Answering the Call in Mozambique

July

2009-07-02T09:38:00.003+02:00

Hello, will not be writing much because I must be leaving the city for site and it may be a little difficult to get back. But the end of my vacation with Laura went well. We traveled through Malawi and Zambia and finished with a wonderful trip to Victoria Falls National Park (it costs $ to get in). Zambia is the most religious country I have ever visited. Restaurants were call "In God We Trust", tv shows praised the almighty at the end of the show, and Zambians would thank god after every sentence in a conversation (a little exaggeration). It was a real nice country, and has a good opportunity to make their goal of being a middle-income country by 2020. It was also a very expensive place to visit. Vic Falls was breathtaking. Though I have never seen any of the other 7 natural wonders of the world, I have a feeling this is the best, for the reason that you actually feel the power of nature. Luckily we went during the rainy season and the water rushed over the falls at 1 billion gallons a second (someone might want to double check that statement) and on the Zambian side you actually walk extremely close to the falls and get absolutely soaked; it was wonderful. Also, a little dangerous.

Work is going slow, but we should start building our community health center this week. Then I have to paint a world map with HIV prevalence for each country on the side of the building and I believe a group of teens from the district high school will come to my community with their Peace Corps Volunteer and paint a mural on the inside. So that is about it, I leave Mozambique November 5th and will be home hopefully the 6th! Great news, and I believe Laura has permitted me to go hunting in Luzerne for a few days, so I ask we all thank her for that. Bye

Laura's Thoughts

2009-05-12T10:22:00.003+02:00

Bryan and I thought it would be fun if I wrote on his blog what my thoughts and impressions have been thus far in the trip. Excuse me for any poor grammar or ramblings, I just woke up from a nap.

The Blantyre Airport in Malawi is AWESOME! This was the first time I had a window seat and as we are beginning to descend I could not see a runway, it's definitely unlike any other airport. According to the guy next to me who was a South African living in Malawi for 20 years, the airport was built by the British and is the oldest in Malawi. I have not fact-checked him because he said it with enough confidence for me to believe him. The best part was when we landed everyone coming to greet us off the airplane were on the second story open air part of the building waving hello. It was like in a movie when a ship leaves port and everyone waves goodbye but so much better because we were all coming.

Our transportation so far has been pretty good. We've been lucky to have window seats or be in the front on chapas. My first full day hear we were in the front of a big semi that had an open back for 8 hours. We were the first people picked up so we were really fortunate as it was so hot that day. There was a family picked up later in the day and I was shocked at how little babies don't die in the back like that with just the sun beating down on them. Cars have the right of way and when you're not in a city the people on the side of the road will disappear into the crops and tall grass on the side to let you pass. Mind you most don't have shoes on and they also go to the bathroom there.

If you are ever travelling abroad and it is up to Bryan to teach you how to be socially appropriate, seek alternate guidance. What were the two things Bryan told me about Mozambicans; 1 - men hold hands in public but they are not gay, 2 - people pick their nose in public. So it's my first night in Mozambique and we are staying with another PCV, Charlotte who was very nice and welcoming. She is introducing me to the family who owns her house and the first person I meet is a girl about 14 and I stick my hand out and say "To do bom" (part of my ever-expanding portuguese). Bryan then immediately injects, "Uh, kiss her on both cheeks. Don't be rude!" I do as he says right away and after a few more introductions we talk about this lack of prepardness and his argument was that I studied in France. So now I'm under the impression that what happens in France should be applied to all of Portugal's former colonies.

Okay now onto Bryan's village, Mugulama. I am very impressed with his knowledge of the place and how to get around and his language skills. I actually like his site best, probably because we've spent the most time there, but it is nice. You shower outside and look at a mountain. I've had my best 4 showers in my life in Mugulama. Actually based on the 3 indoor showers I've seen at other PCVs houses, outdoor ones are far superior. They are cleaner and smell better because they're not in the same place as the toilet. The water heats up because the sun beats down on it and you might have an amazing view like Bryan.
We met a chefe, un-elected mayor of the city, on one of the days there and Bryan introduced me as his esposa, easier than fiancee. I said my few Lomwe words and then the two talked in Portuguese. The chefe is new and may not really understand Bryan's job, this is my attempt to make undeserved excuses for him. Apparantly he said to Bryan with me right there, "So this is your wife and you married her there (the US) and then you came here and now she's visiting and then she'll leave and you'll marry here." You could see how offended Bryan was, didn't even need to speak Portuguese, the chefe tried to change the subject but the situation was wierd and a great example of everything Bryan's been talking about.
Bryan's neighbor, the poeple who own the house, think they are on spring break. Every night they have reggae music playing loud so we can hear it crystal clear inside Bryan's house. They bought a solar energy panel that they place on top of their mud hut and it is wired to car batteries that provides the energy to play their cassette tape. Wow genius you might say. This is also the family who doesn't send their kids to school and who's wife came to the house one day when I was there asking for 100 mets to go to Nampula's hospital because she's too sick be treated in Mugulama. But don't worry about the family because the men are on Spring Break every night. Can you sense the sarcasm?
Bryan and I took a HIV test on Wednesday because it's the big market day so there's also alot of people at the hospital and we wented to be good examples. It's funny, because there is no reason why I would have it, but you're still nervous those few minutes waiting for the results. Both negative.
Bryan's maid is nice and her son Rosario is very cute and about the same size as my neice Claire who is 6 months younger. But she is stronger than I will ever be. We went with her one day to do laundry and she's carrying the big bucket on her head with our wet clothes and her baby on her back for a 20 minute walk in the heat and in barefeet. Yeah, I was winded with no child on my back, nothing on my head.
Bryan made me kill a chicken, I don't want to talk about it.

We went to Ilha de Mocambique, this island of the coast and it was nice. In the guide book it was described as part ghost town, but really the whole nation is. More so in heavily populated areas, but you'll be driving down the road and there will be shells of former portuguese building with no roof and vegetation inside again. Bryan says some of these are just now giant toilets.

We then spent 3 gorgoeus days and nights on the coast of the Indian Ocean. On our second day there we helped pull in fish from the ocean for like 45 minutes. We saw many different types of fish but only could name the blowfish because it was pretty obvious. The last night there two other PCVs, Jamie and Nea came and stayed with us and I won 2 games of Settlers, Bryan hates when I win. There was two dogs there, one that belonged to the Mozambican family, Rambo and then another stray who was trying to knock up Rambo. Even the female dogs don't get a choice who to sleep with. But Bryan did not like the other dog, it growled at me when I was trying to get back inside from going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Bryan said the dog was in the attack position and didn't want to leave the room so he told me to go to the house and wake the woman and her kids and just say, "Licenca" (excuse-me) until she woke-up and say "cao" (dog) over and over so she would understand. I said "Licenca" until she came to the door and than "Cao, grrrr, door, cao" she sent her sons and they scared it away. But the whole next day when ever they saw the dog the would attack it, I felt so bad for it.

Okay we are in Nampula now and are staying in a nice hotel tonight with real showers and toilets and cnn. Tomorrow we are headed back to site for a few more days and then on to Victoria Falls. I'll share pictures when I'm home. I hope everyone is doing well and taking care, love you guys and see everyone soon!

March

2009-03-22T14:00:00.000+02:00

Taking a break from writing my 2009 PEPFAR grant for Peace Corps. We are going to a build a health education center on the hospital grounds; mostly to give the group of volunteers a place to develop and implement community health programs (but according to Sarah Palin, community organizers do not actually have responsibilities). We are going to paint a world map on the outside of the health center and I decided to paint each country according to their HIV prevalence. I think it will be good to put Mozambique and Sub-Saharan Africa in perspective for the village members. As our first community health program, the group of volunteers will be traveling and visiting their neighbors in their respective zones to identify as many orphans as possible, along with their caretakers. Many will be from parents, or just one, who have died due to AIDS, but also will cover children who lost parents during our latest cholera outbreak in January, among other reasons for children becoming orphaned. We would like to eventually put a number of orphans and their caretakers through a perma culture training to provide these families with the opportunity to try a low-cost, high-benefit type of farming. Perma culture seeks to utilize a small area of land and yield a large amount of food; and since food security is incredibly important for large families in rural, Sub-Saharan Africa, we believe this is a good opportunity to experiment with this new method of farming/gardening. We will also be teaching these community members how to make fertilizer, only using locally available, free resources, enabling them to improve the quality of their soil. In January, I began a garden and compost pile at my house, and the results are mixed, but I learned a lot for the next pilot project I’ll do with the orphans and their caretakers.

At site, nothing really is new. I got a new cook/maid. It is the lady whose son I named Rosario, and she is doing well. Her beans are wonderful. My American doctor, Pamela, is leaving this week for the states and just wanted to thank her for everything she has done for me, from allowing me to use her computer for work, to bringing me cookies on Mondays at my site. I will miss you and Riley and hopefully run into you two in other places around the world. Good luck with your next adventure.

So the Pope went to Africa, said condoms promote promiscuity, and left. Laura and I have a dog, her name is Maddy, when we are getting ready to leave the house (and I think Laura now does this) we stop, turn to Maddy, tell her we love her and “don’t be stupid!”. Apparently, I will now have to stop, turn to Maddy, and tell her and the Pope not to be stupid. What an f’n embarrassment.

Obama said he bowled as well as people in the Special Olympics (or something to that effect). Not quite at the level of the Pope’s blatant ignorance, because he won’t be responsible for the deaths of many people, but horrible nonetheless. You are an idiot for the rest of the week Mr. President.

If I seem presumptuous in my liberal usage of personal insults, I try to only seek the absolute, most brainless personal actions to state my opinion about; I believe these two qualify.

Mount Namuli, July

2009-02-18T20:26:00.000+02:00

Mount Namuli, July

2009-02-18T20:25:00.000+02:00

Mount Namuli, July

2009-02-18T20:21:00.000+02:00

Mount Namuli, July

2009-02-18T20:16:00.000+02:00

Year 2

2009-02-18T18:18:00.003+02:00

Hello, first time I have written since September, it was really busy between september and december before I went home. We concluded our program in the community. We did 137 health speeches in the 19 primary schools in Mugulama and almost 6,000 students with less than 15 years of age who heard, for the first time, explicit information about HIV and other sicknesses. Do not get me wrong, do I think most of them retained the information they heard? Prolly not. But you have to start somewhere. We went to 90 religious institutions and about 4,000 people heard our health speeches and everything went really well; we openly talked about condoms, fidelity and abstinence within those institutions. At the hospital, the ladies who are volunteers in our group visited the ladies in the morning who weigh their babies and they explained the method of transmission of PMTCT and, since they are having sex...for reproductive purposes I am sure, how important it is to know their status and talk to their partners. At the hospital we talked to over 2,000 women in a one month span. Finally, the volunteers went to their respective markets and talked with about 3,000 people over 37 days.
So that sums up our first year project. We were able to buy new bikes and repair old bikes of all my group of volunteers. The volunteers and the community seemed to enjoy their interactions and since the end of July we have had over 1,600 HIV tests. This is an incredibly large amount, given the demographic, economic and cultural situation of Mugulama.

On a personal note, my second year has brought about new challenges, both in terms of my work and my continous integration into my community. I would like to move beyond my work with the volunteers and began building a foundation with those people living with HIV. My group is doing a lot of training this year to build their capacities and hopefully will become an association with the government. But I am not sure many people who are starting treatment or just tested positive will have their fright disappear within their conscience in the next 9 months. So I have been thinking of using this year to build my volunteers a community and health education center, where many programs will be dedicated to HIV information and community mobilization. For those people in counseling and treatment at the hospital, it would be good to begin getting to know them on a personal level, so I can understand their situation in a more sympathetic fashion and to help the integration of a new volunteer next year, who will prolly be working with them more than I. At a training by Peace Corps we were taught a technique of farming called perma culture. This is based on the idea of digging extra deep into the ground and planting certain foods in a particular fashion to yield a large amount of food from a small area. This is important because the patients can make this type of garden, enabling them to stay closer to home and save their energy. Most of these patients have farms far away and use a lot of energy, usually working on empty stomachs while taking ARV's, and many times these farms do not yield an equal amount of food for the time spent cultivating. Myself and our social assistant from FGH, Natalie, are going to use a little bit of money were are receiving from FGH to build a smal perma culture pilot farm just outside of the grounds of the hospital. We are going to plant food that is vital to the nutritional intake of the patients receiving treatment. We are also going to teach some of those who would like to know, how to make fertilizer out of material that is free and available in our community. I have already begun a small farm at my house and began making fertilizer 4 weeks ago. Hopefully it will be ready in about 2 months.

Like I began to say early, life in my community still brings about some odd and rather straining difficulties. I though my patience could be not be tested more, but the more I realize it, I still have a long way to mature, apparently. For those of you who know me well, I never really had patience. The humility aspect is also depressing. Being stared at or laughed at or embarassed is rather difficult sometimes, even for those of us who have a good sense of humor. The toughest thing for anyone to accept, especially men, is being corrected in public. And here, at the same as being the most famous person in your community, you are also a complete nobody within your structural work environment, i.e. ministry of health. I thought I would be seen more as a community member than sometimes I feel. Don't get me wrong, my neighbors and colleagues and the leaders of the community embrace my presence and love the occasional normal talk and it is never an atmosphere of abnormalcy when I am with them. But others, it is still a foreign idea that I live there, among then. My buddy Jimmy, sitting here at the computer next me is trying to reassure me that it is just they joy in hearing a foreigner try to speak their language, and i guess he is right. But I just like when my old neighbor comes by ever morning and says the normal morning compliments in the local language and then she walks away like it wasn't anything special. It makes you feel good. Like you belong. But I am sure it is just a feeling telling me there is more I must learn and understand before I come to conclusions that could damper my mood and mentality.

September

2008-09-20T16:08:00.000+02:00

Hello. Life is going…along. I will be home December 8th until about the 6th of January. That should be nice. Doing my thesis proposal in Ile right now; eating wonderful meals with the German missionaries and Pamela and Riley my American colleagues. Work is a little slow right now, the group of volunteers just finished giving their health speeches in all the primary schools of Mugulama (16). And I have to say it went phenomenal. About 5 months ago I was telling myself, “If we can do 75% of all scheduled health speeches, I would be extremely happy.” Then, about 2 months ago, the preperation for the program-receiving commitments from school directors and gathering lots of other information from the volunteers-was going incredibly slow. In fact, I had to get on my bike and visit a bunch of schools to retrieve the necessary approval and information. Which I don’t mind, but it doesn’t do much for capacity building when I, as the facilitator, am doing the work I have relegated to others. This is when I said that I hoped 50% of these speeches were completed. So I went to the city in the beginning of August and did 51 different calendars; some for the schools and the others for the volunteers. I also typed up all the information they would be sharing with the students. I then handed out all the calendars to the volunteers along with some journals, pens, chalk and some other stuff for them to do reports and write in the classrooms (all paid for out of my pocket, because, what do you know, the American bureaucracy is pretty f’n slow). I explained to each one individually their responsibility and so forth.

When the project began, I was in Maputo, the capital of the country. So I was obviously worried about the logistics. Many of these volunteers do not have watches and still judge the time by the sun. But the program finished the school part last week and I would like to say that 100% if the speeches scheduled were completed. It was a very satisfying thing and I am very happy with all of them. In the next 2 months we have to give speeches in the churches, markets and hospital. But this was a very good thing for moral and my organization is very happy with the outcome so hopefully we can acquire some more resources for them to utilize. I was going to a couple schools to show support and mark off that the volunteers arrived, but then the President of the group would tell me I was doing speeches with him. I don’t mind this, I do it in the churches, but I am not scheduled to do them, thus it takes away from someone else doing them when they need the public speaking practice and to build their own capabilities and status within the community. So I stopped going to the schools, because I also had confidence they would show up.

About life, I have a cook now, which is nice. I never liked my old maid. It was a guy with a really large family. In his defense, he worked really hard and did everything well, but he was annoying and my general dislike for the actions of so many men here, influenced me a lot. For example, his wife who is in her mid-40s just had another kid about 5 months ago. It was here 9th pregnancy that went too full-term. Well, what do you know; it is difficult for her to produce milk. So they would ask me for milk, and I would reply that I pay the dad an extremely high monthly salary and he can easily buy it. But he would reply that that money is for cement to build his house. It was enraging. I may sound a little cruel, but you give in once and it is over for you. You have to say no to some pretty depressing things. Though I have enjoyed my time here, my soul has been pillaged of its purity. So, I was away from site for most of August doing work in other places. My maid wanted his full pay, and I refused it, so he left. It worked out well. So I asked the wife of the guy who built my fence if she wanted a job. So now she cooks for 5 days a week and does pretty much everything else. She is good and cooks very well. But now that I do not eat, I have a lot more time on my hands.

Killed another snake in my house. This was a bigger one, about 2 ½ feet long, but skinny. It was dark but with a bright green head and it was real aggressive. I was able to get it out my house before chopping its head off. I chopped it about 5 inches below the head and for the next 5-10 minutes it was still trying to bite me. So I picked it up with pliers and chased the kids around in the market. Unfortunately, I enjoy making kids cry with fear. I think has now become a hedonistic characteristic of myself.

We have a lot more workers in the hospital, so I don’t go there much. But many more people are doing tests, and of course, many more are positive. Through an evaluation of the environment of the country- meaning all external conditions that have an affect on a certain concept- I feel things will get worse before they get better. The economy has been expanding, on average, over 7% for the last 8-10 years. People have more money (men) and with better roads and travel opportunities, the virus is spreading at an enormous rate and hitting the areas of extreme poverty where women have no education, financial opportunities or an understanding of their human rights. And, again unfortunately, PEPFAR, along with other government educational programs, will probably not reach these areas for a VERY long time. Not only will more people acquire HIV, but since it is the poorest areas of the country, those families have an enormous amount of children, thus the orphan problem I believe is only in its infancy. PEPFAR is obviously the right idea, but unless other aspects of the society are changed (law, educational opportunities, sexual behavior, medical access), the American taxpayer is now directly responsible for the health of hundreds of thousands of people. This is because the people receiving treatment from PEPFAR now, and those in the future when many, many more people will be on treatment, we can never stop this program, or we will be responsible for the deterioration of the lives of those people on treatment, their subsequent deaths (mostly from tuberculosis) and all the orphans left behind. Every American taxpayer and voter should be thinking about what there politician’s strategy is going to be in the next 1-20 with regards to this program.

Well, I am going to get back to work. Take care.

August

2008-08-12T15:06:00.003+02:00

I have learned a great deal about sharing my life experiences in Peace Corps with people, actually only one thing: people lose interest real fast. This mostly comes from returned volunteers, but even from some of the expats and missionaries that are here with us. Also, I have steadily seen the decrease in curiosity throughout my stay in terms of the amount of inquiries I receive about my life here. I don't really mind, I didn't come here for the narcissism of being a volunteer, but I am glad I learned this now, instead of 2 months after I returned from completion of duty.
So the mountain we climbed last month was quite tiring. It is about 2,500 meters high and most of the climb is incredibly vertical. Then on our way down, while we were passing through the clouds, it began to rain, a more horizontal rain because of the winds. There were a few instances when I stated that this is a little dangerous. For a moment, I was a little scared. The walk to the mountain was 8 hours, continuous, then we arrived a house where a family told us we could camp. She made us chima and we brought some beans. Then we slept, 3 of us, in a small tent on the ground and spent 8 hours the next day climbing and descending. Sat by the fire at night while all our clothes dried (I amused the kids with natural light mixes and my t-shirt which I wore as pants) and talked with some Mozambicans. The next morning we made the 8 hour trip back, we left at 3 am. A volunteer that went with me, Cameron, is making me a CD of all the pictures, so I will try to put that on the internet in early September. Jimmy called the trip a "spiritual holocaust". It was extremely grueling.
Work is every the more stressful. I actually just completed all my calenders for all the volunteers and schools and typed out all information about HIV, malaria and Nutritional education that we will be sharing with the children in the schools. Thankfully, there are wonderful American missionaries here in Nampula who have opened their house to me (and their refrigerator) and allowed me to finish a lot of work and remove some stress, that is ever building, from my life. I am still planning on coming home for the holidays, so keep the can drive going to raise money, Laura is wonderful and taking care of everything, while working 2 jobs, taking care of our dog (I love you Bunting family)and just being her genuine self.
I am going down to the capital, Maputo, in a week and a half for a training with PC. It is the equivalent of heading from to Detroit to Orlando, more or less. So you can imagine what the people in my village are thinking. I wanted to keep it secret so they didn't think I was any richer than they already believe I am and so I would not receive 50 requests to buy things, but it got out. I will take a few days to visit my host family and eat wonderful food, have not seen them since December and try to meet with people from the World Bank. I want to say they are not to responsive. And they should be, because last time I checked, The United States of America "controls" that institution and our tax dollars go to it. I am not happy with the lack of cooperation.
Life is normal, still going to churches and giving speeches, learning a little local language and realizing I have turned into a radical feminist. Yeah, some people just don't respect women and girls. I really do enjoy forcefully speaking out about infidelity, sexual abuse and the lack of women's rights, especially in the church, where the patriarchical society is perpetuated (perhaps only in my community?).
Also, the President of our group, though he has helped me a lot, also has two women and 6 children in total with them, so everytime he hears it it just drives the dagger a little deeper.
Too bad about the Tigs, quick rundown of what I think they should do. Get rid of Renteria, he ain't worth the $11 million option next year and play ramon santiago at SS, everyday. He could win a gold glove and he would never be as bad at the plate as Inge. Use that $11 million to get a reliever, has Papelbon signed an extenstion yet? If not, give it all to him. Could care less about Sheff, he is a cancer, though he does have some guts to play through such horrendous pain. Bye bye Todd jones, that's another 6 million, and kenny rogers, i think that is another 6 million. Alright I am done, take care and Love you all.

July

2008-07-10T10:25:00.004+02:00

I am not really motivated to write a descriptive blog about my life of the last month. I am behind on my paper (thanks World Bank), the organizational aspect of my community program and the days are absolutely flying by. I am still going to churches every Sunday, though now, the only places left are far away. 20-40 Kilometers on a bike through the mountain is quite rigorous. Next week myself and two other volunteers, Jimmy and Cameron, are climbing Mount Gurue. I believe it is the highest peak in Mozambique, if not it is #2. It should be a good time, I will try to make any pictures available. Sorry for the short update, but stress has stretched my patience. But one good aspect is something which is a normal occurrence. Whenever I see a white person who speaks English, obviously you are going to talk, but it is what is said that I love so much. It usually goes something like this: quick hellos and myself asking them what they are doing (usually traveling from Europe of other places in the world; for example a young guy from Israel is at the computer next to me and we had this same conversation) and then them asking me and after saying I am in Peace Corps from America here is the normal response "of course you are". Because these travelers come into contact with Peace Corps Volunteers from all over the world. We are everywhere and it should be a source of satisfaction to our friends in the states. We all speak the languages, understand the people and always help the traveler, because they always need it. It is the point that Peace Corps Volunteer have thousands of personal relationships with people from all over the world and they are most of the time extremely positive, and that is the most important part about Peace Corps. Am I going to foster a cultural behavior change affecting my whole community in Mugulama, probably not. But they are always going to remember what PCV's attempted to do for them and their community through hard work, humility and perseverance. I love the Peace Corps, its mission, what it has accomplished for almost 50 years with .00001 the respect American people give other aspects of our national heritage and all the American's who put desire to inspire and foster the ability of all peoples to create a better life for themselves. Everyday I daydream about the future possibility of the Peace Corps. It has been the greatest experience of my life. There must be something amazing about America if it has produced a society of riches and comfort and at the same time people who would give it all up.

June

2008-06-10T10:35:00.002+02:00

So, the most dreadful aspect of living, alone, in the resource-poor Mato of Africa is....the days in which you are ill. It is just awful. It is draining on your body and state of mentality. I had horrible chills, a fever, diarrhea and a horrendous headache for a little over 24 hours. In the end, I did not eat a solid meal for 3 days, visibly lost weight and laid in my bed wondering how I came to the conclusion to leave the comforts and care of the States to live in a environment which requires the exertion of an enormous amount of energy to proceed with the daily activities of life.

I have not been sick very much, only a handful of times since I arrived here last September. I make sure to wash my hands numerous times throughout the day; building a soap holder outside and buying two buckets with the sole intention of holding water and rinsing my heads. I wash my floors once a week (usually), treat my water, and clean my food. The impending disaster of bacteria entering our bodies is something we all think about everyday.

Especially in the Mato (bush of Africa), there is the potential to pass an enormous amount of bacteria and harmful microbes between people. My estimation is that about 10% (a generous estimate) of the population of Mugulama has a hole dug in the ground for their latrine. Meaning, 90% of the population does not have an area, underneath the base of the ground, to place their excrements. And though this is an opinion lacking any educational background, I am guessing when you have a lot more diarrhea than hard stools, it may be easier for the feces to spread further distances on the ground (I am sure only a few inches at first, but with rain, wind and deep slopes much more). The dirt and mud which we walk on, enriched with bodily fluids, probably makes our job of staying healthier a lot harder.

On the same level, taking care of yourself during your illness is equally grueling. An important aspect of recovering from an illness is keeping your body clean. When I was sick and laying in bed, I decided to myself that I was going to get up and take a bath. Laying there, shivering uncontrollably, I realized a few things. One, I live in Africa. I have no water, meaning I would have to retrieve it from the pump. First pumping it and then carrying it back. Next, it is winter in Africa, which actually becomes rather cold, comparably. This would require me to, first, start a fire, and then wait while the charcoal and water were heated to a desired temperature. This process lasts around 30 minutes. On a normal day it is easy, but laying in bed sick that day, I became rather disheartened and I remained in bed until the next day.

All of this with the resources that I have at my disposal: a medical kit provided by Peace Corps; Coal, matches and candles to light a fire; soap; a bucket to use for a bath and other amenities. Everyday it seems my empathy and respect grows for my fellow community members, who have so little, while the world has so much.

Life has been slow the last few weeks. Waiting to hear back from the PEPFAR people regarding my project and the funds we requested. The project could turn out to be a great thing, reaching many people and sparking a community movement for more information and resources on the devastating sicknesses in Africa; or it could turn out to be a logistical nightmare, with too much responsibility on volunteer's who've acquired a 9th or 10th grade education, to put together an organizational structure of a program set out over a 3 month period. Ya, it's heading for the latter I am afraid. But they know they have to be the source of information for this project, I am only the facilitator. But I have an emergency plan which I will use if necessary. If, by the middle of July, I do not have in the hand the required information which I would have needed by then, I will take the Vanderbilt car and visit the schools and leaders myself. It will be an enormous task, visiting the distant zones by car and closer zones by bike. But our 3 month program (I use program/project interchangeably, though this is a no-no in the International Development Field, with apologies to my Professors) is very important to the community, I feel, and may require my last plan of action.

Good job Red Wings, wish I could have seen it. I know someone out there videotaped all 6 games for me, thank you. Pistons, unfortunate, good luck with micheal curry and his tenacious defensive skills. Tigers, still horrible and I am glad not to be at home spending $8.50 for a large beer at CoPa.

Though I would like to read and hear more about the election, it must be so annoying. Just think, after this one is done, 2010 starts right away! The media may create a massive revolution against elections. Or against annoying, 24 hour media talking heads. Hillary fans, stop your whining and unconscionable talk. Let me get this straight, you will now either not vote or vote for McCain. I am wondering something else. You do not want to support our nominee who was against this disillusioned policy of creating heaven on earth by tanks, bombs and leaflets from the beginning, but you first supported Hillary, who was either too blinded to see past the ignorance of our President or too cowardice to stand up for what she believed in because she had to look "tough" and now, you would support the man (though a great American, probably the most honorable one which I can think of) who believes wholeheartedly in the mentality of military victory to ensure some future democratic peace in a region swamped by undemocratic forces, receiving money and weapons from America, and the continued presence of American/Christian soldiers in the heart of the Muslim world? (Though I believe he supports this mission more for the honor of the military and its future prospects, more so then, well, whatever they are thinking, at whatever time in Crawford) Sounds like you are not even Democrats, so, You can go stand in line at the buffet table behind Liebermann.

Fall is upon us

2008-05-17T09:54:00.002+02:00

Ya all that means is at night it actually becomes comfortable enough to sleep. During the day can still become pretty hot. I really do not have much to talk about since my last post. Things have been slow, putting together my project proposal and continuing to visit churches, get to know more of the community and hanging around the hospital on testing days to speak with people during consultations. I am in Mocuba right now, finishing up my proposal and then sending it to Peace Corps to be reviewed by the PEPFAR people. The money we receive for projects is through the President's AIDS initiative (US Pres). The total cost is at about probably $1,400. That covers materials to give health presentations and new bikes for some, or new bike parts for others. I was actually worried it was going to cost a great deal more than that but I was able to out-wit the volunteers into making them think I would only get bike parts, which caused them to admit they had a broken down bike at home. This saved a lot of money and I didn't mind attempting to ask for 34 new bikes, but it is much more difficult than 9. I also did not want to the rest of the project to be put at risk of denial due to the bike aspect of it. But the volunteers definitely deserve everything they will be getting.
Last week at the catholic church in Parreie, I made a long awaited transition in terms of Portuguese ability. I spoke for 30 minutes (including time for translation by the volunteer into Lomwe) about our services at the hospital for HIV, our program in the schools, our desire to help the volunteers become legalized and most importantly for the first time, explained all the methods of transmission and the best living options to stay healthy. I know what your thinking, "it took you 5 months to tell them what you were trained for for 10 weeks!" Yes I admit, it did take longer than I wanted, but I always spoke about transmission and other ways of contracting the virus, but this time I put it in an overall explanation of the disease, and separating a discussion b/w the women and men in the church (it is easy b/c they are already segragated, Oh how a certain party longs for those days in the states). I spoke to everyone as a hole, but when I spoke about the most dangerous method of transmission, sexual relations, I explained to the mothers of the church that they have a responsibility to teach their daughters that in our world today, they have a right to say no, tell a man to wear a condom, and marry a man who will engage in a monogamous relationship with her. For the men, I told them it is their responsibility to teach their sons that the safest way to never become infected is to promote the idea that one woman is the best and healthiest way to live. Of course, I explained this can all be helped by the reduction of casual sexual relations at a young age and waiting to have sex until they want a baby. I am guessing not many people have talked to them about those topics, especially in the church. I believe the more we have of that in Africa, the better off we they will be. It seemed to go over just fine, we ate lunch with the community leaders after and they presented me with oranges, eggs and sugarcane.
I have found what I hope will be my Graduate Field Report. It is the HIV/AIDS Response Project by the World Bank. It began in 2003 and will end in December of 2008, totaling about 64 million. The purpose was to help the Government of Mozambique implement their Multi-Sectoral Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS on the administrative level. Though it is difficult to evaluate the outcomes of qualitative information, they have plenty of performance indicators which I believe they will judge the effective with through using many other NGO's, notably those giving treatment and tests through the PEPFAR program.
One other quick observation. By spending more time with the community members and with patients afflicted with the disease I have been noticing a cultural pattern within my community and from questioning others volunteers. First, just to set up the pattern, life in the city and the bush are incredibly different, especially for women. They dress differently, are a little confidant, educated, wealthy and know and understand their rights, whether or not those are respected by the males in society. But the young ladies in the bush are many years behind in the push for an egalitarian society. Any many of them have never been to a city due to lack of resources to reach a destination outside Mugulama. The young ladies in Mugulama who test positive, b/w the ages of 18 and 30, are unable or speak very portuguese. This obviously tells us that at around the ages of 13-15, they no longer attend school and they are either given away by their fathers or are impregnated through casual sex, usually not by through their choice, though most of the time, they just do house work up until the age of 15 or 16 because most girls wont become pregnant until after 16. But at these ages, no more school and they never leave their village, thus their ability is restricted to Lomwe, and to the pleasure of the men, they are restricted to the community. The men, on the other hand, usually speak good Portuguese, which not only tells us their increased amount of educational training, but more importantly for the evolution of HIV and in the rural areas, the fact that many young men have the ability to travel to bigger cities, which requires them to speak portuguese daily, due to the mixture of multiple local languages. The best way to communicate is Portuguese. The men engage in casual sex in urban areas where the rates of infection are extremely higher, especially in the prostitution profession and then return to the mato and pass the virus to their wives. I would contend that this is extremely normal. Also, these husbands, many times are the first ones to die, indicating the length of time the virus has been in their body without any proper treatment, though there is no set date for deterioration of the body once somebody has acquired the sickness, but many of these men engage in a lifestyle which puts their immune system at an disadvantage to fighting off opportunistic infections. Most notably, drinking and smoking. These young ladies will come to my house, usually accompanied by a man who can speak Portuguese, and begin to tell me their story about how her husband died in the last week, she is sick now and he had been traveling the country, probably having sex with other women.
That is about it for now, I will be in Mocuba on the internet until Monday, so if you want to ask me anything email me by sunday night and I can answer you. Take care
Bryan

Progress

2008-04-24T09:40:00.002+02:00

I will not write this post like I am typing on AIM. So first I want to say that the headband lights and the light hat which I received from Uncle Tom and Aunt Clara and Mr. and Mrs. Bunting are awesome. They are so amazing, if you lived in an area of the world with 24 hour sunlight and in a house with motion sensor lighting, I would still suggest you buy 2, with extra batteries. Last week I spoke in Naholossa again with people in two churches, it was nice. Afterwards, I stopped by the wedding of the guy who built my fence and I did not see the easter eggs, and I also forgot to ask about them. It was fun, I danced and apparently the rest of the town heard about it because this last week in the market the 'folks'(is this trademarked by Bush?) were requesting a dancing session whenever I walked by. Last monday we had 51 people do HIV tests, a remarkable number. I can onnly imagine the increase when 31 health volunteers are giving speeches in numerous schools, churches and markets for 8 straight weeks. During consultations, we had a mother with HIV, whose sister was also infected by her husband. The husband died a month ago, and left sisters and 1 baby infected. The baby was with her mother last week, he has HIV, TB, had Schingles and was going to get a test for Malaria. The child's breathing was heartbreaking. The man who built my house lives behind me and his wife and son I have not seen in atleast 2 months. But now he has this young girl living with him, she is 18. She is rather attractive and I saw her with a baby at the hospital. I questioned her about the baby and she told me it was her's. Not unusual. But I asked who the father was and she named the man who built my house, but the odd thing is, because some men are known to move onto younger ladies, that this same girl told me she was staying with her uncle. So i asked, "esse filho e o filho teo tio?" Which is that child is your uncle's? And she replied yes. Still unsure if it is his niece through marriage or blood, I will keep you updated. My maid killed a goat a few weeks ago and it was pretty brutal, the throat slitting sure does bring a lot of blood and a slow, grueling death. Once again, my neighbors are changing houses, and now this real scary guy lives by me. Has an old wife of above 50 and a young wife in her mid-20s. Last monday he stabbed his wife (old one) in the foot and gave her a laceration on the head, I prolly should let Peace Corps know about this guy because I am terrified of him. When I was going through the PC application process, it was especially long because I did Grad School first. This allowed PC to bother me numerous times with phone calls and I always though that there must be a way to reduce the amount of time it takes for the interview/application process. Not anymore. I fully believe in the need for a long interview process. One is to weed out the people who really aren't dedicated and if they don't have the patience in America, they ain't gonna have it for the pace of African life, or any other country where PC serves. Also, I couldn't imagine the damage some people could do (read below reference about idiots on the show COPS) in a small, rural village in any region of the world. The inherited power you have once you arrive (money, color of skin, access to resources) is incredibly persuasive and the respect which you earn through hard work and cooperation is culturally powerful (included in meetings with community elders, access to community leaders whenever i need) gives a PC Volunteer an unsubstantiated amount of leverage with the community. Whether they use this for good or not is determined, because of the autonomous character of Peace Corps, by the volunteer. That being said, PCV's have used this to do innapropriate things in the past, obviously many, many more have done good. My point is, you can't send a man with the character of Tom Berenger from Platoon to a place like Mugulama. Since these volunteers do so much for so little, I thought it would be good to make them food one day after a meeting. I don't want to be the money volunteer, but I think a nice gesture every now and then is acceptable. I had beans and rice made for 30 people a few weeks ago. I bought everything and then paid a small amount to a lady who lives close to the hospital to cook it all. I spent a rather large some of money for a place like Mugulama, and the volunteers had known for 2 weeks that I was going to do this because I told them to bring plates. Nobody offered any help, which was fine, I was planning on doing it my way. But the night before, the President came by and said that I should not do this kind of stuff because every will think I have all this money and next time ask for help. I simply stated that you had 2 weeks to offer your help in any way that you wanted to and you did not. But the most annoying part was he didn't want my neighbor to do the cooking, he said it is the volunteers food and the lady volunteers could do the cooking, the VP, a lady was also rather impolite towards my neighbor. But I had to take a stand and say we were doing it my way because I offered them plenty of time to make suggestions and the night before was the worst time. And since I bought all the food, my neighbor is going to cook, you are going to eat and everyone is going to have a good time. Everyone did.
We received posters about vertical transmission of HIV, with colors, pictures and words. For those that understand the bush of Africa, or prolly other "developing" nations, written things are the truth to them. One quick thing, USAID made these posters, but only posters recognizing women with the virus? Really, I mean all those people in Washington and nobody thought about fighting the stigma and gender part of HIV with these posters? That's what you get when we continously send Ivy League silver spooners to run the government. But it is easy for them, because they enjoy the fact more people watch an episode of American Idol than the Presidential Debate. But we only have about 60 of these posters and I was explaining to Paulino that we must use these wisely because we prolly won't receive many more after this, we need to disperse them throughout Mugulama. He said, sure, but in 3 hours he put up 12 posters, 4 pairs of the same thing in the same area of the hospital so one person can read one poster 3 times. Horrible utilization of scarce resources. So the father of the baby I named left his wife for another woman in the city. It was disheartening. The governor visited Mugulama on Monday and he was about 5 hours late and it was really hot. I think I got an idea of how leaders who preside over countries that are really treated like the top down and rule through party politics, not so much election...I am trying to be delicate here with my observations, ask me about them at another time.
So I will close with more about my job and organization. I work for University of Vanderbilt and they are a part of the PEPFAR program in Mozambique. Their job is to revitalize the health infrastructure, create a sustainable process for ARV treatment, testing, adherence, orphans, counseling and other health related activities. Their plan is to be able to leave the country and the ARV program in the hands of the ministry of health after I believe is 8 years. Ask me about my thoughts on that later. Really what I do is bring our message into the community and attempt to build the communities capacity to development and implement health programs to the point where they do not rely on the dependence of a foreigner living in their community. I am much more optimistic about the potential of my job than that of Vanderbilt's. Ok that is all, I will be sending pictures in the email, some are from December, the more recent ones of my house with the fence and inside of it are from last monday. Take care. Bryan

It's been awhile

2008-04-10T11:36:00.002+02:00

Sorry for the grammatical errors, computers are difficult here. I'll finish this next time I get to a computer. Ya, it sure has. A little difficult to make it to computer since the end of January, so I will start with events from then and go in a chronological order. Quick comment about the police in nampula city, they sure are pricks. They love checking the id of white people and if you don't have your passport they are f'n jerks. those people who love racial profiling, you sure would hate it when your subjected to it an unacceptable rate. I mean, we are there to help people and spend money, they need a lot of both. Calm down. So i began my work in February, you all know the layout of Mugulama and its size so i began visiting a new zone every sunday. That is the best time to do it because i can speak in multiple churches and meet the leaders and its the best way to reach people far into the bush. so first i went to naholossa, about 4 km into the mountains, usually i go with the president of the volunteers but i went with this other volunteer bc it was a thursday. he is a character let me tell you. anyways this was the only non sunday i went out to the zones, bc it is tough to gather people during the week. i spoke with the leaders and some other community members and then the chefe da localidade, or kinda of the mayor, asked me to visit a few people who were sick. i said sure bc you don't want to say no to a man who lives in this type of traditionalist society where people just don't say no to him, and i need these men on my side for the future programs i seek to implement. i am not a big fan of being a visiting nurse, bc i am not a nurse, but there is absolutely nothing i can do physically at that moment except to advise and tell the family to feed the person better food. i do capacity and development, its a little different. anyways, the first lady was laying down, she just gave birth the week before, prolly lost a lot of blood, and i asked a few questions and said to go to the hospital. the volunteer that i was with starting yelling at me that i need to buy them a car for ambulance work. i just ignored it bc like i said this guy is a character. so i leave the house and go to the next one; there was a woman there with tuberculosis which had horribly progressed. i advised them that she need to tb treatment immediately and spoke about the types of foods they were feeding her, that being only corn. this whole process took about 2 hours, and the whole time the leaders were still in the same place waiting for me to come back. at first i felt bad bc this was my first experience in another zone with very important old men that i had never met. this contributed to the thinking i will get to later. later that week the brother of the first lady brought me a huge sugarcane to my house just for visiting her, it was very nice. the next week i went to nanretete, and the volunteer out there is a good man. i spoke at two churches to 280 people. afterward, they fed me chicken and rice, and this is in a place where it is extremely difficult to find meat of any kind. the community and leaders were very graceful and it was just like in those pictures, myself sitting outside a mud brick church with 100 little dirty kids standing around bc it was probably the first time a white person went out into the bush since they have been alive. after the church gathering, i went to the house of the volunteer and he gave me a stalk of bananas (70 total) and 4 stalks of sugarcane (1 stalk is about 4-6 feet long). since i am going in chronological order ill throw in some other stuff that happened in the week. my cement guy finished making my fence, i wanted to do it but was having a wedding soon and wanted to make money and i wanted to help (the wedding is this sunday). plus, he did it way better than i could have, but it is nice now, bc i feel a little more secure especially when the drunks come over from the market. also that week a lovely lady name fatima had a boy and said i could name it, i thought nothing of it and since mozambicans wait a few weeks to register names, i slipped from my mind. she returned to my house and asked for the name, i was thinking my name but no one can pronounce it so i picked my old man's name, Rosario. its a good name and they can pronounce bc it has that italian tongue to it. so pops has a baby named after him in the mato of africa. the next sunday i went to elope, about 7km from my house. it was a difficult bike ride, but when i arrived there was a huge gathering of 3 churches, prolly the only time the baptists sat in the catholic church. the leaders know for many days before i arrive and they have always come through with sizable crowds. on this sunday i spoke to 588 people. afterwards, the churches gave me 40 bananas, 5 stalks of sugarcane, 2 pumpkins, one live chicken, 8 heads of corn and the next day, the pastor of the baptist church brought me another stalk of bananas (about 30) and then went and did the HIV test. he is 76, haha. he then came over to my house to tell me he was healthy and that they gave him condoms, he laughed, i asked him to tell his fellow churchgoers that he did the test and not to be scared. He assured me he would. so after 2 sundays, in my house i had over 100 bananas, i had to give some out, its impossible to eat them before they went bad. that week my roof was fixed so now in only one area does it leak a little and it isn't very important. some quick observations about those first few weeks. lets just say malnutrition is rampant. one big problem is access to certain foods, but another is women become pregnant so quickly after they have given birth, that sometimes the baby doesn't receive the necessary breast-milk for the first 6 months, and an additional 6 months after that with supplemental nutrition. a baby will become health with 6 months of breast milk and then corn three times a day and not enough water, let alone clean water. these babies bellies are enormous. but the odd thing is, the african race are incredibly powerful, muscular human beings. obviously, as they get older they gain access to the foods that they were at the mercy of the families to provide for them. but also, can you imagine if they received an american nutrition from the day they were born until 15 years of age. they would be superhumans, give an african meat everyday of his life after the age of 4, and from birth to 4 milk and other body-building proteins, and i could not possibly fathom the physical capabilities of them, not to mention an increased intellectual ability. they already are smart, i mean how many languages do you speak? i though, no where near as many as them.
So our test days are monday, and we have seen an incredible increase in the amount of tests since i started traveling the countryside. from 4, 7, and 3 tests per monday before i began work to 22, 41, 30 etc. Obviously, in a community with a population of 32,000 it is not good enough, but when you have to walk 27 km to get a test and then walk back barefoot, i mean i cant think of anybody in the states that would do that. without shoes by the way, through the dirt-roaded mountains. Also, its tough to preach good foods and healthy diet when it takes soooo much energy just to eat the foods which lack the nutrients needed. i am also supposed to be thinking about income generating projects, but how can i make an IGP when there is no purchasing power at the bottom of the economic ladder; perhaps a trickle-down process will reach us soon :) The people here are amazed at card-shuffling, my water bottle and the stupid bike helmet i have to wear. the man who built my fence and has his weeding this weekend, he saw the easter eggs I had with hersheys in them from Laura, all different, bright colors and thought they were the best thing since the rainy season. he asked if he could have them bc he wanted to put them over his wedding table during dinner haha. So i am looking forward to seeing American easter eggs hanging above the head dinner table at this weekends wedding.
someone once told us to let somebody do a favor for you, and it is true they are extremely welcoming in the rural areas and they love doing things for me. we have a great group of volunteers, 31 in all, who represent the 22 zones of mugulama. they work for nothing, some don't have bikes and leave at 3am to walk 25km to make it to a monthly meeting at the hospital by 9. so they decided to build a fence around the hospital, with 4 new latrines and a new house for people to stay the night in if they arrive after the hospital is closed. it was great, they organized the leaders of the zones and on the day we began, over 300 people brought wood, bamboo, hoes and dried bark to tie the fence from all over mugulama. each zone had an area to work on especially so i did what any PCV would do, i made sure i was the dirtiest person when we were done. and it was fun, it was like i was landscaping again in the states. and the community leaders were very happy with my help also i believe laura calls that brownie points. but the day before, we were measuring the fence and a bunch of women were sweeping the hard in the blazing sun with babies tied to their backs while a bunch of men were sitting in the shade doing nothing. i was with a few lady volunteers from the community and a few men i commented on the situation, "as mulheres aqui em Mozambique trabalham muito, quando os homens gostam de descanser, por exemple, aqueles homens podem ajudar essas mulheres com as bebes, mas nada, querem sentar-se la na sombra. i pretty called out the men for the lack of help in the home with the family, dont get me wrong, the farming work is a lot but they dont have big machambas, they are small. but the women enjoyed the white man speaking the truth while the men had nothing to say. boy do they need a feminist movement here, badly. apparently a few of my neighbors just got up and left and new people just moved their stuff in from behind my house. well, they actually didnt have anything to move in they just started sleeping there, but at 5am they are pounding the local made liquor, EVERYDAY. listen, there are idiots everywhere in the world, have you ever seen 'Cops'? thought so.
so pineapple season ended, and now we are into oranges, tangerines and avocados, its phenomenal. iI put this here bc all this stuff i have written down and now i can copying, congrats on the baby katie and mark and congrats to andy and kristen on their engagement. I'm looking forward to getting blitzed with uncle ron at the wedding. So there is this one guy who is a jehova witness and he has a bible in english too. he wants me to teach him english using the portuguese and english bibles,i said he can do it easier himself bc they have the same words, i looked at it. but he said he doesn't understand portuguese that well so i need to help him, but i said the only way to help you is with my portuguese haha, it was a good attempt on his part, he is a nice guy.
So march 5th and onto nampula for 4 day regional meeting with PC. on the way there i picked up a ride with this truck coming from maputo and carrying clothes, supposedly. as we were entering nampula city, we were stopped 3 times and police check points and each time the drive, with me sitting in the front seat also, paid off the cops with a 50, 50 and 100; equivalent to 2, 2 and 4 dollars. not a lot, but it is the act that is important. so then i get to nampula and i am walking down the street and a kid is running by me with a bag of rice, two other kids hell cops and run and i turn around and two cops with rifles tackle the kid and take him behind the bank. they do not like thieves here and they whipped this kid with their rifles and grabbed the barrel and came down from over their head to smash this kid. I was watching from about 50 yards because i did not want to be close to the action but they whooped this kid. so i return from regionals with an idea of using the 31 volunteers over a 2 month period, give health palestras in the schools, churches and market. I will contumelies to visit zones and speak with as many people as possible, but it is not possible to visit all of these places and why wait two years to bring info to some places when i hav the resources (volunteers) to bring the info now. also, part of my plan is the get this group of volunteers legalized by the government so they can gain a little respect, and use the standing to try and get funds from other organizations in the world. I stressed to them the fact that if we do a solid program, we can send our successes to many people throughout the country and world. The program is still in its preparatory stages but hopefully we can talk to kids and churches about aids, malaria, tuberculosis, nutrition, condoms, abstain from sex, monogamy, cholera, lepra, gender equality and maybe a few others. I am writing up the project plan and talking to the proper leaders in the community in order to receive their permission to talk about sensitive topics and to receive their support in terms of implementation and any problems i could have with the schools and teachers. the Sunday after regionals i visited napua and received a nice reception of a couple hundred people, i received a couple pounds of peanuts and enjoyed the company of the volunteers. side note, i sure am tired of writing this, i need to get to the computer more, anyways. then i visited naume the following Sunday and talked, again, with a couple of hundred people and received more sugar cane, bananas and corn. the next Saturday we had a meeting with the volunteers and the head nurse to go over some things about the hospital, and after i was going to present my ideas for a project. so it takes 3 hrs to finish the first part of the meeting, i present my project, the nurse gets up and leaves but everyone stays. and so the meeting of asking me for things begin. lets set this up with the fact these people have absolutely nothing, and i get dropped off at my doorstep by a brand new truck whenever i leave site, so i don't blame them for asking. also, the third goal of the peace corps is to help other citizens learn about America on the part of the volunteers and since so many volunteers are so incredibly dynamic and open to living within the culture they find themselves in, they feel it may be disrespectful to do certain things that we would do in the states. not me. if the time is right and i feel that certain traits of our culture are needed in certain situations i will happily introduce American society to my fellow mugulamans. for example, our straightforwardness. when the first person asked me for a car (ambulance) i said no before he was done asking and then said next. second, shirts, under PEPFAR we cant get shirts, i disagree with that, but why get frustrated with policies created by an aristocratic hillbilly? live with them, then acquire that mans job and implement much better policies, thats all you can really do. but i said no to that, then they wanted more hospitals...no. pots, pans, clothes etc for their family...no, no, no. I would love to get these things for them but it inst possible. this past lasted a few minutes, i garaunsheed you none of them heard no's like that before, but they didn't mind, they are too easy going a people.
Earlier on i spoke about how i began noticing the way i was treated by these leaders when i visited zones. they seemed to show great deference towards me, as long as i showed the utmost respect for their culture. these are incredibly influential men in these old societies and they determine the success as you as a volunteer and community member. i was always afraid of what to speak about in these old patriarchal churches and communities. you must tread lightly on the heritage and any thing that would shock the normal community member is a shock and threat to the traditional power structures of the old leaders. but during my visits to these churches, i would sit on the highest chair, above the leaders, and they would get up one by one and introduce themselves and i would stay seated. they would also put their left hand on their right elbow as a sign of respect. as i am seeing this in each of the zones i start to wonder if i should take advantage of the status they are awarding me in front of their community members. what i mean by this is talking much more openly, and forthrightly about topics you may not think they would appreciate: sex, condoms, gender equality, monogamy, abstain from sex etc. but i am doing it, and if they are thinking anything it is that i am still naive about the culture, or something to that affect, they definitely are not feeling insulted. so we will see how this progresses.
the worst case of AIDS and tuberculosis i have been apart of was this 25 yr old with aids and a horribly advanced stage of tuberculosis. he stopped treatment for tuberculosis and he is probably afflicted with an resistant strain, but it was terrible to look at in the office. he prolly weighed 75 lbs. so the next weeks we travel by car 27 km into the bush to talk to this chefe of the locality. wow, i live in the middle-class mato, bc this was like going back 500 yrs or something. but on the way this same man is on the side of the ride, i am still shocked he is alive, and needs to get to a hospital so we give him a ride. we couldn't do anything for him the week before because he needed new tb treatment from the district capital but since Africa lacks access to everything, he had no choice but to go home and die. but apparently vanderbilt brought him to ile and he is receiving treatment now, but most likely, he is receiving treatment for the strain of tb that is resistant to the drugs. its common in the 3rd world. Last Sunday i went to matumane, about 100 people, during the service in the catholic, a line of ladies was formed stretching out of the church and they were all laying food at my feet (close to them); and then I gave my nice little introduction and palestra. but after all of palestras in all of the churches, the president and vice president of the mugulama volunteers gives their health talks in elomwe about other sicknesses. then they ask for problems with the hospital, and in every single church the first complaint is the local guy who works there paulino. he weighs babies and organizes the days activities but he is real demanding and works real hard. but I like him and he is a good guy to me and i think he does a good job in terms of coordinating the daily schedule of a hospital with no water or electricity that serves 32,000 people. but apparently, he insults a lot of the women about not showering and other things, but i mean, these women cant afford soap nor do they have the power in their family to determine what the money is spent on. so thats funny to listen to everyone complain.
there is this one young guy who just left for the city to go back to school and he visits me bc he has nothing has to do and he speaks so fast, its hard to understand. he is a little prick and always laughs when I say i don't understand, and he is a prick bc he thinks if he lived in America, he could learn English in 1-2 weeks. all he knows now are single words, it's annoying and I am glad he left. i am still sick of writing this.

First 6 Weeks

2008-01-31T09:27:00.000+02:00

Oi! Happy New Year. So my first month and a half have been relaxing and challenging, and have brought energy and hopelessness. My community is actually extremely large, in terms of area. From my house, 7 Kilo to the south, 7 to the west, 8 to the north and 26 to the east. There are 32,000 people but the mud huts are spread out over the vast land of mountains, hills, and valleys; dense with plentiful fruit trees and small machambas (farms). I live in between the market and the health center. my first few weeks were building things for my house, which is actually not bad minus the horrible leaks, ant problem, low metal ceiling which bakes my house, lack of windows (3) which limits the flow of air and contributes to the baking of the interior and the doors which are used to enter the house and my bedroom that are about 5 foot 6 inches tall. People spent a lot of their free time when I first moved in stopping by to see if I wanted to give them anything (quinhentos for a cigarette, equivalent to 2 cents; or 50,000 meticias, $2,000, to purchase an electric saw in order to gut the beautiful countryside of its natural resources and sell the trees to the Commie/Capitalistas in China to support their booming economy), also food, medicine, or books. It was also during the holiday season and they would say 'boa festa' and expect money from me, those who know me can picture my response in their heads and laugh. I left for Xmas and went to Ile about 100 kilos away and visited some German Missionaries. There were extremely nice and welcoming and even bought me Xmas presents. Ain't nothing in the world like singing Silent Night in German. People in my town would also come by with American money, a quarter or dollar or 5 dollars and want to exchange it for Meticial, Eu nao sou um banco.
When I returned to my house before New Years I had a couple pesky black snakes in the ole' crib. One was about 18-20 inches and the other was a baby, I actually enjoyed chopping their heads off with my machete. The top of my house is run by a few lizards and one really large lizard that looks like an iguana, I don't mind their presence, the keep my house clean by eating a lot of cockroaches and other bugs, but not the darn ants. Since I don't have electricity I usually head to bed around 730 or 8 and try to make it out to the water pump, about 40 yards from my house by 5am, but not later than 530, muitas pessoas will be there. I pump my water and carry it on my head back to my house. The men tell me not to do it because it is a shameful act, but since it is a rampant patriarchical society where women are subjugated to the rule of men, I happily defy their blessings. It is the closest I will ever be to that great revolutionary spirit of the 60's in the ole US of A. I can just see Bull Connor telling his kids not to do things because there are certains orders in this society which all people must respect and conservately conform too. Anyways...
I forgot to tell of my ride to the German Missionary house for Xmas. I jumped in a chapa with this doctor i was chatting with and this car would take us half-way, which in Africa is like almost being there. He said if I would mind the fact the chapa would have meat which people were bringing to the capital city. I said no. The chapa arrives and in the back is a cow, killed and skinned the night before, laying in the back with its head on top of its body. Prolly thousands of flies and a family of 5 sitting in the back with it. Along the way we stop for an hour and help people with their car. I walk to a mango tree and eat some breakfast with the trusty knife Mr. Rizzo gave me (it gets better here Mr. Rizzo, haha). We continue to the half way point and we stop and the chapa begins selling chunks of this meat that have been sitting in this boiling hot chapa since the night before (See, federal regulations are stupid). The doctor asks to see my knife and without thinking I handed it over and he began to chop up this cow with the 4 or 5 inch knife.
On the way back from Xmas i wait at that same halfway point for 4 hours until this nice Zimbabyan white couple pick me up. They tell me of their story about how Mugabe took their land last September and they were forced to leave the country. Now they help people in northern Mozambique with crop rotations to replenish their soil. That week I began walking around more to meet people and introduce myself. I ran into Carlos and Carlisto, brothers which handcrafted very beautiful furniture. I drew them a dresser and a large work bench for cooking and placing dishes and other things, we agreed on a price and they agreed to make them. I am still waiting for them to finish but I am sure they will be beautiful.
Lots of people haven't seen me in over a month told me i lost weight, which is probably true, but I feel healthy. Exercise enough and eat an enormous amount of fruit everyday, along with beans twice a week. But it is difficult to acquire meat or other fatty foods in the bush of Africa, and 90% of the people in my community survive on less than a $1 a day (guestimation).
On to work, Muguluma suprisingly has a rather extensive volunteer 'army'. Made up of over 30 people, whom most have been trained by the government or other NGO's, and are scattered across an enormous range of territory. Next week I begin visiting all of them by bicycle to introduce myself to the area leaders and speak with other locals. My goal is to increase the amount of people who get tested every Monday for HIV. Though I have secondary concerns: educating citizens on the best methods of treating diarrhea; how to cook greens and not lose the nutrients, which is evident in the bellies of 95% of the children under 5; and depending on my community, many other things. For instance, when a mother lets her 3 year old go diarrhea on my lawn while I am reading the Federalist Papers on my porch, I use that as a good chance to explain the best thing to combat diarrhea is lots of water, preferebly boiled, for a day with bananas. No medicine is needed (Where There is No Doctor is a great resource guide, I wouldn't mind it being taught in grade schools in the states, it would save us from weakening our bodies for future generations with the substantial use of pointless medicines which we can buy way to easily and are abused by millions...but I forgot, that book speaks to the truth about the unequal distribution of land and resources, so people would think we are trying to brainwash children in public schools and instead of having an intellectual debate founded on the curiosity of the human mind, fear-mongering would ensue and the debate would be undertook through the passion of man instead of his reason, scratch that idea).
Let's indulge into a little International Development, World Economy and International Law (or as Hamilton, Madison and Jay referred to as "The Law of Nations" dozens of times in the Federalist Papers). First, I remember a man talking to me in my homestay community of Mafuiane about the manufacturing and textile industries, or lack thereof in Mozambique. He wanted to know why Mozambique doesn't produce cheap clothes for their poor and in the mean time create jobs and lift some of the poor out of poverty? Instead, this country receives the clothes American's did not wish to buy in the goodwill, which originate from Taiwan, China or the Phillipines, and this clothing apparel floods the markets here and there is now way for Mozambique to compete with it. Let's look at another sector, health. We got urselves (they tok' ur jobs...for you nelly) a little problem here in the ole Africa. Many societal factors contribute to the poor situation of health but I do not seek to swim to the bottom of the ocean of those problems in this blog. Let's say you live in a community in America of 32,000 people (and America happens to be the 7th poorest country in the world). This community has one health center (3 rooms) and a maternity. They have 2 nurses and a few helpers who prolly do things they wouldn't be allowed in a well-regulated environment. Women walk 5, 10, 15, 25, 30 kilometers with a baby on their back, no shoes and under the sun of Africa to this health facility. It sounds as if this little 'posto de saude' could use a little help, eh? I would say so. Now let's pretend an international body which is run by the richest country in the history of mankind told your country that they are not allowed to hire more than a certain amount of public health workers because that country doesn't want us to exhibit any Marxist tendencies! There is no point in showing my disillusionment through typing swear words using other symbols. any reasonable person (not one compelled by passion), can see the complex issues underdeveloped countries face. And, Your country along with its neighbor, are unable to retain the brilliant minds which are developed by our countries every so often because they would rather leave for the developed countries pay scale. Let's go on to the agricultural sector. Your country has an amazing array of territory which is Blessed By God to be in a climate suitable for the growth of an array of fruits and vegetables. Why not share (sell) these with the world, we sure as heck know the richest country in the world could use a little more fruit (except for Laura, she eats real healthy, love you) and a little less fast food. But once again, these 3 countries which control so much of the world market, are viciously controlled by the interests of the agricultural sector of the country and addicted to subsidizations (Britain and France the other 2). They protect their farmers through tariffs and through the use of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and disallow governments to subsidize their farmers. You've got to be thinking: When am I truly going to share the fruits of pure sovereignty with my countrymen? Once people who control the affairs of the world have enriched their minds and souls through cultural exchange and understanding.
Talk with you soon.
Bryan

2007-12-09T09:17:00.000+02:00

Hello Home,

Am on my way to my home for the next 24 months in Mugulama, no water or electricity and aparelmente my house has a door that is about 5 inches shorter than me and a roof of an undetermined height because my security officer and colleagues do not wish to tell me so I am have a house that is shorter than me. I also have 2-3 months to learn the local language of Longwe or something like that because most of the people I will be working with everyday do not speak excellent Portuguese, so I am looking forward to weeks of intensive language training. I will miss not hearing about things in the world, but if anyone knows me they know how much I love silence and I am guaransheed to get it now. I also did not bring a camera and the disposable i do have still is not developed and there is no point in sending it back to the states because it will not get there. I also do not have the most interesting things to write on here because most times you want to write about things that shock you or a new development in your life or personality but I really have not come across any life altering things since I arrived, maybe because I was expecting a lot of this stuff I have seen or lived with because I have wanted to do the Peace Corps in Africa for years or maybe because I am shallow; let's hope together it is the former. Take care and talk to you soon. Bryan.

End of Week 8

2007-11-24T11:09:00.000+02:00

Hi,

Done with week 8 and it feels like it is finals week, cramming for tests and presentations. I have my practicum monday, with some young boys talking about their future and what work they want to do, with a little bit of gender talk, friday is the final language interview and i am not a very good speaker but i think i will barely pass and i am sure it will come with time and not living with people who speak english. I will be living in Zambezia Province, in a small village called Mugulama. I will be working with people living with HIV and AIDS, making sure they adhere to treatment, building the capacity of the community to recieve the materials needed to care for the sick, developing and implementing projects based on treatment, prevention and working as a link between the closest hospital and our community. I will have to learn a local language and prolly will not have electricity. Should be fun and tough. Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and there is no real thanksgiving unless the lions play like the lions normally do. Go to go talk to you soon.

Week 5

2007-11-03T09:10:00.000+02:00

Hi,

Mid-way through training and we leave next week for site visit, I am traveling to the Province of Zambezia and will be staying in a town called Mocuba. Apparently it is in the mountains or close to them. It should be a fun time leaving the place we have been for the last 5 weeks and seeing some of the country. Not much to report, everything is pretty much monotonous everday. Though if anyone out there has a 313 area code I do not know about, tell me because a glitch in the phone I have allows me to call 313 area codes for free. Shaun and I have never talked so much. Well, we did have a session with a lady living with HIV, it was very sad, because we all knew her husband passed the disease onto her since he has been a miner in South Africa for years, and after she told him she had it he blamed her and left her, now she has 3 kids, no job or money and is ostracized by most of society due to the stigma perpetuated by idiot government officials throughout the years or the hierarchy in most churches. She seemed so ashamed to be sitting there and I think she did it so she could get some food for her baby. In another note, I was strolling around the local mercado (market) and saw my first Michael Vick style dog fighting. These kids had three puppies probably 4 weeks old and they were dragging them around on leashes and got in a circle and grabbed the neck of two and smashed their faces together until the dogs started to bite eachother, it was quite pathetic and unfortunately I think they have bad role models when their parents beat the dogs and the kids lack the same compassion. And I think psychologists would argue the way you treat your animals could showcase the way you treat other things you feel are inferior to yourself?

4 Weeks Done

2007-10-27T14:31:00.000+02:00

Hello,

Live is as good as it can be, though I woulnd't mind speaking the language a little better...family life is good and there is a lot to report but I am not I can write a lot of my views about certain aspects of the culture, because one, the PC policemen and women would call me ethno-centric, although it is only an observation which may be funneled through my past teachings and american culture, but if that is the case, no one can ever make an observation again without it being ethno-centric because we are all influenced by family, faith, schooling, culture and civil society as a whole, right? So it was a little bit of an illogical statement, anyways...secondly, lots of people read this and I sure dont want to put the Peace Corps in jeopardy if someone from the Mozambican government reads this and doesnt appreciate some of my viewpoints, it has happened before...but anyways i love the country overall...So I decided to share one moment which apparently has made its way to PCV throughout the country...
We have water filters and we have to filter the water and put a small amount of bleach in afterwards...it was a week before i set mine up and that day we play soccer with the local kids and it was really hot so i was chugging bleach water all day...I go to bed and wake up at 3am and have to go to the bathroom, so i get out of my room and go to the backdoor and i said to myself, "I have to go right now," 5 seconds later I am 5 feet away from my backdoor and 50 feet away from the outhouse and I said, "I have to go right f!@##%^ here" and I pulled my pants down and covered an area of, o i dont know, 8 feet with 4 days worth of food...so it is 315am and I am bathing myself at this water spicket naked and i dont have a flashlight to find the area in which i decimated with my feces, so i fill a basilla up with agua and dump it all around hoping it would wash it away...so i wake up the next morning and my family is digging dirt to cover up the area so the kids and dogs dont play in it and all i can say in my limited portuguese (it was the first week i moved in) was desculpe and obrigado, sorry and thank you...so i get home from class and on top of the new dirt are all of their large buckets to keep people off of it...so there you have it, my family thought it was funny and i decided i was ready for the rest of my time in sub-saharan africa.

Yo

2007-10-13T15:04:00.000+02:00

Going, ok, only sick once so far. Not much to report, the language is going slow and there is a lot of stress on all of us to adjust to the living situations and along with learning a language, meeting the expectations of our host families and finishing other things the Peace Corps wants from us. The next 8 weeks will be increasingly challenging. I have never been so high at one point and absolutely depressed the next moment. Got to go. Love you all.

Bom Dia Mafuiane

2007-10-06T10:02:00.000+02:00

Ho Ho Ho,

greetings from the motherland...what a time so far, I will just give short tidbits and use your imagination...first my new phone, i can get free text messages so write your heart away; my # is 827339507 and you must type 00258 for like an area code or something first, ill text you back if you i got it...um where do i start... for tatum, taking a bucket bath under the milky way while malaria filled mosquitoes surround you, and yes i cover my penis steve...you aint never had breakfast until you have eaten a fried egg covered in oil over top pan fried french fries at 645 am, yummy...i live with a good family, they have all kinds of f'n animals, and i eat meat a lot...all the little kids yell "mulungo" and then run up to you and follow you, come my children...Eu sou voluntaria do Corpo de Paz...i shit outside into the ground, not to bad but it has no ventilation...African women want me to marry them and bring them back to America, it is not tempting be cause I have Laura...Prolly wont get back to the internet until mid december, so it is your responsibility to text me lions and UM scores each weekend...thats about it, not too much, havent seen any national geographic type animals...o wait the first day i got to my family, they put on the only dvd they had, r kelly playing so i sang pissin on me quite funny, k got to go love you all peace

From the Mouth of its Founder

2007-09-21T18:48:00.000+02:00

"Life in the Peace Corps will not be easy. There will be no salary and allowances will be at a sufficient level only to maintain health and meet basic needs. Men and women will be expected to work and live along side the nationals of the country in which they are stationed--doing the same work, eating the same food, talking the same language.

But if life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participated in the Peace Corps--who works in a foreign land--will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace."
-President Kennedy

Leaving Soon

2007-09-12T17:55:00.000+02:00

11 days until I leave. Getting things together; finishing my last minute Portuguese studying; figuring out my financial obligations; and trying to get together some money to buy a few more things. Mostly, loving my girlfriend before I leave. That's about it, will only get to the computer once a week or so, since I do not have a laptop. My next blog will have my address in Mozambique and my initial thoughts upon arriving in my country of origin for the next 27 months. Take er ease.