Some Random Photos

Hey Guys, so I just realized that we have a blog that we are supposed to be updating…whoops.. I hope everyone is doing well. I am going to upload a few photos here that we think you all may enjoy. Of course you all know that that means, heavy on the Espanhol and Thika….

Here is a picture that we have been meaning to post for quite some time now. This is Espanhol holding the cake that Jordan made him for his 17th birthday in December. We invited his family over and threw a little bday party for him. He was loving it!

This is a photo of the Bday present that we brought back from him. He is a pretty serious Beaver fan these days so he was really happy to recieve a nice polo with the OS logo on it. I have to send a shout out to Jaimee Colbert of the OSU Men’s Basketball Team for this though. She was really generous when we were home last July to give us some extra apparel from the Basketball team and we were able to give Espanhol a couple shirts. This has to be his favorite though. Thanks again Jaimee, you are the best!!! Go Beavs!

Here is a photo of Jordan’s friends who work at the Market; Rosa and Isabel. These two are so accustomed to not only selling us all of our vegetables but also giving us way too much free stuff. There are times that we are walking by the market and don’t need/want anything but they always force us to leave with something. Even if it is as little as one onion. They are really generous people. On this day, Jordan invited them over to our house to cook and eat with her. They were pretty funny because Jordan made a big Spaghetti lunch but they insisted on cooking something as well so they made a typical Mozambican dish too. As usual, there ended up being way to much food for everyone but at least delicious. I am not complaining!

These pics are from a party that we had on Woman’s Day in Mozambique in April. The boys from our JOMA group came and helped make lunch for the girls in Jordan’s REDES group. We definitely had to help a lot still but it was pretty funny watching them get really excited to help with anything they could. When it came time to doing dishes though, they weren’t too thrilled that that was part of the expectation. It was pretty cute though.

Here are the girls in Jordan’s REDES group. Most of the girls participate in our JOMA group as well. Being that it was Woman’s Day, they were awarded the table all too themselves. They were loving that. Jordan had a little talk with them before lunch though to ask them to not brag too much. Even though these are some of our best and brightest students, the cultural expectations of men and women can still be hard to break down. Needless to say though, I think the girls were loving watching the guys cook and clean while they got to play cards the whole time!

Here are all the guys in our JOMA group relegated to the grass while the girls get to eat at the table. They don’t seem to be too disappointed though. By the way, it is incredible the amount of pasta these kids can eat….

This picture is from one of our JOMA meetings. All the kids had brought their news articles for our Journalism project and were presenting them to our Counterpart Alfredo to proofread. You can barely see Alfredo in the middle surrounded by the kids trying to get their articles looked at. Alfredo is an English teacher at the other Secondary school in town and has been a phenomonal counterpart so far this year. My only regret is not finding him until late last year. He just gets so excited to work with the kids and do these projects, it’s adorable.

Well, no blog is complete without a photo of the pup. Here is Thika howling in the middle of the day without getting out of his chair. I am telling you guys, words cannot describe how lazy this dog is. I am bummed because I thought that I had put the other photo of Jordan feeding him on my flash but I must have forgotten. I’ll just tell you, he kept his butt on the chair while bending down to the ground and eating. Heaven forbid he actually gets up to receive his food. As for the howling, he has taken to responding to my howling these days. It is pretty funny because all I have to do is imitate his howling and he will look at me and lift his head and howl back. I guess he is just trying to communicate. Probably wanting more cookies…

Alright guys, I hope you enjoyed the update. We miss all of you and the countdown has officially started with some of you but if you haven’t heard yet, we have received our COS date, Nov. 25. So that is coming up really fast. It will be here before you know it…

Take care and keep in touch. Brian and Jordan

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