Ive been here almost a month now. I miss you all back home so much! I really appreciate all the emails and letters. Im not too sure what to write about because its so hard to describe what my experience is like. Here goes...
Today I went to the market to buy a Halloween costume. Anyway, I was buying a pair of cute rose earrings and this guy next to me, who was buying something, said ´´Hello sister.´´ I was like, Hiii, do you speak english? He said yes. I said, are you fluent? Then he asked me how I was doing. I said fine, and you (in portuguese)..and he was like I speak english, I am a foreigner. I was like oh from where? He said from Swaziland. He asked me the same, I told him I was an American. He said, oh, you are visiting Mozambique? At first I almost said yes. Then I said no, I live here. He said oh in Maputo? I said no, here in this village. He asked why, he was so confused! I told him bout the Peace Corps. And he still didnt really understand. He asked how long I was livin here for and I said 2 years and he was shocked. He was like, oh my! Good luck in Africa, my sister! Ha. Yeah so today, reality kinda set in.
My host family is great. I feel like Im fitting in. They really treat me as if Im a member of the family. My siblings call me their sister and my parents introduce me as their daughter. Last weekend my brother asked me how to teach him to dance like we do in America. He put on hip hop at first, and then I told him that it wouldnt be appropriate for me to show him how Americans dance to that..So then, I put on my Kings of Leon cd and taught him how to 2 step! HA! It was fun and he was actually pretty good. Then I told him I learned the traditional Moz wedding dance and so we danced to that. Its actually more difficult than youd think. Then he showed me how they dance in the discotecas. Wow. Lets just say Im going to have some seriously cool moves to take back to the States. Thats one experience.
Also in training, we learn dances and songs and games that they play to around here. We learned this game called Terra, Mar! (Land, Sea). Basically what happens is you draw a line and one side is land and one side is sea. The kids line up and one person calls out terra or mar and they jump and the point of the game is to try to stump them so they land in the wrong place. Its a lot of fun, I play it with my young siblings, neighbors, and cousins. Actually, my friend Jessica, a fellow PCT, is my cousin. One day after training I was sitting in my room doing nothing really and my mom comes in and told me they were outside. So I went out there and Jessica and her siblings (my cousins) had walked all the way over to play Terra, Mar because they liked it so much. Its funny how much simple fun we have here.
The day after that, my parents and I went over to Jessicas for some kind of festa. I then learned that this was because my uncle was presenting his girlfriend or fiance to the family and they were wanting to get married or something. At least thats what I got out of it. There was lots of food. MMMM. We had carne da vaca (steak), frosted cake, and many other wonderful things! Delicious. Then, we danced. We all got in a circle, cranked up the tunes and took turns for people getting in the middle to show off. I definitely took up that opportunity. Then we played games. My brother and the rest of the kids had a contest to see who could stand on one leg the longest. Then we also played this game where everyone stands in a circle and sings and does this hand clapping game. It was interesting.
Hmm...what else can I share? Yall need to send me some ideas. Next weekend on Halloween the PCTs are having a party. Were getting together and bringing food and beverages and music along with a few family members. We will also have costume contests! I bought a GIANTS jerzee today, I guess Im going to be a sports fan.
Not everything is fun and games here though. Nope. Training is intense, I think I might have posted that before. Sadly, weve been learning about the HIV AIDS crisis here. The HIV prevalence in Moz is 16%..Thats almost one in every five people infected. Well, thats all I got for now.
I miss you all and love you SO SO SO much!!
October 24, 2009
October 14, 2009
Namaacha
Today is Wednesday, I have been here for about 11 days or so now. I moved in with my host family. I have 2 parents and 3 siblings. My host mom is a teacher, and my host dad works with cars..I think. I have a 17 yr old brother who wants to go to the U.S. someday for college to be a doctor. Hes super smart and trying to learn english so I help him with that as much as I can. I also have an 8 yr old brother and 4 yr old sister. Training is intense, I wake up at 6 every morning and have training from 730 to 530 six days a week. AND we have homework everyday. Basically, I dont have much free time. When I come home from school I do my homework eat what I can, use the facilities before the sun goes down, and I get in bed and tuck in my mosquito net by 830...not kidding.
For the most part I absolutely love it here. Somedays I want to go home because the language barrier is intense and the bathroom facilities are unsanitary. But for the most part I cant help but regret that I am only in Namaacha for 3 months for training, then I move to my site.
Youre probably wondering, how it is here. I have 4 minutes to sum this up because its dark and I didnt bring much money to use the internet. First, the bathroom. We have latrines. LATRINES. A latrine is a very deep hole. There is a cement chimney looking toilet over the hole. This is where you do your business. Yes, there are bugs. Sometimes cockroaches like to hang out around the top of the inside of it. Im actually starting to get used to this, mostly because I dont have a choice. The food. They eat SO many CARBS here. Bread and crackers for breakfast. Bread, pasta, potatoes, and fish for lunch, and rice and bread and whatever else for dinner. Not kidding. So I hadnt been eating much since I first got here and my host mom realized this and asked why I dont eat very much and that I am not healthy. So I told her, respectively, that they eat more carbs here than in the U.S. and I need a more balanced diet with fruits and veggies. I told her what I like, eggs, tomatoes, onions, you know, the usual. So the next morning she gave me a tomato salad and onions. Covered in oil. Did I mention they load oil on everything.
Thats all for now folks, if anybody really reads this. Ill write again soon!
For the most part I absolutely love it here. Somedays I want to go home because the language barrier is intense and the bathroom facilities are unsanitary. But for the most part I cant help but regret that I am only in Namaacha for 3 months for training, then I move to my site.
Youre probably wondering, how it is here. I have 4 minutes to sum this up because its dark and I didnt bring much money to use the internet. First, the bathroom. We have latrines. LATRINES. A latrine is a very deep hole. There is a cement chimney looking toilet over the hole. This is where you do your business. Yes, there are bugs. Sometimes cockroaches like to hang out around the top of the inside of it. Im actually starting to get used to this, mostly because I dont have a choice. The food. They eat SO many CARBS here. Bread and crackers for breakfast. Bread, pasta, potatoes, and fish for lunch, and rice and bread and whatever else for dinner. Not kidding. So I hadnt been eating much since I first got here and my host mom realized this and asked why I dont eat very much and that I am not healthy. So I told her, respectively, that they eat more carbs here than in the U.S. and I need a more balanced diet with fruits and veggies. I told her what I like, eggs, tomatoes, onions, you know, the usual. So the next morning she gave me a tomato salad and onions. Covered in oil. Did I mention they load oil on everything.
Thats all for now folks, if anybody really reads this. Ill write again soon!
October 2, 2009
Orientation
Ill try to make this fast bc i only have 9 mins left of internet and theres a mosquito flying around. haha calm down i just took my malaria meds. anyways ill try to sum up my experience so far as quick as possible. forgive the misspelled words and typos.
got to philly for orientation there are 65 ppl in our training group weºre from all over the country! at orientation we talked about the importance of our awareness of our behavior bc we are representing our country and if we make a bad impression on someone we can ruin the reputation of our nation. then we drive to nyc and hop on a 15 hour flight. it was crazy bc we left at 11 in the morning and i dozed off for about 2 hours and when i woke up it was completely black outside bc of the time zone change. WEIRD to experience thats for sure.
as soon as we hopped off the plane the first thing i noticed was the smell. it reeked. then we drive thru maputo the capital and it looked like scenes from that wonderful movie ´´slumdog millionaire´´. not kidding.
i know earlier i said that i thought my biggest fear would be bugs. im in a very nice hotel right now and havent really seen much but i am pretty sure that will be the least of my worries. im more worried about integrating into my community, and ive realized how hard it is to communicate in a foreign world, even with the portuguese that i do know. ive been in training all day today and i felt myself getting homesick so i went and looked at pictures of all my friends and family back home. i miss you all so very much. even tho im with many americans in my group its still hard because its not like we can grow close so fast. please write and email me you have no idea how much it means to me. anyway after i decided to stop moping around i went and had dinner w some new ppl and tried some octopus. it was alright, kinda chewy. i might try it again for lunch tomorrow. for lunch today i had some fish and the fish here is not de-boned. we have been spoiled on fish fillets in the states thats for sure. i couldnt even finish my meal bc it was time for our meeting again and i couldnt finish picking out the bones. then when i scraped all the meat off the bones i still found more small bones in the rest of the meat. sucks. anyway i cant wait til tomorrow well be going to namaacha, a village where we will spend the next 10 weeks for pre service training. it will be really intense for cultural and language training. wish me luck . anyway gotta go times almost up. i love you and miss you all so SO much!!
xoxo
got to philly for orientation there are 65 ppl in our training group weºre from all over the country! at orientation we talked about the importance of our awareness of our behavior bc we are representing our country and if we make a bad impression on someone we can ruin the reputation of our nation. then we drive to nyc and hop on a 15 hour flight. it was crazy bc we left at 11 in the morning and i dozed off for about 2 hours and when i woke up it was completely black outside bc of the time zone change. WEIRD to experience thats for sure.
as soon as we hopped off the plane the first thing i noticed was the smell. it reeked. then we drive thru maputo the capital and it looked like scenes from that wonderful movie ´´slumdog millionaire´´. not kidding.
i know earlier i said that i thought my biggest fear would be bugs. im in a very nice hotel right now and havent really seen much but i am pretty sure that will be the least of my worries. im more worried about integrating into my community, and ive realized how hard it is to communicate in a foreign world, even with the portuguese that i do know. ive been in training all day today and i felt myself getting homesick so i went and looked at pictures of all my friends and family back home. i miss you all so very much. even tho im with many americans in my group its still hard because its not like we can grow close so fast. please write and email me you have no idea how much it means to me. anyway after i decided to stop moping around i went and had dinner w some new ppl and tried some octopus. it was alright, kinda chewy. i might try it again for lunch tomorrow. for lunch today i had some fish and the fish here is not de-boned. we have been spoiled on fish fillets in the states thats for sure. i couldnt even finish my meal bc it was time for our meeting again and i couldnt finish picking out the bones. then when i scraped all the meat off the bones i still found more small bones in the rest of the meat. sucks. anyway i cant wait til tomorrow well be going to namaacha, a village where we will spend the next 10 weeks for pre service training. it will be really intense for cultural and language training. wish me luck . anyway gotta go times almost up. i love you and miss you all so SO much!!
xoxo
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