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!