Madlela Ma Nene a Ka Chicumbane

Our project garden at CACHES just after planting corn.

That´s Changana for.... Good Nutrition in Chicumbane. 

That´s the name of the agriculture and nutrition project CACHES and I started in September through a Peace Corps Small Projects Assistance grant. The project was the brainchild of Nelio, one of the volunteers I work with at CACHES, and now he and I are the project coordinators working together to make the project a reality...

Our goals for the project are: Teach conservative agriculture to the community of Chicumbane, promote the planting of more nutritious plants and promote good nutrition in the community. 

We have been working on the project for the past eight months, but it has just recently gotten underway...

April: I brought Nelio to PDM, a three-day Peace Corps sponsored conference on project design and management. At the conference we worked through the process of designing a project from start to finish.

May-June: Upon returning home from the conference, Nelio and I sat down and designed a project. We spent countless hours working our way through the project design process: developing goals and objectives, creating a timeline, planning out monitoring and evaluation and drawing up a budget. We took what we had learned at the conference and used it to create our own project focused on agriculture and nutrition. 

July: Nelio and I submitted the grant to Peace Corps. 

August: APPROVED. We heard back from Peace Corps that our grant was approved. 

September: We opened a bank account for the grant funds. We met with local community-based organizations, Tsembeka and Chikuha, about their involvement in our project. We sat down with the community leaders to inform them about the project. Things started coming together...

October: CACHES, Tsembeka and Chikuha all prepared their land to plant a garden.

Nelio demonstrating how to make a tip-tap, hand washing station.

November: However, it was not until November that we first received our grant money. Believe it or not, the government shutdown had something to do with the delay in receiving our funds... Despite the delay, we jumped into gear buying necessary equipment and material and hosting agricultural trainings weekly at CACHES for the 15 volunteers who signed on to work with our project. Every Friday we hosted a training covering permagardening; conservative agriculture; compost piles and making a tip-tap, a hand washing station. 

One of our Friday morning agriculture trainings at CACHES.

The volunteers learning to make a compost pile.

December: We continued to host trainings for the first two weeks in December. On Friday, Dec. 13th, we planted corn in our garden. And in addition, we planted some more nutritious plants, including chaya, moringa and katuk. We received all of these plants from my friend Evan´s organization Mozaic in Manjacaze. They hosted the nutrition training I attended in November. Moringa is known as the miracle plant here being very easy to grow and containing lots of vitamins, minerals and protein. Chaya and katuk also contain more vitamins and minerals than other green leaf plants commonly eaten here. One of our goals throughout this project is to introduce more people to the nutritional value of these plants.

The project is now on holiday break until January 10th. As I learned last year, Mozambique takes ferias (holidays) very seriously. Not much in terms of work gets done from mid-December until mid-January. So instead of battling the holidays, we just accepted them and decided to take holidays ourselves. So starting in January we will continue our project. At that point, we will work with our volunteers who attended our agricultural trainings in November and December to go out into the community to teach families in the community how to do conservative agriculture within their own homes. After that point, we will then start nutrition trainings for our volunteers again. And once we complete our nutrition trainings, we hope to have health fairs for our community at CACHES. (More details to come once they are up and running.)

Distributing plants including chaya, moringa and katuk, to our volunteers.

So far, the project seems to be going pretty well. It has definitely been a learning process for Nelio and myself, but for the most part it is going well. Even though every training is set to start at 8 a.m., usually everyone shows up by 9 a.m. and we are able to get started. And as opposed to having five volunteers from each organization each week as we had hoped, we usually average about three volunteers from each organization. We opened our trainings up to members of the community so we have a consistent two members who participated in our trainings.But, I have learned these are minor aspects in the grand scheme of the project.  What´s more important is that we are distributing the information to those who there and that we are meeting our objectives.  My role has been very minor in actually facilitating with the trainings, which I am very happy about. Both Nelio, and another volunteer from CACHES, Paulo, have attended trainings with me on agriculture and nutrition, so they are primarily the facilitators. They like to remind me that my job is to handle snack. I can do that. No, but seriously, I work with them to plan beforehand, and then during the training, they take the lead. It is much more sustainable. 

Faustino, one of our community volunteers planting his garden.

So as we close out the year, I am content with how the project has gone so far, but I know it is just the beginning. There are definitely areas that need improvement and the bulk of the project is yet to come. So as they say in Changana, Catsonga (probably spelt wrong). . . .pouco a pouco. . .  little by little. One step at a time. 

Murals...Murals...Murals

I have never been extremely artistic. But, since I have been in Moz, I have surrounded myself with people who are quite talented. So I have had to step up my game. But, that is still not saying much.  However, over the past two weeks, I have participated in three mural projects. However, I only let myself paint big spaces. No detailing allowed. And mostly, I just sit in awe of the talent of those I am working with. It has been a busy two weeks, but it has been such a wonderful experience. 

Two weekends ago, my supervisor Sam and I went down to Namaacha to help the newest group of volunteers, Moz 21, do a mural at the Peace Corps office in Namaacha (See pictures below). And last weekend, we hosted three JUNTOS groups, a Peace Corps secondary project focused on expressing health messages through creative art forms, to do a mural in Chicumbane. Then, on Dec. 1st, World AIDS Day, we worked with the kids at CACHES to do a mural. So considering my lack of artistic talent, we have been pretty busy the past few weeks. And the results haven't been half that bad.  But, don't take my word for it....see for yourself. 

JUNTOS Mural in Chicumbane completed November 30, 2013.

Some JUNTOS members working on the mural.

The whole group in front of the mural. We had about 40 participants in total, including members from Macia, Chibuto, Xai-Xai and Chicumbane.

Tania and I at the completion of Day 2 on the Namaacha mural.
Please note: I was only responsible for painting large spaces. No detailed areas.  

My supervisor, Sam, working on some of the finishing touches of the mural. 

TA DAH!!!!!!

December 1: World AIDS Day at CACHES.

Some of the older kids at CACHES worked on a mural at CACHES on World AIDS Day. As part of World AIDS Day, we talked about HIV/AIDS, played some games, danced and enjoyed a snack from the Canadian organization, Right to Play.

Working on the mural.

All of the kids, about 85 in total, lining up to play Limbo.

Alface!!! That's the Mozambican word for Cheese.
The whole group in front of the mural the kids did on World AIDS Day. 

To America and back...

The latest blog post ever...seriously. I started this blogpost over a month ago. And then I was on the road...Tofo, Manjacaze, Namaacha, Maputo, Macia, Bilene. And then, I foolishly dropped my computer and broke my screen. So let's just say, I've been a little out of touch. But, thanks to my dear PCV friends Mike and Marisa, I am at their house using their computer and Internet bringing this blog post to you. So very belated, but here are some pictures from my trip home and a nutrition training I went to in Manjacaze last month. The trip home was a whirlwind of family, food and friends. I can't put all the pictures here so I'll just share the work-related ones. I was also able to share my experiences with three different groups: the 4th and 5th grade at my middle school, my grandmother's senior center and my cousin's 7th grade class on Long Island. I loved hearing their questions and their expressions as I shared some of the realities of my daily life. While now it is tough to think about how just over a month ago I was back home spoiled in the land of milk and honey, I am so glad I took the time to go home and visit. But, there is no doubt, that it is great to be back in Moz. So it goes...

As part of Peace Corps Goal # 3 to improve the understanding of host country nationals on behalf of Americans, I have been participating in the World Wise Schools Program. When I was home, I presented to the 4th grade class at the Old Saybrook Middle School. 

One of the students trying on a capalana.

Some of the students watching videos the kids from CACHES made for them to watch. The kids from CACHES also sent a soccer ball made out of plastic bags to show the kids how they make soccer balls. 

Nutrition Training at Association Mozaic in Manjacaze, Gaza.

Evan, one of my fellow PCVs, who led the training, using some volunteers to explain the benefits of using compost in your garden.

My counterpart Paulo and I at the nutrition training. 

During one of the cooking demonstrations, Evan demonstrated how to use chaya, a more nutritious plant, to make traditional Mozambican dishes. 

All hands in. During the training, we worked together to make peanut butter.

We also made banana jam. Olivia, one of my PCV friends and some of the female counterparts working to mash the bananas for banana jam.