Written Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Good afternoon everyone. It’s a hot one again here in Mozambique, reporting in at 2:30 this afternoon. . . I didn’t go to my meeting today, on account of waking up with a fever, sore throat, and runny nose. . I had a slight fever on Monday, and yesterday was just a bit stuffy, so I thought I was “kicking” my cold right in you-know-where. . . apparently it thought otherwise. Woke up today feeling worse than ever, and have gone through almost an entire roll of toilet paper blowing my nose.

Being sick in the summertime at home sucks, as many of you know. Imagine the temperatures a bit hotter, and the air a bit more humid. . . now, toss in a fever and other ailments. . .lovely day right?

Anyway – didn’t want this to be another depressing blog post. . . so I’ll cut that out now.

Yesterday was a really great day actually. I went to the Hospital in the morning, hung out with some of the Peer Educators there – trying to learn what they do in a more in-depth manner, afterwards I went walking around town, getting odd things for the house (new light bulb, food for the dog etc) then came home to do a bit of cleaning, and preparing for my REDES meeting that afternoon.

It was my first meeting with the girls without Angela, so I was a bit apprehensive. My language is nowhere near as good as hers is, and the girls absolutely adored her. I was worried that I wouldn’t be up-to-snuff for them. So I was reading in one of our many books given to us by PC about activities to do with a young group of girls. The first one – great for introductions – make personalized name-tags. So I cut out some larger circles of paper, and took with me some colored pencils and markers. The idea was to incorporate your name, as well as designs for things that you like to do. So I had my name, a drawing of a soccer ball, book, the beach, friends holding hands, music notes, and a dog. I think that’s all pretty self-explanatory.

The girls really liked this activity, which made me really happy. It was a chance for me to get to know everyone a lot better and helped to break any remaining ice there may have been. Lucky that I brought this activity too – my counterpart was traveling back from Inhambane City, and was about an hour late to the meeting. We talked about some ideas for the future, what we want to do with our group. . . we are thinking about making jams or doing a cooking project, possibly for some income generation, a project dealing with the introduction of REDES into the community in a more prominent manner – many don’t know what REDES is, and we think its important that they do.

Then in the evening, I did my yoga, cooked some dinner, and hung out with the puppy dog. He’s currently passed out on the flood in my sala. Looking cute as ever. He’s a crazy little dude, but I’m really happy for the company, companionship, and never-ending kisses. Its nice to be loved.

So this morning, since I woke up feeling like death warmed over, I decided to stay in my house and rest. Sadly, the American in me, felt it was bad to just literally do nothing all day. So I washed a load of laundry in the morning, and did the dishes too. That took me until maybe 11:30am. And after that I took a two-hour nap.

Woke up to write this blog, and am considering walking up to town to buy some onions and other veggies to make an egg scramble for dinner. But seeing as I haven’t had much of an appetite today (heat and sick make it disappear) I may just go back to sleep.

Lazy day here with the pup – hopefully tomorrow will be better – health wise. I’m supposed to go out into the campu with my one organization. Friday I have a visit from Ilido, the Assistant APCD – he’s coming to check in on my housing situation, and my work. Sunday I’m going to go to church with one of my activistias, it’s a new one, so I’ll have interesting stories from that I’m sure.

Next week, no big plans as of yet, just the standard meetings, and going to the campu – Friday my landlord is coming to help me fix the latrine (the back part of the floor is caving in, and I’m terrified of falling in) and fix an overhang on one of my windows that’ll provide some more shade during the day in my sala.

Other than that, same ‘ol same ‘ol here in Quissico, missing Angela still, but I’m trying to focus on life here, and getting settled.

With the sound of a nose being blown –

td