Random Videos!

Finally has a chance to use my schools internet stick, so I put a bunch of video's up on YouTube.  Here's a few random one's from the last 8 months...

First one is a video I took from the plane as we were flying from Maputo to Nampula.  I honestly have no idea where we are, but I think the Mountains hint that it's probably over Zambezia or Nampula Province.

This is a video of the approach into Nampula providing a view of the city of Nampula as well as the Mountains in the background.

This is a video I took during the chapa ride on the day we were dropped off at site.  Here we're driving through some village on the way up north.

Here's a video from Montepuez.  It's a bunch of kids playing with a monkey in a tree.  Cute shit.

Another video from Montepuez.  This is my friend Manuel and he is in the process of building his own house.  He bought some land last year and finally saved up enough money to buy the supplies he needed to start building.  First comes the skeleton made from skinny tree trunks forming the structural columns inside the walls of the house.  Then, you secure horizontal slates of bamboo to the posts using thin rubber string made from old tires.  Next he'll build the scaffolding of a roof using more bamboo, then cake the walls in mud to make an inside and an outside.  Finally, he'll throw bundles of "capin," or tall grass on top of large sheets of plastic to form the protective portion of the roof and keep the inside dry.  The whole process is actually fairly simple and really doesn't take that long to do depending on how much effort you put into it. He's only in the initial stages right now, but he's moving fast!  This is his progress after two weeks of working all by himself.

And just like that, I’ve got myself a Secondary Project.

It’s not intentional, but all throughout PST, there a fair amount of pressure builds on the shoulders of PCT’s in regards to starting secondary projects once you get to site.  Secondary projects are exactly what they sound like, they are projects you as a PCV can pursue in addition to your primary task (which in my case is teaching).  Even with all the great things visiting PCVs had to say about the various secondary projects they were involved in, some of the most popular being: REDES, JUNTOS, English Theater and Science Fair.  Science fair a little, but nothing else really ever caught my interest.  So I figured I’d wait until something did.

And then it did.  The idea itself was something that had been dormant in the back of my head, a lingering possibility if the need became apparent.  All it took was one random conversation a half-year into my service to elucidate an apparent need. 

I want to build a bridge.  No, not a metaphorical one, a real one.  I want to build a pedestrian bridge that villagers living in the bush can use to safely cross the river outside of town when the water level starts to rise during the rainy season and the crocodiles start to get hungry. 

A couple of days ago, I was talking with one of the local missionaries who lives in Montepuez, but works in some of the rural villages outside of town.  A casual conversation about his work soon turned into a discussion about the impoverished conditions present in the villages, the local dependency on the river, and the plush farmland that lines its banks.  My curiosity spawned a site-visit to Bandari, one of the villages outside of town that was dependent on the river.  In addition to examining the bear-by section of river as well as the current crossing, I also had the opportunity to talk with a number of the community members about the river’s role in their lives.  I was surprised to find just how much influence it had. 

Essentially, the river has a significant impact on most, if not all potential for economic development of the local economy and the personal growth of the people who form it.  The majority of locals living in the rural villages along the river are subsistence farmers with one or more machambas (personal farms) on either side of the river.  They use these plots to grow their food for the entire year, and when it’s possible, they use any extra land to grow cotton, the local cash crop. 

When the rainy season comes in November, the river starts to rise eventually reaching a point where it becomes impassable by foot between the months of December and March.  Swimming is avoided due to the presence of crocodiles and fast flowing water.  Those that can afford it can pay to take a small dugout canoe across, but the fee charged by the boat’s owner is extremely high (between 50 to 100 metacais, or $2-$3), forcing many of the farmers to abandon their plots for 4 months during the prime planting season.

Aside from dugout canoes, there is one other point along the river that can be crossed by using a road bridge. But, for the people living on the far side of the river in villages like Nchomekah and Kampiri, it can take between 3-4 hours to reach the city of Montepuez by foot, where they can access a semi-functional hospital, secondary schools, a diverse market and the main transportation hub.

So, that’s that, and now I’ve got myself a good ol’ fashioned secondary project.  I’ve got a long road ahead of me, but I’m hoping to ride this wave of motivation towards some serious progress.  More to report when it happens, that is, if it happens.

Bin Laden's Not from America

Fun day I just had.  Unique experience too.  But the best part wasn’t learning about culturally Islamic traditions that celebrate the dead, it was a conversation I had while attending the event where I learned about this stuff.  Lucas invited me over today to celebrate with his very extensive family.  Once a year, everyone gets together to celebrate the lives of all the family member’s, young and old, that they’ve lost in the past.  To sit together, to feast together, to think together, and to pray together.  Really was a cool event. 

In the midst of using our hands to feast on a large community plate of xima, chicken caril (caril is essentially just a general term for any sauce you make to put over xima or rice…there are a million different ways to prepare it, but no matter how you do it, it’s always called the same thing), and Majimbue Matapa (Majimbue is a type of plant that produces a root you can eat, in this case though, they used the leaves to make Matapa) with the other men, I began answering the typical questions asked to me on a regular basis when I first meet someone:  Who I was (Hi I’m local white guy, Teacher William, a volunteer with Corpo de Paz); Why I was there (I’m a teacher, teaching Fisica at the local escola secondaria around the corner); What I was doing (eating xima and trying to pretend like I’m Mozambican, yo…no but seriously, I’m a volunteer and I’m here for two years to school some kids); and where I was from (America…North America.  Estados Unidos; do you know where that is?  No?  Ok, how about Obama; do you know who that is?  Yeah!  I’m from the same country as him; in fact, we’re kind of neighbors.  I from the same city he lives in.  Uh-huh, yeah, now you’ve got it!).

Well today, one of those men had some pretty interesting feedback for me concerning a few personal character traits.  He wasn’t clear on the whole “Estados Unidos” thing, and I don’t really blame him for not being all that well informed about geo-political relations regarding a country he’s never been too, but he was fairly convinced that the US was where Bin Laden was from, and took a fair amount of time trying to convince his friends, as well as me, that was the case.  I tried to explain, in as gentle a manner as I could, that he was gravely mistaken (and without referencing the whole thing about us spending the better part of a decade hunting him down and then killing him).  Didn’t seem to work.  So we moved on.

The discussion then turned to religion, and as the same man kept asking me questions, the other listened in.
“So what’s your deal?  Are you Christian or are you a Muslim?” the guy asked. 
“Well, funny story dude,” I responded.  “I’m kind of a little bit of both.  You see, I was raised Jewish.  I’m Judaismo.  You don’t really have many of those around these parts.”
“Oh! You’re Jewish huh.  That’s neat.  Didn’t you guys kill Jesus?”
**Awkward Silence**
“Oooo, that’s a bit of a loaded question there isn’t it.” 
“Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty sure it was you guys.  Hey, let me ask you…Why’d you do that?”
“Umm, you know…I’m not really sure.  I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question, nor confirm that what you said actually happened.  If I can’t cite Wikipedia as a viable source of information, I don’t think that a Mel Gibson film is much better.  But either way, I’m only 27 years old.  I think that happened like 2000 years ago man.  Hard to say, I wasn’t there and I don’t know anyone who was.”
“Naw, it was definitely you guys.  But no worries, I’m Muslim, I don’t even care!”
“Oh…ok.  Wait, dude, are you drunk?”
“Yes.  Very…Can I have ten mets for more beer?”

The impromptu session of religious persecution then opened up to the rest of the group once again and transformed into a much livelier discussion on the grammatical structure of Bantu Languages.  A quick local language lesson followed, some jokes were told, I learned the word for hand in Macua (Matata), made an offhand comment about how it sounds like the Portuguese word for potato (Batata) and then got laughed for a while for having made such a comical discovery.  We finished our food, our discussions, and the get-together, despedir-ed (said our goodbyes) and I went on my merry way.  Good old culture.