The Sounds of Life

One thing that I have really learned to appreciate about Liberia are the simple sounds that make life so interesting. Our neighbors have a generator ( Liberia has no power source, so all energy in the country is produced from generators)and unfortunately it is very loud, but for the last week it has not been running, and i have had the chance to listen to everything around me. Starting at around 4 in the morning some of the neighbors begin to chop wood, at first the sound awakens me, but within a few minutes the consistent sound sends me back to sleep. Around 6 I can hear the distant beat of a drum and the buzz of the insects all around which is actually quite relaxing. As I try to pull myself out out of bed i can hear the neighbors pound the cassava so that they will have GB( almost like a paste made from boiled cassava then pounded) to eat for lunch. Then soon the neighborhood is full of noise, the radios come on, children are singing at the water pump, there are shouts and buzzes from the soccer games that constantly fill our front yard, and the constant sound of motorcycles buzzing past and honking the horn. As the sun sets things slowly settle down and the buzz of insects once again take over.
School started last week which has been quite interesting. My students who are in grades 10-12 have difficulties identifying the subject and the verbs in sentences, so I think that it is going to be a challenge teaching them how to write compositions over the next 6 months. As I was coming to use the internet today I had a wonderful old man as me if I was Peace Corps and he followed up by saying that he wanted to congratulate me because he has always loved Peace Corps and he is so happy to see us back in Sanniquellie.
This past weekend I had to go to the next town to go to the bank( we only have 1 in our county). On the journey there are check points that all public transport must go through, being that our taxi was overloaded, like all taxis are we had to pay what the driver referred to as a "service fee." This service fee is actually a bribe paid to the police so that the driver does not get a ticket for having an overloaded car. There was a small argument between the driver and the officer and the last comment from the officer basically summed up so much of the goings on in Africa. As the officer is taking the bribe from the driver he says "Don't try and condemn our government." Oh the joys of people abusing power! To end on a more positive note, when the principal introduced me to the students they were literally jumping up and down because they have a teacher who is from America.

Sanniquellie

Sanniquellie is my new home! I am currently living in a "city" in northeastern Liberia. I say "city" because it is the county capitol, but it has more of a village feel. The citizens say that it is huge, but it doesnt seem so to me, but I love the village feel so I am very content. Sanniquellie is the home of the Organization of African Unity. I have yet to start teaching, but the past week and a half has given me a lot of time to go out and explore the town. I live in a neighborhood that is about a 20-25 minute walk from the main road, so i have made a lot of friends along the way. There are a few ladies who are giving it their best to try and teach me Mano (one of the two local languages). My subpar skills have made me quite a few friends at the local market. As I was walking to the market the other day I started keeping track of all of the things that people shouted at me along the way " White man, white woman, friend, Kau( the name given to me in Mano) man, woman, and friend. There have been numerous people who have approached Katherine( my roommate) and I to introduce themselves to us, and many of them have expressed their happiness that Peace Corps in finally back in Sanniquellie, one man even told us that it was announced on the radio in Monrovia.
My house is HUGE it has 4 bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. Katherine and I have closed off 3 bedrooms( yes we share a room due to the fact that our neighbors generator is so loud you cant sleep in 2 of them, and the other is only accessible from the outside) and the kitchen. There is no running water or electricity, so the days are kind of short, I am normally in bed by 9pm. Everything is going great so far, the village is beautiful and the the town is wonderful! I hope you all are well
Lindsay :)

One year, one month, and one day later

One year, one month, and one day after my arrival in the States I am getting ready to leave again. My next journey will lead me to the west African nation of Liberia. Liberia was settled by freed slaves from America and is one of only a few African nations that was never colonized. Liberia has a very interesting past and I am thrilled to learn the way of life in a new nation. Once again I will be teaching English in a secondary school, but this experience should be a little different, as English is the national language of Liberia. I am not sure if I will be teaching literature, or grammar or what, but I am very excited for the opportunity to live and learn in Liberia. I will update as much as possible, but at this point I am not sure what Internet availability will be like. If anyone has questions feel free to ask



The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page

The title needs an update

No idea if anyone ever looks at this anymore being that Iam back stateside, but if so....I will be goin to Liberia for the next 6 months, so some updates will be coming soon
:)

1 month 1 day!

just one month and one day until i am done with peace corps! as excited as i am to be done i am getting terribly sad to leave. my trip home was amazing! it was so wonderful to see everyone. while i was there my great aunt and uncle dory and rube gave me some jewlery to bring back to the kids, and as i was crossing the border i had a nice little argument with the border gaurd because he was sure that i was going to come back here to sell it, when i told him that it was for my students he said that if i was a teacher that i would know to bring books back, and i said that next time if he wants to carry 350 books for me that i will bring them, that seemed to shut him up and he put my bag right back in the car. last weeek we had our last teachers day celebration which was really fun, just a day of hanging out with our colleagues and dancing, and other than that not too much exciting has happened. love and miss you all! see you in a few weeks
linds :)

Oi! I know that this has been a long time coming…. I have been pretty bad at keeping in contact lately, sorry! It is just that everything in my life here has become so “normal” so the stories that I used to think were interesting, are no longer news, and therefore I have been lacking creativity and motivation to write anything. I cant remember what I wrote in my last short little message, but I am writing this from home where I have no internet, so if anything is a repeat , my apologies. The trip that I took in April was about much more amazing than I can even begin to explain, but I will try (I am going to try to put some pics up on webshots, so check it out too!) I started out the trip with a (sorry about the negative attitude) horrible bus trip from Chimoio to Maputo. The bus left early in the morning…. And is supposed to take gasp….17 hours. Not something that I was terribly excited to do. We ended up getting stopped a few times because they thought that the bus had human cargo… hmmm obviously being a passenger bus we would have human cargo, but the police thought that there were people in the bags on top of the bus and almost made the workers unpack everything, it was kind of crazy. When we were about 4 hours from Maputo the bus broke down in some tiny little village that had no energy when we arrived. Being the drama queen that I am I started crying because my bus from Maputo to Pretoria was leaving at 7 am the next morning, and they said that we would not get there until 11. As I am bawling my eyes out ( strange enough that I am the only muzungu in the village, but I am crying, which is very rarely seen in Mozambique) this darling old woman tries to comfort me in broken English because she didn’t realize that I spoke English, very cute and sweet of her. I somehow made it to my bus and arrived in Pretoria. I went bowling in the largest mall in Africa, and got a whopping 93! Pretty impressive huh? I guess that’s what happens when you don’t bowl for a while, but its not like I was ever any good to begin with. We took a day driving from Pretoria to Botswana, and on the way almost ran out of gas so we had to stop at some house in a tiny tiny village and ask to buy gas from them, you always know you are getting quality products when they come out of a plastic bottle, but the family was so sweet, so it actually turned out to be a pretty neat experience. Botswana was so different from Mozambique because there was wildlife everywhere, TONS of baboons and even a few wild ostriches. Namibia was one of the most beautiful countries I have seen. There are sand dunes everywhere, and they are absolutely beautiful. I went sandboarding while there, and if you ever get the chance I would suggest it, but the time it takes to walk up the dune( no lifts because it is a protected area) may or may not be worth the 3 seconds that it takes to board down the dune. Sossusvlei is beautiful, the dunes where giant and unfortunately I don’t have the words to explain it. We also saw more wild ostriches and a bunch of hoofed animals(springbok, Impala, blesbok, gemsbok and kudu) which by comparison make they lovely white-tailed deer in American very boring. Namibia is also home to the Himba people, who are believed to be the most traditional tribe remaining in Africa. The women still go totally topless, and they cover them selves with a brown mud-like mixture which is apparently to help keep them young looking, it was beautiful. Driving the the Zambian boarder we saw an elephant right on the side of the road, probably about 10 feet from our car, and of course TONS of baboons and warthogs too. We also managed to spend a few days in Livingstone Zambia. Victoria Falls was amazing. Apparently the falls are at the largest capacity that they have been in recent history, so if there was even the slightest breeze you could not seen the falls because of the vast amount of water pouring over, but it was increadible! There is a bridge over the river that I would guess is between 50-75 yards from the falls, and walking over it was astounding! It was so loud that you could not hear the person walking next to you, and when you finally crossed over the bridge it looked as though you had just gotten out of the shower, and I was wearing a poncho! Hopefully the pictures will be up soon!
Here starts an unrelated story, so if you are tired of reading this might be a good place to stop
Carrie and I have this wonderful student, Helio, who basically does all of our gardening because he just seems to have some inate ability to do so. He bothered us all year last year to visit his house so a few weeks ago we finally went…and I am trememdously excited that we did. He lives in a village smaller than Catandica called Nhamatama, located about half way between Catandica and Chimoio. When I say a small village I mean SMALL. There are about 12 little stores that all sell the same thing( sugar, margarine, salt, oil…..) and they have a school that has grades 1-7. Its pretty tiny. When we got off the chapa he took us on a “tour” which took all of about 5 minutues, but he was so proud to have us there. His house is about a 30 minute walk away from the highway in the middle of the bush. Part way there Helio yelled something in dialect that we didn’t understand, and he told us that he was asking for permission to cross the stream, because the place where we were going to cross was the place where women take baths, so for men to cross they have to first ask permission. When we first arrived things were pretty awkward. First of all there are 27 people who live at his house. When I say house, it is more of a compound that consists of about 15-20 structrues that range from houses, to kitchens, to chicken coops, goat corals, cow corals you name it . His father has 2 wives who live at this compound, and one more who lives somewhere else, but we did not get the chance to meet her. There were so many people that it was impossible to keep them straight. He has 3 brothers from the same mother, all of whom have wives( 1 or 2) and children. There were so many women and children, it was quite overwhelming. The entire time that we were there Carrie and I were the only females who sat on chairs, all of the other women sat on straw mats on the ground. Also none of the women or children speak Portuguese, and the 15 words that we know in dialect don’t get a person very far in conversation. Helio also told us that it was the first time that any of the kids had seen a muzungu, and surprisingly we didn’t manage to make any of them cry! A real success! The children(especially the female children) are extremely respectful of their elders. When they greet someone they bow slightly, bend their knees 3 or 4 times, and do a cupped hand clap as a sign of respect. I felt like we had walked onto the set of a movie. When it was time to eat lunch Carrie, Helio and I were served first and we sat at a table by ourselves while the others sat and watched until their food was ready. We were served xima ( ground corn flour, cooked with water and salt) and eggs. When everyone else ate the father at a table by himself, all of the men and boys ate at a table, and all of the women and girls sat on the ground. They all ate from community bowls and everything was shared. They ate xima and an okra sauce. After lunch when we asked if there was anything that we could to do help clean up they laughed at us like it was a crazy thing for us to even offer. They did let us help de-cob ( take the kernels off the cob, not sure if it is called de-cobbing or what) corn to make more flour. It was kind of embarrassing when the 4 and 5 year olds were doing it twice as fast as we were, and ended up getting 2 pretty big blisters on each of my thumbs and they ladies were quite concerned that I was not going to be able to pilar( pound the kernels to flour) when I got home. Little do they know that I have only pillared once in all of my time in Mozambique. Before and after dinner we sat around a fire and talked to the men, because unfortunately none of the women speak portugues as I mentioned. There was one girl who showed up a little later who spoke Portugues, and when she told us that she had studied until 7th grade she was so proud. It really made me realize how lucky I was to be born in a country where women have equal rights. We were talking to one of Helios brothers who has 4 children, and Carrie asked how many children he wanted and he said “muitos” (many) and when she asked why he wanted many children he said it was because there was so much land that was suitable to be farmed and that they needed more people to work on the farm…kind of a sad reason to have children isn’t it? When bed time finally rolled around about 9 o’clock I got a little scared, I had known what was coming all day, but when I was actually getting ready to go to bed, reality set in. We were going to be sleeping under a circular structure that was about 12 feel high and maybe about 20 feet across. In the middle was a pidegon coop that was raised about 5 and a half feet off the ground, and carrie and I were going to be sleeping on the edge of this structure, that’s right no walls, just a grass roof… and let me tell you it gets cold, at least cold enough that at 7am I could still see my breath. I slept about a total of 3 hours because carrie being the darling that she is said that I could have the inside closer to the fire, but little did either of us know that closer to the fire is where all of the goats and dogs like to gather and night, and the fire caused their shadows to look like a cougar( ya I know they don’t exist here) and needless to say, I didn’t sleep much….at about 5.30 we were woken by roosters crowing and turkeys gobbling. Definatly not the best night sleep that I have ever had, but it was certainly worth the experience. As we were getting ready to leave his family presented us with a gift of a turkey to say thank you for visiting. We really didn’t want to accecpt it, because it clearly would have been of more use to a household that has to feed 27 mouths, but it is particularly rude not to accept gifts here.
And that’s about it (hahaha…I know is really long…sorry) for now. Maybe a couple more funny( at least in my mind) stories. One of my over achieving students is reading a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and the other day he asked me how to saw tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum in Portuguese, because he couldn’t find it in the dictionary. I was writing on the board today and all of the sudden all of my students started laughing and I asked what the problem was and one of the girls told me that one of my students was crazy for me…isn’t that every teacher wants to hear. I then had to students named Koudra and Claudio who asked me if I could start calling them Stephan and Klauss in English class….strange little kids. Love and miss you all! Less than 6 Months until I am done!!!
Linds :)

long time!

sorry i know is been a long time.....i guess i have just been pretty busy, well kinda. at the beginning of april i went on an AMAZING trip to south africa, botswana, namibia, and zambia. it was absolutly fantastic, unforutnatly i am having trouble putting pics up because most of the computer places wont let me use a flash! boo. but it was a great trip... i went to soussvlei...home of the largest sand dunes in the world and it was breath taking, victoria falls was like being in the most crazy thunderstorm of my life...it was amazing..sorry not much time to write. love and miss you...its getting cold her finally....72...hahah i am a wimp...see you in december!

fine.....

so things here are going awesome...... just finished my 1 trimester of the last year of being a teacher and i am pretty excited about it. in about a weeek i am leaving for a trip that shoudl prove to be pretty darn fun...south africa, botswana, namibia and zambia...too bad that i cant go to zimbabwe. but things are good. i am learning to play african style drums, so when i get home hopefullly we can have some awesome campfire jam sessions...i aslo just found out about 10 minutes ago that i will oficially be done with peace corps on 20 november....that means after a short trip around eastern africa i should be home mid january or something like that...not really sure yet. i dont know anything exciting to tell.... if you have any questions just ask.... love and miss you all!

if anyone still reads these let me know because i am running out of thigns to write

hi everyone! so school is finally starting again, and i am kind of excite to have something to do again. i am going to be teaching my same students as last year, and i dont really know how i feel about that. on the first day of class i went in and had one class get up and start cheering, and another class that literally moaned when i walked in the class room. made me laugh. carrie and i made the schedules this year, and we are extermely lucky and are only working in the class room tuesday,wednesday and thursday. i am very excited about that! last week one of my favorite students came over, and he was really concerned about something, so we sat down and started talking, and he was telling me how he thinks that he had a curse put on him. he said that everyone else in his family had stopped studying after 7th grade, and that they are all angry and dont understand why he wants to keep studying, so someone in his family went to the witch doctor and had a curse put on him so that he would become crazy. i was trying to explain to him that i dont belive in the witch doctor, while at the same time trying not to make him feel bad, and it was really hard. he went to the traditional healer, and apparently got some medication so that he wouldnt beocome crazy. but i found it so hard to believe that one of my best and smartest students believes in it. i guess that i had always thought that well educated and intelligent people were "above it" for some reason. when he came to my house he was terrified. other random stories....walking home from the market a few days ago we had a ton of amazingly cute little kids come running up to us with cement powder all over their faces saying that they were muzungu like us because they thought that they looked white... we have 5 watermelon growing in our front yard and i am so excited for the to ripen that i can hardly wait... i kind of love mozambique...and i love and miss you all!
linds :)

Finally!

so i have finally made it to the less than 11 months to go mark, and it is kind of a weird feeling. looking back it seems crazy to think that i have been gone so long, but it seems like it went by in a flash. i am very excited to to be back in mozambique,and so happy to see everyone that i missed over the holidays. school starts again in a few weeks, and i am not quite as excited about that, but i am looking forward to starting some new groups and projects. not too much exciting going on. just wanted to say hi! love you!
linds :)

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas, although it certainly doesnt feel like christmas to me when it is over 80 outside...oops sorry that wasnt very nice to all of you who happen to be dealing with the snow. I hope that everything is going well back stateside. life in africa has been of eventful. after spending about a week in maputo(the capital of mozambique) i went to Swazliand to Hlane game reserve, and it was FANTASTIC! even though i had been living in africa for over a year the only thing i had seen was a baboon, but at the game reserve i saw crocs, hippos, rhinos, zebras, giraffes,warthogs,impala,elephants,lions, and dung beetles.it was amazing. the elephants were so close to the truck that i honestly was scared for a bit,they are HUGE! both nights that i was there we had massive thunderstorms, with lions roaring...just a little african touch. unfortunatly i dont have any pictures because my camera was stolen again. Also in swazi i went to the incwala cermony. it is basically the first fruits ceremony where the king eats the first fruits of the harvest, therefore giving the rest of the popluation permission to enjoy the harvest as well.very very interesting...the kind has 13 wives! after swazi i went to durban south africa, but left rather quick like because i am still not a real fan of cities. i then headed to a place called coffee bay and hung out at the beach for a few days. after coffee bay i went to east london where i got to spend some days with my wonderful friend amanda. i stayed with her family for a few nights and it was fantastic. not too much exciting happening now...hanging out in pertoria for christmas, and then back to mozambique in january. love and miss you all!


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!

back again

hello hello...back again! so my life in mozambique has been pretty exciting for the past few weeks, not really, but more exciting than normal. lets see...we had some kids threaten that they were going to the witch doctor to have a spell put on us because we stole their soccer ball after they continually kicked it in our yard, and the threat was rather entertaining because all of the neighbors were really worried. i was on holidays for a little while, and was unfortunatly bitten by a dog, and had to be flown to maputo(the capital) for rabies shots, thank goodness we had already been vacinated because i am not sure how well i would have dealt with shots for 21 days. it is so crazy being in the city as compared to my life in the bush, there are resturants and grocery stores...its kinda weird. and some places even have christmas decorations up! so i guess things really havent been that excting... just wanted to check in and say hi! love and miss you all!

lots of love from mozambique!

Hi again! I am done with my duties as a teacher…I am officially half way done with my teaching career! Life is moving along rather quickly right now, our house has been a parade of visitors lately so things have been exciting. A few random stories from the past weeks. We had the Mozambican equlivant of senior prom and it was pretty fun, the students “waltzed”, but it was more like all of the most dramatic parts of a waltz in a few seconds and they just repeated it a few times, but it was pretty cute. There should be some pictures on webshots if you are interested. The other day I was telling one of my students about winters in south Dakota and how children like to build snow forts and snow men and all of those other types of fun things, and right before we finished talking he asked if these snowmen could walk. The idea of making a “person” from snow was so far fetched for him, but it was really cute. Not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I have become a little bit of a liar here, and I told all of my students and the neighborhood kids that jackie chan is my father, and they think it is the coolest thing ever. But everytime a white guy comes to our house they first ask if he is one of our husbands, and then they ask if it is Jackie chan. Or when I ask them what my name is they say dona Cecilia Jackie chan. They also asked if all of the people in Jackie chan movies actually die or not, I guess that they don’t totally understand that they are movies and not real life things. Went to the market to buy food today and stopped to talk to this lady we know, she might have had a bit to drink, but as she was explaining some things to us she was patting my boobs like you would pat someone on the shoulder and thought absolutely nothing of it, it took just about everything in me not to burst out laughing in her face. Hope you are all preparing for the upcoming cold months, we are almost finished with the really hot stuff, just waiting for the ultra exciting rainy season to start. Rain 7 days a week…cant wait! Lots of love!
Linds J

Ola! Everything is going well here in Catandica, finally finished my classes for the year so now all that I have left to do is what we call conselhos de notas, which is when all the teachers get together and they try and make you give students higher grades, kind of annoying, but if you aren’t there they might just go ahead and change grades, but that is a couple day process and then I am done. We went to the beach a few weeks ago,and it was amazing, minus the fact that I fell asleep reading on the beach, this made the ride home one of the more unpleasant experiences in my life. I loved the beach before coming here, but going to beaches with next to no development is amazing, we walked along the beach for 2 hours and the only thing we saw was a small fishing village with less than 100 people. It was BEAUTIFUL! Not too much exciting has been going on. Although we did get a helicopter fly-by hello from some of our friends, and then the kids were asking if we saw the helicopter. Last week we had a huge thunderstorm for about 2-3 hours, the energy went out and it was one of the coolest storms that I have ever seen. Normally I might be kind of crabby about the energy going out,but I was quite pleased this time. 12 October was Dia dos Professores- Teachers Day, and I think that teachers in America deserve this day too. The day started off amazing when my best friends ( boys ranging in age from about 4-14, whose father is a witch doctor) brought me ripe mangoes! Starting the day with ripe mangoes, nothing gets any better! We had a party at our school where the students served us chicken, salad, potatoes, and beer. It was pretty fun, a little bit weird to have students serving beer, but some of the other teachers were so drunk they could hardly dance, so I didn’t feel too bad. By the end of the night all of the teachers were dancing and the students loved it. I think that it is the goal of a lot of students and teachers to get carrie and I to dance, because when we do they go crazy. On Monday I presented certificates to the students who participated in English theatre, all of the students who were there happened to be boys, and thought that rather than shake hands that it would be appropriate to do the kiss on each cheek thing, and after every student the other students had a lot of fun cheering,it was kind of embarrassing.On Saturday we have the Baile Dos Finalistas- which is basically the equivalent of a senior prom. The preparation for this dance has made me realize that I teach at the closest thing to a “ prep” school that exists in Mozambique. The students have been working since the beginning of the year to earn money for the dance, but it is kind of sad because a lot of them don’t get to go because they don’t have money. It costs 150 Meticais, about $10, which is a ridiculously large sum of money for most of the kids. But they are brining in chefs from Chimoio, they have been learning the waltz, and there is a dress code. The boys have to wear black pants and suit coats and the girls have to wear white or crème colored dresses, it all seems a bit over the top to me, but we will see how it goes. The students are really excited about it, and really excited about the fact that carrie and I are going. I cant imagine being excited about having any of my high school teachers being at prom, let alone asking them weeks in advance to save a dance for me, but I guess that just goes to show how different the student/teacher relationships are here. Another thing that I have been wanting to write about for a while, but have just failed to do so is the way that names work here. First of all people have names such as Vinagre( Vinegar), Cebolla (Onion), Alface (Lettuce), Castigo, Ndamo( Punishment) Faz-Tudo ( does everything), Sabao(Soap) Sande(Sandwich) Tendai( Gratitude), Torres( Tower). All lovely names, so we all know how names work in most western countries right? Well here it is a little bit different. First of all when people get married a lot of them don’t change their names, at least where I live. The other thing that is a lot different is the way that children are named. For example. John Smith marries Jane Doe, they have a child and name it Matthew. So the kids name would be Matthew John Smith, if Matthew has a kid named Ben, the kids name would be Ben Matthew John, , it took me a while to figure out why when you ask someone their name do you get a million names rather than just the first name, and this is why. And in many cases the mothers name is just forgotten about. Interesting huh? That’s all for now! Hugs and kisses!
Linds :)
Not sure if I will get to it, but there should be some new pics up on webshots!

Hello Hello! I am having a love hate relationship with Mozambique right now, so take this as a warning before you start reading. First of all thanks for the birthday wishes….it turned out to be a very interesting day. I was in the city the day before and when we were at the chapa (mini-bus) stop we were kind of playing with this little boy and making faces at him and whatnot. When we are almost out of town Carrie notices that this little boy is still on the chapa, so she asks the cobrador (the guy who collects the money) who this little boy is traveling with, and he continuously ignores her. 150kms later, we arrive in Catandica. (On the way we stopped on this bridge and watched some guys slaughtering a hippo…kinda gross, but kinda cool). We start walking home and notice that this boy is following us, so we ask what he is doing and he starts crying. We take him back to the chapa stop, and they tell us that we are responsible for taking him to the police because if not we are going to be accused of child trafficking. AWESOME! So we take him to the police station where we get to deal with an officer who appears to be intoxicated, and more concerned with our marital status than this boy. Over the course of a few hours we learn that this boy is 7 years old and that his father cells CDs on the street in Chimoio. The police say that they will take him to social services...done with that thankfully!......or so we thought…Monday morning the boy shows up at our house bawling….he ran away from social services so Carrie takes him back and they say that they are sending him back to Chimoio on Tuesday. Ohh wait….Wednesday morning I look out the window and who is sitting under our tree…none other than the little boy. So we once again take him back to the village, and during the course of the 30 min walk this little boy becomes almost un human…it takes 3 adults to carry him as he is kicking, hitting, screaming and trying to bite us. We get him back to social services and they claim that they have been looking for him, but who really knows. But honestly a 7 year old kid travels 150kms by himself, and no one really seems to care…soo weird. The other part of my hate relationship is that I am working with a couple teachers and about 15 students on an English theatre presentation, and the night before the competition their biggest concern seems to be what we are going to eat for breakfast and if they are going to get a per diem or not…soo frustrating…cant you just do something because you want to and not because of the money that you think you should get. And the love part of it…. For my birthday 3 students who also come and hang out at our house gave me a teacup and saucer…they are so sweet. They were a bit upset that I wasn’t here in the morning on my birthday because apparently the thing to do is pour water on the birthday person. The Kids here are just sooo CUTE! When we first arrived all of the kids just called us muzungu( white person), but now they say Dona Cecilia Dona Cecilia tali shanwali( no idea how it is spelled, but it means hello friend in dialect.) and I also find it rather amusing how much entertainment can be had by the hair on my arms….the kids think it is really cool. Basically the kids are the best thing ever…if I am having a bad day I can almost be guaranteed a smile when I walk down the road with all the kids…some of the parents have even started telling us that the kids talk about their friends Cecilia and Carolina J
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! :)

:D

hello everyone and good afternoon! how are things back home? going well here, not too much has changed, but i am super excited that i am closing in on the one year mark! only 15 months left to go! school finishes in a little more than a month , and i am getting very excited to get out and do a little bit of traveling. other than that not much new...i was doing lessons on gender equality in my classes and one of my students was kind enough to inform me that men are intelligent and that women are not intelligent, and that women can not fly airplanes...and they also told me that they hate me.ohh i love being a teacher. a few weeks ago i had one studnet put a dead bird in another students backpack! ohh exciting! not too much else for now! love and miss you all!

beijos

Hi everyone! I hope that all is well back in america...things are moving along quicky here. I cant believe that I have already been gone almost a year. It is a pretty crazy thought. Sometimes I forget that I am living in Mozambique....but the things that remind me that I am here always make me laugh. For instance: the other day I was wearing this dress that I had recently purchased, not the most beautiful dress ever, but I wanted it to use as a patten for a different dress, but anyway I was walking to the market, and this guy calls me over to his house and says in portuguese “ cecilia you are not pretty today, you are ugly and that dress is ugly too.” ok thank you! And then I continued a little ways down the road and this old man says in english “cecila today you have beauty, you are very much beauty.” sometimes the honesty makes me laugh, but I love the fact that you can be told you are ugly and beautiful within 10 min. the other day some of my students were looking at my pictues from america and they were telling me that I used to be fat and that my skirts were too short.ohhh mozambique. In class the other day I teaching time and my studetns asked if if was the same time in mozambique as it is in south dakota, so the next day I brought in a globe to show about the rotation of the earth, and they told me that I was lying because if the world were turning we would fly off. There is a year 12 student at our school and everytime she comes over she yells at me for not wearing my flip flops in the kitchen. Mozambicans are pretty big on the idea of wearing house shoes( for that matter if any of the new moz invitees are reading this, despite what peace corps say bring flip flops because your host family will want you to wear them in the house.) last saturday we had a meeting that lasted over 7 hours ( just a note, it was supposed to be 3) I honestly thought that I was going to die, it could be on the top 3 of the most miserable days of my lifer Ohh ya when carries mother came to visit she brought carries comptuer, and we now have battleships! That was thrilling. I never know what is going to be interesting for you guys...so if you have questions let me know. I did just find out that our villa has a population of 20,000...never really realized that.....now I am curious as what what percentage are under the age of 7....i think it is probably about 20-25%. we are also going to be getting a bank here, how is that for exciting? But apparently a bank means a supermarket too....not a supermarket like any of you are thinking, but something that sells more than beer, whiskey, and really gross cookies. In my wishful thinking I am also hoping that it means internet...but I am not getting my hopes too high for that. The other day at our market I got a new shelf for our house, and the guys that I got it from are zimbabweans, and they had left zim at 4am walked to catandica, a 12 hour walk. And as soon as they sold their shelves they were going back home. 2 guys one with a shelf one with a coffee table, and they would be walking for about 24 hours in total to make less than $20. makes you think about how tough life actually is huh? Better cut if off before you are all bored to death. Love and miss you all! Just a friendly reminder.....dont forget the importance of september 14th....... I am 17,000 miles from home :P and I really like fruit snacks, cereal bars, and my ears wound not mind some new music, and my eyes would like some new magazines....i promise that somewhere in my soul I still have some amount of shame.and if you want to check out some of carries(my roommate) pictures they are on webshots, I think you just have to search carriecarnevale, but beware they might make you want to come visit even more than you do now. So I never know what to write anymore so if there is anything that you want to know... leave me a message!
Linds :)

end of the world

sorry about the random titles...so i am on my way home from a whirlwind tour of northen mozambique. my friend natalie and i used our 2 week break from school to heat north. we went to this place called lichinga...otherwise known as the end of the world. it took us 5 days to get there and 4 to get home, but it was definatly a fun journey. we basically hitchhiked all the way there, and some of hte people that gave us rides were hilarious. we got one from this semi truck driver and part way he got out his digital camera and then we all had to get our tof the truck and take pictures with him in front of hte truck...it was super funny. i am highly suggesting that any one and everyone come visit mozambique because it is beautiful, and well...i kind of miss you guys! i hope that all is well at home!
linds :)

:)

so it has been way too long since i last wrote,sorry! i am kind of stupid and ruined my flash drive, so now it takes me forever to type these things when i am actually at the internet. i hope that evryone at home is doing well. things are mozmabique are good for the most part, you know...besides having daily cravings for mexican food. i just finished my 2nd trimester, so that means only 4 more to go until i am done being a teacher! woo hoo! i hope that everyone had wonderful 4th of july weekends. we had a bunch of our pc friends come to our house and it was fun, definalty not like being in america though, but we made the best of it. lets see random funny stories from the past few months. on wednesday morning i saw all my little best friends going out into the bush like they do everday, but then when they finally came out at about 3 they had caught and killed 47 field mice that they were going to take home and eat! i took a picture, and it almost made me vomit just because i hate mice so much, but they were having a heck of the time with them. and yesterday when i got to the city there was a woman who had a basked full of grilled mice that she was selling, kinda crazy huh!ohh ya the president(of mozambique) also visited about 3 or 4 weeks ago. and i got to shake his hand and he asked me if i was a teacher and what subject i taught, and ya it iwas in portuguese so i felt kind of cool. i think i have already told you this but i started taking shona( local language) lessons, and they are coming along pretty slowly, but yesterday our language tutor walked to villa with me and he was telling me what all the kids were saying and it was quite funny. when the kids would walk far from their houses the other kids would yell at them and tell them that they were going to get stolen, it was kind of making me laugh. i hope you are all well at home!
love and miss you all!
linds :)