Malaria...use your net or you'll regret!

(title taken from the Malaria Rap we wrote during a conference today. Yes, we sometimes do work, too.)

Work out in the field is occasionally interrupted by a Peace Corps conference, which means a few important things:

-         Seeing other volunteers

-         Paid transportation to a city

-         Staying in a hotel with running water and electricity

-         And, most importantly of course, meetings about projects, teaching, safety, and health

Don't be deceived, conferences are not boring. On the last day,
we sang a song about malaria prevention,
barbershop-quartet-morphed-into-rap style.

We had meetings in the mornings and medical check-ups in the afternoons. I am pleased to announce that I am healthy and cavity-less. Apparently tomatoes, onions, and side-feti (see future blog post about food) don’t bore dark holes in your teeth as much as junk food does.

On Monday we held a year-anniversary memorial service for Lena and Alden. I’ll include some pictures because it was a touching service that wasn’t actually a service. Instead of sitting and listening to people talk, there were interactive stations set up at the Peace Corps office. At one station, there were markers and crayons, and we wrote letters to their families. At another station, we could visit a small orchard, where saplings were being planted. Lena loved mangos and Alden loved coconuts, so each type of tree was planted, among others. At a third station, we could paint a flat rock to be put in an area under a tree where people were planting seedlings in a garden (which got trampled with all the activity, but hopefully they’ll spring back to life). 

Painting stones. I don't know who made the one to the right,
but I love it! It's a woman carrying a baby on her back.

Sean plants some grass around the stones.

At the last station, a few volunteers had painted a mural and prepared one white block for each volunteer in our group, Moz 17, to paint. At the end, Carl (the director of Peace Corps Mozambique) revealed a plaque that will live in the garden. The result was beautiful.

Last night we had a pool party with the entire group, and we voted on some awards to give out. A group of us arrived at the party a little late, so most of Moz 17 was already there. I should have known what was going to happen when another volunteer so kindly took my bag off my shoulder, and I saw people doggy paddling with their shirts on. But before I could process the scene, my feet were off the ground and chlorinated water was accelerating towards me at 9.8 meters/second/second. It was actually always a secret wish of mine to be thrown into a pool with all my clothes on, so, thanks Nate.

Leah hangs out in wet jeans, plotting revenge on an unsuspecting Nate.

Laurie reads out the awards, from the safety of her chair.
She eventually did get thrown in.
There was no escaping.

My colleagues voted for me for this superlative!

And, this is what we are doing right now: celebrating our last night together for 7 more months (we all go back to our sites tomorrow), eating ice cream and pie, celebrating Hoang's birthday, pretending to be carrots.