Ahhh, the first post from the comfort of my mosquito net in
Pemba. This might not be one of my most well thought out posts, but there’s a
good chance it’s not the least either. It’s been just over a week since we
arrived here and we took the first few days to get settled. We unpacked, did a
town run for the essentials: fans, electric water kettle, bananas, a fuse for a
power converter, etc., did a quick accounting of the Starbucks Vias, and by
Monday, Shawn already had meetings scheduled and it was time for the kids to
finally have their first day of school. I have a great picture of Luciana
working on her reading with a few of our new neighborhood friends hovering around.
But I haven’t convinced the internet to let me upload pictures yet. I’m working
on it.
This has been an exciting week for IRIS Relief here in
Pemba, too. In August, we invited Francois Batalingaya the country director of
Somalia for World Vision to come and do some sessions at the Harvest School on
disaster relief. He has been in the relief field for nearly 20 years and is a
wealth of knowledge. It was a great opportunity for the Harvest School students
to get to hear him, but even more for IRIS Relief. We are babies in the disaster relief business
and to have him share from him experience is priceless. Shawn got to take him
out for dinner one night with another IR friend and they spent the evening
telling stories and drinking coffee. I would have gone, too, but I had a
Mozambican baby shower to attend.
The kids are having no trouble adjusting (only sometimes
fussing about rice & beans) and they already have 3 friends who live around
us – I’m not sure where, but it must be close because they’re always showing
up. There is Filito, (4 or 5) Orlanda (maybe 6), and Katia (3ish). Luci and Katia met the first morning and
became fast friends. I often hearing Katia yelling, “Amiga! Amiga!” at Luci who
is clueless as to what that means. She’ll catch on J
It’s only been one week and there is still so much to tell.
This is definitely an adventure.
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