Muito Obrigada!

I have had such an overwhelming two weeks. It has been a very good overwhelming, though. Last week I started my little kids club. I guess I can't really say little, now, because I have 112 members ranging from babies to 16-17 year olds. My first day I had 29 kids and I thought that was great. Each day that number just kept getting bigger and bigger. It is amazing the support that I am literally getting from all over the world. I have friends in Australian taking donations, as well as, friends in Austria and Germany doing the same thing. New communities in the states are all rallying together to create care packages for myself and the Jordy's Club members. My parents are overwhelmed with all the support I am getting. I am really overwhelmed with it all as well. I wasn't expecting such a huge following but I sure do appreciate it. School will be starting next week so I am hoping to get even more kids involved, especially the older ones. I feel like I can utilize them to help me with the younger ones. This short post is dedicated to all those who have and are still continuing to support my adventures here in Mozambique and beyond. It is greatly appreciated and you all have a special place in my heart!

93 and counting...

I can't really tell you how overwhelmed I am this week by all of the love and support I have been receiving from all over the world...literally. I am also overwhelmed with the amount of kids that have showed up to Clube de Jordy (Jordy's Club). Right now I am at 93! And let me tell you 93 rambunctious mozambican kids who barely speak Portuguese and no English and 1 Jordy who speaks weak Portuguese but a lot of English, makes for some interesting stories!

Back to my love and support. I have a lovely Aussie friend, Stacie, who is organizing a bunch of care packages for me and the kids! The support she is getting from her friends and family in Australia is just awesome. SO THANK YOU AUSSIES! My friends in Germany and Austria are also sending care packages, as well! Danke, danke, danke (especially if you are sending me the chocolate I requested...hahaha)! I am also getting more from the states so thank you to my friends and family in the states. I love you all dearly and am so honored and proud of you all!

Back to the 93 kids....day one I had 29...day 4...93....GOOD NEWS TRAVELS FAST! hahahahahahahaha....Here is what we did this week...drew....a lot....they love drawing. Played volleyball and soccer and I showed them some basketball moves....they were impressed! I made homemade checkers and tic tac toe. The checkers is catching on but its difficult for them to understand but we practice every day! I am teaching them English and right now we are going over the alphabet, numbers 1-20 and parts of the body. They are teaching me some Makua (local language) as well. There are a few trouble makers but I think I am handling the high volume and lack of Portuguese pretty well for doing it all solo.

My ultimate goal in my two years is to create a community center that will have a library, kids center, multipurpose sports field and classrooms for education, health, the arts, etc. for all community members. It's a big project but I am super excited to attempt it. I actually had parents bring kids and sign them up.

Again I thank you all for the support and check back for updates!

Jordy's Club is Open!

So yesterday was the first day I had Jordy's Club open. I was expecting 5 or 6 kids to be honest. At the end of the day I had 29. I was super happy and a little overwhelmed. It is going to be a lot of work. I am very interested in seeing what my numbers will be today. I had a lot of fun but had some frustrations as well.

Frustration #1: The kids do not speak Portuguese very well.
Frustration #2: The kids do not know how to read or write well. A lot of them cannot even write their names.
Frustration #3: I do not have a lot of materials/resources. I made tic tac toe boards and a checkers board out of cardboard. I do not have enough tables for the kids to work on. I want books in English and Portuguese. I want more balls (basketballs, volleyballs, soccer balls, etc.).
Frustration #4: I want to know how to speak the local language and I want to know how...yesterday!

Fun #1: 14 kids showed up in the morning. I had to kick out 29 kids in the afternoon. They didn't want to leave.
Fun #2: Taught the kids to play tic tac toe.
Fun #3: Played soccer and showed the kids some of my basketball moves...with a soccer ball. They love when I spin the ball on my finger.
Fun #4: Kids love to draw. I think they are just excited to have paper and pencils.
Fun #5: The kids are super polite and nice and sweet and will have a special place in my heart because they were my first "club kids"! 

My goal is to keep an attendance sheet everyday and hopefully use that information in my proposal for a community center in Liupo. I started out by wanting just a place for kids but I really think that this community can benefit from a place that is for everyone. This community center will have a library and rooms for both the kids and adults in the community. I will have programs for education, health, art, community service, sports, etc. I am really excited about pursuing this venture but it will be a lot of work and trying to create something sustainable is super difficult here. 

In other news, Arden and I were asked about teaching English. Arden said she would prefer to stick with her science and I offered to teach English if they needed me. It is frustrating talking to my colleagues who teach English and they do not speak it properly. How can they teach it then? Welcome to the education system in Mozambique and to what I am assuming most education systems in Africa. I think we find out on the 28th what we will be teaching. I am super excited to get school started and to get more kids to the club.

Nossa Casa!

Yay we are officially in our house! We have so many projects that we want to do and can't wait to do them. Our house is small and infested with bugs and lizards but we are coping and getting used to the fact that we will have unwanted visitors for the next two years. I have made an attempt to name the lizards...they are all called Lenny and I am hoping Lenny will control our bug situation. Right now he sucks at his job. Our electricity has been out more than we have actually had it, which means our electric stove is useless. We are going to invest in a coal stove or gas stove for those days without electricity. Did I mention we have a lot of bugs?! It is ridiculous and I am even more thankful for my mosquito net! Ok back to the house...we have two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. Our bathroom is outside and we also have a covered little gazebo type structure outside too which we love! We have decided that we are going to make our house as modern as possible. Arden made a toilet paper holder for our bathroom and a little table for the hand sanitizer. We made bamboo closets and rugs for our bedrooms. We are looking to get some couches and tables made for our living room and some countertops and shelves for our kitchen. I have taken some before pics and will post the after pics when we get all of our projects completed! We are so happy to be in our home. It is nice to be close to the school but we are not thrilled about being farther away from the market. We are going to get a bike though so hopefully it won't be such a pain. There is a bar across the street that is run by an awesome man. We went to say hello last night and he ended up giving us watermelon...it was delicious! We had our old neighbor, Sergio and another friend, Anastancio visit last night. We are always making friends! The people here are just so nice. We had a student come to us today who is not able to pay for school so we decided that he can do some work for us and we will help pay for his school. I am always wanting to give food and money to kids here but that is dangerous to do because they will expect and then never leave you alone.

Thank you all for your continuous support! Check out the pics...and my other pages too!

Feliz Ano Novo A Todos!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year's. I had an amazing time in Ilha de Mocambique with a group of volunteers. I think that this place is going to be my get away place. It is only about 3 hours from where I live. Our ride there consisted of sitting on a bunch of coconuts in the back of a truck and piling into a minivan with 20 other people. Got to love the public transportation system here! We stayed in some bungalows on the beach on the mainland. They were perfect! I had another moment where I couldn't believe that this was my life. We ate a lot of good seafood and even had pizza for lunch one day! Ilha is beautiful! The architecture and beaches are amazing. On the 2nd a group of us took a sailboat to a deserted island and just hung out. That was an amazing trip!

In other news, I have not been feeling well since getting to site. I think everything is catching up with me. It is a lot harder than I thought to keep myself healthy when I have limited resources. Our PC doctor is great and my roommate is even better. We have kids that hang out around our house a lot. They like to peek in the windows, which is annoying. I made them paper airplanes and drew with them and Arden (my roomie) played soccer with them. They are not as nosy anymore but they always want our soccer ball. We are giving English lessons, well Arden is mostly because I haven't been feeling great, to our colleagues at the school. They are really nice guys. They are really smart too! We are still not in our house yet but hopefully that will happen soon. We are getting anxious! School starts February 4th and I can't wait! Other than that, there hasn't been much going on. We are just getting to know our community better. I still learn something new about the culture here every day. I love this place!

Check out the pics!