Dear Hortencia,

I am writing to you – one 15-year-old in a million - but my message is for all of the women in the world. Hortencia, I want to tell you something, and then I want you to tell two other women, and each of those two women will tell two women. Do you think we can reach all of us?

Too many times people tell you what you can’t do because you’re female. You were born into a place where women “can’t” do a lot of things. I want to tell you what you can do, I want to talk and talk and talk about the things that you can do until you understand that there is nothing you can’t do. Being female can be inconsequential or crucial. It shouldn’t matter, but it’s everything. In Nauela, there is a division between men and women that has rarely been crossed. It’s actively maintained by all of us, but now I want to rip it apart, and I need you to help. It’s not the job of one person, it’s the job of all the people who are being choked by this thick black line. I don’t want to hear anymore that we can’t do something because women don’t do that. I want to do those things to show that women can do them. But I need your help. I know what you can do, and you can do anything. But it’s not enough for me to know, you too need to know what you can do, and believe it.

YOU CAN SPEAK. You can speak and you can be heard. Speak until someone hears you, and don’t stop there. Speak with confidence. Hortencia, take your hand away from your mouth when you speak. You can look straight at the person you’re speaking to. Why do you avert your eyes? You don’t have to speak in a whisper, or just move your lips with no sound coming out. You can make noise. Make a lot of noise.

YOU CAN SAY NO. If someone is pressuring you to do something you don’t want to do, you don’t have to do it. You have the right to refuse. You don’t have to stay silent and submit. Talk to someone who can help you. You don’t have to be 15 and pregnant like so many of your classmates. I want to see you finish school. I want to see you earn the grades you earn, not the grades that a teacher decides to give you because you did or did not satisfy his wishes.

YOU CAN SAY YES. We are all human. It’s natural, and normal, and ok, to want something. You can say when you want something. You don’t have to use false charm, flirt your way through, or stand there hoping someone will notice you. If you want something, say it. Speak up. If you have a dream, pursue it. Have a dream.

YOU CAN RAISE YOUR HAND. You are as intelligent as your male classmates. Show them that. Show them up. Show them who you are. Speak up in class. Swarm the chalk container when I ask for volunteers. Race them to the board.  Drown them out with your answers. Grab the spots on the benches, instead of always sitting on the floor. You have an opinion, and it’s just as valid as others.

YOU CAN PLAY SOCCER. I want to see you kicking the ball, not being kicked off the field yourself. When you hear someone snickering “she plays like a girl,” raise your head proudly and say, “yes we do.” Sometimes you have to fight back. Sometimes you have to demand respect. Sometimes you have to rob the ball to get attention. Kick your way through, if that’s what it takes.

YOU CAN BE WHOEVER YOU WANT TO BE. You deserve to have a bright future. If you want to get a good education, you deserve that. It’s not your obligation to get married young, have kids when you’re still a kid, and quit school while your husband continues living his life. You can work and earn your own money. You can have a great personality! You don’t have to mold to what society tells you a women should be. You can be bold, tell jokes, be sarcastic, talk back, be witty, be tough. Whoever you are, you can let that person out.

YOU CAN. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t.

From one woman to another,

Steph

Hortencia.

Curious George, Day 17: Brick-Making

You can huff and puff all you want, but you’ll never be able to blow them down! 100% natural and from Nauela, these clay-and-water blocks are baked to (almost) perfection.

I’m sure you’ve all thought about how many steps actually go into producing something deceivingly simple, like the cap on a jar of Snapple, or the wrapper of a Starburst. I knew making bricks couldn’t be a one-step process, but I didn’t know exactly how many steps would need hundreds of helping hands.

Taking the mud from the ground and molding it into a rectangle shape is the most straightforward part. Each student was responsible for making 75 bricks, which totals, approximately:

(1000 students – 281 students that will never show up) * (75 bricks/student – 32 bricks that will crack in half/student) = 30,917 bricks

Students made bricks over a period of 4 weeks, a few arriving at the school each day in their work clothes. The process involves spending a few hours standing in a mud-pit up to your ankles, or up to your eyebrows, depending on what end of the body you’re standing on.

Each student used a hoe to dig a dirt-pit, then carried bucket after bucket of water to turn it into a mud-pit. One otherwise normal weekday, Nooreen and I showed up at the school ready to get dirt under our fingernails. The students were a little surprised, as were my colleagues when we showed up where they were gathered in a classroom, ready to throw mudballs at them.

Let's just say it’s not culturally normal for a teacher to play in the mud.

But there we were, up to our kidneys in the mud-pits, stomping around and laughing at the sound of it squelching between our toes. We clumsily tried to do what my students so un-thoroughly explained to us: pick up a ball of mud, slop it into the mold, smooth the top. So many doubts – should it be flat, or rise above the mold? Perfectly smooth or texturized? Where can I carve my initials? Finally, turn the mold upside-down so the brick slides out onto the ground. Let dry for a couple days.

 

They look like bricks, but hold your horses. And goats and chickens. You didn’t think we could build a library with raw bricks, did you? To bake our 30,917 bricks, first the students must carry all the bricks from where they are toasting in the sun to right next to the library site. Then, the students must go into the woods to cut branches and trunks to cook the bricks. Then, the students must carry the wood, one big trunk or bundle of branches at a time, from where it was chopped to the library site, one mile. Then, students must pile the bricks into oven shapes and put mud in all the crevices. Then, students must light a fire in each oven and sit with the bricks tending the fires for 24 hours while they bake.

Apparently someone got hungry and
took a bite out of the middle brick.

Every sentence above that started with “the students must…” is another day of activities. The students do these activities only once a week, so each of those sentences equals another week of waiting for the bricks to be ready. The process is moving forward “little by little,” as my colleagues love to say. Day by day, brick by brick. Hopefully that doesn’t mean this will take 30,917 days.

brick ovens. Pizza, anyone?

Nooreen demonstrates her hoeing abilities

Nooreen's First Brick!

My First Wet-Dry Brick.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Mozambique: Chapas, Boleias, and Other Alternatives to Teletransportation

As many of you know, I frequently occupy myself by pondering the possibilities and philosophical dilemmas of teletransportation. But until it is resolved, invented, tested, and reliable, I need to find other ways of getting around. Here are some options I have in this country:

Chapa: imagine a mini-van. Now imagine that the bucket seats have been replaced with a 5 rows of bench seats. Now stuff 29.8 people inside, don’t worry about their level of comfort, and just when you thought there was no room even for a chicken, it stops to pick up another three human beings.

Boleia: Getting a “ride.” Basically just hitch-hiking, but one of the most comfortable, fastest, and cheapest ways to travel. You won’t have anyone’s armpit in your face or baby on your lap – you might even have your own seat – they don’t stop every 3 minutes to pick someone up, and sometimes they don’t charge you. And you meet interesting people. It’s a win-win-win-win-win situation.

The boleia dance, patented by Mac and Ariel (front 2 volunteers)

Open-back pick-up truck: A mix between a boleia and a chapa. Similar to a chapa in that you have to pay, similar to a boleia in that there is no official system for deciding where they are going to go and what time one will pass by. The advantage over a chapa is that you have fresh air blowing in your face, instead of stale air that someone has breathed out.

Bicicleta: Luckily, the chain on my bike broke within the first kilometer of riding it home from the store where I bought it, and not in the 5^th or 14^th kilometer. There are no gears on these bikes; just you and your leg muscles straining to carry you and how ever many other people you are carrying on the back or handlebars up the hill. They sometimes have brakes.

Passear: verb, to go for a walk; meander. The passear pace is one that you may have never experienced if you grew up in the United States. You are moving forward – but only just barely. For a true passear, hesitate slightly before putting each foot down. If you feel like you’re moving in slow motion, or perhaps even backwards, and you lose your balance because you’re moving so slowly, then you’re doing it right. Once every couple minutes, pause to look at the scenery.

Guest Post: A Visit to Mozambique!

Hello! This is Steph’s blog here, featuring Nooreen Meghani, world traveler! If this was a music video played on one of the big busses that you can take long distances (eg. Nampula – Ocua/Pemba: 5/7 hours) I would rap and you would stand in the personal space of three other people for an uncomfortable amount of time. Luckily that is not the case. I am tired of sharing my personal space!

I arrived in Mozambique on July 18^th, one day later than planned, but no less enthusiastic. I wanted to see first-hand what Steph is doing here, and visit a part of the world I might not otherwise, especially while there’s someone here to put up with me (read: translate).

When I got here, I was excited to participate in all of Steph’s household chores (don’t tell my parents!). Little did I know the work she would put me to!

Every day we were in Nauela we went at least once to the well for water. When I got tired of pumping a small child would take pity on me and take over. Then, I had to carry five whole gallons of water on my head! Once, I forgot my towel, which I used as a capulana, and I carried the bucket on my head without it. I think the dents are permanent.

And! Whenever we wanted to cook (anywhere from 1-3 times a day) I had to get my hands all dirty with charcoal. People here argue about whose turn it is to touch the charcoal! I made a friend just by filling his fogao with charcoal.

Forget the charcoal – one day we went to check out the progress at the library, and we made bricks! That involves stomping barefoot in mud, picking up mud with your hands, and digging in the clay and pouring water and sometimes putting a mudprint on your best friend’s face. Oops.

Luckily, laundry only takes about 4 hours, so if you happen to end up covered in mud you’re only a morning and a few trips to the well (wash your capulana LAST) from cleanliness – sort of. Turns out hands (at least mine) aren’t as effective as washing machines. There are many people in Nauela with at least one article of pure white clothing. I don’t know how they do it. Coming right off of field camp where you’re kind of expected to be dirty probably gave the impression that I’m a slob. I guess it isn’t too far from the truth!

Speaking of field camp – Mozambique has some awesome rocks! Pretty metamorphosed and weathered granite/granodiorite I think. The soil is very clay-rich, which allows for good/easy brick making. Most buildings in Nauela and similar towns are made of bricks, for which the clay is dug right where the building is going to be. (See Steph’s soon-to-be-posted post on brick making!)

Anyway, I digress. I can’t keep up the complaining tone though - I loved every moment of my visit, even waiting for transportation in the rain!

From Nauela we went to visit another PCV, Lona, in Ocua. At Lona’s site we enjoyed the luxury of the school’s generator and watched New Girl almost every night (and some mornings with breakfast and tea!). Lona’s school has a working generator, so she can charge her computer when it’s running! When we weren’t watching New Girl or cooking or just hanging out, we went for walks by the river, ate bean burgers, and drew on her walls. I say this for Lona and all of the people I will talk about in this post: It is wonderful to know that Steph has such good friends in her life.

We went back to Nauala for a day and saw a few of Steph’s colleagues who were still in town (it’s vacation, so many were away) and got some water (of course), drank some hot cocoa, and the next day we went to Gurue! The Cha/Tea Capital of Mozambique!!

Oh. My. Gosh. Cha Gurue is so good. I won’t tell you how many pounds I’m bringing back, but it will keep me in tea for some time. The tea fields are beautiful, and the tea trees are actually teak. Eucalyptus grows everywhere to suck up the constant rain and allow other crops to grow, and people have to dig out their houses regularly because there is so much water that the hills move.

We stayed for a few lovely days with Invinha’s PCV, Amanda, and her brother Steve, who was also visiting. With them, we hiked up through the tea fields (which cover the feet of Gurue’s mountains) to a beautiful waterfall! It was a long hike, and when we got back to town we stopped in a shop and treated ourselves to fresh shamoosas (aka samosas)! Yum!

ALSO WE SAW A DUNG BEETLE

While we were in Invinha, Steve and I both killed a chicken each. I think the middle picture aptly describes how I feel about it. In Mozambique it’s an honor to eat the chicken head, so… yup. I ate it. When I looked at the pictures and sniffled a bit, Steph said “don’t cry, we left them in Ile or Nampevo.” Hahaha! True.

urp.

Moving on! I also celebrated my birthday while in Invinha, and, to my vast surprise, Steph baked me a cake! And two visitors, Ruben and Justina, brought me a capulana for my birthday!! It was incredibly lovely.

Ahhh! 

L-R Steve, Amanda, Ruben, Justina, Nooreen, Steph

CAKE

From Gurue/Invinha we headed to Nampevo to see Steph’s friend Belito and to get the full Mozambican experience. We rode on the outside edge (legs inside) of an open-back truck most of the way, and then in Ile (where the truck dropped us off) we ran into an ambulance driver who recognized Steph (he drives through Nauela regularly) who took us the rest of the way!

Fight!

Belito has a 10’x10’ room with a concrete floor. He sleeps on a straw mat with one blanket, and he is probably the happiest most energetic person I’ve ever met. It was an eye opening stay. It makes me think about all of the people here with his potential and drive and no outlet. I think Mozambique is making strides on its own, but I’m glad Peace Corps (and Steph) is here to encourage and support, and perhaps speed up the process of getting Mozambique’s people the options for their futures they want, need, and deserve.

Tonight, we’re in Nampula, ready for my flight out tomorrow. I will be sad to leave Steph and my new friends. That doesn’t begin to describe how I feel, but you get it!

I’ll leave you with a few memorable quotes by Steph from my time here. She will need some help re-learning English when she gets back. She’s so well immersed in Portuguese that she literally speaks it in her sleep!

This is not a pose.

“I’m going to paint this over in pen”

“It’s just something work.” “Busywork?” “Yeah!”

“Oh, I didn’t write down the – what’s the thing with five numbers called?” (zip code)

“I got ash everywhere and I was going to sweep it up, but it’s still winding” (it was windy)

“Amanda, was it you I was talking about with (Portuguese word)?”

“What’s the opposite of fine salt? Thick grained?”

“It’s texturized!”

And one more from me:

"It was physically difficult to saw through her neck" (Poor Gertrude, my chicken)

Steph looking like an old man/Voldermort