Christmas

Lisa and I have just returned from our first trip outside of our home in Zobue since we arrived. We left our humble abode at about 7 in the morning on December 22^nd, heading to Catandica, which is where two other volunteers (Mary Zylich and Joanna Farley) live. The trip was fun, but definitely different from the sort of travel that we had become accustomed to in the states. For starters, we don't have a vehicle of our own, so we need to hitch a ride on either a private vehicle or a chapa, which is the cramped-smelly-uncomfortable approximation of public transportation. We decided that we could try to save some money and perhaps ride in a vehicle with seat belts, so we headed to the border with Malawi in order to see if we could catch some early-morning traveling tourists with tons of room in their car. After about an hour of waiting, we had nothing to show for it but a pleasant conversation with a South African woman, who explained that they didn't have enough seats for her family, much less two sweaty Americans with hiking backpacks that easily outweighed several neighborhood children. We admitted defeat and tried to get on the closest chapa and head into Tete City, about two hours away. Unfortunately, our driver thought that the best way to pack the chapa full of people was to circle Zobue, honking and attempting to run down women and children. He seemed surprised when, after half an hour of harassing pedestrians, we decided to get off and look for another ride. In fact, he was so determined to not let us off (we were, after all, two of the precious few people on his chapa), that he refused to stop and let us off until a local man informed him that holding two Americans hostage in a vehicle is not a good way to welcome them to Mozambique. So we were back on the road, two hours after we first got to it, still looking for a ride to a city that is only two hours away. We were still looking at a 5-6 hour ride to Catandica after we got to Tete. Needless to say, we were a little annoyed. So when a local drunk man walked up to us on the street and started making it clear that he was out of his mind, Lisa assertively told him that he needed to get lost. The conversation went a little like this:

Mayor of Crazyville (in English): Zimbabwe, FRELIMO, dollars, Swahili, RENAMO, Obama?

Me and Lisa (also in English): Um... what?

MC: Two smokes? No smoking. Obama, Tanzania.

Us: You aren't making any sense. (Then, in Portuguese) How are you?

MC (still in English): No, no. FRELIMO. (Bends down and pats my calfs). No smoking.

Us (reverting back to English in confusion): Sorry, dude. You are not making any sense.

MC (stepping to within six inches of me and shaping his fingers to look like a gun): Yeah, yeah... Obama. (placing his finger-gun on my chest and pushing me)

Lisa (in Portuguese, because whatever this man speaks, it clearly isn't English): You need to leave.

After that, this dude just sort of wanders off, still looking at us and making weird sounds. For some semblance of clarity, FRELIMO and RENAMO are the two leading political parties here in Mozambique. It all makes sense now, right?

Anyway, less than five minutes later, we managed to flag down a chapa going to Tete, which stopped every 5 minutes to pick up someone new. We finally arrived in Tete around 11:30, and met up with another volunteer named Amanda Moore. She has been in Mozambique for a year already, so she knew better than we did what we should do in order to get down to our final destination. She was heading down towards Chimoio, which is only 2 hours or so south of Catandica. We started walking towards the road that heads out of Tete, trying to hitch a ride the whole way. Finally, at about 1pm, a trucker named Allen tells us that he is heading to Chimoio, and he would be happy to drop us off there for 200 Meticais (about 7 or 8 US Dollars) per person. Since a chapa would be about 350Mt, and would undoubtedly be less comfortable than this trucker's bed (the only location open for sitting), we happily agreed, excited to arrive at our final destination. Allen told us that it should only take about 3.5 hours to Catandica, but he needed to get a paper stamped to show to the traffic police to let them know that he was delivering legal goods in his truck. How long could it take, right? Finally, at 2:50 pm (that's almost another 2 hours of waiting, for those keeping score at home), Allen was able to get his paper stamped. Apparently, the stamper went to lunch, which is a serious affair in Mozambique. The ride was nice, as we only had to share the twin-sized trucker bed with four Mozambicans and Amanda. We arrived in Catandica at about 6:30, and we were in Joanna and Mary's house at 7, thus bringing a twelve hour day of travel to a close. Mind you, we only we only actually traveled for about 6 hours, with the rest being spent trying to get a ride or waiting for a Mozambican to finish his lunch. Can't complain, though. Lisa and I did travel about 265 miles (425 kilometers) for about $10 each. Definitely cheaper than Greyhound, but definitely took a whole lot longer.

We spent the next 6 nights and 5 days with our fellow volunteers playing games, making food, going for walks, and just generally hanging out. It was good for us to relax with peers and speak English for a while, especially after the accident. We were planning on returning to our house on December 27^th, but we learned that the Peace Corps was going to hold a memorial service for the girls who passed away. Therefore, we left Catandica for Chimoio on the 27^th, rather than our house. We spent the next two days remembering Lena and Alden for the great people they were.

This morning, December 30^th, we got up at 3:45 am to catch the 5 am bus from Chimoio to Tete City. We made it all the way to Tete by about 10 am, which is pretty darn fast travel for Mozambique. We stopped for some falafel for lunch, then we hopped a chapa back to Zobue. We were back in our house by 2:30 pm. It feels so good to be home.

Tragic Loss

We have been informed that there has been a tragic accident in the Gaza province of southern Mozambique. Two volunteers, Lena Jenison (Moz 17) and Alden Landis (Moz 17), have passed away, and three others, Mark Goldfarb (Moz 15), Mary Lager (Moz 17), and Derek Roberts (Moz 17) have been severely injured. I don't know anything more that I can share about the accident at this point. Our hearts go out to the families of all of the volunteers effected. 

Happy December!

I know I haven’t written a post since before training really began, partially because I was very busy with training and partially because I saw that Lisa was doing such a good job of chronicling our adventures.  However, training is over now, so I really want to get back to writing posts on a semi-regular basis. 

Before I begin talking about our new site, I feel I should give a quick overview of training.  Training was… helpful.  When we first arrived in the town where we were to train, everything was so strange and new.  We didn’t know the language, the layout of the town, our host families, or even our fellow Peace Corps Trainees.  I remember feeling like I would never really understand what was going on in Mozambique.  The language lessons were exhausting.  One day per week, we had what were called HUB days.  These were days when we would all come together to have lessons about health, safety, culture, and administrative issues.  Initially, these lessons were all given in English, so I looked forward to them being a haven from all of the Portuguese that I was hearing.  As the weeks went on, I began to understand more and more Portuguese and the HUB days became more and more like long meetings.  At the end of our fifth week of training, we left to visit the sites of volunteers that were currently serving.  All fifty-one of us went to different sites in groups of two or three, which gave us at least one English-speaking companion as we traveled around the country.  I visited a town called Alto Molokue in the northern part of Zambezia province with another trainee named Maxx.  In my opinion, site visits were the most useful part of training.  I finally got to see an approximation of what life would be like as a Peace Corps volunteer.  I got to see the conditions at the schools in a real Mozambican town, cook meals for myself (trust me, I was really dying to be in control of my diet), and to see what it was like to be the only white person in town.  There were so many trainees in Namaacha that we didn’t get to receive the customary stares that come with being the only white person.  When we got back from site visit, we jumped into full days of meetings on safety, teaching, etc.  Lisa and I both received a language proficiency level of “intermediate medium” after our first five weeks of language training, so we were considered strong enough in the language to not need extra language lessons.  In our eighth and ninth weeks of training, we participated in what is called “Model School” in which we taught lessons in a setting meant to stimulate our teaching conditions at our sites.  At this point, we all knew where we would be going for the next two years, so it was sometimes difficult to concentrate because we just wanted to GO!  However, we did persevere, and on week ten, we were sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers!  The ceremony itself took place at the American Ambassadors house, which was extremely nice, even by American standards.  There was a pool and even an indoor fountain!  Needless to say, it blew my mind, especially comparing it to our accommodations during training.  Unfortunately, Lisa was feeling ill, so she rested on the couch inside for most of the event.  Afterwards, we got to stay in a hotel with running water and electricity (!) which almost made it feel like we were back in America.  The next day, everyone going to the central region of Mozambique (there are 11 of us) got up early to catch a flight to Chimoio, a city in the middle of the country.  We spent the next few days at our “Supervisors Conference” where we all met a staff member of supervisor of the school that we would actually be teaching for.  When we arrived at the hotel where the conference was taking place, we were given an assignment: the following morning, we needed to put together some kind of performance to sum up our training to our supervisors.  We chose to write a song and it went so well, I’ll try to remember the lyrics for your enjoyment:

The Ten Weeks of Training (to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas):

Na formacao, appredemos                 …  como falar Portuguese!

Na proxima semana, apprendemos … tomar banho!

                        “                                  … cozinhar arroz

                        “                                  …matar galinhas

                        “                                  …passaer um pouco

                        “                                  …engomar a roupa

                        “                                  …limpar a casa

                        “                                  …lavar a roupa

                        “                                  …pilar e ralar

                        “                                  ... apanhar a chapa

Na ultima semana, aprendemos       …ensinar alunos

Roughly translated, the lyrics mean:

In training, we learned           ...  How to speak Portuguese!

In the next week, we learned… How to take a bath

                        “                      … How to cook rice

                        “                      … How to kill chickens

                        “                      …Walk around a little

                        “                      … Iron the clothes

                        “                      … Clean the house

                        “                      … Wash the clothes

                        “                      … Grind (peanuts) and grate (coconut)

                        “                      … Catch a chapa (mode of transport)

In the last week, we learned… How to teach students

While the song isn’t entirely accurate (Lisa and I never learned how to kill a chicken, but others did), it gives some idea of what was going on in Namaacha.  The rest of the conference consisted of meetings held entirely in Portuguese, mostly for the benefit of our supervisors.  We already knew almost all of the information, so we more or less sat through it and tried to comprehend what was being said.  Finally, on a Monday morning, we got up early to load all of our stuff into a chapa (minivan) to move to our permanent site.  We dripped off another volunteer, Bitsy, about a third of the way to our site.  Her house wasn’t ready yet (her school wanted to fix it up for her), so there was some confusion while we figured out where to drop her off.  Finally, we succeeded in getting her where she needed to go, and we were off again towards our site.  The drive was long, and after leaving at 6AM, we arrived in Zobue (our new home) at around 2:30PM.  Thus, we completed our training and stepped into our new life in Zobue. 

                       

We Have Arrived!

We have officially started our Peace Corps training! Before we left for Mozambique, we met in Philadelphia to discuss our expectations of the Peace Corps, and their expectations for us. It was a fun session, but the best part was being able to meet all of the other volunteers that are going to be training with us. Everyone has great stories, and they're super friendly. We even went out to dinner for our last night in the States with a small group; it was a blast.

After our last supper, we had to get up at 2 am to catch a bus to JFK airport in NYC. We didn't get back from dinner until about 10:30, so I decided to just stay up and try to sleep on the plane. The result of this decision was uncomfortable. I did get to sleep a little on the bus, but not more than an hour. We arrived at JFK at 5:30, two hours before we could even check in. I thought it would be best if I could stay awake until our plane left at 11:15.

Our flight boarded and left without incident. Our trip was estimated at 15 hours and 20 minutes, so we were all planning on sleeping as much as possible. Unfortunately, I was too excited to sleep, so instead I watched X-Men: First Class, Super 8, The Simpsons, Lie to Me, Black Swan, Rio, and Kung Fu Panda. I watched something like 12 hours of media during the flight. I spent the rest of the time talking to other volunteers, and taking a nap that lasted about 30 minutes. When our flight landed in Johannesburg after 14.5 hours in the air, I had been awake for about 45 hours with no more than 2 hours of sleep to keep me awake. I made it to the next plane ride, but as soon as we took off, I was fast asleep. Unfortunately, that plane ride was only an hour long, so I still did not have nearly enough sleep.

Our arrival in Maputo, Mozambique was very exciting. We got to see the landscape from the plane, which showed sparsely populated areas, large rivers, and the heavily-populated Maputo. We were immediately reminded that our belongings were no longer safe when some volunteers' bags arrived without all of their items. Some people had to check their carry on luggage because our plane was too small. When the bags were returned at the baggage claim area, two volunteers had had jewelery stolen, and one had all of his money stolen. I think it shocked most of us, and it definitely made me much more wary with my stuff.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was extremely interesting. Maputo was bustling with all sorts of people, many of them children. We saw Nelson Mandela's house from the street, which was cool. When we arrived at the Hotel Cardoso, we immediately unpacked and headed outside to check out the view.

We all thought it was quite spectacular. We didn't have much time to look, though, as we had to head inside for some buffet lunch. The food at this hotel is very good and very well-prepared, but it was Westernized.

After lunch, we started our staging, which includes getting vaccines, receiving information about what we would be doing for the next few days, and talking about the safety risks in Mozambique that we need to adjust to. We broke for dinner, and then went to sleep. We awoke this morning, and continued staging all day today. I am now in bed, and I need to sleep as much as I can. Tomorrow we are going to meet the families that will house us for our ten weeks of training! Boa noite!

Getting Ready!

Less than 48 hours remaining in the States! So here's some final info:

If you are interested in sending us letters, we are very eager to receive them. Our address is Dan and Lisa Spencer, PCV, Corpo da Paz/U.S. Peace Corps, C.P. 4398, Maputo, Mozambique. It will probably take 2 to 4 weeks to receive anything that is sent.

We leave the country by plane on Wednesday morning and arrive in Mozambique by Thursday afternoon. We'll be staying in Maputo for a few days before leaving to start training in Namaacha. We'll be training until early December, when we move to our assigned sites and start our service.

We should be able to access the internet at least every once in a while, and I've set up a Skype account to talk to whomever I can when I get internet access. My Skype user name is dan5099. Mozambique is in the GMT +2 hours time zone. For those of you in EST, that means we'll be 6 hours ahead of you. Please talk to us; it will be nice to hear English.

I think that's all for now. Unless you are coming to visit us in Africa, we'll see you all in 27 months!

Soon...

We're less than two weeks away from leaving for Mozambique! My, my, these are exciting times. Lisa and I have been traveling across the US for the past 2.5 weeks, so we haven't been able to fully prepare ourselves for our departure yet. We have been practicing our Portuguese in or car with a CD that the Peace Corps gave us for about an hour each day. We'll finally be home in two days, at which point we need to get our affairs sorted (talk to the bank about our trip overseas, sell our car, etc), and see as much of our friends and family as we possibly can.

Can't wait.

One Month To Go!

Today we got our staging email from the Peace Corps to let us know when and where staging will be. For the uninitiated, staging us just a quick orientation in an American city that gets us ready to go to a new country. Our staging will be in Philadelphia, which is particularly awesome because my mom lives only about 45 minutes away.

Our staging schedule looks pretty intense. We register at noon on September 27th, and then we have conversations with Peace Corps officials until 7 (we do get a break in there). Next, we try to go to sleep ASAP because we have to be awake to check out of our hotel at 2:30 am on the 28th. At that point, we get on a bus to take us to New York, where we'll leave on an 11:15 am flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. The flight will be in the air for over 15 hours. After we arrive in Johannesburg, we have an hour-long layover before we take a short flight (1 hour) into Maputo, Mozambique.

I'm so excited. Without exaggerating, I think Mozambique is on my mind at least once every hour.

Yellow Fever

Yesterday, the Peace Corps contacted me and Lisa about getting prepared for our staging and departure. We need to do several things before we leave, including applying for visas and Peace Corps passports. Most of what we have to do is just paperwork, but we also need to get a yellow fever vaccination. 


Last night, Lisa and I went to an office in downtown Santa Cruz to get the vaccination. They had mentioned over the phone that they had enough of the vaccination for the two of us. When we approached the front desk to ask the nurse about getting the yellow fever vaccination, she informed us that the would not give us a yellow fever vaccine without a "travel consultation" with their doctor. This service is $300 per person. That doesn't include the extra $200 per person for the actual vaccination. Oh, and they don't take insurance.


No thanks. I'll find someone else to give us the vaccine that won't cost us $1000.

UPDATE: Lisa and I did get our yellow fever vaccines at Safeway for a little over $120 per person. Definitely much more reasonable. Lisa felt a little ill from the vaccine, but I felt fine. Now we're all set for staging!

Invitation!

Today I will do as many Peace Corps volunteers do. I'm creating a blog that I'll use to chronicle my experiences in a completely new place. Today, Lisa (my wife) and I finally received our invitation to serve in the Peace Corps after almost 16 months of anticipation.

We submitted our initial online application on March 31, 2010. We were ready for anything, even though we knew that there is a requirement that all couples must be married for 12 months in order for the Peace Corps to allow us to serve together. We had been engaged for over 10 months, so in the beginning of April, we filled out the papers to show that we were legally married. We really wanted to get the ball rolling, and in my idealistic mind, we would be heading to some corner of the world in May or June of 2011. "Easy," I thought.

We had our initial interview in May of 2010, and our recruiter told us that while we were qualified to serve, there were no positions available that would accommodate both of us at the same time. We were told that new nominations are always coming out, and that we should wait and see what happened at the end of May.

In the months that followed, we got married in front of family and friends in July. I received my graduate degree and started teaching at Penn State in August. We began to look for backup plans in case a position didn't open up for the two of us. Lisa and I both applied to graduate school in late November.

Nomination! The first of December brought our first big step towards serving. Lisa fielded the phone call which sent us towards giddy thoughts of mud houses and teaching third-world children about America. The Peace Corps representative gave us some key phrases that we would repeat to our friends and relatives in the coming months: "Sub-Saharan Africa," "Math and English teachers," "September 2011." And the representative gave Lisa this tantalizing clue: "Your husband's French will come in handy."

We searched and searched, guessing again and again at our future country-of-service. Togo? Benin? Cameroon? There were nine countries that we thought would fit our nomination. We really had very little to go on.

The medical clearance part of our application came next. We needed physicals, dental exams, blood tests, the polio vaccine, I needed glasses and a podiatrist appointment, Lisa needed her wisdom teeth removed. We spent much of the month of January in various offices.

Finally, we reviewed all of the medical forms and checklists, and we submitted our medical packets on February 22, 2011.

And then we waited. We were excited at the prospect of hearing about our medical clearance, which would bump us to the placement office. The clearance isn't as fast as you might think. There are thousands and thousands of people doing the same things we were. We were cleared for our dental health in March. In May, Lisa and I were preparing to move to California for the summer, so I decided to call and see if we needed to visit our doctor to finish any work that we forgot.

We were almost there. Our nurse told me that we were missing one blood test. We immediately scheduled an appointment and had our blood drawn. We left Pennsylvania on June 3rd, before the results came back. As we crossed the country, we got the news that we were now fully medically cleared.

We were in the home stretch. We now had a placement officer who would review our application and compare us with other applicants who were vying for the very same positions. We had heard over and over that a nomination is not the same as an invitation. We had hoped that the experience that we had been building would be enough and that we would finish the hardest job application known to us. Finally, we had an interview scheduled for July 11.

Our interview was scary. We were in the Pacific Time Zone, so we had to schedule our interview for 6 AM in order for our schedules to work with the Eastern Time Zone. We were tired, but excited. At the end of the interview, we finally heard what we had been waiting for 16 months to hear: our invitation would be in the mail.

Which brings us to today. We received our prize. We'll be heading to Mozambique in late September.