A Million Points of Light

Woo! It’s been a busy week. What’s that? The relentlessly bored Peace Corps volunteer now has two organizations and more than enough on her plate?

Chicumbane is great! (Aside from the fact that my house is perpetually in the shade and, well into Mozambican winter, I’m freezing my butt off. I wear socks to bed!) I currently have sweatpants on and a fuzzy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Dinner was Chinese corn chowder, which brought back good childhood memories and thoughts of my mother.

I’ve been going to both orgs every day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon… But some days I find myself waiting around for nothing, and other days I feel like I need to be in two places at once. It’s only the first week, so I keep reminding myself to just sit and breathe, although I’m itching to DO something. The question, though, is not “What do I even do?” but rather, “Where do I even start?”

I suppose you’re interested in what it is I’m working with, now that I’m not babysitting toddlers on a daily basis. Here is a brief summary of both orgs:

CACHES

The organization that Peace Corps felt would be a perfect fit for me. Roughly translated, CACHES stands for Child Artists Fighting Against HIV/AIDS. Here… Art, theatre, and musical expression meet sexual health and HIV/AIDS education! Goals include: promote creativity; encourage healthy choices and behaviors; give children a structured environment to play and learn (after school). They meet every day of the week, in the afternoons around 3-4pm and, unfortunately, right before it gets dark and I have to scurry home. A relatively new organization, actually started by a previous Peace Corps volunteer. Currently has about 50 children, ages 4-14.

TSEMBEKA

A Christian home-based care organization funded by EGPAF (Elizabeth Glasier Pediatric Foundation). The organization consists of 100 volunteer activists who do home visits to the HIV+ population, in seven neighborhoods of Chicumbane. The org works with the local hospital, and does weekly support groups and mini-classes in the community. Also partners with Habitat for Humanity.

Currently, a group of Habitat volunteers are here to build houses for OVC’s and vulnerable families. I had a chance to meet them and was surprised to see that they were all white, middle-aged women! Turns out, they are part of a group called “Women for Hope,” comprised of women from the United States, England, Germany, Ukraine, Canada, and South Africa, who are united in their desire to actively “make a difference,” beyond just donating money to an anonymous face. I accompanied them on several home visits and had a chance to see houses already built by Habitat and meet some of the families impacted by Habitat’s work in the community. Along the way, we “mulungos” (white people) attracted quite a crowd of giggling Mozambican children who adored being in the spotlight of all the whirling cameras.

Aside from work, I’ve been working on community integration: greeting neighbors on the way to work, shooting the breeze with coworkers, attending community functions, chatting with the old man I buy bread from, etc. The previous volunteer didn’t particularly like children, which means that I don’t constantly have little faces at the front door, and my trash remains untouched. It actually gets a little lonely. I’ve asked the next door neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter Tania to bring her friends over sometimes to draw, because I miss my Art Club.

By the time I had left Chibuto, I was more or less recognized even in the city. But here, I start all over again with the “Hey China!” from men who have yet to figure out I’m not interested, in responding or otherwise. Last weekend when I was coming home from XaiXai, the guy next to me on the chapa was “discreetly” trying to take a photo of me with his camera phone, holding it up suspiciously in the air as his friend peered at the screen to make sure I was, indeed, in the photo. Like I’ve never used a camera phone before. I swatted it out of the air, tempted to toss it out the open chapa window. (And, because I was the one sitting next to it, the chapa window was indeed open, letting in the lovely cool breeze and drawing disapproving glares from the rest of the chapa patrons.)

The dogs attempt to follow me to work every day, twice a day. I yell at them to go home, but they just wait until I’m out of sight and then come trotting behind me, grinning, once I think I’ve successfully escaped. However, they’ve learned to maintain a smart distance to avoid getting smacked. I may need to start locking them up in the house, before they figure out where I work and become frequent visitors. But lucky, lucky puppies… Since dried fish comes from Chibuto and is so expensive in XaiXai, I have now switched to using fat and leftover meat from the butcher’s. How do they repay me? Of course, by trying to chew up the thick foam pads I’ve given them to use as beds. Silly mutts.