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

wow I can't believe that it is already the middle of february! it feels like i just got back from my vacation with my family. Last weekend was a very fun weekend!
It started with an intergroup exchange between my and Erin's (my new site mate) group and scooter's group. We had about 20 girls at my house for the entire day and even had 7 sleepover. It was so much fun to have a group of Mozambican girls just hanging out and having fun for the entire day. Normally they have so many chores that i think it was a nice change for them. We started the day with a brainstorming session of questions to ask my counterpart (who never showed up). She was going to come and talk about her life as she is a great role model. she is 27 only has 2 children (2 girls) and doesn't want more, a nurse in the hospital, and she just returned to night school for 11th grade. I thought she would be a great woman to come and explain why she has chosen the path in life that she has. It also would have been great because she has returned to school after so many years out of it because she wanted to further her education and possibly become a doctor. it was disappointing that she didn't show up for both me and the girls.
we played a lot of fun games including:
-frisbee
-my neighbors (where you say something true about yourself and then everyone who it applies to has to switch spots and the last person standing has to come up with the new fact)
-American football
-my best qualities bracelets (say a quality and choose a bead and end up making a bracelet comprised of all the girls best qualities)
-They learned to make earrings which we will sell and teach the girls income generation

Scooter, Erin and I made them Chicken Parmesan for lunch with a cabbage salad and made them cheeseburgers for dinner. it was fun to be able to have the girls try foods that we talk about to really have them learn a little bit more about america. Throughout the day the girls also just hung out at my house and looked through all of the magazines i have acquired since being here. to end the night we showed the girls harry potter in Portuguese and for the girls that spent the night the little mermaid. All in all the day was so much fun even with the things that did not go exactly as planed.

On Sunday I went up to Massinga and met up with a lot of PCV's to watch the superbowl. It started at 1am and ended aroun 5-5:30. It was such a fun night to do something very American and to be able to watch the game. The game was shown at a gas station so that was also quite an experience for them to have the store taken over by maybe 20+ americans. I was so
exhausted from our exchange that during the game I actually ended up taking a nap on the floor...all in all it was quite an amazing experience!

Family Visit

My trip with my family was amazing! They came to Mozambique and I met them in Maputo. It was so nice to have the entire family come to see Mozambique. Now when I talk to them they know who and what I’m talking about. We only had 4 days in Mozambique so it was a quick trip but it was so much fun. They got to meet all of my colleagues at the hospital as well as the peer educators I work with. I spent my birthday at my favorite beach (Tsene) and it was a nice relaxing day.

After Mozambique we flew to South Africa and did a safari for 3 days. It was amazing! We saw 4 out of the big 5 which included seeing lions and leopards every game drive. We didn’t see the water buffalo because there are none in the area where we were. We finished our trip in Cape Town and it was amazing! Cape Town is such a beautiful city and had so much to do. We also went to the cape of Good Hope so now I only need to go to the Cape of Horn. I can’t wait to plan a trip back! I put pictures up on facebook of our trip if you would like to see any of the places.

I got back to site on the 13th and have just been trying to make a plan for this year. As I was planning it was crazy to think that I only have a year left…not even. I think I’ll finish my service in November and then travel around and be home before Christmas. I’m starting to think of a big trip home…maybe even circumnavigating the globe which will be fun to plan.

party!

On Saturday November 27, Emma had her despidida party. She invited all of her colleagues to her house for the occasion. On Saturday Scooter and I went and helped out from bringing the tables and chairs from the school to getting water (and getting into a water fight) to cutting all the potatoes for the fries. We cut them quite small so they would cook like American fries. (Here they have fries all the time however they are cut so thick and are not crispy at all…). There were PCV’s from the area that came as well as our big surprise of two of our good friends from Gaza and Maputo provinces. Scooter and I actually kept it a secret the entire time and it was so much fun to see Emma’s reaction when she saw them!
The party was a mix between Mozambican and American styles. Emma’s colleagues gave her capulanas and put them around her then lifted her in a chair. It was really nice to see and they all sang while this was happening. The food was amazing! Everyone stayed and danced for the night. It was a great way to send off Emma after 2 great years of service!

Thanksgiving

Last week I gave 3 trainings on malaria. They were great in every place and it’s interesting to see the different groups of peer educators. I’m so used to working with my group that it’s nice to work with other groups that do not have a volunteer to work with all the time. Now if you have any questions on malaria I’m kind of an expert!!! I like being able to enable these peer educators to take this information to their zones and explain all about malaria. The best way and really only way to fix this problem is to educate the people. It still amazes me so many people don’t know the specifics of malaria considering it is a major disease. The problem here is that there is such a push for HIV/AIDS education that the rest of the major diseases don’t get as stressed and then people start lumping all the diseases with HIV. It’s been a great experience for me to give these trainings and I’ve loved doing them!

Last weekend I went to a beach called Bilene and met a lot of the new trainees including the girl that is coming to live in Inharrime! Her name is Erin and is so nice. I’m excited for her to come! The beach was at a lagoon, which was a nice change from the ocean. That was the first beach trip in awhile so it was nice to get away.

I spent Thanksgiving in Inharrime with my 2 site mates Emma and Scooter. We made a huge feast Mozambican style! We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, ratatouille, ramen (which we made from scratch), a salad, cinnamon bread and apple crisp. Everything was so good and it was really nice to have people to spend the holiday with. We watched Blind Side so we even got our football fix! All in all it was a great day! We ate so much that I’m still full!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!!
love,
ann

the bush

so yesterday i decided to go with some co-workers into the bush. this week is national week of health (for the bush) where techs, nurses and volunteers go to places to give vaccines to people that would otherwise not be able to get them. They do this throughout the year for different populations (pregnant women, children, etc) and yesterday we worked with children. we had 3 different teams that worked in different areas. I worked with one of my favorite co-workers Emidillo who is in charge of preventative medicine.

After we dropped the other teams off we set up at a site at a local primary school. We first gave a "lecture" about different health issues and what medicines we would be giving them. we talked a fair amount about safe sex and what can happen when you don't use a condom...pregnancy, hiv/aids, std's, etc. after that i introduced myself in the local language which they loved! it seems my few phrases are paying off! after my introduction we asked if any of the kids had any questions. one little boy asked how old i was and i told him to guess...he guessed 40! i'm closer to 10 than i am to 40! most times here people guess i'm older because of my height. when i told them i was only 24 they didn't believe it and they all laughed! Emidillo then used me as an example saying that i am a 24 year old woman who has a university degree and no children. He said that you can make the choice and maybe someday have the chance go and travel and learn. It was nice to hear the same message i've been saying from a Mozambican.

After the primary school we went to many of the other villages in the area to check on the different health centers and posts. It turns out that one of my co-workers was transfered to one of the one's we visited. It was really nice to see him again and it was nice to see how excited he was to show me around the new health center. It was really cool to visit all of these places that i talk about everyday but had no real idea where they were and how far away. I pretty much went around my entire district yesterday which was really cool to see. I had a great time with my co-workers and cannot wait to go out to the "mato" again!
love,
ann

“Wait they have hail here?”

So this weekend when I was hanging out with my site mates Emma and Scooter I noticed these red bumps on my body that started itching. At first I just thought that they were just bug bites but they kept popping up and then we noticed that Scooter had the same bumps. When we called the Peace Corps Medical Office (PCMO) they said that we needed to come to Maputo so they could figure out what we have. It kind of looked like chicken pox but we both have had them. We got into Maputo on Sunday and went straight to the clinic to get blood drawn.
On Monday we found out that we have tick fever. We think we got it from the cutest puppies when we were at the beach a few weekends ago. We’re fine just having some fevers and the bumps are starting to go away. We’re happy that it’s not contagious because we can go out in Maputo and enjoy all the perks of being here such as great restaurants and shopping.
While we were sitting at the Peace Corps office using internet and just getting things done that we can’t do at site it started hailing. The hail was the size of nickels. We didn’t know that it could hail here so we were quite confused. It was an interesting end to the day.