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| Hitting the German Bakery after Model School |
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| Wearing our bata de professor- our uniforms for when we teach. |
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| Jamie S., Kevin, Andrea and I at the Cascadas. |
If you
know me, then you know that I like academic environments. I like the structure,
academic culture, the learning, the challenge, the social interaction and the whole dynamic that
goes with it. PST was similar to college, except that we were in friggin' Africa! We had a relatively rigorous schedule where we’d start around
7:30 in the morning and end around 4:00-5:00 in the afternoon every day. First,
in the mornings we would go to language class (my favorite), which was held at
one of my fellow trainee’s houses- we'd rotate class location to another classmate's house on a weekly basis. The lessons were “facilitated” by our LCFs
(language culture facilitators) and ran about two hours long. I always looked
forward, whether my
language class group
knew it or not, to
aulas de lingua because it would mean that I
would get to hang out with Eurico & Meque (LCFs) Anneke, Jackie, Rafael,
Anna D. (because there are 4 Annas in Moz 19), and Heather. I would count my language class my
second favorite part of the day;
hanging out with my language class homies, practicing verb conjugations, doing
stupid, silly skits, drawing weird figures on white boards, riding in chapas (I
haven’t written about chapas, but I will… believe me), laughing, joking,
debating in Portuguese and eating
bolachas
(crackers- either called “Maria” or “
Agua
e Sal”) with
sumo (juice boxes)
during our
lanche*(snack break). After
lingua we’d then go to “tech classes,”
which were meant to help prepare us for our jobs in schools in Mozambique as
well as inform us about various aspects of our PCV duties. Most weeks, a MOZ
15er or 17er PCV (PCVs that had arrived 1 to 1¾ years before us) would be
hosting our classes alongside another “tech” LCF (ours was Noemia- she was
awesome!), so we’d get a real PCV perspective on the lessons. After tech, we
would go to language class again for other two-or-so hours and, afterwards,
we’d be done for the day.
Once a week (usually in the middle of the week) we’d
have “HUB Days” in which all 68 of us would get together to spend all day in a
big auditorium at the IFP. We’d receive lectures about history, medical
information, culture, safety/security, Peace Corps resources that were
available to us, as well as team-building activities that were run by other
PCVs. My favorite part of these sessions was being together with the rest of
the 68. During normal days we were isolated to our discipline groups
(Math/Physics, Biology/Chemistry, and English/Teacher Training) and didn’t get
to visit with the others. HUB days and normal days would end regularly around
the same time, but after our PCT duties were completed, we would often hang out
after class.
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| Xavi's bar scene. |
My favorite part of the day (I mentioned my
second favorite earlier) was the time my friends and I spent together after
classes. We had enough time before curfew to go to O Bar de Xavier or Xavi’s for a couple beers and chamosas. I’m not much of a drinker but
I loved spending time with people. There were drinking games involving verb
conjugation in Portuguese, nerdy conversations and drunken mishaps a plenty to fofoca (gossip) about. Even better than
Xavi’s was the time I spent in Bairo
Fronteira, where the Bio people lived. We’d sometimes go to the Centro Social en masse and hang out, or
to study, ‘till it got dark. Other times, we would gather,where the Bio people
had their tech classes, and watch movies on a portable projector that one of the
trainees had brought. There I really got to know Casey, Stephen, Ella, Amanda
and Jamie S. (‘cause there are 2 Jamies in Moz 19), my besties in PST. Between hiking10km out of town to some small cascadas (waterfalls) and hanging around people's houses on the weekends, we all became very close. I'm leaving out a GREAT amount of detail regarding some or all of these amazing people with respect to how they have impacted my life, but I'll go ahead and parlay that for another blog... maybe. ;)
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| Hiking to the Cascadas. |
In
hindsight, the most valuable things I received from PST, aside from language and
culture training, were the friendships that I made.
My friends were the savory ground beef in the juicy cheeseburger that was PST;
the whole thing wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying and damn near pointless
without them, if you take my meaning (I like cheeseburgers…). It was the
hardest thing I had to do, since saying goodbye to my family and friends in the
US, when I said my despedido (fairwell)
to my friends at the end of PST as they went to their sites. I remember being
so afraid of being in Mozambique without a support system; I didn’t want to be
alone, and being thousands of miles away from everyone I had a relationship with,
my fear was well founded. The friends that I met in PST assuaged every such
fear, built my confidence, encouraged me and imbued me with conviction to do as
much as I can as a teacher here and so much more. They truly enriched my life (you know who you are, you MOZ 19ers) and I count them among those that have brought me
to where I am in my life today. Sometimes, you don’t know how much of an impact
a person (or group of people) will have on your when you first meet them. When
I met MOZ 19 in Philadelphia, I had no idea the role they’d play in my life as
a PCV. I kick myself for not taking more picture at staging…:P
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| Halloween Party! |
*-Yes, we had the old kindergarten snack time while training
to become grass-roots development workers in a 3rd world country. It
didn’t matter that we were 20-60 years old, had at some point led independent
lives prior to being in Mozambique or that we held (at least) a bachelor’s
degree; our host mothers still packed each one of us a snacky snack every day
we’d go to school and there wasn’t a goddamn thing we could do about it. xD My
favorite was the “Medly of Fruits” juicebox and the Agua e sal crackers. Did I mention that I love snack time and my
host mommy! :P
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| Our BA LCFs |
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| Cascadas! |
