Peace and perfect timing

God and Peace Corps have perfect timing....

Lately, I have been struggling with homesickness and missing important events going on in America. I’ve missed quite a few life-changing events in my family and friends’ life…and recently one of my best friends got engaged and is planning her wedding. I was having a really hard time knowing that I was going to miss all the planning by being in Mozambique. I was really having doubts about whether or not I could stay in Mozambique for the 2 years knowing I was going to miss all of these big events. Thankfully, I have really great friends/family both at home and in Moz who put up with me during my craziness.

Someone gave me good advice last week when I was having trouble thinking about being gone for so long and whether or not I could do it. They told me that whatever I feel peace about (whether that be staying in Moz or going home early) I should follow that peace and trust in God. I have been thinking about that and praying lots these past few weeks about this and I think I finally know what I feel peace about. I know I’m missing events in America but I truly feel peace about staying in Mozambique. I was struggling with feeling like I’m not doing much at site and didn’t know how I would change things in the future. After some time….and lots of phone calls with my PCV friends I realized I need to give myself more time. I have been at site for 3 months now and I still feel like I’m just getting used to Nacucha and trying to start secondary projects—I need to give myself more time to accomplish these groups. When I am having hard days I like to read this quote to help me remember to give myself time and the courage to keep going.

“There will be good days. And there will be bad days.
There will be times when—
you want to turn around, pack it up, and call it quits.

Don’t give up at that time. Don’t quit.
Its an opportunity to prove your worth.”

Life in Mozambique gets easier when I have plans to travel home and see family and friends. Now that one of my best friends is getting married I’ll be home twice—in October (yay for fall weddings!) and in December for Christmas—it’s given me lots of things to get excited about. I’m still trying to figure out how to make all the arrangements work out with my classes and supervisor but I’ll get it done. Better talk to my nun supervisor and ask for more time off…hopefully she understands me and my Portuguese this time :) 

So all that rambling was basically just to say that I’m sorry for all my craziness lately but I’m really determined and staying these 2 years. I really want to start secondary projects and help my students learn English. I need to start these projects so I have things to look forward to outside of classes!

Anna and I have found a counterpart to start our REDES group in April. REDES is a national organization that promotes the future of women in Mozambique. The group talks about sexual health, the prevention of HIV, equality between genders, the importance of education, self-esteem, and other important themes that promote independence. I also want to start a project at the primary school or start helping out there. We have a break during the second week of April so I’m going to visit the primary school and get acquainted with the teachers and students. I miss teaching elementary aged students so I’m really anxious to get started with a project there. As far as I can tell they have no resources besides chalkboards, desks and chairs. They need lots of things and I’m hoping I can help them out with that.

Today after sitting at home grading all day and cleaning around the house, Alfredo, our Safety and Security officer from Peace Corps made a surprise visit to our house. He looked around our house, took us to Nacala to look for a hotel for him and went out for dinner to catch up. We had chicken burgers (first real meal I’ve had in a long time!) and got to update him on our site—the challenges and positives of Nacucha.

We haven’t been to Nacala in a few weeks so it was really nice to get out of Nacucha, speak English and enjoy good food. Alfredo is so nice and told us that he thought we should leave site every 2 weeks for a break. It was really nice to have a Peace Corps staff member tell us that since we don’t leave much because of transportation difficulties. Nacucha is out of the way for PC visitors so it was a really great surprise to have Alfredo show up and take us out to eat! Peace Corps really does have good timing….Anna and I were both wanting to go to Nacala and eat food besides just bread and peanut butter for a change and then out of the blue a Peace Corps car shows up outside our door. Little surprises like that show me Peace Corps really cares about their volunteers and gives us a nice change to our boring life in Nacucha.

One more week of classes and then (hopefully) a week off of school! Let’s hope I can get all my grades finished and turned in on time (whenever that is…I’m hoping the other professors can fill me in on those little details). Happy Easter! :) 

Next month is World Malaria Day so PCVs all over will be blogging about Malaria—get ready to learn some facts and stories of Malaria!