My Peace Corps Adventures in Mozambique: 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 :)