But Teacher....

I am long overdue on updating my blog…..I am very sorry! Keep in mind my computer is not working and I have been really busy but this one will be enjoyable….hopefully? So I love site and everything about it.  My roommate and I are doing quite well. We are usually kept busy. We have visitors over at our house constantly. We are usually busy tutoring, helping with homework, or just having a conversation with friends/ colleagues. We had a our friend Anna (another volunteer in Messica) who visited and she witnessed our busy life. 

This is our neighbor/ Best Friend Causha, with students all our around in our little kitchen.  We were reading books during break on our porch but now time flies with teaching and students constantly visiting. Which is a good thing, I get to tutor students in Biology which also helps refresh my memory on many subjects. We are never alone or get lonely. We have many friends and visit other people also. I have been teaching since February 4th. I do teach Biology in Portuguese, which can be a little rough but some days my Portuguese just seems to come out. My students just had their first exam. It was a little intense keeping an eye out for cheating in a classroom of 40-45 students. Yet, many were actually trying to put an effort and remember the things they learned. Many passed and some did not but you have to remember some people do struggle with Biology, it is not an easy subject. I am enjoying teaching and seeing students enjoy biology as much as I do. It's a little funny because sometimes they try to give me answers in English or if I give them homework they will always say... "But Teacher..why".....Gotta love my students.

Some of my free time, I usually get caught up playing with my colleagues’ children. Yeah me of all people playing with kids, weird. Yet they are the cutest things ever and they all seem to love to color! One of my colleagues always tells his son “It’s time for art class” in Portuguese of course. So we color pictures for his mother of course.

 Besides all the hard work of lesson planning, correcting homework, tests, and other school stuff, my roommate and I still manage to make time for ourselves and go exploring. We decided to go on a hike on some beautiful mountains that were near our site. We ended up getting a free ride to at least the village closest to the mountains.

It’s a good AC on a Hot day.  We walked through large grass, we crossed a little river, and some Avocado Farms. People from the little village were happy to help us find our way up the mountain.

We eventually were on our own and meet a little girl who showed us our way up the mountain. It turned out this mountain had hidden waterfalls and this little girl took us straight to them.

 Talk about the best tour guide ever! We gave her a peanut butter honey sandwich.

Pretty waterfall…

Yet that wasn’t the only pretty site we also got to see all of Vanduzi  (where I live) and other smaller villages near it…it was well you can see

Beautiful…….I love everything about where I live.

Little Ranger Me.

My site has the perfect location. I am in a town but I am still 30 minutes from the main city Chimoio. We have volunteers there too and my two closest friends live there.  We also go on adventures too. They took me to the roof of a building to see the beautiful site of Chimoio.

Trifiesta ( Wendy, Steven, and I)

We went to see Chimoio’s Carnival, where many dress up and there is a lot of music and dancing, it’s a huge celebration. We all decided to head out and experience Carnival in Chimoio. We had an amazing time, except we never made it into the festival just because there was a price to pay to get in….and lets be real we are on a PC budget we rather use the money of cheese when it is available…I’m kidding but not really. We ended up going to a place across the street to eat dinner, and supposedly the crowd from the festival was going to end up there…which in fact was true. SO my friends and I got to see more masks and crazy outfits where we were located. Maybe next year I’ll pay the fee to see dancing but we will see.

So recently this weekend all of the central volunteers got together for an event called Coesao. This is when we all get to see each other to discuss secondary projects, ups and downs at site, and just to see everyone that you haven’t seen.  Which I was pretty happy to see everyone since my Moz 21 group isn’t allowed to travel outside of province for 3 months. And that weekend meant the 3 months were over. We were all excited to see each other. We all got together at a place called Casa Msika, which was beautiful and known to have some wild life especially Girafees!

My Central Family!

Since our families are so far it’s nice to know this is our family and such a great support system when we face the bad and the good.

Besides seeing everyone I actually got to see real life Giraffes during the sunset. Also it was a cute little family which made it that much better.

The cute little family!

We needed a picture….

Yes this is real LIFE!

I also got to see some other wildlife……

Prince Charming??

I do miss my family only cause I wish they could see the things that I see, but I am happy to know they are doing well and we can skype at least once a month.  

This is one of our skype sessions that my brother in-law took a picture off. We are always laughing.

Overall I am doing really well, making friends at my site and enjoying the other volunteers who are around me. My site is quite beautiful and whenever my roommate and I head back home from the city or Manica we always say we are seriously so lucky to be where we are located. Sometimes it’s even rough to leave home, not only because of Amendoim our dog but because we get along with many people in our town and they love when we are around.

Such a prince….

until next post……..