End of Week 8

Hi,

Done with week 8 and it feels like it is finals week, cramming for tests and presentations. I have my practicum monday, with some young boys talking about their future and what work they want to do, with a little bit of gender talk, friday is the final language interview and i am not a very good speaker but i think i will barely pass and i am sure it will come with time and not living with people who speak english. I will be living in Zambezia Province, in a small village called Mugulama. I will be working with people living with HIV and AIDS, making sure they adhere to treatment, building the capacity of the community to recieve the materials needed to care for the sick, developing and implementing projects based on treatment, prevention and working as a link between the closest hospital and our community. I will have to learn a local language and prolly will not have electricity. Should be fun and tough. Hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and there is no real thanksgiving unless the lions play like the lions normally do. Go to go talk to you soon.

Week 5

Hi,

Mid-way through training and we leave next week for site visit, I am traveling to the Province of Zambezia and will be staying in a town called Mocuba. Apparently it is in the mountains or close to them. It should be a fun time leaving the place we have been for the last 5 weeks and seeing some of the country. Not much to report, everything is pretty much monotonous everday. Though if anyone out there has a 313 area code I do not know about, tell me because a glitch in the phone I have allows me to call 313 area codes for free. Shaun and I have never talked so much. Well, we did have a session with a lady living with HIV, it was very sad, because we all knew her husband passed the disease onto her since he has been a miner in South Africa for years, and after she told him she had it he blamed her and left her, now she has 3 kids, no job or money and is ostracized by most of society due to the stigma perpetuated by idiot government officials throughout the years or the hierarchy in most churches. She seemed so ashamed to be sitting there and I think she did it so she could get some food for her baby. In another note, I was strolling around the local mercado (market) and saw my first Michael Vick style dog fighting. These kids had three puppies probably 4 weeks old and they were dragging them around on leashes and got in a circle and grabbed the neck of two and smashed their faces together until the dogs started to bite eachother, it was quite pathetic and unfortunately I think they have bad role models when their parents beat the dogs and the kids lack the same compassion. And I think psychologists would argue the way you treat your animals could showcase the way you treat other things you feel are inferior to yourself?