So much time has passed im not sure where to begin. I think the last time I wrote was in December. I spent all of that month being truly the only branca in Mec. Jamie, my sitemate, was gone for 6 weeks on a trip to India. I spent Christmas and New years hanging out with the fine folks of Mecanhelas. There was no work for nearly half the month of December and basically the whole month of January. Trying to get things going again was a real struggle. My english classes are still quite weak. But luckily my counterparts at AJADC have been really motivated to get an income generating project started (a bakery!!). We spent about a month and a half organizing all of our financial information and clarifying our organization's project history. Eventually we created a project and started writing a proposal which we brought to the peace corps PDM (Project Design and Management) conference in Nampula . My org sent out the proposal to the US embassy this past Monday. Hopefully we will recieve the reward. Fingers Crossed!


Highlights/Lowlights from the last (???) months:
1.Spent Thanksgiving in Lishinga with Jamie and some other volunteers

2. Being in Mec for Christmas and New Years- I celebrated like a mozambicana and It was perfect.
3. Traveling to Malawi with Uccene and Fernando- one of the bigger highlights of my pc expereince. It was a real adventure: we took a train, learned how to spend kwatcha, swam in lake malawi and saw a bunch of other white people! We also learned how hard it is to get back to Mozambique from Malawi :(
4. Received 6 packages from loved ones back home. Here's looking at you Mom,dad,briana,kelly,courtney,Natalie,Chelsea &Emily.The gifts you all sent didn't just mean a lot to me but to the people I live with here since I always like sharing a little bit of home with them as well. It was fabulous.
5. Learned the basics of designing a small health project on the US govt's dime.
6. Got almost robbed in Nampula during my conference.
7. Slapped the mutherfucker who tried to rob me.
8. Got slapped back :(

OK pics go!

Xmas party

New Years Dinner

U and F in Malawi!

Lake Malawi

Reconnect(ing) & Gifts from Home

I've been back from my reconnect conference for a week and a half now. Not feeling super inspired to chat about the trip but generally it was fine. It could have been half as long but seeing my group was really nice and that made it worth it. I also recieved a package from my parents which I sadly had to figure out how to get all the way back to Mec. Shout out to the parents for sending me such great, albiet random stuff (canned ham & chicken anyone?) I had to buy another bag to haul it all back but, vale a pena baby. Contiuning with my update format: 1.Before I left for reconnect, AMIREMO had a huge TB palestra in Caronga. It was nice to attend and see how well things can turn out when they are organized and planned with care. I didnt contribute much except made a few hundred mozambicans laugh at my attempts to say thanks very much in Chichewa (yes, the language of Malawi,I might as well be PC Malawi). 1.2 Conference foi bom but I lost my phone in Maputo 2. Got back to site and found out someone found my phone and I might actually get it back! whhhaaat? tenho boa sorte mannnnignue baby 3. THings are still slow here but, I am so happy to be back, I had major saudades for Mecdaddy. Working on making a schedule for my water and sanitation activities this afternoon. Perhaps then I will know about events before they happen, rather than the day they happen. Vamos ver. 4. Learned that the problems with meds running out at our hospital actually have nothing to do with the mozambican government forgetting about our district, but rather the grand corruption of staff members stealing and selling it. UM,EYYAH< WHAT? 5.Still unresolved issues with having people come to my house, need to meet with my supervisor and Dono Cabichi soon to nip this pronto. 7. Planning on going back to Lichinga in a week for thanksgiving at the lake, I am not excited about this Chapa trip since I just barely did it, but at least this time I'll have friends #jamie & #victor and get to swim. IT is so mutherflogginghot here. 8. Gonna prolly spend NYE and Xmas in Mec- I'm not as sad about this as one might think. 9. Missed out on dia de latrina yesterday because I was doing home visits with my other organization. DAmnit, next year I am totally celebrating toilet day here. #thisisnotsarcasemthepartywashuge 10.Officially met the new Medico here and he seems nice. Going to attend my first TARV meeting with him tomorrow. Hopefully they will be better (and shorter) than the ones I attended with the last doctor Mec had- yes the same one who sold medicine from the hospital to apparently buy a car. I hope this is just bad fofoca but...something tells me nope. Following pics: Caronga Palestra, Mapoots with a view & Moz 20 Group saying bye to our PC Director Carl Swartz

lutas and prison palestras

Oct 2nd The first of October has come and gone and it appears as though the rainy season has begun, albeit a bit early. In less than 1 hour I could fill two large baldes(buckets) of water off my chapa roof. I expect our yard will be muddy for the next several months but i’ll take mud over no food in the market . Rains = Food (mangos! Guava! Coconuts maracujá !). The last few weeks have been mildly eventful. I finished my third PACA activity, a seasonal calender, for my community needs assessment. It was probably the least interesting project for all of my colleages mostly beacause it was information they already knew. During the activity it was clear they were perticipating just to humor me. BUt I suppose this is the point of the first 3 months .. it’s much more for me to learn about them and Mecanhelas, than it is for me to actually be helpful... I told both of my supervisor the other day I was worried I wasn’t doing enough for them, and how I was impaciente with myself. They bascially said the same thing: not to worry and that I just got here, which is true, it;s been really easy to forget that. All i can think about is our recconect conference starts in one month. Where the FREAK did all the time go? I remember by week 4 of training I was soooo ready to be done and everyone was craking- bunch of larium zombies. Recap of events: 1. I finally got my two year bag, Marcelino rolled up at 6:30AM- 12 hours earlier than he told me on the phone but I’m pretty sure my portuguese is good enought o to tell the difference between seis and doze. I was still asleep so Fernando kept knocking on my window. It was serisouly like Christmas. And Marcelino was Santa...(Fernando a little elf?) He also brought me my fridge. I thanked him for his trek out here by feeding him some of the cake I made the day before. He ate about half of it. So now I have cold water whenever I want and Uccenne and the boys have been teaching me how to make popcicles for the last 2 weeks. I also made “ice cream” with REAL coffee (two year bag gifts) powdered milk, and coco powder. Its been so hot until recently- the fridge was 6500 Mets of PC money well spent. I lost all my music on my IPOD. THis is all i’m writing about the incident...i’m still sad. 2. Jamie tought me and the Cabichi’s how to make peanut butter. It’s a pretty involved process but everything in Moz takes time. It was a fun day of playing vollyball, soccer and eating peanutbutter. One of the best days actually. 3. One of my colleague’s neices came to our office complaining about pain in her stomach during her period. We ended up taking her to the SDS and did a HIV test just as a precaution. The results came back negative and I told her that the pain she feels each month could be cramps and if that’s the case it’s totally normal. Unfortunatly I had to look up the word for cramp and even then she didn’t know what it meant. It was deffinatly a relief to see the negative test result but i was nervous for her. There is absolutly no privacy here...she took that test while i watched with my counterpart and 3 other random hospital admin staff. 4. Lucio came out to check on me for our “three month site visit” excepto that was during the last week of september, so more like 8 week site visit. He came during dia de vente cinco which was a feriado. (holiday) One of my counterparts asked me “ Seu colega nao tem uma calendário? (your colleage doesn;t have a calendar?Everything was closed for the holiday, so he ended up only meeting with one counterpart and one of my supervisors. Apparently despite my personal anxieties about not feeling like I’m doing enough for them yet, language etc. They all seem to be happy with me and the basic PACA activities I’ve done. That night Lucio treated jamie and I to dinner and beers. We went to one bar after, and then the rest of “Mecdaddy” showed up to watch us get buzzed. I danced with some crianças and had a nice hangover the next day but still went to “work” I think I was the only one. 5. Took my second monthly trip to cuamba to judge some students for Teatro De Ingles, its one of the secondary projects PC vols have here. It was really neat watching such talented kids perform skits about health and their futures all in english... I can’t imagine doing the same in portuguese. I also met a huge chunk of the other Niassa 19ers (all EDU vols). We are hoping to meet up in Lichinga for Thankgsiving and a trip to Lago Niassa/Lake Malawi. I. Can’t.Wait. 6. Spent 3.5 hours sunday waiting for our chapa to leave Cuamba. Have I mentioned I hate hate hate chapas? We did get to sit in the front though. Small victories. 7. Dona Cabachi went to Cuamba around the same time as us for a funeral but didnt return until thursday. While we were all in Cuamba it was the boys weekend /week alone since Nene and Pasivo went with her. I stepped up my trust relationship with Uccenne and gave him my keys so he could wash my floor and fogão (and use my fridge) while I was gone for two days. I was a little nervous considering he’s a 17 year old boy and would be unsupervised for large chunks of the weekend. BUT when I came back my house was better than when I left it. 8. Sunday when I got back I got in a fight with fernando bc I told him he was nosy when he picked up my Millenium BIM banking recepit. He’s 14 so obviously super sensitive about everything, plus we don;t speak the same laguage so whatever I said could have easily come out way worse than I intended (althouth mozambicans are rediculously blunt: “you sleep a lot, you don’t speak portuguese well, why are your leg hairs so long?.)..etc, they should be used to it. Anyways it took some major desculpas to get him to say “problema acabo” Problem finished. 9. With the mom in Cuamba still and Senor Cabachi gone each night to guard the AMIREMO office- the boys have to do everything sozhino. Uccenne cooks for his brothers and we’ve been making dinner, eating together and watching filmes each night. We make a cute little family. 10. I bought a bike and it’s awesome. I’ve been needing one to acompany the activistias on home visits way out in the campos but I was nervous about biking around here . So far things have been easier than I imagined. I’m still expecting to crash and burn soon due to the large quantities of sand in Mec, and the general disrepair of every path and “road” a generous term really.. sometimes I feel like im biking on abandoned raildroad beds, excepto of couse with sand. The rain has helped pack it down a bit which is nice but once it turns to mud I’ll have a whole other problem. It’s also clear that Mozambicans are under the impression brancas dont know how to ride bikes ( i can tell by their shocked faces etc) im guessing that’s because they think we all only use cars? Not entirly untrue- lucky for them I have a much longer history with bikes than cars. October 12th Fernando and Uccene still seem to get into fights every other day. This wouldnt really be any of my concern if they weren’t constantly trying to pull me into their drama. Why they cant see how this is a bad idea is beyond me. My language skills are totally not suficiente to properly mediate things and frankly even if they were I wouldnt want to. It’s totally exausting. Especially when they decide they want to fight with me for no reason. Parabens to me. All the money in the world couldnt convence me to be 14 or 17 again. Luckily when they are getting along and not trying to pick fights with me or prank me (ie hiding my bike and pretending it got stolen) they are complete and utter affirmation that I made the right decidion to move here. They are such a sweet family and I am learning a lot from and about them. I hope they are learning something from me. OK More updates: 1. Accompanied my AJADC colleages to our local jail to give a palestra about HIV to the inmates. Most of them dont speak portuguese so my counterpart spoke in Macua, one of the local languages here in Niassa. There were about 35 men in a cell about twice the size of my living room. The police locked us in with the men since there was no other way to do our palestra. Before we went in the gaurd asked “você tem medo?” basically “are you afraid.”..I said no, which was true but tried to joke with him about how he should give me his gun and then I really wouldnt be scared. I’m still not sure if he understood me or just didnt find my joke funny... probably both. 2. That same night two of the inmates escaped and the police apparently shot and killed one of them at the water post while Uccene and Fernando were getting my water (!!!! WTF) 3. Bought a new capulana and took it to the alfiate to make a skirt. It was too biga t first but now its perfect. Not to brag but it’s pretty chiqui de matar agora. 4. Tought my first english class for my AJADC activistas. I think it went well and at least now I feel quazi helpful. Tried to do the same at AMIREMO but only one person showed up. We;ll see how next week goes. 5. Went to a huge birthday party for my joven friend/portuguese teacher, Victor. I hope to attend more parties like this- it really is one of the best ways to meet people and to show the comunity that you really want to be invloved. It was muuuuito bom. I got home at 2. Somehow Mozambicans are under the impression I can dance (they don’t realize that just bc I agree to dance, doesnt mean im good at it) Regardless, I’ll take it, bc eles here SABEM. Even the children, it’s really remarkable. 6. Tonight I’m going to another party to celebrate dia de professors with jamie. We keep telling people we’re married so I’m her date.

Pineapples and Bois

I ate pineapple recently and it was delicious. This really was not my idea of  a tantalizing blog subject, but clearly it seems important to me now. Meceanhelas doesn’t have a lot of fruit currently being sold in our market (bananas only). My sitemate and I went to Cuamba on Friday to do banking and shopping (hence the pineapple) etc.  She left from there to go to her conference in Nampula and I managed to make my way back to Mecanhelas sozinha (alone) in a chapa (pronounced SHAA-PAA). A note about chapas: not to alarm anyone, but they are pretty much the worst thing ever. They are the main mode of transportation here in Mozambique and for us northern volunteers, they are truly the only option. A lot of volunteers in the south, or near cities like to boleia (hitch a ride) because it’s cheaper or free and faster and usually more comfortable. These tiny vans “normally” fit 12-15 people in them but here in Mozambique they do some Jedi magic and usually a chapa wont leave a paragem (mini bus stop) until 25  people are crammed into it....asses hanging out the windows and all (if the windows open, sometimes they don’t- YAY for safety!) It’s hot. Claustrophobic. Smelly. It’s everything from our nightmares. But it’s part of my life here in MOz and who knows, maybe one day I will start to love it. (doubtful).

      When I got back to Mec at around 10AM (I had to wait for my chapa to fill up for about 40 min..i was there at 6am) I immediately passed out on my bed for about 2 hours. The rest of the weekend was pretty low key. Some highlights from the past few days:

1.     While trying to leave Mecanhelas for Cuamba, I managed to convince my chapa driver to turn around since they left the stop without Jamie (my sitemate)… picture me yelling: “falta uma pessoa, minha amiga!” falta uma pessoa!…ela esta na paragem agora” ( missing  one person! My friend! Blah blah…) over and over while 20 Mozambicans stare at me like I’m.off.my.rocker. I’m counting this as a highlight even though it was highly traumatizing. Also the fact that my Portuguese tem problemas.

2.     Managed to council and mediate friendship drama for the jovens I share a quintal with(in Portuguese, obviously…which is why this and all things are highlights really)

3.     Completed my first community map with one of my organizations. Some activistas left during it but generally a lot of people participated and I think (wishful thinking???) they enjoyed the activity.

4.     Convinced Useni and Fernando to show me their corral (their family makes most of their money by selling bois (cows). This was an accomplishment bc normally they get lots of vergonha (embarrassment) when they are seen out with me…..but who can blame them? Everyone stares. Hopefully when I can actually understand what ppl say to me and respond back (in a way that is coherent) life here in Mec will be less awkward for all people involved. Yay Optimism!

5.     I am probably jumping the gun here since it hasn’t happened yet…but I am SUPPOSED to got my other bag and !!! a mini fridge this Thursday. Vamos ver if this actually ends up being the case… It’s a huge pain in the ass to drive out here from our Nampula PC office (8 + hours). But since my bag got left…and the lovely PC staff offered to get a fridge for me, (im paying them when they arrive)  they are coming to Mec on their way to do site development in northern Zambezia. Until then, I will be dreaming about cold water, MILK, and generally all the various luxuries that come with having a fridge. #posh corps MOZ

6.     I have successfully made the Cabechi family laugh…on purpose…on several different occasions: first by making Useni feel better when he was sad about being embarrassed about something…?? (I swear I understood what he was saying!)  by telling him how nothing could be as bad as that time when the branca  (me) tried to be cool and take a short cut home and basically got lost and walked into some random quintal that wasn’t hers while half of the town watched and laughed. Or the time I walked home while it was dark and totally ate dirt bc I forgot my headlamp. Hello my name is Alice and if you are sad or embarrassed about something, I will happily share my embarrassing life moments here in Africa to make you feel better/entertain you.  I also made the dad laugh by telling him I would happily help out with their new house (they are building another house in our quintal) because Eu tenho forca (i’m strong). I’m aware that he thought this was funny because he thought I was being ironic. 

Fernando and Useni with the bois

The corral at night

Community Maps!

I am bad at blogging from Africa

June 8^th

It’s officially been a week since I’ve arrived in Mozambique and it feels like I’ve been here for months. Orientation in Philadelphia was a blur, same with the flight from NYC to Johannesburg (despite being about 14 hours long). After a quick layover in Joburg and a 50 minute connection, we landed in Maputo and were greeted by the PCD (Peace Corps Director) Carl  Swartz and the APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director) Rachel Horta who is in charge of our health program.  No one lost their luggage and after about an hour or so we were on our way to a hotel right near the Peace Corps Mozambique headquarters. The two days at the hotel were mainly for vaccines and brief security overview trainings, primarily on the Maputo area, which doesn’t really pertain to us. On Sunday we left for Namaacha, the place I’ll be calling home fore the next ten weeks. Things have been good but really intense since arriving last Sunday. I was greeted by my Irmana Vonda, who was visiting but actually lives in Maputo. We walked back to our house where I met my Mae (Laurdes) Pai (who works in Maputo all week and comes home only on weekends) Irmana Zumira (Zu Zu, who is 9 months pregnant, due this month and currently in a hospital in Maputo because of complications with her heart- all I can distinguish at this point with my extremely limited Portuguese) and finally Yula the youngest of the family. She is technically my prima but is essentially the adopted daughter of my Mae. Yula is nine years old and sometimes helps me with my Portuguese homework.  Speaking of Portuguese, it seems like that is the topic of discussion for most of the 26 volunteers who are here (myself included). Only a few of us have taken actual Portuguese classes prior to training so most are in the same WTF boat of not being able to really speak the language and not believing any of the PC staff who keep telling us that in 3 weeks we will see the improvements. I still feel like everything I;ve said to my host family is a bastardized version of some Spanish word. My host family is incredibly patient with me and impressively adept at interpreting my awkward mumbles and hand gestures. They’ve had one volunteer prior to me and I don’t think she knew much Portuguese either…so I don’t have to worry about that comparison. So far I’ve learned how to crack a coconut with a huge wrench and shave the inside of it to make Caril da Covi which is essentially a type of non spicy coconut curry with kale and peanuts. I also briefly helped my Mae Pilar the peanuts for the same dish, which she made look incredibly easy but of course is totally impossible for a branca like me (excellent work out by the way). I feel myself getting used to the routine of daily life with the family (bucket baths and outdoor latrines included) but the language part is a real struggle. My instructor, Nercio is very sweet and patient but extremely soft spoken so half the time I can’t hear OR understand what he is saying. This is a problem. However, I think our language groups are being reorganized again on Monday so they reflect the capacity of each volunteer more accurately.  My brain is a bit fried right now…it’s incredibly how much goes on each day, either language training, hanging out with my host family or PC technical introductions to security, heath, development etc…. I hope I retain everything! Updates soon… Ate logo.!

A.

July 17^th-

It’s been over a month since I last wrote. I am impressed by others in my group who are so good at keeping their blogs updated. Now I need to attempt to explain what I’ve done for the last 7 weeks. First I’ll start with language since that is one concern that has not changed since my first entry. I know my Portuguese is better than it was before I arrived here but after my first LPI or language proficiency interview at the end of week 5 I still could not test out of the novice level (I am currently novice high) My language group has been reorganized and I am trying to make an effort to get extra help each night with my new instructor. Most of our training group is considered intermediate or better so it’s been a bit of a confidence blow to know I’m in the minority with my language skills or lack-there-of. All I can think about is when I get to a point where this issue no longer concerns me because I can actual converse and understand people. It helps speaking with the other volunteers who come and participate in training because they share their struggles and all of them speak Portuguese now….but I digress. The following things happened in the last month:

1.Zu Zu had her baby- it took her about 2 weeks to name it, but now he is known as Melven.

2. I met my host brother for the first time at the end of week 3, he is nice. His name is Miguel

3. I impressed my host mom when she left the first weekend while Zu Zu was giving birth by making lunch for Yula and myself. I hope this makes up for not speaking their language yet.

4 . I did not kill a chicken, but watched while my friend Terja helped kill it. I did pluck it however….and ate it.

5. I went to Maputo one Saturday with all the volunteers and bought a cheap phone and had ice cream and pizza. I think that was week 3. The trip would have been more fun if we had the opportunity to explore more areas but that wasn’t the case.

6. Week 6 was great because it was the first time we all got to leave Namaacha and visit another volunteer at their site. I visited Heather in Chicumbane and it was wonderful. She was so accommodating and gave great advice. We went to the beach and also met other volunteers. It was essentially my first real experience exploring a different part of Mocambique.

            We only have 3 weeks left and the last week is not really training. It’s crazy to think about. Tomorrow is probably the most exciting day of all because we find out where we are going to live for the next two years-(SITE ANNOUNCEMENT!) A lot of people in my group are really anxious and have very clear ideas about what they want. Mine was informed by a lot of what I saw and experienced during the shadow visit. I hope I am within 3 hours of a beach but far from a big city and many other volunteers. I think it will be hard to be isolated but I think I need it in order to integrate.

September 4^th

So if you haven’t noticed I’m pretty awful at this blog thing. The last time I wrote was during training and I didn’t even know my site placement. I am currently at my site now and have been here for almost a month (I arrived August 10^th).  My new home is Mecanhelas, (technically Insaca but everyone calls it Mechanelas) Mec is one of the southernmost districts in Niassa province. I am about 10K from Malawi and it’s second largest Lake, Lago Chirua. Niassa is Mozambique’s largest province but has the smallest population and is arguably, the least developed. My town is the district capitol which means it has one or two government offices, a CDS (central de saude) and a secondary school. We also have a nice market although right now it’s hungry season and there’s not much variety (how many ways can I prepare potatos, tomatos, onions and eggs?) I have a nice house and I share  a quintal (yard)with the Cabichi family: Dona & Dono Cabichi, Useni (17) Fernando (15), Feliz (10), Domingo (8) Nene (5) and 1 month old Passivo. Nene is the only girl and as her brothers say she “brinca mal”  She steals Useni’s stuff and now mine since she typically follows them into my house. The boys have perfected the art of catching her in the act….if she weren’t so cute it might be a problem.

So why am I here right?  It’s still pretty hard to believe. I have a double placement which means I work for two organizations here in Mecanhelas: Associação Mistura Religiosa Para Educacao Moral (AMIREMO) and Associação Junto Avançámos Para O Desenvolvimento Comunitário (AJADC). They are both very small health organizations. AMIREMO has a bit more money and better diversity of funding sources including FHI but AJADC is currently only funded by FHI right now (Family Health International).  Both of my orgs work very closely with theMecanhelas community, typically by going out to the campo and visiting “doenças.” They do what they can to advise people to get tested for HIV or to continue with their TARV treatment if they’ve decided to abandon it for whatever reason (stigma, or general misinformation about HIV and the meds they need to take etc.) I have only been on a few home visits myself since I don’t have a bike yet and most people who have the most trouble live far away from our SDS. The visits are pretty serious and so far I usually feel quite out of place, which is saying a lot since I am already very out of place here in Mec...(I have a site mate, Jamie, who is an education volunteer but our town is still not at all accustomed to seeing white people). Another difficulty I’ve been encountering is the use of local language. A lot of my colleagues speak almost exclusivly  Macua or Nyanja..which doesn’t do much to help my portuguese...but luckily everyone knows that’s what I need to learn and generally people are pretty patient with me. I also found a very driven joven to practice talking with me twice a week since PC pays for further language instruction.  The boys that share my quintal are helpful too, for the most part,  but they speak Nyanja a lot and have the attention span of a fly, and they speak too fast anyways. I think I’m getting better though, I feel as if I understand so much more than I ever did during training, I just need to be patient with myself. One particular highlight with language occured the second week I was here when my AMIREMO colleages spent 2 hours asking me about the US. Topics included: do you have black people? Do you have xima? (a staple food here in Moz made of corn meal) what other types of foods do you have? and...Can you tell us about 9/11? The highlight being I answered all these questions in Portuguese. I still need some help though. Ok breakdown of the other activities from the last 3 weeks:

1.     Met all the VIPs of Mecanhelas during my first week including local government officials, chefe do bairros, immigration officers, education folks, police, main medical director, and church officials (since both my orgs are basically FBOs).

2.     Created a tentitive schedule on how I will divide my time between both Orgs

3.     Taught Snr. Alves (my supervisor for AJADC) the basics of SKYPE

4.      Taught one of my AMIREMO colleages how to make a organizational diagram/chart on Word and Power point

5.     Made friends with some Jovens (teens)

6.     Learned from said jovens that our SDS does not give out preservativos (condoms) to Jovens  but only adults. Right b/c that makes buckets of SENSE... whaa??)

7.     Completed my FOFA/SWOT anelação (Strenghts, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats- or Forças, Oportunidades, Fraquezas, Ameaças) with both organizations- and mentioned the SDS/Joven/Preservativo problem as such, but also an opportuinity since they both work closely with SDS regarding HIV,  TB etc. Yay for potential solutions/projects.
8. Went to Cuamba a week ago and met other volunteers, went to the bank (Mec has no bank & Cuamba is 2+ hours away by chapa and depending on the season) and bought chocolate

9.     Learned that when you’re hungry and there’s few options, anything you make tastes good... sweet and sour cabbage anyone?
10. Celebrated two bdays in one day.
11. Realized I am lucky and have a kick ass site-mate
12. Didn't want to steal Jamie's catchphrase "Até nunca" so I've got Até sempre, which is catching on! too bad it only makes sense with the family I share the quintal with :P

Nene and Fernado's bday (they have the same bday!)

Useni with his baby brother

My Casa!

On the way to Mechanhelas from Nampula

FOFA

Jovens