Site Placement!

11/20/2011
       Wow!  First I just have to say it has been quite an exciting week!  This week started out kind of crazy with everyone returning from site visits tired but full of tons of interesting stories and experiences.  After that the week quickly reached its climax on Wednesday when we all found out the different sites where we will be moving to.   After spending the last 7 weeks getting close it was a stressful/exciting/nerve-racking moment where all 51 of us read our letters that outlined where we would be living and placed ourselves on a large drawn out map of Mozambique that was drawn out on the gymnasium floor of the  school we use for our training classes.   I found out that I will be moving to Mangunde!  It’s in the Sofala province of Mozambique and from what I hear from my future roommate it is quite a small town.   I will be working on a mission that runs a secondary school as well as a clinic teaching……English.  At least English is what they have me put down to teach, however after talking with Ian (my future roommate who has been living in Mangunde for a year now)  said that I have a lot wiggle room when it comes to what I will be teaching and that I can almost definitely change at least some of my classes to physics classes (as you can tell from reading my blogs… English might be a rough subject for me to teach lol).
       I’m very happy about where I have been placed and about the other volunteers that are around me.  Since Mozambique is a very large country (about twice the length of California more or less) the other volunteers who are within the same region as you or within 6 hours of you (by bus) become your lifeline during your two years here in Mozambique so needless to say it’s important that you mesh well together.  Some of the people that got placed in my region have been people I’ve gotten really close to hear in Mozambique.  In my province there are 4 people from “Moz 17” (what we all our training group) going to Sofala Myself, my good friend Mac (one Goofy A@# Mother F@#$%^,(it’s an inside joke that he’ll laugh about if he ever reads this)), Adrienne a delightful person who I went to Catandica with who is probably going to laugh at the fact I called her delightful, and Dylan…I guess I would describe him as delightful as well (who calls people delightful?…  )anyways the 3 of them are pretty awesome so I am happy that we make up team Sofala.  We also ended up getting a bunch of other fun people in the central region(Side note: The central region of Mozambique is made up of three provinces Tete, Manica, and Sofala….and umm they’re in the center part of Mozambique).  And since listing the names of the people and trying to outline how awesome they all are would take awhile and probably not do much for you, you will just have to take my word for it that they are…well…awesome.   The only sad part of this whole venture is the realization that everyone not in the central region or in a boarding province is a very long distance away.  It just means that on some of my longer breaks I will have to pay them a visit (Ariel and Maria L. that means you!)
       Continuing on, other than receiving that piece of news, which is at the forefront of all of our minds, we have spent the week preparing our model lessons which will be given to local Mozambicanos here in Namaacha during the next 2 weeks.   This is the real test of how far our Portuguese has come in the last 7 weeks.  I will be giving 2 lessons, one in 10th grade math and the other in 10th grade physics (fingers crossed that they go well).  Speaking of Portuguese It has come to my attention that a weird phenomenon occurs when you try learning a third language so close to your second.  Instead of learning Portuguese as a separate language than Spanish I swear I’m learning it as though it is a dialect of Spanish.  What this means, is that after 7 weeks here in Mozambique It would be a struggle to get even a single sentence out in Spanish(it would come out Portugeseified, but my Portuguese is great keeping in mind I’ve only been here for 7 weeks.  
       Some other interesting events was that my host sister Minda turned 29 on Thursday so this past Saturday we celebrated her birthday.  I had a great time on Saturday, and was flabbergasted by the amount of food that they made for the party; they started cooking at 2 and didn’t stop until around 8.  The party was a huge success (I mean with dancing, beer, and lots of food you really can’t go wrong) and Minda seemed to really enjoy herself. (At some point I will post photos and videos of this on my facebook).   Lastly I get to talk about the adventure I had today!  Today a bunch of volunteers and I went on a hike to where the Swaziland, Mozambique, and South African boarders meet.  This triple point of a boarder  is at the top of a small mountain that overlooks Namaacha and is a wonderful site to see.  After that little adventure I had the great pleasure of coming home today and spending 3 hours washing my clothes….appreciate your washing machine!   
       A few public announcements:  Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone enjoys their turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie (if all goes well I should be able to eat all three of those things here).  And I special  Happy Birthday to Jackie Wong who turns 23 this week!