Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

hello everyone! back again and i am so excited. i am going to be teaching english in a place called catandinca. the school was just bulit 2 years ago by the world bank, as was the house that i will be living in so they are some of the nicest in mozambique. i am pretty sure that i just quit the peace corps and joined the posh corps, i am going to have running water, electricty, ceiling fans, a fridge and a stove. there are also computers at the school but not internet. so i am thinking that after i leave homestay that internet will be about a once a month thing. so expect raelly long pretyped updates in the months to come! ummm not exactly peace corps in my mind but i am not going to complain about it. i am going to be living with a girl named carrie who i believe is from south carolina. i can not wait to see the looks of confusion from people in town because carrie and i both have blonde hair and blue eyes and people here have trouble telling me apart from someone with dark skin and dark hair. i am sure people are going to be realy confused. but i am really excited about my site placement and i am really looking forward to the next 2 years. other news... thanks for the mail...but as much as i hate to say it...put a hold on it for now because i will be leaving for site in a few weeks and i prolbably wont get stuff for a while. but i will have a new address when i get to site, i just have to get a post office box set up. other random stories from the past few days - i was outside studyign the other day and my 4 year old brother came out naked so i told him to goput some clothes on, but he thought it was a much better idea to go crap in the yard. yep he just squated down and pooped right in the yard. nice and healthy huh? people in this country love to dance! i have been going to all these things called xtikis lately- they are parties where one person gets all these gifts..i dont really get the whole concept but hey cool for hte ladies that get the gifts. but they randomly burst out in song and dance all the time and i love it. i can not wait to pick up these mad dance skills. at the last xtiki that i went to this lady asked if i have a boyfriend you know the rest of the drill....but this time she thought that the only logical reason that i was not attatched was because i was a sister in the church and it took me forever to convice her otherwise. i am also becoming a master at washing clothes by hand honestly who needs a washing machine. this past week was the first week of modle school. we are teaching classes that are supposed to seem real but it really doesnt work taht way because sometimes there are 4 kids and sometimes tehre are 13, but in a real class it will be closer to 40-60. so not very realistic but oh well. i made apple sauce the other day and it was amazing, and my family loved it which blew my mind! last silly story but the other day this guy told me that my hair is beautiful like sugar. didnt know that sugar was beautiful but hey whatever works for them. i love and miss you all. eat lots and lots of good food today. i will eat some tasty rice and think of mashed potatoes gravey turkey and cranberry sauce. hugs and kisses
linds :)

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Wasting time

So i have spent way too much time on the internet this week. but i am done with the whole host family thing. i love my family here to death, but really i am 23 and not 14. but everything is still going well... i am just ready to get out on my own. we have model school next week...how scary. we have to get up in front of a class and actually teach! i am extremely nervous, but very excited at the same time. during the first week i will teach 2 9th grade english classes, and the 2nd week i will teach either 11th or 12th grade. it is really hard to figure out what to teach because my brother is in 9th grade and doesnt even know the english alphabet. kind of crazy isnt it? if any of my darling teacher friends out there have any suggestions for fun activities with mininal(really minimal) resources it would be greatly appreciated. i just came to the realization not too long ago that my family must not use toilet paper when i am not living with them. the toilet paper has been gone for a few days and it doesnt seem like a big deal to anyone.thank goodness that i have a secret stash in my room. i find out for sure on wednesday where i am going to be living for the next 2 years! i am really excited but really nervous at the same time. so many exciting things going on. right now. only 3 more weeks of homestay and then i am off to my site! that is al for now. i will probably be back on wednesday...either bawling or screaming with excitment! hopefully it is the latter
hugs and kisses!
linds :)

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Tete!

back again! i just got home from my site visit yesterday and now i can not wait for site placement. i went to tete province to a city called moatize and loved it. alyssa(another pct) and i stayed with this guy named bak and loved it. it seemed really crazy when we got there because he lives on the third story of an apartment buliding...not exactly what i picture when i think of the peace corps, but hey it was cool. we wentto visit current volunteers to get a better idea of what life might be like when we are actually out there on our own. it was weird to have so much freedom for 5 days. i didnt have a knock on my door to wake me up, i didnt have to bathe 2 times a day if i didnt want to and i could eat when i wanted. there was so much less structure than here at homestay it was amazming. anyway...moatize is a city of about10000 people located outside of tete city(the provinical capital) the city was really cool and of course the people were really funny. all of bak's neighbours kept asking if we were his wives and one of the girls who is 11 would not believe that we were just visiting. we basically just did a lot of hangingout. the first night i spoke portuguese for about 3 hours with these men who work at the mozambique/malawi border, and that was the extent of my portuguese for the past 5 days, and i felt like i couldnt even speak portuguese last night.... kind of a problem. the weather was HOT!! people basically dont do anything from 11-3 because the heat is pretty unbearable. one of the professors at the school told me that it was one of the hottest weeks of the entire year. one of the days we hiked to the top of this mountain in a thunderstorm, probably not the best idea, but it was really cool. everyone thought we were crazy because we were just walking around in the poruing rain, but it was really fun. after our little hike we went to this shop to have a beer and it ended up being a huge dance party. we were trying to take pictures of these kids and they were going nuts. they LOVE to have their photos taken. i also learned to passada. it is a traditional mozambiquan dance...not that hard, but it was really fun. these women were trying to teach me how to dance like a mozambiquan but it just was not happening. even 3 year old children can move thier bodies like nobodys business. we also visited another site at zoube which was a little more rural, and i am not sure that i want to be placed somewhere like that, but the girls that lived there had a really cute house. we spent friday night in tete city which was amazing! the girl that lives in tete city has a place with air conditioning and running water. it was crazy. we went out to dinner at this great resturant and then went to this brazilian guys house and went swimming. tete provice has a bad rap...but i kind of want to get placed there, but i am not sure that i could handle the heat. i also have a newfound love of mangos....mango season is in full swing here and i love it. i have a lot more that i could write alot more but only one computer is working and there are a ton of people waiting to use the comptuters...more later!
love and miss you all!
linds :)

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Devil´s Layer

hello again! i feel like i am on the computer way more than i should be...oops! when i talked about thread the other day i meant embrodiary(or however you spell it) to make bracelets. i had a language test on friday, but it didnt go so hot. i know that i can speak much better portuguese than i did during my interview...but oh well i guess i still have 5 more weeks to learn. the other day one of my cousins came over for dinner and she told me that i need to eat more because i am not a fat american and that i need to get more fat like my sister melita, and she said this right infront of my sister. i thought it seemed really odd, but i guess here it is not a big deal. for all of you that are doubting that i will come back single...think again! i dont think that i could ever be an african wife. there is no man who will tell me what i can and cant do :) so next week we go on site visits. basically we go and stay with a current volunteer for a week to get a better idea of what service will be like. i am going to tete province...hence why my blog is titled devils layer. the guy that i am staying with said that right now it is about 105 in the sun. ohhh my gosh i think that i am going to die~, but at least this way i will have grounds for telling the peace corps why i dont want to be stationed there. i am also very haopy to inform all of you that i have gotten over my fear of mice, cockroaches,and spiders. well not totally but i dont scream when i see them anymore, and if i see a spider on the wall i just let him be. that way he can kill all of the mosquitos that want to give me malaria. i feel like everything i write is so random. and then after i leave the internet cafe i think of all of the important stuff. did i mentoion that last weekend this lady here told me that i could sell my hair here fo $200 us dollars. she mentioned that darma do bling would buy it. darma do blig is this huge time rap supestar here, she is actaully pretty good, but funny that my family wants me to sell my hair to her. i am pretty excited to start teaching. i have actually been preparing for my lessons lately, and the students get really excited, i know that this will be an exception in the classroom, but if even 5 kids want to learn that will totally make my day.
love and miss you all...hopefully i have a good report when i retun next week.
other things i wouldnt mind having
word~search books
red nail polish or any color(you were right mom...i miss it)
candy
star chart of the souther hemisphere
reading books
world map
hooks to make earrings
a batter charger( mom if you unpack any of my stuff i think i have one), cause i blew up the other one.
dry soup mix
powdered drink mix
an ac adaotor for my ipod