During the week, classes run from about 8:00 to 16:30 with an hour break around noon for lunch. I attend generally three types of classes: language, cross-cultural, and technical.
We hold language classes in a different house every week. This week, we held classes around the dining room table at my house. R made us samosas and cookies that taste like lemon-flavored biscuits.
In technical classes, which are in Portuguese, I spend time with current volunteers who leave their sites to visit and share their experiences with trainees, and attend presentations on the Mozambican school system and teaching technique.
In both technical and language classes, I've given lessons on various topics: the material cycle and energy flux of an ecosystem, polinization and seed distribution, and nutrition. Giving these lessons, my understanding of Portuguese has improved by leaps and bounds. I spend time now before bed reading Portuguese biology textbooks (the ones I will eventually use in class) and sometimes writing notes that R corrects for grammar. When I give presentations, they are watched by my Mozambican professors who critique my speech.
After class, I spend most of my time at home with R and Jo – that is where I learn the most Portuguese. I study the books PC provides: Essential Portuguese Grammar, 501 Portuguese Verbs, and a Portuguese phrase book and dictionary. R and I cook dinner some evenings, often spaghetti noodles with vegetables and curry powder, eggs with french fries, or rice or xima (corn flour beat into what looks and tastes like Malt-O-Meal but keeps its form – it is pronounced 'she-mah') with couve or some other sauce.
We planted rows of corn and pumpkin in the backyard, nearly to the house, and put the chickens in a coup so that they don't eat the seeds. One afternoon last week, I showed R how to roast pumpkin seeds. She'd never heard of doing something like this, but I told her that where I live, this is what we do.
