april

As I’m sitting here with my luke-warm hot chocolate, the cold weather has finally come to Mozambique. The wind has been blowing for a few days now and I think that my fence is not going to with stand it. Around this time last year is when my fence and papaya tree were ripped out of the ground. The energy is out due to the weather so I’m sitting outside trying to use the last light of the day.

My job has been going very well recently. I finally have work to do!..although it might be too much! My work with my big NGO has slowed down a little due to a problem in New York but hopefully that will be taken care of soon as I had a lot planned. I’ve been working with associations in my community and I’m really excited to be starting these partnerships. They have so many ideas and really like having me there. I’ve also started income generation projects with all the organizations I work with (or have at least talked about it) so they will be ok after all the aid money has left. I was also just accepted to do an activista exchange and medicinal plant training at the end of May. I’m really excited to learn about the medicinal plants of Mozambique and I think that this training will really help the organizations that I work with.

I started working with a theater group of about 10 kids who are really excited to be a part of it. I have a counterpart who is really excited to start work and is constantly coming to me with all of his ideas. I actually need to tell him to slow down…
My all girls group is in the process of reorganizing right now because of many different reasons but hopefully soon the group will be meeting every week. At least this year I have a Mozambican counterpart that is so excited for the group so I won’t be the only driving force with it! We actually had a big event on April 7 (Mozambican Women’s day) to celebrate being a woman. We had the 2 groups from Inharrime present (mine had 12 so we’re getting there) and had invited strong women from the community as well as welcomed all the women that had wanted to come. In Inharrime we have a woman Police chief, a woman Doctor and a woman Prosecutor which is unheard of. All three women came prepared and gave wonderful speeches (I was even surprised by the things I learned). The girls were animated and asked some great questions and you could tell everyone had a great time. I even had 4 colleagues come and participate.

For the weekend of April 1st, we went to tsene to celebrate Erin’s birthday. On Friday we pulled a prank on her (her first ever) by making a wall of duct tape and adding fishing line so she really couldn’t get out. The beach was a well needed break and even included a mud bath! It was a wonderful weekend with great company.
It feels like time is flying by and I can’t believe that I’ve been here for 18 months.

Love,
Ann