Ngupa Health Promoters

We just finished teaching our first village the remaining content of our health booklet. Our training went much better than last week. We distributed booklets to each of the promoters for the families in their zones and next week we will visit the families and observe them teaching. I am excited to see these people learn and teach each other these concepts.

Back in Moz

It has been a very humbling week teaching the people in the Beira area. On Monday I taught the Care for Life Coordinators the first half of the new Health Booklet. Until you begin to teach new material you have no idea how to present it to your audience here until you get started. It went fairly well. On Tuesday we taught the health promoters from Ngupa 1 and Ngupa 2. This is where the frustration began. Many of the individual's could not read and did not fully understand Portugese. Justin Larkin translated to Portugese and Annamicus translated into Senna. Thank goodness she was here and helped us salvage our training. On Wednesday and Thursday we taught the health promoters in Motel Bispo 1 & 2 and Vilamassane. These people ate it up. They were hungry for more information as we introduced them to simple concepts of nutrition and health. On Friday we taught in Subida and we were back at square one. After 2 hours of training the promoters struggled to name the 4 basic food groups. I don't believe it has anything to do with their intellect, but more of a failure on our part in not adapting the information to their way of thinking. It's a big world and most of it does not think the way we do. Next week we start all over and see if we can build upon what we have learned through this excercise. There is nothing more exciting than to see into the eyes of an individual and detect they are learning and comprehending new information. It motivates you to work harder to share more. I see why educators often continue to teach in spite of challenging circumstances and low pay, it is made up for in the satisfaction of information shared and imparted into a mind ready to absorb more.

FPP=Family Preservation Program

Walking through a village that is participating in the Family Preservation Program it's hard to miss all the improvements they are making.  Good hygiene, mosquito nets, latrines and clean water are all things they work on to improve their living conditions.  Most of the homes have gardens and they are taught the importance of eating a balanced diet including fruits and vegetables.

 Here is a man making screens for his windows.

Posted by Margie English

Backpack, backpack

The children's club is part of the Family Preservation Program.  Each year our volunteers attend the children's club to teach them vocational skills.  This year one of the skills we taught was to make backpacks.  The kids LOVED this.  It was a difficult assignment but once completed the smiles were all the payment we needed. 

Posted by Margie English

Dondo

Dondo?  African bird? food?  Nope, Dondo is another orphanage we visit every year.  In 2007 the Care For Life volunteers built bunk-beds and supplied mattresses for them.  In 2009 we painted the entire outside of the orphanage and tried to repair their leaking roof.  The roof was just too damaged though and even with the repairs, during the rainy season the water just poured in.  This year when we arrived at Dondo the children were not there.  The government shut down Dondo because the water leak was interfering with the electric wires and posed a huge safety risk.  We were told the roof needs to be replaced and that the 35 children were all moved to different orphanages or sent to live with family members that live in very poor conditions.  We were all so upset by this news that the volunteers vowed to return home and raise the needed money to replace the roof.  I was so proud of them as I listened to them discuss ways they would raise the much needed funds to help out this orphanage.
Posted by Margie English

One of our favorite places

Kedesh is one of the orphanages we visit.  It is all boys and is run by an American man named John.

Each year John invites us over for a pot luck dinner.  This year we took sweet and sour meatballs.  They disappeared fast.  Then in the evening we gather and dance and sing.  His boys being the main attraction.  A couple of the boys played guitars and sang.  It's a lot of fun for all of us. Here are a few pictures of his place.    Where they prepare their meals and do their dishes.

The volunteers love going to Kedesh.  They play volleyball, soccer and occasionally have a water fight.

 

Posted by Margie English

Work Hard Play Hard

The last few days have been awesome.  We have taken off our work gloves and had some fun.  On Friday we went to a restaurant, called Biques, that had outdoor seating on the beach.  On the menu it said, "please plan on 45 minutes for us to prepare your meal."  So after we ordered we went for a walk on the beach. 

Saturday we made foil dinner.  We invited 8 of our Mozambican friends and went to the beach.  When we arrived it was so dark we used our flashlights to find our way.  We could hear the ocean but we could not see it.  Once we got settled someone said, "Look is that the moon?"  As we searched the horizon there was a red moon barely starting to come up.  We watched as it made it's way up into the stars that were just incredible.  One of the volunteers brought glow sticks and the Mozambicans had fun with them.  Never seeing anything that lights up with a simple break.

 Our Mozambican friends told us they had never eaten dinner on the beach.  What great memories we made.  Love, love, loved it.!!!