Mexican in Mozambique

Sometimes I like to facebook stalk old pictures of myself and remember a time when I was clean, and I smelled good, and had long pretty hair, was (somewhat) fashionable, and wasn’t sweating 24 hours a day.   Sometimes I like to read other Peace Corps blogs/journals and remind myself that I’m not as alone as I sometimes feel. Sometimes, actually all the time, I like to facebook stalk RPCVs (returned peace corps volunteers) and think to myself … “they did this too. And now they’re home.” I don’t know why that makes me feel good.   Sometimes I pretend I don’t speak Portuguese when I find someone extremely irritating and want to run away from them, ASAP.   Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about L.A. and what must be happening there.   Sometimes I miss my Mom (& family) so much that I …… cry…   a little. Ahaha. Ok, a lot. Sorta.   Sometimes I wish I was in another place- although I don’t know where.   Sometimes I think back on the ...

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. Aft...

Happy Birthday, Momsiessss <3 " El día en que tu naciste nacieron todas las flores"

An excerpt from an email I wrote/ U n extracto de un correo electrónico que escribi: -“Pues, prima. Aquí la cosa es… interesante. Hay días que estoy súper feliz de lo que estoy viviendo y me digo, “WOW! Vivo en África! Esto si es vivir!” Días como esos cuando estoy aprendiendo mucho y observando todo lo que veo y creo que vale la pena todas las dificultades que paso… La verdad, esta experiencia es difícil… pero te forma de una manera que no se puede encontrar en otras experiencias… como, por ejemplo, en una clase. Hay días que tengo muchas ganas y me siento ambiciosa. Me pasan miles de ideas por la cabeza, ‘quiero entrar en este proyecto, quiero escribir un reporte de esto,’ … días donde veo muchas oportunidades… Días en que escribo mucho y me siento bien. Días en que me pongo hacer listas de mis metas- metas de estos dos años como voluntaria, metas personales, y metas que tengo al largo plano. Quiero mejorar mi Portugués, quiero aprender la lengua local, quiero tener un proyecto...

I am sitting in the Peace Coprs Office crying my eyes out... It's about 6:30pm on this Saturday evening and I am killing time on the interwebs before heading to a BBQ despedida for one of my site mates. I happened to glance over into the room next door and I saw a TON of packages stacked up. I browsed trhough them casually and was delighted to see one of them with my Mom's writting! A few weeks ago my Mom, my aunts, and some of my cousins all compiled a care package for me with tons of goodies. The contents include: a toilet seat cover frying pan cooking pot kitchen cooking utensils measuring cups! (cups & tbs) chicken seasoning 8 packets of Beef ramen noodles Un Rosario & Virgen de Guadalupe prayer thing (I forget what they're called) pink Essie nail polish hand sanitizer small tupperwear kitchen sponges Nutella! nivea creme kitchen towels oven mit 16 acrylic paints !! M&Ms! 2 pckts of Hello Panda cookies :) 3 pckts of cookies hello kit...

September 16, 2012 My head is cheia (full) of endless thoughts/questions. The writing bug has bit me again and I feel like there are so many things to share, so I apologize if this doesn’t make much sense. I feel like my life has become full/representative of all those lame clichés (sayings) you always hear growing up. You know those things you hear your parents say all the time, like “you learn from your mistakes,” & other sorts of nonsensical bullshit we try to tune out? Well. Ahaha. These little sayings are alive in my life now more than ever, not because I keep hearing them, but because I am finally starting to see so many of them actualize in my personal life/experience as a PCV. You guys know what I’m talking about, right? Those —-  “experience is the best teacher?” .. “love is blind,” …etc..? This experience is still new and fresh, but I feel myself learning and growing a lot already. & not always in a really deep and meaningful level (although...