Hydro-powered

For whatever reason several months ago, my landlord poured cement mix into a bucket. He did this four times, leaving to dry four short, stocky concrete stools in my communal sideyard. They remained there, scattered unevenly like birds on a telephone wire. Months went by with me passing them, absent-mindedly gazing upon them while washing dishes from my kitchen sink. Months went by without me paying them any mind until just the other day when I found myself engulfed in the stresses of packing, cleaning and errand-running in preparation for another trip to the south. Leaving my laptop at my sitemates' house, calling a taxi driver to confirm a 3:30AM pick-up, worrying about not getting the pick-up, figuring out how many shirts, bras, pairs of pants, underwear to pack, do I have a tiny squeeze bottle to put a bit of hairgel in?, wondering if Maputo is chilly enough to warrent shoes or a sweater, what if i come home and my house is infested with these roaches?, what if someone breaks in?, what if the bus breaks down tomorrow?, what will I make for dinner tonight?, how will I deliver my housekeys to my neighbor so early in the morning? I went to sweep out dirt from my suitcase, my incessant internal dialogue was kicked in the face and from here on out is a description of a treasured (and elusive) little nugget known as a "Magical Peace Corps Moment." Outside I heard the girls giggling and saw their parents-together-engrossed in some project whilst perched upon those scattered bucket seats. "Esta fazer o que!?" What are you doing, I asked, intrigued by their materialized concentration as much as I was grateful for the breaths of fresh nighttime air. Walking over, I saw Fatima's husband shaping a petite vase out of mud/clay and Fatima attempting to smooth out the cracks in the top of a bowl she'd just sculpted. In response, they said, "Servido!" a catch-all word meaning help yourself to whatever is being had. In this case it was a sticky pile of grey gooey slab and I just couldn't help myself. I perched myself in the soft glow of the porchlamp and started rolling my clay mass into a ball, while the baby became agitated at Fatima denying her the breast in favor of crafting her bowl. I chuckled at her finally giving in, getting wet clay all over the child, and at the older girls' desires to simply bake mud pies. For the first time in a year, I marveled at Fatima and her husband seemingly enjoying one another's company. Ten minutes later my eyes stung from low lighting, my back cramped from hunching and my podcast was blaring and almost completed in my room, but alas, my masterpiece was complete. A fish with bamboo score marks on the dorsal fin and an awkwardly shaped mouth was ready to hit the kiln...wherever that was. Obrigada, familia, I said, but I must be going. Before I could even say "screw you" to my To-Do List upon entering the indoors, a great chaos had begun outdoors. Within one crash of thunder a wall of water had suddenly started falling from the sky, dousing everything and everyone in its path. Parents, baby, little girls, freshly fashioned mud art-all nearly washed away in the whoosh of rain that prompted minor panic from those wishing to salvage items left outside and those screaming with sheer delight at the chest-pounding adreniline such an event brings about. As for me, I remained where I was, purely laughing for the first time that day.

Here, It's Where I Am.

Tonight I walked my two favorite little gals to their grandma's house not only because the lack of moonlight made it a spooky journey for a 5 and 10 year old, but because I hadn't seen their grandma, Zainaba (I call her Mama Zai Zai) since I'd been back. We sat outside on the straw mat, her facial features obscured by the bright light of the bare bulb overlooking the yard, made brighter by the contrast of its singular ray against the humid night air. Yes, my family is good and well, I said. Yes, my mom was very happy to have me home. Yes, I am tired after travelling for 3 days. In fact, I couldn't fall asleep until 3 o'clock this morning, I'd said. "I don't think it's the time difference, Sara. You can't stop thinking of your homeland," she told me. It's now 3:34 AM and after finishing up season 5 of LOST, reading some of my last-minute airport book purchase, tossing, and turning I made a final attempt at being lulled to sleep. Laying here in the shadow of a simple day puncuated by the bright hues of the Mozambican color palette, my favorite songstress strums away and yet all I can conjure is the need to be a part of her words by smithing some of my own. Much as I'd like to blame the jetlag, I must admit that Mama Zai Zai was right: I can't stop thinking about you, America, and how spectacular, overwhelming, demanding, easy, grandiose and frigid you are. You amaze me, friend, because if I want a bag of ruffled potato chips with french onion dip and an a nacho cheese chalupa with two soft tacos at 2:19 AM I can have it. You frighten me, America, because you move so quickly and to the beat of a drummer who only resides on your side of the world. You keep me im awe, America, because of your new-fangled smart phones and internet technologies that can videochat from NYC to LA whilst making you a 5 course meal. You sadden me, America, because you don't know your neighbors or your shopkeeper or maybe sometimes even your brother or your sister. You overwhelm me, America, what with your 600 TV channels, 29 kinds of coffeedrink, invasion of must-see viral videos and overload of stimuli. Yet you soften me, America, with your infinite different groups of people and your having something for everyone. And you make my heart weep, America, because without you I wouldn't be a segment of the beautiful greater whole that is my friends and family. But alas, now I find myself here again, in this hot, stinky town away from you, America, and it'll be awhile before we meet again. I awoke at 1:00 PM today, a time entirely unheardof to wake up to here, a time by which all locals have completed a 3 page list of chores and made dinner for the family, and a time chosen by me so that I may postpone the reality that I am here again, away from you. But today I woke up and there was a baby at my door. Soon to follow were more giggling and squealing goobers who couldnt wait any longer to say good morning. Soon after was my walk down the beach, to which I was greeted with handshakes and where-have-you-beens. The water was murky but warm like a bath, and I ordered the same thing off the restaurant's menu but my friends were there to spice it up. Lobsters were purchased afterwards and served, with fresh cashew fruit for dessert. A rastaman sporting Selaisse on his shirt grabbed my hand and genuinely thanked me for doing what I'm doing here. My Portuguese is a tad rusty but I can still hold my own in Makua. So, Mozambique, you give a little and you take a little. You can piss me off, Mozambique, but you're doing the best that you can. You're hot as hell, Mozambique- humidity as thick as a sheet. But I can breathe here, because even though you're not my real home, you march to the beat of a drummer on vacation.

Confectionary Torture, or, "Any Peace Corps Volunteer Who Has No Tale of a Salivating Food Dream Is a Big Fat Liar."

Once upon a time, there was a girl who always took Dairy Queen for granted. Now, she lives in Africa and would do just about anything for something involving chocolate, fudge or a brownie. The end.

I Don't Need No Sixth Sense When These Five Are Treatin Me Just Fine

I watched the moonrise tonight. It was well before any of you in the Northern Hemisphere will have seen her. I know when to step out onto my veranda to watch-and it begins when the sun has descended beyond the hut-peppered horizon, leaving in its wake a pure, diluted orange that bleeds almost immediately into a watery sky blue. Tonight in our first encounter she took me by surprise, what with her sheer brillance and audacity, ascending the opposite horizon and overtaking any tree who served to obstruct her view. On my porch in the dark, before I'd turned on any lights, I wanted to be alone with the moon and her greeting of the night. I focused and I focused. I focused so hard that it was as if I was willing her to speak. Don't focus on the Tanzanian pop blasting a few doors down, I said to myself. Don't think about the fact that your butt aches on this chair. Don't listen to that ear-splitting child's scream next door. Don't worry about what you'll make for dinner tonight, I thought. This was the only quiet part of my day, and in a land in which I am a local celebrity by virtue of my skin color, the only spotlight I wanted was what the moon had been providing. I focused so hard that it was if the rest of the world had been reduced to sepia tones, flickering as a whole in and out of my peripheral vision and hers was the only color I saw. A light yellow, so vague that it was just a notch below white on the dial you'd use to alter hues on MS Paint. It was the identical twin of the non-threatening yellow of a baby chicken trailing behind its mother, if in fact this chick was...glowing. Indeed I wanted to make this conversation with my celestial friend last all evening, but as the pain in my behind continued in spite of re-positioning and the hollows of my stomach caused it to rumble and moan, I chose to say farewell, knowing that fortunately such circumstances of simple beauty happen at an increasing rate here. Everything just seems so much more vivid in Africa. I don't know if it's the sun seemingly being closer to Earth here or the heat that amplifies, but every one of my senses has gone into overdrive. It's as though my maker has opened the file Saraslife.jpg into photoshop and turned up the saturation to 90. Fine by me! The ocean is blinding in an incandescent field of diamonds as I pass by on the bus. On Sundays when I stand in it out by the jagged rocks housing white egrets, the sea-glass enriched sand below seems encased in a gelatinous mold tinted in very obvious turquoise up to the very top. The rooster that wakes me each dawn has feathers so reflective of indigo, rusted orange and deep forest green that it makes me almost not want to despise it. When I trek from neighborhood to neighborhood, the pungent scent of lives lived stacked on top of one another pervades my nose and it's only after I bypass the grease-burned streetfood and mushy bananas for the unsanitary smells of poverty and squalor that I wish the dial could be turned down a tad. But the hyper-saturation is incessant and mercilessly doesn't stop with my nose or eyes. The throbbing in my legs and the fuzziness in my mouth after a non-stop day of doing home visits is only overshadowed by the burning, raw and tight sensation felt on my reddened face and arms. All is washed away however, once taking a shower in what I deem each time as The Best Shower of My Life. Each day I walk home in a box of 200 fully-sharpened Crayola crayons where Cerulean glistens to my left and my feet are covered in Burnt Sienna. But it's all ok because tonight I'll have a chat with the moon.

Little Big World

It's not something I love to talk about with people, though I'm sure it could have easily been deciphered by the naked ear back then. I was unhappy (to say the least), positively homesick to the point of hopelessness and in an entirely distraught frame of mind during training. That's not to say that Pre-service Training life was awful, simply that I was too buried in a proverbial pile of poo to grasp the beauty of what was blossoming around me. In turn, because of how difficult the conception of my Mozambican life was, I found it too jarring to cope with my last visit to Maputo. I had partaken in a stakeholder's workshop last month and as was waiting for my return flight, standing over the tarmac watching the sun fall behind the horizon and my plane to arrive, I lost it. It was at that spot ten months ago that my haggard self initially stepped onto African soil and the memory of how terrified and unsure I truly was all came flooding back to me. That was last month. This month, I was back in Maputo again for PSN (Peer Support Network) training and, well, life has this uncanny ability to surprise me sometimes. Several days ago, I found myself walking from the hotel/conference center to the Peace Corps office, never having done it before. I was getting hit by the wind from the bay and a little sweaty from the walk up the hill. A cluster of high-rises clung to the cliffs up ahead and I could see them as I walked past the UNHCR complex and the German Embassy. I stopped, mid-stride, and probably confused bystanders. "Holy crap, I've come a long way." I was a tiny girl engulfed in a cement jungle, but for that brief treck ascending the ramp to Av. Julius Nyere from Avenida Marginal, I was a grown-up. I owned that quadrant of the capital if not for eternity than for at least the 20 minutes it took to arrive at Point B. But what I own for much longer is redemption for the anguish I had so heartily felt months and months ago. Whew, now that that's outta the way, let's chat a bit about recent happenings, shall we? As I mentioned earlier, I was chosen to be a PSN member, meaning I'm a go-to gal for fellow volunteers needing a shoulder to cry on or important life advice such as how to cook rice or what the protocol is for not giving away phone numbers to strangers. There's a great group of people doing it this year, now if only that damn fiber optic cable under the ocean would fix itself, calling will be a cinch. Speaking of the ocean, I live right by one, remember? Well, with that comes much unpredictability. Like whales. And sometimes they beach themselves next to resort hotels. Yes, last week Pemba had its very own behemoth wash up on shore, only to be greeted by what was described to me as a swarm of locals wanting a piece of it. I was not here to see it, but I believe it was already DOA. I was also told that not a single piece of bone remained while the blubber and meat were still being divided and parceled out. Whale bones have many magical and curative properties, so my guess is that the traditional medicine men snatched them up quickly. How crazy! A beached whale down the road from me! In other news, we in country are all so very excited for the new batch of trainees to come in October, as well as mark our one year anniversary of arrival here in the 'Bique. Also crazy, to think of having been here one whole year, huh?

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

I have no concept of time here. It seems like just yesterday that I arrived in Pemba, yet I’ve been here SEVEN months. Crazy, no é? I suppose that in those months since I’ve arrived I have gained one or two precious nuggets of wisdom, of which I hope to impart upon the next batch of trainees who are just receiving their invitation packets.
It was an early August day in 2009 when I came home from a long day of work and went to get the mail. Upon opening the front door, I saw a hefty blue package awaiting my arrival. I thought, “Could this be it?” Indeed, I tore it open and the first thing I laid eyes on was the word MOZAMBIQUE in bold. Ecstatic, I jumped up and down and proceeded to sing from the rooftops. Suddenly the lights went down, a top hat appeared on my head and a spotlight shone over my body. Friends, family, neighbors, passersby, Peace Corps staff members and neighborhood dogs paraded onto the stage as we harmoniously sang the opening tune “Africa, Here I Come (& I’m Perfectly Fine With It).”
Wait, my life isn’t a musical? Ah, yes, that’s right-I WAS A NERVOUS WRECK. I cried. I sobbed. I panicked. I overate. I underslept. And to top it off, perhaps my least favorite task in the world (aside from getting my oil changed) is PACKING. Getting stuff together simply for a weekend at home during college was hard enough, how would I even conceivably pack for two whole years in under 80lbs? Well, thankfully much of my packing list was composed from reading other blogs from PCVs that were already in country. I was able to maintain (for the most part) my sanity and, with the help of my mom, was able to zip up my suitcase.
And so, Moz 15 Trainees, congratulations! Parabens! Bemvindo a Moçambique! I am here to help you in your packing endeavors (among other things) and without further ado, I would like to present to you the “If I Knew Then What I Know Now” Packing List:
• Sewing kit. I picked up a $3 kit from a craft store and I have pulled it out more times than I can count, not only in training, but at site as well. You’ll never know what needs fixing, and think of all the lifelong friendships you’ll make just by being the girl/boy who fixes other trainee’s clothes! Also, definitely bring nylon thread, or quilting thread, as it is much more durable and you may need it to fix tents/mosquito nets.
• Dramamine. It’s just a nice thing to have for the plane ride over here or the innumerable chapa rides you’ll be taking over the next two years.
• Comfy (not necessarily fashionable) footwear. Let’s be honest, the shoes I wear here I would never wear at home, but my Chacos and my Tevas are lifesavers on impossibly rocky terrain. Bring shoes to work out in, go out in and chill out in.
• Pictures, pictures, pictures! Of your loved ones. You’ll want to tack them all over your walls and see people who love you everyday.
• Sticky tack or tape. To hang up the aforementioned photos.
• Journals. You may not be a journal-keeper at home, but here there are things that you’ll never know how to articulate and writing it down can be the best thing for you.
• Underwear (and bras). Bring a TON. Good quality ones that you like. Underwear is easy to find here…if you’re a size 2 or like granny panties. And if you are, well, more power to you.
• Tons of pens. I love blue clicky ones. You’re going to be taking a lot of notes during training, and in a place where a printer is hardly ever around, you’re going to be writing things out a lot. The pens here are awful, bring good ones and don’t let anyone borrow them because you’ll never see them again.
• Spiral notebooks. For anything and everything.
• World maps. For decorating your house, for showing your host siblings that you cannot drive to America, and for showing your colleagues that Europe is not on the California coastline.
• Deodorant and razors. Deodorant is spray-on or roll-on here. Razors are disposable. You decide.
• Books, books, books! You’re going to have a lot of downtime here, so whether you’re waiting for a meeting to start (3 hours late) or taking a 7-hour bus ride, books are lovely things. I wish I would have filled up my two year bag* with much, much more than I did, but I came with 3 books and was able to swap them with other trainees. And, another suggestion, bring books on subjects that you’re even slightly interested in, because like I said, there’s a lot of downtime here. Why not becoming well-versed in quantum physics or the lifecycle of a bumblebee?
• Addresses of everyone you know, along with envelopes.
• Electric thermometer. It’s just easier to take your temp than the normal mercury one given to us by PCMO. That way, when you have a fever, you’ll be one step closer to knowing if you have malaria.
• Clothes, clothes and more clothes. My favorite quote from another PCV’s blog last year was “Africa is where clothes come to die.” It’s unfortunately very, very true. There are no washing machines here. Your clothes will get holes from hand-washing as well as stretch out. And please, just forget about white. It’s not meant to be. Bring darker to medium dark clothes because unless you have exquisite clothes washing abilities (which Mozambicans acquire at birth) you’re not going to be able to get that mud stain out so it’s best just to hide it.
• Ziplock bags of all sizes. These you will use, trust me.
• Twine, rope. It can come in handy for clotheslines, jump rope, etc.
• Clothes hangars. You probably won’t have dresser drawers….or a dresser.
• iPod speakers. Sometimes listening to a Beyonce song 13 times in a row gets old, and you’ll want to drown out your neighbors with your own music.
• EARPLUGS. A must-have. The only days you’ll have to sleep in during training are Sundays, and how wonderful it would be if the chickens, goats, sound systems and neighbors didn’t start their days at sunrise.
• Diversions. Depending on who you are, this could include anything from knitting needles and yarn, beads and hemp, travel-size games to pass the time at training, movies, TV on DVD, podcasts, audiobooks, magazines, etc.
• Host family presents. Yikes. This is quite ambiguous. You don’t know if you’re going to have a house full of kids, one host mom, 5 teenage brothers, or anything yet. Use your imagination and be creative in what you can buy that you could share with all ages and many people. I brought American candy, a snow-globe of Cleveland (they LOVED this, oh and PS don’t put this in your carry-on bag…). Later on during training I bought some things from when I went on site-visit to give my family. The trick is to bring them something that is not from where they are.
• Hygiene/Makeup needs that you can’t live without. That deep pore-cleansing face wash, pomegranate/apple bodywash with soothing micro-beads, mocha brown eyeshadow, sensitive skin after shave lotion, yadda yadda yadda. You can either bring enough for two years or use bar soap and work on your integration by smelling like everyone else! ☺
• Bobby pins, bandanas, hair ties, headbands. Your hair is going to be crazy wild and frizzy. Bring whatever you can to tame it. Oh yeah, mousse or gel, too.
• Luggage locks. Go to Target and get the ones that are TSA approved and get like 5 or 6 of them. They can be used during the flight over here as well as trips into big cities (where pick pocketers are everywhere) and when combined with luggage, can serve as a sort of makeshift safe for valuables at site.
• Sunglasses. Duh. Oh, but don’t sit on them. You should probably bring more than one pair.
• Nail clippers and tweezers.
• Planner/Agenda. This is a nice way to show your colleagues that you are nice and organized when you arrive to their organization and have come to do organizational development.
• Backpack(s), Purses, Duffle bags. It’s nice to have a backpack for using during training, and a decent sized one to use for going on weekend trips. I’d say bring 2 or 3-it’s just nice to have some variety and options for whatever your plans are.
• Portuguese-English Dictionary. They gave us one in training, but still, it’s nice to have more than one. Also, bring a regular English dictionary. You just never know.
• Bughut! This is a tiny one-person tent type of thing that you can get from REI (online) that functions as a portable mosquito net. I lend mine to all the PCVs that come visit me so I don’t have to hang up a net for them.
• Lonely Planet Mozambique. This will be really helpful to you if you want to plan a weekend (or longer) getaway and want to know the best (and cheapest) places to go in Moz.
-Flash drives. With big capacity. I have 3, and I would have brought more.

*You may not know it yet, but the Peace Corps will ask you to pack two bags. One is the bag that you’ll use during training and the other will be placed in storage for those ten weeks and given to you when you get to site. Pack accordingly!

Ok, Moz 15ers, best of luck to you! That’s all I could come up with for now. If you need any more help or advice on packing, preparing, etc please email me. I am a health volunteer, so if you have any questions about that, feel free to ask as well. My email address is valeksara@gmail.com or you can find me on Facebook. Breath, hug your mom, savor your last local pizza and I’ll see you soon!

Oh, hey there. It's been awhile.

There's a nice little spot in the corner of my porch that I like sitting on and watch the world go by. Last night at dusk I saw a figure rounding the corner with water jugs in hand. Lagging shortly behind was a much smaller, tinier being, also with the jugs. "Sara, you're all alone here on your veranda, what are you doing?" said my neighbor's husband with little Mariama standing beside him. Oh, just thinking, I replied. When asked about what I simply said, "life." In reality I was actually thinking about what to write about for my next blog entry, though I could never satisfactorily explain what a "blog" is, let alone the internet itself. I've been teaching a lot of people here to use a computer, and it's much like teaching an elderly person how to double-click, or highlight a word-they've simply never been exposed to this sort of technology before. But they're learning and learning quickly. Anyways, aside from unintended ageism (I love you, Nona!), I guess what has been guiding my thoughts lately is a certain class I took my sophomore year of college about various Eastern philosophies and religions. The professor was perhaps one of the most pretentious people I'd ever met, and almost rightfully so-he could sit atop the desk for the 2 hour class and recite ancient texts verbatim as well as recall dates and names that would take me at least a quarter to learn how to pronounce. Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, the Upanishads, it was all there for absorbing. And absorb I did. But what most intrigued me was the manner in which this professor could take the basic raw ideas of these non-western concepts-karma, moksha, samsara- and dissect them, piecing them back together by forcing us to apply them to context of our own lives. "Raise your hand if you would rather be somewhere else right now, honestly," he said. We all did, save for the one or two students who are either truly enlightened or truly brown-nosing. One guy said he'd rather be back in Hong Kong. Another said drinking a beer with his buddies. One girl said with her boyfriend. I couldn't really come up with an answer that made me sound interesting (my real response was probably to be back in my dorm room knitting or something) so I was glad when he didn't ask. His point was, why can't we be happy where we are at this very moment in time? And I've been thinking a lot about that recently because here I am in this beautiful, stunning, interesting and foreign place and all I can do is think of what's happening in the States. The shrimp are giant and juicy here, but all I want is a sandwich from Melt. The neighbors are hospitable and jubilant, but all I want are the Dowlings/Mansells. The World Cup games are riot-worthy and frenetic, but all I want are the Browns. The hardest financial decision I must make is whether to spend my savings on a TV, a refrigerator or a trip to Dar es Salaam. I wonder if wanting to be elsewhere constantly is a part of human nature, or an aspect of American culture and always wanting more. What I do know, however, is that me wanting to be home is because it's HOME. And I just really, really miss you guys. <3