Classes, Cyclones, and Coco

Where are my students?

So I was hoping to make this week’s blog post about my first classes, but as of the time of this posting I have yet to teach one. Instead, this is the week of apresentacones (introductions) where students meet their class mates, teachers, and find out what turma (class) they are in. As this is a very informal process, many if not most of the students don’t show up, as well as most of the teachers. So while I went to my 3 classes this Tuesday at their scheduled times, I only met two students, out of the 170 that I would have taught that day. I have been looking forward to starting to teach for quite a while, so this was really a wet blanket. After spending over a month as an official PCV in the education project and not having taught a single lesson, it’s easy to feel useless.

But this lack of work may not have been a blessing in disguise, for this past week was not without it’s excitements. First, the SAOR (refer to my previous blog post if you don’t know what that means) was taken to a whole new level as cyclone Funso landed in Mozambique. Now if you’re like me, 

you didn't know that a cyclone is exactly the same thing as a hurricane, but in the Pacific Ocean. This means that from Friday straight through to Monday, rain was falling with energizer bunny consistency while the fierce 125 knot winds which drove the storm blew. The wind got so bad, that for now the second week in a row, part of the wall of my quintal (yard) was pushed over and now makes a much better bamboo boardwalk than a fence. If an invading army were to decide that my house would make a nice prize, this week would be the day to commence the siege, as already two of my four walls are down. Or, if you’re a Mozambican passing by the only foreign teacher's house on your way to school and you want to see what’s going on inside, this week would also be an ideal.

I should have brought a kite

As if the cyclone didn't make things fun enough, my dog Coco also had a few surprises for me. One of the more interesting aspects of my cultural exchange since I got to site has been the relationship between Mozambicans and pets, and more specifically, dogs. Though most families here seem to have at least one chicken, goat, or other farm animal, it is rare to see animals de luxo (pets). Much of this might come from the fact that there is very little value seen in feeding an animal which does not directly help to feed the family. As logical as this might be, I was very excited to get to site, where I was told a dog would be waiting for me. It wasn't until the end of my first week that Coco showed up, but for the past month she has been my dog. I had heard that Mozambicans generally do not like dogs, as they are often aggressive and attack both people and livestock, but thought that since she had been raised and trained by a series of PCV’s and therefore was an American dog, Coco would be exempt from that. This idea was quickly dispelled after only a week of having her when I found out she had bit one of my neighbor’s sons. At that point, I decided that perhaps she just needs some time with me as her owner, and a little bit of discipline, in the form of a long rope keeping her attached to the house. Though this has allowed us to avoid some potentially nasty incidents, like when some of the neighborhood kids were throwing rocks at her and I had to go give them a stern talking to, it has not saved me from trouble by any means. Even attached to the house, she has attacked two of my neighbor’s chickens, killing one, and bit my site mate while he was trying to feed her. Not wanting to sacrifice the goodwill of my neighbors and forfeit any chance of properly integrating into my community, I had decided that she could not stay at the house.

Coco and her pup in their new home, my laundry basket

The night before I was planning to give her away, Coco decided that this was the best time to let me in on a secret she had been keeping: that she was pregnant. This grand reveal was done in the form of  the noise of a whining dog and the worst smell I have ever had the pleasure to experience at 2 AM. Thinking that it was a wild dogs trying to get into the house, I got up from my bed and moved towards the door, but stopped as I noticed that the whining was coming from my feet. There, I found a 8 inch long black, white, and brown newborn puppy with its pink toes and closed eyes. After suppressing the inevitable awwwwws, I realized that this might be the reason for the terrible odor. Turning back to my bed, I found Coco sitting on a smelly wet spot on my sheets looking immensely pleased with herself.

On the plus side, tomorrow I'm making breakfast burritos with guacamole from the newly available avocados. It also might happen to be my site mate Dylan's birthday, but that's defiantly not the reason for the cooking mastery.

PS: I need a name for the puppy.

Only one rule: her name must follow the pattern set by my empregado (house boy) Tojo and dog Coco.

I hear you like water? Cause I put lots of rain in your Mozambique

Tonight's blog post, the first broadcast from Alto Molocue, is brought to you by:

Vodacom's Mobile Broadband USB Modem

Without it's support, I would still be internet-less at site

So Alto Molocue seems to never have Sprite

And it doesn't always have stable non-device-frying electricity

And it definitely doesn't have a public pool

But you know what it does have? Rain, and lots of it.

In the 16 days I've actually been in Alto Molocue out of 34 since becoming a volunteer (there's been alot of travelling), it has rained, correction, poured on 15 of them. Now this isn't me complaining, because, as with all things, there is the good, the bad and the ugly.

Out at a community farm with my site mate Dylan

Since I'm a glass half full type of person, we'll start with the good. This, obviously, is that there's a superfluous amount of water. When I visited James in Mabalane, Gaza for site visits, I remember being struck by how parched the land was. The beige and brown landscape was only broken by the occasional scrubby bush or grass and mud hut. But Zambezia, thanks to it's  superfluous amount of water (SAOW for short, it's Portuguese), is very different. Here the vista is a mix of dark green trees, light green fields, rich dark brown soil, shinny silver zinc roofs, grey cement block houses, and light brown brick walls. In the distance, mountain can be seen not in the long, connected ranges as I am used to, but as seemingly random peaks which jut out of the ground like they had been scattered as seeds. Winding in the resulting valleys are large, fast moving rivers, brown with all the nutritious silt they carry. I have never seen any of the many water pumps in town, which are always surrounded by people for what they provide in both water and social connectivity, seem to run dry or dirty. In my first week at site, I installed a gutter on my back porch's roof. Having it has given me the satisfyingly lazy experience of collecting almost all the water I need from my roof. Papaya, mango, banana, avocado, lemon, and coconut trees dot the landscape and are so numerous that all you have to do is walk around for 5 minutes and you'll be coming home with an armful of whatever's in season. And, much like the homes in Summit, I have a beautifully lush and green lawn. All this is thanks to the plentiful, dependable, and periodic rain that Zambezia has been blessed with.

My empregado Tojo and my awesome gutter

Of course, with all this water descending upon us, there are some downsides. Walking through the lower section of the market can become a challenging game of mud avoidance, much to everyone's delight when I fail. Equally challenging is trying to hear anything but the rain falling on your tin roof during a storm, which sounds similar to a room full of bubble wrap being used as a bouncy castle at a very popular 8 year old's birthday party if it is just drizzling, and living under Niagara Falls when it pours. Of course, water does drip, drizzle, mist, and seep into the house no matter how much time, energy, and money you spend on water proofing. But, similar to the countless hours I spent building water direction, retention, and prevention systems on the beaches of Belgium, the futility of the act in no way prevents you from trying. Just today I climbed up on my roof to cement closed some holes that were particularly annoying, we'll see just how long it holds. Beyond all these more trivial problems, there are also the increased rates of malaria, schisto, and other water born illnesses that we can thank the SAOW for as well.

Hope that no Mongolians get through the gap in the wall

Finally, the ugly, which presented itself yesterday as a loud crashing sound, loud enough to be heard over the world largest and most disorganized drum circle which had installed itself on my roof. Not knowing where it came from, and thinking that it had been a clap of thunder (trovoada in portugese)  from a recent bolt of lightning (relampago), I did not notice the source until after the storm had passed. The wall separating my garden from the yard of the palacio (governor of the province's house) had been pushed over by the massive amounts of water which had built up behind it. This water had then joined the stream coursing through my yard, and though I'm not sure, under my house. If I wake up one morning and I seem to be living at a slightly lower elevation than I do now, let it be known by all 8 people whoever read this blog that I called it.

So until the dry season comes, global warming floods this area, or a giant funnel is built above alto molkwe to collect all the rain and channel it into the worlds largest water tank, my love/dislike/awe relationship with the SAOW Zambezia will continue.

I'm singing in the rain

Just singing in the rain

What a glorious feeling

I'm happy again