english theater and community love

Another post after only 2 weeks! I know I know I’m pretty awesome. I’ve recently taken up telling slash reminding everyone just how awesome I am and I’ve found it surprisingly therapeutic! I’m not exactly sure why but yeah ok moving on… just after writing my last blog, PC put on an English Theater competition for the northern region. Basically volunteers who wanted could create groups at their schools or in their communities to prepare a 15minute skit on subjects like HIV/AIDS prevention, corruption in schools and communities, gender equality etc. Von and I decided that we didn’t actually want to have groups this year, but the competition was taking place in Carapira, dillon’s site which is only 10min away from us, so we decided to help run the event. We were assistants to the almighty coordinator Imani and co-coordinator Gina, and made posters, signed certificates, and pretty much flawlessly ran the reception table as we gave out name tags, water, meal vouchers and information on the event. There were 12 participating groups and the whole event was pretty long, but it was really fun! The winning group was SO good, oh man but they deserved it cuz we heard that they, on their own, wanted to practice almost every day! Most other volunteers had to force their kids to meet even once a week and it showed… Haha I also offered extra credit to my students if they attended the event and a makeup test grade if they wrote an essay about it, and I had 12 kids show up and they ALL wrote an essay!!! AND no one cheated! It was great!!! Some of them left much to be desired, but man some of them were so great! I mean lotsa vocab and grammatical mistakes, but still they answered the questions so well!! I was so proud! I had been stressing alllll year long how important it is to think for themselves and to not cheat and it finally paid off on the years very last writing assignment… figures they would need an entire year to learn a lesson… But yeah it was so much fun and great to see other volunteers and their hard work and then as a reward we took a little trip to Nacala. That’s the beach where von and I took all those jumping pictures on the beach! Haha so yeah we went back with a few other people and stayed at the cutest lil backpackers that has a bunch of bungalows for couples and then one dorm that has 6 beds. We occupied 4 of the beds and then there were 2 other South African dudes staying there for work. So we walked down to their private-esque beach and went snorkeling, played scrabble (I won of course!) and ate delish burgers and bacon egg sandwiches! BACON!!!!! YUUUMMMMMMM!!!! It was a super great relaxing weekend and on the return trip I got to explain the ins and outs of Amazing Race to Diana and Michelle, and man do I love that show! I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY EXPLICITLY REJECT PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS! I honestly think they should do an “Amazing Race: RPCV” season! Oh man seriously! Will someone help me pitch that to CBS?
Last weekend we went out to Ilha again which has become our ‘guilty pleasure escape from Mozambique weekend getaway’ spot and well Michelle, the PCV that lives in Ilha is leaving in like 3 weeks so we’re trying to get all the Michelle time we can! Anyway we went to go eat dinner at this local bar where the owner LOVES michelle and always hooks her up with delish food. Anyway the place was packed and we were sitting right by a window that had mosquito netting on it. Well while we were eating, there were all these little kids on the other side of the window whispering ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘give me food,’ just the usual dinner chatter, and von noticed one kid had his thumb and index finger poked through two little holes, but didn’t think much of it and we continued eating. Well right at the end of our meal we were talking and getting ready to leave and out of nowhere michelle feels something hit her arm. She also didn’t think much of it but then a lady at another table screams ‘your phone!’ Well the littler kid had apparently been working on those two holes all night and kept making them bigger and eventually made one big hole, stuck his arm through and grabbed michelle’s phone right off the table and went running! We’re all freaking out, but all the patrons at the bar get up and go outside and one guy just goes off sprinting to where the kid went! I had just gotten a phone call from Brian so I walk outside too to talk to him and I’m giving him the play by play and I feel like an eye-witness reporter telling him what’s happening during a break in and vonnie and one other woman are the only two people left inside the bar and everyone else is standing outside. Well like 3 minutes later michelle and Andrew start walking back towards the bar surrounded by the other patrons and other little kids and I go back inside and that one guy got michelle’s phone back!! It was CRAZY! The biggest 5minute thrill! Michelle was so bummed that she wouldn’t have a phone for her last 3 weeks, but man it was like the greatest send-off she could have gotten with a bar full of drunk Mozambicans all coming to her aid to help get her phone back! It was really really great. We’re usually always complaining about how passive many Mozambicans can be sometimes when it comes to helping ‘foreigners,’ but maybe it’s cuz they know michelle and feel like she is a part of their family and they needed to protect her, but it was just super awesome to see that kind of support from the community! And then we ended the weekend with the most amazing lunch ever everrrrr! It was hands down the best meal I had eaten in Mozambique and it woulda been good for anywhere! It was the basil tuna steak, which was basically a giant slab of tuna that was marinated in olive oil, basil and garlic and then we asked them to just lightly, very very lightly sear it so that it would be like rare rare and it was PERFECT! The tuna first off was so fresh and the marinade was delish and it was cooked to perfection where the majority was still red and it came with fries and a small salad and OMG it was soooooo gooooood! It was the perfect sushi replacement for the time being and it only costed $8.50!!!
Ok so I think I’m gonna end it there for now because I have a good two part story about Teacher’s Day coming up after this weekend!

Love,
Panda