Although nothing is set in stone or very established yet it’s pretty exciting. Since returning to site I’ve been trying, really trying, to be more involved in my community. I have a few more weeks left for this school semester and then it will be summer vacation. Most teachers and students travel during this break (and just about every PCV I know is returning to the states for the holidays) but aside from a week or two of traveling I am planning to stay at site. I know most of my students and colleagues will be gone but the community members will still be around so I’ve been trying to find things to do to keep me busy when I don’t have school next month. This has resulted in:
-Forming an English theatre group. (finally!) Although it was like pulling teeth to get all of the interested members to actually show up for a meeting at the same time, last week they finally did and we got to work and it was awesome! I now meet with these students twice a week to practice a theatre piece (they wrote in English!) which they will perform in two weeks at a provincial competition that’s being sponsored by the U.S. embassy. I think that this group will morph into my English club/juntos group because the students seem to enjoy theatre and want to continue with it even after the competition AND since working with them, many of the students have started asking me for extra homework help/tutoring or just stopping by my house to practice their English. Its been so great.
-Tutoring random people in Vanduzi (who aren’t students). This group includes my alfaiate (tailor), who wants to write his own English-Portuguese dictionary, along with a 10-year old boy from Zimbabwe, whose father is adamant about teaching his son English.
-Working with one of the primary school teachers to lesson plan/better prepare her students for secondary school AND just helping her practice her English and hang out. Yay for making more friends that are around the same age as me!
-Finally, although this project has not started yet I am just so excited I need to write about it. I recently met a Somali man in my town who owns a small halal restaurant (its also the only restaurant in Vanduzi that has beans and rice (popular market food) without meat in it!) anyway, I am hoping that I can meet this man for lunch one or day days a week and that he can tutor me in Swahili! As a side note, when I got my post in Mozambique way back in January of 2012 I was so excited because I thought I’d be able to live in the north of the country where I could learn Swahili and then after Peace Corps I could move to Kenya and get a job dealing with Somalia/current events in the horn. Well, I didn’t get sent to the north and my dreams of learning Swahili were temporarily put on hold BUT now I might have a tutor and I am so excited! I haven’t actually met with this man yet for lessons but I am sure if he isn’t too busy he’d be happy to teach me.
Aside from getting excited about projects one of my good friends from training was visiting last week. I got to show off my site a bit (and he helped me brainstorm some of the above projects) and we also hung out with some other volunteers that were in Chimoio for the week for a conference.
(here's to hoping its not another 6 months until I see you again!)
A few of us went to the town of Manica one day to see this old cave art drawings, which are apparently really really old and date back from a tribal war that caused villagers to flee into the caves up in the mountains for safety. Although some of the drawings looked pretty neat there was also a row of drawings that looked almost stenciled in. regardless of whether the drawings are actually real, the hike to the top was fun and the view was fantastic. We spent the rest of the day in manica, which was a nice little town about an hour away from my town, Vanduzi. Here’s some pictures:
The mountain we hiked to get to the caves....
The cave drawings...
Our guide? For lack of a better title, this woman is the daughter of the either the village elder or the old tribal queen...I actually don't quite know her exact title but she is the only one that could take us up the mountain to see the drawings.
What better way to cool off after hiking up a mountain in the middle of the day than to enjoy a MANICA beer in the town of MANICA in MANICA province. Cool eh?
I'm trying to be better with this blog so hopefully I'll write again next week, until then have a great week everyone!
Haleigh! You're not going home for Christmas? I'm glad! I thought I was the only one! :-) What are your plans for Christmas Day? My parents are gonna be here and we're going to cook a big dinner for all the new Tete volunteers. You're more than welcome to join!!
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