Mexican in Mozambique

As time passes here, despedidas (good byes) are becoming a bigger and bigger part of this experience. It’s a very transitory time- both as volunteers or as ex-pats and we come into a lot of this work with a set timeframe. About two weeks ago I despedir ’ed (eng + port slang for- said goodbye to) my site mate Shane. Chimoio is definitely a much different place without him and I remember him daily. Shane was the other health volunteer here in Chimoio and he was here upon my arrival. At first, he and I clashed a lot. We are two different people with very different political and ideological views. Actually, when I first found out I was coming to Chimoio, another volunteer kind of laughed as if he had some secret he was holding back from me… “what?!” I asked him. He said, “your sitemate is Shane Meckler … the republican of Peace Corps.” LOL. This was the first thing everyone told me about Shane and I admit- it made me nervous. I was apprehensive and I expected that perhaps this ...

 Last weekend, I participated in yet another REDES conference. This time, I helped Mike (my fellow PCV and REDES colleague) run the conference for the REDES groups in Sofala Province. We stayed at a cute little place right outside of Beira and hosted about 25 girls, 8 facilitators, and 5 volunteers, mais o menos ( more or less ) . Similarly to the Manica conference, we covered a range of topics ranging from HIV/AIDS to Women's Health and Income generation. This time, I lead the discussion on Violence against women, which was a bit nerve wrecking... but successful, nonetheless. Here are some group pictures: Things with my REDES group are still a little shaky. My girls showed up today but one of them wasn't here until 40 minutes past our starting time. I had to explain our activity multiple times as people kept trickling in. On the bright side, I did recruit two new girls from Shane's old JUNTOS group (that I will now be working with as well). Here is a pic...

As time passes, I find myself less and less motivated to keep up with this blog. Many volunteers start a blog to document their experiences abroad but most lose interest and/or resolve to really keep up with it. I feel myself falling into this, but a small part of me wants to make a real effort at not giving up on this. So, here it is! Work Update: I am still tutoring the kids at Lemusica but I have also started working with the HIV/AIDS education/prevention department of the organization. After the Malaria activity I carried out with the kids at Lemusica, Virginia  (the HIV/AIDS staff member) asked me to work with her to create some visual materials for the palestras (talks) and community presentations she carries out. I have also been helping her with the training of the youth activists she works with.  Virginia carrying out a community training... my drawings in the background A school health fair that Virginia & Lemusica presented at ...