May 31st marked my one year in-country anniversary. Ironically, I celebrated One Year in Mozambique outside of Mozambique. A few days prior, I started traveling down south to attend Bushfire, Swaziland's internationally acclaimed 3-day music & arts festival.
The route:
Chimoio to Mapinhane
Mapinhane to Inhambane
On the way down, we stopped in Inhambane city and had some drinks by the bay as
the sun set with Adela
Inhambane to Maputo
Maputo to Malkerns, Swazi
Joanna and I at the Namaacha/Swazi border!
Thomas, Adela, me, Alden
A little taste of some of the acts:
Pictures:
Friday Night
18ers <3
Saturday
Traditional Dances
new travel bud
Group picture
Group picture Take 2
w/ Linda, Thomas & "Italian" Dario
good ol' southerners
Sunday, day 3
Writings On the Wall
Peace "VSO" Corps
I also conseguir'ed some NEW notes for my collection:
(I want to collect monies from all the countries I travel to)
South African Rands are commonly used in Swazi because
the exchange rate is the same
Swazi currency
raaaawwrrr!
The trip back:
Skipped Maputo and went straight to Xai-Xai
Got the best bolea (ride) that took us from Xai-Xai to Inchope
April 1, 2013 Last week I participated in a 3day workshop in Dondo put on by 2 professors and 4 cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy. They have been researching BioSand Filters for some time and designed a trip/project to come to Mozambique and put on a workshop on the subject matter. There was 19 community members (church leaders, missionaries, and their students) in attendance in addition to the two members from my association (Dona Berta and Nerzita). Since my association (ATM) use to build and install BioSand Filters, they were invited to the workshop to facilitate the training and provide their testimonies. The workshop ran smoothly and I was impressed to see how critical of a role Nerzita and Dona Berta played in facilitating the workshop. Apart form attending and documenting the workshop, I also spent most of my free time with the cadets, the professors (and one of their spouses) from the Academy. They were an interesting group and I got a kick out of seeing the cadets ex...
Dec. 20 3:40pm-ish, Friday afternoon Is anyone still reading this? ha! Well, for those of you who are... here are the latest novidades na vida do wendel- At the moment, I am stuck in my house waiting for a handy man that is suppose to repair my roof. He came by at noon, scoped out the work and then went to buy the supplies. My dona (my landlady and owner of the house) said he would be back " d'aqui a nada " (in no time). D'aqui a nada ?! Psshh.. let's see what this means, I thought to myself. Well, 3 hours later and no handy man in sight. Why does my house need fixing? Well, my lovely chapa (tin) roof has started leaking during the hard rains. At first it was just in 3-4 isolated places but now the leaks are spreading and there are 3 new leaks right on top of my bed. The other night I crawled into bed and couldn't tell whether my bed was damp or just cold. It was damp. I moved my bed from under the leaks as best I could but that didn't ...
Jan.17 Part of me feels like I should write a reflection of 2012, and perhaps something on my goals for 2013… but I don’t know. It feels forced. I’ve definitely reflected on the highs and lows of 2012 with some other volunteers from my group during my trip down south, but I don’t really feel compelled to regurgitate them here. I didn’t really make any resolutions for the new year… it was funny, I was on facebook one day and I saw a status from a friend of mine that’s abroad in Thailand, it read: ‘New Year’s Resolution: stay alive one more year’ I chuckled at it and wondered why I had not thought of that, especially considering the accident I was in on the ride back to site (no worries, wasn’t hurt)… surviving Mozambique has definitely been on the agenda since I rode in one of those death trap chapas down in Gaza (during site visits)… Anyway, I won’t rehash all my 2012 reflections, but I have been reflecting on my service lately. Jan 12 th marked my 5 th month at sit...
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