3 months in!

Oi, 

Two days ago marked my 3 month mark at site! Whoooo! It’s definitely the first of many Peace Corps milestones.

Reconnect Conference also took place last week in Maputo.

Reconnect Conference happens after your first 3 months at site (our conference was a week premature) and its designed to bring your group back together, share your experiences from site, talk about the challenges you’ve experienced & brainstorm some resiliency strategies to help cope. We also had a session on Monitoring & Evaluation, which is just a fancy way of describing the process of ‘reporting’ back to Washington.

I left Chimoio early Sunday (the 4th) and flew down to Maputo. It was great to see my fellow Moz18ers once again and hear about everyone’s experiences at site. We had daily sessions from 8-5 Monday through Thursday and a half day on Friday. On the first night there I got to go to a reggae show on the marginal (like the Cali PCH, but in Maputo) which was pretty great. After the show we got invited to another spot called Nucleo which was sickkk. There was a live band and probably the most diverse crowd I’ve seen so far- Mozambicans, ex-pats, young & old, rastas, hipsters, tourist, locals, etc. Other highlights included just chillin’ out in our hotel rooms with the gang and drinking until the early hours of the morning. On Tuesday night, we went to an Election party hosted by the U.S. Embassy. It was attended by Mozambicans and American ex-pats. I mingled with lots of interesting people and watched a ‘mock debate’ put on by Mozambican university students, which was really interesting. They had one student debating as Romney and the other as Obama. It was a great way of informing the Mozambicans present on the stance of each candidate and the current political climate in the states. They had huge projectors with live CNN coverage, but the 10 hour time different meant that we didn’t get to catch the actual showdown. By the way, we would later hear celebratory chants on the streets on Maputo, “OBAMAAAA, Oye!!!”

On Wednesday night we were invited over to our Country Directors’ house over for dinner (which was delicious!). Their house was beautifully decorated with tons of art work that they’ve collected through their travels and they even let each of us make a 5-8 minute call home! The next day after session, we got together at the house of our APCD’s house for a belated Halloween celebration. I dressed up as Ariel (when she walks on land) and won “Most Photographic,” (photogenic?) in the costume contest! ;) I never win at contest, so I was pretttttty excited, ahaha.

Friday was a half day, so we got out of sessions at noon and got to aproveitar a free afternoon to do some shopping. A few of us went to the craft market where we bought some cool art/crafts by local artist. After the craft market we went to the Mozambican equivalent of Target, called Game, where we bought more goodies- like Snickers chocolate bars! I bought some snacks, Ziplock Tupperware containers, and some other things for my kitchen. This store was almost like a time warp… it felt like we were back in the states for the hour/hour and a half that we spent in there. After Game, we had an early dinner at Café Sol, which is this great little restaurant (run by American ex-pats) that sells burritos!!! I remember thinking to myself, “Burritos- I will never take you for granted ever again.” Ahah.

Later in the night, we headed to Teacher’s Bar, a cool little local spot that sells 29mt. draft beers with the gang. While I was there, Queshia and I met up with our friend Joe and his friends that were visiting from the states. After Teacher’s Bar we headed next door for another round of drinks before heading out for a night of dancing at Coconuts. Coconuts was insanely fun. There was a live band performing (I think they’re called ‘One Night Stand’) and we even ran into more of our friends! At about 4 am, I head to head back to the hotel to pack my bags.

I left the hotel at 5am-ish with a group of the notherners (vols that live up North, and therefore flew too) and headed to the airport. Maputo was tons of fun, but definitely never staying up & drinking the night before traveling back to site. Being drunk/hungover on a turbulent AM flight was not my best idea yet, ahahahah. I know, I know “quien me manda a andar de borracha,” ahah. 

In other news, I got a pup! His name is Beans! :D ahaha