i <3 gogos

so, as many of you may remember, my center has had a change of address. it has been a difficult change--we are now operating in a mud building that is electricity free and is waaaaay too small for all of us to function. ugh. totally stinks.

having to walk 20 minutes to get to work gets me out into the village a whole lot more, which i am definitely enjoying. before, i would walk around the fence to next door and get there in about 1 minute.

so, today, i decided to go the long way over to my center with my bike. it was romantic at first, until i hit the long stretches of fields with grass that come up to your waist. i had decided to take a short cut through this field instead of up "the driveway" (tire treads from cars). i was almost there when i came upon a large stream that i was previously unaware of. hmmmm. mysterious. i decided to head back and go around the deep ravine with the stream in it when a gogo (grandmother) comes out of nowhere and yells to me "UYAPHI?" (where are you going?) I pointed to the center across the ravine and another kilometer of fields and then started to walk back to the dirt road so i could avoid the ravine. she started to frantically waive her hands, pointing at the center. so i stopped. she beckoned me over to her. being extremely tired at this point (did i mention it was 100 degrees outside?) and out of breath, i pulled my bike along side me over to the gogo. She then smiled at me and preceded to take my bike from me, pick it up, and wade over the stream to the other side and take it out of the ravine...WHAAAAAT? It was so crazy. Anyways, when we got to the other side i thanked her and she just smiled at me and headed back over the stream where she had come from and out of sight. did i mention that i had never met this woman in my entire life and she is probably about 65-70 years old? it was pretty astonishing.

end of story.

so, as you can probably guess, i am back from my vacation extravaganza. it was pretty nice. i saw alot of animals (rhinos fighting, lots of hippos, elephants, giraffe, etc., a 2 day old baby hippo) went swimming a bunch (mozambique and durban), and spent about 50 hours in some kind of transport (plush buses with ac, small bus with no leg room and exploding tires, and a taxi driven by a homicidal maniac over non existent roads for 3 hours during a downpour). I got to see a new country, which was pretty nice, and met 26 peace corps volunteers who i had not previously known (from namibia, swaziland, lesotho, mozambique, botswana, and even south africa). apparently mozambique is the peace corps hot spot for christmas. unfortunately for me, it rained almost the entire time we were in mozambique--and we were camping. but, all in all, it was great. jeff was visiting from america, so it was great to see him, and i got to relaaaax which is something i was in dire need of.

now, back to work. like, i said, the new center is, how shall we say, incomplete, and so it makes it a little difficult to get much done. however, the kids return to school next week, and back to the center, which means my club starts up again! also, there is a new assistant director (new position) and she is living at my house. she is my age and university educated. this fact is important because she is very driven and has high expectations and lots of goals that she wants to see the center accomplish. i think it will be a wonderful partnership. yesterday i went with her to town to buy a bed and tv for her room. she is staying in one of the rooms behind my house but sharing our kitchen and bathroom. i’m happy to have a new person to hang out with and do something stuff. we will see how it goes.

it will take some getting used to, though. this means sharing a bath and kitchen with 5 people with 3 different dinners to cook. stand in line. whatever, not a big deal. it just seems like my personal space, which i already don't have that much of, is even less. i'm sure that it will improve, my host sister is very stressed out right now and in a perpetual bad mood. she is the administrator and bookkeeper so the audits coming up are stressing her out. after that she has tons of school work. it's hard to see the sun through the clouds.

anyways...sorry for that diatribe. so a new year brings new things to worry about and projects to work on. i am a little excited about it, but honestly, it is hard to get back into the swing of things. i miss home, and another volunteer from my group quit and went back to the states, making me feel the pull of home even stronger.

america isn't that great, is it?

<3