Anda Anda A A A.....

This month was actually really hectic. My roommate and I seemed to be very busy. Haleigh is wrapping up her service so she was constantly traveling and we literally see each other for a day and then we would be busy doing our own thing.

The first week , I began my official community library project. My counterpart Derreck and I were really excited to have a set schedule and guidelines of what we were doing. I received about 165 Portuguese books to share with the kids. I was so excited because many of you know my family and I are book nerds and LOVE reading. The first day, only 5 kids showed up but by the end of the month we had up to 15 kids. My plan is to work with at least 25 kids or maybe more. I really want to get my project organized before I can think about opening it up to more kids. Even though it is still early these neighborhood kids are loving it! Not sure if any of you have seen my videos on instagram if not you should or ask my family to show you. So far they understand one book and connected words with the pictures. This month they learned the letter A, and B. They can recognize the letters and even write them. This is a huge accomplishment for me. The next month or so they will begin learning the letter M and N. I work with these kids every Tuesday morning, for about 45mins but some days we go for almost 2 hours. I have three little kids that come over every day just to look at the books. It's exciting to see the children so interested in the books and coming to my porch just to read for an hour.  I can't wait to actually have bookshelves for the books and open a room for them to sit like you would at Barnes n Noble.  I will keep you updated on how it is going. Meanwhile here are some picture of "VAMOS LER" 

Derreck showing them how to write the letter a in the sand

Read aloud!

My little classroom

My JUNTOS kids are actually quite amazing. They have been holding their own meeting without us since we've been busy with work. It's so great to know that we have such responsible teens running such a great project.

Another event that happened in the Manica Province was SCIENCE FAIR! Yes I said it science fair. My favorite fair by far. We had one student in Vanduzi participate. He's mentor was a physics teacher Laete who is also a very good friend of ours and an awesome teacher. Also an important note I was helping my roommate Haleigh with the science fair since I will be planning it next year. It was a great fair and the students had amazing projects. All were very creative but very nervous to present them. The student from Vanduzi made an environmental project to help clean the lakes and rivers in Mozambique.

Before the fair started though, three of the judges didn't show up so two other volunteers and myself became science fair judges but remember you wouldn't be in Mozambique if everything ran perfect! This science fair was really special to these kids because not only they were able to share something they did by themselves in a subject they love but if they won this fair they would go to Maputo for the national science fair. Some of these kids have never traveled and if they did it was probably local or to Tete. So it's a huge deal for them to make it all the way to Maputo. All the projects were good so deciding who wins was really tough. 

Science Fair Judges

Some Projects

Everyone that participated 

After science fair my roommate and I didn't get a break. English theater was right around the corner. Haleigh has a group of students that love practicing English and started their own English theater group. What is English Theater? Well it's a project where the students are given a theme and they make a theater piece in English. It helps them practice speaking and understanding English. It is a great way for them to get practice outside the class room and also these students love theater so each piece will be very creative and funny. We had 10 different schools participate in English theater and our students did an amazing job! They won third place which is a big deal to them because they didn't place last year. WE WERE SO PROUD of them. The theme this year was find your voice and they did a story about two families one where their wife is respected and has a say in the family and the other where she is beat and only allowed to speak when spoken to until she finally finds her voice. 

Vanduzi English Theater group