A Proud Moment for Zachariah

Zach's dad, Jordan and Zach

We have written some in our blog about Zachariah and his job search in Tete city. It has been an on-going saga since he graduated from twelfth grade in an English medium high school in neighboring Malawi. It’s hard to get jobs in this country without connections. But, his persistence paid off. Zach is now an office man for a construction company down in booming Moatize. He claims it is a lowly job, but any type of paid employment is an achievement here in Southern Africa, where official unemployment rates aren’t even measured. He does a lot of typing on the computer, which vindicates our seemingly endless hours maintaining the lab and running community computer courses, Zach being one of our graduates from earlier this year. His salary is just under $100 a month, about half as much as we make as teachers. There are a lot of demands on that income since he has a large extended family back in his home village relying on him. Zach has not forgotten the contribution Peace Corps has made to his social promotion, having learned English from three generations of volunteers in Mozambique, and then receiving sponsorship for his school fees in Malawi from Angelina, the volunteer we replaced, and living his final school year with Jordan, our PC buddy in Malawi. In gratitude he invited Jordan and us to his village to meet all of his family. We had been already several times, but it meant so much to Zach to finally have Jordan there. He made a special meal with ocean fish he bought frozen in the market. We took lots of pictures and toured the village. We even got to meet his girlfriend, Elita, a young woman from a nearby village who has also finished high school. He says they will marry next year when he has saved some cash and built a house and he also says they will spend lots of time reading together since she is educated like him. Zach’s father was so gracious and instead of emphasizing how much help Zach needed, like on each of our previous visits, he just recognized how much Zach had accomplished with help from all his many “white teachers.” It was a special afternoon for everyone, one of those moments when a lot of things come together and being a Peace Corps Volunteer feels so satisfying and worthwhile. Our next goal is to teach Zach how to use email so we can stay in touch with him next year.