Homestay Week 4: A Change Will Do You Good

Sundays are usually difficult for me. With no structured activities, it is easy to get lost in thoughts and wishes. After last week’s Sunday difficulties, I promised myself that I would get out of the house and do something to keep my mind off of what I miss.

I slept in until about 8:00, got dressed, ate breakfast, and went to the internet café to catch up on news and sports. Sunday is a great time to go because just about everyone – including most of the Trainees – are in church. I got all the news I wanted, talked with some friends online, and returned home for brunch with minha mae. After eating quickly – minha mae had to leave the house for a funeral – I cleaned up my room and listened to some music. We were scheduled to play soccer around 3:30, but I started getting antsy around 2:15. I left the house, book in hand, expecting to wait for others.

As I walked up to the court where we were going to play, I saw another Trainee come up with a family’s-worth of criancas. We had some other unexpected players. Playing sports with little kids is always fun, but when they are too small – as many of them were – it becomes a problem. We managed to play for about 90 minutes without seriously injuring anyone. I returned home around 6:00 for a shower, then early dinner. After dinner, I did some reading on how to conjugate verbs – great bedtime reading.

Language class is at minha casa this week, which means I get to sleep an extra 15 minutes everyday; I don’t have to leave myself time to walk to another house. We had a new teacher today – my teacher from the first week – which I think we were pretty happy about. Regardless of the new teacher, we still got stuck up in the minutiae of the language, instead of learning a lot of new vocabulary. At this point, I decided I needed to tackle this language problem myself. I took our one copy of “501 Portuguese Verbs” and started copying over verbs and definitions. I figure that if I can learn 10 verbs a day, I can have 500 verbs memorized by the end of training. It might be slightly unrealistic, but why not shoot high?

Our late morning session was about lesson planning on low resources. A noted change from last week, this session was productive. We know that we will have very little to work with, so attempting to put together a lesson plan using almost nothing was both challenging and practical. We kept the good vibes going in the afternoon with sessions on how to teach speaking and listening, two things that we often take for granted as English speakers; as current language learners though, this is something that the Trainees truly appreciate. When it comes to learning a new language, listening and comprehending others is the biggest challenge for me. And with a language as complex as English, it is surely just as, if not more, challenging.

I returned home on the late side of the afternoon for tea with minha mae. After tea, I continued working on my verbs book and did my homework.

A not so interesting day turned very interesting at dinner. Minhas irmas brought out dinner: rice, spinach, green beans and chicken – all foods I like. But on this night, the chicken was a little different. As the chicken got passed around, I failed to notice a single wing, thigh, or breast. What I did see was a pair of feet and some of the innards – not exactly the parts I was used to. To this point, I have been very good about trying new foods and eating what has been in front of me. But everybody has their line, and this was it for me. It is a difficult line to toe because on the one hand, I would like to not eat chicken feet, and on the other hand, I don’t want to be culturally insensitive. I explained to minha mae, after she put the liver on my plate, that I wasn’t accustomed to eating these parts of the chicken. I think this was the first time in my life that I ever said “no” to eating chicken. Of course, my sisters got a good laugh out of this. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Tuesday went by like a blur. Language class, once again, was productive. We started learning about subjunctive – the bane of my existence in Spanish – and discussed major world problems such as hunger, poverty, and climate change. We still talk like kindergarteners, but to be able to even begin discussing these topics was encouraging. Our late morning session was also productive; the topic was roles and goals of Peace Corps Volunteers. It seems like these sessions are starting to tie together some of the loose threads from prior sessions.

I returned to my house for lunch for the first time in weeks. Usually I take my lunch with me to the afternoon session, but since today’s afternoon session was at my house, I was able to come home. After lunch, we continued discussing major world problems. Each of us picked a topic, and we had to write and speak on the topic. This was an extraordinarily helpful exercise as it helped us learn a lot of new vocabulary that we may actually use in the future.

The highpoint of the afternoon, though, was making samoosas with minha mae. I had looked forward to this because over the past year, I had eaten a fair amount of sambusas (Somali spelling, same food) and really wanted to learn how to make them. Putting a samoosa together is part cooking, part art. There is an origami-like folding sequence that takes place that took me at least ten times to get somewhat right. Minha mae gave me credit though. Apparently, my sisters have no idea how to make samoosas and she made sure to let them know about it. Moments like that make me laugh

It’s funny how one moment can change a day. For most of Wednesday, I felt like I was a half-step off. Language class was a little out of the ordinary. We reviewed the subjunctive tenses and during the break, minha mae served our group tea, homemade biscotti, an home made liqueur; nothing like drinking at 8:30 in the morning. Our late morning session was about rituals and religion in Mozambique. It was a fascinating session that we actually didn’t finish.

I returned home for lunch and the afternoon language session. I was somewhat disheartened by the news I received just prior to lunch about my oral language test. I was told I was at a low intermediate level. I thought I had been moving at a better clip than that and it definitely brought my mood down. After lunch, I looked at our manual to see where we should be after five weeks; at five weeks, Peace Corps expects us to be at a low intermediate level. This single moment turned around my day.

In the afternoon, over tea, I had one of those conversations with minha mae that I can look back on when I’m having a tough day with Portuguese. It is hard to change from Portuguese to English back to Portuguese multiple times a day. But for the late afternoon into the evening, I was locked in. I was able to pick up her use of imperfect subjunctive, which made me very happy. I even got talking to my sisters a bit while we finished a Su Doku

As we finished dinner – xima (pronounced SHE-ma: it is one of those foods served with the sole purpose of sitting in one’s stomach for a while), salad, french fries, rice and parts of the chicken I was happy to eat – thunder and lightning passed their way through Namaacha. A light rain followed, bringing out the frogs, which make the most pleasant sound for sleeping.

In spite of waking up multiple times over the course of the night – huge cracks of thunder and crazy Larium dreams did me in – I woke up feeling strangely refreshed. As I finished breakfast, my parents called to give me the World Series result. We continued talking as I walked toward the training center for Hub Day. Once I hung up the phone, I got into a conversation with a teenage boy. I knew it was going to be a good day because I was able to hold a conversation together in the morning.

I rode the momentum of that first conversation into class, where we spent most of the time reviewing for our upcoming test. Class was fairly productive; we did a lot of speaking, which meant a lot of listening practice for me. The rest of our sessions for the day were about safety and security. Once a week, Peace Corps tells us all the bad things that could happen to us – they’ve happened to others in the past – and it scares just about everyone.

Over our lunch break, I went to the market to try to buy a clipper set. The man selling the razor wanted 350 metacais (about 15 dollars). I bargained him down to 200. He sold it for 200, which was good for him because anything that cheap probably doesn’t work. What was important, though, was I was able to understand what price he wanted, bargain it down, and get the price down to an amount I was willing to lose.

Following our afternoon sessions, a group of us went to the barraca for a drink. Hub Days are usually the only day that we get to see the Health group, so we do our best to catch up. Before I opened my drink, a random group of men at the barraca asked me what I was doing in Mozambique. I explained my role in the Peace Corps, what I had done prior to Peace Corps, and other random topics. We spoke for about 20 minutes, almost entirely in Portuguese. It was a confidence-building conversation, simply because the Portuguese was coming from voices that I hadn’t heard before.

I returned home, with my mind fully in Portuguese mode, for tea with minha mae, quickly followed by dinner. We had a great conversation about the politics of Mozambique. Without a doubt, today was one of those days where a successful conversation led to another successful conversation. After dinner, I tested out my razor, which of course didn’t work. It’s not even worth trying to return it. Losing 200 metacais is not going to kill me.

Just before going to bed, I spoke to my brother for about 20 minutes. He sacrificed his lunch break to talk to me, for which I was very grateful. It was a great end to a great day.

With Hub Day falling on Thursday instead of Friday, our Friday felt like Saturday. And on top of feeling like it was the weekend, it was Halloween. None of us were moving very quickly. We got through the first hour of language class, barely. What was supposed to be a 10 minute break took up the entire second hour when minha mae put out a spread including samoosas, spring rolls, biscotti, and more. But we did continue speaking Portuguese, so in a way, our class continued.

We trekked up the road to catch a ride in Peace Corps car to our late morning session, which was on integrating different learning styles and planning a unit. It was taught by our Volunteer of the week, who did a really good job the entire week. Our afternoon session, taught by current Trainees, was on how to teach reading and writing. They also did a good job getting us information and keeping us a week.

I returned home briefly to change into my “costume”; with the goatee I’m currently growing, a bandana quickly turned me into a pirate. Just about all of the Trainees converged on single barraca where we celebrated Halloween American-style. Some of the Trainees even made some pizza, which was actually pretty good.

By the time I got home, I was feeling pretty good. The affect of alcohol on language ability is really interesting. I wouldn’t say that one’s language ability improves with alcohol, although many people think that. I believe that a person is more willing to make mistakes after a few drinks, so a person is more willing to speak. After dinner, I had a long conversation with minha mae, which apparently made sense, because she kept responding without correcting me.

I woke up a bit earlier than usual on Saturday so our language group could head back into Maputo. As it turned out, our regular teacher was ill, so we had a substitute who only held class for one hour. By 8:40, we were on the road to Maputo. I didn’t have to sit backwards this time, so my trip was already better. We were in town by 10:15 and at a different shopping center than the prior week by 10:45. This place had everything. Our two people who failed to get phones last week got them. One person bought a guitar. I bought a new clipper set that actually works – I did the entire transaction in Portuguese, in spite of the fact that the salesman often spoke English to me. And we all got pizza again. All of us felt like the next time we go to Maputo, we could navigate our way around with some confidence. We were back in Namaacha, after a successful trip, by 4:30.

Back in town, I had tea with minha mae and another Trainee. As I was resting after tea, I received an unanticipated but very much appreciated phone call from my grandparents and my sister, and I called one of my best friends. It was great to hear some new voices from people I hadn’t heard from in a while.

It is amazing what a difference a week can make. After what was a tough week last week, this week was the exact opposite. Maybe it was the new language teacher. Maybe it was a series of good conversations. Maybe it was becoming more confident and comfortable in our new homes. The truth is that it is probably a combination of all these things because all of them are connected. Because communicating has become easier, everything else has become easier.

I try to keep in mind, though, that as we go through this learning process, there are no constants. A lot changed for the better in one week. But as quickly as it changed for the better in one week, next week could be challenging. Life right now is an emotional rollercoaster that can take a rise or a fall at any hour on any day. Little things that bother us can throw us into a tailspin. Small successes or short phone calls can lift our spirits. But soon enough, we will level off and the ups and downs of life in Mozambique will just be normal. I think we’re all waiting for that day.