I went for a spin yesterday in the hottest form of transport available in Dzunga – no it was not a Ferrari or even the newest SUV – I went for a ride in a cart pulled by cattle! Each morning, a cart comes to the house where we store the cement to haul several loads of cement the 3-4 kilometers down to the riverbed where we are building the dam. Normally I walk, and I enjoy the time just to think and daydream, saying good morning to every person I see along the way. But never having been in an ox-drawn cart, I figured it was time since our load was not particularly heavy.

I will not say that it was the most comfortable ride ever, and it was hardly faster than walking, but where else am I going to have such an opportunity? These are the things I love about Mozambique . . . every day is such an adventure waiting to happen. You just have to be willing to give it a try . . .

I wasn't able to go down to Dzunga this week due to illness, but I thought I'd put up a few pics of the construction process so you can see what we're doing here.

_bloc

This is our construction site as a whole, although it has progressed a lot since I took this picture.

We mix our mortar right on the ground! I was amazed that this worked, but no one else thought anything of it.

I am so amazed at the strength of these women. One day I helped with rock carrying, but my rocks were all so small, and I had to hold on the whole time. Note the woman in the red shirt - huge rock!

This is our motivator Ernesto keeping track of who has been coming to work, behind him is my colleague from Tete, Sr. Armando.

Yup, that's me in my construction worker dress and trendy shades! I'm helping pass rocks into the trench.

Happy Halloween all! Eu tenho saudades por este feriado de America (I miss this American holiday!). Today is a day just like any other . . . no dressing up or trick or treat. That’s ok though, because I’m experiencing lots of other things instead.

For the past three weeks, I have been in and out of “the bush”. This is how most people here describe the rural areas, but in conversation with a Kenyan here, I realized that “the bush” is a bit derogatory, so henceforth I will try to use better words.

Anyway, I have had quite the experience of rural life now. Each week I go down to Dzunga, one of our dam communities and stay for 3-4 days, returning to spend the weekend in the city. While there, I stay in a house where some of the teachers from the school live, with my own room and bed even, so it’s not really roughing it in any sense. The first week was a real shock to my system in terms of seeing poverty up close. People there, especially the women, have to work so hard. I am impressed by their strength constantly. I returned to the city quite depressed at the fact that I had the capability to escape. Since then I guess I have gotten a bit more used to life there, but making the switch back and forth every few days is still a bit rough emotionally/spiritually. I love things about both places:

I love the routine-ness and simplicity of life in the village. I am awake basically the hours that the sun is up (5 AM to 7 PM), and pretty much all I do is work, eat, sleep, and spend time conversing with my colleagues. I love the feeling of being really hungry because I worked hard at the construction site (although it’s actually pretty hard to do much physical labor because as soon as I pick up a shovel, one of the men takes it away from me – I’m learning to use this to my advantage as a motivation tool to get other people working). I love the constant breeze. I love that there is so much space and so many plants around – I can escape for alone time pretty easily. I love seeing the progress of our work (we are maybe 1/3 done now). I love taking baths outside. I love the stars at night and taking an hour just to lay there and look at them.

I love the connections with people available in the city. I love to just sit around with my host fam. I love the variety and availability of food (not that I suffer in the village, there’s just less choice). I love hanging out with my friend Didi and playing tennis with our other friends. I love having the opportunity to connect with friends back home through email and blogs. I love watching my fav novella (Brazillian soap opera) Chamas da Vida. I love feeling clean.

I have two worlds here. In the village my introvertedness is well-satisfied but my heart is a little lonely. In the city I am surrounded by people who love me but I have less space for myself. So in spite of the difficulties of transitioning back and forth, I am thankful for both worlds.

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I’ve written anything. Life here has been really crazy ever since I finished language study and started doing engineering stuff. It’s good to feel like I know what needs to be done though – I was nervous at the beginning that I’d be sitting around twiddling my thumbs, trying to figure out what to do and where to start. That’s always a risk when you don’t have much supervision. Luckily (or unluckily) I have plenty to do.

Since I’ve started design work, I have been discovering how difficult it is to make the transition from the delightful Valpo atmosphere of abundant resources to the real world, thousands of miles away. I often find myself with questions or uncertainties but I don’t have access to professors or peers (or even my notes from class since I didn’t have room to bring them along). All I have here are some textbooks and slow/costly internet access. I’m learning how to just keep trying and trying and trying and trying . . . until my brain somehow remembers what it learned back in class. This is a very frustrating part of working here, but when I do actually manage to solve a problem, it is very satisfying! Last week I had a few good breakthroughs so now I’m feeling pretty good about the work.

I guess I haven’t really talked much about my work here on my blog yet. I live in the city of Tete and work in an office most days. My host mother Carla does secretarial work here, as well as another lady. My boss Tiago is in charge of the logistics of the project, and he probably has some other projects as well. There are 2-3 other members of the Christian council who help out with the sand dam project and they are in and out of the office from time to time. Our goal is to complete 2 dams this year, in two communities located about 3 hours southwest of the city, near the Zimbabwean border. We usually go down to visit the communities once a week, and sometimes some of my colleagues stay for several days to supervise construction. For the dam that we have been focusing on, the community has excavated a trench across the river and they have started to gather stones (we will build a rock masonry dam). This week I am hoping to go down and spend at least one night in the community so that I can get a better idea of what is going on.

In other aspects, life is pretty good these days. I am still loving my host fam and I’ve been playing tennis with my conversation partner and some of her friends. There are times when there are aspects of culture here (or the climate!) that confuse me or bother me, but mostly I’m happy to be here and to be learning so much. Thanks for your prayers!

Oh hey! I am finally in a place where I can upload pictures, ie the unlimited internet of the home of my gracious fellow MCCers Sara and Brooke, so I'd like to share a few photos with you so you can imagine where I am.

Wanna come visit me? This is what the countryside in my province looks like on a nice sunny day . . .

Sweet sweet tree that is found everywhere in the countryside here. I can't wait to see it with leaves.

Note the lovely green mosque (mesquita) - I hear the prayers several times each day, which is a lovely reminder to myself to thank God for all God's blessings.

Hopefully more to come sometime soon!