Hakuna Matata #TBT #HogsAbroad

It means no worries for the rest of your days. So, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Although I grew up on a farm and showed cattle, my absolute number one fear for almost my entire life has been chickens. I blame it on a bad experience with a 4-H Poultry Chain project, but that story is for another time.

So there were definitely a lot of worries going into this trip. I didn’t know how I was going to handle
it, but I knew that I had to get over my fear. Being on Team CrossFit brought me into close interaction with chickens every day and by the end of the trip I am happy to say that while my fear may not be completely gone, I am not nearly as terrified as I used to be! And let’s be honest, I didn’t have much of a choice but to grin and bear it since I decided to study abroad on a community development project that works with Novos Horizontes to help local poultry farmers create more sustainable business operations.

Reflecting on my time in Mozambique, I have realized the invaluable lessons I learned from the culture, the work, and the people.

The three most important lessons I learned are:

#1 Happiness comes from your attitude and who you surround yourself with, not what you have. Some of the happiest people I saw were those that had very little to their name.

#2 Work hard. You only get out of life what you put into it. Those that I saw succeeding in business and in life in Nampula were also the some of the hardest working people I met.

#3 Learning never stops. The Mozambiquans had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to gain whatever information they could from us that could help them better their production and business. I hope that my thirst for learning will always stay as strong as theirs.

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Learn more about studying abroad as a Bumpers college student at: http://bumperscollege.uark.edu/programs/international-programs/index.php

 

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