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BBC: India's Cash Crisis Explained

BBC: India’s Cash Crisis Explained

Greg and I decided to go to India, and then later we heard that India was in the middle of an extreme cash crisis, making travel very difficult for tourists.  Our reaction was basically, “Meh… I’m sure it’ll be fiiiiiiiiine….”.   Look at us waiting for the train.  We’re sure everything will be just fine. And really, it was fine.  We had to wait in some horrifically long lines at ATMs, prompting…

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So very pretty.  I have so many pictures.

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The two mosques flanking the Taj Mahal.

Details of the marble.  All the designs are stone inlaid in the marble, done so exactly that it looks painted.  The carving is incredible.  And the whole thing just looks like it glows from far away.

At the Taj Mahal So very pretty.  I have so many pictures. The two mosques flanking the Taj Mahal. Details of the marble.  

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First Impressions of India

Hand carts are everywhere selling street food. Cheap, and small portions, that you can eat a bit here and there. Full meals too. Also, thimble-fulls of hot sweet chai for 10 rupees. They cook the food and boil the chai right there on the street, a tank of propane hooked up from below the cart. The food is mostly vegetarian, with lots of chapati (a cross between a tortilla and naan) with different…

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There are magical places all around us, and one of my favorite things in the world is stumbling onto them.

Table Mountain in Cape Town is one such place. Just look.

Towering 1086 meters over Cape Town, and around 500 million years in the making, Table Mountain is a playground for nature lovers and outdoor enthusiasts alike. Once an island, now boasting more plant species per square kilometer than a tropical jungle, this flat-topped monolith begs exploration.

This was on the way down, after the wind and the fog rolled in, but I started out early in the morning.  I hiked up by myself, and I’m so glad I did.  Other travelers were telling me not to go by myself, that they’d be scared to hike alone as a woman, but there were so many people on the trails that I never felt unsafe.  Honestly, the only thing I was worried about was twisting my ankle or something while I was alone, but there were enough people that someone would have found me within a few minutes.  And truly, I appreciate magic like this better when I’m alone.  Being with other people would have been a distraction.

The climb up was long: 2 ½ (slow) hours of basically vertical, uneven stair climbing.  Some steps were small, and some steps were knee- or waist-height.  My thighs were killing me. But it was beyond beautiful, and I stopped often just to sit and stare. It was hot but slightly cloudy (thank god), and it got colder the higher I got.

Beautiful.

Almost there:

Table Mountain is just that: a big, relatively flat table of a mountain.  The top is large and there are trails all over; I couldn’t cover even a fraction of it.  Even so, I spent a good four hours wandering from one end to the other, and it was breathtaking.  My favorite views were looking over the chasms, watching the clouds swirl around rock formations.  It was mystical.

Trails around the top:

Plants on top of the mountain:

Around mid-afternoon, when I was on my way back to the trailhead to start the descent, clouds began to roll in in force. And because we were high up, literally in the clouds, that meant it was fog rolling in. Fast. I hurried back because I didn’t want to get lost alone in the fog.

It was spectacular though. The wind was fierce, and the fog was literally falling into the chasms between peaks; a waterfall of fog. I had the song Skyfall from James Bond stuck in my head.

On the way down I bumped into a group of people who were going my pace; they turned out to be gangsters in rehabilitation at a Christian center. They were very chivalrous, giving me a hand down every steep step the entire way down the mountain. They were boisterous too, whistling up and down the mountain to each other and yelling encouragement, interspersed with hymns. When we reached the bottom, a good two hours later, they asked if they could do a prayer circle for me. They stood around me in a circle, clasping hands and laying their hands on my back, and asked God to give me guidance in my life and to always be there for me. “Amen”s and “Thank you Jesus!”s rang out. I can see why people like it; it’s very affirming.

The ex-gangsters and I

It was a good day.

The next morning I was so sore – I hiked for close to ten hours yesterday – and figured it would be a great day to spend the morning in sorting photos and catching up on the internet.  The hostel were I’m staying, Once in Cape Town, is so beautiful, with so many plants.  And they serve coffee and croissants for breakfast. It was a good morning as well.

Table Mountain There are magical places all around us, and one of my favorite things in the world is stumbling onto them.

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Mozambique is:

Teenage girls splitting firewood for their families. Kitchens so smoky from cookfires that my eyes tear up instantly and I have to wait outside. Waking up to the sound of grinding corn, or drums from the neighborhood witch doctor. Shepherd boys with herds of long-horned cattle blocking the road. The cheers of the night school students when the power goes out. Chickens everywhere. Goats…

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20 Things I'm Not Going to Miss About my Site

20 Things I’m Not Going to Miss About my Site

1. The heat. Obviously. The scorching heat and the way the sun stings your skin.  I used to have a good relationship with the sun before Mozambique. 2.  Having to store chocolate in the refrigerator. 3.  Being the foreigner. Sometimes it’s fun, but sometimes it gets really old. 4.  No respect from the kids. Don’t get me wrong, some kids are great and I love them. But mozambican kids in general…

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20 Things I'm Going to Miss About My Site

20 Things I’m Going to Miss About My Site

1.  I’m going to miss my friends, obviously. People are always at the top of these lists. Specifically my counterparts Americo and Teresa, my empregada and friend Bernicia, and my neighbors Ester and Ana Tercia and their families. Oh and my cats too. 2.  I’m going to miss kids who teach themselves backflips in the sand. 3.  I’m going to miss living in a bilingual culture. I’ve never met people…

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Capulanas are classic Mozambican, but I don’t think I’ve explicitly said what they are before.

Basically, capulanas are traditional fabric that Mozambican women wear.  The most common use is wrapped around their waist over skirts or pants, but they also use them to carry babies on their backs, to carry food, as shawls and protection from the weather, as headwraps, as tablecloths, as curtains, or really for anything else you could think to do with fabric.

They are brightly colored, and come in all kinds of patterns that change with the seasons.  Mozambicans love color and love patterns, and anything and everything can be mixed and matched.  There are no rules to break.

Here is one of our market ladies holding a baby in a capulana:

Capulanas being sold on the street:

Mozambicans also use capulanas to tailor their own clothing, which is quite popular among the salaried Mozambicans.  For special events, there will often be an official capulana that everyone will buy, and either wear plain or make into a shirt or dress.  Here are some government workers all rocking a capulana with a gazelle.

All dressed up for a party, in Mozambican formal wear: a special capulana and a headscarf.

(another selfie)

Just some women hanging out, wearing capulanas.

And here are some of my own favorite capulanas that I’ve acquired over two years.  Capulanas are one of my favorite things to buy.

When I went back to the USA over Christmas last year, one of the presents I brought back for people was fabric, telling them it was an “American Capulana”.  It went over very well as far as presents go.  Here are some of my favorite people, and the clothing they made out of their american capulanas.

My counterpart Teresa and her son Amo in matching blue tunics:

My good friend and neighbor Ester:

My lovely, oh-so-chique neighbor Ana Tercia:

Capulanas Capulanas are classic Mozambican, but I don't think I've explicitly said what they are before. Basically, capulanas are traditional fabric that Mozambican women wear.  

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Last day of teaching secondary school in Guija, Mozambique

​Fenias and Laila, two of my smartest students. Uploading…B01 -​ the quiet, intelligent class Uploading…​Alfredo and Chefe Elias Uploading…​Marcia and Iracel Uploading…​Joāo and Armando Uploading…​A01 12th  Uploading… ​A01 11th – the eager, friendly class. These students are my favorite. Uploading… A01 11th grade​ Uploading…​B02

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The other weekend (by which I mean several months ago at this point) I was in Maputo hanging out with some peace corps volunteers after a conference, and we met a Brazilian backpacker at our hostel. His name was Sen. Over the course of wandering the city for several hours trying to decide where to eat dinner (the really important decision when you’re in the capital) he told us his plan was to head north to Beira and then west to Zimbabwe so he could see something other than the capital city. There’s just the minor problem that that part of the country is currently going through a resurgence of the civil war between the two main political parties, and the only transportation is in armed military convoys… we told him not to do it. Instead, I commented offhand that if he wanted to see something outside the capital, he should come check out my village to get a taste of the real Mozambique.

And wonder of wonders, he did come the next weekend, and took these beautiful pictures of my neighbors.

We spent the weekend talking about traveling, eating lots of chicken, and taking pictures of my cute* neighbor kids (aka criancas).  These pictures are my favorite thing to come out of that weekend.  Thank you so much Sen for your awesome camera and your awesome skills!

*Sometimes they are cute.  Sometimes, quite often in fact, they drive me crazy, because in Mozambique children run in packs and follow their own rule of law.  And often, that rule of law doesn’t extend to respect for the strange foreigner who everyone knows doesn’t beat kids and whose house is often empty.  But for better or for worse, these children are a constant in my neighborhood and have been a significant part of my experience here.  And they are undeniably cute.

This is my favorite kid in the world, Armando, otherwise known as Mandinho.  He is quiet and sweet and likes school, animals, and doing backflips.  We’re probably soulmates.  His mother is my good friend Ana Tercia, and their family has been a core part of my experience here.

He’s also the only crianca that can get anywhere close to my cats.  As all animals know, Mozambican criancas are pure evil.

Being athletic:

And scaling my house.  Mozambican children can climb anything.

This is Mandinho’s crazy little brother, Gardel.  We got more pictures of him than the other kids combined.

My neighbor girls: Minga, Eleninha, and Regina

More pictures:

The whole neighborhood gang:

Cute Mozambican Children The other weekend (by which I mean several months ago at this point) I was in Maputo hanging out with some peace corps volunteers after a conference, and we met a Brazilian backpacker at our hostel.

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These last few weeks we’ve had the newest group of pcvs at our sites, shadowing us in preparation to take over after we leave. Let me tell you, it’s strange teaching someone how to take over your life. These are my friends, this is where I like to go for walks, here’s my market, this is what I like to eat, this is how I like to teach my classes… definitely strange.

Guija is the capital of our little dusty district, but the nearby town of Javanhane is also getting an English teacher for the first time this next year. I have a lot of students from there (because their school only goes up to grade 10 – after that they come to Guija to complete grades 11 and 12) but I’ve never been there myself.

Last week I decided to go visit the new trainee (Rachel) at her site, and see the town for the first time.

I was chatting with some of my students, asking them about the town and how difficult transportation was. One of my sweeter students, Pedro, found out I was planning to go to “JavaCity” by myself for an afternoon, and said, “Oh, no, Teacher, you can’t do that. I’ll come with you and show you around.” And so it was planned that Pedro and I would go together and spend the afternoon in JavaCity, returning to Guija that same night.

Meet Pedro and his father.  Aren’t they adorable?

We left right after classes, meeting Rachel on her way back from doing banking in Chokwe. This was serendipitous because a storm the previous night had knocked out the power, and I wasn’t able to reach her phone. My plan was just to go to Javanhane and start asking around for the new teacher, but on our way to the chapa station we ran into her on the road. Thus began a series of unusual coincidences.

We delayed a little while showing Rachel around Guija and then waiting for the chapa to fill and leave, but the real problem was when we were stopped by the police about ten minutes outside of Guija. This is a common occurrence in Mozambique, and usually the chapa drivers pay a small bribe and everyone goes merrily on their way. This time however, the police decided to arrest our driver, prodding him into the back of their car with an AK47, and declining to call another chapa or explain any of this to the 20 or so people now stranded on the side of the road. Our cobrador (aka the 2nd in command of our chapa) said he didn’t know how to drive the bus, and didn’t have a phone or know the numbers of any other buses. Stranded indeed.

Pedro, Rachel, and I waited along the side of the road, but hasn’t been a lot of traffic since the road was destroyed by the flood four years ago. What used to be a 15 minute commute between Guija and Javanhane now takes easily over an hour, and what used to be a through road is now only used to access a few small villages.

A few other chapas passed us, but they were already full with their own passengers.

And so we waited.

In the end, we were picked up by, of all people, Pedro’s dad. He was on his way back from Macia where he was buying inventory to sell at their bakery.

All told, by the time we made it to Javanhane, it was after 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and I decided it would be best if we spent the night and left early the next morning.

Once there, the agenda was to see the town, visit Pedro’s family’s bakery, and see my student from last year, Piedade.

It turns out Javanhane is quite a lot like Guija, a dry and dusty farming village, just smaller and even more rural. There’s a reason my students refer to Guija as an urban center, even though it pales in comparision to places like Chokwe or Macia or Xai Xai. However, where Guija has a small vegetable market, Javanhane has one single stall, and whatever people sell out of their homes. Where Guija has a few stores in old Portuguese buildings lining the main street, Javanhane has nothing. Where Guija’s Secondary School has 10 classrooms, Javanhane has 4. Urban indeed.

Urban indeed.

Next we visited the home of my former student, Piedade. Piedade was my student in 11th grade last year, and she was one of my very best students. The kind of student who does all the homework and sits in the front of the class and answers every question. The kind of student where I feel like the lesson could easily turn into just a conversation between her and me, excluding the rest of the students if I wasn’t careful. She was amazing.

However, this year she didn’t come back to school. And while that’s a common enough story here in Mozambique, I wasn’t expecting it to happen to a student like her. It turns out she has a 4 year old son named Noe, and her parents had sent her to live in the house of her child’s father. Likely it was because the last year has been a difficult year for everyone, what with the drought and the inflation and Mozambique just generally going to hell in a hand basket, and they probably didn’t have the extra money to provide for her and send her to school in another town.

In any event, I was very curious to see her and see how she was doing in her new home. It turns out she’s living in the compound of her “husband’s” family, which is huge, a neighborhood unto itself. There are 8 sons in that family. But Piedade has her own one-room mud house with a nice bed in it, and she seems happy enough. I was a little worried for her because being the newest, youngest wife basically means you’re at the bottom of the family pecking order, but she seemed just like her old self. She introduced me to the family and showed me her house and pictures of her husband, and then, even though it was past 8 o’clock at this point and long dark, insisted that Pedro and Rachel and I eat a meal in her house. She took us inside and set a beautiful table for us by candle-light (the power was still out) and served us an impromptu meal of spaghetti and fried fish. It was beautiful.

Me with my students Pedro and Piedade, and her young son Noe

***

Days like this remind me of one of the main reasons I love doing Peace Corps – namely that there are so many more new experiences here, and it helps me to be mindful and grateful. (And of course the personal connections, obviously – seeing Piedade again – but that’s always true.)

However, even in this foreign country all the way in Southeastern Africa, it’s still all too easy to get settled into a routine. Go to work, visit friends, cook food, live your life. And the thing is, it’s a good routine. It makes me happy. But still, having experiences like this reminds me how important it is to shake things up, to do something new purely for its own sake, even now with just a month left in Guija.

***

Here are a few pictures of the bakery at Pedro’s house. It’s cool because it’s a wood-fired bakery, and supplies bread for the whole town.  We took these pictures at 5 o’clock in the morning as we were getting fresh bread before catching the bus back to Guija.

Preparing the dough that’s been rising overnight

Putting dough into the oven with a long paddle.

Bread baking

Taking it out

Fresh bread!

The burning wood. The coals are hot enough that when it was time to add a new log, it ignited instantly, despite being solid chunk of wood.

Constructing a second wood-fired oven

Visiting Javanhane These last few weeks we’ve had the newest group of pcvs at our sites, shadowing us in preparation to take over after we leave.

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English Theater

For some reason I never seem to write much about the projects I work on here in Guija.  I guess because for me they are my day-in-day-out, and don’t seem as interesting as other things. However, one of my main projects here has been something called English Theater, and this year I am so proud of my students. English Theater is a Peace Corps program aimed at getting students to use English in…

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My Students Dancing My students are adorable.  Here they are performing a dance to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.  The sound doesn't come through very well because it's playing from one of their tiny nokia cell phones, but just imagine it.  

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Garden Update

 This last month has definitely been an experience with carting water. First, my water tap outside my house broke amd took a little over a week to replace. During that time I was carting water from the tap at school using my neighbor’s wheelbarrow.  Then, just after my tap was fixed, a wind storm knocked out the main power line in the area, so while we do still have energy, it’s been very…

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Day of Peace

This Tuesday was an unexpected holiday, the Day of Peace. Unexpected for me, that is. For some reason I never find out about holidays until I try to assign homework, and then a student tells me, “Teacher, we don’t have school that day.” In any case, it was a lovely and much needed day off. This last weekend was our provincial English Theater Competition (more on that soon). It went amazingly well…

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I’m really going to miss this house when I go back to the States.

It’s full of quirks, but it’s really become home over the last two years. I’ve got my routines down by this point.

In the afternoons, the sun comes in strong through two windows, and fills my main room with yellow light when it shines through the capulana. For some reason yellow sunlight always makes me feel peaceful, and I like to find yellow curtains when I can. I love the pattern on this capulana, and it makes me unreasonably happy.

Sunny afternoon making coffee with Basilio and Niassa

I listen to podcasts or music while I cook dinner. I usually cook one more-involved meal for dinner every few days, and eat leftovers or smaller things the rest of the time. I know I complain often about the lack of variety in food here (and I can’t wait to be back in America where I can buy fancy groceries without feeling sinful) but I really enjoy the process of cooking here. I love latkes and curries and stir-fries. The lack of anything prepared really forces me to slow down and think about what I’m eating. Listening to podcasts about homesteading while I cook food from scratch is just perfect.

Thai Red Curry… mmmm.

Cooking by candlelight

My trusty stove

  One of the foods I miss the most from America is good quality dark chocolate. Whenever my mother or my friends send me things, I always ask for dark chocolate. Now, I’ve finally found a way to make it from scratch. This recipe is delicious, and in my opinion just as good as the chocolate you can buy. Learning how to make the things I want for myself was a skill I always admired but rarely got around to. Mozambique gives me the extra time and forces me to do so.

Homemade Dark Chocolate

1/3 c coconut oil

1/3 c cocoa powder

2 T honey

½ t vanilla

a pinch of salt

Every few nights I boil a big pot of water, and then cool it overnight and filter it. It takes over an hour to boil on my tiny electric stove, but I’ve never run out of water and I refuse to buy water on principle unless I’m traveling.

  Boiling water

Speaking of water, I have a working tap outside my house (for which I am extremely grateful). Every other day or so I spend about 45 minutes watering my garden (which is finally growing successfully!) and carting water into my house for storage. When the water shuts off, I can last about four days with the water inside my house, and by that point the running water usually turns back on, at least intermittently. These days as we go back into hot season I’m using a lot more water, mostly in the form of bucket baths twice a day to cool off.

  My garden: sweet potato, tomatoes, peppers, cassava, moringa, kittens

I sweep my house every few days (if I were a better person I would sweep every day, like a proper Mozambican. We don’t refer to Interior Gaza as the “Dust Bowl of Mozambique” for nothing.). There is nothing like a clean swept house filled with sunlight for my peace of mind.

Weekday mornings I get up at 5am, exercise, drink tea, and go to school by 6:45 to sing the national anthem every day.

Weekend mornings are for lazing in bed, reading or writing or editing photos or calling friends, with my cats sleeping next to me. The sun comes in strong through my bedroom window in the mornings so I usually wake up by 6. Still, I get to stay in bed for a few hours, relaxing away from the demands of village life. Weekend mornings are sacred to me. Soon enough (probably within the next month), it will get hot enough that I won’t be able to stay in bed past 7am because of the sun. I’m enjoying this winter luxury while I can.

Sunny mornings in bed with the kittens

Two nights a week I try to eat dinner with my neighbors Ester or Ana Tercia. When I do this I spend about 2-3 hours being social with their families. Sitting outside around a cookfire, or all together inside on a reed mat, being served up Mozambican food, chatting idly and knowing I am absolutely welcome, this is impossible to beat. These are some of my favorite memories of Mozambique.

These days I also spend a lot of time by myself (don’t worry, I still spend a lot of time at the school, on projects, and just being social) and I’ve gotten used to it. I’ve always needed a lot of time alone, but being here has taken that to the extreme. I’ve gotten used to the slower pace and the routines I do alone and the need to do everything completely, without the shortcuts available in America.

Living in Mozambique is difficult sometimes, stressful many times, but at the same time the life I’ve built to cope with that stress is precious to me. This is the first time I’ve lived by myself in my own house, and after two years I am ridiculously attached to it. This house and these routines feel like an extension of me. They are made up of the things I need to do to survive and the things I need to be happy doing so. I’m worried that going back to America will fill my life with clutter again. I don’t want to lose the feeling of being in touch with what is really necessary to live.

This is my house.  I am content.

My Peace Corps Life I’m really going to miss this house when I go back to the States. It’s full of quirks, but it’s really become home over the last two years.

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"Estou a Pedir" Culture

“Estou a Pedir” Culture

Today I wanted to share an entry from a blog I stumbled onto online.  It’s written by a former peace corps volunteer turned missionary and now mother in rural Zambia.  Different country, yes, but a lot of the cultural seems very similar.  This post, in particular, really struck home with me.  It’s about the differences and stresses that come about from living as an American in a communal culture…

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