My New Signature

Zambezia Science Fair participants with our chique new shirts

For the past few weeks, provincial capitals all over Mozambique have be holding Peace Corps organized science fairs. For the province of Zambezia, myself and my counterpart Joao Ferraz from the Delegacao Provincial de Ciencia e Tecnologia organized the three day event. For most of Saturday, 45 secondary school students and teachers from 10 different districts prepared, presented, and celebrated experiments and innovations in the areas of chemistry, physics, and biology. Each of these students were selected as the best from each of their schools, so the competition was fierce. Their presentations covered all levels of difficulty and types of science, from the implications of Newton's 3rd law to the fermentation of alcohol from stale bread to the construction of an chicken incubator. By the end of the fair Saturday, the judges had a very difficult time selecting the top three projects from 1o ciclo (8-10th grade) and 2o ciclo (11-12th grade), and an even harder time selecting the student from each ciclo who would represent our province at the Feira Nacional de Ciencias in Chimoio. In the end, an 11th grade student from Gurue and a 9th grade student from Alto Molocue, Belchoir, won first place in their respective categories. This means that in 3 short weeks i'll be visiting the city of Chimoio with these 2 students, a teacher from Gurue, and my counterpart Joao. Though I don't want to be cocky, I have high hopes for these two students, and look forward to seeing how they match up with the winners from the other provinces.

Zambezia's science fair winners. Belchior is the little one

But before all of this had happened, the Zambezia fair had to be organized, which came down to one word: money. Each year, Peace Corps Science Fair proposes for the entire operating budget of this national event from PEPFAR (The Presidents Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief), which means that each province's Peace Corps representative is responsible for allocating and distributing the funds. As a result I had an uncomfortably large amount of money sitting in my bank account for the past couple months while I worked out the costs of each item with my counterpart Joao. Since plans stay liquid here for much longer than they should, the full value was still sitting in my account when I went to the Barclays in Quelimane the Friday before the fair for the big withdrawal. Arriving there just as the bank opened at 8a, I learned that they were only doing deposits at that moment, but I could begin waiting in line for the withdrawals which would start "very soon". After waiting there for an hour, I called Joao so that he could find someone to hold my place in line for me while I do other, more important  things. As it turns out, the only other thing for me to do was to go to each of the 4 working ATMs in town and withdraw the daily 5,000 mt ($185) limit for immediate costs. Finally around 11:30 I went back to the Barclay's where I was able to hand in my deposit slip and receive my money. Or so I thought.

Practicing my new signature

For years, I have been using a barely legible, sport-star-autograph inspired scribble as my mark for everything from checks to college admissions documents. Never before has it mattered that it varies from document to document, but before coming to Mozambique I realized that if not even I can read my own signature, there is a problem. So when I was in training and had to open up a bank account, I decided to start fresh with a new, legible, signature. Unfortunately, after not using it for 10 months, I had completely forgotten what I had used. So by 2:30p, half an hour before the bank closed, I had still not withdrawn my money. After various conversation with Barclay's in Maputo, Peace Corps Maputo, Barclay's Quelimane, and the Delegacao Provincial de Ciencia e Tecnologia we finally were able to change the official signature on the account and complete the withdrawal of the money for science fair, which started the next day. Phew...

Hopefully this will never happen again, because immediately after I had withdrawn the money, I spent the next hour signing 70 certificates of participation, 20 honor certificates, and countless other science fair related documents.  Needless to say, I got some good practice.

Day Trip to Nampula

At a certain point you just stop tricking yourself into thinking that you understand what’s going on and what you're trying to do.  I reached that point last week.

Euclides, with some strange money he found
in the pants he bought at the market

On Monday, I found out that one of my best possibilities for money for a student center at the school had been recently underfunded and prohibited from doing any sort of construction projects. Then that night I learnt of a best friend’s personal moral crisis that put in doubt any hope of fidelity or friendship in Mozambique. Tuesday through Wednesday brought the regular exhaustion of 30 tri-foreign-language classes (teaching French in Portuguese with English dictionaries) a week, though my thorough script making has helped to keep me sane. Thursday I finally got the jury invites for this weekend’s Alto Molocue Feira de Ciencias printed, stamped, signed, and delivered; something I had started last week. Then that afternoon, I got part way through a hastily planned Frentugeslish lesson when I realized that I did not even slightly understand what I was trying to teach. This caused me to hastily end the class and retreat home to skip my next few classes while I cooked dinner (baked beans and rice). I recovered bringing my 3 night classes up to speed on material we were behind on, but not without struggling to make weekend plans with my Brigadeiro de Escuteiros (Scout Leader) due to undependable cell phone networks.

Night classes. Notice the number of students

All of this combined left me starting my day trip to Nampula with a mixture of stress, disappointment, frustration, mistrust, and loss of direction. Though it started out as an extremely slow and annoying trip (5 hours to cover 125 miles), I ended up enjoying the delay. Having slowly worked my way through Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari over the past few months, I have become more and more engrossed with his no time pressure overland journey from Cairo to Cape Town. Beyond his vivid descriptions of central Africa, and interesting cultural anecdotes, he speaks a lot about his time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi.  This makes his pragmatically truthful comments on modern Africa, and development work in particular, really resonate. It just put into words the convoluted feelings I have been working through. Though the following burger, air conditioning, care package raid, and having my prayers to the boleia gods answered (an express to molocue Toyota hilux pickup truck with air conditioning driven by someone safe and friendly) have relaxed me, it was the following passage that really calmed me:

“That escarpment road is a hundred years old. It has been beautiful, but did you see all the landslides?” she said. “In the past they cleared the landslides manually -  it took a lot of people, but labor is cheap. And doing it by hand kept the storm drains open. For the past few years they’ve been using donor bulldozers to clear the rock slides. They bulldoze them to the side, blocking the drains. So when the rain comes it washes the road away and creates a torrent, and another landslide.”

So the solution of donor bulldozers had made the problem worse and put many manual laborers out of work.

 “The government had been paying five men to maintain the road. Then they stopped paying them. The road has been deteriorating ever since.

“They need twenty-four teachers to run (the school). There are only fourteen at the school. The English chap is leaving, so in a month they will have only thirteen teachers for about six hundred students. Teachers’ salaries are so low, you see

I said, “I’m wondering why a foreign teacher should go to Livingstonia to teach if Malawians are not willing to make the sacrifice.

With the sweetest smile Uma dismissed the question as much too logical.

Its not that I now know what I’m doing here or how to get it done, but I feels better to know that someone else was equally as lost.

Most recent match of Coco vs Chicken. Ended in stalemate

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Of the many lifestyle changes that I’ve gone under during my PCV experience, the switch from the go-ahead-and-use-it credit card based system of the US to the only-buy-what-you-need-to-use-now prepaid system of Mozambique has been the most unexpected. As opposed to getting used to bucket baths, or assuming that everyone who says “estou a pedir _____” (I want _______) is begging, prepaying for everything has created some the most unexpected inconveniences.

Never thought I would look forward to online bill paying

Once a month I go to my local Vodacom vendor, buy a 500 metical ($20) cell phone credit voucher, scratch off the code, and type it in to my phone so that I can still make calls to non-vodacom numbers. Another 50 mt ($2) Vodacom credit code gets typed into my computer when I want to connect to the internet. On an almost monthly schedule, I buy 300 mt ($12) of electricity credit from EDM (Energia de Mocambique) to purchase my 87.5 kWh that I normally use. Ofcourse, if I have a lot of visitors, or am running all night Tesla coil themed disco parties, I end up having to buy more before the month is out.

Buy energy credit. Type in the code. Disco away

Where as in the US, I would surf the internet while watching TV, running the dishwasher, and toasting a bagel, here I actually count my kilo-Watt-hours. Just last month I wrote down how much credit I had at night when I went to bed (25.6 kWh) and how much I had when I woke up in the morning (23.4 kWh) so that I could figure out how much keeping my outdoor lights on at night was costing me (6.3 mt = 23c). It’s not that I’m pinching pennies, though traveling to Quelimane and buying 2kg blocks of Mozzarella cheese (880 mt = $33, not sold in credit form) does make a dent in my minimalist Peace Corps stipend. It’s that I don’t want to wake up one morning without any energy credit, and then have to walk up to far side of town so I can buy more electricity before I have a cup of coffee.

Luckily, cellphone credit is much closer, but I still find myself wondering if I really should call some out of network person, because it will cost me 5 mt (20c) a min. Since you receive text messages and in network minutes free when you buy 200 mt or more of credit, and they acrew if you purchase more credit before the month is out, I now have 2795 free text messages and 3268 free in network minutes. So if someone with a Vodacom number wants to hear the repetitive Mozambiquean pop songs (If I marry you, will you marry me, my love. If I marry you, will you marry me, my love…) that are played at the nearby bar, just let me know and Ill set my phone up there for a night. For those who don’t have Vodacom, I can send you a text play by play of the most recent Coco vs Chicken matches instead.

Most recent match of Coco vs Chicken

Both of these subtle adjustments are because though my Peace Corps stipend is inspired by the movie 300 (Spartan), I am still pretty well off for Mozambique. For those that don’t have this type of financial freedom, it means they buy 20 mt (77c)of phone credit when they need check in on a sick relative. It also leads to them buying oil in 50 ml baggies (15 mt = 56c) and soap bars by the decameter (5mt = 19c). Not only does buying household items in such small quantities consume more time, it is also more expensive. Each time a smaller quantity is bought, a middle-man is taking a cut, or maybe the whole pie.

Take my recent attempt at buying TV credit for example. I had been hoping to watch the Olympics on Juvencio’s satellite TV, especially the opening ceremonies. So when I found out that Juvencio did not have satellite TV because he didn’t have the money now to buy another month’s programming code, I figured I’d act as the credit card. But since SkyTV doesn’t have an office here in Nampula, it wasn’t just a matter of going to the store and buying a code. Instead, we had to wire the 450 mt ($18) to Juvencio’s-friend-in-Nampula’s bank account, who would then buy us the code and text it to us. Unfortunately, this friend-in-Nampula spent the money on his wife instead, so we haven’t been able to watch anything. We’re going to have to wait till our payment is processed by this other middle man…..

The Wok and the Boy, Part 2

Once upon a time there was a boy and a wok. Almost every day the wok would get a visit from the boy. After taking the wok off the pan shelf, the boy would look the wok straight into the bottom and ask “wok, please make me some deliciously exquisite egg fried rice.” Every time the response was the same: “sure boy, I’ll just use some rice, random vegetables you have lying around, eggs, oil, and soy sauce.” And when the boy would put the first bite in his mouth, he would sigh, for it was deliciously exquisite. And the wok was happy.

But then one day the boy asked the wok “wok, please make me some deliciously exquisite egg fried rice” and the wok looked around, but there was no more soy sauce. The large bottle of Kikkoman Original that the boy had bought in Nampula during supervisors conference was empty, not a drop left. Sadly, the wok responded “I’m sorry boy, but there is no soy sauce. We could make some fried rice with Raja curry seasoning and piri piri instead?” “Ok” said the boy, but once he put that first bite in his mouth, he knew that it just wasn’t the same. At times, it may have been delicious, and at other times exquisite, but never once was it deliciously exquisite.

Once the wok was washed, the boy put it back on the pan shelf, and walked away saddened. The next time the boy wanted to make fried rice, he picked up the wok, only to look at it and be reminded of the utter disappointment that accompanied the soy-sauce-less fried rice. So he put it back on the pan self, and went in search of other pans.

Each time the boy came into the kitchen, each time the boy laid out vegetables, each time the boy made rice, each time the boy looked at the wok, the wok thought “this is it, I’ve been forgiven, he needs me.” But the wok was only met with the same disappointment that the boy felt. And the wok was sad.

2 months and 3 weeks passed with the wok being used, an incredibly long amount of time for a wok. Then boy came back from a fantastic first-time trip to Quelimane with Gamill Superior Dark soy sauce. The wok thought “Sure that isn’t Kikoman Original, but it must be enough.” After laying out the vegetables, and putting the rice on the stove to cook, the boy looked at the wok. And it may have been the quickest little glance that has ever glanced, but for the wok it was like waiting for eternity. “wok, please make me some deliciously exquisite egg fried rice” the boy asked.

“Sure boy, I’ll just use some rice, random vegetables you have lying around, eggs, oil, and soy sauce.” After happily going through its work, the wok carefully watched as the boy served himself and his friend Eric a bowl of fried rice. Looking on from afar, the wok saw the boy lift the first bite to his mouth, and then sigh, for it was deliciously exquisite. And the wok was happy.

Getting SPF for the CAE from VAST

Juvencio, my counterpart and fellow french teacher 

This past week I've been camping out at the beautiful Hotel Millenio for a Peace Corps conference called PDM (Project Development and Management). Throughout the week, we attended sessions on how to identify the needs in your community, select a project which satisfies those needs, delegate responsibilities, design objectives and measurements for the project, write a grant proposal, and identify organizations that would contribute funds towards the project. Though the goal of this conference is to teach volunteers and their counterparts how to choose, develop, and fund a secondary project, the more immediate benefits are what is really appreciated.

Nothing makes you feel more at home than checking into a hotel room which features the same minimalists architecture of any Holiday Inn in the states, walking down to the pool to go swimming, but after finding out its too cold going to take a 30 min hot shower, then stuffing yourself with self-served food from shinny chaffing dishes (yay Ken Rent for the vocab). Though it was the hope that I'd learn what I need to do to get my bigger projects off the ground that got me to the conference, it was the luxuries that kept me there. 

Conference room full of PCVs and counterparts

Since staying, I have learned a whole bunch of new acronyms that are used in the peace corps grant writing world. As many of you share my love of acronyms, I feel it only right to give you a taste:
APCD-Associate Peace Corps Director,
EMARTS-Especifico, Mensuravel, Antigel, Realistico, Temporal, Sensibilidade de Genero
r-the person who is responsible for the task
R-person who is responsible for the project
PEPDFAR- Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
VAST-Volunteer Activates Support and Training
PCPP-Peace Corps Partnership Plan

As usual, many of the sessions were a little to theoretical to be interesting, so I spent my time playing ultimate tic-tack-to and coming up with acronyms:
CAE-Centro de Actividades Extracurricular
SPF-Secondary Project Funds
POPCORN-Popular Options People Choose Often Remain Neutral
SHOWER-Supporting HOt Water Encourages Recovery

Dancing the cancan with Ariel and Steph during a project visit at an orphanage

Letter to a Fellow PCV

Started writing this as an email to a fellow PCV who’s finishing his 2^nd year in Romania (Hey Marco), but then the internet cut out and I decide to turn it into a blog post:

Hey dude, sorry I haven't gotten to it sooner, but I imagine you know how it is. So, this is what Peace Corps is like. When I was getting ready to leave the US I had all the ideas and thoughts and expectations about what it would be like. How weird, strange, and different it would feel. But you know what? Today I forgot I was a PCV in Mozambique.

I didn't notice it until I was walking back from my sitemate’s house and snapped back into reality, but for a short time there I wasn't a PCV in Mozambique. I was just in Mozambique. After snapping back to reality, I was both excited and afraid. On one hand, it's great to finally be so fully immersed. After hearing so much about the importance of "cultural integration" and second goal activities, to finally not be worrying about it for a few hours was a relief. But, then the fear of losing myself came on, and the unknown territory that accompanies it.

What happens when I'm not sure if I'm a PCV in Mozambique? So much of my existence for the past 6 months, nay past 9 months, nay past 3 years, (when I first announced I wanted to become a PCV) was tied up in what a “Peace Corps Volunteer” symbolized. But today, I felt what it would be like to be without that cloak. Just like any other time you take off clothes, you feel at first naked and then liberated. Just in writing this note, I have gone from being scared of not knowing to who I am, to being excited about the opportunity to figure it out again.

Well here’s to the joy of discovery

Hope to hear from you soon,

Sam

Sitting Outside, Watching Clouds

7:45 – Wakeup, put on pants, and go to kitchen. Put water in kettle and press button, no light turns on. Shit, there’s no power

8:15 – Laptop screen goes dark, then computer goes into sleep mode, I probably should have charged it yesterday

8:20 – Try light switch, still no power

8:49 – Send text to Dylan “Do you have power?”

8:50 – Receive text from Dylan “Nope. Should be on in a few hours”

9:35 – Try light switch, still no power

9:36 – Try different light switch, just in case. Still no power

10:10 – Get tired of reading inside, move to hammock

10:15 – Get tired of reading outside, move back inside

10:55 – Go to visit Vena and family at their house, sit outside and watch clouds

11:00 – Sit outside and watch clouds

11:20 – Sit outside and watch clouds

11:40 – Sit outside and watch clouds

12:00 – Sit outside and watch clouds

12:10 – “Sam, when is your birthday?” “July 3^rd” “You should invite all of your pretty students to your party” “Umm, ok”

12:20 – Sit outside and watch clouds

12:40 – Sit outside and watch clouds

13:00 - Sit outside and watch clouds

13:15 – Lunch is ready. Cove and Xima. Yumm

14:10 - Lunch is done. Go home, check power. Still nothing

14:30 – Go to visit co-worker Freitas at his home, not there. He’s at his bar

14:40 – Find Freitas at his bar, drink warm beer with him and his friend

16:10 – Start talking to parents on cellphone. Good thing I charged it.

16:40 – End talking to parents, with plenty of battery to spare. Skillz

16:41 – Check both light switches, still nothing.

16:55 – Go outside to watch sunset, which is particularly beautiful. Take Picture

16:55 – Arrive at Dylan’s house, light charcoal stove for dinner.

17:20 – Add more charcoal

17:25 – See neighbor has lights on, run inside to check. Still nothing. Well aren’t they chique with their generator at all.

17:40 - Add more charcoal

18:00 - Add more charcoal

18:15 – Dinner’s ready. Egg fried rice and chocolate-covered-pancakecake. Double Yumm

18:22 – Hear noise from outside, go to investigate.

18:23 – Loud cheering from all the neighborhood children and booming Mozambiquean pop hits indicate one thing: power’s back on!

18:39 – Power’s back off

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This past week was the 6 months anniversary of when I actually started my Peace Corps service here in Alto Molocue. In commemoration of this milestone, I’ve used the wondrous powers of Picasa to make this collage of important people, places, moments, and things that have defined the first quarter of my service.