Goals for 2014

WORK
I just found out that my assistant director of program left for a government job all of a sudden so it's a bit chaotic at the office right now since the coordinator is new to the job so there's a lot he has to learn about the org and how the programs are run also. He was like a dad to me here so I'm sad about his leaving. Work has been slow this month since my coworkers were waiting for their salary and perdiem to come in before they can leave for the field to work so I spend most of my day studying languages, planning out my secondary projects, helping my coordinator with Excel, writing down ideas for activities that the facilitators can incorporate into their plans and ways to improve the current programs. I also help taught a coworker how to use Power Point. Last week I got the 3 months schedule plan of what the facilitators are doing in the field and which days I'm accompanying them in the field. Because of the rain and delay in delivering the facilitators into the field, they're changing the plan and working on a new one so I have more sitting around and waiting to do. I'm hoping to sit down with my coordinator when things get back to normal and figure out exactly what my role is and how I can help support the org better.

LANGUAGES
Portuguese- I can communicate well enough with people but I still don't feel completely comfortable with Portuguese yet. My Portuguese has improved a lot the first few months I got to site but since then it hasn't improved much more so it is stressing me out a bit. Most people here normally speak Macua to each other also so it's hard to get practice. I need to keep learning more verbs and words to expand my vocabulary. Hopefully I can be somewhat fluent by the end of my 1st year here.

Macua- I started Macua lessons and it is really hard to pronounce words! I thought Portuguese was hard.. this is harder! I'm pretty proud of my progress so far though. I put up papers and post its of Macua words all over my house and made flash cards to help me learn. I can pick up words here and there when I hear people talk now. One time while walking home and greeting people in Macua, I accidentally replied in Macua too when a guy asked me a question in Portuguese so I think that's a good sign!

SECONDARY PROJECTS (Aiming to get all of these up and running by end of Feb.. wish me luck!)

REDES- Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educação e Saúde (it's like a girls empowerment club)
I've talked to my language tutor about starting a REDES group and explained to him what it is. He talked to the school director about it and she loved the idea! I also asked him if he knows anyone that would be interested in helping me since I need a counterpart so that it would be sustainable when I leave. He said he has someone in mind and just waiting for her to return to talk to her about it so I'm crossing my fingers! School is starting up again soon so hopefully I can get this going asap. My tutor is a professor at the high school here so he will let me come to his classes to talk to the students about the REDES group to see who would want to join.

Community english classes & English classes for coworkers
I've been writing small phrases and words in English with Portuguese translation for my landlord to learn and helping him with pronunciation. I want to eventually do a community English class in my backyard since a lot of people asked me to teach them English. My coworkers want me to teach them English too so I am going to talk to my coordinator to figure out when and how they would want me to teach them. Available options I can think of are: small lesson whenever there's down time, one on one for an hour or so for whoever is present and done with their workload, and posting up posters of English phrases with Portuguese translation in the office and changing it every week.

Hora de Coser (Sewing hour)
There are a lot of people and children wear clothes that are ripped and have big holes in them that can easily be mended. I want to dedicate an hour a week where people can bring ripped clothes and I will help sew it up and teach them how to hand sew at the same time.

Hora das Crianças (Children hour)
I asked for coloring books in my care package and I have a couple boxes of crayons here so I am planning to have an hour a week where the children can come hang out in my front porch to color and get a head start on learning how to write the alphabets.

Vovinam Classes
I had one session a couple of months ago and they keep asking me to do more so I am planning to do it again and have a weekly class on Sunday afternoon to teach basic self defense techniques.

COMMUNITY
I need to start learning and memorizing people's name in my community.. I feel really bad because I don't know and/or remember a lot of people's name while everyone knows my name. I always had a problem with remembering names back in the states but it's even harder to remember names here! I have been calling everyone tio or tia. I also need to make an effort to visit more neighbors in my free time instead of just my surrounding neighbors.

I recorded this video on my phone on my way to work one day. This is one of the top reasons why I love living here! The kids are adorable! I have kids doing this everyday I walk to and from work and on both side of the road along the way. I feel so loved! :)

IN OTHER NEWS..
-Right now it is 'tempo de fome', hunger time. My market doesn't have a lot of food.. no more tomatoes, lettuce, and couve. I've been living off on peanut butter jelly sandwiches, mandaze, baija, eggs and spams, noodles, and spaghetti with tomato paste. Thank goodness for care packages! I went to Pemba this past weekend to buy food and the prices went up a lot! I wanted to buy oranges and carrots but it was too expensive.
-Mangoes season are over but it's pineapples season now! Except it hasn't come to my mercado yet..
-Rainy season + rain gutter = I can get water straight from my backyard lately. It's so nice! Whenever it rains hard I have neighbors running over in the rain with bucket to get water too since I'm one of the very few houses with tin roof and a rain gutter.

-Zambie and Sneezy are getting along a bit better but they still fight every now and then. Zambie has gotten really big! She used to be the same size as Sneezy.

A very rare moment

-I met a bunch of Vietnamese guys that work for Movitel in Cabo Delgado. They're really nice to me and are excited to have another Vietnamese person to speak Vietnamese to haha. They gave me a box of instant pho and omg it is SO GOOD! I haven't had any Vietnamese food since I left so this is as closest as I can get.
-My market sell lemons now!! I was so excited when I saw them. It was highlight of my day haha. I got to bake lemon cake using real lemon that day and now I'm looking forward to buying more to make lemonade.
-I made Moringa soup to eat with rice for the first time and it was a success! It made me a bit homesick since I grew up eating soup and rice. I miss my parent's bitter melon soup so much right now!

Holiday Break 2013

I'm super slow and late but here is a summary of how I spent my 2 weeks off! :)

12/21/13 

A -> B Ancuabe- Pemba

3hr ride to get to Pemba

Pemba when it rains a lot

This was one heck of a day! A series of unfortunate events. I was really sleepy since I woke up early to start catching chapa at 4am to go to Pemba. The mini bus were full already but luckily there was an open back truck that was going to Pemba too so I got the blanco treatment and got to sit comfortably in the front with the driver. I was so sleepy and wanted to sleep the whole way to Pemba but the driver wanted to talk so we talked the whole way. Most of the time was the questions game- does America have mangoes? matu? peanuts? this? that? does it get hot like here? does it rain a lot like here? etc etc. Once we got to Pemba, I was excited to be dropped off right in front of my friend's house but found out he was at the hotel in Wimbi praia and have lost his house keys. I got a boleia to meet up with the 3 PCV guys. Zeke and I went back to the house first to drop off our stuff using the spare key that his landlord has. It started sprinkling and became pouring rain when after we dropped off our stuff and walked to the bank and post office. I had an umbrella but I was still damp wet since it rains in all sort of directions! There's a new Barclays bank that's closer but it doesn't open until Monday. After we got to the old location, we found out they took out the atm to put it in the new bank so we couldn't pull out any money. I left most of my money in my backpack back at the house so between the two of us, we luckily had enough to cover the custom fees for my care package [see previous post]. I was so thankful to have my friend with me because I have no idea how I'd carry the big box myself! We met up with Sean and Stephen for lunch afterward and also because we don't have enough money on us for lunch hahah. It was hard getting a chapa to go back to the house with the box so we decided to walk to the marginal to catch a boleia. It was a longgg walk in the hot sun with a heavy box! A car eventually stopped and offered us a boleia as we were walking toward the marginal. Once we got back to the house, we were locked out for 5ish hours since the landlord left with the spare key.

12/22/13

B-> C Pemba- Montepuez

waited for 1hr for the chapa to fill up; 3.5hr ride to get to Montepuez

-Walked around the city but a lot of stores were closed since it's Sunday
-Went to the bank and waited forever only to find out the atm ran out of money
-A random guy approached me and said he recognizes me because he's from Ancuabe too. Pretty cool!
-Sean's house is nice!! He has real couches, I want them! haha

12/23/13

C-> D Montepuez- Balama
waited 1hr for the chapa to fill up; 1.5hr ride to Balama; waited 2hr in Balama for a boleia

They have the best bread and ice cream I've had in Moz so far!

D-> E Balama- Jamila
walked for 2hr toward the Niassa border before catching a 3hr boleia to Jamila; waited 16hr overnight in Jamila for a boleia

-Zeke wanted to start walking since whatever boleia we can get will pass by anyways. Plus it was good to get away from town and having everyone staring at us.. or it seemed like a good idea at the moment. Didn't realized the next town was really really REALLY far away

-We finally got a boleia and was relieved since we saw how really far away we were. The truck got a flat tire so we had to stop for awhile for them to switch out the tires before we're back on the road toward Jamila, the end destination of the truck.

-The driver was so friendly and everyone in Jamila was super nice! They got us chairs to sit to wait for our next boleia and made food for us to eat. While we were sitting, practically everyone surrounded us just to watch us even though we weren't really doing anything entertaining. It seems like we're the first Americans to stop in their town. We were literally off the grid in the middle of no where. Jamila, Mozambique doesn't show up on google map haha

-They offered us a place to sleep but we decided to sleep in the back of the pick up truck thinking it's a good idea since we can catch any car that would drives by too. Stargazing was beautiful! We eventually fell asleep until some people from the village woke us up because there was a huge truck passing by and they stopped it to ask for a boleia for us [see how nice they are? :)]. It was 10pm ish and by the time we'd get to Marrupa, it would be 2am ish so we decided to pass on it. Plus the truck didn't seem very safe and the roads are bad. We went back to sleep and woke up freeeeezing cold within a few hours. Wasn't such a good idea to sleep in a pick up truck anymore!

-A guy bought us all refresco in the morning while we continue waiting. I seriously thought we were going to be stuck there but a car finally drove by!!

After 16 hours we were starting to lose hope but a car finally came by!

12/24/13 

E-> F Jamila- Marrupa

2hr ride to Marrupa; waited 6hr in Marrupa for a boleia to Lichinga
-After asking for a boleia from the first car that we see, their question was "What are you doing here... how did you get here?" hahaha see what I mean when I said middle of no where?
-We got to Marrupa around 8:30am and felt good since we can get to Lichinga early until we found out that the chapa leaves for Lichinga already left at 4am.. waiting game continues!
-We waited at the gas station the whole morning and afternoon and asked everyone but no one was heading to Lichinga. A lot of people helped us asking around for a ride too. People here are so nice! :)

F-> G Marrupa- Lichinga

3.5hr ride to Lichinga 

-We found a chapa driver that was willing to drive to Lichinga if there was 10 people going. We were only missing 1 person so we said we'd pay extra to cover the 10th person. Then we only had 8 people and we ended up paying double the price but we decided it was better to get to Lichinga and would cost about the same mais ou meno if we had to spend a night in Marrupa.
-We got to Lichinga around 6:30pm and John made delicious soup for us for dinner!

12/25/13

Christmas morning breakfast at Jade's house

Settlers!! Didn't think I'd be able to play that here

Walked around the city a bit before dinner

12/26/13

Crashed plane memorial

Hiked to this reservoir

Went around the mercado for a bit

Waited inside a restaurant for the storm to pass

Walking home was a muddy adventure

Delicious dinner and watched The Great Gatsby afterward

12/27/13

G-> H Lichinga- Cuamba

5.5hr ride
-We were told it's a 6-8hr trip but we got to Cuamba in under 6 hours which was really good because the chapa was so umcomfortable! 28 people in a 14 seats mini bus.
-We had to wait until the train station open to buy our ticket for the next day so we hung around town to eat lunch and walked around.
-Stayed with 2 new volunteers from Moz21 in Cuamba for the night. Their house is so nice!! I got to shower with running water!

12/28/13

H-> I Cuamba- Nampula

18hr on the train

1st class

-I'm glad I got to try taking the train at least once in Moz. There's a bunch of people selling foods at almost every stop. The view along the way is amazing also

-This 10hr trip turned into 18hr because it stopped so often and broke down for 5 hours! We didn't get to Nampula until almost midnight. Thank goodness Lucio was kind enough to pick us up and let us stay at his house! He's so awesome!

12/29/13

I-> J Nampula- Pemba

5.5hr ride
Most comfortable seat ever!!

12/30/13-12/31/13
A lot of hanging out, relaxing at the beach and eating cheap food and ice cream :)

1/1/14

J-> K Pemba- Ancuabe
1hr wait, 33hr of chapa and 2 boleias 
-Made it back to my site! It felt good to be back since I was missing my community and my cat! :)

1/2/14- 1/5/14
-Hang out with the neighbors and played with the children
-Biked and hiked to the mountain nearby
-Baked cocoa brownie with browned butter and walnuts
-Sew some more stuffs
-Ran out of electricity and couldn't buy more because it wasn't open so I had to live without electricity for 2 days.. it was horrible :(