work and apathy: winding down 2 years

i know, i know, yet again, i haven't posted in forever. i'll give you two reasons: one, i've been somewhat busy, on and off, and two, as the time for me to go home comes closer and closer, i've been feeling more and more apathetic about things, including blog posts. but i'll give it my best shot.

so here are some things i've done since my last post:

trainings/meetings/conferences:
- stakeholders workshop. over the past several months some other health pcvs and i have helped my pc boss write and analyze a survey for health volunteers to see about the health project going in a new direction. this meeting, for all the government and ngo partners to the pc health project, was the culmination of this, presenting the results of the survey and new directions for the project. it was a stuffy embassy affair, but it was also interesting to see the process, help with developing the new project framework, and understand how unbelievably complex the whole thing is.
- training on financial management. pretty basic stuff about book-keeping and budget-management. honestly, i went more because i think it will be useful for me in my job next year than because i needed it for my current work. even tho it was basic and very intuitive, i've never actually been taught this type of thing before, so it was useful.
- COS (close of service) conference. 3 days for my pcv group (Moz 13) to talk about our service, the end of our service, re-entry and reverse culture shock, how to go about applying for jobs and grad school, and, for those 13 of us crazy enough to stay for a third year, about the logistics of going home and coming back. it was also a last time for all of us to be together (52 out of the original 57 made it through the 2 years), and pc staff were wonderful and allowed us lots of down time talk, catch up, and process everything. we were at a beautiful beach resort in northern inhambane province and it was a really relaxing time.
- JOMA transfer meeting. my loyal readers will remember that last year in july i went to a meeting where the "older" generation of pcvs passed on the burden of the JOMA project to us. this was our chance to pass it on to the next group. even though i (and the national coordinator) will be here for next year, the new group needs to take over. and they were great, we tried to give them a clear outline of what had happened in the past, the new directions we tried (not altogether successfully) to move in, and some ideas about how they could move on in the future, and they ran with it. they were making decisions by the end of the meeting that we were only making by our planning meeting in january, so i feel like we're leaving the project in good hands. and good hands or not, i know all of us are feeling pretty exhausted and ready to be done with JOMA!
- ANAMED. this was a training on natural medicine, developed by a church group, held at my friend Denys's site in Mulevala. over the course of 5 days 6 PCVs and our counterparts learned about a variety of natural treatments, how to make therapeutic oils, lotions, and tinctures, and how to build a firewood-saving stove. i had been feeling pretty stressed out before this training, with all the traveling to all those other trainings and conferences, and spending a week in rural, beautiful, peaceful mulevala, with no cell-phone service, was just the relaxing break i needed. i'm really excited about the possibility of teaching some other peer educators some of what we learned at this training, both for their use in helping patients, and possibly to be able to sell the oils and lotions to make money.

work:
- the first savings and loan group is coming along well, they now have over 2000 meticais in their "pot," (to put this in perspective, that's roughly 60USD, and about 1/4 of what i get in a month from pc), and all the members have been able to take out at least one small loan.
- another small group of peer educators also decided to start a savings and loan group. i've found explaining the concepts to them a little more difficult, probably largely because their members are older and at least 2 speak more limited portuguese, but they seem enthusiastic about it.
- the sewing training for orphans that i helped organize with a local association came to an end. they hadn't been able to include funds for a closing ceremony in their grant, and they'd been worried about that, because that type of ceremony is very important, but they produced a lot of material throughout the training, mostly baby clothes, school uniforms, and tablecloth and place-mat sets, and with those proceeds they were able to buy drinks and food for a simple closing ceremony, and i was really proud of them. they started a second training a few weeks later, so we'll see how this one goes!

other:
- i've been reading a lot. i keep a list of the books i read in my journal, and i went back and counted recently and i've read 62 books (and counting) since entering the peace corps!
- i've also been studying. i'm taking two courses online, intro psych and nutrition, and i've really been enjoying the experience of studying, and having some sort of structure in a life that is so often so un-structured.

so that's mostly how i've been filling my time. i mentioned above that i've been feeling somewhat apathetic and lackadaisical about new work stuff. even tho i'm coming back for a third year, i will be doing different work, and so i feel that as my time with these people and this job is winding up, i've accomplished pretty much all i can with them, and there's not enough time (and i don't have the energy) to start anything new. i'm still really excited about my third year, about learning and doing different things, but i am SO happy that i'm coming home in a few weeks. i'm looking forward to relaxing, catching up with friends and family, and enjoying the peace and quiet that i so value and is virtually impossible to get in this hot, crowded city (oh yeah, it's getting hot again, another thing i'm looking forward to it NOT being at home!). so, pc still hasn't given me my official ticket information, but i am supposed to arrive home november 20, and will leave january 2 or 3. i plan to be in vermont for most of this time, with probable trips to maine, boston, and connecticut, and i plan to spend new year's in nyc. so i hope this means i will be able to see all of you who are nearest and dearest to me. you know who you are. i'll be in the eastern standard time zone before you know it!:)

world cup

So my biggest most recent adventure, as promised….i went to the world cup! (that’s soccer for those of you who are super clueless). It was in south Africa, just one country away, how could I not? I bought the tickets over a year ago w/ my friend kate, and the whole idea seemed sort of distant and unreal until all of a sudden it came time to leave! In the interest of saving money, we drove the whole way. Actually scored a ride in a private car down and back with a guy from quelimane who was going to Maputo to apply for a scholarship, so we luckily avoided the bus, but it was still 24+ hours. We spent one night in Maputo and then got on a bus to south Africa. We came into the same bus station in joberg as I’d been to before, and I went through the same sense of “I’m supposed to feel unsafe here,” but everything worked out fine. A really nice lady at the information desk called us a taxi and while we waited we watched people go nuts watching the last south Africa game. The host country unfortunately didn’t qualify to move on to the next round, but they beat france, usually a powerhouse, which was really exciting, and the bus station sounded like a stadium, complete with screaming fans and those god-awful loud horns called vuvuzelas. Our taxi man came into the station to meet us, and right away we could tell he was…special. He talked a mile a minute in a really thick accent I found hard to understand. Our hostel was like 45 minutes outside the city and he talked animatedly the entire time, narrating as we went along “this is a mall…this is a school…we’re turning here….” Our hostel was called the thatchery, and he was convinced this meant the place had a thatched roof so at every semi-rustic looking building he’d slow down and say “thatched roof, this is it!” we had the hardest time convincing him that we didn’t know what the roof looked like but it was the name of the place. It was probably the most hilarious taxi ride of my life, but we finally made it to the hostel. It was freezing! I mean literally, freezing, the news said it was getting below 0 degrees Celsius at night, total shock for two girls living in the tropics, cold in quelimane means I can sleep with a sheet. But kate’s from Wisconsin, and I’m from Vermont; we sucked it up. Other than the distance from the city, the hostel was great. Friendly staff, comfortable rooms (thank god with blankets!), and a nice pub where we got dinner and watched that night’s soccer games. Kate was the perfect friend to go with, because she’s really into soccer. I could understand the basics of a game but a lot of the finer points are often lost on me and she explained it all to me without making me feel stupid.

The next day we had to go out and get our tickets. We’d been a bit worried about this, conflicting information about how much identification and proof of purchase we’d need, but it turned out to be a piece of cake! We took a taxi from our hostel to the airport cuz he was picking up other guests, and there we used a kiosk, just put in my credit card and out popped our tickets! Crisis averted. That afternoon the final games of the US group were on, US-algeria and Slovakia-england, at the same time. There were roughly equal numbers of Americans and brits at the hostel, and since the pub had two tvs both games were on at once, with the sound on the England game. It was super confusing for awhile to hear one game and watch another. And it was super tense because both teams needed to win to move on to the next round. England scored relatively early and so their fans became super boisterous , but the US kept missing shot after shot, even got one shot that was called off-sides and wasn’t (I actually know what that means!), and we were all on the edge of our seats until the US finally scored in overtime! It was so tense, but then so amazing to be in a bar full of fans, ALL of whom were happy!

The second those games got over a bunch of us piled into shuttles to go to a live game, Ghana vs. germany, at soccer city, the (I think) biggest stadium of the tournament, the one where the final game will be played. It’s gorgeous, looks like a glowing, benevolent spaceship. When we first got off the bus, quite a ways from the stadium, it seemed pretty chaotic. It reminded me of going to a state fair, cars parked in a field for miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers), and hordes of people pulling you along towards the final destination. Except here, the hordes of people look like they’re going to some kind of crazy dress-like-your-flag themed Halloween party. So we walked to the stadium, and I thought it was going to be painful chaos trying to get through lines and find our seats, but I was amazed at how smooth everything went. I probably spent no more than 10 minutes total waiting in various lines to get in. in contrast, I waited in line for probably 20 minutes to buy “spiral chips,” a potato cut in a long thin curly-cue on a stick and deep fried, yummy and different but I’m not sure worth 20 minutes and 15 rand. After snacks, and a quick trip through the over-crowded over-priced official FIFA fan store, we went to find our seats. We were way up in the top tier, but when we stepped out of the stairwell the view was spectacular, you could see the whole stadium, it was just like a shot on television but breathing in the air, it was really amazing. We were rooting for Ghana, the only African team that still had a chance of moving on to the next round, but we were surrounded by loud germans which was a little scary, but we held firm. The game was pretty good, both teams played well. It was so funny to be in a place that I’d been seeing on tv, that my mind was telling me was such a big deal, but watching a game felt just like any other sporting event I’ve ever been to, so normal. Except for those vuvuzelas. They are LOUD. And there were over 83,000 people in the stadium, the better part of them blowing them. Someone had suggested we bring earplugs and thank god we did because I think we would have left with permanent hearing damage otherwise, no joke. Germany ended up winning, so they were ecstatic and it was sad for Ghana, but then they announced that the result of the other, simultaneous game from their group meant that Ghana got to move on to the next round too and they just flipped out, they were more excited than the germans, and it was such a sweet happiness, it really touched me. Some players went flying around the field with their flag, and some Ghanaians sitting near us noticed we were rooting for Ghana and took a picture of us with their flag. It was such a high, i totally caught futbol fever. Who wants to go to rio with me in 2014???:)

After the game we hiked several kilometers out to a gas station where we were meeting the shuttle, bussed home, and crashed in our freezing beds, only to get up early the next day and head back to Maputo. One more night there and we headed back up the 24+ hour trip home. It was completely exhausting, but totally worth it. I hadn’t been paying a ton of attention to the games before I went down, I’d caught a few cuz I happened to be at someone’s house or in a restaurant but wasn’t worried about it, but I begged laras to lend me his tv for the remainder of the cup (or “Mundial” as they call it here) and ever since I’ve been a faithful fan watching every night. I was secretly glad when Ghana beat the US, because it meant they moved onto the quarter finals. It’s just right that an African team should be in it as long as possible. It’s actually really interesting, a lot of the big-wig teams have gotten knocked out, so it’s shaping up to be an interesting and unpredictable last few rounds. God, listen to me. I promise, once this is over I won’t have anything to say about sports for another 4 years…..

I’ll try to put up some pictures as soon as I can. And for anyone who wants to feel in the spirit with me, just turn on Shakira’s “Waka Waka” song, because I seem to have it permanently lodged in my head. “This time for Africa!”

the parent trip

i went to maputo to meet them, and they were about the last people off the plane. we didn't get to our hotel til after 11, we were all exhausted but hungry, so we went downstairs to a local bar to find something to eat. they told us they didn't have anything to eat cuz it was late, so we ordered drinks and bought bad potato chips from a street vendor. then we saw the waitress bringing grilled cheese sandwiches to a table next to us, and were like, wtf?, so we asked and she said, "oh, we just have sandwiches, not real food".....yeah. welcome to mozambique guys! the next day we got up and caught a chapa to namaacha to visit my host family. it was totally surreal to be sitting on a chapa with my parents. worlds colliding! and then it was totally amazing to be back in namaacha. my family was awesome as usual, because of the cell-phone problem i'd only been able to re-remind them we were coming the day before, and they were like "sure, show up with your family, no problem!" we basically just relaxed with them, had good meals, my host-mom plied my dad with beer, my real mom plied my host-sisters with questions; my family harangued a cousin or something into driving us around town so they could see the swazi border and my host-mom somehow convinced the border guards to actually let us walk past the mozambican immigration (we'd left our passports at home), all the way up to the sign that said "Welcome to Swaziland." crazy. the next day after lunch we headed back to maputo, did a little walking around the central market and got some souvenirs, and rested a bit. then went out for thai food for dinner with my old boss juliana, her mom, and her empregada/my friend luizinha. it was a strange combination of people at the table, only juliana and i spoke both english and portuguese so there was a lot of halted conversation and translation, but it was really wonderful.

the day after we headed to quelimane where we had a whirlwind tour. my parents of course wanted to see everything, and everyone i know wanted to meet them. we had exactly one meal in my house because people kept inviting us over, i've never had such a busy social calendar! we rented a car, which seemed like a bit of a luxury but also completely necessary in order to see everything. and luckily laras had vacation at the same time and was a saint and drove us around the entire time. the first full day, while laras picked up the car, we walked to town, and even tho for me it was finally cooling off it was sweltering for them coming from spring in new england and they almost melted. but we cooled off, they saw the icap office and met some of my co-workers, and after lunch we drove around so they could see the city and the variety of neighborhoods, even went to some places i'd never been! that night was our one and only meal at home, laras and i made coconut rice and fish, and my parents got to experience grating coconut and cooking on my charcoal stove, it was pretty fun. i'm having trouble remembering the exact order of our other adventures, but here's what else we did:

we ate out: one breakfast at laras's aunt's house (mandioca with coconut); one breakfast at paulo the peer educator's house (mandioca and mucapata and coconut water); dinner at a restaurant with my bestest pc friends (half-chickens all around!); lunch at laras's mom's house (matapa, mucapata, chicken); dinner with my land-lord's family (matapa, beans, 2 kinds of chicken, fish); drinks at the top of hotel chuabo, watching the sun set over the river; and dinner at my friend gina's house (matapa and zambezian chicken). we were stuffed silly the entire time.

we drove to gurue, a beautiful town in central zambezia. it was about a 6 hour drive, and we went there and back in a day. it was pretty ridiculous, i know, but i think it was worth it. mom and dad got to see a lot of scenery, and lots of different towns and places i've talked about a lot. laras really wanted to take my parents there because he'd lived there for several years, and we had a great time. we walked around the market there and bought capulanas, then drove up a long, windy, narrow, cliff-side path to the top of a hill, to a place called casa dos noivos (the newly-weds' house). the house itself was pretty run down, but you could tell it had been lovely once. and the view from the top was incredible, you could see forever. the only thing i could compare it to was a national park i visited in brazil, but this vista had the added bonus of being full of gorgeous green hills, so it felt more like home. after a picnic lunch at the top of the hill we drove all the way home again. again, ridiculous, but worth it.

another day we visited a house where they're running the sewing training i mentioned in my last post. mom and dad got measured for capulana clothes. we then went to visit paulo, one of the peer educator leaders and my counterpart for permaculture, he'd invited us over, and was so proud to show us his machamba (farm), serve us food from his land, and introduce us to his infant twins who'd i'd been given the honor of naming, and did so after my dad's parents, frank and ruth. it was really touching both to see dad with the babies and to hear paulo thank my parents for sending me to africa and for all the help i've given him. from there we drove through nicoadala, where laras lives during the week, through licuare, where he works during the week, to luala, where we picked up gina, my best mozambican friend, who teaches there. we surprised her at her house and it was so amazing to see her, we'd been out of touch for weeks between my work and hers and the cell phone problems. she gave me and my parents huge hugs, it was like she'd known them forever. we piled her and her son into the car and kidnapped them to continue on our field trip. the destination of the day was the Zambeze River, famed in song and story, and southern border of zambezia province. it's always farther than i think it is, but i think it was worth it, kind of a mile-stone, and more beautiful views. we drove back to nicoadala and a late lunch at laras's house, then went north to the Lagoa Azul ("Blue Lagoon"), a famous local beach spot i've never been to. we had to bribe a guard to get into the grounds, but we got there just in time for sunset, it was beautiful.

on a sunday my mom and i went to church, something she'd really wanted to do. i hunted down the anglican (episcopal) church in queli, not easy to find, it's off the street and still under construction. it appeared "normal," pews, ornaments on the altar, etc. the format of the service was pretty traditional, it was luckily in portuguese not chuabo so i could translate the basics for my mom, until it came time for the sermon, when a handsomely dressed lay-woman stood up and began to basically re-hash all the readings, in english and portuguese (turned out she was nigerian, but never figured out if the english was solely for our benefit or not), with a lot of fire-and-brimstone style moralizing. the sermon lasted over an hour, by which point my mom was getting antsy to leave, which i thought was kind of funny. but the service wasn't complete until we newcomers had stood up front and introduced ourselves. i hate that. but we survived. we went straight from church to the beach with some of my pcv friends. we'd forgone the prettier beach for the long trip to gurue, but my parents couldn't leave without putting their feet in the indian ocean. that's probably about all they did cuz it started raining not long after we got there, but it was pretty and we relaxed and had a nice lunch afterwards.

and that's it. i can't tell if it sounds like a lot, but it sure felt like a lot! i think just 5 full days in quelimane. i think we were all exhausted by the time it was over. at times it was a little odd to be mixing my worlds like that, but mostly i was really pleased with how easily my parents fit in with my friends and my world here. i'm having camera issues and can't get pictures off my camera right now, but my mom has posted lots of pics on facebook, so friend her and see them for yourself! or go hunt down my dad, who's the professional photographer in the family.

mom and dad, if you disagree with anything i wrote, or if you think i left anything out, feel free to write up your own account and send it to me, i'll even post it as a real post. :)

general update

omg, i don't know if i can handle this, i've been gone so long and so much has happened. but i know the longer i put it off the more daunting this task will be. so......

let's start with april, which is when i pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. towards the end of april is when the joma conference happened, so pretty much the whole month of april was spent being really really tense and stressed. it's hard to explain, cuz in some ways i would say the conference wasn't that much work, i mean, it was all pretty straight forward, the national level project and financial coordinators did all the hard work and sent us regional underlings precise lists of what we needed to do. and it wasn't anything particularly hard, most of the prep stuff was actually kind of mundane: open a bank account, pay deposits on venue and food, make a million photocopies, buy supplies, etc. and my good buddy luke was actually the conference coordinator, i was his second-in-command and the money person, but as i have learned at other trainings i've helped run i have trouble letting go and letting things happen in their own way so i was antsy and micro-managing a lot. i think the real stress was just the weight of the idea, it was "The JOMA Conference" in big bold letters, something i'd heard about and thought about for so long that it was like we had to be stressed just to make it seem like we were doing it right. sigh. and we did it. the actual conference only lasted 3 full days. most things ran pretty smoothly, and the things that didn't were pretty predictable: the trainer, who was from maputo (a city many of whose inhabitants don't realize they live in one of the poorest countries in the world) wasn't satisfied with the accommodations; the food was late more often than not; almost all of the sessions ran over schedule (i take a large part of the blame for this, we tried to pack probably 5 days worth of really heavy material into 3 days); often the other PCVs (all newbies except for me and luke) seemed a little uninterested in what was going on.....i could go on. i unfortunately can't comment much on the actual content of the sessions, i probably missed about half of them cuz i was running around organizing stuff and during most of the rest i was so stressed out i didn't absorb anything. like i said, the content was dense, and i'm sure got a little much for some people, but i think over all they were interested. they played games at night at had a blast. we got a lot of good constructive criticism but no super-negative feedback, so all-in-all i think it went about as well as could be expected. it was a good experience that i have no desire ever to repeat!

right after joma, i just crashed. literally, the day after i was running around town paying the remaining balance on the venue, food, and trainer's expensive hotels, and i almost fell asleep on my feet. i booked it home and collapsed. a day or two after, my technological world collapsed too. meaning, something happened to a major fiber-optic cable and the northern 2/3 of mozambique was without mcel (the main cell phone company), land lines, or internet, for about 2 weeks. i know, boo-hoo, i'm in the peace corps in africa without technology. actually, i'm not complaining at all. sure, it was a slight pain in the ass. but i managed to get my most vital communication done with a cell phone number from the other company (which was so flooded with new customers that it basically didn't work either, but did a few times for me when it counted most which is all that matters), and other than that i decided that this was the universe's way of telling me it was ok to chill out and relax and not work. all the work stuff i needed to do (and there was definitely stuff i needed to do after 2 weeks of thinking about nothing but joma) involved either catching up on email (no internet), finding and meeting up with people in quelimane (no cell phones, and i'm WAY to lazy to walk ALL over the city looking for people i'm probably not going to find), and communicating with joma folks in other parts of the country to work on finalizing data for that (no cell phone again).

the biggest upcoming thing that i couldn't work on was my parents' visit, but i'd managed to text a friend in maputo (where they knew nothing of our northern technological woes) to email them so they kenw why i'd dropped off the face of the digital world, and they made it here just fine without any virtual hand-holding. i'll give their trip a blog-post all their own. stay tuned.

since their trip, i've been re-figuring out, yet again, what i'm doing. one big activity i have going right now is a project that i helped a local association of people living with HIV write months ago that took forever to get approved. the association, called VAHIYA, includes several peer educators, which is how i met them. several of the members are skilled seamstresses and tailors and they wanted to run a 3-month training for OVCs (jargon for "orphans and vulnerable children," basically any child who is hiv-positive, has a parent who is hiv-positive, or has lost at least one parent) on basic sewing skills. with the grant money we were able to buy machines and sewing materials, and pay the trainers a little something for their considerable time and effort. the group has been great, i've hardly needed to oversee the activities at all. i see the association's president about once a week to see how things are going, give him money, get receipts, etc. i also try to stop in at least once a week to just sit. it's one of those funny things, sometimes it doesn't seem like a lot, people sitting quietly in a mud house and learning to sew, but to me it's so amazing that the initiative came from them, and they're doing all the work all on their own. some days recently, after lots of rain, the house where they're holding the training is almost impossible to get to, i had to have a bike drive me all the way up to the doorstep once cuz the house was completely surrounded by water, but they're always there working. i can tell some of the kids are going to come away from it with very good skills, and while others may just be able to fix their clothes at home, i think having this kind of attention paid to them is an opportunity many wouldn't have otherwise, and i'm really happy with how the project is going so far.

the small group of peer educators doing the savings and loan project is still going. i had a hard time meeting with them for several weeks because of joma, no cell phones, then my parents' visit, but they keep going, saving bit by bit, and actually gave out their first loans to 2 group members a few weeks ago! they don't always use the exact processes that i laid out, but what they're doing works for them and they all still seem happy with it, and last week they were extra happy because i was finally able to get them some materials, most notably a lockable cash box. they had gotten to the point where they'd saved enough money that they were nervous about leaving it around the house, so this was a great addition. still no other groups have latched onto the idea, but another group has proposed a much more modest and reasonable income generating project that i'm going to see if i can get funded, and regardless, i'm going to look into getting training in business skills for some of the more motivated peer educators.

so that's where i'm at in work. the only other big news in my life is that my extension has been approved and officialized so, pending disaster, i will definitely be staying for a third year of service. some days i think i'm crazy, but i am excited about it. i'll still be with icap, but i'll be doing different work. there's a grand plan within the ngo world and the ministry of health for ngo partners to slowly phase out of the country and leave their services to the government and local orgs. it's such a complicated process i can't even begin to envision how it's going to happen. i agree it needs to happen, but it will be difficult. and i will play a small part in it. icap will be one of the first ngos to start phasing out, as they were one of the first to start working here, so next year i will be helping some local organizations prepare for that switch, to receive responsibility for services icap currently provides as well as to handle the money that comes along with it. there's still a lot up in the air for me, for instance, the particular orgs haven't been identified yet, and depending on what area they work in and where in the province they work, my work could have some very different outcomes, but i'm excited about all the possibilities, excited to be moving to a different sector of icap.....we'll see what happens! but as promised, i will be home at the end of the year. i have to "c.o.s." (close of service) along with my group, so i will go through all the processes as if i were going home for good, and will leave the country november 19th, and be home through christmas. so mark your calendars and come and see me!

k, as promised, i will post a separate entry about the big family vacation asap, and, if you're lucky, i might even right about my most recent adventures. but i need to go get something to eat first. stay tuned! hugs all around! :)

a snapshot

here's where your old clothes end up...

interesting article

http://allafrica.com/stories/201004080798.html

kicking off my second year

in mid-january we had our mid-service conference, my entire training group together again. it was really cool to see some people i hadn't seen since training, tho also weird and overwhelming at times, i found myself often retreating to my little zambezia group of friends. at the conference we talked about a lot of stuff, including m&e (monitoring and evaluation, a necessary evil), savings clubs (more on that later), and the increased peace corps budget and enrollment goals and the possibility of extending for a third year of service (yes, i'm thinking about it, but don't worry, i'd be home in december no matter what). also got a cavity filled and had a doctor's appointment, no parasites or anything!

once that week was over, a smaller group of us stayed an extra few days to plan the joma and redes conferences. my loyal readers will remember way back in july i went to a meeting to plan the transfer of joma responsibilities from the old group to the new. this planning meeting was the shit from that transfer meeting hitting the fan. 7 or 8 of us sat around a table and ate greasy pizza and tried to plan out all the details of how JOMA's going to run this year. the meeting went well, but it was when it first started to hit home how much work this is going to be, planning conferences, managing money, writing new curriculum, designing and implementing stronger m&e tools...it's a lot of responsibility. the national coordinator and financial person are bearing the brunt of the headaches, but it's still a lot even for us regional underlings!

so JOMA is one of the things i've been focusing on most since i've been back at site. my main roles are in curriculum and trainer contacts. i've had to contact all the new pcvs to try to convince them to do joma, and find old and line up new technical and gender trainers. but the thing i've spent the most time on is the gender curriculum. joma has always had the purpose of working with youth (specifically boys) to promote gender equality through communications projects. but something we've decided to focus on more this year is the actual gender-related messages. in the past the conferences have been mostly about the communications areas, and only briefly touched on gender issues, and this year they're all about gender. also, the manuals the groups use only deal with their communications area. so what i did was go through a bunch of manuals that peace corps gives us, full of various activities that deal with topics such as gender, hiv, health, self-esteem, etc. from these manuals, i created lists of activities that lend themselves easily to one of the communications areas of joma (theater, music, journalism, photography, art), so that groups can use them as suggestions of activities that more directly address gender issues while still working within their chosen area. eventually i'd like to have all the activities typed out so that we can have an actual manual tailored to gender activities for JOMA, but right now it's just an organized list. on top of that, based on a conversation the joma coordinator had with a representative from usaid (who funds the joma project), i had to write up (this time actually typing out) a gender curriculum for the conferences, to be able to hand to trained gender trainers, and then cut that down into a mini version to present to the technical trainers so they're on the same page. this may not sound like a lot, but it involved going through a lot of books, in english and portuguese, and it took quite a while. i felt like i was in school again doing a research project.

on the icap side of things, i haven't actually been doing a whole lot that's noteworthy. towards the end of last year the provincial health director trained another batch of peer educators for quelimane, so there are now over 100 of them, far too many for me to keep track of or even think about doing anything that involves all of them. i still go to the cha positivos and some of their meetings. several times lately groups have asked to meet with me to discuss doing a "project," a very vaguely defined term that usually has the expectations of receiving funds. in each of these meetings, i've talked with the group about what they want to do, always income generating projects. it's a great idea in theory, but designing and implementing an effective income generating project is a lot more difficult than most of them seem to realize, frankly it's more than i'm sure i can handle, and i have yet to have a group present me with a really strong plan or show the initiative to tackle the difficult questions. i think they have a strong desire to work to earn money, but their lack of desire to deal with questions of storage, division of profits, etc. means that i don't feel comfortable moving forward on any of the ideas i've seen so far. an idea that i've presented as an alternative is that of a savings group (or VSL, village savings and loan, the more official name). we talked about it at mid-service, and i have a few fellow pcvs working on it in various ways, and i really like the idea.

basically, a group of people choose to work together. they get together every week, and they have a minimum and a maximum amount they can save. it doesn't have to be much, whatever they think they can spare, basically those small amounts that would get spent on random whatever if they held on to them, but that they wouldn't miss if they go into the savings pot. so the group saves every week, stores it in a safe place, and once their collective savings is big enough, members who want to can ask for loans from the group. because the group is self-selecting there's a higher level of trust. they pay interest on the loans, but unlike with a bank the interest stays with the group, so that at the end of the year when they divvy up the fund, they'll get more than the amount they put in. it's very basic, but because of this groups can monitor themselves. it gives them access (in a limited way) to the services a bank would offer, which poorer people often wouldn't have access to in a more traditional setting. it gives them experience managing money in a setting where they're held accountable by their peers. and it gives them the opportunity to take out loans, which they can use for income generating activities on an individual basis, thereby getting rid of the concerns of a group not managing a project well. practically everyone does some kind of informal income generation here, whether it's sewing or farming or selling bottles of juice, and on their own, within their own experience and comfort level, they might have success they might not have if they grouped together and tried to take on a much larger-scale project.

anyway, that's the basic idea, and i'm pretty sold on it, and i know of many settings in which variations of it have worked well. and as i said, i've pitched the idea to the groups who have approached me recently wanting to do income generating activities. only one group has taken me up on it so far, i think the others either weren't convinced, or couldn't come to a consensus as a group, or said they didn't have enough money even for small weekly savings. but this one group, of 6 of the newly-trained peer educators, seem to be really into it! they started saving on their own after my first pitch, and since then we've worked together to write up the group's rules, worked out simple ways to record their savings, and talked about how to run a meeting so that things go smoothly and there's transparency with the money handling. it's still relatively new, but i feel really good about it. the only really necessary input into this type of project is a lock box that uses multiple different keys, to help ensure no one member has access to it alone. i've asked for support for this from icap, it hasn't happened yet, but i'm hopeful!

what else? i moved to a new house, about a month ago, just to the next neighborhood. my old house heated up like an oven, and i wasn't crazy about my neighbors, they were loud and not very friendly, and the neighborhood was up-and-coming ritzy so i didn't really feel like i was living "with the people." the house search was way harder than i thought it would be, and i ended up in a place that isn't very "peace corps" in many ways (although i think i still get too caught up in what peace corps "should be" and not what my life actually is), but is much better for me. it's another small dependencia behind a main house, the neighbors are friends of laras's and much friendlier. the house is tiny, but homey. has unnecessary comforts like air conditioning (the landlord insisted on putting it in!) and running water. has a nice big kitchen. and it's in a neighborhood that's more "average," some houses are really nice, but there's a wide variety of economic levels. there's a school down the street so i have small children staring at me and informing me that i'm white all the time. and there are two markets very nearby where i can go to buy food. and don't worry, there are new and different (and smellier) mud holes blocking my exits in this new house, so that all-important element of my life isn't gone. i still need to buy appropriate footwear. anyway, all in all, i'm much happier in my new home.

and i'm too tired to write any more, but we're pretty much caught up on the highlights of my life. as always, i apologize profusely for not communicating more with my nearest and dearest. i've had far far less down time than i did in the old days (when i didn't write either). there are still a lot of ideas churning and future plans and possibilities, so i promise that, at least here, i'll have something to say in a month when i remember i have a blog again, or when people start harassing me, whichever comes first. i miss you all! beijos.

tanzania

hi all, is it even worth mentioning that i'm super behind on this as usual? i didn't think so.

SO, my big vacation. i went to tanzania to meet my dear brother john for two weeks after christmas. my trip started with the long bus ride to nampula (ya can't get there from here in quelimane by plane), running around there doing last minute errands (buying dollars to pay my tanzania entry visa, getting my doctor to fax me my proof of yellow fever vaccine which, interestingly, i needed to show to EXIT mozambique but not to ENTER tanzania), then flying to dar es salaam, henceforth known as dar. got to dar and my sweet brother, who had gotten there the night before, had made his way back to the airport to meet me. the taxi ride to our hotel reminded me a lot of my first ride from the airport to hotel in maputo, through the outskirts of the city, past car dealerships and industrial areas, but prettier public transport, brightly-colored "dalla dallas" (chapas) everywhere. dar is BIG - definitely bigger than maputo, so pretty overwhelming for me at first. that first day we got ourselves situated, figured out that, sadly, many restaurants don't serve beer because of the significant muslim population, and decided to head to zanzibar the next day.

getting to zanzibar is kind of crazy, the port is predictably bustling, and there are seemingly dozens of companies selling fares, and of course everyone you meet is trying to convince you to get on their boat or their friend's boat. so again, a little overwhelming, but we got a nice small, fast boat, maybe an hour and a half of a smooth ride over beautiful blue waters past spits of pristine white sand and a nice mix of commercial motor boats and traditional sail boats. our first day on zanzibar we just wandered around the main city of stone town, here being disappointed by the lack of cold drinks - apparently THE cable bringing electricity to the island had somehow been cut, so everywhere (that could it afford it) was running on generators, which were often reserved for silly things like light, and not refrigeration of beverages. and that first night happened to be new year's eve, so we were wanting cold drinks even more to get in the spirit of things, so we had a pretty lame new year's if you're judging by how late we stayed up/out. but it was still fun, that night (and every night in the city thereafter) we had dinner in this beautiful waterfront park, where tons of vendors set up stands and you can buy all varieties of meat and seafood grilled on sticks, soups, salads, falafel, pizza, and really yummy sugar cane juice with lime and ginger.

the next day we went on a spice tour, a must-do on zanzibar. a delightful little man led a group of us around the jungle pointing out plants and trees bearing pretty much every spice you've ever heard of, as well as several fruits and flowers you probably haven't. everything smelled delicious. on the tour we also saw the ruins of an old bath house built by a former sultan, had a delicious lunch of rice pilau and coconut curry, and went to a gorgeous beach.

the next day we decided to head to the "real" beach. zanzibar has several popular beach towns, and we picked one that was supposed to be a little less touristy and busy, called jambiani. we didn't have a hotel reservation, just recommendations, and the bus drivers brought us to the places they recommended, which i thought seemed like a pretty sketchy system, and probably can be, but worked out wonderfully for us because they brought us to a place that was too new to be in any guide book, only had 4 bungalows and a tiny restaurant, and was super peaceful. we spent 3 nights there, and it was the most relaxed i've been in over a year. we spent long hours sitting on the deck of our cute little bungalow reading and half sleeping and listening to the waves. we took long walks up and down the beach. we ate lunch in a different beachside restaurant every day, and delicious dinners at our hotel every night. on our last full day we went snorkeling on the reef just offshore, with a chill guy named "captain james" and his crew, and just us. they sailed us across the bay which was a dozen amazing shades of blue-green, out to the reef where we walked around, captain james kept picking up star fish and sea cucumbers and other random crazy things, and at one point he shoved a stick into a hole and killed an octopus! eventually we went back to the boat and snorkeled around little underwater coral islands, i felt like i was on the discovery channel, it's so quiet and peaceful under the water. at one point i spent several minutes waving my hands and making faces at a group of clown fish who were swimming around me curiously.

eventually we had to leave the beach, we returned to stone town for one more day, had fun wandering around windy allies, bought souvenirs from a nice masaai vendor we had met, had one last dinner in the park. the next day we headed back to hot, busy dar for one night, and the next day we got picked up to head out on a safari! this was our big splurge of the trip, john didn't want to come to africa without seeing wild animals. tanzania is home to some of the most famous game parks, like serengetti and ngorogoro crater, and they're supposed to be spectacular, but because they're spectacular and famous they're also supposed to be pretty much always crawling with tourists and tours and i couldn't wrap my mind around seeing wonders of "nature" surrounded by cars. so we arranged to go to some of the southern, more off-the-beaten-track parks. the first day we drove to the udzungwa mountains. on the way we drove through mikumi national park - the highway goes right through it - and there we saw our first big animals, elephants, some zebra, a lion guarding an elephant that had been hit by a car. i'm used to spotting deer, skunks, and turkeys from the car, but it's pretty wild to think about elephants along the highway not being noteworthy! the place we stayed the first night was a lovely little camp, called "hondo-hondo" (the swahili name for the hornbill, which were flying all around), on the side of a hill right at the edge of the national park. we were the only guests there, we stayed in a little "banda" (hut/bungalow), ate outside, and at night sat by a campfire and tried to communicate with the camp staff, who didn't speak any english, about the elephants ("tembo") we could hear trumpeting and rustling in the trees down the road! it was super peaceful, and wonderfully cool.

the next day we took a long drive to ruaha national park. we felt like we were in the park long before we actually reached the gate, because it was so isolated. and once in the park it was still another 15 minutes drive to the camp. the park was beautiful, rolling green hills, and awesome, quirky baobab trees everywhere. it was dusk as we were getting there, and as we drove in we saw some elephants right by the car, and some giraffes on the top of a nearby hill lovely-ly silhouetted against the darkening sky. it's hard to explain the sense of wonder at seeing large animals in the wild that are almost mythical to me, in the sense that i always thought of them as far away and not part of my world. john said he felt like he was in jurassic park in the scene where they first see the dinosaurs, and i think that really captures the feeling. consequently, i had the theme song from jurassic park rolling around in my head for the remainder of the trip! at this camp we slept in a round tin banda, the camp was quiet, right along a river, and guarded by an armed guard which made me a bit nervous to go outside to pee at night!

the next morning we left early for a game drive around the park. the game drive is the focal point of a safari, up until now we'd really just been driving to destinations. we drove around for about 5 hours in this beautiful park. it was kind of hazy and misty, which made it hard to take good pictures, but gave it a sort of mystical, surreal feeling. we could go for long stretches without seeing animals, but we saw tons: elephants, giraffe, zebra, lions (including one with a freshly dead zebra), impala, gazelle, hippos, baboons, storks, ibis (and i'm sure other birds whose names i'm forgetting), water buck, giant lizard, warthog, dik-dik (tiny deer) and some fast little rodent that looks sort of like a ground hog but apparently is a close cousin of the elephant. this was all pretty incredible, but the best thing for me was that we only passed 1 other car the whole morning, no other humans in site until we got back near the camp for lunch. in the afternoon we went on a "walking safari," just me, john and an armed guard. we walked for about an hour and half along the river, it was unbelievably peaceful. we saw alligators, hippos, baboons, and giraffes.

the next day we drove back to mikumi. once we had settled in there, at a campsite at the base of a huge baobab tree, we set out for an evening game drive. we saw some lions pretty near our camp (unsettling!), and were headed to another part of the park when our car got stuck in the mud at the bottom of a dip! not a big deal, we missed the game drive, but kind of enjoyed just sitting there letting the world go on around us. it started to pour, making it more impossible for the car to get out, and sometime after nightfall a park car came to get us, and we had to take a long route back to our camp in the back of a pickup truck, in the pouring rain. john said it was his favorite part of the trip! we got dry and warmed up and had dinner and went to bed early. the next morning we had one last game drive. we avoided the mud this time. mikumi is pretty, tho not as pretty as ruaha for me, it was a flat open plain, and in the morning covered in mist. it was pretty cool to see long graceful giraffe necks appear out of the mist, and we saw tons of them that morning. saw elephants, hippo, crocs, impala again. and water buffalo, and some new birds, and on the way out of the park, one lonely wildebeest. then we had our long drive back to dar.

we spent one last day in dar before leaving. we finally knew our way around the area of our hotel, so we just wandered around, looking for craft shops and places to buy gifts, tried some new restaurants, and went back to some old ones. it was a good last day, tho i, at least, was tired and ready to go home by that point. of course my going home was dragged out by having to spend another night in nampula then a long bus-ride home and i was thoroughly exhausted by the time i got here. it was a really great trip tho. i definitely recommend tanzania, it has great food, beautiful sights, and very friendly people. if you want ok pictures of all these wonders, mine are already up on webshots. if you want professional quality, contact my brother.