This is a blog to share with you a little about my life in Africa.
To first share with you a little about me, I grew up in Ellington, half a world away from Mozambique where I am living right now.
Ever since I was 7 years old, watching a slide show of my Aunt's trip to Africa, I thought it might be a very cool place to go someday. I love the outdoors, and around here there is plenty of that! However, I never knew I'd make it here, to a country whose name I had never even heard of.
But, there is lots of work for interested young people here, and I made my way to Mozambique by joining an organization called TechnoServe as a volunteer. We work to help Mozambicans start and grow businesses.
I am also passionate about the environment, so I've incorporated that into my work - helping my co-workers and our partners encourage "green" sustainable agriculture practices. I have worked on projects that will help small farmers plant coconut trees, and another project which will help women to start maize mills in communities.
For all that is different here in Mozambique, I've been surprised how much is the same. We even have the internet! But I'll save that for another post..
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Dear Liz,
ReplyDeleteYour website is awesome. I love the photos. How many hours of a time difference is there between Somers and Mozambique?
Elliot
(a kid from Mr. Maciolek's class)
Dear Liz,
ReplyDeleteis Mozambique different from USA?
From looking from pics looks so!
Thnx for sharing those facinating photos!
Your bud,
Anastasia-mr.m's 4th grade class
Hi Elliot!
ReplyDeleteThere is six hours time difference between Ellington and Maputo. So, when you start school every morning at 8 or 9 am, it is 2 or 3 pm here.
However, we also use military time here. So, instead of saying 2:00 pm, we would say 14:00. It actually makes things less confusing, so that when someone says "see you at 9 o'clock" you know that it is 9 in the morning, and when they say "see you at twenty-one hundred" it is 9 pm. Does that make sense?
Hi Anastasia!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading my blog - Mozambique may look very different, and it is, but you will find that underneath it all, we are not so different at all. In that way, I am learning a lot.
During my first few months here, I was very homesick. I especially missed my Mom's cooking, and visiting with family and friends in Ellington. The foreign foods and smells and buildings were nice, but not mine.
Soon I made many friends here, and I have come to realize how special it is to share in someone else's home. I still miss my family some times, but I also am enjoying spending time with family and other kids here. In this way, things are not so different - families and friends still take care of each other, laugh together, cry together, and even fight sometimes. My friend Stelia is also 24, and she and I discovered that we both love running, eating bananas, and dancing to hip hop music at night. She is from Mozambique, and I am from the U.S., but it is not so hard to become friends at all!
Liz