August 21, 2008

Happy Quelimane day! Festa! Dia de feria! Yesterday was a holiday in Quelimane, and consequently, the internet decided to take a vacation. This proved to be troublesome because yesterday was the first time my parents and I attempted to skype call each other. I was able to briefly hear my mom and dad’s voices. And with many crackles and broken words, I heard my dad’s first words to me, after waving bye to me as I boarded a plane at O’Hare on August 3rd…“you better watch what you say on that blog!” Ah yes, even from thousands of miles away, my dad is disciplining me. To all my little cousins who are reading this: IT NEVER ENDS. Your parents never stop being your parents and they will attempt to guide you and discipline you throughout your entire life.

That being said, I want to assure everyone in my wonderful family that my little online diary here is for people of all ages, although may contain some questionable content. Although I will attempt to sensor the material to make it suitable for my favorite little cousins, I’m trying to keep it fairly honest and convey what life is like here. In other words, the language will be appropriate and the content will be edited, but might not be suitable for children of all ages. For example, I briefly wrote about going to a hidden bar just outside of the city. It was a VERY eye-opening experience and I attempted to convey a little bit about this without scaring the kiddies. It was culturally interesting on many levels, and I thought I did a decent job at making it appropriate, but according to Snuffy, I missed the mark. One more thing about blog content: I have a link to Amy’s blog which is NOT edited for content. It’s delightfully entertaining but is not targeted towards the younger crowd. That’s my disclaimer.

Anyway, here’s what Amy and I have been up to: We spend our days studying Portuguese and harassing the Vanderbilt IRB and Mozambican Ministry of Health. We’ve been meeting with people about our projects and are hoping to have it finalized soon. Troy and Mohsin have recruited a Mozambican pharmacy student who is interested in adherence, to work with me on my portion of the project. Meanwhile, Amy and I have intense Portuguese bootcamp with Olivia until the second week of September….after which, we’re on our own. Then we’ll begin piloting our studies, most likely at Inhassunge, a jungle-ish type clinic about an hour south of here.

Amy’s amazing Portuguese phrase of the day:
Me to Amy: Please translate, “Esta rua e muito barulhenta”
Amy: The moon is very shiny. (Esta lua e muito brilhante)
Me: OR, “this road is very loud.”
--I give her an A for effort. Other great phrases of recent days involved us asking for separate checks, which roughly translated into, “We need you have separate bills.” We’re kind of frustrated at the moment.

Last night we attended African dance class, held in the backyard of Dr. Paulo three nights a week. It was just Amy and I plus the two instructors. One teaches the moves while the other plays the drums. They unroll these giant mats and we take off our shoes and dance under the African stars while they play the drums. The class ends up being a cross between traditional African dancing and yoga. I look completely ridiculous because I have two left feet and am about as flexible as a chunk of steel. Despite these obvious shortcomings, we enjoyed ourselves immensely!

Lesson of the day: wash your undies on a daily basis. This was made apparent to me today by Regina, the lovely empregada who works here at Michele’s house (where we are currently staying). Yesterday I washed two weeks worth of undies and hung them up on the line to dry. Regina kindly pointed out to me that it’s not becoming of a lady to hang up 14 pairs of panties, and that it is much better to wash your undies at the end of the day and then hang them up one at a time, in an attempt to be discrete. I explained to her that I had always used a washing machine, and what we do in the USA is save up our laundry until the basket is full and we can do a load of clothes. She then said something that roughly translated into, “good luck finding a washing machine in Quelimane.”

On a final note, we met tons-o-peace corps volunteers this week. They flocked to FGH in Quelimane for their quarterly meeting. About 5 or 6 delightful people who are doing interesting projects throughout various districts in Zambézia Province.