We arrived in Mozambique on September 27th, and stayed two days in the capital, Maputo. The city is enormous (close to two million people), beautiful, and very scary. The group then traveled down to the city of Namaacha, about an hour southwest. Namaacha sits on the three borders of Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland. It was originally a Portuguese vacation town, built in the mountains, so it was generally very cold, rainy, and non-Africa-y.
Each volunteer was adopted by a host family, and mine was amazing! My host mom, Mae Elisa, has two adult daughters (Melita, 30, and Lotinha, 22), and each of them have a son (Lay, 9, and Donavan, 4). There was another little girl (Elsa, 6) who lived with us, but I never figured out who her parents were. It's a very common practice in Mozambique to take in the children of your relatives in exchange for an extra pair of hands around the house. Elsa was loved and cared for, but she always ate in the kitchen, slept on the floor, and never had as nice of clothes as her cousins.
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| Elsa, 6 |
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| Donavan, 4 |
