My last 7 months

Play by Play, My last 7 months in Peace Corps

-          I arrive in Maputo from Tanzania and met up with my uncle I took him to my site and then we hung out in Tofo for a few days with an Australian photographer. It was a good time.

-          Man Weekend: Invited all the peace Corps Guys in Southern Moz to come to my house for the weekend. We did a pub crawl in the poor outskirts of town, just hopping from one small cement bar to the next until we got back to my place. The next day we killed a goat and grilled it all up. It was an excellent man weekend.

-          I took the Foreign Service Officer Test. I passed J, but eventually did not get invited to the interview in DC L

-          I started teaching the health workers at my org how to make fruit jam and jar it properly to preserve it. (in addition to continuing my normal work of supporting scheduling, monitoring and evaluation of the come care program)

-          Went camping out in the bush with a big group of other volunteers near the town of Panda. It so happened to be on Valentines Day so it was called Panda Love weekend. Renting outa minibus to drive you and your friends out into the African bush=Awesome.

-          My birthday is the same day as another volunteer so we held a joint Birthday Party. We went to a Lagoon spot called Bilene. It was low season so they said that we could just pay about 10 USA per person per night and we could take as many cottages as wee needed. Some people rent a beach house for their birthday weekend. We rented out 7! That was the most pimped out Birthday ever. My friends even dropped balloons on me from the balcony and put sparklers in my cake.

-          Helped coordinate a project proposal for Moringa propagation (it’s a multi purpose plant, look it up), and soap production in the community.

-          Had an American style cook out at my house and went to the small beach close to my house along the bay.

-          Ran a pub quiz round about America during the 2013 Beach Beer Olympics for Moz Peace Corps Volunteers. It was not as ridiculous as you may think. It was just some competitive drinking games between the different regions and a lot of hanging out on the beach.

-          Then several of my friends all had birthdays in early May, so they had a joint party at Tofo.

-          I immediately went to my Close of Service conference that Sunday. I saw everyone from the group I entered Peace Corps with and it was a really nice time (I forgot how good it was to sleep in a nice bed, in a room with air conditioning and watch cable TV). But it was only 3 days and then everyone had to say goodbye and go their separate ways to finish off our last 3 months at site.

-          Went to my friends site and I killed a duck and we cleaned it and made a Vietnamise dish out of it. It was really good.

-          Went to Swaziland for a music festival called Bushfire. I went with a big group of friends and it was a wonderful time. A great atmosphere with a lot of art all around. Even though most the bands were kind of bad, it was a great time and place to celebrate my second anniversary of arriving in Africa. There was even a very small English pub with Guinness on tap, a huge rarity in my life.

-          Went to my friend’s house in another site with a musical friend of mine and we recorded a few random songs that we have been improvising and improving over the past year.

-          I have been learning how to surf and now I can pretty consistently stand up. Its awesome.

-          Went to a town called Fidel Castro to hold a second Man’s weekend. Bars were crawled, pool was played, and the next day we killed and cooked two ducks. I did not do the killing this time but I lent my expertise and did most of the butchering. Then I made a duck liver pate as an order and we stewed the meat with vegetables and spices for over two hours. It was real good. 

-          I had some visitors from the incoming group of volunteers that will start working when my group leaves. Another volunteer and showed them around town and showed them our work. I also taught them how to make tangerine marmalade as it is tangerine season right now and it is one of the things I am teaching the health workers how to make and preserve. Now they will go back to training for the next few weeks and prepare to enter site. I will spend the next couple weeks preparing to exit my site, Mozambique, Africa, and The Peace Corps.