My name is Nitzka León I’m from San Juan, Puerto Rico (¡Isla del Encanto!). I’m currently a Community Health PCV in northern rural Mozambique. Life at site has been challenging, I won’t lie, but it has brought forth many lessons learned. When language is a barrier, for example, you learn different ways to try and express your ideas to others and understand theirs in return; this causes many laughs (from my community) and funny faces (mainly from me). Being a Health volunteer my main work is assisting activists at the hospital in regards to HIV, Malaria awareness and prevention, and health education in general. If everything works out as planned I’ll be assisting co-workers in promoting gender equality awareness to youth at my site via conferences and starting up a youth group that will be focused on gender equality, health awareness and youth empowerment.

1) What does feeling beautiful in Peace Corps mean to you?

Feeling beautiful in PC for me is trying to maintain my confidence in my ideals as a strong independent woman in a country where most women in rural areas are still expected to be mothers at a young age, or have to choose between having a family or an education, but can almost never have both. Holding on to your true self during service and while being immersed in a completely different culture is true beauty in Peace Corps for me.

2) What are some of the cultural beauty standards at your site? Do you find yourself trying to meet those standards?

At my site the beauty standards revolve around hair extensions or meche as it’s called here, chique capulana dresses and very bright lipstick. Most women will do their braids with hair extensions and with many varied styles. Capulanas are a type of sarong used by women here in Mozambique for pretty much every occasion. The fabrics are made with beautifully diverse designs and colors and it’s very normal and cheap to get dresses, shirts or pants made with them. Now bright colors are a very huge thing up in northern Mozambique, so naturally capulanas are bright and vibrant and make up certainly is too.

I do find myself making dresses and pants with these capulanas, I can safely say that most of my monthly perdiems when I first arrived to site were spent on these beautiful fabrics and I regret nothing! 😉

3) What are some beauty tricks you learned in Peace Corps?

Honestly I do the very minimum in regards to beauty tricks lol. Being here my face has broken out more so i definitely have to keep it cleaner, using moist wipes helps to not dry out my skin too much like soap does. I wash my hair way less here, I don’t have running water and where we normally get water is a bit far so I’d say I wash my hair maybe once a week but I don’t know why when hair is dirty it looks prettier.

4) Have you found it harder to meet American beauty standards or the standards at your site?

Trying to maintain the beauty standards I had when I was back in the US has definitely proven difficult. I used to wear mascara almost every day I stepped out of my house but now that isn’t even an option due to how sweaty and dirty I get in the day. I’ve grown fond and accustomed to how I look without make up but I still enjoy making myself up when I head out to the city. Even the beauty standards of my site have proven difficult at times, the heat just makes me want to be comfy all the time but now that winter is upon us maybe I’ll be trying a bit more.

5)What do you wish you could have told yourself before your service that you know now? 5)What do you wish you could have told yourself before your service that you know now?

I wish I could have told myself to bring comfier clothes and shoes! I brought too many office appropriate clothing, actually just too many clothes in general, and now see myself using the same clothes every week. Also I would have told myself to bring a hammock! It’s so useful when traveling and a much better option to sleeping on the floor!

Huge thank you to Nitzka for participating and if you or anyone you know would like to be a part of the series please shoot me an email! sjackson12@elmira.edu