In-Service Training

Hi everyone!  Hope you’re all doing well and had a good spring break!  Brian and I are busy, but doing well also.  We spent the last week up in the city of Nampula at our in-service training event with most of the volunteers that started at the same time as us here in Mozambique.  Getting there was a little challenging.  We took a chapa to Beira, spent the night there and got up the next morning to catch our flight.  Unfortunately the airline had overbooked the plane and ended up telling three members of our group that either they would have to get off the plane, or all of our baggage would get left behind.  They stood their ground and we just spent the next 12 hours without luggage!  Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, except that Brian was saving up for a nice hot shower at the hotel in Nampula so not only had he skipped his shower that morning, but was wearing nasty sweaty clothes from the day before.  It was a stinky day for all involved. Even stinkier than usual, if you can believe that.

IST was really a lot of fun.  We had meetings all day and actually got a lot of great info, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that getting to see our friends there and enjoying the fabulous amenities at the hotel weren’t major highlights.  We channeled a little Josh Bryan and played the question game, asking everyone if they could take one thing back to site, would it be the shower with hot running water, the bed, or the air conditioning.  Though there were a few that would go for the bed or the ac, the vast majority said the shower.  I think the hotel will likely get their highest water bill of the year for the week that all of us were there given that nearly every volunteer took at least two showers per day, minimum.  Heaven!  Not to mention the food there was also incredible!  Brian and I have a new found love for Indian food.  We also ate some great Mozambican food.  I think he averaged about 14 chamussas per day, and that’s only because he was restraining himself.

After the training, several volunteers from the central region (4 out of 7 of us were Oregonians!  Woo hoo!) headed to this really beautiful little beach place outside of Beira for one night.  We swam in the water, laid on the beach, stayed in these cute little huts, and ate fresh seafood for dinner.  Not quite as luxurious as our hotel, but so beautiful and relaxing.  To get there you have to take a little boat across the bay from one beach to the other.  Unfortunately the tide was out the morning that we were trying to leave and being that transportation can be rather challenging here, we couldn’t wait for it to come back in for fear of not making it back to site before dark.  So, we rolled up our pants, and waded across the bay carrying all of our luggage from the past week.  When we finally made it to the other side, sweating and cursing, all we wanted was a nice, cold bottle of water from the little store there.  Sadly though, the store sold nothing but semi-chilled pop and cookies.  So we dined that morning on coldish Coke and Maria crackers.  Breakfast of champions!  P.s. speaking of breakfast of champions…Thika had a lovely breakfast of egg, tuna, oatmeal cookie and powdered sugar yesterday….

So, living here has provided us with a lot of wonderful experiences, but we’ve decided that the life of a volunteer, at least initially, is basically like living in a constant state of confusion.  We almost never know what’s happening.  It’s like we never ever get the memo!  Sometimes because there’s actually a memo at school that we don’t get, but usually its cause we’re just not clued in.  Even the simplest things, like going to church, can turn into an adventure.  Just this last Sunday we went to church and even showed up early to make sure we would be there for the mass in Portuguese only to end up piled into a car with about 20 church members headed to the other end of town for a Palm Sunday march through town.  We waved our little palm branches (Brian’s was really just a stick) for about two kilometers through town.   Guess I should start wearing sunscreen to church just in case!

School is going well, though it’s been pretty challenging for me.  Correcting compositions and tests for over 350 students is a lot of work!  And managing classes with up to 90 students can be incredibly draining, particularly at 9pm when my brain has pretty much turned to mush.  One of Brian’s biggest challenges is that he only sees his students for two hours per week, and it’s basically impossible to get in all the required material during that time, let alone have time for practice and discussion.  However, probably our most frustrating challenge has definitely been giving tests.  Cheating is quite common and often tolerated, so many students don’t think we’re serious when we threaten to give a 0 for cheating.  We’re definitely serious and it has led to some very unpleasant exchanges.  They also don’t appreciate the difficulty of the tests.  I think one of my students summed it up best when he wrote a note at the end of my first test that simply said, “My God, Teacher.”

Well, we’re off to spend Easter with friends, but we’ll be thinking of all of you and hoping that you’re well.  Miss and love you guys lots!

This is our friend Dov with a crab that he caught on the beach.  Much more difficult than you would think! (Dov’s Blog: http://mozfantasticvoyage.blogspot.com/)

This is a close up of Dov’s crab.  Dov said it perfectly when he described the little guy as “Disney cute”.

This is a photo of a cat we met named Jackson.  Some might say he bears a striking resemblance to a much chubbier American cat that we all know and love.  Oreo’s thinner African cousin perhaps?

Muscle posing on the beach!

Our friends Kendra, Sam, Esther, and Tim hanging out in the hotel  in Nampula.

The famous “traveling panda” Esther. Her Blog: The Traveling Panda

This is the place we stayed at outside of Beira.  You can see one of the little huts where we slept.