Saying Goodbye

Zachariah, one of our best students, just finished a computer class with us, so we had been seeing him everyday for the past two months. In addition, Luc had been taking Chewa lessons from Zach in exchange for helping with his English vocabulary. The two of them would spend at least an additional few hours a week together on the porch or the shade of the mango tree using various dictionaries and Malawian textbooks to capture as many useful words as possible and laughing frequently during every session. Now he has gone to Tete city to try to find work. We're hoping it goes better this time. Last year he tried to find employment only to come back a few weeks later empty handed. We've been training him in the computer lab, helped him make a CV, and given him all the pep talks we can, so hopefully he'll fare better this time. Still, sending him off was a little sad, we felt like parents letting our student leave the safety of our little nest. Our emotions may have been heightened by the general hecticness in our busy lives. We had to scramble to print his certificate, our school toner is running so low Luc had to retrace by hand in ink the most important parts of the diploma, and then get all the official signatures and stamps. He's only about 100 km away, but considering all the difficulties with transportation and communication here, we've basically lost one of our closest Mozambican friends. Another friend, a Canadian volunteer serving for another organization, is also leaving this weekend, so we went into the city were she lives to have a farewell party with some of the other Peace Corps and expats we're friends with. We always encounter so many culture shocks coming out of the bush and into contact with non-Peace Corps lifestyles. Its hard to be conscious of all the little things, but running water (Janet took a bath in hot water in a bathtub!), access to exotic food products like ice-cream and restaurants with menus, listening to American music, using computers with internet all stand out as things that seemed like normal parts of our pre-PC lives and now seem the ultimate in luxury. The weekend turned into an eating fest starting with beef curry with real beef and real Japanese curry, steak and eggs for breakfast, chicken burritos for lunch, sausage pizza for dinner, and ice-cream with freshly baked cookies for dessert. Basically more calories and meat in a 24 hour period than an entire week in site. As with most Peace Corps get togethers, bed space is at a premium, so we piled 5 of us into 2 twin beds slumber party style.



City life has its dark side, we all had a scare when ten armed bandits broke into one of our expat friend's fancy home and stole all her electronics and money while she hid in the bathroom the night after our party. Luckily our Peace Corps lifestyle and simple home makes much less of a conspicuous target. Several of our best Peace Corps friends are getting ready to leave in September and really counting down their time. We still have a huge amount of projects left to accomplish at site and some big family visits. This is a very rich and full time in our lives, and we're trying to keep up with the hectic final-sprint pace we've set for ourselves. We've got until December, but we're also starting to see the end in sight.