Home Sweet Home.

Although I know some of you were anxious to hear about my site I wanted to wait a full week before I posted anything. Going from the almost military-like schedule of PST, where I was in classes from 7:30 AM TO 5:30 PM and surrounded by 67 other Americans, all the while being taken care of by an incredible Mozambican family is much different than living by yourself in a rural village, where nobody speaks English and a lot of people don't even seem to speak Portuguese. So although I was really anxious to get to site and start this next chapter of my life, I knew the first week would be frustrating and tough and I didn't want my first post to capture lots of negativity because all in all I was really excited (and still am) and this is all this just part of the learning process...

Anyway, I am now living in a really nice house in Guija, in Gaza province, in Southern Mozambique. My post is essentially the opposite of what I was hoping for, [I specifically requested a super 'matu'(rural) site in the north, and requested to live in a Muslim community with hopes of learning Kiswahili or another language spoken in Eastern Africa] but you never really know what you want until you get there right? My town is tiny but I am only a few miles away from a much larger town where I can buy just about anything I need, and as a bonus, there is also a pizza restaurant? Awesome.

I lucked out because instead of living on housing that is part of school property (like most volunteers) I am renting a house from a Mozambican woman who lives/works in South Africa. This means my house is actually furnished with nice furniture and is in good overall condition. It is a 2-bedroom house, with another large room that is split between a cooking area and a living room. One of the bedrooms is mine, and I have a large queen size bed (for the first time ever I might add!) along with a small dresser and a mirror! There's even a table in my room with chairs that I can use as a desk to do lesson planning! The other bedroom is filled with my landlord's furniture so I don't actually use that room but its tidy so that's all that matters. In the common room area I have another large dining room table, a small cabinet with pots and pans and lots of delicous spices that the previous volunteer left me, and then there is also a full size fridge, two small couches and a huge bookshelf. There's even a small room in the back where I can take my bucket baths, which is awesome because during homestay I had to take them outside and I'm not going to lie it was kind of scary. Finally my house has a large porch that I can sit at and read or people watch. This is also where I keep Amendoim (see later...) tied up. It's really nice and I am totally spoiled compared to most volunteers. My house even has electricity and I think I am going to purchase a gas stove so that should make things even easier. For the past week I've been cooking on a small charcoal stove and it literally takes FOREVER, this morning it took an hour to make oatmeal, so yes I'm excited to upgrade my cooking situation.

My new home for the next 2 years. Isn't it big and fancy?

My common room...complete with two couches, a big kitchen table, a full bookshelf and plenty of cooking supplies left from the previous volunteer.  Like I said, I am lucky this is the Posh Corps.

My bed room. Already looking pretty cozy. Also I have more clothes than those few dresses they're just all in a pile in the corner because I need to do laundry...

This is a small room in the back of the house where I can take bucket baths.  There's a tiny hole in the middle of the floor  where all the water drains and it's very convenient because I don't have to go outside and use an out house to bathe.  

The actual town of Guija is really cute. There's just one road and the town itself stretches for about a mile. There are two markets where I can buy produce and bread and then a couple of other small stores/stands that sell things like eggs, flour, vinegar, pasta, rice, beans...etc There are also a few small baracas and a huge Catholic church. Finally, there's a small hospital right in the middle of town. The HIV/AIDS rate in Gaza province is the highest in all of Mozambique (estimated around 30%) In Guija, the rate is even higher, somewhere between 50-60%. The reality that just about every other person I meet here is likely to be HIV positive is kind of unreal and hasn't really sunk in yet. There is another PCV living in Guija and she is a health volunteer, I am hoping to shadow her one day at work so I can see a little more firsthand how the epidemic is treated here. A little more about Guija, I live about 20 meteres from the secondary school where I will be working...and I am pretty sure I will be teaching 11th and 12th grade English there.

So far, after living at site for a week I really have not done much. I unpacked, organized and cleaned and also did a ton of laundry but otherwise have just been sitting around reading and studying Portuguese. I have the next couple of weeks off to start my lesson-planning because it's summer vacation right now so there's really no work to be done. I haven't met that many people here, it's kind of tough because it's the holiday season, so all of the teachers are out of town and because most of the students commute from other towns the school is empty. PC warned us these first few weeks would be rough though and somehow I haven't gotten bored.

I have a dog at site too, and I think I could write an entire blog post just about him because he is already my best friend. His name is Amendoim, which means Peanut in Portuguese. I adopted him from 2 of my friends who were COSing (Close of Service/done with PC) and needed to find him a new home. He's really cute, he follows me everywhere, wags his tail whenever I look at him and is also just really spoiled because I let him sleep in my room every night instead of outside like most dogs. I take him running every morning and for another walk in the afternoon, and I cook him xima  (boiled cornmeal sort of like grits) with canned fish--like I said he is spoiled but he's also great company and a great security addition to have to my house, people are terrified of him.

My side kick Amendoim.

Aside from the excitement of moving to my site, I just got back from a beach weekend in Xai-Xai, where I got to meet a lot of other volunteers in Gaza province (and a few from Inhambane as well!) It really was a perfect weekend because after spending an entire week alone I was anxious to see some of my friends and hear about their sites. It was also great to meet some other volunteers that live close by to me. I traveled to Xai Xai all by myself, it took 4 different chappa (broken down minibuses that are the means for public transportation) rides and totaled almost 6 hours of traveling but it was totally worth it. It also felt really cool to do that trip alone, it was a good test of my Portuguese language skills and general comfort with my independence here. On the way home our chappa got a flat tire and everyone got out of the car to help lift it, while another person changed the tire, it was truly awesome teamwork! Next weekend, a couple of friends are coming to stay at my house for Christmas and I could not be more excited! Anyone that knows me understands that Christmas is my favorite day of the year, so even though it does not feel like Christmas at all, I think once I have friends around and we blast some holiday tunes and start cooking it will begin to feel a little better.

All in all I have been enjoying my past week. I've gotten to cook some great vegetarian food, and haven't had to eat any rice!! Although cooking on charcoal takes forever it is also kind of relaxing, because I have no current commitments there really is no rush to get things done. The weather here has been so hot but its okay because it makes taking cold bucket baths actually enjoyable. I forgot to mention that I am so lucky because I have a water pump right outside my house! I might finally be able to do some push-ups by the end of these 2 years because lugging water jugs from the pump into my house is serious work-the buckets weigh around 40 lbs when they are full! I actually don't fill them all the way but still they're heavy.

Random but I also feel the need to share that my host family has checked on me every couple of days just to make sure I am okay. My mae was worried when she found out I was living alone so she calls or texts to check in on me and ask about my day, it's really really sweet. Sorry this was such a long post, I feel like I left so much out but it's already super long so I'm going to stop BUT I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the holiday season...until next time!

*oh and I will add I did just make some friends, the criancas that live next door wandered (bravely) into my yard and asked me to practice english. I got out my Beauty and the Beast book (the only children's book I have, thank you so much Christina!) and read it to them in English and Portuguese, switching off each page...then afterwards we played frisbee and chatted in Portuguese and some Changana...I also calmed Amenduim down enough so that the oldest boy, who's 13, could pet him a little. SUCCESS. The end.

A Wrap Up on PST.

HELLO!

Sorry for another long lull in updates but the end of training was essentially a whirlwind between EXTRA Portuguese classes, model school and the stress of leaving Namaacha I pretty much spent every free minute with the new friends I made from my training group, or with my host family.

*I should also add that my old blog site just stopped working or maybe my internet here just couldn’t load it but I finally gave up and made a new blog, same name though so it should be easy to remember… anyway:

I did a site visit to Chongene in Gaza province to visit another current volunteer. During the visit myself and two other girls from my training group shadowed this volunteer in her village; we got to see the school she taught at, meet some of her students, explore the local village/sorrounding area, cook some really good food, visit an HIV/AIDS center and of course ask lots of questions about Peace Corps life. We also got to go to the beach, and sit around reading for hours on end…and I finally got to go for a few long runs too, all of which were great treats. The best part overall though was easily just getting to talk to another volunteer and see how she had made a home for herself in her village and to see how other people really accepted her in the community. She was really great and had done a couple of awesome secondary projects at her school, we got to meet some of her favorite students and that was really fun too. After site visits we actually found out our site placement, which I promise to talk about later…but yes when we all came back from site visits everything seemed to go so quickly! We found out our language test results, I did fine but still needed extra tutoring, and we also started getting ready to teach in model school-which was exactly what it sounds like model school.

Following Michelle's dog down a dusty old trail in Chongene

All smiles in front of Michelle's house after a fun week of exploring her site, cooking new food and just getting a taste of what the PCV lifestyle could look like.

In Mozambique right now it is summer and students are on break but Peace Corps offered optional school for a week and a half to any of the kids in Namaacha. We were each split into small groups (based on our teaching discipline) and then assigned an age group to work with for that week and a half. I of course was teaching English with a group of 6 other volunteers and we were assigned students going into grade 8, which meant our students should have had 2 years of English class already. Well, model school is funny because although it is really organized, once kids in town find out there is an alternative to staying home and doing chores, school becomes the cool new thing to do! Especially when it is being taught by the funny Americans that many of these kids live with and still didn’t quite understand why they are learning Portuguese and live in their house…etc What this means is that although I was teaching an 8th grade class, there were definitely some students in the room that had never spoken a word of English, or worse yet, barely knew Portuguese, but that’s okay this was just for practice and at the end of model school it seemed like everyone had fun.

I got to teach 3 classes and then at the end of the week my group put together a test for our students to take based on what we had taught them and also as an assessment to see if our teaching methods worked. Overall model school was a great experience and helped ease some of my nerves about teaching here but in reality the classes were small, and most of the students that were there LOVED school and wanted to learned, making my job a lot easier. I think that my largest challenge so far with teaching is going to be general participation, especially with girls. Students here are just much shyer and it can feel like you are pulling teeth to get them to speak. I sometimes envy my colleagues who are teaching math or science because they teach in Portuguese, so they can joke around with the students and the atmosphere is just more relaxed because the students are speaking a language they are comfortable with. At the end of the week and a half, after giving the test, we had a huge celebration with the students and that was pretty fun. All the students got certificates for participating and they actually went around and asked us all to sign their certificates, it was so silly I felt like I was giving them my autograph…and jokingly told some of them (mainly my younger brother and his friends) that they could find me on facebook in 5 years.

After model school things really did go fast. We had a huge despedida party with all of the host families and that was really fun. There was lots of food and some entertainment, including a DJ, who got lots of people dancing. My mae actually helped plan/organize the party and because of that she gave a little speech and of course she just talked about me, it should have been embarrassing but instead it was actually just really sweet. I couldn’t really understand what she was saying but the whole gesture was sincere, and it just made me really proud to have her has my host mother. After the party just about all of us volunteers went to a bar to celebrate our last Saturday out together and that was of course really fun.

Posing with my host family at our going away party.

Dancing with my neighbor's daughter at our little neighborhood suprise party.

The neighborhood kids, boy will I miss them once I move to site.

The next few days went by super fast. My mae, along with my neighbors, organized a smaller despedida party for myself and 3 other volunteers; so the night before leaving Namaacha we all had a big dinner party together. It was really thoughtful, our host families invited their friends too and the maes did all the cooking and we all sat outside drinking and eating good food, then after dinner my brother dragged our speakers outside and started blasting music and we were all dragged out of our seats to dance. At one point during the festa our host siblings gave a little speech about each of us and then gave us each a flower, it was really cute, I cried. Finally by 11 PM we were all exhausted, although our families wanted to stay up, we told them we had to go to sleep because we had a big day ahead of us so the party ended and everyone went home.

I gave my family their presents (which my American family was so awesome to send to me!) and they LOVED them, it was really great. I can’t emphasize how wonderful my host family was so it felt really nice to show them a real sign of my gratitude for all of their help and patience and just genuine niceness. The next morning I woke up super early to get ready for our swear-in ceremony. Go figure it was raining, but it seemed kind of appropriate because although I was so excited to become a volunteer and finally start my service I was also sad to be leaving Namaacha and really did not want to say bye to my family. My mae and Cleiton were so cute, they walked me to where the Peace Corps was picking us up and then waited in the rain until I actually left. My last memory is of them smiling and waving and wishing me good luck as I shut the PC chappa door and was driven off, with a bunch of my friends, to the next chapter of this PC adventure.

It continued to rain all morning so our ceremony ended up being inside the American ambassador’s house but it was okay, it was nice and cozy. The ceremony started with us all singing the Mozambique and then the America national anthem. Then a couple of different speeches were given, including one by a fellow trainee, Richard- and it was all in Portuguese and it was so good, I was really proud of him. Our program director, and the U.S. ambassador both gave speeches as well and we took our oath, which every American government employee must take, and finally, we sang a little song for everyone. It was a pretty cool ceremony, afterwards we ate hour devours and mingled, and everyone was excited because we were finally real volunteers! Everyone went out to the same bar that night to celebrate, and a bunch of PCVS who were COSing (close of service) met us out too and it was just really fun.

One of the last nights out at the local bar in Namaacha with our training group.  I can't believe we're all about to get split up!

Pictures from swear in.

The next morning we all split up to go to our separate supervisor conferences, which were grouped by South, Central, and North, so this mean I finally had to say goodbye to a lot people and that was really really sad. Supervisor’s conference for all the volunteers in the south was held in Bilene, and we stayed at a hotel about a good 30 minute walk from the beach but it was super nice and also super relaxing. The conference was supposed to be an opportunity for our school directors to meet us, and learn more about the PC and, to set up guidelines and a better understanding about what we were doing these next 2 years. Well my school director didn’t come so this meant after listening to people speak in Portuguese for 3 hours the first morning I completely checked out and couldn’t focus anymore. Oops. Supervisor’s conference lasted 2 full days and then on the morning of the 3rd day we all set out for sites, which would be our homes for the next 2 years. I am now living in Guija, it’s a super small town in Gaza province in Southern Mozambique. ---see next post to read all about it!

We were spoiled and we got to spend Supervisor's conference within walking distance of a beach.