I went to Inhambane with
two friends for a short trip before heading to Maputo for a Close of Service
Conference. Tofo beach in
Inhambane is always a wonderful little escape from the Peace Corps life and
this trip was no different. I
enjoyed a few relaxing days at the beach, ate lots of delicious and inexpensive
seafood and just caught up with some good friends who I don’t get to see nearly
enough. It was an awesome trip.
A beautiful, old mosque in Inhambane City.
Pristine beaches = African paradise.
These two live way too far away from me so it's always fun to travel together and catch up!
We made friends with some of the women cooking food in the market and aside from making us delicous shrimp curry they went out and bought us fresh fish one day and made a feast! Fish, shrimp, calamari, crab curry with salad, rice and fries....I'm pretty sure we didn't eat again that day after indulging in this feast.
And I got to see my good friend Mary, who lives and works in Tofo now that her contract with Peace Corps has ended.
In Maputo I had a conference
with all the other volunteers who I arrived in country with. We met with staff to discuss how to
best close up or hand over our projects and also the best way to say goodbye to
our friends we’ve made here. I
also had to do some medical stuff so that was important as well…found out I had
a bacterial infection in my stomach and was put on some strong medicine to wipe
that out. Before I finish in Moz
you can expect a blog about all the crazy medical problems I have had….
Moz 19, we still have a few weeks left and we're going strong!
Arguably the best part (for
me) of being in Maputo at this time was that I was able to say goodbye to two of
my very good friends here. The
first being Elisabetta, the volunteer who also lived in Guija and who organized
the awesome mural painting I helped with last January. Before finishing up her service
Elisabetta set up a co-op with women in her community who sew capulana jewelry
and bags for her to sell in the states.
You can check out their work here:
http://www.kurandza.com/
I also had to say goodbye
to one of my best friends here in Vanduzi, Simao. I’ve written about him before and Simao was leaving
Mozambique for the best of all reasons, to go study abroad! After complications with his fullbright
app he accepted an offer to pursue a one-year Master’s certificate in Brussels,
Belgium where he will study the English language and community development. I
was able to meet him for dinner and drinks in Maputo and then took him out to
meet a number of other volunteers who were all hanging out in the feira. We took SImao on the bumper cars and on
the swings and he had so much fun!
And embarrassingly when the time came to say goodbye I sobbed like a
child but I was (and still am) so incredibly proud of Simao. It is so difficult
to do well here in Mozambique but if someone works hard enough, doesn’t give
into corruption or get side-tracked by politics, they have a chance to break
out of the cycle of poverty here and that’s exactly what Simao is doing and
it’s so exciting! Simao was also
my first Mozambican friend here who I have had to say goodbye too, and that was
difficult because I know it will be tough to stay in touch, but like I said I
couldn’t be more proud of him. He
is still in the process of applying to the Fullbright so I hope that one day he will be able to come study in America and I can introduce him to some of you!
Bumper cars with Simao, Ari, Rich and a number of other (not pictured) volunteers!
So after returning from
COS conference I had about 5 days to put the final plans together to finally
run a provincial science fair! After months of waiting for funding to be
approved it was, and I had to work quickly to make sure the fair would actually
happen. With the help of a number
of PCVs, Manica had its provincial science fair and although I wasn’t very
proud of the conference it was a miracle in itself that we were able to pull
the fair off in such short notice and at the end of the day, the participants
all had a good time and it was a great learning experience for everyone
involved so that in itself is always a good thing. Here are some pictures from the fair:
Adamo (on the left) was my counterpart for the Manica provincial fair, the other three individuals came to the fair to offer free HIV tests and counseling.
Manica Science Fair participants
Thelma and I with our good friend Labson, who absolutely loves Science so I invited him along to help us with Science fair for the day and I'm pretty sure he had a great time because he still tells me how important it is for people to study and understand science and how important it is to participate in Science fair.
3 judges didn't show up on the day of the fair so who filled in? PCVs of course, and a representative from the provincial office of science and technology.
Labson, Laete (a teacher at Vanduzi) Thelma, Osque (the student from Vanduzi) and myself all proudly representing Vanduzi district.
Just a few days after
finishing the provincial science fair I had to fly to Maputo with the science
fair winners so they could compete in the National Science Fair. Science Fair is the product of a lot of hard work from professors, students, government technical experts and volunteers, working in every district across the country. The fair provides technical inspiration and scientific lessons for everyone involved and is an inspiration for all of the students who participate in local, district, provincial and national fairs. Each province sent their two student winners (one from grades 8-10 and one from grades 11-12) to compete in the national science fair. A teacher and one or two government representatives were sent from each province as well. In Maputo, two volunteers, along with
help from the Ministry of Science and Technology and a lot of PEPFAR funding,
had planned a 3-day workshop for all science fair participants. The teachers had a day
to show experiments, a
day for an open expedition and a day of an actual science fair, where each provincial winner was given the opportunity to present their work in front of a jury and answer questions. I wasn’t too excited for Science Fair simply because I was
tired of traveling so much and just wanted to be in Vanduzi with Thelma and
Amendoim, teaching my classes and doing my regular jobs, but science fair was
awesome and I’m so glad I got to be a part of it! For the participants to be flown to Maputo for such a big
event, and meet important people, and simply given the time and opportunity to
show off their hard work was pretty awesome, and the projects that they came up
with were incredible. Here are
some pictures…
Taken from the second day, a public expositions with 50 students and professors showing their projects. There were also local dance groups who performed traditional dances for a crowd of over 1000 spectators.
On the third day, winners from each province presented their projects to a panel of judges and an audience of 800 people. There were more cultural dances and theatre pieces as well as a Q&A discussion about HIV/AIDS by health experts who provided free testing and counseling. It was a long day but it was pretty awesome.
This student made a security system for a house.
This winners proudly displaying their new bags, certificate and trophies.
This student made a balance for people to use in his rural community to weigh their produce to sell in the market.
This student made paint with home-made materials (such as vegetable dyes). She won first place at the competition for students in grade 8-10.
'
The Minister of Science and Technology was quoted in a national newspaper, Jornal Noticias, saying "Queremos saudar os prefessores e voluntarios do Corpo da Paz pela dedicacao e imaginacao na forma como acompanham desde as zonas mais reconditas, guiam e apoiam odalunos naaprendizagem das ciencias experimentais atraves dos clubes espalhados pelo pais, adoptando formas de suportee aos conhecimento teoricos aprendidosnas escolas."
Translation: "We want to recognize the professors and volunteers of Peace Corps for their dedication and imagination in the form of helping the hard to reach areas of Mozambqie; guiding and supporting the students in learning of experimental science through clubs spread through the country, adopting and offering forms of support to the theoretical knowledge learned in the school system."
I don't take much credit for my help with Science Fair, I don't teach science and couldn't explain physics or chemistry to you if you asked but organizing the event was fun and being a part of the national fair was a really neat experience. The students who participated were all just brilliant and they used the most basic resources to create their experiments and some of the teachers involved were just so dedicated to helping their students learn and grow, it was really cool. It was also great to work with a team of motivated PCVs, who after months of waiting for funds, were so determined to make the fair a great experience for everyone who was involved.
After Science Fair, I returned to Vanduzi and jumped back into teaching and helped students putting
together an English theatre piece put their final touches onto their
production. Last year, I took a
group to participate in the English theatre competition and although it was a
lot of fun for the students they weren’t well-prepared, spoke for way too long,
and were simply overwhelmed. Well
this year they were determined to do better and that really showed. They made props and costumes, really
tried to act with emotion and were GREAT about sharing lines among all the
participants, it was so much better!
They ended up placing third and you would have thought these kids won
the lottery when it was announced that they had placed. They all ran to the front of the stage
and were hugging and high-fiving and after they got their trophy and
certificates they came over to my to shake my hand and I was tearing up, they
were just so happy! I’m really gonna
miss these kids, they work so hard and I really hope that somehow, they are all
able to go to college next year.
The students from Vanduzi preforming their theatre piece.
Very happily displaying their 3rd place certificates and trophy!
With English theatre and
Science fair finished I was finally able to focus on teaching and my English
Club and simply spending time with friends here. I have 3 more weeks of teaching here and then exams will
start again and then it will be almost time to leave, which is crazy! I’m trying to balance continuing my job
at school and spending time with good friends.
Thelma and I spent a weekend visiting Sophia, her husband and their adorable daughter Shanazai.
It’s been exhausting explaining that I am in fact leaving at
the end of the year, mainly because people ALWAYS say that I should simply
stay. Aside from work and saying
goodbye I’ve started looking for jobs (to start in December/January) and that
also is incredibly stressful…I’d rather sit on my porch and read Dr. Seuss with
my neighbors.
Teacher's day is tomorrow and presidential elections are on Wednesday so you can expect another update soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment