Cyber Book Club

I’ve been reading. A lot. So I thought I’d keep track of the books I’ve been reading and share them here in case anyone back home has any comments or is looking for a good read. So here goes…

1. The Hunger Games – great quick read to dive into and forget about reality 
2. Catching Fire – must read after the first book 
3. Mocking jay – must read after the first 2 books (read all three books within a week) 
4. A Complicated War – GREAT book about the recent history of Mozambique. Intelligent, interesting and informative – I highly recommend this one 
5. Amore e Vento – a so-so read, the writing style wasn’t very captivating. Wouldn’t recommend 
6. O Ultimo Voo do Flamingo – much better read, reminded me of Gabriel Garcia style of surrealist writing 
7. The Adventure of Winnie the Pooh – one can never read this book enough times 
8. Once on a Time – another great book by A A Milne, lovely quick read 
9. Ender’s Game – GREAT scifi read, another one to dive head first into 
10. Speaker for the Dead – sequel to the above book (there’s a 3rd to the series but I haven’t been able to get it yet L 
11. Three Men in Boat – tough read, there was no conflict in the plot so it was a struggle to find interest in this one. Wouldn’t recommend 
12. The Help – I liked this one, it was a bit longer than I think it needed to be but was still a quick read (took about 4 days) 
13. Who Stole My Cheese? – really liked this one, it was a quick and simple book (literally, you can read this in an hour) but the message is worthwhile and can really help if read at the correct time and taken seriously. Read this one twice in 1 afternoon and it really helped push me off my high horse and get over myself 
14. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone – reading this series so I can FINALLY know all those darn inside jokes of my Harry Potter addict friends back home! Real simple style so if you have as much free time as I do you can do a book a day. This first one wasn’t too enthralling but I have high hopes for the rest of the series! 
15. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets - great books to read out loud to children. I have the series in Portuguese as well and hope to one day be able to get my neighborhood kids to sit still for long enough to listen to these J 
16. Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban - definitely starting to get into these now - my blond and red headed friends should be happy! 
17. Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix 
18. Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince 
19. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows - to celebrate finishing these books I spent a weekend watching all of the movies (sorry red head and blondie, I couldn't wait another year but we can do it again when you come visit!!) 
20. 50 Shades of Grey - I'm a little embarrassed to admit having read these. DEFINITELY should have an age limit to this one. It's like the Twilight series only substitute the werewolves and vampires for very inappropriately explicit intimate sex scenes... 
21. 50 Shades Darker 
22. 50 Shades Free 
23. Memoirs of a Geisha - nice easy weekend read 
24. Skinner's Drift - book about a woman in South Africa after apartheid ends 
25. Xenocide - the third sequel in the Orson Scott Card trilogy mentioned above 
26. Marley and Me by John Grogan - cute quick read 
27. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - oldie but goodie. 
28. To Have and to Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. Bit depressing but a quick interesting read 
29. The Giver by Lois Lowry - another adolescent classic. Love these afternoon novels :) 
30. A Wind at the Door by Madeleine L'Engle - surprisingly interesting. Definitely for young adults but I'd never read L'ENgle before and now I really want to read a Wrinkle in Time 
31. A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - not actually entirely done with this book yet (it's one of those in the background books I've been reading while I read others....) Close enough to being done though that there's no possibility of me NOT finishing it. And for the record - extremely interesting. Like this book a lot. 

Things Looking Up

9/10/2012

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog in so long. I’ve tried to write blog updates but they all inevitably turn into me being a bitter old sourpuss. If there’s one thing worse than hearing someone complain, its knowing that you’re the one doing the complaining. Figured it be best to save myself the little self-respect I had left and save you all from the torture of hearing my self-pity dialogue.

And thank you for all the uplifting and reality-smacking emails from friends and family – support and re-grounding were exactly what I needed in order to swallow that lemon in my throat. I thought for a while that my larium medications might have had something to do with my negative outlook on my newly found situation (one of its side effects is depression) but then I realized that pointing the blame on my prophlyaxis wouldn’t get my very far (besides in bed with malaria if I went off them). Instead I’ve been learning to make the best of my situation instead of moping around thinking of what could have been if I’d pulled another straw in life.

Things to be happy about:

-  My host family has been great giving me my personal space and it seems to be going pretty well! Still a ways to go before we’re completely comfortable with one another but it’s much better than I’d originally feared! I have to say, they’ve been amazingly patient and understanding with my crazy American ways (cooking for 1 person and keeping company with a book is considered pretty crazy in a culture centered around the community.)

-  a friend lent me his electric stove while I still wait to find a gas tank so I can move off my peanut butter + bread diet (thank goodness too because my pants were starting to get real tight there!)

-  for 2 of the past 4 weekends I met up with my neighboring peace corps volunteers to explore the scenery of my new home (and by scenery I mean beaches :) Plus being able to relate my fears and concerns with other foreigners has helped me tremendously to see how silly they are and to brainstorm ideas on how to get over my obstacles

-  I have a bed frame! Another week on the wet cement and I think my mattress would have been moldy through and through

-   a friend made me a make-shift closet (he jammed a laka-laka branch into the kiddy-corner and I put hangers on it) it’s the first time since May I haven’t had to store all of my clothes either in my suitcase or a cardboard box! Ahh the simple pleasures of life 

-  My neighbor’s cat had kittens and they’re going to give me one (!!) They say they’re going to give me a little black one – my parents back home say they’ll tell my cat Lilly back in the states about her adopted African sibling (fun name ideas are welcome so send ‘em on over!) 

-  A friend who’s a farmer here has been kind enough to give me a few big bags or mulch, peat, manure, straw, coconut shells…. So I had my first go at  making some compost piles this weekend (one above ground of brown materials, green materials and manure and one in-ground for food scrapes) and I planted a bunch of seedlings of herbs and veggies. I’ll keep you posted on whether my garden experiment is a bust or “bloom”! (yea yea yea, I know) 

-   I’ve found tutors to help me continue to improve my Portuguese and to begin to learn the local language here: Citswa. This latter language is pretty important for even though most everyone here can speak Portuguese, almost 99% of the conversations are in local language – from meetings to casual catch-up and gossiping. If I want to become part of this community I need to master this new language, which is a bit tricky because it’s my first non-romance language I’ve ever tried to learn 

-   I’m not supposed to start any work for the first 3 months here (it’s my “community integration” period), and then not expected to start any real projects the first year…. Yeah. Needless to say, after these first few weeks I’m already done with this crazy no-work concept (pshhhh). To fill in some of the vast amounts of free time I have (and to respond to an over-whelming demand here) I’ve decided to start………. an English club! Not much to do with health or even community development, but at the very least it’ll give me something to do in the evenings and help me to meet more people in the community, plus like I said, every other person that stops to talk to me on the street asks me to teach them English. I’m going to work with a local English professor who’s willing to volunteer his time as my counterpart, we made up fliers to put around town, and today I was even interviewed on the town’s only radio station to tell people about our exciting new club (I was so nervous!!) haha, not sure what exactly this will turn into but I’m hoping it will be a stepping stone to future bigger and more serious projects in the community! 

-   A friend of mine is opening a restaurant in town and I’ve been helping her paint the doors and walls. She’s really open to different ideas on what to do with the restaurant and I’m excited about what we’ve been throwing around. We’re talking about experimenting with American dishes to put in the menu, having themed days of the week… I think this could be fun way to integrate into the community and also experiment with the second goal of Peace Corps: “helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served.” 

-   In 2 weeks I’m going to travel to another PCV’s site for the weekend to help paint a mural on HIV/AIDS with a group of adolescent girls. I’m hoping one day to start up my own  youth group here and maybe painting a mural of our own in my town, but for the time being I’m excited to help with this project and take mental notes on how to recreate it here. 

-   I’m starting to see my little ant-infested, leaky, and perpetually LOUD hut as home J 

Baby steps, but already I’m feeling much better than when I sat around pouting. I honestly don’t know what had come over me those first few days at site but I certainly am glad to get over myself and focus on what I came here to do!

Sending lots of love from Mozambique