Mozambique

We are on the last bus out of Maputo towards the border town of Naamahasha. The man next to me who is about 1/3 into his bottle of rum tells me, in very, very broken English, that we will be there in 45 minutes. I look down at my watch. If all goes according to plan we will be at the border gate at 7:30-7:45, giving us just enough time to rush through the customs and be on the last bus leaving Lomahasha around 8 and be back to Mpaka around 9.

I am sitting on top of the increasingly hot radiator in a 15-passenger bus, which is currently holding about 19, wondering if it is true what they say about holding a laptop in your lap. This isn’t even packed for Mozambique standards. In fact, this is downright spacious compared to the clown car theatrics of the conductor hanging out the door we experienced in Maputo. After a lengthy argument at a filling station between the driver and passengers, plus an unplanned pee break by the side of the road, our precious 15-minute window of time is slowly dwindling. We have been in the khumbi for about 30 minutes when we approach a sign saying 37 Kilometers to Naamahasha. “You see! 45 minutes!” the man next to me says. I shoot a furtive look back to Addy sitting a row behind me. This could be the most awesome, or stupidest thing we have ever done in our three years of marriage.

Arriving in Naamahsha the crowds are so thick that our driver has to lay on the horn and swerve around people to reach any sort of clear road. It is 7:55. I slip the driver a 50 Metacais tip and he floors it to the border post. We jump out, grab all of our stuff and get through the Mozambiquan side (to the protest of the staff) by 7:58. A guard lets us through the gate and we approach a darkened building on the other side of the razor wire adorned fence. The Swaziland border has decided to knock off a few minutes early. No one answers our calls through the fence. We are stuck in limbo between Mozambique and Swaziland. The guard locks us in and slowly walks away.  After some serious protesting, he lets us back into Mozambique and walk dejectedly into the fray of religious worshipers and revelers. It is Dios de Santa Maria. The biggest Catholic holiday in Southern Mozambique. There must be 10,000 people in this small Colonial town. The devout are walking around with candles with icons of the Virgin Mary, while car speakers are blaring out Pantsula and Top 40 Hip Hop.  All the hotels are booked. We looked at each other and without vocalizing it say, “Ok, what now?” 

 And that is how we spent the last night of our three year wedding anniversary get-away to Mozambique. That is how we spent the best vacation of our lives.

Let’s backtrack.

We have been planning a trip to Inhaca Island, a small island off the coast of Maputo, Mozambique, for close to a year. After GLOW, counterpart trainings, etc…We were finally ready to go. We left Tuesday morning and rolled into the coastal city of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and biggest city, around mid-day. Maputo is a big city with a distinctly African, yet charmingly European feel. Colonial forts, parks and cafes mingle with slums and sprawling markets of hawkers selling knock off clothes brands, crafts and gadgets. Maputo is, so far, my favorite city in Africa. We had two days to explore its streets, museums, cafes, jazz clubs and fish markets. We originally planned on staying a night at the local backpackers, but after hearing inflated quotations on how pricy it was, and reports of bed bugs, we decided to stick to the city. We found a nice, old hotel in the heart of downtown, which charged us about the same price as the backpackers, but with much better location. The hotel is called Hotel Tamariz for anyone looking to travel to Maputo. Fair warning – the shower water is cold. 

We only planned on spending one day in Maputo. Ferries run to Inhaca Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only. We had heard that you could charter a private boat to the island any day of the week. We were wrong. The only option to take us there on Wednesday would have cost 6,000 Mets. The extra day was a blessing in disguise. We took along 50 $ USD and were able - after spending two hours running around the black market trying to find someone to change it into a crisp 50 dollar bill – to pay for the extra night with money my grandmother sent us. Thanks Grammy!

Our first day in Maputo we took a trip to the Fish Market on the South side of town. An absolute must for anyone traveling there. It works like this. You get out of the cab and about 5 people rush up to you offering to take you through the market. Each owns a restaurant and will cook the fish for you on demand. We were able to hook up with a very friendly and amazing cook named Gaspar. With his help we picked out clams, rock fish and prawns for a pretty reasonable price. He brought us the meal in courses. It was, by far, the best seafood experience of my life. The fish were fresh – we saw the fishermen bring them off their boats across the street – and the experience is unforgettable. 

The next day, after learning the sad fact that we would not be going to Inhaca that day, decided to explore the city. We experienced everything from street side gelato shops and cafes to bustling madness of the hawkers markets. Explored a surprisingly well maintained and beautiful park in the city center all the while eating our way through street vendors selling delicious baguette-style rolls filled with potato latke type things, wors, or prego steak.

Thursday we were finally on our way to Inhaca. The Government ferry there and back is a necessary experience. While not exactly in the best condition cosmetically, it is a sea-worthy vessel, except when it isn’t. Lucky for us it had just been fixed. 

Inhaca island is beautiful beyond words. I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Miles of uninhabited beaches, fishermen catching today’s catch and small restaurants offering mountains of prawns for 300 metacais. We stayed at a backpackers on the island in a tent. It wasn’t the most luxurious of accommodations but it had everything we needed and the staff was very friendly. We spent most of our time exploring the coastline, looking at the marine life through the crystal clear, green Indian Ocean.

On Friday we woke up early and set out on a 10K walk to the lighthouse on the Eastern tip of the island. We hiked the entire thing in bare feet through ankle deep sand. A wrong turn turned a 2 hour walk into a 4 hour walk to the lighthouse. Reaching it was totally worth it.

Inhaca is almost totally surrounded by a coral reef and when the tide is out it is possible to wade out forever until you find water deep enough to at least wade in. Most people on the island try to charge you 800 mets to take you to a small island a few hundred meters off the coast of Inhaca or to the tourist beach on the other side of the island.  Beneath the lighthouse, however, was a perfect stretch of beach, totally uninhabited and perfect for swimming and body surfing. We were fortunate to trust our gut and sense of adventure and explore the island for ourselves.

Our sense of adventure didn’t always work in our favor. On our way back to our campsite, we decided to find a shortcut and walk along the coast.  What we find was seashell/sea urchin/sea monsters covered in mud, and decided to backtrack from whence we came.  This is not the only wrong turn we made during this trip.

We discovered that on Saturday, the day we were planning to leave the island and return to Swaziland, the ferry arrived at 10am but didn’t leave for Maputo until 3pm. Everyone we talked to was doubtful that we could make it to the Swaziland border gate in two hours. We were determined to prove them wrong. Turns out they knew what they were talking about.

It is about 9:00 and we have been wandering around Naamasha trying to find a hotel that has any vacancy. No such luck. As we get closer to the Santa Maria cathedral in the town’s center we are drawn by liturgical chants of the Ave Maria. We witness a ceremony in which the Virgin Mary’s statue is paraded through the town and laid to rest in the cathedral. As we are sucked into the crowd we start to notice tents pitched up all around the town center. Then a crazy thought popped into our heads, “when in Rome, do as the Roman (Catholics)”. We declared ourselves Catholic for the night and pitched our tent near some other campers/pilgrims and slept the night underneath a giant water cistern in the middle of the town center while several thousand Mozambiquan Catholics worshipped and partied around us. It was a fitting conclusion to a celebration of an adventure we started on three years ago. We certainly did not see this as the way we would celebrate. But most everything in our life has been unexpected and amazing. I hope we can many more years of exploring and taking risks.

We crossed the boarder the next morning at 7am and as the relief washed over us once we saw the “Welcome to Swaziland” sign, we declared ourselves home.

Siyaphuma!

Sitting with my back against the Taiwanese Embassy watching a soccer game of boys from the Kasi (ghetto) side in a vacant lot amongst million dollar estates of MP’s and NGO CEO’s. I am staying the night with my host bhuti who lived with us in Mpaka but who now stays in the Fonteyn neighborhood in Mbabane where mud and tin roofed huts are nestled into ravines beneath ostentatious mansions. In many ways this wrenching divide has defined our (almost) one year of Peace Corps service. As Peace Corps Volunteers we move in between the worlds of those who make a living trying to help and those who they try and help. There is some cognitive dissonance moving between the two worlds at which the gap between can be miles apart. Being caught between the development world and the developing world, to say my service is nothing like what I expected would be an understatement. There are some things that never factored into my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I never thought I would find a riding community and go out on morning mountain and road rides with Swazi and South African cycling enthusiasts. I never thought I would write music reviews for a national publication and be put on VIP lists and all that. I never thought that most of my friends in Swaziland would be Somalian refugees. I never thought we would celebrate our third wedding anniversary on an island off the coast of Mozambique. These things are fun. But leaning back watching a bunch of Swazi boys play soccer against the as the African sunset dips behind mountains in a swan song of red and orange; these are things I hope I never forget when look back on my service.

A lot has happened since you may have checked in with the Halls. Addy returned from a week + long GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) Camp in Siteki. This event took months of planning and preparation and by all accounts was a fantastic success. GLOW was a week camp for girls from all over Swaziland. The camp focused on self-image, positive examples of femininity, empowerment and skills cultivation. They also included practical workshops like screen printing (our friends the Potters would be proud), hikes and a nature walk through Hlane Royal Game Preserve. Addy facilitated a workshop on grief and loss. Some of the stories she shared of what these girls have lost be it family members or the innocence of youth at such a young age paint a very sobering, but very real picture, of conditions for Women in Swaziland. Addy came back proud and exhausted. A lot of work but a lot of pay off. Here are some pictures from the week:

Addy’s Counterpart Zande from the Mpaka Railway Pre-School was a rock star. She won Ms. GLOW 2012.

Emaworkshops

This break has afforded some ample time to reflect on how our projects are going and projects we want to begin in the future. In fact we are in Mbabane right now attending a TEFL training with four of our counterparts from the camp. We are discussing the direction we want our class to take and learning invaluable skills on how to teach multi-level proficiency classes. This is coming just on the heels of a 10 week teacher training course that I taught at the camp to those who will be co-facilitators for these upcoming terms. We are excited to see our counterparts take a more active role in the teaching of the English classes so we get to see more scenes like this:

In other news the homestead has turned into a virtual construction site. Having some time off between terms I have been on the homestead a lot more and have been able to help in the construction of Patrick and Andile’s house. I learned how to pour a foundation, mix mortar and construct a house out of cement blocks.

We are in the middle of a major redesign of our place. Our host bhuti Dora built us a table and shelving and we are in the middle of constructing a showering area directly behind our house. Before that I had to dig this: 7x5 baby! with just a pick axe and shovel. This is a septic system for the excess water.

We have replanted our garden and it is taking off like crazy. We are already harvesting spinach and lettuce.

Fair-weather Muslim

I was hanging out with Amnesty a couple of days ago trying to figure out some details for the Cleaning Campaign, which has been scheduled for the end of July.  Amnesty is a 25- year old Muslim living at the camp, and has become one of our best friends here in Swaziland.  We often exchange books and media, and this time he decided I should read a book entitled “The Major Sins” written by a Muslim prophet.  I am deeply interested in the Muslim culture, so I was excited he trusted me with this book.  We still had more to talk about, so I put the book on the ground.  Amnesty gasped and explained to me that the book must never be put on the ground. (I think in the next 30 minutes I made the same mistake about 3 times.)  Then he explained to me that when I am reading the book I must always bath before hand, sit down with my legs crossed, and wear a headscarf. I was a little hesitant to take the book considering all of these pre-conditions, but I took the book and carefully carried it back to my hut.  Although I don’t abide by all of the rules, I have never put the book on the ground again.

I have been spending a lot of time at the camp trying to wrap up some projects before the end of the term.  It hasn’t always been seamless, but I think we did pretty well considering we really have no idea what we are doing.  Ryan, Bethany and I have been teaching an HIV Education course at the camp, and we finished this past Monday.  It was awesome.  It feels good to actually have done something from start to finish that was a success, and to have the students be so excited to attend class and do their homework, which is something so foreign coming from America.  As a final project for the course we had them get into groups and make information posters that we could put up in the clinic to educate the rest of the community.  We gave them a week to finish their posters, and really didn’t know what to expect or if they would even do the project.  The result was awesome:

Tuesday was our last TEFL class of the term.  We gave them an end of the term exam and will assess the results during the break.  We also have a TEFL training coming up in May, which I’m hoping will give us a lot of good tips and ideas to improve the class.  The class thus far has been very successful and we have all seen improvement with our students even just over these past couple of months.  

The next couple of weeks I will find myself out of site quite a bit. Next week is Camp GLOW and I am excited to hang out with all of the girls and my counterpart, Zandi.  I will be conducting a Grief and Loss session with Zandi and will also be making Sanitary Pads with the girls – because that’s kind of my thing now. After Camp GLOW Ryan and I will be attending a 4-day training covering TEFL, Early Childhood Education and Permaculture. Although I am kind of over trainings because I have been to about a zillion now, I am excited to take our counterparts and see what they get out of the sessions.  Also, it is always fun to hang out with them outside of our community.  After training, Ryan and I are taking a vacation to Mozambique! We are going to an island off of Maputo called Inhaca and hanging out in seclusion for 4 days! I am very excited.  I haven’t been to a beach in sometime, and I have been to an island never, so it’s going to be fun.  This vacation is in celebration of my birthday and our 3 year anniversary, and also because we live an hour away from Maputo and why not?

After all of that craziness, I plan on hanging out on the homestead in our hammock for at least 3 months.  When I first moved here I never thought I could call it home.  I never thought I would get use to bathing in a bucket, doing my wash by hand, or being able to sleep through the dogs barking or the chickens.  Now, all I want to do is hang out on my homestead, work in our garden, and build stuff.  Although I do still hate those damn chickens. 

PS – Today while I was cleaning, out of nowhere there was a snake slithering on our floor.  Ryan and Babe John were not on the homestead, so I called my Sisi Andile who bravely pushed it out of my house.  As per usual here in Swaziland, she then killed it with a stick.  Oh the joys of living in Sub-Saharan Africa.  At least it was not a Black Mamba, right Mom and Dad? 

“My country…It is coming for you”

 Not exactly words you want to hear coming from a Somalian at this period in time, but once Ryan fleshed out his English we found out that he actually meant, “When you come to my country, I will help you like you are helping me.” That statement makes peeing in a dirt hole for two years totally worth it.

We have been doing quite a lot lately.  I think the most entertaining way of going through it is with pictures!

First, cute babies!

This is our Sisi Andile and her baby Misosomusa. She is adorable, hardly cries, but does always decide to poop at the exact moment I am holding her.

This is our Sisi Gcebile and her new baby Tsitsetso. The two baby girls were born 3 days apart! Gcebile has moved to Mastapha to be with the baby’s father, but I am able to visit her and the baby a couple of times a month.

We also have had this little guy running around – Siphiwo! Cutest dude ever. Utsandzabhadla! (He loves to draw!)

 To finish the cute baby series, this is a little boy from the camp.  He stuck around while we were teaching our TEFL tutoring class.

Series 2: TELF Class at the Camp

We are now 11 weeks into our TEFL class.  They are really showing improvement, and their desire to learn continues to amaze and impress me.

Series 3: Mid Service Training

Ryan and I attended our Mid-service training with two local counterparts, Amnesty and Bashin.  We had a great time and have our next year pretty much booked with ideas. These guys are the best!

Final Series:

And of course, we have a lot of time to have a lot of fun.  I traveled to a nearby volunteer’s house who has the pleasure of living 30 minutes away from this:

Next time on Abrakadafrica:

Working with women on Income Generation Projects at the Camp!

Working with the NGO Junior Achievement at our local high school! We will be making emasanitary pads kakhulu! About 500 of them to be exact.  It’s a good thing I now have a sewing machine!

Until next time,

Stay Classy America!

Counterpart and Grief and Loss Workshop

Here we are on the last day of a week long workshop covering project management with our counterparts and grief and loss. It has been an exhausting week both physically and emotionally for us. I'll give a day-by-day, play-by-play of how the week went down.

Before we get into the nit-grit there are a few things that have happened before. Addy has been hard at work at putting on workshops at the Refugee Camp making reusable Sanitary Pads for women at the camp. She received a ton of material from our church for making these pads. It went from, "what are we going to do with all of this" to "we need more fabric!". This project is a step towards women empowerment. In rural Swaziland girls can miss weeks of school a year due to being on their periods and not being able to afford pads. This is a reusable and sustainable solution to this problem. The success of this project has inspired Addy to take this to other areas such as Malindza Central Primary and Mpaka High School.


Monday - Met our counterparts in Mpaka and traveled to the capital city of Mbabane. Our "counterparts", for those of you who don't speak Peace Corps jargon, are community members who we work closely with as volunteers. Addy and Bethany brought Amnesty from the Refugee Camp who is working with us as a facilitator for our English and HIV classes as well as helping head up the Camp Cleaning Campaign. He has been on board since day one putting in tons of work gathering signatures, encouraging others to attend meetings and providing leadership to his peers in the camp. I (Ryan) brought Bashin, the KaGogo Center manager who works with the Development Committee overseeing HIV prevention messages and N.C.Ps (Neighborhood Care Points). We have been working together for some time on setting up an HIV Awareness Soccer Tournament in our community. On how you can help please see below.


We arrived at Tkhoza Lodge in Mbabane. Ate a ridiculous amount of food and attended some workshops introducing project management. We then broke for dinner and stayed up playing cards with Amnesty and other volunteers.


Tuesday - The nitty gritty of project management. In 8 + hours we covered planning, budgeting, assessing, following up and closing projects. Having the time to sit down and really go over the finer details of our plans both in the camp and with the soccer tournament were invaluable. It made the entire process seem doable. It was also exhausting.


Wednesday - Saturday - Our counterparts received certificates for their attendance and we bid them farewell and stayed in Tkhoza. We started our Grief and Loss workshop. The workshop focused on the grief cycle, managing stress and trying to understand how we and Swazis deal with death and loss. The workshop afforded ample opportunity to creatively express ourselves and work out some of the baggage that we came to Swaziland with. I made a diorama. Addy made a sculpture of her new nephew Noam she is missing in the states. The time also afforded us some major bonding time with our Group. There is something about people opening up and being vulnerable enough to share some of their losses and personal stuff that brings a group of used-to-be-strangers together. Group 9 is pretty amazing.


HOW YOU CAN HELP: 


This is from an e -mail I sent out a few weeks back.


Things are really happening right now in our dusty little corner of the earth. We (and when I say we I am referring to my local Swazi counterpart Bashin) are planning an event to raise awareness about HIV in the Mpaka/Malindza community. Since we are in the land of the 2010 World Cup we figured nothing brings people together like soccer! Here is the scoop. The soccer tournament will be held on a weekend in the next few months. The tournament will feature the best-of-the-best-of-the-best Under 17 teams in Mpaka/Malindza (there are like a billion of them) and will be played at the Sulitane "Stadium" in our community. We are currently applying for a grant to help us provide T-Shirts to participants and Indestructible Soccer Balls (Google it) to the winners. During half-time Bashin and I will present a soccer related HIV prevention message centered and will unveil Mpaka/Malindza's new HIV awareness slogan for 2012.


Part of the tournament is a skills training that we will put on with the informal youth teams in the area. The skills training will be on the same day as the tournament and will feature a HIV prevention message partnered with soccer skills training by the All-Star U-17 team and Bashin. Here is where you can help. We are looking to provide all the participants of the youth skills training with soccer jerseys. We are looking for hand me downs from soccer clubs/high schools/college/anything that we could hand out to the kids as a reward for participating in the skills training and HIV awareness lesson.


Soccer is a huge part of these kids' lives here. Most play without shoes or a proper field but the camaraderie and life skills that the game teaches are invaluable. This project aims to partner what these kids love to do with a relatable HIV message and by doing so make their lives a little easier by sporting some cool soccer jerseys from the States.


We aren't looking for super nice jerseys. If you played on a youth club team or high school team please consider asking them what they are doing with their old jerseys. Chances are they are piled up in a soccer mom's garage or attic somewhere. They can be put to good use! If you come across any or have any contact info for organizations that may be able to help, please let me know.


I know you have probably gotten e mails from African princes asking for your help in moving millions of gold out of the country in return for a slice of the profit. This is not one of those e mails. Your assistance can do some real, tangible good in the lives of kids in Mpaka, Swaziland. Lightweight boxes are fairly inexpensive to ship.


Please send the jerseys to:


Ryan Hall, PCV
PO BOX 2797
Mbabane H100
Swaziland
Africa


Make sure you include that Africa part or your package could be going to Switzerland. Also, it doesn't hurt to include some Christian Religious paraphernalia all over the package as it may deter thieving postal workers.


Thanks!


Ryan and Adelyn

Fall is here!

Today was a beautiful day.  Cool, cloudy, and without much on the agenda, I spent the day in our hammock relaxing. Bethany came over in the afternoon and after watching Boardwalk Empire (FYI season 2 episode 5 is cra-zay) we planned our English lesson and then headed over to the camp.  After our lesson Amnesty came up to us and said he wanted to ask us a question.  He sat us down, gave us a serious look, and asked us what we would report back to our friends and family about Africa once we return to the States.  We both looked at him a little stumped, and began to think about what it is exactly that we have/are learning from this whole experience.  I didn’t really know what to say, but after thinking about it over the night I do have some things I want to report back to my friends and family, and whoever else might be reading this blog, particularly the new group coming in a few short months. 

Anyway, some of these answers are pretty cliché, but – whatev.  It is what it is.

I believed it when I was young and I believe it even more now – you really can do anything you set your mind to, despite all the odds going against you.

Africa is a whole different world and a whole different ball game, with a mind of her own.

Avocadoes are amazing, but papaya taste like farts.

Gender inequality is severely stunting Africa and its people.

Death is just as painful here as it is at home.

HIV and AIDs is real, despite what Deusburg says.

When the time comes, I won’t want to say goodbye.

I hate latrines.  A pee bucket is a real thing that I use daily, and if you ever live here, you will use it too.

Peace Corps is two years long because that’s how long it takes to get anything done.  Africa time is slow as molasses. 

Democracy rules.

Hope and forgiveness are essential to the people of Africa.  America could learn a lot about these principals from Swazis. 

I have many families here – My host family when I was a trainee, my permanent host family, my camp family, my school family, my volunteer family.. I feel very safe and very loved.

It is not easy living in Swaziland, and I have thought about going home more than once; however, when it is good, it is life changing, and when it is bad, it is life changing. 

I hate bugs. 

My mindset is always changing and when I think I understand something I get side-swiped, but all-in-all, it’s a kick-ass experience I am glad to be sharing with Ryan. I don’t really know how big of an impact I am making here, if anything at all, but I do know SD is making an impact on me, and that’s kind of the whole point, right?

Pictures!

 

500 Days of Summer..Literally

Today marks the 7^th month of summer.  To say the least, I am over it.  I have heard different stories about when winter is coming.  Some said March, others say April, and some (cruel) people even tell me June.  I don’t need snow, but I do love sweaters.  I think what I miss most about home is seasons – you might hate winter, but Spring is just 3 months around the corner! Not so here in Swaziland, and especially in the low-veld where I have nick-named our site “The Fires of Mordor”. At least today we are getting a cool breeze thanks to Cyclone Irena, who failed to make a big appearance.

Today also marks the 9^th month that Ryan and I have been living in Swaziland. I cannot believe how time has flown.  I remember during training - when time fell still - that two years was unmanageable.  Now I can’t believe we have been here almost a year! Group 10 is being invited and will be here in late June, and Group 8 volunteers are preparing for their return back to the States. Being so far away from home in a place so completely different from what you know can obviously be difficult, but Ryan and I have had experiences here with people that we will hold onto for the rest of our lives. 

Ryan and I have finally gotten ourselves into a pretty good working schedule – only took 9 months! I have been handed a pretty great opportunity from a missionary couple from our church that allows me to teach women how to make re-usable sanitary pads, with all the material and supplies donated to the women for free.  I am holding the first workshop at the Camp this Saturday, and hope to reach the local high school as well as the girls at GLOW camp come April. Ryan, Bethany and I have also been approved funding to buy supplies for our English Class that we teach at the camp, which will be extremely helpful. Thank you for paying taxes! The excitement from the camp about this English class is contagious – these adults are so eager and happy to learn.  Don’t take fore granted your education! Even public schooling isn’t so bad. J

In other news, Sipoko is getting a little too big for her britches! This is what she brought home to kill yesterday. 

After some cursing at her after she tried to lay the lizard on me as some kind of present, I promptly collected myself and saved the lizard by sweeping it outside. Let’s hope she is smart enough to leave the Black Mambas alone!    

I have stumbled on a really great blogpost by a volunteer serving in Ethiopia.  He does a really great job describing Peace Corps service and the realities that befall you as a volunteer.  

http://waidsworld.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-real-peace-corps/

Here are a few other blogs I really enjoy reading of other volunteers serving in Swaziland. If the new invitees are anything like I was, I am sure they are reading everything they can get a hold of about Swaziland, which isn’t that much! Enjoy!  

http://lewisandruby.blogspot.com/

http://bethanyleechpc.blogspot.com/

http://emmaspcadventures.blogspot.com/

http://kaysinafrica.blogspot.com/

http://mattsjones.tumblr.com/