11/2/14 I went to an initiation/rite of passage ceremony for Belinda. Girls go through the rite of passage ceremony after their first menstruation to officially become women. After the ceremony, they are considered adults. I learned that only women who are considered adults can attend and men, boys, and girls who haven't been through their own ceremonies weren't allowed to participate. Although I didn't understand most of what people were saying because they were mostly speaking in Macua, I really enjoyed this opportunity to see a traditional ceremony in Mozambique and learn more about the culture. During the ceremony, they were a lot of dancing, singing, and story telling about how to be an adult woman in the community and how to be a good woman. I went with one of my coworker/neighbor so she explained to me what was going on. One of the traditional song she explained to me was how woman are not allowed to steal food and hide food when they see that other people are approaching.
Malaria Competition:
Malaria is preventable yet it's still the #1 killer. Since the competition in April for World Malaria Month went really well, we decided to make November a Malaria Awareness Month in Mozambique! It's also before our rainy season so it's perfect timing. We're doing a competition from Nov 1 to Dec 1 to see who can earn the most points from doing malaria related activities between the 3 regions: South, Central, and North. The region with the most points will win 1 extra vacation day for all participating PCVs so I'm hoping North will win since I could use an extra vacation day! :) It's been going great so far! There has been a LOT of great projects PCVs are doing to stomp out malaria.
Work:
It finally picked back up!!!! After months of postponing and cancelling, I finally met with the Director of Education and school director to talk to them about the Youth and Health program that we want to start up in 2015 when the kids are back from school break. So a general overview of the program is creating a group of students, train them on health topics, and then supervise them and give them materials and supports as they go out in the community on their own and give palestras [lessons] and do activities with other youths.
Another great new is.. I'm finally doing my malaria training of trainer next week for my org! I wanted to do it in November for the malaria competition but the schedule didn't work out so it's set for Dec 4-5. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time! I spent a lot of time this month prepping for it since it's going to be for a group of 40 people so I had to make more game sets and get all the materials ready. One of my coworker is going to help run the training with me and translate Portuguese to Macua since most of the participants [if not all..] speaks only Macua. Wish me luck!
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| My coworkers watching a Positivo music video about malaria |
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| A health commitee member demonstrating the bicycle ambulance |
REDES:
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| 11/4/14 Held an informational malaria session |
We also started practicing 2 new songs to do a dance performance on New Year day but school's been busy for them because of exams and half the girls are missing each time we have dance practice so I'm not sure if they'll be ready by then.. but vamos ver!
Hora Das Crianças:
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| 11/20/14 Malaria art contest |
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| 11/27/14 Letter M and hand turkey |
Thanksgiving Dinner:
I went to Macomia for Thanksgiving dinner with a few PCVs. It was an awesome weekend with great company and food. I haven't had a feast for a long time! We spent hours to cook and prepare dinner. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, brown sugared carrots, salad, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and chocolate with white chocolate chips cookie cake. Everything was so yummy!!
I went to Macomia for Thanksgiving dinner with a few PCVs. It was an awesome weekend with great company and food. I haven't had a feast for a long time! We spent hours to cook and prepare dinner. We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, brown sugared carrots, salad, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and chocolate with white chocolate chips cookie cake. Everything was so yummy!!
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| Grace's REALLY delicious pumpkin pie! |
Other updates:
-Tuxedo got really sick and wouldn't eat anything for 2 days before passing away on 11/1/14. It was so hard to watch him suffer! He was really weak. I tried to feed him but he wouldn't eat or drink anything. He kept going into corners to lie down but he wasn't sleeping. Every time I checked up on him, he was just lying there with his eyes opened and he looked so tired and weak. I tried googling to see if I can find anything helpful but all the websites said to take him to the vet >.< I had a bad feeling he wasn't going to make it through the night but was hoping for the best. I kept him inside and put him on a towel on my bed that night. I was still up playing on my phone when I saw him moving and then he threw up some clear liquid. He started having seizures soon after and I was freaking out because I didn't know what I can do to help him. It was so heartbreaking to watch him in pain! He then suddenly stopped moving and breathing ): The moment I was most afraid of came. I carried him in my arm to go outside and luckily my landlord hasn't gone to bed yet. He helped me bury him in the backyard while I cried my eyes out ):
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| RIP Tuxedo |
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| Waiting for water to come out of the spigot |
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-Peace Corps staff came to my site to visit this this month. It went well, we just chatted at my house before going to my org to visit. My APCD bought me my passport with a renewed visa.. I'm on page 20 now!! 4 more pages before I can cross 'fill up a passport before it expires' off my bucket list :)
