“My English is bad, but my life is good”

(Quote above attributed to one of my English theatre students)

My friend Meagan from Zambezia province came to visit me in Chicumbane for a few days after Midservice Conference (highlights of which, by the way, included all 62 of us Moz15-ers being together again for the first time since we left training, bumper cars in Maputo, Korean BBQ where Helen the legit Korean sweet-talked the restaurant owner into giving us free drinks, a mock burlesque show in honor of another PCV's birthday, a Superlative event in which I was voted Moz 15's "Most Likely to Reject You at a Bar," Thai food, pizza, and sangria with good friends). Being around so many people, after leading a solitary lifestyle for so long, was a bit exhausting and made me aware of some of the ways I have changed since being in Peace Corps. While others were fueled by the nightlife allures of drinking, dancing, and socializing, I yearned for my quiet town and my movie-before-bed-at-10pm routine.
Meagan lives in Quelimane, a big city in northern Mozambique, and it was interesting to discover just how different her Peace Corps experience has been from mine although we are both female health volunteers. She has hot running water at her house, so needless to say bucket bathing is not the norm for her. In Quelimane, she hangs out a lot with expats instead of Mozambicans, so she hears mainly English and Portuguese while I am constantly inundated with Changana. (She was completely bewildered when she got in a chapa with me. "What is this that they're speaking?" She asked.) Her organization has a private car so usually she doesn't even have to take public transportation, and the few times we had to get in super crowded chapas where people were crouched all over each other, she got a little upset. My site is a cattle town, and everywhere you go you find cows strolling around in packs, or sometimes even wandering around alone (and a few times, into my yard). Meagan's reaction: "I've never seen so many cows in my life!!" At her site, she has a guard while I just have my dogs to protect the house. I think she found it odd that I talk to them a lot, although she did agree that Magorducha my puppy is super cute. People pass through her site a lot, and her house has a constant stream of visitors but since I'm a smaller site and only a few hours from Maputo, I tend to be a rest stop only for friends passing through to the capitol city. I am not fazed by the presence of cockroaches, big or small, in my house, but I could tell that Meagan was disturbed, and I can guarantee she has never had to beat a rat to death. (Another PCV once told me that when it comes to bugs and critters that I'm "stronger than most," but I really think it comes with the territory. When you live in a part canico (reed) house and have a latrine in the back, it's inevitable, and if you want to survive for two years you just gotta do what you gotta do- right?)
One giant overlap between me and Meagan, however, is our work. We both work with youth- Meag is paired with a girls' education program much like REDES, and she does activities similar to the ones I do at CACHES. While she was here, we would go to CACHES in the evenings and she taught my kids hopscotch, hokey pokey, pass the orange, and other games and team building activities. One game in particular was a huge hit with both my coworkers and the children: two teams raced to successfully throw crumpled up pieces of paper into a box, which was supposed to get them used to throwing away trash properly. Meag deemed her team "Uva" (Grape) and my team "Manga" (Mango) and we all cheered and screamed for our teams while they competed. Of course, there was some definite cheating going on, but all in all things went really well and Meag and I had a lot of fun with the kids.
Another defining aspect of our experience in Mozambique for us, as women, has been sexual harassment. One day while we were walking around together in Xai Xai, we counted 15 times that men tried to hiss, holler, or otherwise attempt conversation with us. In Chicumbane, where the people are more or less used to my presence, we rarely got harassed but we definitely still got stared at. Meagan used to have a male sitemate (who has since left) and so she didn't really experience the sexual harassment until later on in her service. I've noticed too that when I'm with another male PCV or with Kevin, no one tries to talk to me; if anything, they'll greet the male instead.
After three days, Meagan left to go visit another PCV in Macia, but I suspect that she'll be back next week because she has some time to kill before going back to Maputo to take the GRE. In the meantime, I'm enjoying having quiet time and making conversation with my dogs :)