09/11/10

This week I am down at training for Moz 15, the new group of Volunteers who are beginning their sixth week of training and being in country. The first few trainees who I met immediately said “oh Scooter, I read your blog!” and one trainee eventually said “I think everyone read your blog…” The new group is great, I love them. It’s nice coming during week six because they have settled into life in Mozambique and aren’t shell-shocked anymore. At the same, time my measly one year of experience as a teacher in Mozambique just makes me an expert and wealth of knowledge in comparison to them. This year, for the first time, there is a group of math teachers, five guys, in addition to the biology, chemistry, and english teachers. When my technical trainer for chemistry saw me for the first time today and found out that I am teaching no chemistry and only math he said “I trained a runner to compete in the Olympics and I trained them to run the 100m dash and then they showed up and found out they were running the mile.”
After all of the sessions were over I met up with my host mother’s boyfriend/father of their two kids who gave me a ride to their new house which they just moved into on Saturday. They had just begun construction on the house last year when I was still in training, but I had never seen it before. Their new house is difficult to get to and pretty small, but it is cozy and warm and you can tell that everyone (my mom, her boyfriend, and my 4-year-old host brother) is so proud to be living in their new and very own house. The house is completely painted and furnished already (they must have done that all ahead of time) and has electricity and running water in the sink in the kitchen. Baby Anata reportedly loves to eat and she is looking beautiful, big, and healthy and slept the whole time I was there. Since we only finally sat down to eat at 9pm I had plenty of time to talk and catch up with everyone, including my 14-year-old sister/cousin who lived here while I was here but has since moved to Inhambane province to assist in the caretaking of an uncle and who I hadn’t seen since I left last December. It was wonderful to see them so happy and proud to be in their new house as a family.