It’s been a long time since I last posted. A rundown of what’s been going on:
National Science Fair: In mid-September I traveled with a representative from the Cabo Delgado Provincial Ministry of Science and Technology, a teacher from Pemba, and two students to Chimoio (in Manica Province, two travel days equaling a total of 22+ hours) to represent our province at the National Science Fair. A very long trip, but a good opportunity for students to get to know and share ideas with fellow students from around the country. Our girl took home “Best Health Related Project” and our boy took 2nd place overall for 11th and 12th graders. A three-day delay on the return trip gave us some time to hang out in the city and enjoy hot showers!
Ilha de Moçambique: Mozambique Island (google it) is
a tiny island that was once a major trading port for the Portuguese. Today, the
old stone Portuguese buildings are crumbling. Mozambicans have moved into the
ruins of the old city. Wandering the island kind of feels like exploring something
that should be a roped off historical space (a la the ancient parts of Rome, or
something) but instead is filled in with random African people. Beautiful
architecture and turquoise water all-around. I was there in early-October
(along with about 30 other PCV’s) and had a fun time seeing friends, exploring
the island, and dhow-sailing to a beautiful mainland beach nearby.
School’s Over: School
ended. More like it kind of trickled out though. The entire third trimester was
pretty much shot by weekly holidays. By late-September, no one was really around
school anymore… We banged out our final exams in mid-October and I had my
grades turned in a week later. Getting done feels good. Looking forward to the
break, but also looking forward to doing things better next year; you learn a
lot in one year teaching out here. A bit sad to say ‘goodbye’ to some of the
graduating 12th graders. While many students undeservingly graduate,
every ‘turma’ has a handful of kids who are always present, try hard, and are
motivated to do things with their lives. Unfortunately, by basically handing
out passing scores (we have illiterate kids in our classes who will probably
graduate), the education system has totally undermined the value of a diploma.
Many of our deserving 12th grade graduates will move back to their
hometowns around the province and subsistence farm for the years to come.
National Exams: 10th and 12th
graders are required to pass national exams in order to receive their
respective diplomas. We spent the last week proctoring these tests. Given the
regular absence of teachers at school, most students have never even seen some
of the material on these exams. I tried to give a physics review a few weeks
back. A few kids showed up, but we got so hung-up on discussing basic
relationships between velocity, distance, and time that we never go into a lot
of important material. The exams are advanced, even by American high school
standards. Last year the passing rate at our school put us at 172nd
out of 176 public secondary schools in the country… ouch.
Exploring Cabo Delgado: The week between turning in
grades and starting national exams gave me some time to explore a bit more of
my province. I traveled west out to the mining outpost city of Montepuez to
meet up with my three Peace Corps friends, Lona, Mireya, and Chris. The
following day we packed into an open-back for the 220+ kilometer, 7-hour ride
up the dirt backroad to Mueda. Apparently there are elephants and some other
big animals inhabiting the area. We only saw some monkeys but the idea of
seeing some big-game outside of a zoned-off reserve was kind of exciting (side
note: Eric ate a plate of elephant in our town’s market last week). Mueda is a
historical town (beginnings of the independence revolution) sitting on the edge
of the Mueda Plateau. There is a wide-body-able runway right in the middle of
town that terminates at the edge of the plateau. We wandered down the runway
and enjoyed sunset from the edge while chowing down on some papayas. A few
Tanzanian meals and some broken Makonde-speaking later and we hopped in another
open-back headed northeast to Moçimboa da Praia. Moçimboa da Praia (da Praia =
of the beach) is a beach town (!) not far south from the Tanzanian border. A
lot of people spoke Swahili (Tanzanian language) and/or Mwani (coast language
of northern Mozambique) but many spoke little or no Portuguese; most difficult
communication I have had anywhere in Mozambique (aside from maybe my
neighborhood…).The farthest-north PCV lives there. We crashed in her sweltering
house at night, but mainly wandered around eating seafood for the days that we
were there. The beach is an awesome clusterfuck of fish sales in the evening
time. We bought a huge fish, shrimp, crab, stingray (yum!), and squid and found
a smiling old lady who was happy to cook it all for a small fee. The
terrifyingly fast Nagi Bus shot us out of Moçimboa and down the crumbling dirt
road to Pemba in about eight hours. Halloween Party in Pemba (I was Donatello
from the Ninja Turtles!) and then finally home to start proctoring national
exams.
Cow the Hunter: A neighborhood boy has been
wandering out into the bush with our dog every day to hunt for bush meat. Apparently
Cow’s occasional chicken killing and goat chasing has earned him a reputation
as a quality hunter (I take credit for keeping him in shape with morning runs).
He regularly tracks down and catches “ratazana,” some sort of large rodent, bush
rat, prairie dog type thing. Yesterday, the hunter boy brought us the hind legs
of said animal as a token of appreciation for our dog’s help. Ratazana legs
fried in garlic and piri-piri are actually pretty good; we left most of the
meat for Cow. The best news is that the hunting tires Cow out enough to keep
him from attacking chickens or from messing too much with our…
New Cat: If I didn’t mention it before,
grass-roofed houses tend to have rat problems. Over the course of the year, we
have knifed, book-smashed, drowned, broom-whipped, and standard rat-trapped, to
our estimates, 40+ rats (at least). In the process of doing major house
cleaning today and yesterday we have found rat-chewed suitcases, glue sticks (yes,
they eat glue), Neosporin tubes, Goldbond bottles, and god-knows what else. Not
to mention their chewing through countless tupperwares and plastic bags to eat
our bread, peanuts, tomato paste, chili powder, etc. We finally starved-out and
murdered the majority of the population, but, out of fear for next year’s
harvest season, procured a new feline friend to take care of any rat business.
Boi (meaning bull or cow in Portuguese) is still a little kitten but is already
learning to climb up into the high reaches of the house and pounce on lizards:
he will be ready for next year’s rat season.
Pigs: We finally got pigs for our pig
house in September. Pongo the boy (like from 101 Dalmations!) and Manja the
girl. They are small. We feed them smashed corn husks and papaya peels. They
will grow. Then we will eat them.
House Maintenance: We built a roof for our oven
(mud-ovens melt in the rain; it has not rained here since June). We are
bringing up three new papaya trees (they grow fast; maybe fruit next year!). I
spent several hours yesterday morning climbing in the rafters around our
ceiling and up on top of our roof to mend the countless rat holes in the thin
plastic under the grass of our roof. In the process I uncovered a few old rat
nests filled with shredded bits of our water-proofing plastic… ! Today we took
everything off of our shelves and swept out the rat mess lying behind piles of
our books. No school = lots of house maintenance time.
Thanksgiving Prep: We are having a big Thanksgiving
party here. Already found someone to buy two large live turkeys from. We will
be firing up the mud-oven and roasting both birds (along with some pumpkin
pies) for about 15-20 guests. Should be fun.
Travel Prep: I’ll be taking off a few days
after Thanksgiving for what makes to be an epic trip. Chiure down to Nampula.
Nampula into the frontier Niassa Province via train. Several days on the
undeveloped Mozambican side of Lake Niassa (Africa’s third largest lake). Overnight
ferry crossing into Malawi. Lakeside exploration in Malawi. Overlanding through
Malawi and Zambia to Victoria Falls where I’ll say ‘bye bye’ to my traveling
companion Joanna and say hello to my American family! Will be safari-ing with
the family in the area then flying down to Maputo to show them a bit of
southern Mozambique. After they fly out, I’ll be stopping through Namaacha to
say hi to my training host family and then will hopefully find a pretty
southern beach to party on for New Year’s before eventually flying up to Pemba
to getting ready for my second (and probably final) year as a teacher here.
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Anyway,
life is going well here. Have been enjoying the free time to take care of the
house and do some traveling. The town is emptying of students, leaving our yard
quiet and primed for contemplating the coming year. It took a while, but I
finally feel like we got a good handle on living well out here and what to
expect/prepare for next year. The next couple of weeks will hopefully see rain (draught
emergency here; people dig huge holes
at night just to be able to scrape out some muddy water from the bottom
first-thing the next morning) and some relaxing days reflecting on the year and
prepping for Thanksgiving and the coming travels. Oh yeah, and it’s mango
season! They grow on trees! In mass quantities!
