talked about the absence of God. It talked about the Katrina tragedy. "He said that God was invisibly present 'with the suffering and the dying. He was in the individuals, communities, churches, and schools that organized aid for the victims and took evacuees into their cities and homes. He was with the hundreds of thousands who showed compassion by prayer and financial assistance.'" This really resonated with me. I see some pretty bad things sometimes; people bed ridden with malaria, kids digging through trash piles, people with dirty, torn clothing. I read this passage a lot that day. Without the suffering and hardships, I would be out of a job. I wouldn't know the challenging, yet rewarding feeling of helping others, and in return, those suffering would not be able to experience the compassion of those who are helping. We don't know what the future holds, but if I can help someone and make a difference in a person's life, I will do it. I honestly think that He has been guiding for quite sometime now. I needed to figure this all out on my own time and in my own way. I still have a lot to work through and understand but I am on my way. "The storms of our life prove the strength of our Anchor." Thank you all for your continuous support!