After a busy couple of weeks, I'm now
back in Messica with the first week of the third trimester completed.
My break from school was crazy, full of Peace Corps conferences,
seeing more of Mozambique, and visiting with other PCVs living in
other parts of the country.
Three weeks ago, I left Messica and
headed just outside of Beira (the second-largest city in Mozambique)
to Nazare for a PEPFAR sponsored workshop for a secondary project
group called REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educacao, e Saude;
Translation: Girls in Development, Education, and Health). I wanted
to go check out their workshop, help out for the weekend, and check
out the differences between JUNTOS and REDES. Despite our mini-bus
breaking down on the way there, and the 3 and a half hour journey
from Chimoio taking over 5 hours, the weekend went exceptionally
well! The workshop was held at a retreat center owned by the
Archdiocese of Beira that was extremely beautiful, had delicious
food, nice rooms, and a Catholic church complete with beautiful
African murals covering the walls inside. It's safe to say that I
was pleased. I got communion at an intimate mass on Sunday morning,
and around lunchtime headed back towards Messica to another Peace
Corps conference that would start on Monday morning.
The Peace Corps sponsored conference I
attended is called PDM (Project and Design Management), and was held
about 10 km from Messica in a small town called Guruzo. There were
10 PCVs that participated in the conference from the southern and
central provinces of Mozambique, and each volunteer brought a
Mozambican counterpart. At the conference, we learned about
identifying community needs, and how to implement projects in the
community and get funding for them. My roommate, Sarah, and I both
attended PDM and each brought one colleague from school with us.
They were extremely excited upon leaving the conference and can't
wait to get started! There will be more information to come on the
potential projects we are thinking about for Messica.
PDM lasted for 2 days, and on Tuesday
after the afternoon sessions, I headed back to Chimoio with another
volunteer, Charlie, who would be traveling north with me. We spent
the night in Chimoio, and very early Wednesday morning made our way
to Inchope to try our luck hitchhiking north. After a couple hours
of waiting for a ride and having no luck, I wandered over to a nice
South African man named Carl at a gas station, and asked him where he
was heading. He told me he was heading to Caia, a town right on the
border of Sofala and Zambezia and in the direction we were trying to
go. I asked him if he could give us a ride, and he replied that they
had no space in their truck. I thanked him for his time and wished
him a safe trip. Less than 5 minutes later, after making my way back
over to the tree where Charlie and I were waiting, the truck pulled
up, and Carl got out, explaining that he'd rearranged the whole truck
so that there was enough room for us to fit. (Shoutout to Carl...what
a guy!) After about 3 hours (of a trip that normally takes 6 hours),
we arrived in Caia and were once again left to sit on the side of the
road. We waited for over another hour, and luckily we had some other
PCV friends that were also going north that got an awesome ride and
they were able to pick us up on the way. We made it to Mocuba,
Zambezia in record time, and spent the evening catching up with the
volunteers there that we were staying with that night.
The next day, I hung out for most of
the day in Mocuba, but in the early afternoon, I continued from
Mocuba onto Invinha, where I would be meeting up with my two best
Peace Corps friends, Hannah and Maggie. I got a ride pretty easily
from Mocuba to the crossroads for Gurue, and then waited for an open
back truck to take me the rest of the way to Invinha. It ended up
being two more trucks, fending off one creepy guy, and a few more
hours until I made it to Invinha, but I made it, and I was stoked to
finally be there after two days of traveling! We spent Friday
shopping in Gurue (the bigger city about 20 minutes from Invinha),
and just hanging out after a few months of not seeing each other.
Saturday was some more of the same, except for a traumatic incident
with a dead cat and some stomach problems, which I'm not going to get
into. The trip was great and I'm so glad I made it up there and got
to see my friends!
On Sunday morning, Hannah, Maggie, and
I headed out at about 5am. They were headed to Nampula for their PDM
conference for Northerners, and I was headed back to Chimoio to meet
up with my long lost friend and neighbor from training, Will. I was
nervous about my trip because I was traveling alone and sometimes the
trip from Gurue to Chimoio can take two full days. I didn't want to
get stranded anywhere sketchy alone or have to pay ridiculous amounts
of money for somewhere to stay that night. After saying goodbye to
Hannah and Maggie at the crossroads, I continued on the chapa south
to Mocuba. Arriving in Mocuba around 8:30, I got a ride from a local
to another place where I could wait for a ride to Nicoadala, another
crossroads on the way to Chimoio. After about an hour of waiting, I
got a ride to Nicoadala. At around 11 am, I got to Nicoadala, and
headed out again to try to get a ride to Inchope. As I was walking
past these guys getting into a car, they asked where I was going and
I told them. They told me they were also going to Inchope and would
take me with them. So I got in their car with zero waiting time. It
was a miracle! Then they asked me where my final destination was,
and I told them Chimoio. It turns out the driver was going to
Manica, which is very close to Messica, and which you have to pass
through Chimoio to get to. He ended up driving me all the way to
Chimoio (and he would've driven me all the way to Messica if I was
trying to get there!), and we arrived in Chimoio around 4 pm. It was
incredible. I never in a million years would have thought I could've
gotten from Invinha to Chimoio in a day, let alone in 11 hours, but
I'm so glad I did.
Within 5 minutes of being in Chimoio, I
ran into a student of mine that was spending the break from school in
Chimoio, and also saw the nuns from Messica driving by. It felt so
good to see familiar people and feel at home again. After taking a
brief detour to the Peace Corps office, I made my way to my friend
Anna's house to reunite with Will and eat some dinner (mini-Math
reunion!). It was a good night of hearing about their travels,
looking at pictures, and catching up with Will on the 7-8 months it
had been since I'd seen him. So crazy!
Will and I spent Monday hanging out in
Chimoio. I showed him around, we ran some errands, and we hung out
with some other PCVs passing through. Tuesday, we boarded a chapa
back to Messica in the morning and spent the day passearing
around Messica. Everyone in Messica was so excited to have a
visiting volunteer! Wednesday, one of the pedagogical directors
from the school, Jorge, took us to Manica so Will could see it. We
visited an old Catholic Church built by the Portuguese, and we also
went to see some awesome rock paintings that have been there anywhere
between 2,000 and 10,000 years. Then we went to the Zimbabwe border,
a town called Machipanda, but didn't actually enter into Zimbabwe
because we're not allowed. :( After a busy morning of sight-seeing,
we had lunch at Casa Msika before coming back home.
Thursday,
we headed back into Chimoio to spend the day there. We went on a
hike in the morning, and went to the kalamidades market in the
afternoon. Friday, we finally made our way over to Beira (my first
time in the city!). In Beira, we stayed with a Japanese volunteer
that lives about a 20 minute chapa ride outside of the city and about
a 3 minute walk from the beach! Friday night was spent walking on
the beach at sunset and seeing a beautiful lighthouse. It was so
nice! We spent Saturday exploring Beira. We went in the Grand Hotel
that was built by the Portuguese and was one of the nicest hotels in
Africa before the war, but during the war was destroyed, and now over
3000 Mozambicans live there. We also saw and went in the cathedral
(so so SO beautiful). We went shopping and ate Chinese food for
lunch. It was a great day...until the Chinese food made me sick.
But I won't let that overshadow the trip; it was great!
Sunday,
I said my goodbyes to Will who was flying back to his province from
Beira, and headed back to Chimoio on a bus. Late Sunday afternoon, I
made it back to Messica, and I'm tempted to never leave again. I
missed it so much!
School
technically started on Monday, but hardly any students or teachers
actually were at school all this week. Tuesday I wasn't feeling
well, so I stayed home, but Wednesday and Thursday I taught lessons
to about half of my normal-sized classes. Not gonna lie, I don't
mind not having 50-60 students per class. Hopefully next week things
will be back to normal and I will get back into the swing of things.
This
morning Sarah and I climbed two mountains here in Messica, and this
weekend I'll be happily hanging out in Messica!
Seriously love this place. I
couldn't be happier that I live in such a beautiful villa in this
beautiful country.
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