This is a lovely photograph of me with some of the neighborhood criancas. They fight to hold Lindsay's and my hands when we walk to the market. Super cute.

And speaking of photographs, I finally put up some more pictures. I switched websites. The new one is: http://community.webshots.com/user/carriecarnevale?vhost=community
If I don't get to put captions with the pictures this time at the internet, it'll happen next time.

As for current events, I just got back from spending a week at a place called Rio Savane. It took us an hour an a half down a dirt road to get to the boat that took us to what was pretty much a deserted island (technically, it's a peninsula, but it might as well have been an island).
It was a week of sleeping 7 people in a 4 person tent under coconut palms... seems serene, except that the sound of a falling coconut in the middle of the night can take weeks off of your life.
It was a week spent cooking over a self-made fire with only 1 pot for 9 people, eating out of a frisbee with only spoons or fingers, surviving on oatmeal, popcorn, and rice. I cooked a darn good meal of shrimp pasta... over a fire I started myself from scratch. We bought the shrimp from a fishermen's village about a kilometer down the beach from where we stayed, and I probably could have eaten them all. One night, we had a bonfire on the beach and had smores! Pictures to come... eventually.
Now, it's back to Catandica for my second trimester.
Ate a proxima vez!

Big one...

It's been a while. Rumor around Catandica is that we might get internet this November-ish. On Moz time, that probably means that I'll get to use it once before I return to America.

Here's a lil' recap from the past few weeks...

One Monday afternoon, a friend of ours took us in his car up to the top of the mountains in Catandica. I can't even describe how amazing it was, but we could see all of the villa of Catandica and mountains mountains mountains all around. Apparently, we were only about 10 miles from the border to Zimbabwe. There is a large semi-migrant population in Catandica who travel between here and Zimbabwe (the majority of this trip, mind you, is through a decent-sized mountain range) on a monthly-ish basis. They walk. They walk with 35 kg sacks of rice on their heads. They walk with 35 kg sacks of rice on their heads with a baby on their backs. Amazing. Anyways, we're planning to go camping up there one weekend so that we can see the sun rise.

Tuesday of that same week, before classes started, the director of the school made an announcement that every person who enters the school grounds must wash their hands with bleach water in order to prevent Cholera. If you have a problem with that, don't come to school. So, for the remainder of the week, there was a lovely bucket full of chlorine-scented somewhat-greyish water waiting for me to dip my hands into. They also have hand washing “stations” along the EN7 (the road we take from Chimoio to Catandica) at which every person riding in the vehicle must get out and have bleach water poured over their hands. If you see a particularly Peace Corps-esque picture of me next to a bucket, that's it.

Wednesday was the day of the dance. We got taken to a nearby village called Nhazonia to watch an African dance group practice. We got there, and there was a man pounding away on the batuke. I just assumed he was practicing for when the others got there, but when we asked, he said he was CALLING the other folks. The 8 or so dancers arrived, along with swarms of children and older women. The dancing was out of control. I swear, the derrière of the African woman is controlled by the same brain as the rest of her body.

Due to a change of plans that Saturday, we ended up at a lake near a town called Manica with a family of really nice South Africans. We played big sister to the 2 daughters that day, went out in their motor boat, went tubing in a lake with crocodiles (don't think I've ever held on so tight!), and had a barbeque on a rock island in the middle of the lake. I never imagined that I'd wind up on a motor boat in Africa. This continent never ceases to surprise me.

Back in Catandica, I've been doing a lot of teacher-esque work. I gave my first exams and had to give quite a few zeros. Even after several warnings of “if I see your head move one more time, even a little bit, you're going to get a zero” and similar threats, some of those lil' punks still couldn't keep their eyes on their own paper. Guess they'll know that I'm not joking next time.

We have recently been working with some of the neighborhood crianças who like to hang around our house. In spite of VERY limited Portuguese skills (most of them speak Mbarue, a local dialect), we learned that they range from ages 5-12 and have never been to school. A lot of them cannot recognize numbers out of sequence, and even simple math problems like 2 + 2 are difficult for them (8 was a popular answer for that one when we started on math). Lindsay and I will work with the crianças in our spare time. I think our light skin is reason enough to make us interesting, and they all really like the attention. They're in awe of our skin and our hair and will just sit next to us, touching our skin or hair. One weekend, some of the girls braided my hair, and I don't think I've ever had such a painful hair care experience.

On the downside of that, we frequently have a herd of the neighborhood kids hanging around outside our house, hoping to see us and ask us to come out. That's great... when I'm not busy lesson planning or working or don't particularly want to have 10 kids competing for my attention. “Anda ca,” “ta ta,” and “aZUngo” can all be heard throughout the day (which mean “come here,” “hello (in Mbarue),” and “white person (in Mbarue)”). They also will ask for things like water and food and for us to let them into our house. When they show us their big bellies, swollen from malnutrition and parasites, it breaks my heart to tell them no, but we have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise, our house will turn into the local watering hole.

This week, we have our regional Peace Corps meeting at a hotel called Garuso, just outside of Manica. We'll get back from there next Monday, and that same day (hopefully), my friend Nancy will arrive from Zambia. Tuesday, we'll head to Chimoio so that we can catch a 4 am bus to the beach on Wednesday!!! More to come from those adventures soon!


And because I just now got to the internet (almost 2 months after starting to write this!!), round 2...


I'm in Chimoio now for a journalism conference with a student group. I brought 2 students to spend a week learning from Mozambican journalists, discussing pertinent topics, and having a darn good time. I'm in charge of one of the teams of students, who will, in the evenings after meetings, compete in various games. The ninjas (my team) will be walloping the pirates (the to-be losers). Ninjas and all things ninja-related are super-popular in Mozambique. Almost every villa has at least one movie room (Catandica has at least 4 that I've counted). They're basically just rooms with a TV, DVD player, sometimes benches to sit on, and always bad, way-too-loud audio equipment. Because action films can often overcome language barriers, kung-fu films (and thus ninjas) have attained the same level of fame and popularity as the movie Titanic during my preadolescence. Many of my students are of the opinion that, as an American, I should know all other Americans, especially the famous ones. Thus, one of the first questions that I get asked upon first meeting somebody new is “Teacha', do you know (insert name of obscure action film star or rapper)?” One day, I had some crianças convinced that Jean Claude van Damme is my uncle, and Lindsay told them that Jackie Chan is her father (the resemblance is just startling).

As for the past few weeks, the highlight was definitely Vilankulo. Seeing a familiar face from America in Mozambique was wonderful, and I can't wait to go visit Nancy in Zambia. The beaches here are AMAZING!! So much more beautiful than anything I've ever seen before. When we were in Vilankuo, we were pretty much the only tourists there. The beaches were deserted for most of the days, except for when the fishermen were going out or coming in in their dhows (small, generally colorful sailboats). When they came in, there was an impromptu seafood market out on the beach, where they sold the crabs, shrimp (some of which are HUGE- make jumbo shrimp in America seem tiny!!), fish, stingrays, or whatever else they caught. One day, we went snorkeling out in the islands of the Archipelago de Bazaruto- pretty much crystal-clear water to check out the rainbow of colors. The islands themselves are something to be seen. Lots of them are mostly untouched, and some have huge, mountainous sand dunes. The Archipelago is apparently the Mozambican vacation spot of the rich and famous. Clearly, that's where I'll be spending my next holiday.

Perhaps I lied a bit. After the journalism conference, I have one more week of vacation (we have 2 weeks off at the end of the trimester), and I will be spending it at the beach. Sadly, the Peace Corps allowance is not sufficiently large for such luxury as Bazaruto.

I've been learning a little bit of dialect. The folks get quite a kick out of hearing me try to speak in Mbarue.
Malála. -- Good morning.
Ndiwe ani? -- What is your name?
Ndiri Carolina. -- My name is Carolina.
Iwe uri bom? -- How are you? (Are you well?)
Ndiri bom. -- I am well.
Because this 2-blogs-in-1 is far too long already and because I don't know how to say “until next time I'm in Chimoio” in Mbarue, I'll end with “até manguana” (“until tomorrow/ see you tomorrow”).