Battery Acid and Bats

I have been horribly negligent of this blog over the last two, well four, months. I could use the fact that I now live in a house with no energy or running water and that I have been battling a bat infestation and learning how to teach 4 classes of 50+ students who speak even less English than I speak Portuguese (I might, just might, have a vocabulary of 300 words). I’m sure none of those excuses would fly. So I’ll just ask for your patience and fill you in on our post-training adventures.

We finished training with a bang. Both of us passed our language exams, to the great excitement of our tutor who (rightfully so) took as much pride in our progress as we did. The swearing-in ceremony was at the US Chargé d'Affaires’ house, quite the luxurious venue compared to our humble little building behind the Cavel’s house. Despite our best hippy-tough efforts, there were few dry eyes when we swore in. We are only beginning our adventure, but it’s been a long road just to get this far. There was a strange weight to the words “Peace Corps volunteer” that day.

The next few days were a whirl of boxes and chappas (the small buses that cart people Mozambique). We arrived at the small village we will call home for the next two years and were greeted by our school director, our empregada (maid – a large portion of people in Mozambique have a maid. As uncomfortable as I am with it, it is a way to put money back into the local economy and is expected of us.), and two cats (one of them very pregnant). The director showed us around, the empregada swept the house out, and the cat promptly had a litter of kittens in our bedroom.

We were prepared for our house to be electricity free, but were under the impression that the school had solar power that we would be able to use to charge our essentials (cell phone and laptop). No such luck. We are without access to energy unless we hitchhike to Vilankulo, about 45 minutes away. So, we spent the first week negotiating bat-filled evenings with candles and wind-up flashlights. Bats: did I mention when we arrived, we were sharing our home with a healthy population of small bats. There is nothing quite like feeling your way down the hallway with a candle and reaching out to turn the bedroom doorknob only to find your fingers wrapped around the fuzzy backside of a bat.

We immediately set about remedying the electricity situation. We bought a beat-up generator off a kid on the street who had to disconnect it from his booming speakers in order to sell it to us. We found wire and a 12V battery in Vilankulo: the beginnings of a regular power station. Unfortunately, I had forgotten (if I ever knew to start with) the warning that car batteries should be transported upright. A few miles of hiking and an hour chappa ride after we purchased our battery, I was dismayed to find half of my backpack dissolved, the shirt on my back disintegrating and an acid burn spreading across my back. After a good dousing of water (the prescribed remedy for acid burns, in case you ever need to know), everything but my ego was relatively unscathed.

Fast forward two months. The bats are no longer sharing our airspace, we have graduated from candles to kerosene lamps, the generator/battery gig still isn’t quite working as we intended, but we can charge our phones and laptop at our house, and most importantly, we have begun our first trimester of school. It is a humbling and terrifying feeling to finally be putting into action the plan that has been almost 3 years in the making.
There have been challenges in the classroom. We have very few (practically no) resources. No textbooks (either for us or the students). No visual aids (unless we draw them ourselves). No electricity (and thus no light when it storms or is cloudy and dark). What we do have are some incredibly talented and motivated students who are, though they seem hardly to know it, the future of this country. I have to admit, I have a soft spot for my 12th graders, who are intelligent, funny, and more focused than most college students in the States. My 11th graders are a little more rambunctious, and there are a few trouble makers, but there are some serious students in those classes as well. I am sure a year of maturation will make all the difference.

The reason I have finally been able to write an update is that I am in Maputo for the weekend for a REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvemento e Saúde) conference planning meeting. REDES is a girls’ empowerment organization started five years ago by a Peace Corps volunteer here in Mozambique. It has grown larger each year, and this year 55 students will attend the annual conference representing 31 local chapters. The project will be managed by the second-year volunteers this year, but those of us newly arrived in Mozambique are learning and helping in order to be prepared to take over leadership roles at the end of the year. I will be the official conference photographer and am shadowing the curriculum coordinator in the hopes of filling her shoes when her time here is up.

All in all, things are challenging but manageable. We miss everyone at home immensely, but are surrounded by an astounding group of Americans (otherwise known as our fellow PC volunteers) and are slowly making some Mozambican friends as well. I will try my best to update more often than every four months, but serious composition is difficult until we improve the power situation. Computer battery charge is too valuable to use for anything less than an emergency, so at home, I am restricted to the short messages I can send from our phone. We are loving all the e-mails and texts. We have undeniably the most dedicated friend and family on the planet! Until my fingers find their way onto a powered keyboard with an internet connection again, tchau meus amigos!