Nacaroa

The first week in Nacaroa has been pretty good! I'm in Monopo now visiting some other volunteers and hanging out for the weekend. The market in Nacaroa is pretty small, and right now only has tomatoes, onions, mangos, small potatoes, and rice. And the tomatoes and onions are pretty puny. I was really excited to come here to stock up on food in the big city only to find that they have nothing else right now here either.

My house is really nice! It's pretty big, and it has a screened front porch and an open back porch. I have a large fenced-in yard, and there's a large canopy thing that's in the process of being built now but will be great for reading and lesson planning when it's finished. My director has been great about getting me furniture for my house beyond what Peace Corps requires, and the big news: the generator started working the day I got there, and my director got power lines run to my house on Wednesday, so I have electricity from 6-10 every night!! And next year there should be electricity 24/7, so then I can get a fridge!

I've met several people in the town so far, and have been getting some good Portuguese practice. There seems to be two populations of Nacaroa: the locals that are from there, who are mostly farmers; and the government workers since it's the district capital, who live there during the week but have families and homes elsewhere, mostly Nampula City, and leave on the weekends. World Vision, an American NGO, has an office there so I've met several people that work there. They have some of the few cars/trucks in the town, and I've been able to get rides to the market and elsewhere from them. And since they go home on the weekends I was able to get a ride part-way to Monopo from them in a nice, safe, air-conditioned truck instead of a crowded, sweaty, half-broken chapa. But the chapa driver who took me the rest of the way here was a really great, intelligent Rwandan guy and I had a lot of fun talking with him.

It's been REALLY REALLY hot here. Like so hot I sweat all night and wake up dehydrated just from sleeping. I've been told that it gets "cold" here in the winter, but I have a feeling that there might be a cultural difference in what "cold" is, so I'm not getting my hopes up. But I'm really looking forward to March when it starts to get cooler, and slightly dreading January and February. The school has morning classes for half the students and afternoon classes for the other half because there's not enough classrooms. I'm not sure when I'll be teaching, but it's gonna be really hot there by 10am. The school is nice though. It's new, but there are only 8 real classrooms, and 4 or 5 makeshift ones. 4 or 5 more real ones are in the process of being built though.

I'll be back here for xmas, so I'll probably have another post up soon!

Life as a PCV

Life as a PCV has been full of surprises. We were officially sworn in as Volunteers (before that we were Trainees) on Tuesday at the Charge's house in Maputo. After one last night in Namaacha, I said bye to my host family, promised to come back to visit next year, and headed to the airport to fly here to Nampula City on Wednesday.

We were put up in a really nice hotel, and my roommate and I were excited to find out there was a pool there. After dinner we decided to go for a swim, which was really refreshing. Since we arrived at night we hadn't been able to see what the pool looked like very well, and we joked about how funny it would be if we woke up and realized the pool was green, or had poop in it or something. Well, sure enough, we awoke to find out that the pool was VERY greeen (although hopefully feces free), and everyone was disgusted when we told them we went swimming.

Yesterday (Thursday) we had the regional conference for all the new volunteers here in the north and our supervisors. My first conversation with my director went something like this:

Me: So are there many other English teachers at the school?
Alexe: Yes, we have a lot of great English teachers. We are very excited for our new chemistry teacher.
Me: Your new chemistry teacher?
Alexe: Yes, you teach chemistry right?

Well apparently now I do. Which I'm actually kind of excited about cuz I'll get to teach in Portuguese.

That was surprise #1. Surprise #2 was this conversation:

Me: So what is my house like?
Alexe: It's very nice. It's big, it has a table, chairs, bed, etc. And when our district gets electricity next year we'll buy a small refridgerator for you.
Me: There's not electricity?
Alexe: No, the whole district of Nacaroa doesn't have electricity, but I think we will get it next year.

So I have no electricity. The school has no electricity, although it recently got running water. But with no electricity I'll have no way to charge my phone. But since the market in my village sells primarily rice, peanuts, some beans, and a few canned vegetables and fruits, I'll have to make frequent trips to neighboring towns, and hopefully I'll be able to charge it then.

One final surprise: My house isn't ready, so I'll be staying in a Guesthouse or something for the first week or so. Of my various surprises this is the most annoying, even though it sounds like the least significant. But I really wanted to get settled into my house, see what else I need to buy, get organized, etc. Hopefully it will be ready before xmas.

Me and one other volunteer are both opening extremely rural sites, so while everyone else headed out to site today, we got to stay here in Nampula to do some shopping. We managed to buy matresses, stoves, gas tanks and gas, pots, dishes, etc all today, without a car, in a foreign city we didn't know at all, and transport them all back to the PC office here. We also went for another swim in the green pool, since there were no adverse side effects from my first swim.

My school director seems really organized and on top of things. He was brought to Nacaroa in 2006, which was when the district first got a secondary school. Before that, students didn't really have the opportunity to go past 7th grade unless they moved away to another city. This is the first year that there will be an 11th grade, and next year right before I leave the first 12th grade class will graduate, which will be really exciting to see that happen. The school building is apparently rather new, but there are not enough classrooms to accomodate all of the students now, but they are building more now. My director used to work in Nacala, and there were PCVs at his school there, so he's familiar with PC and stuff, but I'll be a new experience for Nacaroa.

I still haven't found out much more about my roommate. He said she will probably be the new French teacher they will be getting, but she hasn't been assigned yet. Since teachers are government workers they really don't have much choice about where they teach, and they get assigned to schools, usually somewhat near their homes. Teachers have to be at school starting Jan 8th, so with moving, xmas, and new years, I think I'll be pretty busy. I also found some cheap books in Portuguese on the street today, so I'm excited to start reading them, if I have much free time.

I'm really excited for our Xmas celebration here. We have to stay in our Provinces, but there are 10 new volunteers in Nampula, so we're all getting together. We drew names for a secret santa, and two of the PCVs have sewing machines, so they are going to make stockings, and the rest of us are going to bring little stocking stuffers for everyone. These two PCVs also have a ridiculous amount of games, so we will have plenty to keep us busy. Hopefully I'll be able to post again around xmas. Happy holidays!

Probably the last post from Namaacha

So I guess you can see my parents post below and you all know where I´ll be going for the next two years. Our Model School here went well, our students were really great and gave us hugs and stuff the last day. Yesterday I went with some friends to hike a mountain nearby where Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa all meet. It was a pretty intense climb, and it unfortunately rained a bit so the pictures aren´t as great as they could have been. Tomorrow a bunch of us are hiking to a nearby waterfall that is supposed to be really beautiful. There is really only one week left here in Namaacha, and all of us are pretty much ready to go to site now that we know where we will be going. This last week of training is going to last forever!

I´m also really excited about the other volunteers who will also be in Nampula province with me. Apparently several of us have September birthdays, so we are already planning a big party, as well as a christmas party for this year. We need to stay at site for either xmas or new year, and we can go away for two weekends per month, within our province, for the first three months. And I know Moz is incredibly far away, but if anyone wants to come visit you´re more than welcome!!

I have had nothing stolen here so far, which really reflects the awesomeness of the people here rather than the security of the houses. On Tuesday I went home for lunch to find my house locked and no one there. I debated going across the street to my friend´s house, or texting one of my brothers to come let me in, but in the end i decided to break in by climbing up on a bucket and jumping in through the open window, which was remarkably easy. About 10 minutes later I got a text from my brother telling me where the keys were.

Peace Corps had a great thanksgiving dinner for us, and we had a big American football game too, which was a lot of fun. That was also the day we got our site placements! Some people will be living in mud huts without electricity (and requested such sites), while others have hot running water. But since everyone wanted different things, most people were happy with what they got.

My house here is rather empty now, since it is summer and several family members have gone away for the holidays. Right now it´s just me, Mama, and my two brothers Zinho and Samito.

And a quick update on Mike: He moved to Vale, Colorado for the skiing season and has a job with Vale Mountain and gets to ski a lot!

The 1st PC Volunteer in Nacaroa

[Written by mom and dad after speaking with Jess on Thanksgiving]

I found out yesterday that my service site for the next two years is in Nacaroa, a rural district in the province of Nampula, in northern Mozambique. I will teach English to students in 8th to 10th grade, probably seven classes with about 70 students per class.

I will be the only Peace Corps Volunteer in Nacaroa, and the first one ever to serve there. This is exactly the type of setting that I was hoping for, so I am really excited about it! I want to become part of the local community and culture, speaking Portuguese as much as possible, so I like the idea of being the only Volunteer there. Other Volunteers from my training group have been assigned to nearby districts in Nampula province, close enough that we should be able to visit each other occasionally. Nampula city, the capital of the province, is about 3-4 hours from Nacaroa. Nampula is the third largest city in Mozambique and is known as a business center.

I will not see my living quarters until I move there on Dec 10, but here is what I have heard about it: I will have a Mozambiquan roommate, probably a teacher from the school where I will teach. The main living quarters has two bedrooms and a common living room. The kitchen is in a hut outside the main living area, and the bathroom also is outside. There is no running water. The nearest water source is about 600 meters away, so I probably will pay someone to carry water for me. There is electricity, but it is only on from 6:00 -10:00 PM. I don’t know what we do for food storage – with only four hours per day of electricity, we won’t have a refrigerator. There is cell phone reception in the area, but I don’t know how good the reception will be at my house and school. I don’t know if there is internet access at the school or anyplace nearby.

I can’t wait until training is finished and I head to Nacaroa! I am sooo… looking forward to seeing my new home, meeting my roommate, and becoming part of Nacaroa!

Back from Morrumbene

I had a great time in morrumbene and we went to undo beach also i'm in mastun now and i just bought some really cool earrings that are the shape of a mozambican map. We start model school this week, which is kind of like student teaching.

Going to Morrumbene

I'm on my way for a site visit, which basically entails visiting a current volunteer to see their site and job and stuff. I'm going to the city of morrumbene in the province of inhambane, which is near the beach! I'm happy to say i've no been sick since the last post. Me and my neighbor meagan made chocolate chip cookies from scratch and a made up recipe and were very popular with the people who happened to be around.

It's been a month already!

Everything is still going great here! I've been sick a few times in the past few weeks (stomach things), but still loving it overall. Some highlights of that include my mama putting a bucket in my room and telling me I could go to the bathroom (and she wasn't referring to urine...) in there so I wouldn't have to go outside at night. I tried to tell her there was no way I was going to diarrhea in my room, but she insisted so I had to tell her I would and then sneak out as need be. She also gave me cheetos and cookies to eat, and didn't seem to understand why I didn't eat them.

It's getting to be the beginning of the rainy season here, which means the dirt roads get incredibly muddy and slippery. It also means that there isn't much water left in the wells, and the water that is there is quite dirty. I didn't have water to bathe yesterday, so I was really excited for my one today, until I was the water. It looked dirty enough to have been used the clean the floor already, but amazingly I still felt a lot cleaner afterward than before.

Another thing that goes along with the rain is rain gear, so I wanted to comment on a few rain outfits my fellow trainees have worn that I think my father would really approve of:
1) A few people have ponchos, which for those of you who don't know, my dad is a strong advocate of. I've kept one in the trunk of my car even since I got my license because he said I never knew when I would want one. The answer was never, even though Mike did use it once.
2) One of my friends has a hardcore rain outfit that reminds me of the one my dad wore to Dillsburg when I was in middle school. It consists of waterproof overalls, and a jacket to match, all olive green

Next weekend we will be going on site visits, which means we will be staying with current volunteers Sat-Wed to see what their sites and jobs and lives are like, so I'm really excited for that. I'll find out where I'll be going for that on Wed, which won't be relevant to where I'll ultimately be placed for 2 years.

I really want to get my hair braided. I lot of my friends have sisters who do it for them, but I only have brothers, so that hasn't happened for me. I tried to tell one of my friends' moms that I wanted braids, hoping that she would get one of her daughters (she has five) to do it, but instead she just laughed like it was the funniest suggestion she had ever heard, so I didn't get braids.

There is a really beautiful mountain nearby that I really want to hike a little bit. Me and some friends headed for a walk in that direction this morning, but didn't go too far, and we want to make a day trip of it sometime.

Well that's all for now...I'm still waiting for a call from my dear sister...perhaps she needs my dear parents to buy here Skype cards?

The first few weeks

Hey!! I'm finally using the internet from Namaacha! I might be getting on a little more frequently now. So it's been going pretty good so far. The family I'm staying with is great, a lot of people in one house: Mama Anita, an Aunt, sister Clara (31), brothers Samito (22), Zinho (20), and Jaque (17), and Clara's son Zeca (10), and me. The house has one main room that is divided into a dining room and a living room by a curtain. There are 4 rooms that come off the main one, the kitchen, my room, and then the two bedrooms that everyone else sleeps in. The food has been good, and I haven't been sick so far, but a lot of the other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) have been, so I'm sure I will be soon too. My house has electricity, and they have a TV too. There is no running water, and I have a latrine hole in the backyard that also serves as the shower house. Which means that when 8 people all wake up and want to shower at the same time, and then all get home at want to shower again at the same time, it can be difficult to use the bathroom when needed. Which hasn't been a big problem yet, it just makes me nervous for when I inevitably get sick...

Training overall has been unimpressive. It is not well organized so we spend a lot of time waiting around. We also have 5 different people come to talk about the same thing, and since they don't hear the other presentations there is a lot of repitition. Language training is the best part, but it's still not intensive, and most people don't like it very much. But I like my family, and I practice talking with them, and I like the people in my language group and we have fun talking about random things in Portuguese. But I would definitely not call training intensive and full of important information. Namaacha is really pretty, which is good because we spend a lot of time walking all over to go to our classes, which are not organized near each other.

My brothers here are really in to watching Smackdown (wresting). Portuguese is coming along all right, still have a long way to go but I like talking to my family a lot. I have pictures of thanksgiving and halloween that I told them I'll have to explain to them in a few weeks cuz what I said last week made them think Americans were a little wierd. There are elections coming up here soon, so hopefully all will go smoothly with that and we won't get evacuated. I have a cell phone now, if you want the number ask Emily or my parents. Well, that's all for now!

More...

So I have a little more internet time and I thought of a few "Mozambican" things I've noticed, so I figured I'd add them.

First, I didn't know they drive on the other (British) side of the road here. Not only do they drive on the other side of the road, but they also walk on the other side of hallways/staircases too. It took me a little while to figure that out, and I wondered why I kept bumping into people in the airport and at our hotel. But then I noticed the escalators at the airport were switched, and it started to make sense. I'd never really thought about the driving on the other side of the road expanding to walking on the other side of hallways too, but it makes sense.

The other main thing to note is some medical procedures. We obviously have had to get several shots here for our own good, but they never really tell us what they are injecting us with, or if it has any side effects or anything. Also, when I got some shots today the medical assistant that was injecting me was just putting the used needles back on the table (there was a red biohazard disposal right next to her...I guess that's not common and she didn't know what it was for). Then the head nurse came over and told her where to put them, explaining they weren't going to be reused. Luckily I know that no one here has HIV since we all had to get tested before coming, but still. I've also started my malaria meds, but I'm taking Doxy, which doesn't give you vivid dreams, it just makes you get sunburned really easily. It seems kind of counterproductive to have a malaria med with that side effect given where malaria is prevalent, but oh well.

Well thats all for now, it's almost 10pm which means bedtime! I'm excited to see my training village tomorrow!

My Arrival

Well I'm happy to say I've arrived safely in Mozambique! We are staying at a rather nice hotel in Maputo, the capital of Moz. We have just had the lucky chance of meeting MC Rogers who is apparently a famous Mozambican popstar. I've never heard of him, but google him and see if it's true. So far we've had some orientation sessions, gotten some shots and other medicines, and gone over a bunch of info. Tomorrow we will be going to Namaacha, the town where we will have Pre-Service Training (PST). I can't really get a feel for Moz yet since the hotel is nice, but in a bad part of town, so we're not allowed to leave. We will be back here next Sat so I think I will be able to see more of the capital then. I'm excited to meet my host family and see what my house will be like. There are some current volunteers here with us now, and it sounds like living conditions might be better than we expected. Some families had TV, almost all had electricity, none had running water though, which is fine. It's supposed to be pretty cool in Namaacha, especially at first.

I've met a lot of cool people so far, and all the staff seems really nice. There's almost 70 of us, so it's taking a while to learn names and whatnot, but we're getting there. I wish I had more "Mozambican" information to share, but all we've really seen is the hotel, which is not too different from any other hotel, except we don't drink the water here.

And I'm happy to say, I have an address that I you can use to send mail to me during PST:

Jessica Bass
Corpo da Paz/Peace Corps
Avenida do Zimbabwe 345
Maputo, Mozambique

This address will be valid the entire time I'm here, but after mid-Dec I'll probably get a PO box closer to near where I'll be living, when I find out my site, but you can send letters to that address until I say otherwise.

I'm not sure when my next opportunity to use the internet will be, but not for at least a week I don't think, maybe not for a month, who knows.

One week to go

Hey everyone! So I have about a week left in the States before heading to Mozambique, so I wanted to get this up and running before I leave. I'll be spending the next 27 months in Mozambique as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching English in a secondary school there. Hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with everyone through this blog, but I'll have to wait and see what the internet situation is like. For the first three months I'll be staying in a village in southern Mozambique near the border with Swaziland. After that I'll get assigned to a post somewhere else in the country, and live there for two years as teacher. I've heard that I probably won't have too much internet access during the first three months, but after that I will probably have a more reliable connection. We will see!