My family in Namaacha (cha cha)

This is my Mozambican family I lived with for 2 months. I love them!!! We are sitting out on the veranda. 2 of the boys are my brothers, 2 boys are neighbors that were over all the time. The other lady is my grandma, who is also a seamstress. And the thumbs up sign is a way to greet people you know well here. LOVE IT!

These are my two little brothers, Isly and Ada. Isly is 3, Ada 7
I've never had brothers, so this was fun to have 2 little brothers, and they love pictures!
They also love to dance like Micheal Jackson...and to dance in general.

And that is my mom. And those are the chickens we at that night....

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay....

20 Oct. 2010

Okay or O que? I never realized how much I use the English word “okay” until now where when I say okay, they think I’m saying “o que?” Imagine walking around the US and responding with “what” for so many things!

“Here’s the broom.” “What.”

“You can eat the banana.” “What”

“Would you like some tea?” “What.”

“It’s time to take a bath.” “What.”

I can only imagine what my family is thinking: “Does she not understand anything?” “Her Portuguese sucks and it’s been 5 weeks here!” “Americans must not know anything!” “Where is her common sense?”

Onto my actual learning and using of Portuguese…it is coming along. As time goes by, I’m able to have more actual conversations with my family besides for the, “Good day. How are you? I’m good, thanks.” We’ve talked about some differences and similarities between Mozambique and America, about AIDS (some), theft (in Mozambique and in America), what we are scared of (me= big spiders, mama= frogs), about my family at home some, that I don’t want kids of my own (they have a difficult time understanding this concept…but we laugh every time they bring it up), and what I’m going to do after these 2 years. They are definitely patient and that helps a lot because they’ll repeat many times or explain something in a new way.

I have definitely made them laugh heartily because of something I have said or done in regards to language. I still don’t really know why on some, but I will laugh with them also. Sometimes I realize it right after I said it…For instance, I call my mom here mama, which is the endearing term to call your mom here. But, the word for boob is mama (accent on the first syllable). It’s hard to be sure to say mom versus boob…

Also, coco (accent on first syllable) is coconut and coco (accent on second syllable) is poop. But make sure you don’t say you like to eat poop!

The Wedding Dancer: A Mozambican Wedding

16 Oct. 2010

“Here comes the bride…all dressed in…” red

Weddings, obviously can differ from country to country, culture to culture, religions to religions. Differences in what is work, what the women do, what the men do, the dancing, the presents, the cake, etc. Within a country, weddings can differ. Just look at the USA. A wedding in the south differs from a wedding in the west. And even more differences occur from religion to religion. My idea of a good wedding: a mix of all the best things from all the different weddings. Of course, me plus a wedding means I have to get married. Remember, we are talking about me, Mandy Nurrenbern.

Anyways, the answer to your unspoken (or spoken for all I know) question is yes, I did go to a Mozambican traditional wedding, and yes, I am going to talk about it here.

I asked my mama here what I should wear and she told me just pants and a t-shirt, no big deal. And, of course, she was right. But at the wedding/ceremony (all really one thing) we (the women) received capulani’s (surangs) that we wore over our pants. They make an outfit bonita (pretty).

I’m not going to lie, it definitely started off slow. I sat in a lawn chair in the yard under the shade. As the sun moved throughout the day, we moved throughout the day to stay under the shade. The bride and groom at this point were in a room with their parents , eating and probably saying the “I do’s”. At one point, they walked out together and marched around the guests and got pictures taken. (Pictures are serious…no smiling). During this time there was a lot of chanting and dancing around the bride and groom Chanting was out of the question for me since my language skills are low, but I did pick up the dancing…

Dancing is definitely a big thing as the day/night went on. There was some dancing I knew and some Mozambican style, but it’s too hard to describe here. I did love that the women coule dance and did dance versus the traditional Indian wedding where the women didn’t dance. They were amazed I could get low with the rest of them!

The wedding gifts are individually given to the bride (and groom). We did small dance steps with a chant as we went up and presented a gift each to the bride. The gifts were all very practical to life here in Mozambique. Cups, a tray, fleece blankets, a couple of capulani’s, a pilao (giant mortar and pestel thing), etc. After presenting the gifts, we got in a circle and one person would go in the middle and dance to the chant and then go out and someone new would go in. Surprisingly, I did not go in the middle… Why? Maybe it was the intimidation of the Portuguese.

The wedding cake: It was a 10 tiered cake, huge, tons of sweet icing, 2 dolls on top representing bride and groom…NO! It was simple, nice, easy. It was a small cake with simple icing. Not everyone at the wedding received a piece of cake because of the size, but everyone did receive a bite of cake. They cut the cake into bite size pieces and put in a bowl. The bride and groom walk around with the bowl and we grab a bite of cake. Simple, nice, easy.

I did get my camera out and it was a hit. Why? Because it’s a digital and the picture is seen right after the picture is taken. They wanted a dancing picture; they wanted me to sit at the DJ chair, hold a CD case and get a picture (with the kids surrounding me). I think this will be a good reminder to me to take pictures! J

A little side not here: I saw 2 men chase down one of the goats around. Not too much after that, I saw that same goat hanging by it’s feet from a tree being skinned by the 2 men. Then for dinner, I had goat.

The End.

PS – My style of dancing fits in with Mozambique better than in the US. Another sign this my place to be…Africa…my motherland….:)

Tomar Banho

6 Oct 2010

“Rubber Ducky, you’re the one. You make bath time just so fun!”

How many baths do you take in one day? (Normally) How many baths do you think Mozambicans take? I go from living in the woods in Montana getting a shower once every 2 weeks to living in Mozambique where I take 2 baths every day. My family here would prefer I take 3…

No, it’s not just me and that I stink! (I would hope I’m not that bad) The culture here is to take a bath before each meal. And yes, it’s a bath… a bucket bath. No running water. You put water in a basin, use a can or pitcher and dump the water on yourself. Then you soap up and rinse off. I actually only took one bath this past Sunday, and I felt like something was wrong… J

So, when I say no running water, I mean no running water for the toilet, shower, sink, kitchen…for nothing. Every other day we go fetch water from nearby. We have 2 water drums in our house, one in the kitchen and on in the bathroom. It’s pretty easy to get used to. The toilet is a manual flush at my house. By manual, I mean you put a good amount of water in a bucket, you take that water and you dump the water in the toilet and it flushes. Might have to do it a couple times for the major ones…J

I guess it’s time to talk about my house and family and what I’m actually doing right now here in Mozambique besides for bathing. Until the first of December, I am in training staying with a host family in Namaacha (just outside of Maputo). It’s a really cute house and a great family. The house is made of stones and cement and reminds me of Bedrock. (No, I do not live with the Flintstones). Our kitchen is incredibly small; it has a propane stove and a couple basins to do the dishes. It barely fits my mama and I. In the backyard we have a garden, and we have a veranda in the front. I have 2 brothers here. Ada, who is 7, and Isly, who is 3. My papa is only home about once a month because he actually teaches English in another city. (I’ll explain how the education thing works on a later date.) My papa is actually 19 days younger than me… but I still call him papa… My mama is 29 and really pretty. Oh yeah, my papa is tall…taller than me. J I have an avo (grandma) that lives with us also. She is my papa’s mother. I feel bad because I get a room to myself and all of them share one room… a requirement made by Peace Corps to the families when the families were interviewed and chosen to host us.

During these 10 weeks, I am learning Portuguese… lots and lots of Portuguese. Here’s an awkward story of mine: So, Peace Corps brought us up to Namaacha on a Saturday morning, but our first class wasn’t until Monday. That means we all spent the whole weekend with a family we just met and they don’t speak English and I don’t speak Portuguese. Charades is a fun game… J

It’s been awesome to have kids at my house. And they love to dance! And they love to see me try to dance the Mozambican style. Every time I come home, Isly yells for me, “Mana Amanda. Mana Amanda!” (which means Big Sister Amanda). Ada one day was dancing in the house and kind of making the music noises for “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson. I got my Ipod out and my little speakers and played the song. His eyes lit up and for the next hour, Ada and Isly danced like Michael Jackson, with the whole crotch grab and everything (you’ll have to see the video… Isly’s crotch grab include grabbing the top of his pant and just pulling them up!) J

Life in Mozambique has definitely been fun. There are a lot of different norms, but I feel good here. Portuguese is coming along…slowly. I’ve actually had some deeper conversations with my family here. They don’t quite understand why I don’t want kids or my own and that being an aunt is great… J My mama continues to say “when you have kids…”blah blah blah

Overall, I’m loving it so far. I’m soaking everything in, the sun, the people, the experience.

I can't compare the two different crews from session 1 to session 2. They were both great in their own way. This session we started off with 3 girls and 3 boys, but then by week 2 we had 2 girls and 2 boys. Perhaps this shows the character of the leaders? We lost 2 people each session... This time it was medical reasons, though. Phew! I don't like to think I'm that terrible! So, our first week was on the Whitefish Divide Trail and we had a really cool thing happen to us. One day we were coming off the trail at the trailhead and this big white van was slowly coming towards us and then stopped. This old man was slowly getting out of the vehicle, and in my head, I was like, "What in the world is going on here?" So, I step up towards him. (I guess I was hoping he didn't mean any harm, but I made sure to put myself between him and the kids...) Anyways, he seemed to have a difficult time speaking, but he wanted to thank us so much for the work that we do on the trails and that it really means so much to so many people. He is a helper for this 71 year old man who is walking through (a total of like 2000 miles), and that man was staying near the trailhead that night. His kind regards and story of this 71 year old man was such a motivator for the youth (and for me), it was amazing and felt so good to hear. Well, then we went to the lake and hung out there for a bit. On our way back, we stopped at the old man's campsite, and I got out to ask him if we could all meet him. I told them how much the kids were admiring him. He said sure. We all got out, made a semi-circle around him, and he got out his little digital camera and had us introduce ourselves on the camera for him. Then he went on talking. He was a talker, that's for sure. Anyways, he went on talking about books and hiking and such, and it made me question, "Who is this guy?" He never actually introduced himself to us. So, of course, I then ask him. His trail name is Nimblewill Nomad and his real name is MJ Eberhart. He is an author of several books about hiking through hikes and such. You could tell he had a true love for nature and wanted to share it with others. I wish I had the group photo of him. I meant to get it from Jack, who happened to be with us that day (a staffer), but I left Montana pretty quick after getting out of the woods. If you put MJ Eberhart into Google, you'll find his site and such. Pretty sweet. This crew had such a cool dynamic about it. In the picture above is Julian. Julian is a beaner (spelling?). Don't worry, this is what he calls himself ALL the time. He is one of the funniest kids I have ever met. He found a sports bra in the rig when we were hanging in there out of the million mosquitoes and rain. That smile with the thumbs up is his signature pose. As a joke, him and Quinn were 'married' or 'getting married'. Zach was the son, Michelle was Quinn's sister, and Nick was the annoying cousin. Ahmad was Julian's father because they both have darker skin. And I was Quinn's mother. Each one of the youth had a different personality and it all seemed to work real well with each other. The work this week included a lot of brushing and retreading the trail so that it could actually be used. There was one real big tree in the way, so we got the 2 handled crosscut and conquered that tree! In the picture is Nick and Zach. We three had stayed behind and tag-teamed/rotated through to get it done. Watch the sweet video of the two boys kicking it at the last bit. Their enthusiasm is so real in the beginning....haha

Here is Zach. He always had a smile it seemed. He was the 'son' of the 'family.' And ended up 'going to college' on the 3rd work of week out there. Quinn, the oldest youth of the crew. I felt like she was another leader with us. She knew when to be goofy and silly and when to be serious and do the work. She was awesome to have with us the whole time. She was also the 'mother and wife' of the 'family'. Nick, the 'annoying cousin' in the family. He knew his stuff outside. He started off as our Mountain Man, but we met a true Mountain Man during the 3rd week down in the Swans, so he became our Mountain Lad. Still pretty awesome! Julian, the crazy kid who could make anybody laugh. He was the 'husband' and 'father' in the family. He definitely brought something to our crew that was unforgettable.

WEEK 2: Swan Crest 100 We brushed part of the trail that was used for this 100 mile running race. People who can run 100 miles consecutively are crazy in my opinion... :) Perhaps I'll run one one day. :) Instead of being constantly surrounded by a million mosquitoes this week, we had flies. Oh, boy. Got to love the flies!!! :) It was a pretty good week this week. It had it's up and downs. One thing this crew is also great at, just like in the first crew also, we love playing Ninja! Quinn even added more to this Ninja...using our feet, so it's elimination by 4! That was crazy!

To get to our site, we got to drive over the Hungry Horse Dam, so "I'll be damned" if we wouldn't stop and get some awesome photos. Last time I was here, it was all damn snow and ice. (which actually was pretty also) :) So, this was our crew for most of the time. From left to right, Zach, Quinn, Ahmad, Julian, Michelle, Nick.

So, one of the reasons I love working with youth is their imagination. Well, also their energy and enthusiasm. As we grow old, sometimes we lose this. I try to fight it every day, but I don't know how well I'm doing when I see youth at work. :) Anyways, there was this pipe that went under the road to allow the creek to continue at our campsite. So, on our day of not working, Julian and Nick decide they want to crawl through it. Fine by me. Here is Julian going through. My favorite part though is the exit. And this was all Quinn's idea. She sat on the other side on top of the pipe. She sat and pretended she was giving birth... But the best picture is when she couldn't control her laughter. Quinn's laugh was totally contagious!

As you can tell, I was much better about taking pictures during the second session. I should have taken more during the first, but I'm not good at remembering that stuff. Along our path that we brushed, we had to cross a creek 3 times, which was actually great because the water helped cool us down. The logistics of crossing the creeks with our tools and without getting our feet wet was sometimes a bit difficult though. The trail started off real wide and it definitely did not seem like we were going to have much work for the week. Low and behold, about a mile into the trail, it thinned out and needed a lot of brushing. The race started on Friday morning at 7. Our campsite was mile marker/rest stop mile 52.

We got to work the spot...which means we worked from 6 pm to 3 am serving ramen and mashed potatoes, grilled cheese, Dr. Pepper and Coke, coffee, etc. I think mile 52 was everybody's favorite spot. Apparently, we were some good entertainment. :) Staying up to 3 in the morning proved to be rather difficult. Our youth obviously didn't drink, but Quinn sure was acting slap happy by that time in the morning!

I'll just post the rest of the pics from that week. Pictures will be my words here.

Our jumping fest of pics. Pretty sweet off the rock. We stopped here during work because we needed to pump some more water into our bottles.

I guess this is what happens when you don't have toilets in the woods...you just go in your pants!

Running part of the race to see what it was like...And yes, Nick is running with no pants on and his jacket tied around his waist... They went about a mile or so.

The boys brought a whole new meaning to Naked Thursdays... It was meant you were naked in your tent in your sleeping bag when we all went to bed...not really where they get naked as soon as we get back from the worksite and hop around in their sleeping bags...No big deal.. :)

WEEK 3: Swan Range/Oxbow Trail (with Dale, the Mountain Man)

Work this week consisted mostly of building boardwalks which was pretty cool. We were working in a wetlands type spot so the ground would normally be pretty muddy during the wet season. Dale was the contractor we actually got to work with and he was great. Pretty quiet, but overall, pretty fun to work with him. Supposedly we needed waders. The only time we used them was during recreation hours, when Nick and Julian decided they could cross the creek and fish in this fishing hole they saw. After 2 attempts in the waders, they gave up on it. Instead, everyday after work, we got in our swimsuits and sat in the water and floated down to our site. The water was a bit cold, but it felt so good and relaxing!

Julian was most definitely the clown of our group. This stuff is called Old Man's Beard...and justly so, just look at Julian...:)

We had to build boardwalks in different spots along this 3 mile trail, which meant we had to lug the material to every spot we needed a boardwalk built. This was not an easy task, but we did it. We carried something like 92 planks and 10 4 by 4's (8 ft long) a half mile to a mile up the trail. And we did it again for another boardwalk in another location. It really felt like an accomplishment when we got them done, though. Oh, and Dale loved to make cookies. No, we didn't have an oven, but he had a chainsaw! He would chainsaw a chunk of the tree and we would use them like stepping stones in muddy areas. It almost made me hungry every time he mentioned cookies, though... :)















































I was really proud of myself in getting this root all by myself. It was a deep and big root. I had to ax and ax and ax at it for a while, but I finally got it up and out of the way so the boardwalk could be built there. It was a stump anyways, so don't worry, I didn't kill a tree!

The end of the work week. We had a scare with Julian and had to run him to the emergency room that Thursday night and he stayed the night there. For his sake, we all did his signature smile with the thumbs up. Of course, Dale didn't do it...We did tell Dale that Julian loved him (cause Julian told all our sponsors that), and Dale just laughed and said he hoped he would start feeling better. Then he said "That little turd, he worked real hard." Julian is now known as the little turd.

Julian and Quinn's 'wedding' was suppose to be that Thursday evening, but because of his stomach getting cramped up so much (perhaps it really just was the wedding jitters), they did not have the wedding yet. We had to drive to where we could get cell phone reception to find out if he was coming back. It happened to be a real pretty lookout area where we thought we would have the wedding anyways. So what do we do? We have a wedding between Quinn and Julian...just Julian wasn't there. These are all the wedding photos!

Quinn and Julian's first dance! Amazing. It was such a touching moment!

Quinn's throwing her bouquet! Who is going to catch it??

And it's up in the air!
MICHELLE!! She'll be the next one married!! :)
So we still weren't sure if Julian was going to be able to come back with us for the last week or not. We all wanted him back, but it was all up to the doctors. When we left the hospital the night before, the doctors still weren't sure what was wrong with him. But, when we found out that we were going to pick him up on Saturday, we were ecstatic! As you can tell by the joyous jump of Michelle and Quinn!

WEEK 4: Native Plant Society in Glacier National Park, Seed Collection

We stayed in West Glacier, but saw all of Glacier this week. Our first day we went to Polebridge. The next 3 days after that we went to East Glacier (St. Mary's, Many Glacier, Two Medicine). They would show us what we needed to collect and we would wonder through the prairies and collect the seed. (I hope I didn't get any of them mixed up!) It was a very relaxing last week, but a good one. We got to even drive through Logan's Pass which is an amazing drive!

Some days can be hard to work, but when you look up and see your office that looks like this, you can't help but love it! I'm sure I have said it before, but Many Glacier is my favorite part of Glacier National Park and East Glacier (where Many Glacier lies) is my favorite area. The beauty of it is much like the south island of New Zealand.

The job this week did require a lot of driving, so I can't blame the 'couple' at sleeping in the car. But don't they look so cute resting on each other? :)










It's really hard to capture the actual look of Logan's Pass. If you make it to Glacier, drive this, but ALSO hike some trails. The majority of people who go into glacier don't hardly get out of the car. They just drive this pass. Which I guess is good at the same time. Less tramping on the ground, so less of a trace left behind...



There are many lights for one way streets on the pass because it's on a mountain side and the snow is still even present. Logan's Pass doesn't have a long open season. So, I took advantage of the standstills. And, yes, those are dreads on my head.


Glacier National Park runs into Canada also and is known as a Peace Park. This table at the visitor's center was wanting people to sign this petition to add this corner that's in Canada to the Peace park. It made complete sense to us. So, we signed and then got our pictures with their motto. Complete it. Connect It. Protect It.


Our hip bags, orange vests, and scissors in our pockets. These were our tools all week. We were going to pick seeds in this spot up the hill a bit, but apparently, there was a bear siting and we had to change our plans for the time being... Those bears!


























Pictures always get better when there is a person in them. ESPECIALLY when it's me in them!

This is in Many Glacier. There was a grizzly siting here on this day, so I finally got to see a grizzly bear! (from a distance)

The other youth crew happened to be working in Many Glacier that week and we ran into them. So, we had lunch together. That was pretty neat to run into them again. Our crews really got along with each other. One weekend we all hung out and played rugby tag and Ninja. Good times.

On our way to the 'surprise' (buying them ice cream) we say a black bear in the woods. It didn't really care that we were there. There were a lot of people watching it. I think it was a local bear to the camp area in Agpar (West Glacier campground).

Skipping rocks on Lake McDonald, synchronized style. (Julian and Nick)

Overall, this was a great summer and I'm going to miss being out in Glacier and all the gorgeous places in Montana, but now it's on to my next adventure, MOZAMBIQUE!!!!