Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Happy Holidays!
ohh ya my phone number here is 0797327879
i think you have to dail 02779327879 or maybe 002779327879, not sure...that is my south africa number, so i will have it until the end of december/early jan!
Monday, December 8, 2008
back again
Friday, October 31, 2008
lots of love from mozambique!
Linds J
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Linds :)
Not sure if I will get to it, but there should be some new pics up on webshots!
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Other than that not much new, but the time you read this I will have officially been in Mozambique for over one year! To get you really excited about the upcoming winter months at home…it has been 90 by 9am the past 3 days…sounds like fun doesn’t it? And I finish school in 21 days!!Love and miss you all!
so that is all kind of old news now, but since i already had it all typed out ifigured that i might as well post it. the english theatre competiton went well, minus the fact that the other 2 teachers from my school and 3 of the students thought that it would be a good idea to get drunk, but other than that it went well. i just got home from the beach...it was amazing, you can walk for miles and miles down the beach and there is no development, it is just untouched and so beautiful. i guess not much else to say...school is done is 11 days! yay! love and miss you! :)
Saturday, September 13, 2008
:D
Sunday, August 17, 2008
beijos
Linds :)
Monday, July 28, 2008
end of the world
linds :)
Sunday, July 13, 2008
:)
love and miss you all!
linds :)
Saturday, June 14, 2008
love and miss you
linds :)
Friday, May 30, 2008
boo boo boo
love and miss you all
linds :)
Sunday, May 25, 2008
howareyouhowareyouhowareyou
Once again not too much exciting stuff is going on here. I had an awesome trip to the beach a few weeks ago... well it started out pretty awesome at least. We were waiting at this place called Inchope to get a lift, and there were these 4 little girls who had just finished school and they just kept running back and forth in front of us and then randomly stopping and dancing and laughing and laughing and laughing. It was pretty darn cute. We were lucky enough to get a lift in a private car, so we made the 400 Km trip in about 4 hours, this is exciting news because on the way back we got a lift in some random transport truck that went about 50-60 kms/hour, so our trip home took us almost 8 hours, definatly not the coolest thing that I have ever done. But once again the beach was awesome. There were a ton of volunteers there, so it was awesome to get to see everyone. We even found a place in the villa that sold smoothies and wraps...i am not really sure that I am in the peace corps any more. The only bad part about the trip was that on the way home we had to take a chapa ( a van type thing that should seat 15, but normally has between 20-25) from inchope to chimoio, this is a 60 km trip that normally costs 45 mets. Not a bad deal right? I gave the cobrador( the guy who collects the money) 500 mets, and the jerk only gave me 50 mets back and told me that I was a liar and that I didnt give him 500 mets, I was so mad I thought that I was going to go to jail for murder and maybe if I was lucky get sent back to america. Annoying that he robbed me of 400 mets ( only about $16), but I was just plain mad that he was calling me a liar. Ya enough of my ranting.
So this next portion is going to involve a bit of foul language...sorry. But today was just too funny...first of all before the bad words. I was teaching one of my classes today and another professor came into my class of 53 studetns and pulled all but 18 of them and said that they couldnt be in class because they were still not caught up with their work in the school garden, I guess that they dotn realize that it is more frustrating for me than for the students because I am the one who has to deal with students who are behind. But whatever.... now the bad lauguage...i am sure that this really isnt going to be funny to anyone but me, but I found it hilarious so in my mind it is worth sharing. I walked out on the front porch today and was telling my neighbor how I am still scared of kelly( the girl who lived here before us)'s dogs and she says in english “be careful because there is a bitch in your yard” ...kind of struck me as funny. And then we were walking to the market, and normally there are a bunch of kinds who yell “ howareyouhowareyouhowareyouhowareyou” and have no idea what they are saying....but today after we passed our little howareyou friends there were a couple kids saying F*** you, no clue where they learned it, but it still struck me as funny.
Yesterday we were at the market and started talking to this lady that we had met before, and she took us over to her little shop. She sells traditional medicine to people and to the witch doctors, so we started asking her about the stuff, and it was kind of interesting. There were all of these powders and beans and tree bark, and something that looked like hedgehog quills. She was telling us how some of the powders you mix in tea or this corn meal kind of stuff and it will help to get rid of stomaches or headaches. That I can understand because I am sure they are just some herbs, so it didnt seem to far off. But then she was saying if a woman is pregnant and is having trouble with the pregnancy, she can eat this powder and within a month she will have the baby, but she also said you can only take it towards the end of pregnancy, so that just seems like a mental thing to me. And there were also some to take to get rid of bad spirits, and some for male masturbation and she was also telling us how sticking the quills under your braids will help get rid of something, but I cant remember what it is... it is all just kinda crazy interesting. I am now how of the 20s and into the teens....less than 19 months to go!
Linds:)
at the market the other day this guy had a monkey on is back and I asked to take a picture super cute monkey, but guess what his name was..... george bush! The picture is on webshots
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
hello hello!
Saturday, April 19, 2008
eu so eu ( i am me)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
this is what i really wanted to say
Happy Birthday Kenz!( Ya I realize that it is really late now.)
Love and miss you all!
Linds :)
ohh ya the trivia from last time....lots of plastic bags and a condom.....a soccer ball. They take all the plastic bags and tie them together and them for a soccer ball, real soccer balls here cost about $40, a bit spendy. The condom is blown up and put in the middle and all the bags are wrapped around it. Sometimes they only use the plastic bags, but then the ball doesn't have as much of a bounce. Genius kids huh?
This is unbelievably long...sorry...but I the first one is the one that I couldn't post last time...and well.... this is about my amazing vacation that I took over Easter weekend. I thought that Mozambique was pretty amazing before, but after visiting the beach I am sure of it. You all need to come visit. We went to a place called Vilankulos and it was amazing. It might have been the most beautiful beach that I have ever seen in my life, and in addition to being beautiful, there were no tourists. The tides are just amazing. When the tide is out there are a ton of boats that are beached and then when it comes back in all of the boats go out for fishing. It is pretty cool to see. You can also buy fresh fish, shrimp, crab, squid, and just about any other sea food that you can think of for next to nothing. One day we took a day trip out to one of the islands and went snorkeling. It was my first time and to be honest I was pretty scared at first, but after about 5 minutes it was awesome. I got a little cut up because being the smart girl I am, didn't realize how strong the current was and bumped into a huge rock thing...oops, but it is ok because it was totally worth it. I think we probably saw about 50-70 different types of fish, it was just awesome, I guess I don't know how else to say it. I guess you just have to come and see how amazing it is. I think that my next goal is going to be to get certified for scuba diving. They also had some amazing art that doesn't come to my parts of the country. I might have gotten myself into a little trouble splurging on art...but oh well.... I will only live in Africa once right? When we were driving back on Sunday we saw a group of about 20 wild monkeys just hanging out on the side of the road, it was kind of crazy, something that I never thought that I would see in my life time. Ohh ya...embarrassing story of the year.... I got home from school the other day and realized that I had a hole in my skirt....so my students could probably see my butt for all of class ...nice work teacher Cecilia. I think that is all for now. Love and Miss you all. One trimester down....only 5 to go! If anyone has some recipes they would like to send me,(email would be best) that would be amazing. They have to be pretty simple because our ingredients are pretty limited here. Yet another random comment... I was talking to one of my colleagues and he asked me what the significance of my anklets was.... I guess they dont have a significance, just for looks really. He told me that people here only wear them to fend off bad spirits, and they type of thing around your ankle depends on what type of spirit you are trying to keep away.
Another random story.... I went to school this morning to do some work and I was in a kind of bad mood. To annoy me even further this police officer said ( in Portuguese) “ good morning, how are you?” “ we are good thanks, and you senhor?” and then the jerk says “ senhor policia” you have to be kidding me. Senhor isnt good enough it has to be senhor policia. Clearly I am not Mozambican, give me a break jerkface.
ohh ya if anyone still loves to send packages:
i dont need anymore chapstick,lemon pepper, toothbrushes, and razors
things i would love to have more of:ketchup, parmasan cheese,once again girly things, and fun spices
lots of love!
Linds :)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
hello hello!
love and miss you lots!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
eu vou comer arroz com boi
Sunday, February 24, 2008
This will probably be kind of random because I am writing weird things as they happen, so it might just be a random blob of stories. Every Friday we have what are called reunios de turma, which are just meetings of the classes. Some of the students didn't think that we were going to school, so they came to our house to make sure that we would be going to school, and then they carried our bags for us...interesting. I am the director de turma, basically I am just a homeroom teacher.Yesterday we didnt have anything to do and they wanted me to sing (dont asky why-they obviously dont know horribly I sound), so I taught them some lovely songs in English. You know the good ol classics twinkle twinkle little star, itsy bitsy spider, abcs, head shoulders knees and toes. If anyone can think of any other fun easy ones tell me because they love them. The other day my roommate said she was woken up at 4am, because she could hear students in the gym. 2 of the students came to visit us and we asked what time they had gotten up and they said 4. apparently the school made all of the students who live in the dorms get up at 4 and go running in the gym. A lot of the students have been sick and the administrators think that it is because they are doing any sort of exercise...once again interesting. I also met a German girl a few weeks ago who lives in my village and the other night we went to have dinner and drinks together and were talking about the AIDS project that she is working with, and she was explaining how they do a baseline study to figure out the level of information that community members have. And one of the things that a lot of people reported on the survey is that they think that white people created HIV/AIDS so that they could have even more control over black people in Africa....sad huh? And more random stories...And more random stories...a few weeks ago when we were coming home from the city the chapa stopped and everyone had to get out and go through this hand washing station, we all had our hands washed with bleach water in the hopes that cholera will not be spread. They also implemented the same thing at our school, everyone has to wash their hands when then walk through the front gate. Weird, but whatever. I finally remembered my camera one day when we walked to the villa, and on the way home I asked one of the mothers if it would be ok to take some pictures.. when the kids saw my camera they went crazy. They love to have their picture taken. After each picture they would jump up and down clapping and screaming because they were so happy. I love the simplicity of life here.The only bad thing is that everytime I walk to town at least 3 children say “Dona Cecilia tirar foto.” “Ms. Cecilia, take a photo.” I am also working on learning dialect- lets just say the progress is going to be really slow. I am only working on good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, and what is your name- but it is going to be a long process. One of the ladies in the market is teaching me, so everyone else gets a nice laugh when they hear me try to repeat what she says. But the dialect is so hard.My favorite world is malala- good morning. Muzungu is someone who is sick but MuZUngu is a white person, then plural white people is AZUngu...looks like it is going to be a long road. Thanks to my cousin Paige for the hemp, we have been making lots and lots of stuff, and we started our girls group, and at the first meeting we all made matching hemp bracelets, and they loved it Norths and Grams-first- THANK YOU so much for the packages! you might find this kind of interesting- All of the movies that you sent in the last package had stickers on the boxes, so one day I was being anal and peeling off the stickers while Tembo and Simba were here. I had fully intended to throw them away, but the boys had better use for them. They used them to decorate their phones and notebooks, and the continued to go on and on about how beautiful their note books were. And these stickers were not beautiful by any means. They were stickers with blockbuster bar codes- ohh the simple things that satisfy. As I am typing this there are 4 children standing outside our fence begging to come in, and then speaking Mbarue(the dialect) thinking that we understand. Yesterday one of carries students was wearing a Sioux Falls shirt- how crazy is that! Sorry about the bad link to my pictures, my mother informed me that it doesn't work trying to get it fixed, but I think if you go to webshots and search for Lsongstad it should still work. Once again apologies for this being so random, it has been written over the course of the last 4 weeks, which have for the most part been pretty awesome, so there is a lot to tell about. You will have to go look at my pictures, because I finally got to go to the top of the mountain and it is BEAUTIFUL! I am not even going to try and explain it because it was honestly breathtaking. We drove to the very end of this 'road' which was more like a footpath, it was like the end of the world. It is actually the path that the people coming over from Zimbabwe use. If you don't know, conditions in Zimbabwe are really bad, really bad to the point that people will walk for 2-3 days just to come to Mozambique to buy a bag of rice, and then make the 3 day journey back home. If they are lucky and can get a lift they can save about a day, but most of it has to be done on foot, horribly sad, but the people are still are so friendly. We were also privileged enough to meet this guy who is writing / doing a photo documentary of the Mbarue culture. And he has taken us to see some pretty amazing dancing, singing, and instrument playing. The last few days have been the days where I am getting ready to go to bed saying that I could live in Mozambique forever .I hope that all is well at home. DONT FREEZE! Love and miss you all.
ps- mom I have a new obsession with patsy cline. And to both mom and dad- HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!
Colleagues
I have some pretty amazing colleagues, ( have I ever used that word in America- No, but here it seems to have become common place) in the English department. One of my favorites is a guy from Zimbabwe called Goodluck. Nope not a nickname, his name is really Goodluck. My favorite thing about Goodluck is that one day he wrote a note to another colleague called Albino asking for a favor. In this note he asked Albino if he could get some stuff from me, but in the note he said “ Could you please get the 9th grade book from the woman (white). Awesome reference huh, but I guess when you are one of 4 white people in the entire town it is kind of fitting isn't it?
And trivia for the next post.... if you had a condom and a lot of plastic bags what would you do? Or what do you think a mozambican would do. Nothing perverted please.
just so you can all be jealous...i went tubing on a croc infested river yesterday...good thing i didnt fall off!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
I love it!
Hello Everyone! So I am officially a teacher! What a scary thought! I am teaching 5 turmas of 9th grade english! I everyday at 7 or 7.50 and I am done by 12.05, so I am going to have a lot of free timeA turma is basically just a class. Each turma has between 35-55 students. And I teach each turma 3 classes a week- so my work load here is going to be pretty light. Only 15 classes a week. It kind of makes me feel bad because there are teachers at the school who are teaching. Classes in the morning, afternoon and evening. Our school is so big and overcrowded that they have classes broken up into morning afternoon and evening. I think that there are close to 45 turmas each with about 45 students. So there are somewhere around 2000 students. Last week we were helping with some tasks at the school and having meetings, and you would not believe some of the things that were brought up at the meeting. We spent 45 min discussing what is and what is not an appropriate teacher/student relations. They also talked about not beating your wife, children, girlfriend, boyfriend, ect, in the street because you are a teacher and a role model. I am not so sure what I really think about the teaching thing. Monday was the first official day of school, but we didn't teach. There was an assembly where they went over the rules(One of which was “when you have a question raise your right hand), and expectations for students and teachers. It was almost 3 hours long and really boring. One thing that I am not sure if I have mentioned or not is the way in which question/answer sessions are held here. When they open the floor for questions, people ask questions, the questions are written down, and then all of the questions are answered at one time. It just seems odd to me. The first day of actual class was pretty interesting. My first class was first period, so I went a little early. Classes start at 7, but students have to be at school at 6.30. Before school they line up by turma and at 6.45 they sing the national anthem. The students stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers move from class to class. When the teacher enters the room one student says “ Attention class” and then everyone stands up and says “ Good morning teacher, how are you?” I am well how are you? “ we are fine thank you.” and if you forget to tell them that they can be seated they will continue to stand until you remember. Also whenever students want to talk they have to stand, it all seems so odd Most of the 9th grade curriculum involves Mozambican culture and teaching kids to be able to speak about Mozambique in english. Today we were talking about traditions. And one tradition here is called the Lobolo- it is basically just a bride price. So in class I was asking my students to explain this to me, one boy asked if he could explain it to me using an example. So he stands up and says “ I want to marry professora Cecilia and I go to her father and give him money.” I told him that was a bad example, but the class had a great laugh. But things are going well and I think that for the most part I am still enjoying myself. Before I forget I wanted to mention that my favorite part of Africa is sitting in my bed with a flash light for 10 minutes before I can go to sleep to be sure that all of the bus INSIDE my mosquito net are dead. Another story about the little criancas...when I was home from the market yesterday my hands were full and this little boy came up and grabbed my arm and started walking with me, a few feet down the road another boy did the same thing, and it was adorable because they were just grinning from ear to hear, and they were speaking all kinds of dialect to me that I couldn't understand, but really when a kid is grinning from ear to ear just because he can hold your hand does it really matter?
Estou a pedir (I am asking for)
This lovely saying is quite possibly one of my least favorite parts of Mozambique People will estou a pedir for just about anything. One day a child pedir(ed) for ONE flip=flop... really child what good is one flip flop going to do you? We also have people pedir for work at least once a week. One of my all time favorite pedirs was estou a pedir a bebe – I am asking for the baby. There is also a mother on the road to the market that will say A bebe esta a pedir um mil. The baby is asking for 1 metacal? And the thing about estou a pedir is that there is no shame in asking for anything here. People will ask for you for just about everything. I have read stories of other people comparing estou a pedir to the lottery. You play and play but never win... you just continue with the hopes that it might work. At least with estou a pedir they have nothing to lose.
Estou a pedir some beef stock...yes I know it sounds weird. And some glow starts to hand out to students who do well on tests, and crushed red pepper, Parmesan cheese, anything girly (ie facial stuff, pedicure stuff, manicure stuff, and magazines...new or old.
Love and miss you all (South Dakotans...please don't freeze- Africa is warm...come visit!)
linds :)
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Ela Danca Bem
From this point forward I am going to try and include random facts/stories about Mozambique in general:
The Capulana- Possibly the best invention ever.
The capulana is basically just a wrap, but it can be used for just about anything. Most women wear them as a wrap, usually over another skirt or pants ( I don't know how they do it with the heat). Capulanas are also used to carry babies. The women put the babies on their back and then use the capulana as a carrier- simply genius. Any one who has a baby and doesn't want to spend $70 on a baby bjorn let me know and I will send you a capulana. Capulanas are also used as bags, blanks, sheets, pillows, wall decor, diapers, curtains,. They are also wonderfully used to make shirts, skirts, dresses and pants. When I come home with 86 capulanas in 2 years you will know why- they are amazing! I have yet to see this done, but we were informed early on not to use a capulana to carry an animal( ie. Puppy or kitty) because the women will see it as offensive.
Also if anyone has any suggestions as to how to improve this- or any questions that you want answered- let me know
love and miss you all!
Linds :)
I am going to try and start my webshots thing again so if I get it to work I will put a link under my address!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
hello africa tell me how you're doin!
write it just like this
____________________________________________________________________
Lindsay Songstad
your address goes here
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
feliz ano novo!
first of all we texted a friend using a cell phone(cell phones in the peace corps?)
at 10.30 he picked us all up in his brand new honda truck, on the way to his house i listened to music being played from his ipod, and i was actually using a seatbelt(a first for mozambique) we got to his house and put our stuff by the pool. he then asked if we like gin and brought us out gin, tonic and limes. around 1 he left the house and told us to cook whatever we wanted. we then had a lovely lunch of shrimp and pasta while sitting in a massaging chair watching mtv. when we got home we had chicken stir-fry and chocolate fondu for dessert.it was just such a crazy day. i never would have thought that i would do anything like that in all my time in the peace corps. this guy works for the world food program and knows most of the peace corps volunteers in mozambique, he said that we can use his house whenever we want to have pool parties- he has also offered to give us rides to and from catandica and chimoio when he has trips to make. dont worry we have checked with other volunteers and this guy is cool, no one has had any problems. he is just a cool guy with an awesome house. hopefully today we are going to set up a post office box, and if everything works out i will put up my new address tomorrow. if anyone wants to send a garlic press feel free. also any movies would be great because life in catandica can get to be a bit blah(but i still love it!)any random spices(because i am going to be an amazing cook by the time i get home!) old navy flip flops size 7- i know it is winter so they probably arent avaliable now.i think that is all for now. love and miss you all. i hope the snow is not to horrible! ohh ya if anyone has a number with an area code that starts with 31 let me know because there is a loop hole in the mcel network and i can call for free!
linds :)