Sometimes time has wings

Another volunteer once wrote, “Mozambique is where all clothes come to die.” This is true; the worn clothing you carelessly throw into a donation bin will probably eventually make it to Africa, where it will be bargained and bartered for in a hectic market, exposed to excessive sweat and dirt stains, scrubbed with harsh soaps until finally, reduced to holes and tatters, even Mozambicans will demote it to floor rag.

My clothes have certainly suffered during my time here. I don’t know, maybe life is just more… hazardous here. While riding a chapa the other day, I ripped a hole in the knee and in the butt of my jeans. Two holes, one chapa? The math still doesn’t make sense to me. Just yesterday, I tore my shirt when it got caught on a piece of my door grate. Good thing is, I can just go to Xai Xai and hunt through endless mounds of used clothes to restock my wardrobe. Thrift store shopping at its best.

However, clothes are not the only thing that Mozambique is known for killing. Electronics probably survive half their typical lifespan here, due to inconsistent electricity and constant outages. Even with my voltage regulator, my computer died last week and I’m back at square one. Quite inconvenient too, considering all the work I’m starting involving grants and trainings. I guess there really is no convenient time for a computer to crash.

But around the same time this tragedy occurred, a sewing machine floated into my life. It belongs to my organization CACHES but it’s keeping me company at home for a while, and it’s such a great time waster that I hardly miss watching Glee and chick flicks on a computer. Eventually, though, I’ve got to figure out what to do about this computer situation. Kevin might have to bring me yet another one in October. Poor guy… He is my luggage mule.

Anyway, things have been going great here! After the REDES conference (I'll figure out a way to post up my pictures soon, but in the meantime you can check out the REDES blog @ http://theredesproject.wordpress.com/) , I was so pumped and excited about the REDES project and having new ideas for activities and trainings that I talked to both my orgs about it. In the next few weeks I will be giving several HIV/AIDS trainings to my org facilitators and activists that will enable them to engage and work with children in a more informally educative (yet effective) manner.

I’m also going to be painting a mural in Xai Xai for Peace Corps 50^th anniversary project. I’ve been wanting to do a mural during my time here and this opportunity just kind of dropped into my lap. So needless to say, I have been and will continue to be busy in the upcoming weeks.

I am currently sitting in my friend Yoko’s house, that’s right- in Chibuto! I finally made it back to visit. Things have not changed much, but I feel that I have. I think I will always look back on this place fondly, but not regretfully. Chibuto was a part of my service (6 months!) but I definitely made the right decision in moving. Within five minutes of my arrival, somehow word had spread among the children that I was back and they arrived at Yoko’s house calling my name. My boys Vasco and Rostilho are getting so tall! They asked me, “Mana Vivienne, in Chicumbane do you have children to play with?” I miss them so much. It’s also interesting, in Chibuto I worked mainly with young boys but in Chicumbane I’m working largely with older girls (through REDES).

At the end of the month, I am planning on going to a Timbila festival at my friend Angela’s site (Zafala, Inhambane). Timbilas are like wood xylophones, so I guess there’s going to be a lot of drumming and music. Pretty cool.


REDES conference red group