Nothing's easy

One chore that I absolutely dread here is getting my gas tank filled.  I use a gas tank for cooking in my house and it runs out about once every 6 months.  When that last bit of gas comes out and the stove stops working it's a sad moment since I know that I'll have to get it filled.
I can't get a gas fill-up in my town so I have to go all the way to Xai-Xai.  The problem is that when the tank is empty I can carry it all right by myself, but once it is full, it is far too heavy for me.  It takes some strategic planning to make the full trip.  After unhooking the tank I brought it by myself out to the street.  In little time a car came and I negotiated a price for him to put the gas tank in the car.  Usually you pay the price of an extra person so since I pay 15 mets to get to Xai-Xai, I paid 30 with the gas tank.  There's a gas station about halfway between Chongoene and Xai-Xai so I had the chapa drop me off there.  After getting out, paying, and lugging the can across the street, the gas station attendants waved me away and told me there was no gas there, sigh, onto the next place. 
I went back across the street and waited for the next car, negotiated a new price, and I was off to downtown Xai-Xai.  I was dropped off a little ways from the gas station so I tested the strength in my arms carrying the gas can down there, but I finally arrived, and was pleased to see that they had gas cans available for me.  I paid and then left the gas can at the station to find someone to help me.  Lots of young boys hang around Xai-Xai with wheelbarrows, willing to help out any shopper with a heavy load.  I ran across the street and recruited one to carry my gas can to the chapa stop so that I could return home. 
After having my gas can wheeled to the chapa stop and paying the boy 5 mets (20 cents American), I waited for a chapa back home to Chongoene.  When one arrived I asked how much I would pay for my gas can.  His answer? 150 mets which is BLASPHEMY!  As I was trying to negotiate a better price I feel some movement near my arm (and purse).  I spun around and grabbed a hold of what happened to be some guy's wrist as his hand was inside my purse trying to steal my phone.  The chapa guy asked what was going on and I told him that this guy was trying to rob me. 
The guy just stood there! I was still holding onto his wrist but he didn't resist or run away or anything.  He just stood there and when I accused him of robbing me, he promptly denied it.  (Then why was I holding his hand?!?!)  Anyway, he finally went off and I got in the car, a little shaky from my recent encounter.
Unfortunately this isn't the end of the story. 
Halfway to Chongoene, the car decides that it no longer wants to go to Chongoene, but that it is going to Maputo, which is 200 km in the other direction.  So the car decides to leave us anywhere on the side of the road and I start making noise and demanding that they leave us at a legitimate chapa stop and that someone help me there with my gas tank.  Luckily at the new stop a chapa showed up with no intention of over charging me and brought me and 5 others to Chongoene. 
I had arranged for Francelino's sister to meet me at the stop with a wheelbarrow to take the can the rest of the way to the house.  I was never so happy to arrive at home safe and sound with all of my belongings.  And I arrived at the right time because then it poured for the rest of the day.

Daily Challenges

Yesterday, I was headed into Xai-Xai on a chapa and an Asian man entered at one point on the way.  There are a good number of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean people here working in Mozambique.  After about 15 minutes I realized that a man in the front row was trying to talk to him and basically harassing him in the process: “Hey China! Hey China! Why you have no car? In China car cost 2 dolla!”. I realized after a bit that this man also didn’t speak any Portuguese.  The man in the front row then asked me to translate for him, inviting me into the conversation (bad move for this Mozambican).  I then told the Mozambican to leave the other guy alone and asked him if he’d like to be treated that way.  The poor foreigner was just trying to get from point A to point B, and ended up being harassed by this guy because of his ethnicity.  I think it reminded me of the way that I am sometimes treated for being white and a woman.  At least I have the language skills to try and stand up for myself, but I felt bad that this guy didn’t.

Since I do all of my teaching in Portuguese (local language is not allowed at school), I haven’t learned too much of the local language.  It is spoken within Francelino’s family and other families in the community and it is the first language that children learn when they start to speak. I have learned many words and taught myself to understand many things in Changana, but it’s more of a task to speak it.  So I was at the beach yesterday making arrangements for a group of volunteers to stay there and I was waiting at the bus stop for a really long time without sign of a chapa.  After about 40 min I decided to climb the hill and start walking to another stop where I might find more chapas.  As I was walking away a group of older ladies shouted at me “there’s a chapa (bus) coming!”.  They shouted at me in Changana, but I was able to pick up the words and understood and turned back around.  When I turned around to head back and they realized that I understood them they started laughing and really got a kick out of it.  Here’s to local language skills!

This weekend I put together a weekend get together because Gaza province is welcoming 9 new health volunteers!  We plan to go to the beach and all get to know each other—so exciting!

So the past few weeks it has been pretty “cold” here.  Okay, I know I’m in Africa—how cold can it be? Right?  Well it has been in the high 40’s, low 50’s every morning, which in New Hampshire is certainly not considered cold, however the living conditions here are different.  Consider this: the houses are not insulated, so if it’s 50 degrees outside, it’s probably 55 in the house?  Also many of the classrooms at school don’t have doors and the windows are broken so when it’s 50 degrees and windy outside, it’s 50 degrees and windy inside too, rough.  Some of the kids just use their short-sleeved uniform shirt at school, which is not enough in that weather and you can’t just ask a kid why he didn’t bring a jacket because it’s possible that he doesn’t have one.  It’s so tough!  That being said, I personally wouldn’t mind if the cold weather sticks around because in a few months it will be 100 degrees every day, and that isn’t exactly the most enjoyable weather either!

Other than that, things are going well.  School wraps up October 26^th and then we have testing and other things going on at school, but I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to the school year ending.  The big classes, lack of books and other resources, and being under appreciated at school is starting to get to me.  10 weeks left until summer break!

Peace Corps Extension

Earlier this year I got a community project funded here in Chongoene to build a literacy center to educate illiterate adults who were not given the opportunity to finish school as children.  The project is moving along slowly but surely, but if it finishes on schedule, it would open in November of this year.  That would also be around the time of my COS (Close of Service) date, when I would head home to the United States. 

I want to be there during the first few months of operation to be able to develop a curriculum, find competent instructors, and make sure that the center is sustainable and can continue operating when I do return to the United States.  As a result, I requested an official extension of service through Peace Corps for an extra six months.  My request was accepted, so I will officially stay on as a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Mozambique until May 2013!  I am very excited to have the opportunity to stay on and work more as a community volunteer in Chongoene, as I will no longer be teaching.  There will be another volunteer coming in December to replace my teaching position at the Secondary School, so it will be nice to have another volunteer around also!

I am also very happy to be staying on for extra time to spend more time here with my boyfriend, Francelino.  He is at a boarding school this year which is about 6 hours away and we have only had the opportunity to see each other once a month.  His program finishes in December, and he will be certified as a primary school English teacher (6^th and 7^th grade)!

Those who know me know how much I love Christmas, cold weather, snow, and most things related to winter in New England, so missing another Christmas at home would be devastating for me (and my family :) ).  As a result, I will be coming home for three weeks over the Christmas holidays. AND (drum roll)….I will be bringing Francelino with me to visit the United States and meet all of my family and friends!  We are so thankful and excited to have this opportunity and it will surely be the trip of a lifetime (for both of us!).  We will be in the U.S. from December 24^th to January 13^th; hope to see some of you then!

JUNTOS WORKSHOP 2012

JUNTOS workshops happened in June and July.  I was fortunate enough to be able to work and help out with two workshops, one in Gaza province and one in Maputo province. At each conference participants from 5-6 local JUNTOS groups were invited to participate.  At the Gaza conference we had 8 participants from each group, 5 facilitators, a tech trainer, and an enthusiastic group of volunteers present.  The weekend consists of educational and informational sessions on topics like self esteem, leadership, HIV and AIDS, gender equality, sexual health, and more!  The workshops are a lot of work in the weeks before: buying all of the food, arranging someone to cook, getting the t-shirts made, and making sure everyone is prepared!

At the workshop each group leader facilitates some of the sessions and the tech trainer deals with the more information sensitive sessions (HIV and AIDS, sexual health, gender).  The tech trainer was wonderful in terms of technical experience.  He is a musician and works at a music school so taught the kids songs about HIV and got their creative juices running in terms of other art projects.  In terms of the HIV and AIDS education part, he wasn’t completely prepared and I had to jump in and run some sessions, but in all it was fun!  I used to have such a fear of public speaking especially for a large number of people, but I think that my two years of teaching (in Portuguese) for classes of up to 80 kids has cured me!  The kids had a really great time.  The only down side is that we have so much information to cover, that the kids don’t get as much free time as they’d like.  The solution?  A group of the participants woke up at 4am every morning to get a game of soccer in before breakfast (seriously). 

The workshop only lasts 3 days, but at the end the kids were all hugging and exchanging numbers like they had been at summer camp for months.  Although somewhat exhausting, it’s great as a volunteer to be able to expose the kids that I work with to new experiences.  Here are some pictures of the whole group!

Catching up!

So I realized that I have completely abandoned my blog over the last few months so I am going to attempt to redeem myself with multiple blog posts today!

Happy Children's Day!

Today we celebrate Children's Day here in Mozambique.  The primary schools don't have classes, but the kids usually still go to school and play.  For Francelino's siblings and other kids in the neighborhood I bought them some candies and we're currently we're having a dance party in the living room.  Later the plan is to make popcorn and watch a movie (probably Shrek or Puss in Boots; those are their favorites at the moment). Why don't we have a Children's Day in the US?  (I think my parents used to say that every day was Children's Day, and thinking about all of the opportunities that many kids have in the U.S. growing up compared to kids here, I'll take that answer).

My JUNTOS workshop is coming up in a week so little by little I have been buying materials for the students attending.  I went and signed a contract with a nearby school to be able to have the event there and I am going shopping with a woman from the school on Tuesday to buy food for 60 people for the weekend!  I'm getting really excited for it!

Yesterday was Tobacco and Drug Awareness Day so my JUNTOS group presented a skit and dance for our school.  They did a GREAT job! I'll add some pictures of their intro dance below I tried to upload a video but the internet is just not strong enough. They did a skit about peer pressure and the consequences of drinking and smoking.  It was a hit!  Working with them is really fun and usually a bit more interesting than just teaching classes.

I gave a test to a few of my classes today.  With 70-80 kids per class and 3 kids sharing a desk, you have to be strict and creative to prevent kids from cheating! I made two versions of the test that looked almost identical but had slightly different questions and slightly different answers.  It took the kids a while to catch onto this and on the way out many kids said to me, "teacher you are very clever!" because some of the cheating kids did not catch on that they were cheating off of tests different from their own. GOT 'EM!  I have been tough enough on them that at least now they don't try to use cheat sheets, dictionaries, or their notebooks as much, but cheating off of each other is still a problem!

Hope you enjoy pictures of my cultural group dancing below!

The Adorable Children of Mozambique

These are mostly pictures of Francelino's brothers, sisters, and cousins, but the kids here are just so cute and love having their pictures taken! I figured everyone would enjoy these...

Third World Challenges

Lately things have been going well with work here, however I can't help but be constantly reminded of how the simplest tasks can be so complicated here!

About a month ago Francelino was visiting and the TV hadn't been working well so we took it to Xai-Xai to get it fixed.  So clearly there are no fancy Best Buy-like stores with professionals that do this sort of thing.  There are places where some guys run their own little business out of a straw and wooden booth.  They rehabilitate TVs with one soldering iron, some coolant fluids that they squirt out of an old soda bottle, and old parts that they take out of old broken TVs.  You also have to negotiate your price with them. It helps that I don't have to do a lot of this alone because as a white person they always try to overcharge me.  Once we decided on the price, they opened up the TV, messed around a little, and in 10 minutes had it fixing without a problem.  Feeling that we were ripped off since they fixed it so fast, Francelino made them agree to give us a verbal guarantee, in case the TV stopped working again.  They agreed to give us a 2 month guarantee and we were on our way.  The next day he went back to school, and hours later the TV stopped working again.  

Unfortunately this meant that I would have to take it back by myself to get it fixed.  This is no tiny TV and it's rather heavy so it's not easy for me to carry it more than 10 feet.  

Luckily, the first time Francelino asked his cousin to go with me.  After arriving and letting the guys there tinker with the TV for a while, it was clear that this was going to be no easy task.  I ended up leaving it there and planned to come back the next day.  Over the course of 2 weeks I went back maybe 3 or 4 times.  Two times they closed early, once I went and sat for hours, but it still wasn't finished.  My patience was waning!

Finally it was ready to be picked up and I had to go by myself.  I found a boy near the market with a wheelbarrow who agreed to cart the TV to the chapa stop for 10 mets.  Luckily I got a front seat in the chapa and was able to rest the TV on my knees.  Once I got to Chongoene, I called Francelino's mom and she sent one of the kids out with a wheelbarrow so I could wheel it back home.  

Since then it has worked well!  I find myself missing customer service, phone calls when things are ready to be picked up, and having a personal vehicle to transport things around in! It makes things so much easier!

I also went to visit a neaby volunteer's school on Wednesday.  It's about 13 kilometers away, but the transportation is so reliable here that I left myself an hour to arrive.  I gauged it about right because 50 minutes later I was arriving.  She works at a higher education school where the students live in dormitories at the school.  We have workshops coming up for our JUNTOS groups and I wanted to run a workshop there over three days.  The school agreed and we worked out the financial agreement.  The workshop will invite approximately 50 students and have 3 days of activities and educational sessions about HIV and AIDS, sexual reproduction, puberty, self-esteem, leadership, and domestic violence.  The workshop that I will be running at that school should take place in 3 weeks and I am busy planning the food, materials, etc!  It's a lot of work, but it should be really fun!

There will be 16 workshops run throughout the country in the next few months and all of the participants get t-shirts.  I was in Maputo last week to pick up the t-shirts from the place where we ordered them.  Along with the national financial coordinator, we sorted the t-shirts by size, re-packaged them and then dropped some by the airport to fly them thousands of kilometers to various places around the country.  I took all of the southern shirts with me and will be distributing them to the different areas this weekend. 

I always think of home and miss friends and family, but I am keeping busy here and things are going well. Until next time!

World Malaria Day!

This week we had a week of school vacation, marking the end of the first trimester.  Somehow I felt like I was more busy all this week and suddenly it's Sunday and I have to lesson plan and get ready to go back to class on Monday!  I spent most of the week working with my JUNTOS group at school which is an extracurricular theater group.  With my students' input, I had organized activities with them to commemorate World Malaria Day (April 25th).  For Friday the 20th, we invited another theater group to our school.  We had a theater technical trainer there who worked with the kids to better their theater skills and to give them ideas about communicating certain issues or topics to the community.  Each group came prepared with a skit about malaria and in the afternoon each group rehearsed their skit and received critiques and commentary from the other.  After a long day of activities, we ended and the participants stayed for a while and played soccer before heading home.
On Saturday, the groups arrived bright and early at the health center in Chongoene.  We were told to get their early to present so that we could catch people waiting in line to be treated before the hospital opened.  The theory was that no sick patient would sit and watch skits if it was their turn to see the doctor.  We were a little bit concerned about patients not wanting to move to be able to watch the skits more closely with the fear that they would lose their spot in line.  Two of my students decided to go explain to the people waiting that we would be presenting skits for them and the students handed out pieces of paper with numbers on them corresponding to each person's place in line so they wouldn't lose the order if they moved.  Surprisingly, the people waiting at the hospital caught on very quickly to this idea and there were a continuous stream of people asking for numbers so that they wouldn't miss out!  We didn't exactly start our skits on time ( I mean, this is Mozambique), but then again the health center didn't open on time either, which worked in our favor.  Each group entered and presented their skit and then a member of a third group gave a short informational talk about how malaria is caused, how to prevent malaria, and what to do if you get sick.  I didn't catch everything he said because it was all in the local dialect, but I understood enough to know that he got all of the main points right.
The skits presented focused on the use of mosquito nets when sleeping, clean living conditions in and around the house (i.e. no standing water), vulnerability of pregnant women and children under 5 to the disease, and the importance of seeking treatment at a hospital instead of by a traditional healer.
We had a pretty good turnout and even when the health center opened everyone stayed outside and watched until the presentation was completely over.
It was great for the kids to have an opportunity to present to members of the community and to work with youth from other communities on this project as well.  They are all so motivated and enthusiastic and I hope that we can work with other groups to reach out to the community many more times this year.
Malaria is the 2nd leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after HIV/AIDS.  This is a disease that affects so many people in Sub-Saharan Africa and so much can be accomplished by educating people about prevention methods and treatment! By giving communities the tools and resources to reduce malaria infection and deaths caused by malaria, we can save millions of lives.

Catching up for lost time!

Many apologies for my faithful blog-readers. I do realize that it's been about 2 months since my last post. I'll try to sum up what's been going on and give you a few tidbits that you may find interesting.

Francelino got into a teacher training institute. It is a year long program that prepares students to be teachers in primary or secondary schools up to the 10th grade level. He is in the English Teacher's program so he is being trained to be an English teacher here in Mozambique. The location where he took the entrance exams and interviews is only about 20 minutes from Chongoene, but once you are accepted to the program they can send you anywhere! They sent him to a school in Homoine, Inhambane which is about a 6-7 hour trip from here. It was exciting news to hear that he had gotten into school because higher education here is unattainable for most people, but it was sad that he was headed so far away! He lives at the school with all of the other students and I'll be heading up to visit him for the first time on Friday!

It was difficult at first to re-adjust to being all on my own again. I had gotten so used to always having someone around to talk to and to be with, and now he's gone! I still spend a lot of time with his family and his little brothers and sisters are fun to play with around the house. I try to keep myself busy with lesson planning and other activities in my town.

I got my flu shot yesterday Peace Corps style! They pulled up in a car in front of my school, I hopped in the car, got the shot, hopped out, and they were off! It was so convenient that they came through my area instead of me having to make the trip to the capital to get a shot!

I sometimes show movies to Francelino's little brothers and sisters on my computer in the afternoons. They get stuck on one movie for a while and eventually move onto the next one. The first movie that they loved was UP. Every day they would ask me in Portuguese, "Can we watch the movie with the balloons?". They catch onto the dialogue in movies pretty quickly too. Their most recent favorite film is The Sound of Music. They have been yodeling around the house and yelling Lieutenant! at each other which is pretty entertaining. I think they like it because of the songs.

We are almost through our first trimester of the school year. End of trimester exams start on Thursday and continue into next week. We will have a week off in April, and since we have no Peace Corps conferences, I have a free week where I haven't even decided what I'll do with it yet.

I frequently stay after school with my theater group and let them ask me questions about the United States. The kids in the group are between 16 and 21 years old and love hearing about airplanes, the food we eat, schools, universities, driving a car, and other things that they can only dream about here. Sometimes I wish I could just take them all back with me!

The second year of service is definitely tougher than the first. I can see a lot of the same problems at my school as we had last year, and although I spoke up and tried to present a solution last year, I can see that no change was made to try to resolve said problems. The thing you have to do as a volunteer is take one day at a time and know that you can't change everything!

Lobolo

Last week I attended my first Lobolo with Francelino. Lobolo is a ceremony practiced in most parts of Mozambique before marriage. Before the marriage is agreed upon the bride's family name's a "price" that they want to receive for the marriage of their daughter. The father of the bride and the father of the groom decide upon this "price" before the lobolo ceremony. This payment of sorts can be in the form of money, clothing, shoes, alcohol, soda, goats, pigs, chickens, cows, or a combination of any of the above (and more). At the beginning of the ceremony the two fathers take off their shoes and sit on a grass mat with their legs straight and opened and the bottom of the feet touching the bottom of the other's feet (see picture). They then pull out a list of the agreed upon items and they are presented very slowly and carefully. The money is diligently counted out for everyone to see and the bride's father must approve of every item before moving on. At the lobolo I was at the groom's family provided 20,000 meticais (almost $700 US), which is a LOT of money in Mozambique! They also had a dress, gold necklace, and gold earrings for the bride to be, a full suit with hat, shoes, and cane included for the bride's brother, capulanas and other clothing for the bride and her mother, several cases of soda and beer, at least 10 liters of wine, a chicken, a goat, and some homemade liquor. It was quite the event! The bride to be and her brother then went and put the clothes on and paraded around in them for a while. After the ceremony there was much gift giving by the invitees and the day was concluded with a meal. Events like this really take the whole day. We arrived there at 9am and didn't leave until 5pm, and we were one of the first to leave! Enjoy the pictures of the event!

Storm Pictures

Photos of the destruction done to my school by the tropical storm which hit us last week.

On Sunday of this week (yesterday) we were supposed to go to Maputo for a week long mid service conference. This is the first time that we get to see all of the volunteers in our group since training (a year ago). We also are supposed to have medical check-ups and training sessions designed to support us in our second year. Due to the tropical storm earlier this week, apparently Mozambican government officials decided to open a dam in the southern region to prevent flooding in that area. As a result, the water released flooded a road, the ONLY road to be exact, that goes from my province to Maputo, the capital. The 10 volunteers in my region who were stranded met in two different cities to wait for instructions from Peace Corps. Peace Corps sent two cars out in the morning in an attempt to find an alternate route. They bushwhacked for 8 hours on old paths used for transporting coal and wood and failed to get to us. In their own words "mission possible turned impossible". After waiting around all day we were told to go home or at least to a volunteer's house nearby for the night. Now we are starting day two of our mission. Apparently there is a train that can take us through the flooded zone so that we can get to Maputo. Some volunteers managed to get on it last night and we heard that it took them 12 hours, even though by car it's only a 100km stretch. We have to travel just over 2 hours to get to the town where the train leaves from so we will find out soon if our trip to Maputo will be possible. Wish us luck!

On Monday Southern Mozambique was hit by Tropical Storm Dando. Meteorological technology isn't quite what it is back at home so naturally we had no idea what was coming for us. Monday was the first day of the school year which meant that we had a big meeting with all of the students, teachers, and parents. Monday morning was cool, and I thought to myself, "how nice after so many days of scorching heat". I would soon regret that fact. I arrived at school and our school directors were concerned about where the meeting would be held. Usually it is held in the shade under a grove of mango trees but it was overcast and raining so that would not do. Someone went to check if we could have the meeting at the catholic church up the road since it's the biggest indoor space in our town. We rounded everyone up and filed into the church. After everyone was organized they decided that it wasn't right to have a church meeting in the house of god so they kicked us out and we squeezed maybe 200 people into a classroom made for 30 students. When the meeting finally started it was raining cats and dogs and the corrugated metal roof over our heads was flapping and threatening to blow off. When the meeting ended everyone took off for their respective houses. I closed up my house as best I could, wrapped myself up in a rainjacket with a backpack with anything that I would need and took off to my boyfriend, Francelino's house. Trees had fallen down, roofs were coming off, and the wind was blowing like crazy. I made it to his house running and wading through the roads to get there. When I arrived he had secured the metal roof with extra cement blocks. We locked ourselves in the house, put on dry clothing and tried to go to sleep. The power had already gone out and wouldn't come back on for a few days. In the morning the worst of the storm had passed but it had taken it's toll on the town. Two of my neighbors' roofs came completely off. Luckily mine stayed on, but sustained some damage and one of my rooms flooded. Houses were completely blown over and destroyed, most of the town's farmlands were flooded with water and two classrooms at the school had their roofs torn off by the wind. It's been a slow week of lighter rain and slow reparation of houses, but progress is being made. Pictures coming soon...

Holidays at home

After 2 and a half weeks in the US I am on my way back to Mozambique. The visit was great as I was able to catch up with family and so many friends. I was spoiled by my mother's excellent cooking. She made all of my favorite dinners while I was home and delectable Christmas treats like cherry cheesecake and peanut butter fudge bars! Christmas has always been my favorite holiday and I consider it a very special family holiday so being able to spend it at home this year was a dream come true. The whole day was wonderful with breakfast and presents in the morning followed by a visit to my uncle's house in Connecticut where I got to catch up with many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family Yankee swap was fun as usual, although I think my family took pity on me being the "poor volunteer in Africa" and I came out of it with a cool little telescope.
I appreciated down time, hanging out with friends on the couch and watching a movie, and definitely appreciated having a car at my disposal instead of having to rely on unreliable public transportation, as I do in Mozambique.
Many people have asked me if I experienced culture shock in the return from Africa to the developed world. The truth is that I wasn't as affected by it as I thought I would be. The weirdest thing was hearing everyone speaking English all around me, because I rarely speak English in Mozambique. I think that the since US and Mozambique are so different, and I know to expect them to be different, that I was prepared for the changes that I encountered back at home in the United States.
One of the biggest changes that I noticed In the US since last year is how much more everyone has become dependent on their cell phones! Your cell phone tells you everything: where to go, how to get there, the menu at the restaurant you're going to, you can answer any question on them! I know all of this existed in 2010 when I left, but everyone seems to be much more dependent on them.
The goodbyes were bittersweet after my visit. I felt blessed to have had the opportunity to visit during my Peace Corps service and I knew that I was going to miss everyone like crazy all over again, but the stay reminded me how much I love what I am doing and how much I love Mozambique. All in all, I feel ready and rejuvenated for my second year of service.