JUST A FEW TRAINING UPDATES

My weeks as a trainee have flown by.  

I am now entering week 6.  I have a lot to share, but for starters, here are a few of my favorite parts of Peace Corps Training thus far:

Pounding peanuts into peanut dust

FOOD DAY

A few weeks ago, we had a cross-cultural cooking day with our host families.  For this day, each language groups and respective host families were instructed to create traditional dishes from our countries, and teach each other how to make them.  In my group, our Maes (mothers), taught us how to make to a traditional Mozambican dish – couve.  Couve, a green leafy plant from which the dish gets its name – is one of my favorite dishes to eat, but it is one of the most difficult dishes to make.  In addition to the plant itself, the primary ingredients to the dish are peanut dust and coconut milk. 

Making coconut milk by hand

To prepare this dish, first we chopped the couve leaves into small bits.  Then, we learned how to pound the peanuts into dust using a pilao. (Peanuts were pounded, inspected and sifted for larger pieces, and pounded again). This process was repeated until the Maes decided the dust was acceptable. Lastly, coconut milk was made using a something that resembled a small stool with a sharp razor attached to it (I asked time and time again what this was called, but just cannot seem to remember).  The insides of coconuts were shaved out, then the shavings are doused in hot water, wrung out for ‘milk’, then doused again and again until the liquid squeezed out was essentially only water.  

Galinha (Live Chicken)

Still alive galinha about to become
frango (dead chicken for eating)

The ingredients are then combined in a large pot and boiled until it is deemed “done” by one of our Maes. These incredible women, who have been cooking nearly their whole lives, can tell whether or not food is ready by just simply glancing at it. On our cooking day, our Maes also taught us how to make other traditional dishes such as xima (a white cornmeal porridge/loaf type substance), vegetable salads, chicken, and rice with vegetables. 

Plucking the feathers from our frango.

For our American dish for cross-cultural cooking day, decided to make fried chicken sandwiches and mashed potatoes.  In the United States these foods are extremely common and are readily available from your local fast food restaurant.  However here in Mozambique, eating these foods means buying all the ingredients and making everything from scratch. Potatoes, butter, milk… Bread, tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, and a LIVE chicken. It’s some sort of long-standing Peace Corps tradition that trainees learn to kill a chicken during their training.  We had 2 live chickens to kill on cross-cultural cooking day (one for the Maes’ dish and one for our chicken sandwiches).  I got to kill one of them.

Taking the life out of that chicken was awful, I felt disgusted and nauseous afterward (especially during the de-feathering and de-gutting process).  But our fried chicken sandwiches tasted that much better because I knew how hard we worked prepare that food for our table.  Here in our village, most families prefer to prepare their own food, so they know that the food is safely and well prepared. However this means seeing animals killed while walking along the side of the road is quite normal. The upside to the animal killings, the meat is always fresh. In addition to fresh meats, the markets here are filled with fresh fruits and vegetables from local machambas (gardens), and the bakery is filled with freshly baked bread (we buy fresh bread every evening to have it for breakfast). Fresh foods that are local to Mozambique are cheap and easy to find.  Since we are so close to the borders of Swaziland and South Africa, the things that are not produced are imported from these countries.  A local gas station store that sells imported ice cream bars has become a common ‘place to go’ for PCTs after a long day of classes.

IFP DAYS

Every week, we spend at least one day of ‘classtime’ at the local IFP (Teacher Training Institute), attending training sessions in addition to our language and technical classes.  These sessions cover Safety, Security, Medical, and others necessary topics, and are lead by Peace Corps Staff members or current Peace Corps Volunteers.  Although this is always a long information-packed day, these sessions have also become a place for us to talk about many topics that are often too avoided in such as differences among race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation/identity, and other physical or emotional differences among people in the United States. Some sessions are presented in a fun manner, some more serious, and many involve a bit of role-play/ skit acting (we all will have professional acting degrees by the end of training).  Through these exercises we not only learn more about the Peace Corps, but more about each other as well.  My fellow trainees are all such incredible people.  Everyone comes from different backgrounds, and everyone's experiences back home in the U.S. and here in Mozambique have been different.

As Peace Corps Trainees, we are here as cultural ambassadors to share with Mozambicans the diversity of our country.  At the end IFP days, we have Ngoma Time – a time designated specifically for cultural exchange performances of Mozambican and American.  Local performance groups have been invited to perform for us, and we in turn put together presentations to reflect upon the different aspects of American life.  Our groups have been quite creative – some fun performances have included singing and dancing to well known American songs, reenactments of classic American stories, explanations of American holidays, and even an impressively choreographed step routine. 

Local Mozambican dance group

MOZAMBICAN HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS.

During our few weeks here, we have been fortunate enough to witness the celebrations of 3 different national Mozambican holidays. On each holiday, schools and most public businesses/offices are closed, and celebrations take place throughout the country.  In our village, we attended ceremonies in the town’s plaza, where officials spoke, priests lead prayers, local dancers and singers perform, and actors often reenacted significant historical events for which the holidays celebrate.  

Here is a brief overview of the holidays that we have celebrated thus far:

September 7 – Dia da Vitoria (Victory Day)– On September 7, 1974, Mozambique signed an agreement with Portugal to end the Mozambican War of Independence.  The war had lasted from 1964-74, although Mozambique did not officially gain independence from Portugal until June 5, 1975, (June 5^th is celebrated as Dia da Independencia (Independence Day)).

September 25 – Dia das Forcas Armadas (Armed Forces Day, or Revolution Day) – On September 25, 1964, Mozambique political party FRELIMO officially launched their first offenses against the Portuguese authorities, and began the Mozambican War of Independence.

October 4 – Dia da Paz (Day of Peace and Reconciliation) – On October 4, 1992, the Mozambican Civil War officially ended with the signing of the Rome General Peace Accords.  The civil war between revolutionary and governing party FRELIMO (Mozambique Liberation Front) and rebellion party RENAMO (Mozambican National Resistance) had lasted over 15 years.

...AND MORE

There is still so much of Mozambican history that I do not know.  As my Portuguese improves, I am looking forward to reading and learning more about Mozambican history from the locals here.  According to my first Language Placement Interview (LPI) I am now speaking at an Intermediate-High level – a significant improvement from the Beginner level which I started at just weeks ago.  For now I am enjoying training and taking advantage of the wonderful scenery.  This past weekend, the Peace Corps staff put together a hike/picnic for us trainees to visit the Tres Fronterrias (Three borders – Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa).  Here we all are at the top!

Sadly, in less than a week we will all be separating.  At the end of this week we will be concluding Phase 1 of our Education training program. In a few days we will find out where our future sites (our homes for the next 2 years) will be. We will be spending Phase 2 (3 weeks) at our future sites, living with local host families and learning ore about the city/villages customs and language(s) before returning to our training village for our final Phase 3.  

This is all of I have to share for now...

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