On a roll

Man, I got such a positive reaction from my last blog post – thank you guys! It's great to know that people actually read these things :)

And so, thus empowered from your emails and messages, (and because I currently have internet credit and am postponing packing) I'll write another for y'all!

Yesterday was a slow day since it was one of the weeks when I don't go out into the field to visit my OVC activists. In the morning the vovo (granma) who helps me with my house cleaning popped in (we tried to make a schedule for her to come on the same days at the same time every week but it didn't stick). I used to have young girls help me with washing laundry, carrying water, and washing the house but after the first or second payday they'd split

SIDENOTE:

a gecko just plopped down from the ceiling and Pippin had flown off my lap and had it in his paws before I could even realize what was happening. The only proof of the event is a wriggling gecko tail on the floor (actually no, Pippin is now carrying his prize from his mouth into a corner of the house... poor gecko!) Last week a similar event had happened when he leaped off my lap to catch one on the wall. Only difference was that time the gecko had been on the wall right above my big 20 liter bucket where I keep my water and, unfortunately, I'd forgotten to put the top on it. Mister meowmers was literally inundated up to his ears and jumped a mile high to get out! I was still ringing out his tail out a half hour later, and I'd also found a wriggling gecko tail floating in my drinking/ washing/ everything water - blegh! But back to this victim at-hand, I guess the poor thing is still alive because Pippin's chasing something around. No need to have cat toys in Mozambique when there's reptiles, rodents, and big bugs galore!

Anyways, so yeah the young girls would split which would stink but it seems pretty normal here. The vovo doesn't speak Portuguese and she's this frail little old woman but she's my neighbor's granma and needs the money so I don't want to deny her the job. I do however feel horrible having her do the housework so I inevitably end up spending those mornings she shows up at home as well helping out where I can. And let me justify myself a little here: washing your clothes by hand every week SUCKS. I learned how to do it and suffered through it the first few months here at site though it would seriously take me all day to do 1 week's worth of clothing and I would always have my hands covered in band aids the following day.

Eew, there's the crunch-crunch. Guess Pippin got tired with his playmate, buh-bye mister gecko.

But yeah yeah delicate prissy-girl hands, I've heard it, but you know what? it's true. These women have spent their entire lives washing clothes by hand, working in their farms, making all their ground flours by hand with huge mortar and pistols... So yeah, they got the hand-washing thing down a little better than I do

annnnnnnd there goes Pippin throwing up the gecko in the middle of the house. Lovely. Yep, you go outside and play kitty, just leave me to clean that up. Thanks.

Where was I? Anyways yeah so I helped vovo wash my floors (she does that once a month) and then she washed some sheets and brought me some water while I finished cleaning up the house. Spent the rest of the morning at the office helping a colleague research a homework project for his nephew online and then listen to some mozambican music while I made friendship bracelets for a guard at the prison and a lady at a corner store down the street. After work and before heading home I took my ritual afternoon stroll around town. I always have to stop at the same fruit and veggie stands, talk with the same mothers and grandmothers, say hello to my friends at the bakery... it's funny, even though most days I don't even buy anything if I don't go and say hello for a day or 2 I'll get called on the phone and chastised up the wazoo for disappearing. Earlier this week the women by the bus station selling bananas and cashews to travelers yelled at me for abandoning them all week so I had to apologize and explain that the bananas in my house were ripe so I hadn't thought to visit; my bad!

And speaking of bananas, I headed home that afternoon (I live about a 15min walk from the main road) and taught my neighbors how to make banana bread with all the bananas we had in our yard. It came out a bit condensed, but I don't know if banana bread can really ever be light and fluffy so I told them it was supposed to be that way (?)

This morning only 3 activists showed up for my Wednesday Health & English lessons but 3 is better than 0 any day. This week we did child malnutrition and the letters of the Alphabet complete with the ABC song and a game of hangman. Last week we did vertical transmission prevention, personal pronouns and the verb to be. Funny mixtures right? That took all morning so afterward me and a friend went to the shop in town where I can print out papers and make copies – I wanted to print out fliers for our English club that officially starts up again next week and make photocopies of a few medical sheets for my OVC activists in the field next week.

At home I had a pineapple a friend had given me last friday; all week I'd been cutting off slices for me and the kids in the neighborhood but there was still half of the darn fruit and I'm traveling tomorrow so after lunch I decided to make a pineapple upside down cake. It's funny how the kids just magically appear at my front door when they smell a hint of bolo (cake). One little 3 year old named Batista just came in and sat at my table waiting for the cake to finish.

Actually, Batista deserves his own paragraph. Besides my cat, Batista spends the most time with me. I don't know where he comes from or much about him at all really because he doesn't speak yet (hasn't even actually reached 3 years but is is close enough to it that the other kids say he's 3). Every morning he silently shows up standing at my door and follows me around as I get ready for the day, and the same thing every afternoon. I usually give him a fruit or veggie to snack on because I'm afraid his late speech development may be due to a lack of vitamins in his diet. He usually plays with a starwars toy car a friend had sent me in a care package last year and a GI-Joe figurine a fellow PCV gave me. I do have a few Japanese cartoons I got from my friend in town so at times I'll put that on for him while I work. The other day we pulled out the esteira and sat out on the verandah and snacked on roasted peanuts. Today I read out-loud to him in English from a book on the history of TFA (good thing he couldn't understand). Batista, Pippin & me. We're a happy family.

The cake came out me and Batista sat at the table and ate spoon fulls of hot pineapple gooieness from empty jam jars. Not missing a beat, after our first few bites two 5 years-olds came in and demanded some as well, though after a taste declared it wasn't as good as the one I'd made yesterday so I kicked the punks out. Sheesh!

This evening I had a JUNTOS meeting and even though we hung out for 2 hours only 4 of us were there the whole time while 3 others came and went. Seeing as we weren't being all that productive due to the low attendance, instead I sat Fyra down on my computer to type up an article she'd written by hand about sanitation and trash situation in town. Sent the photographer of the group, Inocente, out into town with my friend's camera to gather some pics for the website. Then I took the remainder kid, Amilton, into town with me to help me post the English Club fliers and to knock out my daily salutation rounds. After exchanging music and talking about a theater piece the kids want to write we headed out into the dusk. Some kids came home with me to eat some of the pineapple cake (they didn't like it either, maybe Mozambicans don't like pineapple upside down cake? Can't possibly be my cooking!) and take some more of my English music and look at pictures I have of New York City.

And that leads me back to the present. I mentioned procrastinating packing early; I'm traveling to Swaziland tomorrow for a music festival there called Bushfire. Ironically this weekend will be the first time I'm leaving the country and also my 1 year anniversary here (I arrived last year on my May 31^st). Funny how things fall like that. It doesn't feel like a year's gone by, though life here doesn't seem all that special or weird any more either. Just... normal.

Okay, should probably go pack up & prepare for hitchhiking and camping for 5 days in another country...

Night!