First Few Weeks of School

                Sometimes, in the middle of class, as I’m writing formulas on the chalkboard, I have a spontaneous moment of reflection. I start to think, here I am in Mozambique teaching math in Portuguese to 60 some 9^th graders. How crazy is that? At the end of the day, sometimes I have taught 5-6 hours back to back. I am amazed that in a few short months I have learned enough Portuguese words to be able to fill that much time, and sometimes without notes!

                How did I get here? Since I first turned in my application I knew that I really wanted to teach math in the Peace Corps. There are only a handful of countries that have Math Education programs so I was thrilled to be invited as a math teacher to Mozambique. Despite very frequent warnings that I would probably teach English instead, I hoped and requested and begged for math during all of training and after arriving to site. And I got it! But as I feel those 60 pairs of eyes on me and 60 pairs of ears listening to my American- accented Portuguese I sometimes start to think, am I crazy??

                My school is better equipped than many in Mozambique. There are almost enough desks for every student, there is a large blackboard in every classroom with plenty of chalk for all of the teachers. Every student comes with notebooks and pens for each class. And the classrooms I teach in are located on the 3^rd floor, with a nice sea breeze and views of the ocean. Not bad…

                Students are organized into Turmas and stay in their one classroom for the whole day while teachers rotate in and out. All students wear uniforms, sing the Mozambican national anthem before school starts, and stand up to greet each teacher as they enter the room. The teachers all wear batas, these white lab coat-looking things, which are polyester and super hot (temperature wise, definitely not attractive wise). But the up-side is that they also help cover up the fact that it’s a million degrees and I’m sweating like I just ate thai chilis mixed with habaneros and wasabi. 11^th and 12 graders meet in the morning for classes, from 7am to 12. Then in the afternoon the 8^th, 9^th, and 10^th graders have class 12:30-5:30. So I usually spend the mornings planning and grading then I go to teach all afternoon.

                After not teaching the first week of school because the schedule wasn’t ready, classes started full force in week two. I had three turmas with 90 students in each class, but luckily the schedule was just changed to divide up the number of students. Hopefully I will have about 70 students in each class when that is finalized.

                I’ve been facing a lot of challenges I expected to face as a first year teacher, and some that I hadn’t even thought of. I’ve been spending a lot of time just trying to figure out how to organize lesson plans and grading. But it’s the small challenges that are also surfacing. For example, I had no idea how hard it is to write in a straight line on the chalkboard! (I have so much respect for all of my teachers who made this part look easy, not to mention everything else).  Plus, I am still trying to figure out how I am going to learn all 273 names of my students.

                But everyday it is getting better. After one particularly brutal day when a class was getting out of hand, I was walking away from the school feeling particularly exhausted. As I passed a group of 6 year old girls with my bata slung over my shoulder, one started yelling “Acunha, Acunha,” the word for foreigner in Koti. I’ve gotten used to being called out like that and I was prepared to just forget about it, as usual. But then another girl replied in Portuguese, “No, she’s not an Acunha, she’s a Professora.”

                I was smiling for the rest of the walk home.  

Welcome to Angoche

                When I walked into the apartment for the first time, I soon realized that my Peace Corps experience would not be even close to the fantasies of thatched huts and hauling water that I had been imagining since I started the application process so long ago. During training, Mafe and I had no shortage of stories of people who had been to Angoche. Everyone gushed how beautiful, safe, and nice it was that we had little doubt we were going to a great place.

                Angoche is a town of about 80,000 people on the coast in Nampula province. It is a strange town because it has many beautiful buildings that were built in the last 50 years, only to stand empty today. There is a huge tree lined boulevard that is used by a few bicycles, motorcycles, and the random car. There are marble storefronts leading to windowless, abandoned buildings. The center of town is all made of cement, and there are usually few people walking around town. Then, walking further from the center reveals neighborhoods with tons of people, spending time between houses that can be made of anything from brick to sticks.The people of Angoche speak Koti, a language only spoken in this city and the surrounding areas.

                The city is located on a bay with mangrove trees lining the water. A 20 minute walk and short canoe taxi ride gets you to the beautiful beach peninsula of Thamole. Seven kilometers from town is the gorgeous and mostly deserted beach of Praia Nova. It’s been rare to see anyone but fishermen pulling in their nets on these two beaches and the white sand stretches for miles.

                Although Angoche is a fairly large town by Mozambique standards, it is pretty isolated. It takes anywhere from 3.5 to 5 hours to travel to here from Nampula city. The road is mostly dirt and sand, with so many potholes the drivers go from one side of the road to the other to try to find the smoothest path. Normally, there aren’t any cars going in the opposite direction so that works pretty well. Every once in a while there is a stretch of smooth pavement that usually lasts for a mile or two then suddenly disappears into another long stretch of dirt. Then, after thinking you are in the middle of nowhere, you reach a city full of street lights, multi-story buildings, park benches, stores and a bank. The road ends at an outlook on the water so you can’t go any further. That’s how you know you’ve arrived in Angoche.

                Our apartment is in the center of the cement part of town. We sit atop a hill on the second floor, so we can see the ocean from every window of the house. We have tons of space and the previous volunteers left us plenty of furniture, kitchen utensils, and everyday necessities. Mafe and I got comfortable here very quickly.

                Our first month here was spent cleaning the apartment, hosting people for Christmas, and generally getting acquainted with our new home. It’s been crazy to think that this new place will be my home for the next two years, especially for me. I have moved 12 times in the last 5 years, so two years sounds like a really long time.  But I am looking forward to getting to know the town and the people better everyday I’m here.