And just like that, 5 months go by! Yikes, where did the time go? I have been so intensely here that it has been hard to think about anything outside of this place. Life here, and especially work, has been my whole world these days. Tunnel vision. My non-Mozambique memories seem like other lifetimes. Really. It’s unsettling. I feel like I arrived at 22 years old last September like a typical Peace Corps Volunteer, and turned 30 last month.
Having written that, I see that returning to this blog will be very good for me. Time to take a big breath, step back, and reflect a little bit on the last half-year. I thought it’d be nice to start with this picture of me with these giraffes! That was a few months ago. A family of wild giraffes inhabiting a reserve about 40 km outside of Chimoio. So beautiful and so majestic. I was with a group of other PC Volunteers, and we all actually involuntarily cried out when we saw them, if you can believe such a thing. It always fills me with awe to see a big animal like this in its natural environment.
Having written that, I see that returning to this blog will be very good for me. Time to take a big breath, step back, and reflect a little bit on the last half-year. I thought it’d be nice to start with this picture of me with these giraffes! That was a few months ago. A family of wild giraffes inhabiting a reserve about 40 km outside of Chimoio. So beautiful and so majestic. I was with a group of other PC Volunteers, and we all actually involuntarily cried out when we saw them, if you can believe such a thing. It always fills me with awe to see a big animal like this in its natural environment.
So what have I been up to for the last half-year? I have been busy. Like, stupidly busy. The main culprit is the university where I work, UCM--Universidade Católica de Moçambique. Chimoio is home to UCM’s engineering branch campus, so the focus here is on the more technical disciplines—civil engineering and food chemistry may be the two cornerstone programs if you had to pick. That said, our Chimoio branch also offers degrees in things like business, law, and clinical psychology, so don’t ask me what that’s about.
As an education PC Volunteer, my main deal here in Mozambique (my “primary project”) is teaching. But already that’s where my experience departs from the norm. My enormous challenge/responsibility/opportunity is that this semester (which began in February of this year) is the first semester of the first year of our electrical engineering department’s existence. And the department is me. We have about 55 students so far, each paying a lot of money to attend this university, and they have chosen our brand-new electrical engineering major. I was a little shocked when I arrived in December of last year to learn that nobody had been hired to bring up the program that would be opening in 2 months, that the university was gambling pretty hard on their new foreign volunteer and his broken Portuguese. I probably would’ve been a lot more shocked to learn that the same is true over 6 months later, today.
But tudo bem, savvy readers will remember that this new electrical engineering department and the opportunity to be a professor of engineering is exactly what drew me here in the first place! It’s been a difficult semester, but still I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. I wanted the chance to make an impact and to work at something that matters, and here it is. I’ve had my butt kicked by jobs that I believe in and jobs that I don’t, and I can tell you which I prefer. What’s incredible about my post is that there seems to be an endless of amount of really great work to be done, and the only limit is the amount of time and energy I can put in. Such boundless opportunity, for me, has been a ruthless taskmaster. It is a pit into which I throw so much time, effort, and caring-about-things but can never seem to fill. And if that seems like a really negative way to describe my first 6 months here, well, it’s been a tough semester.
How do you create a university undergraduate program? I sort of panicked for a few weeks at the beginning, but eventually developed a strategy. I’ve been fumbling through it. There was a lot of trying to remember what my old college courses and labs were like. Any program needs a curriculum and professors, and hugely important for electrical engineering are labs and a ton of technical equipment. And these are the things that I’ve been worrying about since I arrived. An immense stroke of fortune is that UCM has money to put towards the program, and we’ve been making good use of that so far. Here’s a short summary for the main things:
Curriculum – It’s no small task to marry a strong electrical engineering program with relevance to the actual jobs in Mozambique and to the knowledge base of available professors. I’m still taking it one semester at a time!
Staff – When I first arrived, the university president asked me to head the department in the official role. But I felt and still feel that it would be better aligned with Peace Corps goals (and my goals) to have a Mozambican do this, with me assisting that person. The president was very understanding and we agreed that we would hire a department head. We eventually interviewed candidates for this job and tried hiring someone, but it didn’t work out; he wasn’t able to commit to full-time work and had to leave after a week. I’m still the only person on staff and have been doing more of the department head stuff than I’d like, but I’m extremely grateful that the physics professor and civil engineering department head have been helping out a lot. The hiring of a motivated and capable EE department head remains probably the single most important thing for my service here to have been a success.
Lab – I’m very excited about this! I’m posting the official “before” picture below. Early on I drew up a layout for the lab and I’ve been working with the local carpenter on the furniture (lab benches and such). We’re about 1/3 of the way there. UCM has an electrician on staff, who’s been great, and I’ve been working with him a lot too.
Equipment – This, more than anything, has been an insane undertaking. So many hours of research. I’ve ordered dozens and dozens of unique pieces of equipment/tools/material, in large quantities, from U.S. businesses and local where possible. It’s a start, and there is much, much more to go! See picture below.
But tudo bem, savvy readers will remember that this new electrical engineering department and the opportunity to be a professor of engineering is exactly what drew me here in the first place! It’s been a difficult semester, but still I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. I wanted the chance to make an impact and to work at something that matters, and here it is. I’ve had my butt kicked by jobs that I believe in and jobs that I don’t, and I can tell you which I prefer. What’s incredible about my post is that there seems to be an endless of amount of really great work to be done, and the only limit is the amount of time and energy I can put in. Such boundless opportunity, for me, has been a ruthless taskmaster. It is a pit into which I throw so much time, effort, and caring-about-things but can never seem to fill. And if that seems like a really negative way to describe my first 6 months here, well, it’s been a tough semester.
How do you create a university undergraduate program? I sort of panicked for a few weeks at the beginning, but eventually developed a strategy. I’ve been fumbling through it. There was a lot of trying to remember what my old college courses and labs were like. Any program needs a curriculum and professors, and hugely important for electrical engineering are labs and a ton of technical equipment. And these are the things that I’ve been worrying about since I arrived. An immense stroke of fortune is that UCM has money to put towards the program, and we’ve been making good use of that so far. Here’s a short summary for the main things:
Curriculum – It’s no small task to marry a strong electrical engineering program with relevance to the actual jobs in Mozambique and to the knowledge base of available professors. I’m still taking it one semester at a time!
Staff – When I first arrived, the university president asked me to head the department in the official role. But I felt and still feel that it would be better aligned with Peace Corps goals (and my goals) to have a Mozambican do this, with me assisting that person. The president was very understanding and we agreed that we would hire a department head. We eventually interviewed candidates for this job and tried hiring someone, but it didn’t work out; he wasn’t able to commit to full-time work and had to leave after a week. I’m still the only person on staff and have been doing more of the department head stuff than I’d like, but I’m extremely grateful that the physics professor and civil engineering department head have been helping out a lot. The hiring of a motivated and capable EE department head remains probably the single most important thing for my service here to have been a success.
Lab – I’m very excited about this! I’m posting the official “before” picture below. Early on I drew up a layout for the lab and I’ve been working with the local carpenter on the furniture (lab benches and such). We’re about 1/3 of the way there. UCM has an electrician on staff, who’s been great, and I’ve been working with him a lot too.
Equipment – This, more than anything, has been an insane undertaking. So many hours of research. I’ve ordered dozens and dozens of unique pieces of equipment/tools/material, in large quantities, from U.S. businesses and local where possible. It’s a start, and there is much, much more to go! See picture below.
Then there’s teaching. I began the semester slotted to cover the main EE course for semester 1, Introdução a Engenharia Eletrotécnica, plus teaching Inglês I for the engineering students. Several weeks in though, I discovered that two additional classes were in need of professors, and I began teaching those too--Inglês I for night students and something called Oficinas Gerais. It’s a long story, and I don’t have the heart to tell it. It was too much. None of these classes have curricula or textbooks, except for whatever the professor can get her hands on. This semester I made 18 MB of PowerPoint slides in Portuguese for Introdução a Engenharia Eletrotécnica, our class notes. I don’t have another semester like this one in me. It was way too much, and by the end I felt more defeated than accomplished. There is a lot going well at UCM, really a lot, but there are planning and scheduling challenges unlike anything I have ever seen.
I first tried this blog entry a week ago and just couldn’t do it. It’s been a hard semester, and not in a way that has felt very poignant or poetic or has made me feel like writing much. If what I wrote above sounds tempered and measured and like it’s coming from a place of proper perspective (I’m not even sure it sounds that way), that doesn’t reflect the way I was feeling last week or for most of the past few months either. My first draft came out pretty negative and I’ve since rewritten most of it. I don’t want to just rant or to elicit gasps at things that seem dysfunctional here through American eyes, of which there are plenty. There’s also so much that is normal and mundanely functional, and I will try to not overlook those too badly.
I’m missing everyone back home and overseas a lot. Big hugs from over here.
Here are those pictures of UCM:
I first tried this blog entry a week ago and just couldn’t do it. It’s been a hard semester, and not in a way that has felt very poignant or poetic or has made me feel like writing much. If what I wrote above sounds tempered and measured and like it’s coming from a place of proper perspective (I’m not even sure it sounds that way), that doesn’t reflect the way I was feeling last week or for most of the past few months either. My first draft came out pretty negative and I’ve since rewritten most of it. I don’t want to just rant or to elicit gasps at things that seem dysfunctional here through American eyes, of which there are plenty. There’s also so much that is normal and mundanely functional, and I will try to not overlook those too badly.
I’m missing everyone back home and overseas a lot. Big hugs from over here.
Here are those pictures of UCM:
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