The Midservice Crisis

The Midservice Crisis is a commonly known stage of a Peace Corps Volunteer's experience. It generally occurs when one realizes that one is half way done with the peace corps experience. One usually feels like he or she has accomplished less than expected after one year at site and experianced much less of the country than he or she would have expected after one year at site. The Midservice crisis is characterized by feelings of frustration, hopelessness, claustrophobia, depression, and a general desire to drop any responsibility and just do fun things.
My mid service trip.By the end of July I had been in Mozambique for over a year and almost at site for one year yet I had not yet been further north than a town 3 and a half hours north of my site. So decided that I should take a week off and make a trip as far north as I could and be back within a 5 day period. It just so happened that two of my friends who are volunteers in central Mozambique were passing through my site on their way up. One is a volunteer in Chimoio and the other a small town called Sena. My original plan was to gt up to Sena as fast as possible but the Sena volunteer decided to spend some more time at the beach near my house. So I left with the Chimoio volunteer and took the really long journey up to his site. The trip was really uneventful. Once you cross the border between Inhambane Provence and Sofala Provence you have to cross a bridge over a large river. This bridge is manned by a large number of police and military personnel so it feels like a Country border crossing. This is because this bridge is the only major bridge that crosses the large "Save" river. During the civil war this was strategically a very important location as one side had more control of much of the land north of the river and the other side had control of much of the land on the other side. Today the police and military personnel are basically there to charge people to use the bridge and fine them for any paperwork or vehicle discrepancies. I am sure that they would never use their authority and absolute control of the only major bridge across this large river to pocket government fines or try and hassle people into giving bribes.
The next stop was a town called Inchope. It is a major cross roads town. Between the river Save and Inchope is hours of driving through absolutely nothing dry, dense African bush for miles, over and over again. Once in Inchope we were easily able to get a bus to Chimoio up in the mounains. The Mountains in this area are old worn down mountains. The landscape is flat and then a mountain sticks up, and then its flat for a few miles, and then there is another mountain. So the landscape around Chimoio has several small, free standing mountains within view from most points. Chimoio is a very crime ridden city. Peace corps volunteers have experienced robbery and assault on multiple occasions there. SO when I arrived at night the local volunteers went into security mode and made sure we avoided the wrong parts of town and always walked at a fast pace (as I was helping my friend carry a large bag filled with stuff he brought back from a recent trip to the states). So that was us, walking as fast as possible, from one side of town to the other as we hauled around a 100 pound bag. The next day I got to explore the city a bit. In the day time I really liked the place. Some neat parks and art deco buildings. Some modern shopping areas, a few very large outdoor markets. There is a strange mix of cultures there. There are a lot of people of Portugese decent that still live there. There are "Black" Mozambiqueans, people of Indian decent and many people from Zimbabwe as well.
Just when I was sitting around Chimoio wondering what I should do next and if I should just take the long journey back to my site...My volunteer friend in Sena called me and said she was on her way back up. So I went back to Inchope the next day and met up with her. We did not make it all the way to her site. The van we were in started overheating on the road so we ended up having to drive about 32 miles an hour for 6 hours until we got to the next town with a peace corps volunteer. This volunteer was a fourth year extendee. She had decided to stay in peace corps Mozambique for twice the required amount of time. She is my age and graduated from college the same time as me, but she went directly to peace corps mozambique and stayed their for 4 years. She will be leaving in a few months. She was a little hermit like. As apparently she does not leave her town very often or hang out with other volunteers, but she was really really nice and she had accomplished a lot around her town. She had a big house so we crashed there for the night. My friend then realized that she had left her bag with all her clothes on the van that took us up from Inchope. I was too tired to care. I finally realized just how gigantic this country is. My dinner that night was a dark beer, some bread, and a box of pineapple juice (all bought at a gas station).
The next day we made it to Sena. Honestly for the most part, once you have seen one small Mozambiquan town you have seen them all. But this one has something special. There is a railway that carries coal from the inland mountains to the port in Berra. That railway crosses the Zambezi river at Sena. There is a Large bridge that traverses the entire river. There is no road but there is a foot path that has been placed along the side of the bridge. This footpath is a little bigger than a sidewalk and there are some holes in it that give way to a straight drop, but the big holes have thick iron plates covering them (for the most part). The last time any of the footpath was re-semented was 1964 (the dates are on the cement bricks). On this footpath there are people walking from one end to the other, people on bicycles, people riding on the back of "bicycle taxis," (a small seat has been atached to the back wheel and the passenger rides sitting backwards) and motorcycles. So there I was walking out into the middle of the Zambezi river dodging motorcycles and holes in the bridge as I was looking around at one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in this country (sorry I did not realize it would be so cool, so I forgot to bring my camera.). South of the river there were 5 small mountains and green African bush as far as the eye can see. North of the river was a dry rigid mountain landscape. In between was the long expanse of the river and the long reeds and grasses along the sides. The pure green color of all the plants was vibrant all around. There were small farm plots and shacks on islands on the edges of the river and small fires all around. Looking at this valley I almost felt as if I was looking back in time to an early agrarian community living on the banks of a river in the cradle of civilization. As I was standing in the middle of this bridge (it took me 40 min just to walk to the middle) I decided that everything in my journey had led up to this point, that I had gone through all the long and difficult traveling so that I could stand on that bridge and see this amazing and remote place. Then I was really hungry so I had some fresh river fish for lunch...awesome.
That night I went to a party with a group of Mozambiquans who had lived in Canada during the civil war and have returned to Sena to do aid and development work. First we went to one person's house where we ate diner and one of the guys offered to take me Parana fishing the next day. I decided against that. Then we all went to the local bar and went to sleep.
The next day I decided to head back down because I needed to be back to my site the in two days for a friend's Birthday. Unfortunately the bus I was on was having mechanical problems and again I did the ride to Inchope going 32 miles an hour for 6 hours. I tried to see if I could still get a ride going further south at 3:30 in the afternoon, but they all had already left. So I decided to go up to Chimoio and then whey my options. As I was siting in the bus waiting to leave for Chimoio a drunken Mozambiquan man in full islamic dress sits down next to me. He is completely drunk, yelling at everyone and spilling his "juice" all over the place so the driver of the bus had to force him off (normally drivers will put up with it because they don't care and they just want the money so the fact that this driver did do something says something about how big a mess this drunk guy was). On top of this guy being Muslim and completely trashed, it was in the middle of Ramadan. Fail. A police man came over and got the drunk guy to go away. Then three Southern Asian looking guys got on the bus and sat don next to me. The police man looked in the bus, and saw these three guys and me (I was experimenting with growing a beard at the time) and asked to see the pass ports of one of the guys. The policeman decided that he did not like all that he saw so he told the guy that he and his friends needed to come to the police station with him. I stayed in the bus and told the policeman that I did not know them the policeman then looked really confused and said "OK I want all the foreigners in this bus to get out right now and come with me to the police station." So I got out and walked with the policeman, making sure I stood on the opposite side of him from the other guys and speaking with him in Portuguese ( ony one of the other guys could speak any Portuguese at all). I started asking the policeman about Inchope and his job and I told him that I had been living in Mozambique for a year as a health volunteer. He asked me where I was from and I told him that I was American. He said, "Are you sure you are an American? Yo look Italian to me." "Yes I am sure that I am an American." Strangely this is not the olny time a Mozambiquan has assumed off the bat that I am Italian.
We got to the police station and were brought to the office of the police chief. I made sure that I sat on the opposite side of the room from the other guys. They all took out their pass ports (Pakistani) and the police started to grill them and only one of them spoke any Portuguese at all (poorly). There was some problem with their World health cards that were supposed to show their vaccination records. At this point a friend of my called me and I acted like it was an important phone call. I think it gave the impression that someone of importance had been informed that I was being detained by the Inchope police.
At this point I had the following set of challenges. I wanted it to be clear that I was not involved with these other guys. I did not want to be waiting in the police station for hours as they drilled these Pakistani guys, I wanted to avoid getting pressured into giving a bribe, and finally I had to overcome my own great, great stupidity. I had forgotten my passport at my house at my site. I was basically undocumented save my California drivers license (that was still in my wallet, and now expired by several months), and my peace Corps ID card (which is a small paper card that any 16 year old with Microsoft word and a lamination machine could make, but it had my photo on it, the phone numbers for Peace Corps Mozambique HQ and the US Embassy, an ID number that has the official significance of fuck all, and a picture of the American Flag). So, as the chief was drilling the Pakistanis I said to myself, I could see if these guys speak English and I could help them out by translating, or I could try and get the hell out of here. So I walked up to the Police officer that originally brought me there with my Peace Corps ID in hand and Said, "Here is my identification, like I said before, I am an American Health volunteer. If you have any questions you can call the Peace Corps HQ or the US Embassy." "OK, can I see your pass Port." "Like I said before, I have been living in Mozambqiue for over a year. So my passports is at my home. I am not leaving the country so I do not have my passport with me. I am going back to my home now to continue my work as a health volunteer. If you have any questions, you can call one of these numbers." The officer took the card up to the chief and said "excuse me chief, here is the ID of this American. He is a health volunteer. There are a lot of phone numbers on this card. Do you want to call them?" The chief shook his head. So the officer walked back and gave me my card back. Then he walked back to the corner. I waited a couple minuets before walking back up to him and asked him if I could go. He said he did not know, so he went back to the chief and interrupted him from drilling the Pakistanis. "Do you want to ask the American any questions or can he leave?" The chief gave me a a discerning stare and then told the officer that I could go. He was obviously more interested in the three Pakistanis with vaccination discrepancies. As I was exiting the Police station a drunk guy came running up to me and said "I speak English! You pay me! I talk to Police for you!" "No thanks Amigo." I think I did better on my own.
So I got up to Chimoio and had dinner with my friend who lives there. I had the best plate of "piri piri chicken" (chicken in hot pepper sauce, it is almost the national dish) I have had in Mozambique. Then I went to secure my seat on the only guaranteed bus heading from Chimoio back to my site. I got the last seat, which was the back left corner of the bus, behind the last row of seats, on top of the radiator. I placed my sleeping bag on my "seat" as a cushion and leaned my bag on the side. Then I caught a few hours sleep on the bus before it left at 3:20 in the morning. 8 hours later I was at the town next to mine having a hamburger and Pepsi with some friends as we gathered to begin the Birthday Party weekend.
The party weekend itself was a good time. We hung out, cooked some meals, went to the beach, and watched a Brazilian Comedy at the local Movie Theater. At the beach we met a group of 9 Canadians who recently showed up in town and are doing volunteer work around town for 2 months with other young Mozambiquans as a part of a cultural exchange. Then they will all go back to a town in the middle of nowhere Canada with the Mozambiquans for another two months. Last year there was a cool guy from Toronto working with my org as I entered. Now there is a girl from Montreal. I remember telling the first guy that he could come back in one year and I would still be here and would still have about a year left to go. It does not seem like that long ago now.
The birthday party and some of the Canadians all ended up at the Movie theater. The movie was called "Elvis and Madonna." Its about a Drag queen who dresses up as Madonna and a lesbian who always wears a leather jacket who fall in love. In typical Brazilian comedy fashion, someone gets naked, someone gets pregnant and then someone randomly ends up getting shot, even if the shooter is just some random guy that just so happens to be walking around with a 45 in his pocket at exactly the right time to save someone. Then when the weekend was over I picked up a package from the post office sent from the states. The customs officers opened it to do a search. Four or five officers took me in a back room and drilled me because the description of the contents was "Bibles" yet it had tons of stuff and none of it bibles. So then they told me that I was legally obligated to pay the 45% value tax for importing rare or valuable goods into the country. So I had to pay about 20 USD in the end. Getting intimidated by government officials in the 3rd world sucks.
Teaching gigA friend of mine runs a small project where they try and link art projects with HIV/AIDS education in middle schools. Previously she had a Mozambiquen run the health lecture but that person was not showing up on time and the only information she was getting across to the kids was making them memorize how to say "Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immunodeficiency Virus." So I was asked to step in and do the lecture for 2 days a week for two weeks. This is because I can speak good enough Portuguese and I know a lot about HIV now.
On the Tuesdays I would give a short lecture and on the Thursdays I would help keep the kids under control as we did the art component and tried to encourage them to paint about what I had taught them. I really did not know how I would do teaching these kids about HIV. I was not sure that my Portuguese really would be good enough, I did not know if I could keep them quiet and I did not know if I could actually keep them engaged and teach them anything. In short. I more or less did it. I did my best to keep them engaged even though class room participation is not really a thing in Mozambique so they did not know why I was asking them to do stuff and answer questions posed to the class. Normally teachers just lecture and then kick them out of the classroom. That is if the teacher shows up at all and also when the teacher is not hitting the students with a piece of rubber hose as the class watches and laughs (In general Mozambicans think that a person getting physically hurt is the funniest thing in the world. One time I fell down in front of a market and my shin fell on a rock. Everyone around stopped and started pointing and laughing as I was on the ground in pain cradling my fucked up leg. But I digress...)
When I went around and talked to the students individually, I fund out that the information I taught them actually did sink in. That was a big relief because when I was asking questions to the group no one said anything. So I did in the end get some knowledge transferred to them. It was pretty satisfying to do something that has a direct result. With my work at my org I am very removed from the direct interpersonal work so it is hard to see and pinpoint my contribution as I am more of a process improver. It was good to know that my Portuguese is good enough to give two lectures in HIV in front of a class of preteens. In fact it was the first time that I gave a real class lecture ever. I really think that I did a good job of connecting with the students so I feel proud of that. There may be future opportunities for me to do something like this again in February. I would really enjoy that.
Midservice ConferenceA week and a half before midservice the new group of volunteers arrived at site. There are several people in my area including a new girl in my city. The ones I have met so far are really cool so I think I am looking at a good 2^{nd year. I went out he beach with 3 of the new volunteers and then immediately left for my midservice conference.}
Midservice is traditionally just when they do medical and dental checkups on everyone. But recently they have expanded it to include some experience sharing and other presentations. It was really good to see everyone from my original group that I went through training with. Unfortunately about as soon as I got to Maputo I started feeling a bit sick. But I went to the city art center for a glass of port and some music with some friends. It is really a cool place. Half of it is a nice bar with an outdoor area and live music and the other half is an artists' studio with everything from oil paintings to sculptures made from leftover weapons and bullet casings from the civil war. Then for the rest of the week I had a fever and diahria (with blood for one of the days, that was a surprise). I was a mess. But thankfully I was at the hotel and receiving attention from the peace corps medical staff. Despite my illness I was able to accomplish the following: eat some good curries, eat some gelato, buy a bottle of imported beer from Belgium for about 7 USD that ended up being sour which was a big disappointment because I really really miss good beer, go to a karaoke bar that has a live band that know how to play all the songs, ride some bumper cars, and facilitate an hour and a half long session on "strategies for working with supervisors and counterparts." That actually turned out really well despite the fact that I was sick and totally unprepared.
You see, there were several sessions that the volunteers could lead if they so chose. I had thought that since all of us were in the same place and we all had one year of experience under our belts that the setting would obviously be that of experience sharing. But everyone else that decided to lead a session had prepared a power point and had something very specific that they wanted to present to the group that they or their organization had accomplished. So on one hand I felt like I was not prepared but on the other hand I felt like my idea of simultaneous experience sharing and problem solving would take much better advantage of the situation we were in. I am really glad that some people were able to do some really great things but I just felt like we needed to focus on what problems people were experiencing and how they can approach them.
So I rolled up with nothing more than a pad of paper with a list of challenges I had faced with my supervisor and counterpart over the past year. But to make up for the lack of power point I through on some nice shoes, slacks, a dress shirt, a tie, and my glasses (so I would look smart). So I wrote my challenges down one one side of a a large piece of paper and I asked people to add more challenges that they have had. Then on the other side we came up with solutions for these problems and people who had successfully addressed these problems were able to talk about what they had done. Of course there were some people that probably talked a little too much but in general I felt like I did a good job of facilitating a really important conversation. Afterwords, people told me that they had really gotten something important out of it and the Country Director told me that he really thought I had good group facilitation skills. So that was really faltering. This experience and the classroom experience have got me thinking about what the connection is and what I do that is good with being placed in front of a group of people. I know that I sure as hell never want to be a teacher but maybe there is something I could do with this. Ill figure it out.
As for my actual work, the conference provided me with a few ideas for stuff to do. I want to try and do radio announcements in my city for using mosquito nets and Malaria awareness. The Malaria high season will start in a few months. Also I got some sweet potatoes from a market in Maputo that I thought were the orange type but turned out not to be, because I want to start growing them around my site. I still need to get that together, especially since I have just found out that the conditions of my site are really good for growing sweet potatoes. This would be a really good thing for PLWHAs in my community to have as a source of calories and vitamins. Also, the PC staff told us that it was normal and legitimate for us to be going through a stressful time at this point in our service. So that makes me feel like I understand why I had the urge to just get up and leave my site and through my hands in the air and say to hell with my organization. So I think I will get though it.
Whale sharks or lack there ofMyself and few other decided to stay an extra day in Maputo to hang out and buy a few things. Unfortunately I assumed that the backpackers would have vacancy and I did not reserve a bed. So myself two others and a random German couple we ran into (who had just finished a trip from Tofo and saw a bunch of cool wild life when they went whale shark snorkeling. They saw Mantarays, whale sharks, hump back whales, and dolphins. This was really encouraging to hear.) all rented out a 5 bed room in a really run down and sketchy hotel. There it no good way to describe this place. It is built like a fort but it has all these strange child book paintings in front, a fake lamp post with three orbs on it that are painted different colors, and a giant neon light sign in front that says "Pensao Central" (Central Inn). There were a bunch of drunk guys hanging out front and there was no office. Just a desk at the bottom of the stairs. But I had to get up early the next morning so I did not spend much time there. I woke up at 4:30 and made my way over to the backpackers I originally wanted to go to where I met up with a friend and a random American couple. We all grabbed the early bus from Maputo direct to Tofo beach. The bus had some of the most uncomfortable chairs I have been on, but we survived. Talking to the American couple we found out that they were on an 18 month trip around the world. They had finished South America, had a quick trip in Europe, and now they were doing Africa before they make their way over through Asia.
So we made it to Tofo and met up with some friends and some volunteers from Swaziland who were also hanging out in Tofo. The next day I took a couple of the Swazi volunteers into town. One said that he felt something rattling around inside his ear so he wanted to go to the clinic in town. SO I took him to the central city health center. We basically rand around asking people where we should go for 20 min as the other Swazi volunteer was wandering around with no real direction, using all 5 of her words in Portuguese to say to everyone she passed: "Good morning. How are you? Emergency!" Eventually we had him seen and they basically took something that looked like a small baster and squirted a bunch of water in his ear. Then a big hard ball of wax plopped out. I guess that is what happens when you have just finished two years living in rural Swaziland. Then I took them to the old Mosque because they wanted to see some of the older buildings in town. The Imam was there and he said we could go in and check it out. It was pretty basic on the inside but I liked checking it out because it was built in 1840. The Imam showed us a Koran that had been written by hand somewhere in Arabia in the 1700s and then brought down here. Then the girl volunteer started speaking fluent (or close to) Arabic with the Imam. They walked all around the Mosque and chatted for about an hour. The guy volunteer told me that he never knew that she could speak Arabic. At one point the Imam asked me if I was Jewish. I said no and then he and the girl volunteer pointed at me a few times as they spoke some more Arabic. Then a little later we thanked him for showing us around and we left. Later I asked the girl why the Imam asked if I was Jewish and why they were pointing at me. She said "Oh, I thought it would be funny to tell him that you were Jewish. He really wanted to rip your head off as soon as I told him that. He said that "We Muslims kill Jews." But I told him that he should accept you because Jewish people are also people of the book. I thought it was a good joke." So now the local Imam thinks I'm Jewish and wants to rip my head off. Awesome...
The next day I went out on the whale Shark snorkeling trip. Everyone had high hopes because there had been lots of good sightings recently and lots of other wild life. So we got wet suited up and jumped in a speed boat (which was really, really fun to ride off of the coast and then back on in, bouncing off of high waves and flying in the air was the best part of the trip, though a couple people threw up). Then we spent a whole lot of time trying to find whale sharks. We saw a small pack of dolphins. A single hump back whale, and a baby whale. The baby whale was really showing off and doing a bunch of tricks in front of us. That really was the highlight. But no manta rays and no fucking whale sharks! I was happy I got to see the baby whale but truth be told, I really wanted to see the largest sharks on earth but I guess that was too much to ask for that day. Fuck you Mother Nature! Then a couple hours later I started feeling really weak and started getting diarrhea again. SO I cut my vacation time short and headed back to my house where I more or less stayed for another week and a half as I fought off one of the most long lasting viruses I have ever had. Fuck you virus!
WorkI already talked about the sweet potatoes and the malaria awareness, but I just recently found out that none of the PLWHAs that my organization's health workers visit own Mosquito nets because they can not afford them. So I really want to do some research on how I may be able to secure funding for mosquito nets for these people as when HIV and Malaria are both present in a body they perpetuate each other thereby destroying the person's health and then life.
The other thing going on with my org is this very large project that will be starting soon. Unfortunately I have been totally out of the loop with it. After I came back from midservice I was still sick and very tired so I told my counterpart just to give me the first draft of the project plan once he was done so I could look it over. That was the last time I saw him. He has been away from the office for the past week and a half and no one can get in contact with him, so I cant make any progress in helping the program until he shows up again. Ironically the president of the organization scolded me on being away from my house all three days of the recent three day weekend without telling anyone in the organization where I was. It is kind of annoying how they view me as some sort of adolescent who needs to always be looked after and who always has to check in with them even if it is not during work hours. If I do not, then I guess I look like the "bad adolescent" who is always disappearing. So in other words if I act like a normal adult who can do whatever I want on the weekend without checking in with anyone I am apparently irresponsible and disrespectful. Lame.
Aside from that I am working with the Canadian volunteer at my org to develop a face book site for the organization so they can put information about themselves and some photos up on the net. With a little luck these things will work out. The Canadian volunteer was complaining the other day about how frustrating it was to work so hard to accomplish such little things and that she had been here for one month and will be here for one more month and she feels like she has not done anything and that she does not know what she will be able to accomplish in the next month. Ya, welcome to the midservice crisis.