My Peace Corps Adventures in Mozambique

Ahhh!! I'm down to 8 weeks left at site and 9 weeks in Mozambique now. It seems to be only getting busier and busier with work. I'm also busier with secondary projects, trying to do Hora Das Criancas as much as possible with the children since I still have a lot of materials to use from the donation and training Josefina to facilitate more so she can successfully continue the REDES group when I'm gone. There are still a lot of activities I have in mind that I want to do with my REDES group so hopefully I will get to fit it all in before I leave. Even though a lot of people here already talked about how I'm going to leave soon and tell me that I should stay longer, it hasn't completely hit me hard yet that I don't have much time left... but I'm not looking forward to when it does either hahah I will be a crying mess =( Anyway, here's what I did in May:

COS Conference:
4/27-29/15 After a week in Cape Town, I went to Maputo for a 3 days Closing of Service (COS) conference. Some of the sessions we had includes COS packet and processing, post Peace Corps career planning, and how to adjust back to life in the U.S. It was good seeing everyone again, and for half the group, it was our last time seeing each other in Moz before we leave =(

Moz 20 <3

Work:

5/8/15 We had a HIV/AIDS debate at Escola Secundaria de Mariri with a group of students. We got there late a bit late since it was far and then had technical difficulties with getting a movie about HIV to play so we were only able to have a short discussion about prevention and transmission outside before it gets too dark (there's no electricity in Mariri so no lights)

5/9-11/15 We had a 2.5 days training about terms of reference for the establishment and operation of the Comite de Co-Gestao in Ancuabe. For this training, we had an expert on the topic come to do the training. My supervisor and I will be running the next 5 trainings.. ahh!

We spent a lot of time this month planning the dates and budgets for the remaining trainings we have to do. They will all have to be on weekends.. boo! I was pretty unhappy about that so I asked for Thursdays and Fridays off. The first training was set for May 30-31, but the budget didn't get authorized in time so it didn't happen. This is the frustrating part of working here.. I have Thurs/Fri off if there's training on Sat/Sun.. and normal weekend off iftraining is postponed.. but I won't know until almost last minute! ahh! It makes it impossible to make any plans. I stopped doing my Vovinam classes on Sunday since I wasn't sure if I'd be free or not and I couldn't move it permanently to Friday afternoons either since I might have work. Boo! I'm planning to just teach a self defense move at the end of each REDES meeting now. At least that way I can still teach a bit of Vovinam! :)

I've also been teaching a new guy at work how to do very basic things on microsoft word this month and the whole experience has definitely been a challenge. I'm trying to be very understanding since this is probably his first time ever using a computer but my patience is being tested every day hahaha

Hora das Crianças:

5/2/15 Soccer

5/5/15 Color Hello Kitty and get 2 multivitamin gummies each

5/6/15 Practice the letter R, color Hello Kitty and get 2 multivitamin gummies each

5/7/15 Practice the letter S, color cat and get 2 multivitamin gummies each

5/19/15 Practice the letter T, color Minnie and Mickey Mouse, and get stickers

5/22/15 Practice the letter U, color Hello Kitty, and get stickers

5/27/15 Color Pooh and Piglet and get stickers

5/30/15 Color Mario Kart and get stickers

REDES:

5/5/15 The girls' first time playing puzzles! They raced each other to see who would finish first and then helped each other out. Team work :)

5/12/15 We did a malaria art contest to see who draws the best picture related to malaria.

5/19/15 Today's health topic is oral hygiene! We talked about what it is, what good oral hygiene prevents, and we also talked about brushing and flossing. Then we flossed our teeth and demonstrate how to brush our teeth correctly. Our fun activity today is arranging 5 pieces to make a square.

5/26/15 The girls made a dream collage by cutting out pictures and words in magazines to represent what they want in life. Then we discussed what they have to do/continue doing/ avoid in order to reach their dreams.

I found out today that the school changed the schedule so more than half of my girls have classes in the morning now. I started doing 2 meetings today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so that all of the girls can attend.

morning group

afternoon group

VOVINAM:
5/10/15 We practiced basic punches and kicks, attack forms #1 & 2, hand grabs, and shirt grabs

5/17/15 we practiced more self defense moves

Malaria Task Force:

5/14-15/15 We had our annual training in Nampula. It was a jam-packed two days covering the epidemiology of malaria, behavior change, monitoring and evaluation, project ideas and action planning for the year.

Other updates:

-COS trips booked!! I'm so excited! 5 countries in 30 days :) Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam

-Abdala came by to borrow crayons and to show me his drawings, including my name! He's the most talented kids I've seen here!

-Finally gave Pirate away to my next door neighbor's mom in a closeby community. I'm gonna miss having kittens around :( but he's going to a good home with lots of rats to hunt!

-My replacement is coming soon!! I helped out with finding a host family for the volunteer that will be replacing me at my site to stay with during their 3 weeks phrase 2 part of training.

I had an amazing week in Cape Town!! I went with Bryan and met up with 4 PCVs from my group there. Cape Town is beauuutiful and so much to see and do! I'm really happy with how my week went and definitely feel like I've wasted no time to do everything I wanted. We had a tour planned for every day of the week! :) I also ate soooo much and had so many frap and milkshakes!! :D

Saturday 4/18/15

Our flight to Johannesburg was at 3pm and our connecting flight to Cape Town wasn't until 7:30am the next morning. We had a 13h40m layover in Johannesburg so we just hung out around the airport. We could have gotten to Cape Town on the same day but it would have been at night so I figured I'd rather spend the night at the airport for free than arriving late at night, finding out way to the hostel to check in and pay an extra night just to sleep.

Sunday 4/19/15

We arrived in Cape Town and took a taxi to our hostel. Between 4 people, the cost wasn't too bad! We stayed at Amber Tree Lodge and it was an awesome hostel. It's close to the town center, small and cozy. It also have a great balcony view of Table Mountain.

After lunch, Bryan and I took a taxi to Table Mountain and started our hike up to the top. it was definitely one of the toughest hike I've ever done! It was pretty much like doing stair master for 2 hours. Some part of the trail was steep and I had to get on all 4 to climb up the steps. Once we got to the top, it was definitely worth it!

We took the cable car to get down :)

Monday 4/20/15

We booked our shark cage diving tour at sharkbookings.com and ended up with Supreme Shark. Great company!

The water was freezing cold!!! 10c degree! We saw 8 sharks ranging from 6 to 11 feet. Pretty cool experience!

Tuesday 4/21/15
We bought tickets for the city sightseeing hop on hop off bus online since it was R20 cheaper :) We started on the yellow route, then jumped onto to blue then red.

Stop 17: District 6 Museum. R30

Delicious cupcakes down the street from the museum

Stop 18: Good Hope Castle

City Hall balcony! Really close to the castle

Stop 24: Hout Bay

Stop 1: V&A Waterfront

We hiked to the top of Lion's Head and waited for the sunset. This hike was tough too and I'm so glad Bryan had a flashlight for our hike down the mountain since it was dark. The view was amazing! You get a 360 view of Cape Town from the top and the sunset was beautiful.

Night lights view of Cape Town

Wednesday 4/22/15

We booked a safari tour with Aquila Private Game Reserve, just less than 2 hours outside of Cape Town.

Buffet breakfast and lunch included!

with wine or grape juice break

We saw the Big 5!!!

Thursday 4/23/15

We did the Wine flies tour with our friends and we learned so much about wines! We learned about how wine is made, how to taste wine and what food to pair it with. It was fun, we went to 5 wine estates. I definitely could not handle all the wines hahaha by the end of the tour, we had about 33 glasses of wine (I think that's what the tour guy said). I quit drinking half way through the 2nd wine estate and had Bryan take all of mine.. poor guy hahaha