I am now back in the swing of things in Mozambique I have been biking down to the farm which is about 8 K from the house with quite strenuous hills. Me and Osias are working on the permaculture design I drafted we have hand dug 6 ponds and a water holding tank planted orange and coffea trees and dug trenches for a spring. Its been alot of hard work but fun working with Osias. Osias has been deaf since birth so i have been able to get a half baked idea of what its like to be deaf in a impoverished society. He is actually one of the lucky ones because his parents have actually stuck around instead of abandening which aparently happens alot. In fact just a couple of days ago I met a deaf kid who was 14 and his parents had just left him so he was trying to sell his parents house for food money and Osias is going to let the boy stay with him. On a whole any one with a handicap is usally left to fend for themselves resulting in a harsh kind of natural selection... Osias grew up in Lichinga where he was able to attend a school that taught him sign language and how to read a little. Through this program they were supposed to recieve a monthly allowance to pay for food and cloths and other essentials since they would be in school with no income of any sort. But the man teaching then pocketed almost all the money and gave them about 4 dollars a month to "live" on. This is just some of the stories he has told me about his hardships. he has been to jail because he was givin permission to barrowed someones bike and a officier thought he stole it so since he could not eplain the situation he was simply thrown in jail for I think like 4 months before someone relised where he was and why. Being deaf here is hard because no one want to hire a deaf person ther is no such thing and rights for a handicap person so he would take any kind of crappy job he could find. About 3 years ago some chineese came to the province to mine for gems in the mountains about 200k from Lichinga illeagaly. He told me some horrific stories of people working for the chineese who were promised good money yet recieved unthinkable oppression. He said if people tried to steal gems or just did something wrong they were killed or torchured. hesaid he saw people get thier heads removed and their privates cut off. He said he was attacked several nights and has the scars to prove it. He escaped there and now works for Malo Ga Kujilana (place of reconciliation) fitting... He is a great guy with good morals he eplains what he knows to be right and wrong to me i think more of a reminder to himself in having to deal with the memories of a torn past. He has a wife who is 14 which is not uncommon here age wise and has lost two babies which I can tell was hard for him but he says they are in heaven now so its ok. He is a simi devote Muslim enough to have good morals and know how to go through the motions of the prayers because there isnt a deaf service or anything so his knowledge of Muslim practices seems to limited. He has been great to work with he enjoys the simple things in life and the animated ways he tells stories has been like watching him paint a mural of his story its been beautiful. Me and Kyle went and visited his house and met his parents and siblings and its obvious no one has ever cared enough to do anything of the sort because every day since then he has told me about me goin and meeting his parents and that was last week sometime that we went. So these past couple of weeks have been rewarding and Im looking forward to many more. Oh and a little heplful tid bit is the reason we can comunicate so well is because I took sign language in high school and even though African sign language is different it hasnt been to hard to figure out. Overall its been a good past couple of weeks and i hope all is well state side i miss everyone! love yall!