Considering the availability that I had to the internet for the weeks surrounding the holidays, it has been a while since I have been able to get on the internet. This is partly due to the fact that I am starting to work more outside of the office. Mostly, this is due to the fact that the internet has been out. Even when we do get internet in the office working again, it will be hard to procure a computer now that most everyone is back from the holidays.
Catching up on the last couple weeks: We have started to conduct surveys with the various health posts around the districts in which we have youth development programs. The goal of these surveys is to find out what each post, center or hospital has to offer in terms of services, materials, and the relationships that they have with any community groups- youth or otherwise- with regards to distributing information or facilitating activities about sexual and reproductive health. We´ve only visited three so far, but the results have been… interesting. I am not publicly criticizing the Mozambican health system, since PCVs have gotten into trouble for that sort of thing before. Instead, I will give you some numbers and observations from my visit to one center. This center had 1 supervising nurse diagnosing patients and 1 assistant distributing medicine on duty. Outside, there were about 60-70 people who needed some kind of attention. This center had two rooms total. 1 bed, 5 chairs, and 2 desks were all of the furniture they had- all looked to be older than I. This two room center provides basic medicine for illnesses like malaria and fevers. It serves a community of about 50,000 people, give or take a few thousand. The main hospital is about 30 kilometers away, in an area where about 1 in 100 people have motorized transportation. This being said, I felt pretty bad taking up an hour of the nurse´s time to conduct the survey, since there were so many people still to be seen. At the conclusion of our interview, the nurse asked us what Save could do about helping ameliorate the structure and capabilities of the health center. My counterpart explained that we were mostly involved with education and prevention, and our program did not disperse funds to repair government buildings. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I feel that as I get more entrenched in the community, I will start to see many disparaging and frustrating situations that I have little or no power to do anything about.
Switching gears, last weekend I hopped down to Maputo for an overnight to be introduced to the country director of Save the Children, a really nice old guy that vaguely reminds me of George Campbell. They put me up in a hotel and on Sunday, I had some free time to passear around Maputo. I never have really lived in a large city before, so this could hold true for many areas around the world, but in Maputo on Sunday, it´s like walking through a ghost town. Sure, there are the random beggars and a barraca or two open near residential areas, but for the most part if you are not near a church, you are walking around with no one in sight. I loved it. It gave me a chance to walk around and figure out parts of the city that usually are filled with vendors and kids begging for money. I´ll try to post a map of Maputo if I can find one online, but in looking at the street names, you will find evidence of the Socialist background upon which FRELIMO- Mozambique´s ruling party- was founded. At one point I can stand on the corner of Avenida Karl Marx and Avenida Mao Tse Tung. There are other streets named after Lenine, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung, as well as Mozambican and other African Socialist leaders- Samora Machel (the first president of Mozambique; some of you older folks may recall back in the late 80´s hearing that his plane crashed during a trip to Malawi. Some say the South Africans sabotaged the plane.) Also, Eduardo Mondlane, who was one of FRELIMO´s first leaders and was assassinated by a mail bomb. I do not have many pics of Maputo, or much of anything yet since I do not entirely feel confidant whipping out my camera in areas that I am not totally familiar with (which is almost everywhere), but I have two years and many trips to Maputo ahead of me, so there will be many sights to be seen in time.
At the hotel, I watched C-Span. It was 4 day old sessions of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee now chaired by Joe Biden and with members including Obama, Kerry, Feingold, Dick Lugar, Barbara Boxer, John Sununu, and many others who I now forget (including the senator from Jersey who didn´t vote for the war in the first place and the guy that whipped Santorum, hahaha.) Never have I been so engrossed by C-Span except for when they show the British Parliament sessions, which make for exciting political entertainment. Anyway, there was Condi Rice, getting shredded by pretty much everyone. As Biden put it in his closing arguments- with the exception of one or two members sitting here today, all of the 21 senators sitting on this committee have negative feelings toward the president´s new policy in
Iraq. The sentiments range from somewhat skeptical to downright outraged.I was pretty impressed with the bipartisan condemnation of Bush´s announcement of increased troop numbers (22,000 is what I´m hearing), headlined by Russ Feingold´s amazing verbal thrashing of Condi. Follow that with ol´Ted Kennedy throwing down the gauntlet, and it seems that there may be a war within Washington just to gain control of foreign policy. I think Kennedy and Bush should have it out in a no-holds-barred cage match on Pay Per View, refereed by Tim Russert, with all money going to refugee relief in the Sudan (I bet Kennedy would pin him in 7 minutes, once Bush got tired of running for his life). It was nice to just be able to watch some American politics. I didn´t think that three months into being here I would crave American politics, but here it´s FRELIMO, 24/7, and that´s about it.
Ok, back to Mozambique, kind of. I had a couple beers down the street from the hotel with 4 Mozambican men and an old Portuguese guy. They were very curious about the US and politics there. One menino (young male) told me that he was “with Bin Laden” (the Portuguese guy immediately said that if you are really with Bin Laden, you can “up and f-off”, you are not welcome at this table). I asked what he knew about Bin Laden and he said that he just wanted to see the US look foolish, and that Bin Laden is good at doing that. Interesting perspective, though it is only ONE perspective and does not at all represent the views of all or even many Mozambicans. The Portuguese man responded by saying that when you live in a country with a 18 percent HIV prevalence rate and an average income that is less than that of most of the poorest Americans, it is HE that looks foolish. The young Mozambican had little to say after that.I was enthralled by some of the discussion that proceeded to take place at this table. Some included telling me what my job should be while I am here; I evidently need to work more on safeguarding cattle supplies and corn quality rather than fighting a medical nightmare that is killing thousands of people in the world each day. We also talked about the job atmosphere of
Mozambique. One gentleman said that I was taking a job away that potentially could be given to a Mozambican. I responded that I am a volunteer and that I do not make any money, but if he would like to do my job he is more than welcome to come to Gaza and assist me out in the field working with youth teaching them about sexual health. He said that his job as a chappa driver was better.I love talking to random folks, because it will always make me think that even if I may have heard 100 different ways to combat HIV or ways to make Mozambique better, there is always one more sitting next to me at a bar or in a chappa. I don´t even have to bring anything up, I just have to say “Bom Dia!” and off we go in a conversation that I have no idea where it will take me. These are the best ways to converse- I get to practice my Portuguese, learn about culture, and usually find out some random fact about something that I never would have known about had I not said hello to this exact person. Just today on the way to work I learned that in the Gaza province the fishing is better than many parts of the world. Now, I don´t know if this is even true, in fact I doubt it is true. However, you learn about the person who said this comment. They are proud of where they live, and proud of their profession (he was obviously a fisherman, and by the smell of his hat that he laid on my lap, he had just been gutting his freshest catch) and that gives me more insight into how people live day to day.
Going to go cook dinner, on my gas stove! It´s an old stove that Save had in a warehouse. My first meal was- of all things- RAMEN. I had packed it from the States for just that occasion. How college. Tonight, I´m making mango spaghetti. Never thought that adding a diced mango to fresh tomato sauce would be good, but it is. The mangoes are off one of the trees in my yard and they are great. Also in season right now are pineapples, which I can get from a coworker for 10 Mtn each. That´s about 40 cents a pineapple (Ananàs in Portugues). The small ones are 5 at the market, and they chop the skins off but leave the stems so you can eat them as you passear the market like popsicles. Also, I´ve always thought myself to be a good omelette chef, and now I get to practice. Eggs are one of the cheapest source of protein here, so it´s omelettes for breakfast throughout the week.
Oh, and I saw a pirated version of Babel and a bootlegged Children of Men at my Mozambican counterpart´s house. Freakin´ amazing movies, both of them! I just need to procurar a copy of the Departed, because I hear it is great!
One Last thing! Happy Birthday Uncle Matt!!! Hope everything is progressing well!
Love to all. Ciao!
