Luke's PC Moz Blog. more or less.

My house

Luke — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:31:53 +0000

31 Cents…

Luke — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:58:51 +0000

this much

Can you say, Best shirt ever?

Luke — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:48:50 +0000

Now Just imagine that movie trailer guy with a the gritty low voice reading this...

Sarah got this in Tanzania for me for Christmas.

pics

Luke — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:31:30 +0000

sleeping in their box

typical sweltering day

Janeiro

Luke — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:58:06 +0000

What have I been up too

Well first off I just got back to Quelimane after spending a week in Maputo with all of my fellow Moz 13 volunteers. We stayed at the same place that we stayed at when we first arrived in Maputo so it was a little weird being back there. For instance now I don’t get nervous thinking about how I’m going to ask a staff member to bring some Ketchup or that we need more towels, so check Portuguese skills. It’s also weird to see all these people of my group whom I haven’t seen since training, over a year ago, some because I hardly know those people and others like my two best friends from training Anthony and Vic like we never went o different site and have been hanging out the whole time. Lots of volunteers arrived to Mid service after just coming back from holidays in the states. So I lived vicariously thru their tales of Taco Bell, Starbucks and snow. Also they brought a bounty of movies on their computers and external hard drives so now I have enough TV shows and movies to last me at least through another six months here and I’ve already found portuguese subtitles for a bunch of the movies so my colleagues are pretty excited too.
Another difference this time around is that we are allowed to leave the compound and go into the city, and I think each time I visit Maputo I like it more as I discover more things to do there, such as beer and bumper cars and beer and the tilt a whirl. I felt like I was 12 again and the Mozambican workers thought it was pretty hilarious too.

Then of course in Mid service there was the work component, we me with our new APCD which a lot of us had never met before seeing as Maputo is pretty far from a lot of our sites and reviewed our program goals here in Moz depending on if you are Ed or Health and other not so exciting but very useful things like Monitoring and Evaluation of our projects and how to record the indicators in our projects for reporting to PC and up the ladder from there all the way to Congress. I was also excited to learn that the Peace Corps program in Mozambican is planned to grow. By a lot. Next year they will have two inputs of volunteers into Mozambique. Meaning as of now and so far in Mozambique there is only one input of volunteers a year. New trainees leave home and arrive in Moz more or less in October and go through training until December after which they go to their sites. Next year they will still have the education and health volunteers arriving in October but also want Food Security volunteers to arrive in April for deployment at sites in June. And more immediately effecting my group they would like to start the expansion of the program with increasing the amount of volunteers who extend for a 3rd year to 16 volunteers who extend. I think from the group before in Moz 12 there are….5? who extended to stay for a 3rd year. So thats a pretty large increase in extenders.

Another highlight from Mid service was a visit from the Charge de Affairs (basically the acting US Ambassador to Moz while we wait for one to arrive). I really like all the conversations I’ve had with him as he’s very candid with us on how things are going with the State Department and Moz relations and its cool to hear stories from a guy who works directly with the leaders of Moz as opposed to us who are working only with local leaders. Also whenever he’s traveled up to my area he’s taken time to have a informal meeting with me and other volunteers to hear about our work and how things are on the ground so to speak. Definitely has peaked my interest in the State Department as a really cool and rewarding career. I purposefully did not go into specifics of what he said because I don’t want to accidentally misrepresent his opinions or those of the State Dept.

After the Mid service conference I stayed the weekend after in Maputo for a conference with the coordinators of JOMA so we could plan more in detailed our plans for the upcoming months. I’m not sure if I mentioned in this blog but in July? I think of last year we had a JOMA transfer meeting where the old Moz 12 leaders of the JOMA project handed over responsibilities to the (then) new Moz 13 group. I volunteered to be the Northern JOMA Coordinator, and Quelimane Conference Coordinator. So we talked about what things have to be done by certain dates so we can have Provincial Conferences in April and Tech Trainer Visits to groups throughout the rest of the year. It’s a little overwhelming but luckily I have an awesome site-mate Sarah who helps out with everything and is basically co-coordinator though now after the meeting she may be tied up with finding trainers as she’s in charge of that too. For the conference though we expect to have around 10 groups per conference with 5 kids per group, 1 counterpart and 1 volunteer = 70 people that I need to arrange room and board for, luckily Dinha’s also helping out with this.

During mid-service we also had a PSN meeting (Peer Support Network) meeting, last year at regionals I was selected by the old Moz 12 PSN members to be a part of PSN for the following year. PSN is just as the name sounds a group of volunteers that have their numbers given out to all other volunteers who are available for the other volunteers to call for basically any reason, homesickness, problems at their site, work issues anything, and all the calls are protected under a confidentiality agreement.

Also it looks like I’m going to be the Northern Coordinator for another volunteer led project The Future Business Leaders of Mozambique. Luckily because I have a lot on my plate already my main responsibilities for this will be the distribution of money to northern groups and collection of receipts.

On the primary project work front I also recently made a plan for work where I would be going out into the field Mon – Wed and on Thur and Fri be in Quelimane. While I’m in the field I’d do my usual health talks with the women’s groups and while in Quell can help around the office (IT and also an English class) and also attend to my other Peace Corp project responsibilities like JOMA and FBLM.

So now that I’ve thought it all out it seems like it could be a lot of things at once but I feel happier now having all these things to do. I’m definitely happier here when I have things to do as opposed to not having things to do.

Thieves, Elections, Training

Luke — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:28:28 +0000

Just now Dona Rosa (does domestic work in our office) was telling me about how she heard in of the bairros in a larger city people are burning thieves. I asked her if she thought that was a good thing to do or if people should be doing that here where we are? And she definitely agreed saying that if those thieves are willing to harm children then they deserve being burned alive by the community. I can’t really say that I disagree with her. When people don’t have a lot to begin with and somebody else tries to take what little else they have… it’s not surprising they might react with that extreme violence. Most of these victims of crime live in poverty too, so it’s no excuse that the thieves themselves have resorted to that way of life because they are poor. So is everybody else but they are decent enough folk to try and make a living however they can without harming or taking from others. I hate thieves.

Elections are coming up here in Mozambique and just as in the USA during election seasons EVERYTHING seems related to the elections. So just for fun today I was reading about some of the people and parties (FRELIMO, RENAMO, Guebuza) on wikipedia just for a little bit more a backstory on the political parties. But through all this I’m the passive observer as Peace Corp has strict policies regarding volunteers and politics. So while I can’t support any political parties, participate in any political rallies or even really talk about [Mozambican] politics I still am enjoying listening to my coworkers talk amongst themselves or watching campaigners speak on Tv. One of the most immediate benefits I see of election season though is that they are fixing up the horrible roads in my city! Cars might be able to stay in their lane instead of swerving around car ruining potholes!

I’ve also been informed recently that I will be going down to stay for a few weeks at PST (Pre Service Training) to help out in the training of the new Moz 14 group. It’s interesting thinking of putting myself in the position of those wise Moz 12 volunteers who came down during my training and seemed so relaxed and comfortable in Mozambique and who possessed seemingly unattainable Portuguese speaking skills. Now that I recently passed my one year mark of being in Mozambique (Oct. 2nd) I can’t believe how fast the time has went. I look forward to reassuring the trainees that they WILL learn Portuguese and also participating in the language classes and actually being able to know what the professor is saying all of the time. I think we are all very lucky to be volunteers in Mozambique if not just for the simple fact that we are getting the opportunity to learn another language.

Hmm, other things? Well I guess I can put on here that I have a girlfriend. Yes, she’s Mozambican. She hangs out a lot me and the other volunteers in the area, sometimes just with them without me as she’s become good friends with my gang (Sarah, Rizza, e Denys).

Pictures of Pemba Beach and 2 from Mocuba

Luke — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:33:25 +0000

Pemba

Mom and Scott on Wimbe Beach in Pemba

Boat in Pemba

Old building

Mozambique has many half destroyed buildings from during the war.

A view from the bridge in Mocuba

Me & Mom at the cheapest place to eat in the city.

Various Photos Around Town

Luke — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:27:23 +0000

pictures

Luke — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:16:24 +0000

A broken up boat on the shore in Inhambane City

Goat Transportation

The New Bridge over the Zambeze River

office work

Luke — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:43:54 +0000

up until about a month ago I was going out most every week day to help with the business monitoring in my groups and talk about different health issues (cholera, diarrhea, HIV & AIDS, Tuberculosis) but not anymore. Now I’m pretty much staying in the city and doing things in our office.
Depends on the day but some days I show people how to use MS Excel more effectively (making formulas and auto calculating things) or just simple short cuts on the computer. The changes have happened because the former Provincial director has left and we now have a new Provincial director and also all of the business monitors that used to go out each day into the field to work with the women’s groups are now living in the communities and so now we don’t have cars going out everyday. When the new director arrived I told him that before I had been doing health monitoring and anything else in the office that the old director wanted me to do (Portuguese to English translation for documents as the former director only spoke Portuguese but our reports need to be in English). Anyway and if the new director wanted I would be willing to move out into the field too and work there, or also if he wanted I’d be fine to stay here in the city, as I’m here as a volunteer it depends on how they want to ‘utilize’ my services.
As for the Women’s groups I’m working on a proposal to get funds to buy materials to construct permanent one room shops for the excellent sellers in the women’s groups. I feel that if a family was rewarded with a shop like that they could really continue in their small business. That if i were to come back 5 years after the program end the chances of that woman with the shop would still be selling things and making money would be much higher than if she did not have the shop and had to continue door to door, which I suspect would become much more difficult without NGO support (but not impossible by any means, the women who are committed have gained important micro-business experiences). I guess I’d like to help a few people out really really well then a bunch of people not so well. I’m excited about it and my coworkers are supportive of this idea as it will only strengthen our NGO program.

Very rambling blog entry, I’m just finding it very hard to get into the swing of blogging. sorry. Don’t know what to write about.