1 year and 7 months as a PCV

Waking up this morning, I realized I had forgotten to continue my tradition of making a collage looking back at the past 6 months. Below is the masterpiece 7 months in the making

Marshmallows in Mozambique, Part 2

The advance team on it's way to Mt Rube

Something magical happens during a camping trip. Maybe it's the cool clean mountain water, or the improved taste of simple hot calories. Maybe it's only being separated from others by a thin piece of nylon, or the bond formed by exhausting work.  Maybe it's the long stretches of time spent with few people, or the deep conversations inspired by few distractions. Maybe it's finding really vulgar noises hilarious, or sharing old family jokes with a whole new crowd. Maybe it's fully drinking in a magnificent vista or encountering isolated waterfalls that you're certain to be pioneering. Whatever it is, somewhere between leaving home with your life in backpack and washing the mud off of blood red blisters upon your return, something changes.

Over this past weekend, the Escuteiros de Alto Molocue went on their second trip to Mt Rube (or Mt Rupi). Thanks to the generous donations many of you made to my Peace Corps Partnership Plan, and the exhaustive efforts of my counterpart Juvencio, we weren't forced to depend on the generosity and patience of the Italian Padres who live at the mountain. Instead, the scouts we fully prepared with all the equipment needed to run their first zero-impact camping trip!

Eric, Dylan, and Monis at our campsite

Our journey started on Friday where I led an advance team of scouts Tojo, Rosario, Monis, Izildo and PCVs Eric and Dylan to the mountain in preparation for the rest of the group's (23 in total) arrival. Besides for Eric and Dyan, everyone else in this group had hiked to the mountain the previous year and understood the implications of 17 km (10 miles) on foot. Unfortunately, some of our new Chinese-made backpacks hadn't received the memo, and malfunctioned in protest. Despite these minor setbacks, we made it to the mountain in good time and got to work preparing our picturesque campsite. Having only experienced and hard working scouts there made the brush cutting, latrine digging, tent pitching, firewood fetching, and water carting pass quickly. Though we were tired from carrying the majority of the group's food and equipment to the camp, we decided to use our free afternoon to climb to the highest peak of Mt Rube. Having never done this before, I was excited to accomplish something that had been on my Molocue bucket list since 2011. Drinking in the 360 degree view from the 1282 meter peak, the combination of exhaustion and a cold that started that morning hit me full force, making the descent quite difficult. Between a powerful cough, stuffed nose, painful breathing, splitting head ache, tense legs, and fully developed blisters on my feet, it was the worse I had felt in a long time. Arriving back at camp as night fell, I crashed onto my sleeping bag into fitful sleep, waking only for a spaghetti and cheese sauce dinner. 

Our fully set up camp of 6 tents and 23 scouts

The following morning arrived with excitement for the day to come, but not much improvement in my condition. Knowing that I had the morning to relax and gather energy, I took my time waking up, eating breakfast, and preparing for the day. On my way back from a refreshing bath in a mountain stream, I ran into the first of the scouts arriving that day, and went down to greet the rest. Seeing them all in good health and high spirits, and to know that it was Juvencio who had organized and led them, made me feel infinitely better. Soon, we had gotten everyone settled into camp, had our traditional rules and plans talk, and reunited over a hearty lunch of beans and rice. 

 Aldo, Eunice, Carina, and Juvencio handing

the new scouts their uniforms

Afterwards, our troop divided into patrols and got right into the meat of scouting: community service. As we had done last year, each patrol was assigned to either clean out animal pens, chop wood, or carry cinder blocks at the construction site of the new monastery. Once done with our tasks, we washed up and hiked up to the lookout point for the weekend's main event. As night fell, the older scouts built a fire and we began our initiation ceremony, using many of the same speeches and metaphors from last year.Though seeing the 12 new scouts faces light up as they received their shirts and neckerchiefs made me smile, what made me happiest was seeing Juvencio and several of the older scouts run the ceremony from start to finish. After all the worrying I have done about whether this troop would be able to continue after I leave, the sight of local leadership making our newly minted traditions their own melted all my concerns away. The combination of happiness, relief, and cold induced delirium, made the following dancing and signing especially entertaining.

Tojo and I watching the fire fade

As the fire died down, and everyone began to feel the exhaustion of the day, the scouts started to make their way back to our camp. Wanting to savor the moment, I lingered behind with Tojo, Juvencio, Dylan, Eric and a few of the other older scouts. Sharing the view out to Alto Molocue with my closest friends in a place I now call home made me truly appreciate how lucky I have been with the events and people surrounding this time in my life.

The master cooks at work:

Tojo, Dylan, Rosario, Monis, Belito

Sunday morning brought a much more relaxing day. We woke, ate a boiled sweet potato breakfast, and got dressed for church. As with the previous year, Padre Andre had asked me to read the day's section of the old testament in Hebrew and so I spent much of the morning practicing from the copy of the Torah he had lent me the day before. After some gospels and hymns, I was invited up to the lectern of the small chapel and began to read Zechariah Chapter 12, verses 10-11. Fortunately, this year's passage was much more applicable to scouting, talking on the benevolence of the house of David to the people of Jerusalem. Following the service, we returned to our campsite, and our expert cooks prepared a tasty lunch of dried fish with tomato sauce and xima (boiled flour staple). The afternoon had been set aside for sessions on HIV/AIDS, Gender, Leadership, and general Scouting Skills, but between my sickness and the scouts desire to explore the surrounding valley, we decided to just hold one session: Chillaxing 101.

The new leadership and I at the closing fire:

Rosario, Carina, Juvencio, Aldo, Euncie

As night fell again, we prepared a dinner of rice and beans and carried the pots to the location of our final event, the fogeira de conselho (council fire). After eating, we went through what went well and what could have gone better during the weekend, what were going to be our projects for the upcoming year and who would be the leadership to implement them, what various members had learned at the JUNTOS workshop (another condom demonstration) and what was discussed at the government youth group meeting.  Once all the serious stuff had been taken care of, we moved into the more entertaining combination of songs, jokes, games, and s'mores. Since less than half of the scouts had been at the previous fogeira de conselho, most were marshmallow virgins, and were taken by surprise with the sweet sticky ball they were presented with. But after roasting them and adding the essential graham crackers and chocolate, they joined the millions of other scouts who have enjoyed this tasty treat.

19 scouts, 2 leaders, 1 happy troop

Monday morning, we prepared to make our way back to Molocue. After taking down the tents, cleaning up the campsite, closing up the latrines, and making one final check for trash, we packed our stuff and left the mountain. Arriving back at home, I noticed that everything in Alto Molocue looked a little cleaner, smiles a little larger, laughs a little heartier. All the world was shinning at me, and I was shinning right back at it. You could call it relief at having a complicated event end successfully, or being high on anti-histamines and ibuprofen, or even just a sunny day. But I know that this was a sense of belonging and love that I never expected to feel so strongly from and for this adopted home. These last 5 months are gonna pass quickly.

Using Bananas as a Teaching Tool

One of the main Peace Corps Mozambique secondary projects, Jovens-Unidos-No-Trabalho-para-Oppotunidade-e-Successo (JUNTOS) has as it's focal point a series of regional workshops. These workshops bring together youth-groups for a weekend of seminars to empower them to make decisions and distribute messages about safe-sex. This past weekend, for the second year in a row, I organized a workshop in Alto Molocue for youth-groups from Nauela, Murrupula, Mocuba, and Alto Molocue. Between the discussions on diversity, leadership, self-esteem, puberty, reproduction, violence, and HIV/AIDS,  the relatively small number participants develop a surprisingly strong bond. This allows them to ask questions that require more comfort and trust than a classroom might offer, like "what is anal sex like?", "does masturbating prevent you from having children?", and "can I impregnate my girlfriend if we have sex without a condom while she's menstruating?" Though it might be disconcerting to hear 13-21 year olds asking these questions, its great that a forum is created where they can have these doubts answered by people with accurate information.

Escuteiros with their teaching tools

This circle of trust also allows the PCV running the sessions to do what any youth-oriented volunteer living in a country where 11.5% of the population is HIV positive and the birth rate is the 11th highest in the world would want to do: condom demonstration! So after gathering together our Peace Corps Medical supplied condoms (they have very high expectations for our virility) and 30 bananas, fellow Moz 17er Stephanie led our workshop group in a step-by-step demonstration of how to put a condom on a banana. Involving much fewer condom balloons than I had originally imagined,  everyone successfully used protection on their monkey food. Afterwards, not wanting to waste food, we proceeded to remove the artificial and natural sheaths and eat our demonstration.

Though I can't say how many of the students actually learned how to put a condom on that night (a both distressing and encouraging number already knew), it was a very dynamic and exciting end to a long and information-full day. And in a country where condoms are most often used as hats, water carriers, gloves, soccer balls, and rubber bands, it was nice to know that on Saturday 30 were used to simulate their intended purpose.

Why Everything Should be Duct Tape-able

As in most parts of the world, things break in Mozambique. Sometimes it's after years of use, and it was just it's time to go. Other times a neighbor borrows it and, not knowing how to properly use it, opens it the wrong way. There's things that you drop on the ground when surprised, and others that you throw on the ground in a fit of rage after being told there's no more of you favorite chocolate spread (Marlon Brando actually yelled NUTELAAAAAA!!, but was misheard). And of course, there are the things that magically break after a short lifespan just because they're manufactured at the lowest possible quality to be sold at the cheapest possible price to the impoverished African market.

But no matter how it breaks, you often need to fix it, and this generally puts items into two categories: Duct Tape-able and non-Duct Tape-able. Luckily, the gross majority of items fall into the first and easiest category. Plastic chair that begun to split from regular use? Duct tape! Head lamp that your neighbor ripped open when trying to change the batteries that had been wasted playing "Americano"? Duct tape! Plastic water basin that broke after falling from your empregado's head while full? Duct tape! Laptop that split open after tumbling from the unstable tower of boxes and newspapers which put it at the perfect height for video conferencing? Duct tape! Duct tape! Duct tape! Duct tape!

But for those few, sorry, items which will not succumb to the awesome powers

Wire + Pot lid + Coil + MacGyverness=
Making pasta and sauce at the same time!

of Duct Tape, more creative and time intensive solutions are required. Recently, I had to take this course of action with my electrical stove, which has been with me for well over a year. After one burner transitioned from working perfectly, to working well, to heating food while shocking the user, to only shocking the users while heating nothing, I decided it was time to replace the mis-behaving coil. But unlike fixing an item in the US, here there was no possibility of ordering the spare part from Amazon and having it delivered to my house.

Instead, I had to spend a half a day searching for the replacement coil in Quelimane (unsuccessfully) and another half a day searching for the replacement coil in Nampula (successfully). Upon returning to my home from the most recent of the trips, I realized that I had thrown away an essential piece from the broken coil. So instead of having a burner coil that would stay in place but wouldn't heat up, I had a burner coil which would heat up but would fall into the stove itself. So after banging my head against the wall for a minute, I punched some holes in an old extra pot lid and jerry-rigged the stove coil to it with some left over wire. Then all I had to do was bring the stove to my friendly neighborhood repairman (thanks Segundo) and have him solder the new coil to the wiring.

Now if only they made heat resistant, mold-able but stiff Duct Tape. Beyond never needing any other material ever again, I would have had two working burners and one happy PCV 3 weeks ago!

Adam Smith and Bacon, Part 2

Sticky McStickerson getting to the bottom of the story

Welcome back to AME Market Update, I'm your host Sticky McStickerson, and here's what's happening.

Since the previous explosion of trading following the snack infusion of early March, a combination of diminished supply and hoarding have brought trading to a near standstill. The only product to merit trading at this point is the rescissionist's best friend: alcohol.

Upon the long awaited return of Dylan to Alto Molocue, a bland market spiced up quick at the prospect of buying into a bottle of Bombay Saphire. Not wanting to deplete the Strategic Snack Food Reserve any more than my inflation had already, I bought one Class A share with plain old meticais. But Eric, having recently received a care package, had a surplus of candy and jumped at the opportunity. After a few minutes of heated negotiation, a deal was struck with Dylan for a one of the three Class A shares in return for 41 Sour Patch Kids and a Prestige Brie Cheese. Reserving the final Class A share for himself, Dylan closed trading on the asset and the AME celebrated Eric's birthday.

Keeping you up-to-date on the AME

Though trading on the rare Class A shares had closed, a side market opened for a replacement good: the Leveraged Beer Option. Since then, all manner of consumer goods have been traded for this questionable asset. Being that there is no regulatory framework for these, the system is based purely on the market players  collective trust, memory, and liquidity capacity.

Analysts predict that this type of trading will continue well past the expected arrival of several snack infusions, as using a locally available and easily transferable substance as currency allows for far more market activity and prevents the volatility seen in the era of the bacon standard.

Painted Wooden Trees

You have to be this tall to march in the parade

There are many topics on which Mozambicans feel differently about than Americans. Uses for grass (no lawns, only roofs), appropriate number of choruses in 3 verse national anthem (6), or acceptable places to relieve oneself (pathway in front of my house) come to mind. But up until today, I’ve always felt that finding a half painted tree attractive as the weirdest. Little did I know that one day, I would be converted to this belief.

In preparation for this Friday’s long planned and much talked about visit of the Governor, the Escuteiros de Alto Molócuè were asked to help with the ornamentation (direct translation) of the town. Along with the putting up of banners and trimming of trees, the town also typically paints the lower 2ft of each tree, pole, and stone white. Not only did I not see this as in any way “beautifying” the town, but I saw the continued use of a washable paint outdoors pointless. Of course, what seemed to me as the biggest waste of time, was assigned as the responsibility of the Escuteiros.

On the truck, scooping "paint"" out of a barrel

So after teaching most of my classes (we were interrupted by a Police lecture about traffic safety) and eating a quick lunch, I went over to the school basketball courts and met up with the few scouts waiting. Though I had thought that very few would show up, the prospect of being exempt from gym class for the day brought our numbers up to 14. Once the car arrived, we caught a ride to the Municipal Council building and met up with the workmen who we would be helping. After waiting around a while for the materials to show up, we split into teams and got to work.

Partnering up with Monis and Carlitos, we

Unlike Tom Sawyer, I pitched in, and didn't get

anything in trade for giving them the opportunity

began to cover the area between the parade route and our waist white. Carrying buckets of the chalky water, we used palm branches to slather the various trees, curbs, electrical poles, traffic poles, and sign posts. Seeing the scouts do this, I felt a little like Tom Sawyer convincing friends that painting a fence would be fun. Though we moved slowly at first, we picked up our rhythm as the buckets emptied. A couple hours later we had met up with the team working from the other direction and our job was done. Stepping back, I was stunned to see that the town did look fresher and cleaner, and that the parade route had a more uniform quality to it.

The 2nd team in-front of their painted wall

Though we felt like we had more paint on us than on the shrubbery, the scouts seemed to walk away with a sense of pride in a job well done. As a demonstration of the value of public service, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

A Tale of Five Cheeses

Once upon a time there were five cheeses that shared a very special destiny:
-Sir "Shoprite Gratted Cheese" the Spagehtti Ready.from Springfield, NJ
-Lord "Laughing Cow Processed Cheese" the Egg Sandie Perfecter from Gurue,Zambezia
-Baron "Barry Farms Cheddar Powder" the Mac N Cheeser from Wapakoinck, Ohio
-Duke "Parmalat Cheddar Flavored Cheese Slices" the Grilled Cheesiest from Nampula
-and the mysterious nameless black waxed cheese from former Alto Molocue PCV Zach

Collected through various trial and tribulations, they all found themselves on a cheese and cracker platter prepared for a very special occasion. You see, the 3 young Americans residing in Alto Molocue, Northern Mozambique were devoted to a popular TV show involving ferocious wolves, snow zombies, dragons, and incest. But while their friends and family back in Americaland could watch the show the day it came on the air, the 3 young Americans had to wait for the season premier to be available online. Once they had acquired a sacred artifact, "The Modem of Unlimited Megabitivity", they were able to download the hallowed video and prepare for its revealing.  But as they were so devoted to the show, a demonstration of adoration was deemed necessary. So the 3 young Americans gathered together an array of their most prized possessions, and hoped it would please the Lactose gods.

Our humble offering to the show that made being
in love with dragons acceptable

Finally, on a slightly chilly Sunday evening one week after the show's premier, they gathered together in front of a laptop and gazed with wonder as their imagination was turned into reality. While cheese was placed, spread, and sticked (crackers were licked then dabbed in powdered cheese) on Agua e Sal crackers, an epic story of magic, betrayal, love, and war played out before their eyes. By the time it was over (actually it was only a little after minute 14), the 5 cheeses had reached their destiny and were forever bonded by their induction to the honored "Order of the Digestive System" .

For the North!!