27/06/10

During mass this morning one of the girls turned around and gave me a huge smile, holding out her hand to show me the tooth she had just yanked out.
One of the girl’s grandmothers came to visit on Saturday and delivered some big news. As it turns out, the 5 year old who arrived a few months ago and everyone has been calling Laura is actually named Isaura. We still aren’t sure if her uncle who dropped her off had misread her name (they look very similar when written in cursive) or if he had been misheard by someone here. The bizarre thing is that Isaura is a very clever girl and speaks Portuguese quite well, so nobody understands why she never corrected anyone. When asked she just shrugged. And for anyone wondering where her birth records or all the official documents showing that the mission is now her legal guardian were, haha yeah right, welcome to Mozambique.
I was greeted this morning by huge smiles on the faces of two of the sisters who said excitedly, “we offer our condolences for USA’s loss in the World Cup” (they weren’t in the least bit sorry and I was even aware yet) “but at least Ghana won! And Ghana is an African team and you live in Africa now so you should be happy too!”
I finally got to meet Mary (my predecessor) today face-to-face, despite the fact that we have traded many emails and even talked on the phone a ton in the past 6 months (she was a HUGE help in the grant proposal writing process). It was fun to put a face to a name, to trade stories about all the same people we know, to catch her up on everything that has changed and developed since she was here, and to hear about what she is doing with her life after being in Mozambique.