An Afternoon at the Cruzamento

Last week I made my triumphant return to Mangunde after having spent nearly two weeks in the capitol city of Maputo for a mid-service Peace Corps conference. Maputo was glorious. All 62 of us that are left from our training group (Moz 15) congregated to do our mandatory medical and dental examinations, receive more training sessions from PC staff and to catch up as many of us hadn't since each other since we swore in and left training back in December 2010. PC put us up in a pretty chic hotel with hot running water, AC, big clean beds, TVs and a pool...as I'm writing this, I'm realizing that this isn't necessarily a description of a super chic hotel, but when you've been taking bucket baths, have been eating nothing but beans, leaves and rice for a year, and sleep on a foam mattress who's size could generously be equated with a prison bed, a $20 room at Dollar Inn would seem like the Ritz Carlton. Again, take this in perspective, because it would be easy to sit there from America and be like, pshhh, I can call Dominoes and have a hot cheesy pizza delivered to me in 10 minutes, and then I can run to the store and pick up a pint of ice cream and a case of beer to make a night of it, but, sadly Dominoes doesn't deliver to schools so far in the middle of nowhere that it would take an air drop a 4x4 to get the pizza there. That in perspective, when I say that there are at least 20 pizza places in Maputo, three Thai restaurants, Indian food, a gelatoria, and that you can even get beer on tap, you have to respond with a jaw-dropping, “no way Maputo is unbelievable, it's like heaven on Earth.” Ok, with that out of the way, at some point I knew I would have to leave this veritable paradise that we call Maputo and enter into the real Mozambique, the one that ranks 165 out of 169 countries globally on the development index, the one who's national HIV prevalence is 12% and the one in which my friends and colleagues live and toil through everyday.

My journey back to school had me fly into our provincial capitol of Chimoio in the smallest most terrifying plane I've ever flown in, take a mini-bus to Inchope, a town halfway to my destination, and then catch a semi the rest of the way to the turn-off to my mission. This is a trip I've done many times. It's not too bad, and depending on your luck with various rides can take anywhere from 3 to 5 hours. The tricky part is that the road to my school, 25km of rocks and mud, doesn't exactly have the most reliable transportation schedule. It operates under the systems and wait and hope. You arrive, you wait, you wait, and you wait for a car to pass by heading into the mission, and then you hope that it has space for you when it does come. Some days, and how beloved they are, you arrive at the turn-off and a car happens to be heading into the missions simultaneously. Other days, however, you arrive at the turn-off, and six hours later the sun has set, the women who were also waiting there pack up their things, put out their fires, head home and warn you that you shouldn't stay out here because there are bandidos that come out after dark. Normally though, you wait about 3 hours and a car eventually comes. I can't say yet that I've come to enjoy those three hours waiting at the cruzamento, but I can say with confidence that, after a year in Mozambique, maybe I've adopted a more African mentality, or maybe I just don't care as much about being on time and predictable, but I don't mind the waiting as much as I used to. When you do enough waiting and sitting around, you learn to adopt a certain mindset to get yourself through the inexorable hours of nothingness. Waiting long hours at the cruzamento, I find that my mind enters a nearly transcendental state of clarity, or deep meditation. The only other time in my life where I felt I could enter such a state was during my year of organic chemistry in college. Back in college we called it “zoning out” but now I realize that I was just practicing a skill that would come to be very useful later in life. Despite its imperfections, an afternoon spent at the cruzamento can be an opportunity to soak up a culture's personality and float into a greater understanding of why they do some of the things they do. I guess, at the end of the day, that's why I don't mind it as much as I used to.

I just stepped off of the semi on the road side of the EN-1 at the cruzamento to my school, Mangunde. The semi-trucks here are all shipped second-hand from America and have the drivers side on the left despite the fact that they also drive on the left side of the road here. Therefore, when I step out of the passenger side of the towering cab and hop three feet down onto the pavement I am already in the oncoming lane. Normally I would be careful and check both ways before crossing the only and thus largest highway that spans the country from Maputo in the south to Pemba in the north, but I realize that we are in the middle of nowhere and there won't be another car that goes past within a half hour and so just walk. When I told the driver to pull over here he had peered ahead squinting his eyes and said, “Here? Are you sure? Where is a white like you going to go out here?” The driver and other passengers that he had picked up on his shipping route down to Maputo to make a few extra bucks had been talking about how dangerous southern Africa was and how many times his cargo or phones had been robbed out of his truck in Congo and I don't think they knew that I was listening or understood their Portuguese because when I chimed in that I had also been robbed they seemed to respect me a little bit more. They were impressed with the fact that I used to have an iPhone and I told them what a magical machine it had been until it was stolen. They couldn't believe that you could take pictures and post them on the “internet” instantaneously, and then have a map guide you to wherever your destination might be. Pure witchcraft they thought.

Anyway, when I tell him that I am getting out here, on a random stretch of nothing on a 150km stretch of the EN-1 halfway between Inchope and Muxungue, two towns which, in themselves, are nothing but dirty truck-stops, I tell him my reason for being here. “I am a teacher. There is a mission school 25km down that dirt road and I teach English and biology there.” I've told this to enough people now that I'm usually able to predict their reactions. A switch seems to go off in them. People respect you. It's a wonderful thing. Whereas before I was maybe a backpacker, or a South African trying to go to the beach, using their country for its cheap thrills and no rules, now I am not necessarily one of them, but at least closer to them. A teacher is a very respected profession here in Mozambique, and a white person who, in their minds, has given up a life of big houses, cars and wealth to come teach in Mozambique is not only an enigma, but also quite laudable. This particular driver gives me a surprised, “ahh...you are a teacher...” when I tell him why I am getting off at this inconspicuous dirt road, and arches his eyebrows in dismayed admiration. When I offer to pay him for the ride down he waves it off and wishes me luck in my second year here.

Waiting at the entrance to the road to the mission there are 20 or so women who are most likely anticipating a ride into the hospital at the mission. In order to get to them, however, I have to wade my way through a hoard of pineapple bearing children who are all trying to jimmy their way closer to the truck driver who is now taking a pee on the side of the road. They have all picked up their most precious pineapples and ebb past me to get a shot at a sale. This is pineapple month and at some point in the past couple of weeks all the kids in Mozambique put down their buckets of mangos and picked up stacks of pineapples. Now it is a frenetic, “fifteen, fifteen, fifteen...ten, ten...take two for twenty-five...” I squeeze my way past them and find a nice shady spot on the dirt to put down my bags and start waiting. Everyone is watching me. Why is it that I can't go anywhere in this country without everyone watching me? They are talking in dialect and looking right at me. A woman laughs; now everyone is laughing. How could I possibly have done something funny or even remotely interesting? I had simply walked across the road and put my backpack down. Why am I always a joke to these people? I feel like I did in 7^th grade when I didn't have anyone to sit down next to at lunch and just ended up sitting by myself. Eyes press on you like little thumbs poking into your sides and back. I could take out my iPod but that would just make it worse. How about a crossword puzzle? Worse yet. I decide to leave my stuff where it is and go over to the little snack stand that some entrepreneurial Mozambican smartly built in a place with a captive clientele. There's no energy here, so the soda is warm, but I'm parched. “Two Lemon Twists please.” In Mozambican style I down each 300mL glass bottle in one extended swig. Sated, I mosey back over to my stake out where I left my bags. The women are still watching me, but not as intensely as they were before. They have probably figured me out by now. “He's probably another one of those Italian donors for the mission, or maybe a teacher.”

Every single woman has a child on her back. I count 18 women and 22 children. I realize what it must be like to be a woman and not have a child in this country. The questions and the gossip. There are two other men there waiting. One seems to be healthy and accompanying his wife and child to the hospital, the other is lying on a blanket behind me. He is weak and frail. His face is young, maybe 30 years old, but the gray streaks through his hair and beard and his tired sagging cheeks betray him. My first thought is that he must have AIDS or TB or both. Then I realize how horrible it must be to know that everyone's first thought when they see you is “He must have AIDS” and I feel guilty for even thinking it. I think of how horrible it must be to have an expiration date on your life. No one with AIDS in Africa lives for more than about five years after their infection. No one talks about it either. When you go you just go, disappear. So and so was sick, passed away last week. There was a patient at the hospital a few weeks ago who passed away. She had come from far away to get to the hospital and didn't have any family with her. When she passed away, there was nothing to be done. I asked if a family member would come to get the body, or if a service would be held and was told that she didn't know anyone here. She literally had no one. They would bury her out in the small anonymous cemetery behind the hospital. No service, no words of remembrance, no tears, just disappear. I wonder if the man lying on the blanket behind me will share her fate and have a place next to hers in the cemetery.

The sun is dipping down and the once sweltering afternoon sun is relenting just slightly. As a small herd of goats stumbles out onto the road from seemingly nowhere and sniffs the ground for shards of leftover pineapples, I realize that soon enough a car will come by and I will be forced into what is always an uncomfortable situation. The car that comes will not have space for all of the women hoping to make it in to the hospital today. At best the white Toyota pick-up that the mission sends out to pick up patients will fit half of the women and children into the back of the pick up in one trip. Maybe another car will come, maybe not. Maybe they will have to wait and hope for another chance tomorrow. I, on the other hand, will be put in the front seat. Regardless of how much or little space there is left in the car, the first spot always goes to me. I am a teacher, I am a visitor, I am white, I am important. I'm not sick, I don't need to go to the hospital, I'm just coming back from a party with other PC volunteers. Can I get a ride? If I got HIV, I would not just disappear. I would be sent to America, receive state-of-the-art drug therapy and could have the chance to live out a very productive life. So what am I supposed to do when I get put in the front seat and the car pulls away with a full load of patients stuffed in the back and another 10 patients left behind at the cruzamento to wait for tomorrow? Get out and give up my seat to someone who needs it more than me? Make a fire and camp out at the cruzamento until tomorrow? I'll tell you what I'm going to do today. They are going to offer me a seat in the front and I'm going to take it because I hate riding in the back on the bumpy road into the mission and I'm scared of bandidos. I'm going to feel guilty for a few minutes, but eventually I will rationalize that I'm already doing a lot more than is required of me by being here in the first place and that someone will take care of those people. Is this wrong? Am I a bad person? The truth is, even if I give up my seat to some deserving patient, I know that no one will take it. It would be unheard of. It's just the way it is here. The driver would frown in confusion and the patient would hesitate, wondering why he's deserving of such treatment. I get on the truck and wave goodbye to the cruzamento and the patients that have been left behind. I hope that the mission will send another car today to pick up the rest of the past and ease into my seat as the driver turns the radio up to Rihanna. Even if it doesn't change you completely, being here in Africa, here in a place with such austere contrasts, will make you look in the mirror and think about the decisions you make. Every decision has a consequence, and by the sheer weight of your privilege in life, your decisions are no longer just yours, they are collective and have a much wider impact than you ever thought an insignificant little person like you ever had the power to make. Now I look at myself in the real rear-view mirror in the car and realize why they were laughing at me when I first got there and put down my backpack at the cruzamento. I have sunscreen all over my face, not rubbed in.

Around the World and Back Again...10 Months To Go!

(two weeks old...stay tuned for a more recent blog update!)

Feliz ano novo e bem vindo a Moçambique! I just went to my blog page and saw that my last entry was on November 3^rd, 2011! Yikes, that was last year; it's been over two months. I apologize dearly for my long intermission, but I assure you that the past two months, while full of ups and downs and many unique challenges, have been positive for me and the promise of my next year here in Mozambique. So here we go, year two, bring it on!

Before I look forward to the year in front of me, I want to first take a moment to look back on the year that was, 2011. If I had to sum up my 2011 in a few words, I would say “new, humbling, and non-stop.” Considering I had never taught anything to anyone at any level before, figuring out how to teach biology, English and computers at a new school and in a new culture was a formidable enough challenge for me. Combine that, however, with the exciting but new challenge of running my English theater, journalism and JOMA (HIV/AIDS theater) clubs, and I often had my head spinning. I managed to figure it all out though and put all of the pieces of my life at Mangunde together. I found ways to commit time and energy to all of my projects and to make them fulfilling for me and my students. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, though, Mozambique found a way to throw a few more challenges my way to knock me off balance again. There was malaria, then there was a bus accident, then there was the break-in with the crazy machete-men in which I lost my computer, camera, phone, and ipod, then there was another bus accident and more malaria. Despite these setbacks, however, I was able to carry on and finish my year on a very positive note. October meant exam time and the end of the school year along with the regional English Theater competition that I organized in the provincial capital. I went into detail about the competition in one of my earlier blog posts, but it was a perfect grand finale to my first year here in Mozambique. Between running to and from the city, calling restaurants and hotels, and suffering through headaches at the bank, the competition ended up consuming every free hour of my life down the stretch. It was a glorious event, however, that made me remember why I am really here and the kind of difference a few committed Peace Corps volunteers can make in the lives of many, and I don't regret it for a minute. Needless to say, I was ready for a break in November.

November and December took me all over Mozambique and to three other countries. I began my break by making a journey down to Maputo to participate in the training for the new group of volunteers that were arriving to Mozambique. Suddenly, I looked in the mirror and realized that I had been here in Mozambique for over a year and was now “an experienced volunteer.” Thus, for a week in Namaacha, the very same town that I had spent two formative months a year ago for my own training, I dispersed my sage advice and broad experiences to the wide-eyed newbies. It was fun, and I was even able to spend some time with my old host family – Mama Joana, Papa Justino and their kids. After training, I was able to meet up with other volunteers in Vilankulos, a beach town on the way up the coast, for a few days, then head to Gorongosa National Park for a Thanksgiving celebration. Among a gathering of about 25 volunteers, we were able to procure a turkey and all contributed to have a feast of mashed potatoes, stuffing, squash, and pumpkin and apple pies for the holiday – now the fourth Thanksgiving in a row I've spent abroad. After Thanksgiving, I jaunted around the country a bit, seeing other volunteers and traveling to new destinations until, finally, it was time for me to go home. On my way out, however, I was able to stop in Malawi and South Africa. Both English-speaking countries, they served as a sort of half-way point between Mozambique and the upcoming month I would spend back at home in a developed English-speaking country – America!

Before I get to America, though, let me say that Malawi was gorgeous, well, parts of it. If you refer to your map of Africa, you will see that Malawi is a long and thin country that slices right through Mozambique, splitting between the northern provinces of Tete to the West and Zambezia to the East and riding the border of Lake Malawi, one the largest and most beautiful fresh water lakes in Africa. People say that Malawi is the knife that cuts right through the heart of Mozambique. As it's essentially in Mozambique, and it's another very poor country in Southern Africa, Malawi offers a lot of similarities to Mozambican culture: it's hot, public transportation is shit, and it seems to be full of many friendly people willing to stop and help you out. Allow me to elaborate on the public transportation. If you have read any of my previous blogs, or the blog of any PCV in Southern Africa for that matter, you've probably gotten the feel that public transportation can be a vexing, dangerous and pesky pain in the ass. The situation in Mozambique is one that I have gotten used to and now with an iPod and a sensible forgiving disposition can be made tolerable. When I stepped across the border into Malawi, however, I had no idea that I had just walked into a different playing field. I was trying to play football while someone had switched the game to field hockey at half time.

The first shortcoming of the Malawian transportation system that I found: the Malawian Kwacha (their currency) is tanking. It's depreciating at such a rate that it'll be cheaper to start using their bills as toilet paper in a few months. When we got there you could get 1000 Kwacha for about $4, but only a few months earlier it was probably double that and in a few month it'll probably be less. The result of this massive shift in values is that there are no stable prices in Malawi. Day to day, week to week, prices are in flux. Therefore, when you get on a chapa (public mini-bus) there are not established fares. Each passenger has to bargain the price independently with the money-collector for each different route. You could have 12 people in a van all going to the same destination but all having agreed to different prices with the collector. Being white doesn't help your bargaining power either. We found that collectors routinely began offering prices at least double what the other patrons were paying. Even after bargaining the price down to something that seemed reasonable for us, we found that the collectors often would not be satisfied by giving us the same prices as other Malawian passengers and would deny us passage. What's more, the other passengers would often refuse to tell us the rate that they agreed upon with the collector forcing us to bargain without any good reference. That was strike one for Malawi. Strike two was not having a cue. Let me explain. Let's imagine that there are five chapas that operate a route from A to B. Normally, that is, in Mozambique, there will be a line. Chapa 1 will sit at the front of the cue and wait to fill up with passengers while chapas 2, 3, 4, and 5 wait for their turn to fill, only accepting passengers when the chapas before them filled up and departed. All the passengers that come would file happily into chapa 1 and it would fill up quickly, allowing everyone to get where they're going in a somewhat timely fashion. Here's a hypothetical question: what would happen if the line system broke down and every collector was competing with every other collector to fill up their chapas first and leave? The answer...you would be in Malawi and ti would be CHAOS. You arrive to a town and immediately you have five different collectors preying upon you, breathing down your throat, forcibly trying to shove you into their chapa so they can fill up. They grab your bags and try to stuff them into the trunk, they honk their horns, and rev their engines all in a desperate attempt to get you thinking that they are going to fill up and leave first so that you will hop in. This is not a fun environment to wander around if you have just arrived to a new town. I came dangerously close to punching many collectors in the face after they tried to snatch my baggage out of my hands and force me to their chapas. Aside from creating a very hostile, noisy and stressful environment, you can probably guess what other shortcoming this pernicious filling strategy suffered from – chapas would take hours to fill up. There might be five different chapas each with five people in them waiting to fill up to 10 or 15 more spots, honking around and revving to seduce newcomers into their vans. If they could just consolidated their efforts and fill up one chapa we could all be on our merry way. It was extremely frustrating. If there is one thing I've learned in my first 15 months here in Africa, though, it's that things are never as simple as they seem.

Apart from chapa headaches, Malawi was really quite breathtaking. My destination was Cape MacClear, a small beach town on the coast of Lake Malawi. The water was crystal clear, fresh and calm. On our first full day there we rented kayaks and kayaked out on the lake, stopping at various islands to hop off and do some snorkeling. I heard later that Lake Malawi is home to the most species of fresh-water fish in the world, or something like that. Whatever it is, looking back, I don't doubt it at all. Just sticking your face under the water you could see hundreds of shimmering cyclids and vibrant blue tropical fish darting through the water. I had never seen so many tropical fish concentrated in one place before; it was a snorkeler's paradise and it was in a serene and transparent freshwater lake. We later looped around the back of one the islands and saw a whole population of bald eagles scanning the water and periodically swooping down to pluck a fish right out of the water. It was idyllic and almost worth the levels of transportational hell that we went through to get there.

After Malawi I headed to South Africa, another stepping stone on my slow re-initiation into the modern world. There are many parts of South Africa that are extremely poor, like Mozambique, but, unlike Mozambique, there are also parts of South Africa that are extremely wealthy. It's this juxtaposition that have made economic and racial tensions in S. Africa so volatile in the last 50 years, but also what makes it a very pleasant vacation destination for someone coming from the doldrums of undeveloped Mozambique. In Maputo, my girlfriend Hannah and I had met up with two other volunteers, Janet and Luke in order to travel South Africa together. We spent the first day in Johannesburg. While still fresh and embellished from its World Cup fame in 2010, Johannesburg couldn't hide its dark side. Racial tensions still run high as it boasts one of the highest murder and car-jacking rates in the world. Blacks still live in the mega-cardboard box townships that they were relocated to during apartheid and whites operate big businesses in skyscrapers downtown. Despite this, there were a couple of noteworthy destinations that we stopped at in our 24 hour stay in Joburg. First, I had breakfast at McDonalds...Egg Saugage McMuffin and a McCafe coffee. To the conventional American, it might seem trite to crave such cheap complaisance from the commercial and corporate world, or it might even seem to be a shameful forfeiture of all the values I learned in the Peace Corps over the past year to covet such a sinister symbol of obesity and materialism as the Egg McMuffin. But, folks, let me tell you, it was more than just a two dollar English muffin with a slice of processed cheese and a perfectly symmetrical cut of scrambled eggs stacked on top of each other. No, as I dipped my hand into the brown paper bag with the yellow “M” on it and furrowed my brow at the thought that McDonalds is still using the slogan “I'm Lovin' It” after 10 years, I felt as if I was dipping my hand into a little bag of home-grown comfort. Call me cheap, call me gluttonous, call me insensitive to the fact that McDonalds is brain-washing our country into an obesity-related coma, but to me, that Egg McMuffin on my first day in South Africa represented a little taste of home.

After the McMuffin, we went to a slightly more wholesome, but equally frightening destination in Joburg: the apartheid museum. Now I can't go into the same kind of detail with the apartheid museum as I went into with the Egg McMuffin, because, frankly, I don't remember it as vividly. I can, however, say that the museum was extremely well put-together, and daringly honest about the atrocities that took place in South Africa during the period of apartheid. The accounts of bold-faced unquestioned racial discrimination that were enacted by the white South African government between 1948 and 1995 were chilling. Black Africans were identified and systematically stripped of all opportunities to succeed in life by the perverse government – they were relocated and given bare-bones housing and broken down schools to ensure subjugation. Harrowing, though, were the stories of Africans like Nelson Mandela who rose up against the white government and eventually won his people's freedom back in such a noble and non-violent way.

Joburg was merely a jumping off point, however, for our final South African destination of Cape Town. All in all, we spent five glorious days in Cape Town. What can I possible say about Cape Town that hasn't already been captured by the stunning panoramas that I snapped and conveniently posted on “facebook” for my readers' pleasure? Well, not much, Cape Town has a breathtaking landscape and a lively atmosphere that make it a fantastic holiday destination for thrill-seekers and romantics alike...that's what I would say if I worked for Lonely Planet. It's true though. If you didn't get my hint before and follow the link to the photos, I'll give you a brief geographical description. Cape Town is a historic city on the beach-lined coast tucked into the rugged hills of the Western Cape. Providing a backdrop for the city is the magnificent Table Mountain, which sits majestically behind the city pinning in against the coast. As the sun glazes Cape Town in its warm summer rays, the perfectly flat mountain top watches over the city with its notorious shroud of clouds, known as the Table Cloth,” rolling up and over the mountain-top. When we were there our activities included climbing Table Mountain and taking the cable car back down, climbing Lion's Head, an adjoining peak, visiting the famous Fort, touring the wine country of Stellenbosch, walking along the waterfront and beaches, and visiting the Cape of Good Hope. At the Cape of Good Hope we ran into some unexpected guests – it was full of wild ostriches, baboons, and, best of all, penguins! Cape Town was pretty amazing, and there are about 1000 amazing restaurants to choose from. I felt that I had come a long way from Mozambique and had once again sold out to a material world that my friends and students back in Mozambique would never understand...but...it isn't hard to rationalize and tell yourself that you deserve something when you're gallivanting around a city as beautiful as Cape Town. After that, I think I was finally ready to go back to America...

Home. What was the first thing that stood out to me in America? Wealth? English-speaking? Obesity? Food? No, actually those things came later. I flew into O'Hare in Chicago, where my parents picked me up to drive back to Madison. My mom waited for me at the arrivals gate and I saw her anxiously craning her neck to see through the door as I walked in, still wearing flip-flops and shorts from South Africa in the December weather. She seemed to whisper to the crowd of women standing around her when she saw me and I saw them all give her nods of approval. I imagined her explaining to them while they all waited for their loved ones that she was waiting for her son who had been in the Peace Corps in Africa for a year. I can't deny that I felt a little validated. After seeing my dad and our dog, Maddie, in the car we drove off down the largest highway I had ever seen, towards Madison. That reminds me, what was the first big thing that struck me about being in the States? The roads. Driving on I-90 from Chicago to Madison we were on three lanes of glorious one-way interstate. Bright, freshly painted lines and reflectors marked the lanes, barriers separated us from oncoming traffic, bumper strips protected a robust shoulder and signs marked turn-offs for every possible destination one could have. I had never been so taken by such a simple concept as a well-maintained road. What can one good road do for a society? The answer is everything. People, goods, money and services can MOVE! Movement is a wonderful and entirely under-appreciated commodity. With a little bit of movement, people can start businesses, transport products, go shopping, and see their families. I sat there in awe, watching the signs and reflectors flash by my glassy eyes and imagined what Mozambique could be like with one road even half as nice as I-90. While not as eye-opening as the drive home, the rest of my stay in America was wonderful. I spent most of my time in Madison, catching up with my immediate family and grandparents who still live in Madison, playing tennis(!), jamming with my family on piano and bass, and eating my mom's delicious steak. I also had the chance to visit a few of my cousins, aunts and uncles, spend time at our cabin on Lake Superior and stop through Minneapolis to see my sister's place and catch up with some of my good friends from college. For New Year's I was even able to go down to Chicago to meet up with Hannah, who is from Michigan and was also back in the States visiting family for the same time period as me.

Like almost all PCVs who look forward to returning to the states for a brief stint in the middle of the service I had been compiling a list over the past year of all the things I wanted to do stateside that I had been missing. Sometimes when you're feeling lonely and restless over here, the most appealing activity is to fantasize about all of the good food and American things you are going to do when you get back home for those three weeks. While not the most productive activity for your service, sometimes it's a necessary escape. Cereal and milk, check, Subway roasted chicken breast on honey oat with pepper jack, check, Rocky Rococo pizza, check, Indian food, check, juicy home-cooked steak and salad, check....hmm, seems to be all food up to this point. Tennis, check, Christmas cookies, check, piano, check, ESPN, check, watch the Packers lose their first game in over a year, check, watch the Badgers lose the Rose Bowl, check, use a laundry machine, check, use a dish washer, check, use a micro-wave to heat up left-overs for lunch, check, sleep in my giant comfy bed, check, and finally, eventually get so sick of the ridiculous comforts in the US that I'm compelled to return to Mozambique...hmm, I kept expecting that to happen, and it never quite materialized. Nonetheless, January 5^th rolled around and it was time for me to say good-bye to my family, the comforts of home, and board a plane bound for Africa again. Stepping onto the plane and facing up to another 12 months in Mozambique wasn't as easy to confront this time around as it was a year ago for a few reasons. As some of you may have heard, while I was at home, there was a tragic road accident in Mozambique in which two of our fellow Moz PCVs lost their lives. While I didn't know the new volunteers that passed away particularly well, it was still a huge blow to our PCV family here in Mozambique and something that made facing the ever-present dangers and palpable grief back in Mozambique extremely daunting. Death affects everyone differently. For those people close to the deceased volunteers, I can only imagine the grief and loss that they are continuing to feel. For those of us, however, who may not have had close personal ties, but share the responsibilities and lifestyles of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mozambique, it serves as a haunting reminder of how fragile all of our lives our, and the kind of risks that we submit ourselves to on a daily basis. That said, while I vacillated a bit in the days leading up to my departure, I eventually decided to come back to Mozambique and fulfill the rest of my service with respect to my school, my students, my friends, both in the Peace Corps and Mozambican, and for myself.

Now back in Mozambique, back in Mangunde, school has begun and I am glad that I made the decision that I made. When I arrived to my house I was greeted by a new Peace Corps volunteer, Mike, who will be my roommate for this year, our wonderful friend and housekeeper Gracinda, and her adorable and ever-growing one year-old son, Jacinto. I have been at site for a week and find myself slowing getting back into the flow of life here in Mozambique. The sounds, smells, and colors of Africa are all coming back. It's mango and pineapple season and Mike and I have already begun to satiate ourselves in the succulent nectars of Mozambican fruit. On Monday our school had its opening ceremony, and later that night we sat down with the pedagogical director to make the schedule. At the end of the day, I came away with almost exactly what I wanted: four sections of 8^th grade biology, the same grade that I taught last year, and four sections of 10^th grade English, the same students that I taught English to last year in 9^th grade. I may or may not pick up a few more classes, seeing that we are currently without any biology or chemistry teachers for 11^th and 12^th grades. We'll see what happens as the next few weeks unfold. For now, though, I am happy where I am and looking forward to another productive year here at school. Thanks for sticking with me through this, as usual, marathon of a blog post. In the future, I hope to post more frequently than once every three months and to keep the entries below five pages, something I failed at today. By the time I post this entry I will probably already be in Maputo, as I am leaving tomorrow (Saturday) to attend a week-long mid-service conference that all PCVs from my group will be attending. I'm looking forward to seeing volunteers that I haven't seen since training, and even though I feel like I just got back from the states, spending a week in the comfort of a Maputo hotel. I hope that everything is well back in the states and that you all finally got some snow! You're probably sick of the cold now and anxious for it to start warming up, but here I would die for a day in the 20s as it's already hot and humid in the thick if the rainy season here. Until next time! Peace and love. Ian.