Today we went back to Marafina, the village where we had that meeting and people wanted t-shirts and salaries and weren’t too sure they wanted to be involved in Care for Life if those things weren’t forthcoming. Today actually went pretty well. In the morning we divided the kids into groups and did two activities with them. Half of them made little toolboxes (think miniature versions of the ones that Cub Scouts always do). The other half made the beads I told you about yesterday. One of the community leaders who hadn’t been too excited about Care for Life’s lack [View Full Entry]

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Today we went to an outlying community to teach the kids the “Stay Alive” class and also some crafts they can use to make a few bucks. Actually, that makes things sound a little more impressive than they really were. It’s the local Care for Life employees who teach the “Stay Alive” program. Today I didn’t understand most of it, but the most memorable part was the part where they role-played a 10-year old girl who was being propositioned by a guy and rejecting him and calling for help. Apparently that’s something that 10-year old girls need to kno [View Full Entry]

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Today was our day to go to the beach. The only problem is that it was the first rainy day we’ve had. The drivers were late. We’re not sure why. We called them and asked where they were, and they said they were on their way, within five minutes later. They didn’t get here till an hour later. Apparently that’s a cultural thing here. Aggravating, but common. Who knows why they were really late. According to my GPS, the beach is 18½ miles away. It took us about two hours to get there, over one of the worst roads I’ve [View Full Entry]

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This morning we went to a community called Casa Banana. Yeah, House of Bananas. And what do you know, it turns out they have a lot of banana trees there. The kids were taught about hygiene in the machessa, and then we taught them some rudimentary sewing skills to make hand puppets. I went into it thinking that was pretty dumb, but it was less dumb than I thought. I suppose that’s not a stirring endorsement. The village had pigs, which I’d never seen before here. There were a jillion kids playing and wanting in on the sewing action, so [View Full Entry]

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Got a question about how we’re treated as outsiders. We’re always treated well. People want to look at you and a few will stare somewhat, but not many. If I catch someone’s eye I’ll usually smile and wave, and they always wave back. They’re certainly a lot more enthusiastic about us than if we were in Paris! Got a question about whether it’s hard to see all the kids wanting someone to hold them. Yeah, it’s sad. It’s interesting how the babies handle it differently. Some cry a lot trying to get attention. Most are pretty passive—I [View Full Entry]

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Today was Sunday, but I still had some adventures. Today we (another team member and I) started by making breakfast, which was French toast and eggs. Unfortunately, some on the team are slobs. They don’t really clean up their messes. It’s like living in Heritage Halls. Not good from a slobby kitchen standpoint. We had leftover scrambled eggs, lots of ‘em. Maybe 10. I gave them to our security guard, who was all stoked. He took them with both hands, thanked me profusely, and disappeared to snarf them down somewhere with the plastic spoon I gave him. Life [View Full Entry]

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Today was interesting again. Maybe not as good as yesterday, but good. The first thing we did in the morning was go to work at the village where we had the long discussion I told you about before. We went out to work on the machessa, which is a community center that will serve as a place for community meetings, health stuff, and whatnot. It’s about 20 feet by 50 feet. I worked mostly on the roof, nailing bamboo pieces to the wood frame. I’ve decided that one way to gauge the difference in development between countries is to compare [View Full Entry]

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First, I’ll answer questions I’ve received. The food here (for us, as opposed to the natives) is about what you’d get in a freshman college dorm, because the people doing the cooking are usually 18 year-olds. And they’re using somewhat weird Mozambican food, too, which doesn’t help much. But it’s not terrible. We have PB&J every day for lunch (yum!). And tonight we had tacos that actually weren’t too bad. Tomorrow night I guess we’re going out to dinner, which entails certain risks of puking afterward. I’m looking forward to som [View Full Entry]

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The first thing we did today was go out to a farm owned by Care for Life to work. We basically did manual labor on the farm for the morning. It was a reasonably good experience but a few hours of it was plenty. Tucker remarked repeatedly how it was a good thing that he’d been swinging a pick in the back yard, so that he’d know how to swing a Mozambican hoe here. (They’re ubiquitous and, as far as I can see, the only tool most people own.) One thing I noticed as we drove out to the farm was [View Full Entry]

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July 16 Okay, so I finally got access to some email. Whew! It took some finagling. The flights here sucked but no worse than expected. Actually, the leg to NYC was the worst. There was a guy in front of us snoring and it was just really uncomfortable as all get out. We got an hour or two worth of sleep each. When we landed in NY, I felt woozy but it wasn’t a rough flight at all. Turned out I had the flu. Neat. Shortly after we got our bags I all of a sudden needed to throw up. I [View Full Entry]

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