Menagerie

A few weeks ago, Jade and I adopted two kittens (brothers, offspring of sitemate Laura's cat Coiso) and a puppy that our friend Dias found for us. Our house is now a menagerie. Which has its pluses and minuses.
One of the biggest perks of having three cute baby animals running around is that there are three cute baby animals running around who are always available for cuddles and entertainment (watching the kittens trying to jump/climb onto various objects can occupy an hour easily). One of the downsides is that, every morning between six and seven I get woken up by a chorus of hungry baby animals who are all much more wide-awake than I am...and pretty good at confusing me. This morning, for instance.
I tossed all the animals outside when I woke up because we were out of xima and I didn't want to deal with their screaming while I made more. Making breakfast took about ten minutes, when it was ready I let the babies back inside. However, only two of the three ran inside. I just figured the other one had wandered off to adventure, so I dutifully fed the other two. Once that was done I went looking for the third, because I could definitely hear him meowing, even if I couldn't see him. Pre-caffeine me was pretty confused. Then I realized that the meowing was coming from above my head. One of the kittens hand managed to climb up the grate over our back door and ended up in the gutter...but he couldn't figure out how to get down. After a few minutes of fussing, he was back on the ground, safe, and eating breakfast. Epah. Kittens.

The puppy we named Matope, which means 'mud' since he's about the same color. The kittens are Meningue and Gil.

The 'branco' connection

Today, we made a new friend. His name is Charles and he works up in the Niassa Reserve - the really interesting, really hard to get to place. He also is very friendly and very generous and is offering to bring us up for a week or two sometime. You know, just to chill, see some animals, and maybe go on a raft trip with him.
There was a lot of excitement and shouting with joy in our house after he left.

Oh, and he also knows the people working on he Niassa Carnivore Project...and said he'd introduce me.

Today was a good day.
Now hopefully I'll go to bed early and maybe get rid of this cold that's been bothering me for the past several days.

LAchinga

This past week was a bit difficult. Not really sure why, but I figured out part of it was that I really am living in LAchinga, meaning, really, really far away from everything not Niassa. It takes two days to get out of the province and the better part of a day to get to most places in the province. Starting to feel a bit isolated.
BUT, a perk of Lichinga (since it's the provincial capital) is that I have pretty excellent cell service and fairly reliable internet. So instead of moping about how difficult it is to visit other volunteers, I'm going to take advantage of those perks and try to just talk to other PCVs more. Also, post on this blog more, so I feel like less of an abstract off here in Mozambique to everyone back in the states.
My goal? One (small) post each day this week, to get me in the habit of writing on here a bit more. Might also try to figure out the whole 'comments' thing that people have mentioned to me.

And on a different note, epah! It's almost March! I've been in Mozambique for about five months already!

Oh, and the kittens and puppy say 'hi'
Discovered last night that xima with pumpkin mixed in is apparently passing pet food, so with half our quintal covered in abóbora plants, I don't think we have to worry too much about feeding the animals!

Starting the day with a cup of tea, some Internet time, and a lap full of kittens! Two to be exact.

Short-cutting our way to the market to buy fresh-made yogurt!

Intertubes!

A few days ago my roommate, sitemate, and I went on a mini-adventure to get Internet set up in Jade & my’s house. This venture was extremely successful - two days later and we are spending our Friday night internetting and not speaking. A little bit of America in our living room in Lichinga.
I’ve been teaching for two weeks now. I have two classes of 11th graders, with an average of about 55 kids per class. Eeek! Still a bit unsure about teaching…especially to teenagers…in Mozambique…in Portiguese. 
But I’m hoping to get connected with some of the orgs in Lichinga for a secondary project - maybe even WWF! So that should be exciting.
There’s probably all sorts of other fascinating things I could share…but as always, they escape me now that I’m actually on the Internet!
Until next post, then!
And maybe that one will have pictures.

Also, tumblr doesn't always agree with Mozambique, so I think I will be using blogspot from now on.

Hello Internet!
Been awhile since I've successfully interacted with you.

I've now been in Mozambique for 4 months and at site for nearly two.  Started teaching classes last week, which threw a wrench in the 'oh, this seems almost normal' vibe that'd been going on for a while.

I'm teaching two turmas of 11th grade biology - which means I teach 3-45 minute periods of biology to two different groups of students each week.   In Portuguese.  Only slightly terrifying.

I'm switching my blog address to this because tumblr is expensive and a bit temperamental here.

Today my roommate and I went to set up internet for the house so hopefully I'll be able to post more often.

Life is Mozambique is good, Lichinga is amazing, and I can't wait to see what unfolds over the next year!