PHASE 2, HERE WE GO

It's now Phase 2 of my training process, after 6 weeks together in one village, all Moz 27s were sent out visit our future sites. The reality of what life as a Peace Corps volunteer will really be like has set in, and it truly has been (and will be) a completely different experience for everyone.

On the Wednesday before we left for Phase 2, we had site placement announcements. The Peace Corps staff members drew a huge map of Mozambique on the local basketball court, divided into its 10 provinces. They handed each trainee a sealed envelope, and at the same time, 65 of us tore open our envelopes to find out where we would be living for the next 2 years. As we walked to our spot on the giant map, there were squeals of joy from those who got placed exactly where they wanted, cries of distain from best friends who were placed on opposite sides of the country, and silent looks of shock from those who received utterly unexpected placements. I think I experienced all of those emotions at once when I read about my placement.

I have been placed as a math teacher at a complete secondary school (grades 8-12), which is exactly what I had hoped for. The school is located on the outskirts of the municipality of Boane, Maputo province, not far from where we had Phase 1 training. If you google Boane, you'll find that it's just 40 km away from Maputo City, the capitol city of Mozambique. (Maputo City borders, but is not party of Maputo province, the same way Washington D.C. borders, but is not part of Virginia or Maryland).

Fellow Maputo province teachers

With just one stuffy chapa ride, I can travel from my site to the capitol city and have access to almost anything that I could possibly need. Chapas, or small buses crammed full with too many people, are the main form of public transport here in Mozambique if you are going somewhere that is too far to walk (think NYC subway at rush hour... Except it's always rush hour). The second most common form of probably boleia, or hitchhiking. Boleias can be given by someone you know who just happens to be driving down the road, or a stranger who just happens to be traveling the same direction as you. This is something I probably would not do in the United States, but I have found that most people here are kind and willing to help out a foreign stranger.

From my future home to my school, it is about a 1km walk, so I will probably walk along the road hoping a fellow teacher will give me a boleia to save me from walking in the heat. There are 2 secondary schools in my community, and I will have a site mate who will be teaching at the other school. We will be living as neighbors on his school compound in the teacher housing units (my school does not have teacher housing). I am also extremely fortunate because many houses in our community have electricity (including mine) and spigots which spout running water each day for a few hours in the morning (or sometimes a little more or less time depending on how recently it has rained / how full the water reserves are).

Teacher housing: One of these units will soon be mine!

When I first received my placement, I was honestly a little disappointed that I would not have the opportunity to get to know a new part of the country. Mozambique is divided into 3 general regions: Northern, Central, and Southern, each with their own local languages and cultural traditions. I was sad to see many of my friends placed in the far North or Central part of the country, because I will probably only see them on rare occasions (like mandatory Peace Corps conferences). My site is about an hour away from our Phase 1 training village. However I am excited that my site mate and I going to be opening our site, which means we will be the first Peace Corps teachers to teach at our respective schools.
22 members of our Moz 27 group were placed in the Southern part of the country and we have already started to make plans to see each other as much as possible. For the first part of Phase 2, the Southern trainees had a conference at a hotel in Maputo City with our future supervisors. For a few days, we got to enjoy city life, and most importantly, take hot showers with running water!

At this conference we discussed logistics for the next few weeks, and I met my school director (or school principal), who is also my host dad during Phase 2. He and his wife and 3 children welcomed me into their beautiful home as soon as I arrived into their community.

My room at my new host family's house.
The fan in the corner has been the best part.

They have the cutest quintal, or yard, filled with green plants and gardens of fruit/vegetables. There are 2 dogs, one cat, and about  a dozen ducks who also live here. There is also an empregada, or a housekeeper, who comes everyday during the week. She takes care of the children while my host mom and dad are at work, does a lot of the housework, and most importantly has taught me necessary lessons about life here in my community ("You can go buy bread at that stand over there", "You need to put more soap in that water if you want your clothes to be clean", and "You cannot go to school with your bag that dirty, teachers should always appear clean!")

 

My school director's / host family's house for Phase 2.

I have now been here for over a week, and have had the opportunity to observe many classes taught by my future colleagues at school. The students of course, have been extremely curious about the new foreign professora wandering around their school. About a decade ago, Peace Corps Mozambique had PST trainings here in this community, but for most of my high school students who were young children back then, they do not remember this. My school has over 1,000 students, 9 classrooms, and about 30 teachers. There are 3 sessions: morning, afternoon, and night. Here in Mozambique, teachers do not have their own classroom. Each turma, or group of students, is assigned a classroom and the teachers rotate between the classroom. Turmas at my school are divided by grade level (i.e. all 8th graders in one turma, 9th, 10th etc), and usually have about 50 students.

Students lined up to sing the National Anthem before school begins

In addition to observing classes, a few of my colleagues have let me teach class for them! I gave 5 math lessons (the same topic) to 5 different 8th grade turmas, and each time the class reacted differently. Some turmas were loud and obnoxious, but full of brilliant students who loved to volunteer to solve problems on the board. Others more quiet and reserved, and my questions were often met by an awkward silence. The only thing they all had in common was that they giggled at my horrible pronunciation of math terms in Portuguese. If you ever took a math class in college and had an Asian TA with an impossible accent who tried to explain math to you, you know exactly how this group of 8th graders felt. (If you thought parallel was a hard word to say in English, imagine saying "paralelas" over and over infront of a room full of 8th graders). I have found that I can hold basic conversations in Portuguese, but I need a lot of practice with math terms.

I also had the opportunity to take over a few English classes, which were a lot of fun for both me and the kids. Most of them do not have the opportunity to practice speaking English, and have never heard a native English speaker speak English before. In each class I introduced myself in English, and told them I came from the United States of America. The confused looks that followed usually prompted me to say "My parents were born in China, but I was born and raised in America, therefore I am American". It's a difficult concept to explain to a group of high schoolers, even if our language barrier did not exist. America is full of people who may look different, with ancestors that come from different places, practice all sorts of different religions, but still call themselves Americans. Here in my community, everyone looks the same, speak the same languages, and families stay in the same area for generations. I anticipated more questions about what makes an "American an American", but kids are kids, and accepted what I said in order to move onto the questions that were of more interest to them. Here is what they usually ask:
"Teacher, how old are you?" 26.
"Teacher, how many kids do you have?" None.
"Teacher, you are married?" No.
"You have a boyfriend?" No.
"Are you looking for a boyfriend?".... This question is usually asked by a smartass male student with a devious grin, and prompts so much hollaring and laughter from the whole class that supervising teacher has to step in to help me bring them back to attention.

Regardless, the students are interested in learning more about me, and I am looking forward to learning more about them too. When I do, I'll be sure to share it here. But that's all for now.
Thanks for reading.