Feb. 1, 2011: First, I want to say a big HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY to my amazing niece Madison Mackenzie Kulow!! I can't believe you are already 12 years old, and I cannot wait to see you again and see how much you've grown. I love you Madi, and I miss you SO much.
January 29th, 2011
Today I got in touch with my artistic side, and it was fabulous. Usually Peace Corps volunteers don't start working on our secondary projects (things like REDES, a girl's empowerment group; JOMA, a youth art and journalism group, etc.) until after the first trimester of school. ThF way you can settle in and determine what the community's needs are and how to best suit their needs. However, as there have been previous volunteers in Angoche, including the amazing Margaret who started here last year and is therefore still here, we have already started ours. Our REDES girls are starting meetings next weekend but this weekend we got started with the JOMA boys.
The main road coming into our town is quite a site to see. Despite the fact that 80% of the road leading to Angoche from the capitol city of Nampula is nothing more than packed dirt, the road leading into our town is a massive divided street that could easily fit six cars across its wide berth. The main area of the city looks more like a ruin than a town packed with people. It is full of concrete buildings in various states of disrepair, some to the point that they look near collapse. You get the distinct feeling that this town has long since seen its hayday and has fallen into shambles, forgotten by its previous inhabitants.
And in some ways, this is exactly the case. Angoche was once a thriving Muslim trading post, founded in the 1490s, (one of the reasons the local dialect is a mixture of Arabic and Swahili). The town was a huge metropolis filled with impressive buildings, gorgeous houses, and rich foreigners who ran everything. However, since Mozambique gained independence in the 1970s, much has changed. Nearly all of the foreigners have long since gone, and while others have come in (many "lojas," or stores, are owned by Chinese or Indian families, for example), the town is more or less in the hands of the native Mozambicans.
This means, since the government of Mozambique is already extremely poor and also fraught with corrupt officials who embezzle what little money there is, that most everything here is run down and poorly cared for. There are a few exceptions of course, but the point is the main area of town has the feeling of lost grandiosity and is now falls far short of that former beauty.
As a good project for our JOMA group, some of the previous volunteers had the boys paint a mural on a concrete wall on the main road leading into town. Since then the mural has since been ruined by Frelimo, the only real political party active in Mozambique currently, when they put up a bunch of campaign posters before the elections in November. So today we began redoing the mural. It has about 16 panels in total and the boys decided they wanted to focus on two topics important here in Angoche and all of Mozambique: malaria and domestic violence (the last mural was about HIV/AIDS). The boys spent the last two weeks drawing up their ideas for the mural, which include a couple panels each about the causes, problems, and solutions for each of these problems.
Today we finished scraping off the old paint and primed, drew, and painted the first half of the mural. Between my roommate, site-mate, the 5 boys, and me, it took from 6 a.m.-6 p.m., 12 full hours. It was quite a job. We haven't completely finished the first half of the mural and that is the goal for tomorrow. Then next weekend we'll do the second set of panels, about domestic violence.
Overall the day was a success. However, despite the complete overcast (and therefore bearable temperatures) and my sunscreen, I got completely fried. Figures. But the day overall was a much needed break. While we were working all day, it was a soothing and very concrete job with very visible results. Being here has really made me appreciate how nice it is to be able to see the results of the work you're doing. It was backbreaking and I'm sure I will be sore everywhere tomorrow, but it was almost relaxing to be soothed by the scraping of the metal on concrete and calmed by the rub of the paint brush over the wall, bringing with it new color and purpose.
Overall, a successful day if there ever was one in Mozambique.
:-)
And now, for a little dinner and some well-earned rest.
Miss you all!
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