Saturday, July 16th, 2011
It’s freezing in Namaacha! Well, not actually freezing of course, but pretty cold. Especially when there isn’t any heat to turn on. This morning we were at the hub to do some stuff for “school.” During training our language groups have been assigned to a community organization in Namaacha for a practicum assignment. The practicum is supposed to give us a taste of what we could be doing at site with our organizations. My language group’s organization is Congregação do Precioso Sangue. So we presented our findings from a “needs assessment” to the other trainees and language teachers. All in Portuguese. Ugh.
Afterwards I went to a restaurant, Palucha’s Place, for lunch. I had an omelet and tons of delicious bread. Namaacha is known all over for their bread and I am definitely going to miss it when I go to site! After lunch a bunch of trainees and my brother went on the hike to the tri-border. It was very tiring as the last 20-30 minutes are a steep incline up the side of a mountain. But it was totally worth it for the beautiful views!
Tomorrow (Sunday) I’m planning on going to church with most of my family (Aninya and Atalia don’t go), washing clothes, and then meeting up with some trainees for a movie. I’m also hoping to make jello with my sisters. I bought a couple packs earlier this week when I was in Xai-Xai for site visit.
Even though we don’t know our sites yet (we find out this Wednesday!!!!) PC sent us out into the real world of Mozambique to visit a volunteer for 4 days to see what their day-to-day is like. So Hannah and I went to Xai-Xai, which is the provincial capital of Gaza province. It was wonderful but also strange. Xai-Xai was full of white people- tourists, ex-pats, South Africans, and had lots of stores with luxury items like Nutella. We ate Indian food and pizza and got to see the beach! So it was really more of a vacation from PST and a chance to get out of our little bubble that is Namaacha. But we still got to see what a volunteer does on a regular basis. The volunteer we visited, Mallory, works with activistas at a small hospital in her bairro (neighborhood), Patricia Lumumba. Activistas are volunteers that go into the community to educate people on HIV/AIDS and other health matters- malaria, hygiene, TB, nutrition, etc. Some also do home visits to PLWHA (People living with HIV/AIDS) to make sure they are adhering to the antiretroviral treatment. I will most likely be working with a group of activistas at site. Hannah and I split up and each went with a few activistas to a house in Patricia Lumumba. The house we stopped at had a young woman so they talked to her about the importance of getting tested for HIV. Although, I didn’t know what they were saying because the whole discussion was done in Xangana, a local language. Mallory also took us to an orphanage which she wrote a grant for. The grant is covering the cost of Portuguese books, a bookshelf, and other learning materials for the children.
As much as I liked Xai-Xai I was surprised that I did not like the size of Mallory’s site. Patricia Lumumba is a HUGE bairro, almost overwhelming. You have to take a chapa almost everywhere. It seemed difficult to get to know people since the bairro was so large. I didn’t like not having that comfortable everybody-knows-everybody feel. I also didn’t like all of the foreigners. It made me feel like I was at some vacation destination, instead of at home. Maybe it feels different for Mallory since Xai-Xai is her home. Regardless, it was extremely helpful to get out of Namaacha and see what a real volunteers’ life looks like. I am so excited and also extremely nervous for our site announcements. Wednesday cannot get here soon enough!
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