Wednesday, August 09, 2006
I recently did something that you only get to see in movies: I kicked down a door. My own front door at that, and THIS IS THE SECOND TIME I`ve done it. We seem to have really weird luck with locks. Luckily peace corps is going to let us have a carpenter put in new wood around the door frame and 2 brand new locks, so we shouldn`t have this problem again, but Eli and I seem to get locked out of our own house a lot (locked out because the keys don`t work!)
Last weekend Eli and I went for a walk around the bay, just following the beach. We made about a 3.5 hour round trip walk- coming back a little early because of the heat. Around Nacala city the beach is nothing to rave about, it`s a little polluted and there`s a lot of warehouses and people associated with the port. But as you go out a little ways you get back into nature pretty quickly. There were still people and paths where we were, but not as many, and we were entering some areas with very few if any other people, which was kind of nice. The edge of the beach started turning into a mangrove wetland, the baobob trees start to appear, and you can hear tons of birds (although seeing them was trickier, despite my best efforts). The next time we go out we´re going to try and push a little farther and get more into the wilderness.
This last week I`ve started teaching my computer classes more seriously- having 3 day courses (supposed to be 2 originally but it takes a LONG time to teach some of this stuff!). It`s really hard with people who have never really seen a computer before, and where everything is new- plus for me to explain in Portuguese is a little harder because I`m not sure of all the computer vocab, plus it`s all new vocabulary to them, so they can`t help. Also we have 4 computers and 100 kids on the wait list for classes so…. As you can imagine it’s a lot of work! Eli is thinking of giving classes in the mornings too, although since that would mean GETTING UP early, I have my doubts!
Hope all`s well back home.
Last weekend Eli and I went for a walk around the bay, just following the beach. We made about a 3.5 hour round trip walk- coming back a little early because of the heat. Around Nacala city the beach is nothing to rave about, it`s a little polluted and there`s a lot of warehouses and people associated with the port. But as you go out a little ways you get back into nature pretty quickly. There were still people and paths where we were, but not as many, and we were entering some areas with very few if any other people, which was kind of nice. The edge of the beach started turning into a mangrove wetland, the baobob trees start to appear, and you can hear tons of birds (although seeing them was trickier, despite my best efforts). The next time we go out we´re going to try and push a little farther and get more into the wilderness.
This last week I`ve started teaching my computer classes more seriously- having 3 day courses (supposed to be 2 originally but it takes a LONG time to teach some of this stuff!). It`s really hard with people who have never really seen a computer before, and where everything is new- plus for me to explain in Portuguese is a little harder because I`m not sure of all the computer vocab, plus it`s all new vocabulary to them, so they can`t help. Also we have 4 computers and 100 kids on the wait list for classes so…. As you can imagine it’s a lot of work! Eli is thinking of giving classes in the mornings too, although since that would mean GETTING UP early, I have my doubts!
Hope all`s well back home.
Top Left: A view of Nacala city from farther down the Bay, Top Right: Me looking for birds. This part of the Bay is getting a lot more ´wildernessy´. Bottom Left: Eli under a Baobob tree! Baobob and Acacia are the two famous types of African trees that we have around here.
# posted by Paul and Eli @ 1:01 AM 
