Saudades pa!

So here goes a rambling post. As I sit at site this month of December,I realize a year ago in August I was getting ready, packing my bags up, thinking to myself how can I leave all this behind? Was I really ready to leave everything behind. Like my car, bed, cheese, coffee, family, friends......I was so comfortable. It's officially a year since I have arrived to Vanduzi!  The new group has arrived and swore in this December, and I will be going to my midservice conference in January.  I will have just a few months left until I get to go home! All the volunteers that were here when I arrived have returned. Now my fellow moz 21 group and I get to show the new group everything we have learned this past year. There has been a lot of ups and downs during this first year but I have to say I am so happy out here (just in case any of you were wondering). I've learned so much, from new recipes, a new language, a new culture, and I learned to really appreciate the people that surround you. As frustrating Mozambican time is, which is very similar to our Guatemalan time, everyone manages to get  things done...well, eventually. Some days I miss my friends and family but honestly I have friends and family here. Vanduzi is my home and I have family here that cares for me as much as all of you do. As I listen to Christmas music I can't help but miss being home and drinking peppermint coffee with my sister. Yet I sit on my porch and it might not feel like christmas here but all my friends her make me feel like I am still at home and I am not missing any holiday. No matter what my neighbors check up on me to just say hi, my host mother calling to see if I am forte (strong also known as fat), sit at the market talking to our market ladies about our dog or eat dinner with our good friend Sophia. It's sad to think I will have to say goodbye to a place that now I can call home.
Here's some pictures of some of the many people I call family.

Causha and Laete (sorry we taught them beer pong)

Sophia

My kids Gaelle and Eva

All of the kids together. Xanazia, gaelle, eva, and panshe

AMENDOIM!

 

                                                   Our market ladies, this is Elisa  one of the many market lady friends we have

Derreck, who is an amazing counterpart

Our directors wife and the Secretaries 

Labson who is like our younger brother

All the people that lived in central

Our amazing english theater kids

And of course sophia and her husband! my favorite people here!

There are tons of other people but I don't have pictures with them yet!

 Also don't worry I will have a post for the whole month of December but I am finally caught up with my blogging, especially since now I have a computer and unlimited modem. So if you guys want to skype sometime send me a message! Tchau!!

Saying Goodbye in November

November is finally here, which means Haleigh leaves back to the states. Haleigh has been my roommate for a year and she finished up her service. It's going to be sad seeing her go and I will miss our crazy adventures but I will see her back in the states. It is nice to say my roommate wasn't just a roommate but more of a sister. Parabens Haleigh and see you soon with Amendoim.

So this Month was also my wonderful fathers birthday! Parabens Dad!!! I am so grateful to have technology that allows me to communicate with my family especially on special days like these. Miss you familia.

So I was in Maputo which is south of Mozambique and I like in central Mozambique. I was lucky enough to be in the city because that meant I could still say by to Haleigh. Meanwhile I was in the city she was at our house vanduzi. My library project was on pause since I couldn't help my counterpart out but i left books out just in case they came over to just read. I received a photo from haleigh of the kids coming over just to look at the books. She told me they came over atleast everyday when I was gone. Even though I was having a hard time this really made me smile and made my week so much better.

Kids that come to my library

So Haleigh finally made it to the big city after saying goodbye to our wonderful community. We got to cheer to her R-PCV title! I got to meet alot of people when I was down there, and got to say bye to the other returning PCV's.

Haleigh and I

Jade Haleigh and I

There was also one more goodbye that I had to do this month. I had to say goodbye to one of my best friend here, Michaela. Unfortunately her service was cut short, for good reasons. She was in the same volunteer group that I am in so I knew her since training. It was sad seeing her leave but I was so happy I could spend the week with her and say goodbye. She was one of my closest friends and was always there when I needed someone or even to tell someone great news. I know we will stay in contact but I will miss her through out the rest of my service. 

Michaela and I

ALso I was able to see some people from my group that live in Northern Mozambique, which alot of them I hadn't seen since swearing in.....so Almost a year!

Nick, Michaela, Justin, me and Jessie

 I also got to see Ariel who is another health volunteer who always makes me smile, she's a great girl! We always have the best time together.

Once everything was settled and I felt healthy I was ready o leave the big city to go home (vanduzi)!

I arrived home and welcomed by many people in my community. I missed being home and sleeping in my own bed...even though hotels are nice too. 

Helped my embregada apply for schools.

Amendoim took over Haleigh's bed

Once I arrived home I had to start preparing for the best trip yet....I was going to South Africa, Cape Town, to meet up with Matt! Yes the one and only Matt Hamlett. I have been waiting for this trip for months, because it meant I atleast got a little slice of home in Africa.  I took a day and half traveling on a bus to finally get to cape town. It was such a beautiful ride up there. 

And then I finally arrived in Cape Town. This meant I only had to wait one more hour to finally see Matt. I was so nervous and a little cultured shocked but seeing him was just so exciting! It was great to finally actually hug and talk in person instead of over facetime and skype. Once we checked into the hotel we went for a little walk around the city. We came up to a park where you could see the beautiful table top mountain.

And when we got back to the hotel he showered me with the best gifts a peace corps volunteer could dream of! All of my favorite snacks

He knows how to win my heart every single time!

This is one of our first pictures together! we went to the waterfront to enjoy some live music and go see the shopping mall. Yes i know why the mall?  Well because I live in a place where they don't exist! Also Matt needed to buy a sweater. 

The best part about this place was that you could see table mountain anywhere. We decided to eat dinner and I finally ate sushi. Yes sushi and many of you that know me I LOVE SUSHI! It was nice to finally be around each other and go adventure together. Also have nice dinners like if we wre back at home.

I also did a little site seeing and went to the wild bird reserve... yea I know what you are thinking typical Thelma....

Well since I stopped at this place i found out that there were monkeys and lemurs also, not only birds!!! 

That is my excited face with the gorilla statue

I got to play with little spider monkeys who literally sat with me. I will admit I was a little self conscious when the monkey started looking through my hair.

 Had to take a selfie with the monkey, and he was looking if I had food!

Cape Town was full of great scenery, it all seemed like a backdrop and not even real. 

 So Matt and I got to go on a boat ride and we saw seal island where literally million of seals piled on a rock!

Taking this picture was a little scary cause I thought I was going to fall in.

We also got to see cute little penguins on a beach!

I made him go on a tour bus to go site seeing for a bit! Which we saw more pretty beaches and the wine gardens. 

WE didn't get to climb table mountain but we still got to take a picture at the bottom of it and get a view of the whole city.

Of course I had to get my beach time in too.

The city!

 And then last but not least the end of the trip after being with Matt for almost a week I had to say goodbye. I have to say, saying goodbye last year was hard but this second time was a little bit harder. Except now I will be home in one year exactly! So after being sad I decided I needed a hair cut to maybe help me feel better. After a year of letting my hair grow out, I wanted it to be healthy and now like mozambicans say I look "Chique"!

After my long journey back from Cape Town, it was almost Thanksgiving!! yummy yumy food!

I decided since I was already South of Mozambique, why not just celebrate it with some of my closest friends. I cooked with one of my best friends Cara and Lauren. We were in the kitchen for hours making good thanksgiving food. Let me just say green bean casserole in the states is easy to make but here in Africa making it from scratch takes hours!!! 

Cara Lauren and me in the kitchen 

 Deciding who can eat first. We cleaned up well

Our thanksgiving feast that we made, with the help of all our friends! And yes those are turkeys

So all of you worried about me being lonely out here, I am truly happy still and have amazing friends who are like my family. So my smile has not changed maybe it's gotten a little bigger  but you can still see my dimples.  I was lucky enough to at least see Matt when I hit my one year mark. Who knows maybe one of you reading this will try to visit me before I head back to the states! think about it!! I definitely have saudades for all of you. (miss you all)

Paz!

Peace Day was this month  and we decided to spend it with our best friend at site Sophia, her husband and beautiful daughter Xanazia. They treated so well and fed us amazing matapa. They were really happy we spent the holiday with them and I am glad we spent it with them. Also I learned how to make really good chicken and other fun recipes that day (BE READY MOM, so many recipes we are going to make) These two treat us like family and it's so nice to have a best friend like Sophia who really watches over us.

Sophia's husband,Xanazia,Sophia

All of us together

Xanazia with her father

This is by far my favorite month because we get to celebrate Dia dos Profesores (Teachers Day)! This falls on October 12th every year and my school is always excited and plans a big party to celebrate. Haleigh and I like to think we are so lucky that we have a wonderful school and director of the school. They all get along well and treat each other like family. Right now Haleigh and I are not allowed to leave site due to elections (don't worry there is no violence we are safe it is just a precaution). So our colleagues and director were concerned that we wouldn't be able to make it to teachers day. They decided to do the celebration local so we could also celebrate which was amazing. Not many volunteers can say they have friends like ours at school. We all celebrated in a really nice location with a pool! Yes a pool, which was perfect because it's been blazing hot! Except we didn't go into the pool we just stayed in the shade meanwhile all the other colleagues went swimming with their kids. It was like a huge family picnic and good food. The teacher that organized the whole teacher day event had a son the year before on this day and couldn't participate last year. Our colleagues did a sweet thing and bought a cake for his child and surprised him during the ceremony. I am telling you our school we aren't just colleagues we are family. It was really sweet of everyone to make sure the child had a little celebration. It was so much fun, I literally danced the night away and eat chicken off a stick. I actually even taught my colleague how to salsa…everyone was impressed. By far my favorite holiday and I have to say my site is by far the best place to live it's a PC dream site.

School is slowly coming to and end and it's really hard to keep the kids motivated. They were doing so well but third trimester, there seems to be a holiday every other week and with elections many professors are campaigning or sometimes students are to. So since professors don't show up the students don't either. It is actually really frustrating because too many students are missing school and missing the point on how important it is to go to school. So Haleigh and I like to say this trimester doesn't exist. Atleast our good kids show up even though it's 4 or 5.

My students are actually doing presentations right now about biology topics. It is quite interesting to see how many students don't know how to present because they have never done a presentation before. Yet some are so good at it you would think hey were the professor.      

So we hired a student a few months ago to help us cart water so she can make some money and wouldn't drop out of school. She hadn't showed up for a couple days and we weren't sure why. This girl is a great student, one of our friends, part of our juntos group, Never misses school, always on time for work, such a strong independent girl. We found out her father had passed away. We had found out by a couple of students from her class that went to go visit her at her home to pay their respects. All the students from her class all went to her home. This being the third time I've been to a funeral, no matter what if you were known in the community people will be at your doorstep. So much support and kindness from the whole community. This is a student's father and everyone from teachers to students all gather to pay their respects and be there for her. Something you would never see in the united states. Some of these students may not know her or the teachers may not either but everyone in the community doesn't think about it and drops what they are doing to go sit with her and be a support. My roommate and I sat in this hut with her for several minutes without saying a word and we knew she was grateful for the support. As I sat in the hut I thought some more in how back at home besides close relatives and family, would any American drop what they were doing like working, cleaning, anything just to sit for several minutes to support the person that just lost someone special in there life. Lifestyle may be different but it's the kindness of ones heart that makes a difference.  

Haleigh dancing with our colleagues 

It was a little boy's birthday that day too and with my colleagues everyone is family!

Sigaque(English teacher), Catique(neighbor), ME, Our director's Wife, Haleigh and the school secretary 

Me with some of our other Colleagues

Sigaque and me

Xinazia and Eva playing

Kids preforming 

Primary school teachers sang a song

My favorite kids! Xinazia, Gaelle, Eva, Panshe

Xinazia

Gaelle was dancing

Our teachers singing a song about teachers

The kids performing made me nervous

Sophia!

Our director Ped director and french teacher Elijah

Students holding up dia dos profesores  poster

More singing!

Kid cam

Best friends!

more kid cam

All of those that were wondering about elections this month, everything was peaceful! Exams are now going to start up and the school year is finishing up….crazy I am done with my first year of teaching.

Sadly this month we also had to say goodbye to one of our staff members who will be moved to a different province. We were sad but so happy that he received a promotion. We will miss you Osvaldo!

Some people that were campaigning for elections

Saying goodbye to Osvaldo

Central Volunteers and staff 

Last but not least the end of this month meant Haleigh was finally going back home….I was sad to see her packing up to go. I missed her despedida (goodbye party) this month because I became ill and had to go to the big city….good thing was I could at least still give her a big goodbye hug and send her on her way because she was going to be in the city as well.

to end on a happy note:

MY library is making progress kids love it!

I also have a great goodbye gift for haleigh! I worked with her English club kids and practice the Beatles song, here comes the sun, so they could sing it to her. hopefully the video works. This is them practicing.