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.
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