Sunday Swim

Antonio (left) and Guebuza (right) with a captured river crab

For the past months, Alto Molocue has been making that unfortunate transition from the pleasant wintry coldishness to the pre-rainy season super dryness. This unwelcome change in seasons not only brings swealteringly hot days and increasingly uncomfortable hot nights, but also covers the surrounding area in intentionally started wild-fires and the resulting constantly falling ash. When I was already sweating uncomfortably by 8:30 this morning, I knew that something had to be done to ensure that I did spend all day suffering. So I got up and went over to my neighbors house to brainstorm with my 8 and 12 year old neighbors Guebuza and Antonio. Quickly we decided that the best way to avoid the heat was to go for a swim; so I ran home, grabbed my swimsuit, picked up Eric and Sticky, and we set off.

Once everyone saw Eric with his camera, chaos ensued and
mobs of posing children started to form. Imagine what would
have happened if we had then started to bare our pastiness

Apparently most of Alto Molocue had the same idea, so as we walked along the river looking for a good place to swim we encountered beach after beach of children, women, and men bathing, washing clothes, and swimming. Though I love interacting with my fellow Molocueans, being a white person here normally attracts a high amount of unwanted attention. Now add in the fact that going  for a swim would expose my uniquely hairy chest and more white skin than they'd ever seen before, and all of a sudden privacy becomes a priority. Explaining this to Geubuza and Antonio was especially difficult, as they didn't understand why we wanted to be hermits and begged to stop and swim at each beach we found.

Seeing Anontio and Guebuza swim next to Sticky brought new
meaning to the words "doggy paddle." I tried teaching them
a proper swim stroke, but I guess french teaching skills don't
translate well.

Eventually we discovered an isolated swimming hole, and excitedly took off our shoes and shirts and jumped in. Though it wasn't necessarily the cleanest river (the prevailing stench of #2 was everywhere along our path), having cool water wash the sweat off your body is an unbelievably satisfying feeling. Even Sticky jumped in and paddled around for a bit, after standing on the banks whining for a while. Having it been a while since I'd given him a bath, I happily counted this as a wash instead. Of course, the moment he got out of the water, he promptly rolled around in the dirt to dry off, making sure my canine owner hygiene duties stayed unfulfilled. After a quick 30 min swim, we all were feeling a pretty hungry and reluctantly decided it was time to head back home for lunch in the sweltering heat.

Coming back into town refreshed and clean made the rest of the day past quickly and in comfort. Though it was still super hot, there was little need for the recently necessary twice a day bucket baths. With the dry season far from over. I'm sure to be back into the Rio Molocue before long.

Photos were taken by and are the property of  Eric Wilburn. Thanks bro!

In Quelimane, Science Rules! Part 2

After watching Eric get all stressed out in the run up to the Zambezia Provincial Science and HIV/AIDS Prevention Fair, I was both dreading and looking forward to the flagship National Science and HIV/AIDS Prevention Fair this past weekend. As the National Fair is a much more complicated event and has a much higher profile, having everything run smoothly is of great importance to the reputation and future of the project. With this event looming on the horizon for so long, Dan (the other national coordinator) and I have been planning for months, and in the end it went perfectly.

Though I didn't get to watch it, I could have listened

to the Fair live on the radio

Though the budgeting, coordinating, and planning of the Fair (with a capital F for fun!) has been going on since mid March and much of the organizational and financial responsibility lies with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT in protugese for short), I didn't want to take any chance. So a full week before the Fair, I went down to Quelimane to check in with our partners and see that all details, big and small, were being taken care of. Learning from my experience with last year's Provincial Fair, I went to the bank first and was able to easily use my beautifully legible John-Hancockesque signature to withdraw the funds for the Fair. After holding meetings with the MCT staff and representatives from most of our partner organizations, I felt pretty confident that everything would be ready on time. But having learned my lesson from both last year's and this year's Provincial Fairs, I checked, confirmed, and reconfirmed that HIV testing would be available, that a qualified person would be on hand to run the HIV/AIDS discussion, that the jury members were invited, that enough hotel rooms were available, that the restaurant where we would be having our dinners was prepared, that the fancy color card-stock programs were fancy enough, and that the personalized name tags were indeed using people's personal names. What both Dan and I neglected to check was perhaps the most important part of any event: the certificates!!!!!

By the end of the day I was getting a little silly, though it

might have been cruel to play games with the certificates 

The only thing that maters at a Mozambican event more than whether food will be provided is whether a properly signed and stamped certificate will be available for all participants to take home. From a JUNTOS workshops to a Peace Corps conference, having a piece of paper with a participants name and some fancy printed-on graphics makes the difference between happy and disappointed participants. Perhaps it's a symptom of Mozambique's highly formalized culture, or because there's a rumor that NGO's look for these certificates when hiring new employees, but either way they are not to be forgot. Well on Saturday morning Dan and I were informed that instead of having 100 official, printed, signed, and stamped MCT certificates, we had 3 packs of imaginary certificates (i.e. blank card stock paper). So instead of watching the 20 cute mini-scientists from 10 provinces present their experiments with all the earnestness befitting an over-excited kid out of his/her element, I had to run around designing, printing, signing, stamping, and filling in the certificates. Though they were ready by the time the winners from Niassa and Inhambane were announced, I was unable to actually watch the Fair and had little idea how the mini-scientists's presentations went or if anything exploded into fiery destruction. I have since been told by a wide range sources that everyone had a great time and that no incendiary devices were accidentally created. Thanks to our amazing counter-parts at the MCT, 8 great PCV provincial coordinators, and my co-national coordinator Dan, everything went smoothly and sciencey.

All of the 60+ participants, coordinators, and judges. Thanks

to our great team, this year was a huge success

Now with the National Fair under my belt and only some receipts and reports to process, I look back with fondness at the stress and anal-retentiveness that came from caring so much about something to come. Though I hope I'll be back one day to see a future Science and HIV/AIDS Prevention Fair, it could be a long time before I get to have such an important role in a project that helps kids learn to love science. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some disappointingly unscientific French papers to grade.

Photos were taken by and are the property of  Eric Wilburn. Thanks bro!

All Grown Up

A week ago, the Escuteiros de Alto Molocue made me feel like what I assume my parents felt like when I first went off to college. For the previous months, myself and the rest of the scout leadership had been planning a camping trip to Nawela in honor of the 7th of September (the peace accord which ended the civil war). As opposed to the previous camping trip, which was wholly and fully funded by our own personal contributions, this time we were hoping that the local government would help us pay for food and transportation. Luckily, the Administrator of our district was a scout when he grew up in Gurue, so it wasn't a hard sell. But after the date had been set and plans were under way, I found out that my COS (closing of service conference) would be ending the first day of the camping trip, making it virtually impossible for me to participate. So after having helped to plan, coordinate, and prepare for what was sure to be great trip, I had to sit at home on Saturday and Sunday nights and wait to hear how it all went.

Thankfully, Juvencio took some pictures with his cellphone,
so I could see all the fun I missed out on

Though the scouts were supposed to have gotten back on Sunday, I hadn't heard anything from them by the time I was leaving for Quelimane on Monday morning and had begun to worry that something horrible had happened to them. Thankfully I ran into Baltazar, a scout who had been on the trip, on his way to school and the filled me in. Apparently it was a near perfect trip. The scouts all went and came back safely, a theater piece they had presented on domestic violence and premature marriages was well received by a large crowd, the church-yard campsite was beautiful and included water and bathrooms, and it was all seamlessly run by the troop that I had took such care to organize and train. The only hicup was that the government provided transportation and food had arrived 24 hours late, but considering the complexities of Mozambican bureaucracy, that's actually pretty good. All in all, it was a fantastic trip that I regret to have missed.

Juvencio in Nawela helping a scout with her backpack

After having spent since May of last year to start, grow, teach, coordinate, equip, and prepare the leadership of the troop for the day when they when I would be back in the USA, I can say with both confidence and pride that the Escuteiros de Alto Molocue will do just great on their own. But just like parents who's children have left the nest and can take care of themselves, it's bittersweet to know that they'll be alright on their own.