thanks giving

How will I ever make it home without taking some little children home? They are too cute. The other night, having to be home before the gate shuts at 18:00 and the sun is down, I started running down the path. i was followed by a group of little girls who screamed with joy “VAMOS CORRER!” (Lets run). They giggled all the way down dirt road with me. When we reached my destination I lifted my hand to HI-5 the four little girlies. With scared faces they suddenly turned to run back, I quickly told them to wait, not to be scared and called them over to teach them what a HI-5 was and said “chau amigas!”. They were enamored. The next day one of the girls came to the center to give me a gift. It was a plastic bag of batata doce > sweet potatoes. She had dug them from her garden all by herself for me. What I am going to do with all those potatoes I don't know, but I was thrilled.

So I have many secret goals or fetishes if you will, that I have developed over the years: becoming a bee-keeper, riding a lion, back-flipping, etc etc etc… before I come back to Canada, I will have succeeded at at-least one of those goals. I went to KEDESH, which is a boys orphanage in Beira. The boys are full of energy, ranging from around 8 – 19 years old. They found out I do some capoeria and when they heard I was coming for a night they put on a show of dancing, singing, karate, and capoeira, as well as other talents. So today, I told them I have to learn to back flip. All morning I was being lifted up in the air and flipped backwards by the guys at the orphanage. I am determined to learn to do it independently… I will succeed . The boys were definitely exited to have another girl there, and loved that I could hoola-hoop and walk on my hands. They are naturally better then me at both. I intend to spend the 3 months that I girls in Machanga are not at the center (November, December, January) here with Heather, the English girl who has been working here almost 2 years, and John, the one who started the KEDESH boys orphanage. I had stayed the night and in the morning we made personal flat breads. Some put cinnamon spices, other fresh coriander or onions from the garden inside their bread. John knows what kind of fun boys like to have and allows almost everything, no matter how distructive or messy it may be. In short, we had a water and flour fight. By 10am I was covered in flour and water from having flour fights with the boys. The shy young boys warm up to you so fast, and I had kids sneaking up on me with handfuls of flour in minutes> It was as if I was being initiated.

Me, Heather and Zee (another North American girl who works at another orphanage a 30 second walk from KEDESH) went out to a café called Riviera and had refrescos (too hot for hot coffee) and pastries. *sigh* one of my most favorite things ☺

Happy ThanksGiving! Going for a good chicken dinner at the Country-Reps house. Getting HOTT over here! For that I am thankful.