Over a month in Africa!!!

  I’m writing this blog post on 11/13/2011, I can’t believe that it’s been over a month since I’ve posted something on my blog!  The time here in Mozambique seems to just be flying by.  The last four weeks have been filled with language classes, field trips, informational sessions and hanging out with fellow PCVs.  They have been keeping us crazy busy these for the past month that today is literally the first day I have had enough down time to write a blog.  So here are some updates on what I have been up to lately:
       On October 16th I went on a field trip to the site of a plane crash that occurred in 1986 where the first president of Mozambique, Samora Machel, was killed (under mysterious circumstances).  The site of the plane crash is just outside of Mozambique close to the boarder in South Africa in a town called Mbuzine.  On this day every year they “open” the border from Mozambique to South Africa to commemorate the death of their first president (This year was especially interesting given that it was the 25 year anniversary).   By “open” I mean that they allow you to cross into South Africa but you pretty much stay in a fenced off area around the crash site and walk along a fenced off path way to get there.   While there I saw both the president of South Africa (Zuma) and the President of Mozambique (Guebuza) speak.  It was the first time I had ever been so close to a president of any country.   I’m especially jealous of my friend Mac (a fellow PCV)  who managed to get into the press section of ceremony and was there just a few feet away from the two presidents during their speeches. 
         Another week of note was the week just prior to Halloween where it rained a ton.  Rain in Mozambique, at least where I live, adds a certain dynamic to your day to day life.  The first thing to mention is the fact that the majority of the roofs here in Mozambique are made of this thin corrugated zinc material and when it rains even slightly it sounds like someone is talking a hammer to your roof.  I can’t tell you how many times my first few nights of rain I literally jumped a foot out of bed thinking the roof was about to be torn off the house.  Just a light drizzle sounds like a hail storm on these roofs.  After the first few nights you grow accustomed and it doesn’t really bother you anymore, but man o man those first few nights were rough.   Also a certain feature of the soil here in Namaacha is that when it rains the streets, pathways, walkways and just about everything turns into a nice thick sludge that makes getting to classes an adventure.  Also when you have to wash your clothes by hand mud becomes your bitter enemy… especially socks… washing muddy socks takes forever, not sure why I decided to bring white socks to Africa but next time I’ll know better.     :-P.  
        Anyways the weekend of Halloween was an awesome weekend for us here in Namaacha despite all of the rain on Saturday and Sunday we had training in how to build a Permagarden which I thought was super fun.  A permagarden is basically a super productive gardening technique that was developed by Peace Corps in Tanzania as a way of teaching locals a way of gardening that yields a high level of productivity in a small amount of space.   It involves digging trenches to control waterflow and then tilling the soil and then mixing charcoal and ash into it to create a healthy place to grow your food.  It was a lot of fun just spending the day with the other Volunteers planting and transplanting banana trees, tomatoes, lemongrass, sweet potatoes, corn, couve, and lettuce.  And to top it off on Saturday night after a full day of gardening we all went home got cleaned up  and then headed to a Halloween party which was extra fun given that Mozambique does not celebrate Halloween and seeing a bunch of people walking around in costumes just cracks them up.
          Something else that just happened that was super exciting was that all of us Peace Core Trainees just recently got back from a variety of trips that PC sent us on to see various sites where current PCV live and work.   Last Saturday 11/07/2011 I headed over to Catandica in the Manica province to stay with two education volunteers who will be heading home and replaced in December.   I went with two other Trainees Maria, and Adrienne and the three of us had a great time.  We headed to Maputo from Namaacha on Friday night and stayed in a hotel there so that we could catch our 7am flight to Chimoio (the capital of the Manica province).  The airport at Chimoio was quite an interesting sight considering it was a single building the size of a small house in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.  Not what you necessarily expect when you are flying into a Major city but it had a certain charm about it that I thought was endearing.  Once there we took a taxi to the Peace Corps office located there, which was very nice and had a pool! (Which was actually just the hotel next door’s pool, but we decided to take a dip anyways) Considering it was around 40 C  a few minutes in the pool was fantastic.   After that we met up with Kendra one of the volunteers that lives in Catandica and we all got on  a bus up heading up to her house.  The ride to Catandica is about 2-3 hours and the bus that we were on (known as a Chapa)  was crammed pretty full, I was sitting on an aisle seat that had no back which made for an interesting although not all together comfortable ride.   We arrived in Catandica in the evening on Saturday and just relaxed and had a beer before heading back to the house we were staying out for some much needed sleep.   Adrienne, Maria, and I then spent the next few days relaxing hanging out with Meghann and Kendra and helping with the daily chores associated with living in Mozambique.  We ate some amazing food over the time we were there and saw a ton of Catandica.      To give you a little more of an idea of what Catandica is like; Catandica is a decent sized town that is on one of the major roads that connects southern Mozambique to central Mozambique and Malawi.  It’s located at the base of a beautiful string of mountains that that create a wonderful backdrop for the town.    Adrienne, Maria, and I took some time one of the afternoons we had free and we hiked up one of the paths leading into the mountains for a few hours.  That was a particularly highlight for me because once you get high enough you can see for hundreds of miles along the flat planes leading up to the mountain range that starts in Catandica.    Overall Catandica was quite a wonderful place to visit and the trip as a whole I have to say was very enlightening.
 Some things I would like to mention about this trip are about the buses that we took to get to and from Catandica.  These buses known as Chapas can be something on the lines of a 15 passenger vehicle or the larger ones look like a shorter version of a common city bus you could see in the states.  Now I find fascinating about these Chapas is the ability to fit a huge number of people into such a small space.  One the way back from Catandica we were in what would normally be a 15 passenger vehicle but we managed to fit 30 people to the chapa.  It was incredible, every single time one person would get out two or more people would take their place, needless to say we were quite cozy on our trip back to Chimoio.      
 Two other things that were of startling to me on the trip was one the level of poverty I saw along my trip from Catandica to Chimoio, and the strength of the Mozambique women I saw.   On the subject of poverty, there were a few instances where I was struck with the fact that in the middle of my 2 hour journey between two more or less major towns/cities there were little villages of straw huts all along the way surrounded by small plots of land that were being farmed.  Now keep in mind that in a vehicle these places are separated from any major market by over an hour.  And also realize that almost no one in these small villages has a vehicle, their nearest schools would be half a day’s journey by foot on a good day and that a well that would serve as your only source of water could be located miles away from your house.   Reading or hearing about it is so very different then seeing it firsthand.  On the subject of the strength of Mozambique women, I don’t even know where to begin.  A good example of an average Mozambique woman can be summed up with something that Adrienne, Maria and I saw on our hike through the mountains. At one point we passed a group of three women each with a baby wrapped in a Capulana (a large rectangular piece of fabric) and tied to their backs as they each carried a large bundle of sticks (the sticks were about 15-25 feet long) on their heads as well as having some farming equipment in their hands, the site was impressive, especially considering that woman in Mozambique are expected to do all of the housework and prepare food for the family every day.  It’s an impressive sight to see.  
Anyways this brings to a close my second blog post and now your updated on what’s been going on in my life over here in Mozambique!   The next blog post will be an exciting one considering that on Wednesday of this coming week I get by site placement, it’s a huge day for a Peace Corps Volunteer because we find out exactly where we will be living for the next 2 years of our lives. :-D