In that moment, the way I saw it, I had a choice: I could either stand there frozen in fear forever and die in that room, or I could tighten up, kill the roach, and walk out of there a free woman who faced her irrational fears
What is the significance of institutions that give philanthropy with one hand and construct and perpetuate systematic poverty with the other?
Half of my FaceTime conversations here in Mozambique are spent waiting for the connection to improve and asking, “Can you hear me?”
Capulana is the term we use to refer to the beautifully patterned textiles found here in Mozambique. Colorful textiles like capulana are fairly popular on the African continent, varying in design and name.
Here’s to you, who are simultaneously the best of everything that I am, and everything I aspire to be someday. You were my first hero. You are my best friend.
All throughout April, people all over the world, including Peace Corps Volunteers like myself, worked to dissolve the misconceptions about the way malaria is transmitted. We did our best to help spread awareness and disperse information about the disease and how to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
I can’t imagine what my experience would be like if Mozambicans treated me the way we sometimes treat our visitors (and our own people) in the U.S. based on their names. While I get some noteworthy reactions about my name in this country, I can’t imagine it would ever cost me a position that I am perfectly qualified for or make me an outstanding target for the police or even inspire some rude or hateful stereotype.
I want to share with you my personal top 5 favorite things about Mozambique! Hopefully it will shine some positive light on my country of service and help reorient my soul back to its optimistic disposition.
But at the end of the day, none of it gave me the results I wanted… None of it could give me someone else’s body. And, ultimately, that’s what I wanted. I didn’t want the best, healthiest version of my own body, I wanted something that I perceived as “better” than what I was given.
Aside from feeling like a bag of Lays, lightly salted, I took last Monday as a learning opportunity. Much like my experiences with sexual harassment in Milange, I couldn’t expect for the norms in my community to change solely because they didn’t fit my expectations. This is just the way things go in Milange. My family and friends have all inquired as to why the students don’t show up. I don’t have a definitive answer for that, but after pondering it for a while now, I can honestly say that, if I were them, I probably wouldn’t either. Why? Because there’s no expectation that they will.
Michigan to Mozambique 