Blogs from Central, Mozambique, Africa - page 3

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 know around here. Yikes. The crafts we taught them were creating beads out of paper triangles and stringing them together to sell. I guess that’s useful, but it’s not one of the more interesting things I’ve done. ... read more

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 Tucker distracted a bunch of them with soccer. Apparently they kicked the ball down the well a couple times. Tucker has some hilarious pictures of the kids lowering a small kid down there by one ... read more

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 here is hard, and 10 eggs is a big old treat, I guess. We went to church at 9. It’s about a half-mile away. It’s a very old, beat-up building. It’s in a sort of strip mall ... read more

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 some of these huge shrimp that I keep hearing are a Mozambican specialty. I’m sleeping better now. One night I took an Ambien and slept a full eight hours. Then last night I was fine. I think I’m adjusted now. Tucker was wearing an apron ... read more

hello! i'm sorry to not have written but there is really no computers at all let alone internet, it is dirt and mud and dirt some more. i am o.k. in a strange way, the last couple of days have been a mix. mozambique is a true frontier. the world spins around and around and the africans here, on the east coast, spin with it. they scream at each other and laugh with each other and cry and jump around all at once and they are beautiful people. from the top of mozambique there is an endless stretch of mud and dirt they call a road through africa wildland that will take you if you wish all the way down to the end of the continent. the road is strewn with dead baboons for roadkill and ... read more