Last month at site

This month went by too fast! I am leaving site and going to Pemba tomorrow and then flying to Maputo on Monday to start my COS (Closing of Service) process. This month was a lot of wrapping things up, giving away things, packing, and my least favorite: saying goodbyes. :(

Since I'm traveling around SE Asia for my COS trip, I'm only bringing a carry on and a backpack.. I'm taking only a little bit of stuff from Mozambique with me, but a whole lot of life changing experiences, memories, and friendships! :P

Anyways, here's a photo summary of my last month at site: 

Hora das Crianças:

7/1/15 Practice writing letter W and color mermaid

7/6/15 Practice writing letter X and color Mario Kart

7/9/15 Practice writing letter Y and color Hello Kitty

7/13/15 Practice writing letter Z, color Mickey Donald and Goofy and get a lollipop

7/22/15 Gave out 77 toy cars before it got too crazy, and 31 the next day

July 4th and Namesake baby:

7/4/15- 7/5/15  I went to Pemba to hang out with other PCVs for Independence Day. It was a nice opportunity to see some PCVs for the last time before I leave Moz! We baked a red white and blue cake for the occasion and it was delicious!!

Marbled red and blue velvet cake

7/5/15 Acha finally gave birth on July 4th! She called me right after to tell me the news but unfortunately I was in Pemba so I couldn't visit her until the next day. She thought she was going to have a girl but it turned out to be a boy so she named him Angelo, after me!! :)

Ancha and Angelo

July must be my lucky month! Both of my namesake babies and sponsored child were born in July. I feel so honored and lucky to have both a boy and a girl named after me! Now I have 3 'children' in 3 African countries.. pretty cool right? :P

Zambie 4th litter:

7/6/15 Zambie finally gave birth to 4 kittens! 

I had to euthanize this little kitten born with spina bifida.. its hind legs are paralyzed and the spine is a long open wound that will probably get infected eventually. It was a heartbreaking decision but it was for the best. I am so thankful to have amazing neighbors who came by to visit and tried to comfort me.. I'm pretty sure they think I must be crazy to cry over a kitten hahaha but they were very supportive.

RIP :(

REDES:
7/7/15 We watched a short film called Second Chances about a young bright girl from a poor community who leaves home to go to a university. She started lying and making bad decisions to fit in, be admired and gets involved with an older man who has money and resources even though she is in love with a young man she met at the university. She ended up losing the guy she loved, her friend and possibly testing positive for HIV. After the film we discussed what happened and what can we learn from her mistakes. Our fun activity is learning the cups game and coming up with their own version :)

morning group

afternoon group

7/14/15 Our topic was HIV/AIDS: we talked about what it is, how it attack our bodies, ways it can and can't be transmitted, how to prevent it and the treatment for it. We then played an HIV/AIDS board game that requires them to answer questions about what they just learned.

morning group

afternoon group

7/19/15 Sunday funday! I wanted to spend more time with the girls so I decided to buy food so we can eat lunch together before I leave. The girls all came over early morning to start cooking since beans take awhile.We hung out and played game while waiting for the food to finish. We had rice and beans :)

Since I'm only taking a carry on sized suitcase and my backpack, I am leaving a lot of things behind. I spent the day before sorting out stuffs to give to my girls, my neighbors, and my coworkers. For my girls, I put all of their names in a bowl and each person gets to choose one item as I call out their name so that it would be fair. I had enough things to give out to do 4 rounds for my 13 girls! :)

7/21/15 Last REDES meeting! :( For the morning group, we just talked about random thing and made bracelets for fun. I taught them how to make a fishtail bracelet out of the rubber bands. For the afternoon group, Dr. Laura came with me to do a questionnaire with the girls to get their opinions on health center and services for her project. After that, we also made bracelets :)

morning group

afternoon group

7/24/15 I sent 4 girls to the REDES workshop in Pemba. The workshop is Sat-Sun and then they head back to Ancuabe on Monday. I didn't want to leave site earlier than I had to so luckily my coworker Amelia agreed to help me by going with them to supervise. :) I will come on Sunday to visit them before I fly out to Maputo the Monday that they're heading back.

Eid Mubarak:

7/18/15 I had all these women and girls in my backyard dancing and singing to celebrate! It was so beautiful and colorful :) 

Coworkers:

7/23/15 I did a photo booth session with my coworkers and they had so much fun! Unfortunately not everyone was there since they were busy working in the field.. it was hard to find a day where everyone was at the office. So after the photo booth fun, I gave them the gifts I prepared for them and to my surprised, they got me gifts as well! And they also made me cry :( hahah they started talking about how they will miss me which triggered the tears because I will definitely miss them very much. One said that in the past whenever I travel for a weekend trip or a mini vacation, they knew that I would come back but this time it's different :( 

Photo booth fun

My gifts to them

Gifts from my wonderful coworkers!

Goodbyes
7/24/15- 7/25/15 I've been/still am a crying mess! There were tears before and/or after all these pictures :( After living here for 2 years and being used to everyone and everything here, it wasn't easy to say bye. Hardest part is not knowing if/when I'd ever see them again. I'm going to leave it at that since I will continue to cry if I keep talking about how it went.. haha

the vendors where I usually buy things from

The family bought a chicken to kill so I can eat chicken as my last meal here

Other updates:
-7/11/15 My cousin gave my parents money to give to me to spend it on the children here so I went and bought a bunch of things in Pemba to give out to the neighborhood children. I got lollipops, 108 toy cars, and 12 packs of color pencils. I also got a couple of gifts to give to my namesake baby :)

-7/12/15 I've hiked to the top of the smaller mountain many times in the past 2 years.. I finally made it to the top of the big mountain this time!!

-7/19/15 dyed my hair red again!

-7/21/15 I reached my goal!! I've baked 100 different desserts.. without an oven! All dutchoven style :) 

Last 3 months: 2 down, 1 to go!

I'm down to 3.5 weeks left at site and 4.5 weeks in Mozambique! So crazy! I can't believe I'm running out of time so soon. I had a very productive and eventful month and now I'm looking forward to wrapping things up at site next month and finishing up planning my COS trip to SE Asia! It's going to be so bittersweet! =/

Here is what I did in June:

Dia da Criança:

6/1/15 For Children's day, we baked cookies the day before for a little celebration. I went with Belinha and Angela to Ntele after work but most of the festivities were already over. We did watch a theater group for a bit but there were so many people so it was hard to see.

Heading to Ntele, this is the view going away from Ancuabe-sede

REDES:

6/2/15 Our topic was income generation: we talked about what it is, what we have to think about and what steps we have to do when doing an income generation project. Our fun activity was making a pen grip out of rubber bands.

morning group

afternoon group

6/10/15 Our topic was menstrual cycle: we talked about what it is and what happens in each phrases of the menstrual cycle. Our fun activity was making a period tracker bracelet! It probably won't be too helpful since their cycle might not be 28 days or regular, but it was a fun activity to do to teach them about the phrases. For the afternoon group, I invited Dr. Laura to come to do the health topic and answer any health questions they had.

morning group

afternoon group

6/16/15 Our topic was water treatment: we talked about the available ways here to treat water to use for drinking or cooking so that we won't get sick from consuming contaminated water. Our fun activity was sewing a wristlet!

morning group

afternoon group

6/23/15 Our topic was hygiene is prevention: we talked about what good hygiene is and how it prevents diarrhea and cholera. We also talked about oral re-hydration salt and how to make them if the ORS packet isn't available. Our fun activity was playing a sculpture game with play doh!

morning group

afternoon group

6/30/15 I created accounts for the girls and taught them how to use email and the internet. I hope one day when they have access to internet that they'll still remember how to use email to email me! Our fun activity was making bracelets! The girls made bracelets while they waited for their turn on the computer. For the afternoon group, Adji came to help out with the email :)

morning group

afternoon group

Photo booth fun:

I had so much fun creating DIY backdrop and photo booth props!!

6/3/15 Host family

6/4/15 Host family kids

6/18/15 Adji's birthday celebration

6/21/15 REDES girls

Norte Forte Beer Olympics:

6/5-6/15 I went to the Island of Mozambique for our 2nd annual Norte Forte Beer Olympics. We didn't win this year but we were close!

Team Cabo Delgado!

Work:

6/8/15 We had a sexual reproductive health discussion with 27 students and 4 teachers. We showed a short film called Second Chance about a young girl from a poor community leaves home to go to a university. She is bright and is the first girl from her village to make it to the university. She started making bad decisions to fit in, be admired and gets involved with an older man who has money and resources even though she is in love with a young man she met at the university. She ended up losing the guy she loved and possibly testing positive for HIV. Then we had a discussion afterward about sexual reproductive health as well as family planning, alcohol, drugs, and tobacco.

6/13/15 We had a training and orientation for the Metoro Co-Management Committee in Metoro. 

Arielle's Sex Education:

6/9/15 Arielle came to my site to do an amazing sex education lesson with 36 students and 1 professor! She talked about puberty, reproductive systems, STDs and HIV, masturbation and the importance of having good communication with your partners. 

Hora das Crianças:

6/11/15 Practice writing letter V and color Mickey Donald and Goofy to get a sticker

6/15/15 Color Tinkerbell to get a sticker

6/22/15 Color Mickey and Minnie Mouse and get a sticker

6/24/15 Color Hello Kitty to get a sticker

6/29/15 Color turtle to get a sticker

Site Replacement:
6/13/15 I met Adji who is going to replace me here in Ancuabe! She is here for 3 weeks as part of the phrase 2 of the new training module. I was so excited to finally have a (temporary) site mate!! It's been awesome having her around!

6/18/15 Adji's bithday celebration!

Macomia:
6/20/15 I went to Macomia to hang out with the PCVs there and got to visit my old supervisor and his family as well! I haven't seen him since Jan or Feb of 2014. His baby girl has grown so much since I last saw her as a baby!

Dia da Independência:

6/25/15 We went to the praca to watch the flower ceremony and some of the dancing and singing performances.

27th Birthday:

6/28/15 I had lots of fun celebrating my 3rd and last birthday here in Mozambique with neighbors, coworkers and REDES girls!

Spent all day cooking!

With my REDES girls

Other updates:

-My landlord remodel my house! The kitchen got moved to the guestroom.. which is now half the size it used to be. There's also a door to where the kitchen used to be that leads outside.

-Zambie is getting big!! I wonder if she'll have her 4th litter before I leave or not..