A Day in the Life

Many people have been asking me “what’s it like there?”, so now I’m going to give you ‘a day in the life of Sarah Biz” as a Peace Corps Trainee.

…you think you know, but you have no idea. 

The “phase” of Peace Corps I’m in right now is called PST (Pre-Service Training). And it is exactly that: intensive, time-consuming, information-overloading training that may or may not prepare me for my two years of Peace Corps service as a secondary school math teacher. I say may or may not because I don't think a person can truly feel/be prepared for what's to come these next two years. 

Monday-Friday, this is pretty much what life is like here [I will demonstrate my own routine, and cannot speak for other volunteers]:

4:47am: Alarm Goes off. I hit snooze twice—18 minutes total thanks to iPhone’s weird 9-minute snooze—and actually get up at 5:05am. #gohomeiPhoneyouredrunk

5:15am: Leave for morning run. Sometimes I meet my friend Andy at the Nyusi Sign and we run together—and walk up most of the hills because let's be real: chatting is more important than cardio. Nyusi is Mozambique’s current president and the only billboard in Namaacha is a giant picture of his face. Imagine if each city in the States had one billboard and it was a picture of Barrack Obama [or even better Donald Trump hahahahahahaha] with a cheesy-ass smile. Would I love that or hate that? I just don’t know. #whatifTrumpisnext

6:15am: Return from run. Get the hot water from a thermos on the counter and pour it in my bucket. At this point the water is scolding hot, so I let it cool while I brush my teeth outside and spit in the grass. Typically I don’t use drinking water to do this because getting it is a pain in the butt, so I just brush my teeth without water. Note: There is a Hot Water Fairy that lives in my house. I’m not even kidding. There is a thermos in the kitchen that my Mae says is for me and it is ALWAYS filled with piping hot water. I have never seen her heat up water, or pour water from a kettle into the thermos, but every time I want to take a bath, no matter time of day, there is hot water in my thermos waiting for me. If not Mae, then must be a fairy. I like to think I'm special because I got the house with the fairy. #Mozambicanmagic #nocoldbaths

6:20am: Take a bath. 6 cups of water, hair and body washed, shaved legs when motivated #quasi-never. After my bath I get ready for class. This also includes making my bed and sweeping my room, which my Mae wants me to do every morning para fica fresca (so it stays fresh). In Dallas I was pretty disgusting and only swept the floor...maybe monthly, so this is a big change for me and I don't know how I feel about it. Having a clean living space makes me feel more like an adult; being told by my mother every morning to make my bed makes me feel like a 7 year old. #torn

7:10am: Breakfast time. I never know what I’m going to get. Sometimes it’s french fries and an egg. Sometimes it’s an egg and rice. Sometimes it’s two bananas and Black Cat (peanut butter). Sometimes it’s plain rice or plain bread…or both. Sometimes I ditch the hot food and take an orange for the road. Whatever is served for breakfast is accompanied with “cafe” which is actually Nestle Malt Energy Drink. It’s hot chocolate with caffeine pretty much. Thank goodness my mom sent actual coffee in my care package. #frenchfriesforbreakfast

7:20am: Leave for class. My neighbor is a volunteer named Daniel and we are in the same Lingua Group. It takes between 10-20 minutes to get to class depending on whose house class is at that week. There are four people in our Lingua Group, and each week a different host family allows us to conduct class there. This past week was my family’s week so I didn’t have to walk anywhere. It was wonderful. As a side note, when you walk down the street in Mozambique, it’s respectful to greet every person you walk by. On the way to class Daniel and I say Bon Dia at least 50 times, sometimes multiple times to the same person if that person seems like a morning person. #goodmorninggoodmorninggoodmorning

7:30am-12pm: Lingua class. No English allowed, not even on breaks. Arsenio is our professor and he hears everything, even when we whisper, if we say it in English. Then he yells at us for talking in English. And then he makes a joke but really we know that the yelling is serious. #justkiddingbutseriously #noEnglishallowed. We sometimes go over grammar using a Grammar book; sometimes we talk about Mozambican culture; and most of the time (like every language class ever) we talk about basic life facts (family, job, house etc.). So pretty much, we speak like 5 year olds with a limited vocabulary, all in present tense: “My name is Sarah. In the United States I have a nice mother. My father works at an office. I work as an Education Specialist. My favorite color is pink. I like to eat chocolate. (because chocolate, I believe, is a cognate in pretty much every language and I didn’t know how to say peanut butter).” #IdontknowPortuguese #helpmeplease

12pm-1:30pm: Lunch. This meal also varies every day, but it’s always some type of lunch food (unlike french fries at breakfast #notcomplaining). Matapa and Mboa are traditional Mozambican dishes that look like green mush and are served over rice. Mboa is made from leafy greens, coconut and peanuts all ground up and simmered together. I like it a lot. Usually lunch is rice or xima (thick grits basically) and green mush. To add variety, sometimes I get tomato-based mush that’s red and on really special days I get beans. One time for lunch I got a potato that looked like a regular potato but tasted like a sweet potato. When my Mae explained that sweet potatoes can be orange or white, my mind was blown. And she laughed at me and thought I was stupid and it was great. I try to eat as fast as I can and then take a nap. After four hours of Portuguese my brain needs it. I enter into my sweet mosquito net fort and snooze for about 45 minutes. #foodsleepfoodsleep

1:30pm-5:30pm: More class. Some days it’s more Portuguese. Yes, on those days we have 10 hours of Portuguese class. I know I need it but that doesn’t mean I like it. If not Portuguese, we have discipline-specific classes, where we learn about teaching methods and lesson planning. All the math teachers are together for this, although so far we haven’t learned anything math-specific. During these sessions, I feel like no matter how much they tell me or how much I try to prepare, i just will not be fully prepared to teach a classroom full of 60-100 students. Yes, you read that right. 60-100 students per class, with one teacher (this girl). Looks like I’ll have two years to figure that out….maybe? #teachallthekids

5:30pm-7:30pm: This is my only real window of free time. Sometimes I go home and pull out my yoga mat and get funny looks from passerbys who have no fookin’ clue what yoga is. Other days some volunteers get together to go exploring. On these days we accumulate children along our journey. This is fun because the kids are super energetic and excited to show us around their town. These kids are also a bit violent: Using sticks to slash down flowers, grass and trees like nobody’s business. We let them go to town and try to stay out of the kill zones. About once a week (for me, but maybe more often for others), we meet up at a bar and get some drinks and speak to each other in English. I honestly don’t care what we talk about or who is talking; it’s so nice to be able to speak and listen in English without getting  joking-but-seriously yelled at. This is also on of the only times during the weekdays we get a chance to hang out with other volunteers that aren’t in our Lingua Group or will be teaching the same discipline. Usually during these hangouts one beer turns into three and we all start laughing at bad jokes and wishing it didn’t get dark so soon. #cheersforbeers

7:30: Dinner and dishes. Always the same as lunch. If there is an exception to this rule, I have not found it yet. Because Mozambicans are okay with silence, talking does not happen for most meals. I threw that trend right out the window when I got here, though. For one, silence gives me anxiety and my first instinct is to want to fill it. Second, my family members do not speak English and it’s a great oppourtunity for me to practice [even more] Portuguese. When I first got here the conversations were super basic: how are you, how’s the weather, how’s the food. However, as my language skills grow, so do the conversations I have with my Mae. Last night we talked about her daughter’s wedding—how she planned it, what kind of food they had; we talked about dancing and music and the wedding party. I started the conversation, contributed to it, and understood most of it. I appreciate our dinner conversations although it is still extremely difficult for me to form complex sentences in Portuguese. I get to learn about my Mae, what makes her happy, what gives her stress, how she grew up etc. I try as best I can to tell her about myself and my life in the States, and I believe she very much enjoys that. Dinner conversation has allowed me to start understanding her as a person, and the more I learn the more I love. #loveyaMae

8:15-9:00: Chill time. After dinner and dishes are done and the kitchen is closed for the night, Mae and Pai sit in the living room and watch TV. There are two options for TV programming: Telejornal (the news), or Telenovelas (Soap Operas). I prefer to watch the Telejornal because it’s helpful to learn not only what is actually happening throughout Mozambique, but also to gain insight on what people want to know about. Do people want to know about sports? crimes? weather? Political news? The Telejornal shows a lot of sports and a lot of crimes: live interviews of pissed off people who just had a crime committed against them. Not too different than the States, sadly--but seeing people yell in a language you don't understand definitely appears more intense than your typical English-speaking Joe Schmoe. The Telenovelas are either Brazilian or Mexican actors and they are just as shitty and pathetic as Soap Operas in the states. If you like Soap Operas you are welcome to take offense to that, and I’m judging you. Anyhow, we all pile around the TV and I pretend to understand what they are saying and it’s a great time. #isthatsarcasm

9:00-tomorrow: Sarah Time. Finally. Sarah Time. At pretty much exactly 9pm each night, I tell my family I’m hitting the sack and I go to my room. I shut my door and for the first time all day, I allow myself permission to not be “on point”. I stop smiling and take a deep breath and congratuate myself on another productive day of learning and loving and growing. The mosquito net that surrounds by bed feels like a fort, and I have to pack my fort with all my Sarah time things before I crawl in: computer, Kindle, chocolate cookies, phone, and socks (in case my feet get cold in the night). Usually I read and eat some chocolate cookies that I secretly keep in my room. One time my Mae said that eating chocolate will make you fat so I secret-eat in my sweet fort like a true fat kid. I’m not ashamed. I usually fall asleep around 10pm because my 4:47 alarm comes very soon. #goodnightmoon

The days here are long and require a lot of mental energy. I welcome the little time we have to chill with friends and laugh and vent and just be. Some days I wish I had more chilling and less learning, but I know that it will be worth it. I came here to do big things: To serve children. To teach children. To love children. To serve my community. To teach my community. To love my community. These 10 weeks of training are going to provide me with skills that will allow for the realization of my Peace Corps service goals. So, when I get so sick of sitting in Portuguese class that I think I might upchuck actual letters, I remind myself that this one moment, in some way, will contribute to a bigger, beautiful picture. 

#atelogo