the heat is making my skin melt off

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So I originally put this paragraph last, but I figured I should put it first, because I don’t think it would ever be safe to assume that anyone who began reading a blog entry of mine would actually make it to the end. I want to say that after 10 weeks in the ‘Bique, I still know nothing at all about Africa, and next to nothing about Mozambique. The things that I have seen and noticed, are just that, things that I have seen and noticed. This blog is not meant to be a description of what it is like on the continent of Africa, or even the country of Mozambique. In fact, I believe that everything I have seen so far is probably more a reflection of living in a poor rural community rather than of living in Africa. There are not many things that I have seen here that I have not seen in the states, not many things that I have seen that I could say with confidence that are specifically African. I try to keep this in mind when I write my blog entries, so I would hope that any readers that exist out there would keep that in mind when reading my blog entries.



OK, so the most important news I have to report is as follows: 5 weeks ago my language level was intermediate low, which means that I was able to form sentences with similar grace and eloquence as that of a 4 year old. This level of language is the minimum level one can achieve and still be allowed to leave training and move on to site so I felt that I would have a good chance at moving on as long as I didn’t become stupider over the 5 weeks following my “midterm”. You all will be happy to know, that the level I obtained last week, from our final language test, is intermediate high, which means that I know have the capacity to speak like a 6 year old, which actually is definitely a stretch now that I think about it, because my 6 year old host sister would sometimes walk away from me with boredom while I attempted for 10 minutes trying to ask her how her day was going. I was pretty pleased with this outcome, as one of the main reasons I joined Peace Corps was so that I could cease being an intermediate low human being, and become an intermediate high human being. I feel like if I can just make a few other things about myself intermediate high, I will be well on my way to achieving that goal.
Life has been a bit of a whirlwind that last couple weeks. We were told where we were going to be living for the next two years, along with the organization that we would be working with, we took that language test, presented a practicum to a group of members within our community, went through the swearing in process, said our goodbyes to most of the other 64 remaining trainees, were flown to our sites, and some of us in the Zambezia group (myself included) will be delivered to our new homes within the next 2 hours. Maybe some elaboration for a couple of these events would help explain a couple things.
First, I would like to mention the practicum. All the health volunteers was supposed to go out into our communities, find a group of people that we would like to work with, and then do an activity with them that would address a certain health concept that we have gone over during the past 10 weeks. I chose to do a game that helped explain how AIDS attacked the human body, and I decided to do it with the group of soccer players I have been playing with almost everyday during training. After talking for a couple minutes about some basic facts regarding AIDS, we started by having 6 offensive players playing against 6 defenders, and I let them play for about 3 minutes. I hoped that there would be no goals scored, or at least a minimal amount, and luckily there were none. I called them over and asked that if the goal represented the human body and the defenders were protecting it, then what would the defenders represent? The immune system, offfff course. Then I asked, if the goal was the human body, and the defenders were the immune system, then what were the attackers representing? The answer was diseases such as TB, cholera, diarrhea, etc. I had each attacker wear a sign of a different disease, and of course the most coveted sign was the diarrhea one. I then had 4 of the 6 defenders sit down, and had them play again for another 3 minutes. Of course, this time, the attackers scored about 720 goals within the allotted amount of time. After this I brought them back over and asked, if I took away most of the immune system, what did I represent? I am AIDS. The point was to show that AIDS does not kill people, it allows other small time diseases to kill people. Even though I forgot how to speak Portuguese at the beginning of the activity, all the players humored me and the activity went fairly well. I believe that the main indicator of its success was that for the rest of the week, the player who had worn the diarrhea sign was called “diarrhea” by the other players whenever they saw him around town.
Swearing was a wonderful experience, for several reasons. After we took the official oath to honor and protect the constitution, to stay strong against the evils of communism and what not, one representative from the health group and one representative from the education group made a speech (in Portuguese of course) to the other trainees, the Mozambican Peace Corps staff, the minister of education, some media, directors of our organizations and schools, and to a surprise special guest, the former world wide director of Peace Corps, Gaddi Vasquez. The representative for the health group was a girl who has been a good friend of mine for more than just training, as I knew her from going through the rigors of James Madison College with her over the past 4 years. She did an unbelievable job reading the speech, and in turn representing our health group, herself, but more importantly, JAMES MADISON!! As if getting to your own house and starting your own job was not motivation enough to get through training, there were stacks and stacks of fantastic edibles for us to eat at the reception afterward. I will admit, I went a little overboard, I think I ate a bit too much. I get so excited whenever I get free food at this point, because I know that within 3 weeks I will probably die of starvation at my new home, since my cooking skills leave a little to be desired, and unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, it will take a little more than me merely walking out my backdoor and grabbing the first antelope that runs by. I have pasta planned for the first week. Maybe two.
Which brings me to today and now, as I am getting ready to arrive at what will be my community and house for the next two years. I have been staying in the capitol city of Zambezia for the past 3 nights, living the life, and by that I mean a life with air conditioning. Peace Corps did this to us when we first arrived in Mozambique as well. We stayed in this awesome hotel for 4 nights with flushing toilets, showers, and food prepared for us, and then we went to our homestays where things were slightly different. The transition was actually quite pleasant at that point, so hopefully the same will be true today. I have been hearing that the area of Mozambique that I will be living in is actually one of the hottest areas in the whole country, so maybe if I don’t die of starvation, I will die of dehydration. I bought two fans yesterday just to delay that process though. Which means my town has electricity! Anyway, I will be working for an organization called ICAP, which is funded by Columbia University. The International Center for ADIS care and treatment Programs. It sounds like I will be working on an extremely small scale, focusing on how to improve adherence to HIV/AIDS medication plans within my community. It sounds like I will be able to show a bit of creativity when deciding how to do this, so it should be fun figuring out how to use soccer in this way as well. My community is very close to the capitol, so that will be good for shopping, there are a lot of pineapples here, and I am not far away from a couple beaches, so life could be worse.
That is all for now, no chance to upload pictures this time, sorry. Again, thank you to all of you who have been showing me support. I see the coaching search for Michigan continues. Is Vince Lombardi available? Ate proximo…(Until next)

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