REDES Training of Trainers

After my whirlwind of calculating first trimester grades, I went straight into my next major challenge: REDES Training of Trainers.  So hopefully you remember that awesome Peace Corps initiated girls empowerment group, REDES. Well, 2 other volunteers and myself organized and led a weekend long conference for our Mozambican counterparts.  Basically, since we’re constantly fighting the uphill battle of ‘sustainability,’ we decided it would be beneficial to plan this training .We focused on things like reproductive health, effective communication (especially with teenage girls), HIV/AIDS education and how to write a simple budget for any activities where the groups may want to request funding.

Twenty three women between the ages of 22 and 48 attended this seminar.  After a particularly stressful day of travel to Chimoio – where the conference was being held - I was already worn out, especially after that whole “conselhos” madness. However, once we got started with our sessions, I completely changed my mind. I was incredibly excited at how productive each session was. The women had so much to say and so many good questions. Many of them (the majority of which already had children) still didn’t understand the basics of any kind of birth control. Having a space with just women – all of whom are invested in female empowerment – appeared to be a very special thing for these women.  Not only did they become fast friends, but they all seemed genuinely interested in helping with women’s issues here in Mozambique. 

There were obviously a few low points of the weekend – but I don’t really want to get the “international development is an ugly beast” ball rolling right now. It’s just too big! I’d rather share something happy….

One of my favorite women I met this weekend was Ofelia.  She was the youngest participant at the conference (22 years old), and in my opinion is the poster child for the REDES project. When she was 16, she joined a REDES group that was led by a PCV at her secondary school.  Now, at 22, she has finished college (which is AMAZING), speaks beautiful English, and is applying to graduate schools (including some in the States).  And on top of that, she started her own REDES group to help younger girls. One evening when talking with me and my friend Emily, she told us that many Mozambicans think that women simply aren’t capable of the same things as men. Her Peace Corps teacher told her that wasn’t true – and to get people to change that way of thinking, they needed to get out in the community and prove them wrong.

Conselhos de Nota

At the end of the trimester, instead of giving each individual student a report card, the director of each class writes out a giant class report card.  Grades for all 12 subjects and for all students are tediously handwritten on a large poster that is then hung somewhere in the school (can you imagine what would happen if someone tried that in the US? Just posted every grade for everyone to see? Yeah, it wouldn’t fly).

I think I’ve explained this before, but I’ll say it again.  Here in Mozambique, we grade things on a scale of 20 (not 100 like in the States) and a passing grade is 10 and above. So essentially, you just have to get 50% to pass a subject.  To pass trimester, a student must have no more that 2 negative grades (“negative” meaning under 10) above an 8.  For example, a student with an 8 in English and an 8 in Chemistry can still be considered passing if all other grades are above 10. BUT someone with a 7 in History and a 9 in Geography is considered failing. 

This year, for the first time, I had to preside over a “conselho” for my class.  This consisted of me, locking myself in a classroom with 3 other teachers who give classes to my 9B students. Along with individual grade sheets from every teacher, my giant poster of grades, and our class book, this team of teachers had to discuss every student to decide who passed the trimester and who failed. 

There were a few reasons this will go down as one of my least favorite experiences as a teacher here. First of all, general lack of technology.  We’re talking about handwritten posters here people. That means 57 students with 12 grades each – that first must me written in pencil to avoid mistakes, and then copied over in pen to make it oh so official. And, its not just one poster.  Each DT has to make a second one as well.  AND, all of that information has to be copied into the class book (pencil first, obviously…then pen, BLUE pen. No other color). So to wrap up my petty complaining – I thought my right arm was going to fall off and I had a headache from looking at endless columns of numbers.

Then, after about 5 hours locked in that classroom with my fellow teachers, we finally calculated the overall percentage of students in my class who were passing. It was a whopping 35%.  Woof.  If that wasn’t upsetting enough, our Ped Director (who is similar to an assistant principal) came in to tell us that no one was leaving until we had at least a 50% passing rate.  Then, I had to go through and change these kids’ grades so that more of them would pass. And you wonder why there are a significant number of 9^th graders that can’t read? This is it. Some teacher had to just make stuff up so that they didn’t lose their job.  God forbid we send in the real numbers to the people in charge. Sooooo, yeah, that was all types of depressing.

So. To not end on a completely negative note, I was really impressed with a few of the teachers who worked with me. They were just as upset about the state of the education system as I was – and I found that incredibly refreshing and to be honest, I was surprised by it. And yet, in a few months I’ll return to a country where most people are ignorant to how incredibly lucky they are – and my colleagues here will be left to deal with the disappointment of this broken system and the challenge of how to educate their own children…….. Well hey, what do ya know? That turned out to be negative anyway, didn’t it?! 

Bring it on 2^nd trimester, lets try this again…

Dia das Mulheres Mozambicanas

JUNTOS girls on MozambicanWomen's Day

more JUNTOS kids

Domestic Violence play for Women's Day

Ngyous

Stella and Friends

Harriet and Stella come to Cateme

Olive was not a big fan of Harriet

Stella, all grown up! 

9B…. Or my little rockstars, as I like to call them…

This year, unlike last year, I am a D.T. – or Directora da Turma. For those of you who don’t speak Portuguese and/or are not familiar with the Mozambican school system (sooo everyone? I thought so…), it’s basically a homeroom teacher.  So I have my own class (9B, obviously). In addition to being their English teacher, I am their homeroom teacher as well…. Basically, I’m like their school mom. 

The other teachers told me that I was very lucky to have gotten a 9^th grade class.  The 8^th graders are clueless (adorable, but clueless) and the 10^th graders have national exams – which adds a whole other level of stress and work.  Being a DT is totally different from just being a teacher. Last year, I just kind of bopped around, graded my tests and could peace out after that. Not this year…

I have 57 students that I am completely responsible for.  If one of them acts up in another teacher’s class – I get a note about it.  If 3 of them show up late for first period – I hear about it.  And I’m expected to dole out punishments like candy… I’m still getting the hang of that part (Right now it involves me flashing my mean face and making them stay after school to clean the classroom). If a mom shows up at school with a question about her kid, she gets sent right to me. P.S., Little American girl? Not what the moms are expecting….

Some other little gems that have come up… National Statistics day. That was a blast. Basically, we spent the day in our classroom (“we” being me and my 57 kids) working through an absurd number of national statistics.  It went like this “If you are a 15 year old boy, stand up” (and then I counted and recorded the number). Side note – my 9^th graders range from 14 to 20. Then we got to some really awkward statistics… “if your Mother died, stand up.”  “If you’re an orphan, stand up.” “If you are repeating 9^th grade because you failed last year.” Are you just cringing? Political correctness has yet to arrive in Mozambique. Just wait, it gets better…. “If you have any kind of physical disability, stand up” “if you have problems hearing” (that one was ironic…it resulted in someone tapping the kid who has auditory problems and telling him to stand up). “If you are a ‘mentally slow’.”

Another one of my favorites – planting. Every Mozambican student is required to bring some kind of tree and plant it on school grounds.  This has resulted in me continually harassed my students to find and bring plants to school.  They’re sneaky though and try to sneak in just a branch they snapped off a tree. Now we (I) have to check for roots… We also have to do a lot of cleaning/hoeing/ physical labor…. Which they love. Not.

Don’t worry though! Being their DT has allowed me to get to know these kids much better than any of my other classes.  I know all of their names. I check up with their other teachers to see how they’re doing. They come to me with their random problems.  My little chefe (think, class president), Paulo, is an angel – so responsible, so kind … it literally broke my heart when he stood up for ‘orphan’ on statistics day. I kinda like that when I see them doing something good, I get to say ‘oh yeah, he’s one of my kids…they’re rockstars, I know!!’

Waiting for Guffman

So my friend Hannah told me about this movie, Waiting for Guffman, and how totally appropriate it was for our lives here. If you haven’t seen it, it’s faux-documentary about a group of people putting on a community theater piece about the history of their small town.  Basically, they are expecting some big shot from Broadway  (Mr. Guffman) to come and watch the play – and hopefully take them, and the play, to New York.  So they prepare and do all this crazy stuff waiting for this man – they give him a special reserved seat in the front row… and naturally, he never shows up. (Ps. The movie is made by the Best in Show people….so its hilarious)

Soooo that clearly has nothing to do with my life in Mozambique. But in a twisted way – it’s exactly the same.  Cateme is a pretty tiny little village. So when we hear that we’ll be receiving a visitor, it’s a big F-ing deal. Classes are cancelled so that we can clean the school and make sure everything is perfect (do you know how hard it is to clean things in Africa!? We don’t even have a paved road!! Dirt. Is. Everywhere).  The teachers’ houses are inspected. Just in case, ya know, the governor decides he wants to pop in for a cup of tea… Hours are spent practicing the dances and songs that the students will perform as the visitor arrives.  In a word – it is ridiculous. Or in my words – ri-goddamn-diculous.

Last week, we had the joy of receiving the governor of Tete Province.  Now, no one told us what time this guy was going to show up…just the day. So, we obviously cancelled all classes – just to be sure we were good and ready. Around noon, the Nyaos showed up to help us welcome the governor.  (If you’re wondering what a Nyao is…. They’re the traditional, spiritual guardians of the community: a secret society of men who, on special occasions, dress in crazy feathers and rags and do some wild dancing and wailing.  You’re supposed to run and hide from them… which to be honest, they’re usually waving and smacking people with tree branches… so hiding is a good idea.)  Conveniently, Helen and I live directly across from the school so the Nyaos chased us inside our house within seconds. The students were very amused, to say the least.  

At about 1 pm, the group of students who were singing and dancing started doing their thing – which included lots of jumping and yelling and whistle blowing.  At 2 pm, all of the teachers convened outside the school – getting ready to form a giant line of students (teachers at the end) for the governor to drive past as he approached the entrance. (Ps. this was not a cool day, by any means). So we waited. We waited. The dancing kids got tired and thirsty. Three o’clock came and went. No gov.

Then, we saw the brigade slash entourage coming.  Truck loads of policemen, SUVs… seriously about 10 or 12 cars.  Everyone lined up –so ready! And what happened? Oh he zipped right past our school and went on to visit the next village down the road.  Are you kidding me!? So finally around 5:30, the entourage reappears. At this point, a lot of kids had escaped and gone home (I don’t blame them).  We literally had to RUN to get everyone back in order, about 30 people jump out of the cars, and the governor shakes all the teachers’ hands.  Then the school director led the governor on a speed-tour of the school. I’ve never seen Mozambicans move so fast in my life. All of the teachers and entourage were expected to “accompany” this tour – but not get in the way.  This resulted in about 50 people trotting behind two guys… And just like that, in a grand total of 20 minutes, he was gone.  It was 6 o’clock! He was ready to get back to the city and onto paved roads! Meanwhile, we spend hours and hours sweeping and cleaning, waiting and organizing… BAM. Waiting for Guffman.

The half way slump

So, if it wasn’t made obvious by some of the previous posts – coming back to site after Christmas was difficult. I’m told that this is normal.  That this time is supposed to be a low point in the “life cycle of a PCV.”  I felt like I was especially struggling  (along with other Moz15ers) for a number of additional reasons.

Our Peace Corps Mozambique family suffered a horrible tragedy while I was on leave in the states. Five volunteers (one of whom is a good friend of mine) were in a car accident on December 21^st. Two of the female volunteers in the car, who had only arrived in country Sept. 2011,  died almost immediately. The other 3 were med-evac-ed to South Africa with serious injuries (they are all currently recovering well). You can imagine how incredibly traumatizing this was for our entire peace corps family – let alone the families of the volunteers at home in the states.

Needless to say, this took a huge mental toll on my readjustment in Cateme.  Add that to the riot, the fact that I still didn’t really know anyone at my new site AND that I was trying to transition back from America……. Lets just say January was rough.

Not to worry though! I’m pushing right through that little troubled spot in a number of ways.  Some of these things might sound menial.  However, even the smallest things can be a game changer when you’re hanging by a thread…

My personally tested “How to pull yourself out of a funk” guide:

1.      Break down and buy yourself a nice phone.  You have no idea how much the full keyboard on a blackberry will enhance your life. Ha!  Not to mention the Internet capacity. Plus, getting emails and texts from home is generally a highlight of my day.

2.      Get a puppy. If nothing else, it will keep you extremely busy.  If you’re lucky (like me) she will be very cute, willing to listen to whatever you want to talk about, and hands down the most excited person (?) to see you everyday. In fact, Hannah, Eden and I each took one of the puppies from the newest litter at our old house in Moatize.  All 3 sisters are growing and doing well J

3.      Start exercising on a normal basis.  I’ve gotten in the habit of waking up at 5 am and taking off on a morning run as the sun rises.  I’ve never felt more productive before 6 in the morning!

4.      Find students that are screaming potential. Helen and I have started 2 groups for the 11^th and 12^th graders at our school. The first group, REDES, is specifically for girls and focuses on female empowerment. Our girls want to learn how to make a business plan – then to sew and sell capulana bags at our school. The other group, JUNTOS, is a co-ed group that focuses on youth activism.  This particular group of kids wants to either do community theatre (most likely HIV focused) OR write a newspaper for the school/village.  Now this won’t be like an American high school paper. It will be a single copy, handwritten newspaper posted in a communal place. Regardless, these kids show SO much potential… it’s incredible. They’re excited. They know they have to work for their futures – and that they’re fighting an uphill battle.  They hang on every piece of information they can get their hands on. I’m SO thrilled to be working with all of them!! I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about  both REDES and JUNTOS kids in the future.

5.      Never underestimate how much little things can help. Paint your nails. Put up pictures.  Cook something you love.  Watch an episode of Friends.

You’ll be just fine!