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.”