Redes Conference

Last weekend was our REDES conference in Monapo. There were several other groups from around Nampula and Cabo Delgado that were able to attend the conference. Traveling to Monapo went much better than Anna and I had expected. We met up with the 4 girls from our REDES group on the highway outside of Nacucha and then traveled together to Monapo. We ended up getting a very nice boleia and he took all six of us all the way to the door of our destination—it was a free, and air-conditioned ride…boleias don’t get much better than that. :)

The weekend went by in a blur and we were crazy busy the whole time but it was great! Anna and I were in charge of buying food for the first day—thankfully we were able to take one of the cooks from our pensão with us to help carry stuff back. Buying food for 55 people in Mozambique is a bit difficult. On one of our trips to the market we bought 15 live chickens for dinner, 10kilos of xima flour and 55 bananas. I’m proud to say I looked like a Mozambican woman because I carried the xima flour on my head! :) Thankfully the cook tied all the chickens together and put them in an empty rice bag to carry them back to the kitchen. (I only had to hold one chicken for 5 minutes but it really was not a pleasant experience. I don’t know what my problem is but I realized I have a thing with live chickens; I just don’t like to touch them or hold them.) I didn’t drop the flour off my head once—I was pretty impressed but I definitely didn’t look as experienced as the other women.

The conference sessions went really well and our girls learned a lot of information about women’s health, puberty, reproduction, self-esteem and income generation. It was eye opening to me that many of the girls had no background knowledge of reproductive health or puberty. That session took a good three hours instead of the one it was scheduled for because the girls had so many questions. I was really pleased that all the participants felt open enough to ask those questions. I think that everyone went back to site with a lot of new knowledge and will hopefully pass that on to other members of their REDES groups. And of course there was a lot of dancing and singing! The last night we had a talent show that our girls had been preparing for and even made pompoms! The volunteers even did a dance, which made all the girls laugh, overall it was a very fun-filled weekend! Our girls from Nacucha really surprised us at how much they knew and we learned a lot more about them. I’m really excited for them to come back to school after break in August and teach the rest of the group everything they learned.

After a tiring long weekend we made it back to site and slept practically the whole day away. This week has been busy doing tests, grading, sleeping off a cold and trying to get caught up from being away. My 8^th graders are done with classes for their winter break and have to work in the farm the next two weeks then have break until August. However, my 11^th graders still have classes until July 12^th and then I’m on break until August 1^st! At least I’m pretty sure that’s my break…Nacucha loves to change things at the last minute so we’ll see. This week I’m working on getting tutors and bookcases for the library and trying to finish all my binders of tests from this semester.

This weekend we have site visitors coming to Nacucha! We have a lot planned to get ready for them (like cleaning, making sure we have enough beds and buying food in Nacala so we can feed them). I’m excited to meet the two trainees from the Moz 20 health group and hope they enjoy their visit here—maybe we’ll even get to take a beach trip with them :)

Just a few more weeks until break and then a few more until I’m reunited with two of my best friends in Peace Corps in Gurue for a fun weekend! And in 52 days AMERICA!! :)

“Just remember there is someone out there that is more than happy than you with less than what you have.” – Unknown

Busy life in Nacucha

The month of June has flown by—I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post. This is the first weekend during the month where we have been at site and it’s been a very relaxing but somewhat boring. We visited the PCVs in Monapo a few weekends, Carapeira and went to Ilha de Mozambique for Ocean Fest—it was a beautiful island and so much fun! Anna and I walked around the whole island one afternoon so I saw all the nice spots but we also got terrible blisters from walking in bad flip flops…not one of my smartest ideas.

Church in Ilha that reminded me of the chapel at Jewell 

Jill, PCV from Carapeira, had her Juntos group come and perform at Ocean Fest

Old, deserted church on Ilha

Random criança followed us around and wanted to take pictures with us (this is the old church looking over the ocean) 

Jamie and I at the food festival--with my new capulana dress! :) 

Last week I found out my application was accepted to start the community library and afterschool tutoring program at the primary school in Nacucha. After the training with my counterpart, Irma Rita, in late July we will get all the books and start the tutoring program. I’m really excited about starting this and hope the students can learn that reading is fun! The school has no children’s books for the students or professors to use and I’m hoping that having these books will make people more interested in reading for enjoyment. I have a lot to do this next month before the program can start and am a little nervous about getting it all completed. I need to find tutors from the secondary school or other members from the community, a library facilitator and create a training for the tutors. I sure have my work cut out for me but I’m so excited that I get to bring a library and over 150 books to Nacucha!

The classes at the primary school are slowly getting more and more students and they all really love learning English. I have given out some stickers at the end of class and they get crazy! They all want to put it on the notebook and especially loved the smelly stickers J

This next week I’m finally starting to practice Portuguese with Cristina, a primary school teacher. I definitely should not have waited so long to practice with another person but I have been speaking with students and the nuns a lot. I’m hoping meeting with her a few times a week and getting back into my grammar activity books will help me improve. I’m supposed to be leading the training and explaining the tutoring program to the community members and want to be able to speak more fluently. Hopefully it helps but we’ll see :)

Next week we are going to Monapo with 4 of our REDES girls for a meeting with other groups around Nampula. We’ve only had 3 meetings so far but the girls really seem to like all the activities. Last week I even taught them how to make capulana flowers and they really had fun!

Things are really starting to pick up in Nacucha and it feels like I’m busy everyday but that’s good. It’s making time go by really fast. Only 66 days until I’m home in August for one of my best friend’s wedding! Need to go to church and get all my lesson planning done for the week today—enjoy the quote :)  I’ll  try and post again sooner than next month!

“It’s better to try and fail than to never know and always wonder.”