I have a little treat for all my loyal fans today! Not only am I putting up a new update, but I’m also going back to my old college habits and plagiarizing!! So my mom and Miray were here for our EPIC Africa vacay and Miray wrote updates to our family so I’m basically going to put that up and include some editor’s commentary (in parenthesis) for your reading pleasure! Miray, unlike this panda, is a fantastic writer so hope yall enjoy and understand you’ll never get this type of entry ever again = ]

(After an overnight layover in Istanbul, they finally arrived in Maputo via Jburg, but because the flight was delayed, they just barely made the flight and their bags did not, but greeting them at the airport was a joyous occasion cuz I really missed them! Ok here’s miray...)

MAPUTO

We had lunch at a Chinese restaurant near the hotel. It was definitely a learning experience and a good introduction to life in Mozambique. Apparently, it's not unusual for restaurants to take between 1-2 HOURS from the time that you order to the time they bring your food out because they start cooking from scratch when you order. So we sat down, ordered 4 dishes, and when they finally brought the food out over an hour later, they told us that they didn't have the ingredients for one of the dishes so they couldn't make it. (Haha so typical)

After lunch, Mommy and I both succumbed to the jetlag and fell asleep, only to be woken up by Misol (for those of you who didn’t already know, this is my Korean name) telling us that we had to go to the airport to get our bags. Originally, the airline had told us that the hotel should be able to send someone to pick up our bags for us, but when he got to the airport, he was told that there was an issue with one of our bags, so we had to come get them ourselves. So we shook off the sleep and dragged ourselves to the airport. When we got there, we had a bit of a panic moment when the airline guy told us that the driver had already left with our bags. But after some more back and forth, we finally found a woman with all 3 of our bags. That's when she called over a customs guy who told us that because of the food in our bag, we had to pay a special tax. Misol then started arguing with him in her awesome Portuguese, and it quickly became clear that the guy just wanted a bribe. But Misol wouldn't budge and after much arguing and finally pleading, he finally got tired of her and let us go. (I don’t know if tired is quite the right word… it was more like he was entranced by my awesomeness! I fed him the same crap I give every cop who tries to stop me for a bribe – oh I’m a volunteer teaching at a local secondary school for FREE, you have to emphasize the free part cuz they don’t understand what a volunteer is, and that I’m shaping the future leaders of Mozambique and I live in a mud hut with no electricity and no running water just like the other locals… ok so I embellish the truth just a tad, but gotta do what you gotta do!) So we were finally able to take our bags back to the hotel, and Misol was able to open the bag with all the goodies we brought for her. (CHRISTMAS IN JULY!!!! It’s fitting cuz it is winter for Africa! Thanks so much Jungah and Cass!!!)

Dinner was at the hotel restaurant. Mommy ordered a pasta dish that tasted like noodles in ketchup. Misol ordered steak that was more grey than brown. I ordered fish and chips - the fish had bones, and the tartar sauce had hard boiled eggs. The only redeeming part of the meal was the piripiri sauce - that's the local hot sauce, and every restaurant makes their own version. It's made from these tiny little peppers that are super spicy. Most of the piripiri sauces we've had are red, but the one at the hotel restaurant was green, and it was delicious! Without that sauce, we probably wouldn't have been able to finish our meal.

On Wednesday, Misol dragged us out of bed at the crack of dawn because she couldn't wait to hit the hotel's breakfast buffet. (no joke as soon as I opened my eyes at 7ish I was jumping on their bed to wake up cuz we had to go eat the most amazing breakfast buffet on planet Mozambique!) The food was actually really good. There was lots of fresh fruit, an omelet station, and even baked beans! But the best thing at the buffet was this breakfast pastry that was like a cross between a Korean cream bbang and a deep fried ppat bbang. So the bread was fried on the outside and had this yummy cream filling. Delicious!

After breakfast, we went to the central market, where they actually had a pretty impressive produce selection. They even had fresh gahm (persimmons)! Right across the street, there was a store selling traditional African fabrics (kapulana) - they had hundreds of different fabrics (in a really tiny tight space), so it was a bit overwhelming, but we managed to buy a bunch of really pretty ones.

We then headed to the fish market to meet Misol's friend Colin for lunch. It was fairly small, and more surprising, most of the seafood was frozen. But we bought a kilo of jumbo prawns, a kilo of tiger prawns, a kilo of calamari, a whole croaker, and a whole red snapper. Then we took all the seafood to one of the restaurants behind the market and drank some beer while we waited for them to cook the seafood. It took awhile (like over an hour), but it was well worth the wait. The food was delicious, and we finished every last bite!

After a brief rest at the hotel, we went over to the Polana, which is the nicest hotel in Maputo. We walked around the hotel grounds for a bit, which were beautiful - the hotel is set right above the water, and then we had tea/coffee and dessert on the open veranda. It was lovely and a welcome break from the poverty of the rest of the city. After a while, we almost forgot that we were even in Maputo.

For dinner, we went to an Italian place and had pizza and pasta, both of which were surprisingly yummy. But because it's kind of a foreigners' hangout, as soon as you step out of the restaurant, there's a swarm of Mozambican men trying to sell you crafts, and they're very aggressive.

On Thursday, we got Misol checked into her conference hotel, and then we took 4 of her friends out for lunch, including Misol's roommate Vonnie. The restaurant that we went to was called Zambi, specializing in seafood. Misol found the restaurant online as the #1 restaurant in Maputo, and the rating was well-deserved. All of our dishes were delicious (seared tuna, grilled tiger prawns, grilled calamari steak), with the exception of Mommy's - she was suffering from a bit of seafood overload after our trip to the fish market, so she ordered pasta with a pesto sauce. The sauce was actually pretty good, but the noodles were completely overcooked. So boolsahnghae. (That means poor mommy) But the rest of us really enjoyed our food! For dessert, we ordered a bunch of stuff for the table, the standout being a cashew nut tart. Cashews are grown here, so you can find them everywhere. Anyways, it was a very pleasant surprise to find such good food in Africa. We're even going there again tonight, and hopefully, Mommy will make a better dinner selection.

After lunch, we went to a craft market. It was huge, set in a really pretty park, and there were all sorts of wax prints, carvings, jewelry, etc. We were able to get some great souvenirs, and Misol once again impressed us with her excellent bartering skills. (that’s a LIE! Miray actually yelled at me for not bartering harder and getting better deals!)

So that brings us to today. Like I said, Mommy and I are just hanging out at the hotel. The city of Maputo - especially the area where our hotel is located - isn't really the kind of place where we feel comfortable walking around outside, especially without Misol. It's much more urban than what Mommy expected, and much dirtier. There's no national garbage collection system, so there's trash everywhere. And we clearly stand out as tourists, so it's hard not to feel like a target for pickpocketing or worse. I feel like a wimpy American tourist, but I think it's probably safer for us not to venture out on our own. We are going to take a cab out to meet Misol and some of her other friends for dinner, so hopefully, that'll go smoothly.

Plus, Mozambique has been experiencing its coldest winter in history, so walking around outside hasn't been that pleasant. Thank goodness we're going to Cape Town, which is the only reason I packed any warm clothes. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have even brought a jacket. But we had one really sunny and warm day yesterday, which was nice. The city seems much friendlier in the sunshine. :)

Friday: Misol’s program actually ended much earlier than expected, so she came to our hotel, and then we headed over to the Southern Sun, the 2nd nicest hotel in Maputo. Mommy and I hadn’t really had lunch, so we ordered some butternut squash soup and a ham, cheese and sundried tomato panini. The food was delicious! Mommy of course loved the soup b/c it was hot, and Misol would’ve eaten the entire sandwich if we had let her.

We then headed back to Zambi for dinner with 3 PCVs who hadn’t been able to make it to lunch. Once again, the food was delicious, but we were a little sad because it turned out that the dish that we all wanted to order – fried prawns – had been the special of the day when we came the first time, so they didn’t have it. But we still got to have the cashew nut tart for dessert, so we were happy.

On Saturday, Mommy and I were planning to stay in the hotel all day, but it was a beautiful day, and there were lots of little kids going to the church next door to our hotel, so all of it together made us brave enough to venture out on our own. We walked to Surf Café, a nearby café/bakery and ate club sandwiches. I was kinda proud of us for venturing out and ordering food all by ourselves. (I was def SHOCKED when I heard they had gone out, but so proud seeing as it’s like a 5 minute walk there! Whew! = ])

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel. Mommy watched Korean dramas on my computer, while I took advantage of the South African TV, which played all American shows/movies. For dinner, we went down to the hotel restaurant. We were kind of nervous at first because we were the only diners there, but the food turned out to be really good. Mommy ordered grilled chicken in a piripiri sauce (but you couldn’t really taste the sauce, which Mommy liked), and I ordered grilled chicken in this delicious buttery, coconut-y Mozambican sauce. Both dishes came with steamed veggies and white rice, so Mommy was in heaven b/c she took a tube of gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) with her. Haha.

On Sunday, Misol came over to our hotel, and we headed to the Maputo airport. From there, we took a short flight to Johannesburg, where we had a 2 hour layover. Mommy wasn’t feeling well, so she took advantage of her priority lounge card, while Misol and I browsed the airport shops. Migum, we saw ostrich liver pate and thought of you.

SAFARI

Arriving in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, is when our trip started taking a turn for the worse. This was the part of the trip that we had actually arranged through a travel agency, which meant that someone was supposed to be with us every step of the way, but when we stepped out of the airport, there was no one waiting for us. Misol used her awesome living-in-Africa skills to ask a random taxi driver to call the local contact given to us by the travel agency. He of course had no idea who we were or anything about our airport transfer, but he did arrange for the taxi driver to take us to our hotel.

Dar es Salaam seemed similar to Maputo – very urban but rundown. Our hotel, though, was really nice. But when we tried to check in, first they had trouble finding our reservation, and then they said our room wasn’t ready. We finally made it into our room, which was pretty swanky. It was a 1 bedroom/1.5 bathroom suite, and the bathroom was amazing. Too bad we were only there for less than 24 hrs.

By the time we settled in, it was already 9 PM, so we headed down to the restaurant to grab a quick dinner. Little did we know that we were in for a nightmare dining experience. Mommy ordered bouillabaisse, and Misol and I ordered a couple of Indian dishes (I guess Indian food is pretty popular in Tanzania). We waited – no joke – over an hour for our food to arrive. And when it came out, Mommy’s soup was so salty that she had to ask for hot water to dilute it, and our Indian potato pancakes were burnt on the bottom. But luckily, our butter chicken, rice and naan were delicious. And then the chef, the restaurant manager, and various other people started coming out to apologize for the wait and the bad food, and when we finally left (after another long wait to get our check), they took the 2 bad dishes off the bill. So I guess that was good.

The next morning, the bad vibes continued. The night before, the hotel reception guy had told me that he talked to our travel agency and that our driver would pick us up at 7 AM. So we woke up early, grabbed a quick breakfast and went out to meet our driver. But of course, no one showed up to get us – again! Luckily, one of the hotel workers took pity on us and arranged for a private car to take us to the airport. Also, the hotel front desk guy – after much trouble and confusion – had been able to print out our plane tickets for the charter flight to Selous, so we were able to get check in for our flight without any problems. There was a strict 15 kg weight limit on our bags, and we just barely made it – Mommy’s bag snuck in at 14 kg. Haha.

Our plane was a little Cessna that was big enough for about 12 people plus the pilot and co-pilot, but it was just us and another couple. The flight itself was only about 35 mins. And once again, when we landed, there was no one to meet us. But one of the guides from a different camp called our camp for us and found out that our car was on its way. So we waited at the airstrip (which was literally just a strip of dirt, with a couple of benches near by), but during our wait, we saw a bunch of giraffes and impalas (kind of like gazelles). We even saw a lone elephant, which is apparently a big deal b/c elephant are hard to find. Our car showed up about 30 mins. later, but he was dropping off a family, and he couldn’t leave until they left, so we ended up waiting like another hour until their plane came.

So after about 2 hours, we were finally able to leave the airstrip with our guide Rashid. We traveled in a special safari jeep – the seats are elevated, and the back is open, but with a tent to provide shade. The drive to the camp took about an hour, but it was a mini-game drive b/c our guide would stop and point out cool animals along the way. We saw more giraffe and impala, as well as hippos, crocodiles, black faced monkeys, wildabeest, and a waterbuck! It was pretty cool. And then our camp is situated on the other side of the Rufiji River, so we had to then transfer to a small motor boat to take us across.

We’re staying at the Selous Wilderness Camp, which is really nice. Tonight, we’re the only guests in the camp because everyone else checked out today. Our tent is awesome. There are 3 twin beds, electricity, a toilet, 2 sinks, and a cool outdoor shower. There’s even a hammock on the patio. I took a shower before dinner, and it was so cool – being outside, stars in the sky, while you’re taking a shower is so cool. (Mommy, on the other hand, is too scared to shower in the dark. And what neither of them realize is that this ‘tent’ was like a mansion compared to my house so I was in HEAVEN!!)

After a lovely nap, we went out for a river safari with Rashid. We didn’t go that far, but we saw baby crocodiles, lizards, and lots of hippos. We also saw these beautiful birds, green with red/orange/yellow/blue highlights. After riding around for a while, we docked at a sandbank for a “sundowner.” That’s where they set up a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere and serve beer, cocktails and other drinks while you watch the sun go down. So cool!

Once we got back to the camp, we got ready for dinner. Here, when it gets dark, it’s pitch black outside, so they have Masaai (indigenous African people) who escort you throughout the camp after dark. We’re the only guests in the park tonight, so they set up a table for us right by the pool, overlooking the river (except that it was so dark that we couldn’t see anything past the lantern light on our table). Dinner was a spicy gazpacho, kingfish with a garlic butter sauce and basil rice, and crème caramel with peppermint tea. We also ordered a bottle of South African white wine. It was a great meal. And now we’re back in our tent, getting ready to play some GoStop. We probably won’t stay up that long b/c we breakfast is at 7 AM so that we can go on our full day safari ride.

On Tuesday, we went on a full day game drive, which meant that we had to wake up around 6:30 AM. It was still dark out, and there was so much noise in the area around our tent. After breakfast (fruit, eggs, bacon, toast, juice, coffee/tea), we took the ferry over to our car. The roads are not much more than dirt paths, so driving is extremely bumpy. Our guide Rashid was awesome – he knows so much about everything in the park – the animals, the birds, the plants, etc. In one day, we saw giraffes, impala, zebra, wildebeest, elephants, hyenas, lions, crocodiles, hippos, buffalo, kudu, tons of different birds, black faced monkeys, baboons, waterbucks, mongoose, and warthogs. We also saw some crocodiles feeding on a dead elephant. Some of the animals are very skittish, so they start running as soon as they see us. But others just kind of stand/lie there watching us, trying to figure out whether or not we’re a threat. When we came across the family of lions, we drove up until we were maybe 10 feet away – it was so cool! Lunch was a “picnic” in the middle of the bush. In the distance, we could see a herd of impala watching us. Rashid set up a table (but no chairs) and set out a meal of cheese and tomato sandwiches (on stale bread), potato egg salad (with egg shells), and chicken wings. Mommy was *very* dissatisfied with our meal, but Misol thought it was delicious. (it’s true, I’ll eat anything and think it’s God’s gift to the world!) We discovered that Mommy has a special safari talent: Every time she would say, “I wish we could see __________,” that animal would appear out of nowhere. It was quiet useful. We didn’t get back from our drive until around 6 PM, and then there was a snafu with the ferry (our camp only owns one boat, and another group got back late), so we ended up having to cross the river in the dark. Mommy was SO NOT HAPPY. She kept thinking that a hippo was going to attack our boat. Haha. But we made it safely back to the camp. After dinner, we were all so tired that we crashed pretty much right away, and all of us slept through the night with no problem. (Most of the other nights both mommy and miray were afraid that the little geckos, ants, spiders were going to attack them in their sleep haha)

On Wednesday, we wanted to go on a walking safari, which is best in the morning, so we had to wake up at 5:30 AM. It was pitch black outside and we were still really tired from the day before, but we dragged ourselves out of bed. After a quick cup of coffee, Rashid took us in the boat to the park entrance, where we were met by a park ranger (equipped with a gun and best of all his name was Goodluck) and a park guide. The walking safari was really cool and very educational. We didn’t see too many animals because they ran away as soon as they saw us, but we learned a lot about various things in the park. It’s amazing how much the park workers know about everything in the park – there’s a certain swallow that always builds its nest on the northeast side of the tree in order to face the rising sun; elephants roll around in the mud and then rub against trees in order to get rid of bugs; other animals follow hippo tracks because they always lead to water. After our walk, we all took a long nap, ate lunch and then got ready for a river safari in the afternoon. We saw a hippo fight and lots of beautiful birds. When we got back to our camp, we saw a huge group of baboons right in the middle of our camp. After dinner, we played GoStop and Big 2 (because it wouldn’t be a Gweon Family vacation without card games).

Thursday was our last day in the bush. Rashid was out with another family, so our guide for the day was Kiki. In the morning, we went on another river safari. At one point, the water was so shallow that we got stuck in a sandbank and the boat driver had to get in the water to push us back out. We didn’t see that much stuff – some crocs and lizards, but it was really relaxing. Went we got back to camp, the group of baboons was playing on the beach right in front of our camp, and Misol walked right up to them. After lunch, we went on our last game drive. We saw lots of hippos out of the water, which is pretty cool cause you usually only see them in the water. We also went back to the dead elephant, and it was surrounded by a swarm of crocs – probably about a hundred! We saw one HUGE crocodile out on land – he was probably full from eating because he didn’t move the entire time we were there. It was also Baboon Day because they were EVERYWHERE. We saw lots of baby baboons, who were so cute. On our way back to camp, an elephant family crossed the road right in front of our car. The papa elephant got nervous because the baby was going the wrong way, so he trumpeted threateningly to try to scare us away (and Mommy did indeed get scared). And then about 10 mins. later, we saw another family crossing the road. It may not sound like a big deal, but elephants are actually kind of hard to see because they’re so nomadic, so we were happy to have seen two families during our final safari. Mommy was really cranky at dinner because they served lamb as the main course, and so she asked for fish instead, but she didn’t like the way they cooked the fish, so she didn’t really eat dinner.

On the other side of the river from our camp, between our ferry stop and the game reserve, there’s a small village that we drove through a couple of times. Not surprisingly, it’s not developed at all, and there’s a great sense of poverty. Most of the homes have mud walls and thatch roofs. There didn’t seem to be any electricity or running water. But the kids were so happy to see us (mostly because they thought we would give them candy) and so cute.

The meal portions were on the small side, they didn’t really serve snacks in between meals (other than a really small bowl of homemade masala potato chips once in awhile), and the meal times were normally at 8 AM, 1 PM and 8 PM. So we were hungry a lot of the time. Good thing we took lots of snacks. (I wasn’t very happy with having to share all my snacks all the time…)

Sleeping in the bush is such a cool experience. Other than a few geckos (which Misol said were our friends because they eat bugs) and a few gnats, the inside of our tent was really clean, but just outside our tent, we could hear an entire symphony of different bugs, frogs, birds, etc.

The shower was outside, so when we showered at night, we could look up and see an entire sky full of stars.

All of our dinners were served outside by lantern light. It was very romantic, but we couldn’t really see our food. Good thing we took our flashlights. On our last night, they set up a table right on the beach and built a small fire next to our table. It was lovely except Mommy and I had to keep our feet elevated because we were worried about what would crawl up from the sand. (Mommy was also terrified that hippos and crocs were going to come up on shore and attack us in the middle of our meal hahahahaha)

On Friday, we woke up around 7 AM, packed and ate breakfast. We had a small scare when we couldn’t open the electronic safe (which held all of our passports and money), but the camp manager had a separate key. We also had an unpleasant surprise when it was time to settle the bill – it turns out that when they say that the camp is “all-inclusive,” they’re only talking about the food. In other words, we had to pay for all of the drinks – including the bottled water! Plus, the camp only took cash, and we hadn’t had time to go to an ATM because of our airport transfer issues, so we had a very limited supply of cash. After settling our bill, we didn’t have that much leftover, so unfortunately, our tips for the guides and other camp workers was not as generous as we would have liked. Oh, well.

ZANZIBAR

Our flight to Zanzibar arrived on time but then made 2 unexpected stops, so we got to Zanzibar about an hour later than expected. But we were really happy because there was a driver holding a sign with our name waiting for us! He had a nice, clean minivan, and he even took us on a detour to a Barclays ATM so that we would get some more cash. The drive to Konokono took about an hour and a half. The roads for most of the drive were paved and fairly well-maintained, but the last half hour getting to our resort was a dirt road that may have been even bumpier than the roads in the bush. (in reality this last part took about 10minutes…)

I was a bit nervous about our Zanzibar resort. I had found it online and asked our travel agent to book us there (she had never had any guests stay at Konokono). The pictures were really pretty and the reviews were good, but you never know… But my worries were completely unnecessary. The resort is gorgeous! There are beautiful flowers everywhere, and everything is clean and in great condition. We were greeted with cold towels and delicious fresh pineapple juice. Our bungalow is huge! We have a king bed and a twin, plus plenty of room for 3 chairs and a table, plus another bigger table where we can sit on the floor. There are also double sinks and a huge (indoor) shower. Outside, we have a big patio with big comfy chairs, and a “plunge pool” which is a small pool just big enough to sit in and have the water come up to your neck. We also have air conditioning and 2 ceiling fans, which is great because it’s pretty hot and humid here. But the best part of our bungalow is the view – we can see the Indian Ocean from our patio, and it’s glorious! It’s funny how much more relaxed Mommy and I are now that we’re back in “civilization.” Haha.

Today was the first day in awhile that we got to wake up without setting an alarm. Mommy woke up early and took a long walk (something she wasn’t able to do during our safari) around the resort and down to the beach. Misol and I rolled out of bed around 8 AM. After breakfast, Misol and I headed out to the beach. The water is amazing! There are a lot of leaves/seaweed at the top of the beach, but once you get past that area, the water is amazingly clear and beautiful. It’s straight out of a postcard.

Meanwhile, Mommy did laundry, which made her very happy. J It’s really funny to see how happy clean clothes make her. Haha.

The food is much better (and more plentiful) here than at the safari camp. Yesterday, we had lunch and dinner on the beach (dinner by lantern-light), and today, we had breakfast in our bungalow and lunch on the patio. We’re on an all-inclusive package, so for breakfast and lunch, we pretty much just order whatever we want from the menu. Dinner is a set 4-course meal. Last night was a Greek salad, cream of vegetable soup, fried calamari with rice, and caramel cheesecake, accompanied by a South African Sauvignon Blanc.

We had thought about going snorkeling or taking a tour of Stone Town (the main “city” on the island), but it’s pretty expensive, so it looks like our next few days will be filled with sleeping, eating, reading, swimming and sunbathing. (No complaints here.) There’s also a “spa,” and the massages are really cheap, so we’re going to make appointments for tomorrow. Needless to say, we are thoroughly enjoying our vacation!

Now that we’re in Zanzibar, we don’t really do that much, nothing worth writing about at least, so I’ll write about some random, hopefully funny things.

Both here in Zanzibar and in Selous, there are geckos (little tiny lizard like things) EVERYWHERE. Misol says they’re our friends (because they eat bugs), but Mommy and I don’t like them. Whenever I need to use the bathroom, I make Misol go in first to make sure they are no geckos on the floor. Usually, they hang out on the ceiling, which isn’t as bad – as long as I can’t see them, I can pretend that they’re not there.

Mommy’s favorite hobby in Zanzibar is doing laundry. Seriously, if we didn’t give her clothes to wash, I think she would be complaining of boredom. Haha.

Most of the time, the weather is gorgeous – a bit hot and humid but still sunny. But it also rains about once or twice a day. During our first day lunch, we got caught in a torrential downpour. Our table was set up under a small gazebo type structure (just 4 posts and a thatch roof to provide some shade), so we had to huddle under it to try to stay dry. And then last night, it started raining during dinner, so they had to move our table under the gazebo thing. Luckily, the rain was fairly light and didn’t last long.

When we were in Selous, because of our limited cash situation, we couldn’t order any alcoholic beverages, so Misol and I are doing a good job of making up for it now. There’s a full bar right on the beach with all sorts of pretty tropical cocktails (complete with a pineapple spear and flower), and every night, we order a bottle of wine with dinner. The wine is from South Africa, so it’s yummy and cheap (under $30 for a bottle).

The mosquito situation hasn’t been quite as bad as we had expected, but we’re not sure if it’s because there aren’t that many mosquitoes out or if it’s because of the mosquito repellant we brought. Mommy brought this little device that emits one of two mosquito-repelling sounds – either a male mosquito or a dragonfly (which eats mosquitoes). Both sounds apparently drive other mosquitoes away. And I brought a device that emits insect repellant and then has a tiny fan to circulate the repellant. We’re not sure if either device really works, but we still wear them religiously anytime we go outside at night. Misol, on the other hand, doesn’t give a second thought to bugs. Yesterday, she was outside reading on the back porch right through dusk while wearing a sundress, and now she has tons of little bites on the backs of her thighs. We’re not sure if they’re ant bites or something like a bed bug, but they’re gross. (there were about 50 bites on each leg and it was disgusting and SUPER itchy! Ugh so annoying… pretty sure they were bedbug type things or sand fleas or something… you’ll see pictures soon)

There’s a little spa here that’s actually pretty cheap by US standards, so we all booked massages for tomorrow. But there’s only one masseuse, so we had to book them all back to back.

Misol didn’t do a very good job of putting sunscreen on my back yesterday, so I have a strip of sunburn right across the middle of my back. Good thing I brought aloe gel.

Ok, that’s it for today. Sorry there isn’t more to report, but seriously, all we do is eat, sleep, read, sit around, and eat some more. The hardest part of our day is deciding what to eat for lunch. Haha.

Today’s our last full day in Zanzibar. Mommy’s ready to leave, but Misol and I could use another week or two or ten here. I thought we might get bored with nothing to do, but it’s wonderful. So peaceful and relaxing.

Swimming at the beach here is an amazing experience. The water is ridiculously clear, and it’s a beautiful greenish-blue color. It’s also really salty (per Misol, it’s the 2nd saltiest body of water in the world, after the Dead Sea), so it’s really easy to float in the water. It’s a bit cold when you first go in, but within a few minutes, it feels as warm and comfortable as bath water.

The sand here is also amazing. Zanzibar is famous for its white sand beaches, and I can totally understand why. The sand is a fine, white powder, and other than a few hermit crabs, leaves and twigs, there’s nothing else in the sand. At night, when we go to dinner, the sand feels so amazingly cool on your feet. Mommy’s convinced that the sand glows – when the moon and stars are out, it really does look like the sand is giving off a florescent light.

As I mentioned in my last email, Mommy has been hyper-vigilant about mosquitoes and bugs, but when she came back from her walk this morning, she had a bunch of bites on her thighs. She thinks there was a bug – like an ant or a tick – in her pants, which she’s now too scared to wear. So sad – she almost made it through 3 weeks in Africa without a single bug bite, only to succumb a few days before her departure.

Every morning for breakfast, there’s a different type of fresh juice. Misol and my favorite so far has been the pineapple, and Mommy’s is the passion fruit. We also had watermelon yesterday and mango today. So good!

The agenda for today is Skyping with Daddy (sorry, Migum, but it’s too hard to coordinate the time difference with you), massages, lunch…We’ll probably take it easy on the sunbathing, given that Misol is about 50 shades darker than her normal skin color, and my back is a flaming shade of reddish-pink. (when I was heading back to monapo I had to text von ‘don’t be alarmed if you think you see another Mexican approaching the house… it’s just me’)

Yesterday passed by in blur. We each had our massages – the masseuse wasn’t that great, but the setting was pretty cool. The massage table was set up on an elevated, covered platform, so there was a nice breeze and you could hear all the jungle chatter around you. (miray thought the breeze was nice, but I was FREEEZING! I mean aren’t massages usually supposed to be set in warm places so your muscles RELAX? i’m pretty sure mine were getting tighter with every gust of wind that my skin!)

After our massages, I passed out, Mommy watched Korean dramas and Misol read. We got in a few games of Big Two and GoStop before dinner, and then we enjoyed our last dinner on the beach. Our favorite part of the meal was the roasted sweet potatoes.

Today, we woke up, ate breakfast and packed. Our flight was originally supposed to leave at 7 PM, but we changed to a 2 PM flight so that we wouldn’t get into DAR quite so late. The flight from Zanzibar to DAR is literally a hop across the ocean – it took about 15 mins from take off to landing.

When we got to the hotel, which had become a Hyatt Regency as of August 1st, it took forever to check in, and then they tried to put us in a really small regular room, even though we had paid for an upgraded executive suite. We then found out that the President of Somalia is here, so they’ve closed off the entire 7th floor, which is where we were supposed to stay. When I refused to take the first room (I have no idea how they were planning to squeeze a 3rd bed in there), they said they had to talk to their manager, and after much waiting (luckily, they had snacks and drinks in the executive floor lounge), they finally gave us our new room – they upgraded us to a diplomatic suite (aptly named the Selous Suite)! Now we have a giant living/dining room, and a separate bedroom.

Mommy, in doing some final repacking, discovered that she can’t find her US cell phone. As you might imagine, she’s not happy.

There are 2 restaurants in the Kilimanjaro. The last time we were here, we ate at the Palm because the Oriental was too expensive. But tonight, because it’s her last night here, Mommy said that she (and Daddy) would treat Misol to one last meal. So we went to the Oriental, but it wasn’t open when we first went up. So instead, we went to the 8th floor bar, where we had some pre-dinner cocktails (a mocktail for Mommy). As bar snacks, they served popcorn, cashews and these peanuts cooked in a spicy onion sauce. Quite good.

We then headed over to the Oriental Restaurant, where we had the best meal of our entire trip. The menu is ridiculously extensive because they serve Chinese (including dim sum), Japanese (including sushi), Thai and Indonesian food. We started with a spicy tuna roll as an appetizer, and after the first bite, we were pretty certain that we were in for a good meal. (I was already close to tears of joy at my first bite of sushi in 2 years!) The tuna was super fresh, the rice was nicely vinegared, and the roll was really spicy, but in a good way. But the best part of the meal – hands down – was the prawn dish. It was 4 GIANT fried king prawns in a hot chili sauce. The prawns were so fresh and perfectly cooked, and the sauce was amazing –better than a lot of gampoong shrimp I’ve had. We also ordered this curry dish, which was basically slices of really tender beef in a spicy coconut sauce. Misol loved it because it was pretty much just a big bowl of meat with no veggies to get in the way. Anyways, by the end of the meal, Misol was so happy that I think she was actually close to tears. Haha. And Mommy was happy because it turned out that all of the menu prices were inclusive of tax and tip, so the meal turned out to be way cheaper than we had expected. So basically, it was win-win for all. Daddy, Misol says a great big, “THANK YOU” to you for the awesome meal. (I also took a bath this night in scalding hot water, lotsa bubbles and bathsalts that made the water green! It was heavenly!! The tub was almost too big cuz I kept slipping and plunging into the water! But clearly I’m not complaining cuz it was the most glorious bathing experience I’ve had in 2 years! Also I wore the white fluffy bathrobe afterwards too!)

Mommy has a really early flight tomorrow, so her airport transfer is coming at 5:30 AM tomorrow. Misol and I have an afternoon flight, so we might go back for another helping of the prawns for lunch tomorrow.

Mommy got off this morning without too much trouble (her car was about 20 mins. late – hope it wasn’t a problem). Misol and I slept some more and then finally woke up to eat breakfast. After breakfast, we both enjoyed the wonderfully clean and pretty Kilimanjaro shower (Misol had also taken a bath the night before), and then we read until lunch time.

When we went down for lunch, we were a little early, so we took a quick peek at the hotel casino. Misol was overjoyed to see all the familiar slot machines, but I wouldn’t give her any money to play. Haha. (so so incredibly cruel… I mean hearing all the dingdingdingings in the back and flashy lights! How could I not be drawn to that?!?!)

For lunch, we had a spicy snapper roll, the prawns in hot chili sauce and rice. It was a perfect lunch.

Then it was off to the airport. We didn’t want to risk being late with the unpredictable traffic, so we left really early. It was probably a good thing because the line for the LAM check-in was really long and so slow. But we finally made it through, and luckily, they had our reservation and everything (I can probably stop doubting at this point of our trip, but a part of me is always a bit nervous about stuff I booked online).

MONAPO, CHOCAS, ILHA

Our flight from DAR to Nampula had a stop in Pemba. We thought we wouldn’t go through immigration until Nampula, but they made everyone go through in Pemba. It was a bit of a madhouse, but we actually made it through with 2 things going our way: (1) they were asking to see passengers’ yellow fever cards, which Misol had left at home, but she just very confidently said that she lived in Mozambique, and they let her through; (2) when Mommy and I first got to Maputo, I tried to buy a multiple entry visa, but the woman wouldn’t let me, so I thought they might make me buy another visa (which would cost another $66), but I guess the guy didn’t look at my visa very closely because he just let me through. This trip has definitely taught me to be more appreciative about the small pleasures and triumphs in life.

The flight from Pemba to Nampula was about 15 mins., so we were on the ground in no time. It’s so nice to be back on Misol’s home turf – she just feels a bit more relaxed and comfortable, and it’s great for me because I don’t have to be in charge of anything. Haha. (PSH I thought I wouldn’t have to do much once we got to tanz cuz they speak english there, but miray still made me do just about everything… call for this, ask for that)

We checked into our hotel, which is the nicest hotel in Nampula. It’s pretty luxurious by local standards – there’s air conditioning, and everything’s really clean. We’re just staying here for one night because our flight got in too late to drive to Monapo.

We had a great Indian dinner at the hotel restaurant, which I think is run by an actual Indian family. The food could probably rival some of the Indian food I’ve had in LA.

Tomorrow, we’re going to do some shopping for supplies in the morning, and then we’ll make the drive to Monapo, where we’ll spend a couple of hours. I’ll get a chance to see where Misol lives, Misol will get to unpack/repack, and we’ll pick up Vonnie and then head to Chocas for 2 nights. After that, Vonnie’s heading back home, while Misol and I head to Ilha for another 2 nights.

After breakfast, our driver for the day picked us up and we went to a few different markets to buy food and wine for our trip. We almost had an issue when we stopped for gas – Misol didn’t have as much money as she thought she did, so she didn’t have enough local currency to pay for the gas. Luckily, I had USD $40 in cash, which just barely covered the bill. Then it was off on the 1.5 hour drive to Monapo. (it wasn’t that I didn’t have enough money, usually you pay at the end of the trip and all my money was in monapo, but this guy wanted me to pay for his gas so I didn’t have enough money to cover that!)

It was really cool to see Misol’s town and especially her house. Her house is so much smaller and grungy than I thought it would be. I really can’t believe that she’s lived there for 2 years. I honestly don’t think I would’ve lasted one day there. But it’s also amazing to see how much they’ve done to make their home more comfortable and how much they’ve been able to achieve with so little space.

We also walked around the town and over to her school. I even got to meet a class of her 9th graders, who were all so nice and welcoming. (my rowdiest class…) I also met her school director – I can tell why Misol has so many issues with him. Even in the few minutes that I spoke with him, I could tell that he just isn’t a very nice person.

We ate a quick lunch and then got on the road to Chocas. The ride itself wasn’t too bad, but when we were only 3 km away from our destination, our driver flipped out b/c he said that he had only agreed to take us to Chocas, not all the way to our resort. After some yelling and a phone call to the person who had arranged the ride, he finally calmed down enough to drive us the last 3 kms.

But soon thereafter, the paved road ended and we switched to a sand path. After a few minutes of REALLY rough driving (worse than our safari game drives), the car got stuck! Luckily, we were able to flag down a local man walking by. It was a nervewracking 90 minutes, with lots of digging, pushing and waiting, but they were finally able to free the car.

It was dark by the time we got to the camp, but we were glad to have made it in one piece. Our bungalow is nothing like our bungalow in Zanzibar, but it’s really cute. There’s a porch with 2 chairs and a hammock, and when you walk in, there’s a small dining area and kitchen, a double bed and a bathroom (running water, but cold only), and then there’s a ladder to an upstairs loft with just a twin mattress on the ground. It’s not fancy at all, but it’s so peaceful. And the best part is that there are tons of windows, and the weather has been so nice and breezy.

We ate dinner at the camp’s restaurant. I had a delicious grilled calamari steak, Vonnie ordered a traditional Mozambican dish made with some kind of greens (similar to spinach), cashews (usually peanuts) and local spices – it’s similar in consistency to an Indian spinach curry or creamed spinach (without the cream). And Misol ordered a crab curry, which had tons of crab, but it was really messy and hard to eat.

After dinner, we played some games (Misol and Vonnie are both addicted to games – I think they’re going to have serious withdrawal when they go back to the States) and then went to bed. (We also had the brief period panic when Migum called us to tell us about Mommy’s canceled flight, but luckily, that all worked out ok.)

Waking up was great. It was absolutely gorgeous out. After a breakfast of cereal and juice, we went out to the beach, which may have actually been more spectacular than Zanzibar. It was definitely less populated, and the water was beautiful. We spent the entire morning swimming, sunning and reading. It was glorious. We then came in, showered and then had a lunch of crackers and cheese (there’s only one restaurant here, so we’re trying to minimize our number of meals there). The rest of the afternoon was spent playing games – Settlers, Big Two, etc. – and eating lots of snacks. Now we’re getting ready to head out for dinner.

It’s amazing how quickly the days go, even when you’re not really doing anything. I just keep trying to remind myself to appreciate and enjoy this time of doing nothing because I know I’m going to be back at work before I know it

On Saturday, we woke up somewhat early so that we could leave for Ilha. Although a car is faster, the cheapest way to get from Chocas to Ilha is by boat. And not just any boat but the traditional Mozambican dhow boat, which is a type of sail boat. There are no docks, so the boat just comes to the beach to pick you up, and then you have to walk out (until the water comes up to your thighs) and climb into the boat (easier said than done). Unfortunately, when we got out to the beach, there was barely a breeze and the water was almost completely still. So what they promised would be an hour boat ride ended up taking about 2.5 hours! But it was so peaceful and beautiful that we didn’t really mind.

When we landed in Ilha, the water was too shallow for the boat to get that close to the beach, so we had to land a bit out and walk in the rest of the way. We then walked to our hotel, which was lovely. It felt like we were at an old Spanish house somewhere in Mexico. There was an open dining area next to a swimming pool, and there were beautiful pink flowers everywhere.

Our room itself wasn’t quite so nice – it wasn’t terrible, just really…bare. Also, the hotel “accidentally” gave away the room that Misol had reserved, so instead of having a bathroom attached to the room, our bathroom was “right across the hall,” meaning that it was down the hall and around the corner. But the good news was that our room had air conditioning, which turned out to be quite necessary given how warm the weather got. And the room was much cheaper than a room with an attached bathroom, so we saved some money.

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we started with lunch. Misol had been raving about the hotel restaurant’s tuna with basil sauce. Unfortunately, they were out of the basil sauce, but they had a garlic sauce instead, which was delicious. And Misol asked for the tuna to be cooked just barely seared on the outside, so it was completely raw in the middle – almost like sashimi. It was SO good!

After lunch, we headed for the pool, where we spent the rest of the afternoon.

The next day, I was feeling too lazy to do any sightseeing (there’s an old fort on the island that’s supposed to be interesting), so we literally spent the entire day by the pool again. For dinner, Misol arranged an awesome grilled seafood feast – grilled tiger prawns, a giant calamari steak and a whole lobster! It was fantastic!

The only negative of our time in Ilha was that, after having survived both Selous and Zanzibar without getting any mosquito bites, I got eaten alive in Ilha. (Mommy, I think this means that neither of our insect repellent devices really work.) I’m still suffering from it now.

CAPE TOWN

On Monday, we left Ilha in the morning and drove back to Monapo. After dropping Vonnie off and giving Misol a chance to repack, we headed to Nampula for our flight to Johannesburg. Originally, we were supposed to have a 1.5 hr. layover in Jo’burg before our flight to Cape Town, but our flight left Nampula over an hour late, and of course, we had to pick up our luggage and go through immigration and customs, so not surprisingly, we missed our connection to Cape Town. The good news was that South African Air has hourly flights to Cape Town until 9 PM, so we just had to get on the next flight. The bad news was that our Nampula – Jo’burg flight was operated by South African Airlink, and according to all of the SA agents we spoke to, Airlink is a completely different, unaffiliated airline, so SA couldn’t help us; we had to have Airlink rebook our flight. But of course, there were no agents at the Airlink counter, and when we called the Airlink customer service number, no one seemed able to help us. Finally, a random SA agent took pity on us and before we knew it, our bags had been checked and we were holding boarding passes for the next flight, which happened to be boarding in 4 minutes. Luckily, there was no one at the security line, and we were at the first gate after security, so we made it with time to spare. (I HATE HATE HATE AIRLINK! HATE! HATE! I had vowed never to fly them ever again after my agonizing experience with them coming back from Barcelona, but miray had booked the tix and I had no say… I hate them…)

By the way, it was FREEZING in Jo’burg! So cold that we could see our breath in the air! And Misol, of course, was in a tank top and skirt. (my teeth were literally chattering in the 10 minutes it took us to get from the plane to the bus to the terminal) We were worried that Cape Town would be really cold, too, but the weather has been great.

Cape Town is wonderful! I know this sounds totally spoiled, but it’s so great to be back in “civilization.” Shopping malls, metered taxis, and amazing restaurants. And the city itself is beautiful – it’s right on the water, so parts of it feel similar to San Francisco, but then there’s a giant mountain (Table Mountain) right in the middle of the city, which is very dramatic and beautiful. I can understand why so many people love Cape Town.

Our hotel is really nice. Clean white sheets on soft beds with great pillows. (THE COMFIEST BEDS EVERRRRR! I pretty much passed out as soon as I laid down in mine!) Gourmet chocolates on the beds for nightly turndown service. And best of all, no more geckos in the bathroom! Haha.

Our first day, we set out to walk to the V&A Waterfront, which is the touristy area of the city right near our hotel. But we got a little bit lost and ended up stumbling across the cutest little café! The food was delicious, and it was really cute inside. We liked it so much that we’re going back there tomorrow for breakfast. (my breakfast had a giant stack of bacon on it! mmmm like 20 pieces piled high! AHHHH)

After breakfast, we walked around the Waterfront a bit (there’s a giant mall with lots of high end stores, restaurants and even 2 movie theaters) and then headed to Green Market Square to check out the local craft market. Then we walked to the Mount Nelson Hotel, probably the most famous luxury hotel in Cape Town, for their famous buffet afternoon tea. We sat on the verandah of the lovely hotel and ate lots of delicious finger foods. I think our favorite thing was a puff pastry (shaped kind of like a mandoo) filled with this yummy creamy mushroom filling. I think we had at least 4 each! It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Mommy, we really wished you could have been with us!

After tea, we returned to the hotel to rest for a bit and then headed to a “small plates” style restaurant – instead of serving appetizer and entrée sized portions of their dishes, everything comes in a small portion so that you can sample a bunch of different things. We hadn’t really tried anything “African,” so we decided to try the ostrich and the kudu (looks kind of like a deer, but bigger). Both dishes were surprisingly tasty, as were all of the other dishes we ordered. We just wished we were with a larger group so that we could try more dishes!

Today, we decided to do the hop-on, hop-off bus to tour the city (we saved 10% because I happened to have my ticket stub from Istanbul, which was run by the same company!). Our first intended stop was Table Mountain (the mountain in the middle of the city), but unfortunately, the cable car to the top of the mountain was closed because it was so windy. Instead, we stayed on the bus to Camps Bay, which is a famous strip of restaurants/bars right on the beach. It was beautiful! We grabbed a table on the patio of a cute little bistro and just hung out for awhile, enjoying the view.

Then we got back on the bus and rode to Sea Point in search of a Korean restaurant that Misol had heard about from some of her friends. You should have seen the look of pure joy and excitement on Misol’s face when we finally found the restaurant! We wanted to order everything on the menu, but with only 2 of us, we were limited to a few dishes. The food was just ok by US standards but amazing by Misol’s Korean food-deprived standards. That meal should definitely tide Misol over until she gets to Seoul in December.

After lunch, we took the bus back to the V&A Waterfront area, where we decided to spend the rest of the day watching movies (Misol was adamant that we watch the final Harry Potter movie). This may sound like a waste of a day, but movies are so much cheaper in Cape Town than in the US! We ended up watching two 3D movies, and for all 4 tickets, we spent less than $15! Totally worth it!

Tomorrow, we’re planning on going back to Table Thirteen (the really cute café from our first day) for brunch, and then we’re off to wine country for some wine tasting and dinner. Only one more full day in Cape Town, so we have to make the most of it!

After enjoying 2 days in the mid-20s, we woke up Thursday to a gray day with an expected high of 17˚C. We headed back to Table Thirteen for a leisurely brunch, and then our private car picked us up for the drive to Franschoek. Our first stop was a very small winery called GlenWood. Given that we were there on an off-season Thursday, it wasn’t surprising that we were the only visitors. But it was nice because we got to chat with the woman running the tasting, and we were able to taste some lovely wines.

A taxi then picked us up to take us to our second tasting at Haute Cabriere. There, we were able to go on a cellar tour, followed by a tasting. It was pretty cool, except that we were joined by a group of drunk Australian travel agents who were pretty obnoxious. But after they finally left, when we expressed sympathy to the tour leader for dealing with such an obnoxious group, he thanked us by giving us another free glass of wine each.

By that point, we had about 2.5 hrs. until our dinner reservation and had originally planned to walk around “downtown” Franschoek (which is basically one street with lots of cute restaurants, galleries, shops and cafés), but it was so cold that we decided to pass the time in a really cozy café, drinking coffee/hot chocolate.

Dinner was at the Tasting Room at Le Quartier Francais, and it was fantastic! It’s a fairly small dining room, with excellent service (especially by African standards, but even by US standards). We opted for the full nine course “Surprise Menu,” and Misol added the wine pairings (I had already had too much wine at our 2 earlier tastings). All of the food was so unique and interesting, with good use of local African ingredients and cooking methods. Definitely one of the more memorable meals I’ve had in recent memory.

After our lovely meal, our private car took us back to our hotel, where Misol crashed while I packed.

When we got to the airport this morning, we almost had a problem when we discovered that our flight had been canceled. Luckily, we were just in time to make an earlier flight, so we made it to Jo’burg without issue. After buying Misol one final meal of KFC, I sent her off to catch her flight back to Maputo.

And that, Family, concludes my 28 day adventure. It was an amazing trip, filled with tons of once in a lifetime experiences. Now I have to return to my real life, where there are lots of documents waiting to be signed, emails to be checked, and messages to be returned. I can’t believe I have to be back at work in two weeks. My two-month vacation has seriously flown by!

So unfortunately I haven’t been living up to my name as I haven’t really traveled much at all, not only since I got back from south Africa, but also since my last update. I had finally decided that I was going to get my act together and get out of the house more, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out… I made one trip so far to go visit my friend Camille in Gurue and it was absolutely breath taking! We talk a lot about the beautiful beaches in moz, but this time I headed inland to the mountainous tea plantations of Zambezia province. The trip I had been dreading so much was actually quite enjoyable and I even got to buy a giant basket full of tangerines for about a buck fitty! And they were so delicious too! Camille and her new roommate annie live in a cute little house in a teacher’s compound on school campus. There were about 15 volunteers visiting that weekend and as always it was a weekend filled with really amazingly good food and a fair amount of drinking = ] the only bummer was the first night we were all there, 5 ipods, including mine, and a set of speakers got stolen. After we had all gone to bed that night someone had cut a hole in their window screen, reached in and nabbed em up off the table… it definitely put a damper on the weekend. I also realized just how much my life had revolved around that thing! It had my entire address book (speaking of which I now no longer have anyone’s address cuz recently, when I was really bored, i moved all my contacts to my ipod, so everyone email them to me again please), calendar, pictures, video clips and of course music… no more mr.aahh, angry birds, word warp, trivial pursuit and scrabble!!!! Falling asleep has been a much larger challenge without games to make my eyelids heavy and my e.p.i.c playlist to lull me to sleep… although now I may actually finish reading my 900+ page whopper ‘shantaram’. It’s a really good book, but I read and read and read and just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere! I’ve been working on it on and off for about 2-3months and I’m on page 470 or something… daunting! And that bad boy is so heavy to hold up and after like 10 min of reading my arms start falling asleep! Anyway can yall believe it’s already JUNE??? We’re about halfway through the second trimester and july’s gonna be a big month with some people coming through to visit including von’s best friend michelle and then MOMMY AND MIRAY COME!!!! I seriously seriously seriously can’t wait!

Oooh last month von and I also started English Club! It’s a very elite, invite only, group of our very best english students that don’t get the challenge and level of attention necessary during class. The group meets every Saturday and we’ve done everything from play games to paper folding to watching movies and the only rule is that you have to speak english! Oh my students also taught me this awesome new trump game! So pumped cuz it is by far the best 2person card game I have ever played and can be played with up to 8 people although at that point it’s just a hot mess. So the game started with just me and this kid Nelson so he taught me and I picked it up pretty quickly and I actually kicked his butt, but as more kids started trickling in we added them in and played in teams and every time kids came in and saw me playing they would look to nelson and ask ‘does teacher know how to play?’ and he would be like ‘I only just taught her, but oh she knows. she gets it.’ haha I felt like I was hustling them but what can I say? I’ve had lotsa practice! thanks gweon family! But they’re a great group of kids so it’s been really fun!

Also von and I started tutoring this 5-year-old cutie patootie! His family is totally loaded but he’s too young to start school and his parents just wanted him to get a jump-start on english so we see him 4 times a week. It is crazy the difference it makes to start learning a language when young though cuz I’m pretty sure he, after just 2 months, speaks better english than most of my 9th graders! He does some dang cute things like von taught him ‘I don’t know’ and he says it all the time now, and he says ‘thingers’ instead of fingers and I secretly hope he’ll make that mistake for the rest of our time together cuz it’s so so so cute!!! The parents wanted to pay us, but since we’re not allowed to ‘make money’ while we’re here, they instead bring us the most amazing snacks ever! From cookies and cakes, to green mango curry soup, we almost prefer it to cash!

So thanks to my malaria meds I’ve been having crazzzyyy dreams, and I really should start writing them down, but last night there was one where I was trying to save a talking dugong and running around trying to get him to water and instead we got chased by a crocodile and it got the poor dugong and I just barely got away. I swear I didn’t throw the dugong to the croc to save myself! But seriously… right? anyway I think I’ve been chased by crocs and sometimes snakes a few other times too which is weird cuz I still haven’t seen a crocodile in this country, or at least not in the wild as we do have 3 baby crocodiles in our ‘zoo.’ We call it central park zoo, but its just one little cement and gate structure that holds 3 baby crocs captive… it’s really kinda sad, but it’s the highlight of the Monapo tour whenever friends come to visit!

So von was gone this past weekend, she went to go help out with a conference, so I was home alone for about 5 days, and all I can say is thank GOD I don’t live alone… I almost lost my mind trying to find things to do and being alone makes you constantly THINK! I had a few things on my mind and I swear I was non-stop obsessively thinking about them and I don’t think it was very healthy… may have aged about 2 years in 5 days… no good… von don’t ever leave, ever. Ever.

Well I think that’s about it and I should have more to write in the coming months so I’ll try not to slack on the blog writing! I miss everyone SO SO SO SO much, especially my doofus of a nephew, bambo, who thinks Mozambique is filled with ‘beaks’ haha.

20 months down and just 6 more to go!

The lame panda

So since getting back to site and school in mid January, I really haven’t done a whole lot except teach. I haven’t traveled at all, only one daytrip to nampula for medical stuff, but other than that I’ve been burnin the midnight oil for 2 and a half months! So this year I’m teaching 9th grade again and I followed my 11th graders from last year up to 12th grade. In 9th grade, compared to last year, there are way fewer standout students that already know a basic level of English and are really eager to learn more. I’ve also decided that I needed to go at a much slower pace than I did last year and I started the year off with the alphabet! You wouldn’t believe how many students don’t know the order of the alphabet and also the sounds of each letter even though it’s almost exactly the same in Portuguese… yikes. Honestly, as long as they can conjugate ‘to be’ in the present and past tense perfectly I will be a proud mama. With 12th grade, I have my kids from last year and I inherited one of vonnie’s classes, and let me tell you, I got JIPPED! I didn’t have anything to compare it to last year since I only had the one class, but this year teaching two of them, I realize how BAD my kids were and are! Von’s kids are friggin angels and always want to do extra work and ask questions and don’t talk, but my kids are NEVER quite, never wanna do anything, and don’t even appreciate the awesome things I do for them like review games and prizes… the only thing I had to compare them to were my 9th graders and yeah compared to a class of 120 fifteen year olds, 70 eighteen year olds seemed like heaven! But now I know better and won’t be letting them get away with anything! So the past few weeks have been jam packed with testing and proctoring other teachers’ end of trimester tests and it is so tiring. They are pretty much constantly cheating and cheating really poorly… and it has been so hot and you’re just sweating bullets in the classrooms and having to walk around and btw aisles that I can barely squeeze through… absolutely no fun. But it’s almost over and we just have lots of grading and grade entering left to do til the end of the trimester. So right now we’re nearing the end of tempo de fome, and it literally means time of hunger, because there is hardly any food. The only things we’re able to get at the market are tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and lately cucumbers. But we’ve been doing pretty well as far as meals go, and even added some new meals to our rotation, like now I can make a banging white cream sauce for pastas, but the real highlight to my culinary feats is my pancake and omelet making skills! I can make amazing pancakes from scratch now! When I first started out they were flat and rubbery, gross, but now they’re fluffy and delicious! But there’s some real worry about the amount of rainfall this summer because it just didn’t rain enough and now all anyone is talking about is how nothing is growing in there gardens. This means they won’t be able to feed themselves, and that there won’t be much being sold in the markets, also it means we’re gonna have a hell of a time getting water again… it is no fun having to live in fear of not having enough water to cook, shower, and esp drink. So hopefully (everyone do some rain dances) it’ll rain a bunch more before the summer ends! What else… ohhhh von, megan and I have perfected drinking sorry! Haha and it’s absolutely glorious! Now if I could only get my hands on sorry spin haha = ] also our friend sam has proven that the ‘win by development card’ strategy in settlers does work! It is something that I have seen many people attempt and fail miserably at so parabens (congrats) sam! Also my mom and miray are coming out and it’s right around the corner!!! Almost all the plans are now set and I seriously can’t wait! It’s going to take some arm-twisting to get my director to sign off on my vacation days again, but hopefully since it’s my family coming here to Africa, and also to Mozambique, he’ll be more… what’s the word… pleasant? Understanding? Lenient? None of those quite fit the sentiments I feel towards him = ] ok well that’s about it for me since nothing interesting is going on in my life, but do you guys realize that assuming I get to leave in December, I only have 8 ½ months left!! WAHOOO! Home home home home home!

Teacher panda

My journey back up to monapo ended up taking a little longer than planned. So I’m up into inhambane, and I just don’t feel well… my head felt like it was detached, I was sweating profusely even though I wasn’t doing anything strenuous, and I felt super nauseous. At first it was just really bad diarrhea and vomiting to the point where I wasn’t eating and it was still continuing. And then the fevers started. I don’t think I’ve had a fever in my adult life so I didn’t really know what was going on or what to expect, but that first night I thought my body was going to either burst into flames or spontaneously combust. The next day the fever still hadn’t gone away and when we measured it, it was at about 39C which is about 102F and that was when I was feeling a little bit better. Over the next two days my temperature went back and forth from about 100-104F and the times when it got up to 104F I felt like straight death. But like all sicknesses I thought this would just pass, so I didn’t call the doctor til after about 3 days. I even thought I was getting better so I tried to travel again, but I left my friends house, and I got as far as the main road in front of her house, which is only about 20yards away, and I was already winded, sweating and then finally I threw up. I am seriously so lucky that Alexandra was around to take care of me, force feeding me oral rehydration salts and electrolyte drinks, making me cold compresses and singing really awesome songs for me. I finally called the doc who said to keep hydrated and to take antibiotics and we would see how to felt in another day or two. Well unfortunately all symptoms continued and finally the doc decided to fly me down to Maputo to check me out. So in the 4 day stretch after getting sick at alex’s, I had eaten a bowl of soup, some crackers, a banana and a piece of toast. It was definitely the sickest I had been in my adult life. So I arrive in Maputo and the doc after checking me out a little took me to the hospital so that I could get hooked up to an IV cuz I had gotten too dehydrated. So I was there for about 24 hours getting hydrated, getting shots on my butt to help me not vomit, and when I got fevers, they gave me a paracetamol drip and my fever went away almost instantaneously! That was good stuff!! They also ran tests on me to see what was going on cuz up to this point the doc was thinking maybe I had malaria, but when I took a self test it came out negative, so a few blood, urine and stool test later it turned out I had tick fever and some sort of dysentery stomach inflammation something or another. Basically it wasn’t just one thing but a few things that hit me at once and made all symptoms way way worse. And being in Maputo by myself was so friggin lonely… in a hospital alone, at the hotel alone, walking around alone. But what really sucked was that I was starting to feel better, yet my stomach was still not so that meant I still couldn’t enjoy quite possibly the only good thing Maputo has to offer… good food! I was still eating only saltines, bananas, apple juice, Gatorade and water. In the 9ish days I was in Maputo I think I drank about 15L of liquids and in all honesty that could even be an understatement! Luckily my friend Anna was in town for a few days and had her laptop with her so we got to catch up and watch some big bang theory too! Also, I mentioned the Hazels in the last blog, and they are an American family of 4 living in Maputo for work and they are amazing. They really took to PC volunteers so they let visiting PCVs crash at the house, raid their fridge, do laundry, watch cable tv and use internet! They were within walking distance of my hotel so once I started feeling well enough to walk around, after test and dr’s visits I would head over to the Hazels and hang out at their pad usually with their 2 girls, who go to a private school kinda like I did in korea so we had lots to bond over, but mostly just talking about American things we missed most! it was just nice to be around people and they made me feel so welcome and seeing all the good food they were eating, kinda made me wanna get better faster! I think it was really good motivation! Finally about 2 days before I was leaving Maputo I finally started feeling well enough to eat normal human food, while still staying away from certain things, and boy was it great! They have a BEAUIFUL dream kitchen, and just to say thanks, the girls and I baked a pineapple upside down cake and then later I made us a penne pasta bake with probably a pound of mozzarella cheese on top! Then the next night we had a picanya (this one part of the cow that melts in your mouth like butter) bbq with their neighbors and omg I think it was a small glimpse of how I’ll be feeling after living here for two years and going back to the states. After not eating for 2 weeks, this was heaven! There was this salad with another leaf kinda like arugula… I forget… and feta and tomatoes and cucumbers and chickpeas and a balsamic vinaigrette and so friggin good! And the meat… holy cow… it was just these picanya steaks salt and peppered and thrown on the grill for like a minute and then taken off and cut into pieces immediately and you just eat right off the cutting board! Still dripping juices and perfectly marbled with fat and OMG! And then there was this celery salad that was pretty much just celery and onion but sooooo goood! Anyway, food aside, the Hazel family just made me feel like I was a part of their family, which when sick, felt really really great. THANK YOU SO MUCH HAZELS! MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY! REALLY REALLY HOPE I GET TO SEE YOU SOON!! Anyway so after 10 days in maputo I was finally feeling in good enough shape to head home, so I got to fly up to nampula, stay in the city for a night, then headed back to monapo! It had been so so long since being home it was so weird and so great all at the same time. The best thing about being back is getting all my clothes washed, as I had been washing things here and there in the sink of my room, and not living out of my backpack anymore! Since being back I had a few more fever attacks with really bad chills, but it’s now mid feb and I think I’m pretty much back up to 100%! Ok I think that’s about it for now! Hope you enjoyed reading about my last 4 months! I put up all my pictures from these blogs as well so be sure to check em out on ‘the Facebook’! can you believe I only have like 10 more months? CRAZY! Miss everyone so much!

Healthy panda

So as I had mentioned before, for our summer break a bunch of us decided to visit our neighboring country South Africa. After traveling 2,500km and a few pitstops along the way, I finally made it to Maputo! It was my first time visiting our capital city since training so I was pretty excited! I was also super super excited to get to meet Von’s mom and cousin marti! They are so awesome! When I first arrived at their really swanky hotel, after jumping on von and bear huggin her for a while cuz it had been like 2 weeks since I’d seen her, I got to catch up on the fam news and hear all about their cape town/Krueger trip! The food in Maputo is something else… good pizza, real Chinese, club sandwiches?!?! It was pretty great~ I also got to go out to dinner with Colin’s parents and the Hazels(I’ll tell you more about these amazing folks later) at the Polana buffet which is like 5 star class class class, and is it sad that more than the different kinds of meats, which were delish, I was more excited to see things like broccoli and mushrooms! Omg it was so amazing! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DINNER JONES’!! Von’s fam and I also got to visit Namaacha and our host families, and even though my host mom was in Maputo for the day, just plain bad luck as we completely missed each other, I got to hang out with my host brother Eduardo all day!! He’s the greatest and he’s going to begin teaching at an elementary school next year!! It was really great, but I hope I get to go down that way again so I can see my host mom too!

So then Diana, von and I left Maputo on Christmas eve to leave for Johannesburg. We got tickets for an overnight bus that put us in joburg at 4am Christmas day. Upon arrival in joburg however, we couldn’t find a bus that would take us where we wanted to go on the schedules and had to wait until the ticketing counters opened at 8am, but there were no clear signs as to where we needed to wait and which carrier we should wait for. So we were standing in the line that I thought was right, but just past 8 I saw this lady walk by and go toward a different ticket counter and I just had this hunch that I needed to follow her so I told Diana I’d be right back and followed her to another office that she opened up and I was second in line and when I got to the front I asked her for 3 tickets to mthatha and she said the bus was already sold out and my heart just sank… but then she was like ‘oh wait a minute…. To mthatha… ok.’ And I was just like ‘ok…what…?’ and she starts telling me what time the bus is and how much the total is and I think I was too shocked to feel anything, but I got the tickets and I came out to meet von and Diana, who were so confused as to where I had run off to and why I looked so shocked, and I just held up the tickets and we just started freaking out cuz we were so happy that we got tickets! It was a friggin Christmas miracle! Unfortunately it was another overnight bus so we would be spending the next 10 hours in the Johannesburg bus terminal, but as long as we had tickets all else was A-OK! We ended up taking turns napping, eating bad terminal food, playing too many games of phase-10, and enjoying real ice cream cones! All in all it was an interesting Christmas day and the next day we finally made it to our first destination, Coffee Bay!

Coffee Bay was the most difficult place to get to, but it was worth the trip and hands down my favorite spot in SA! We stayed at Coffee Shack, which is the absolute best run backpackers I have ever been to and a backpackers that all other backpackers should strive to be even half as awesome! I won’t go into details but one of the really cool things we did here was go on this death hike on the Cliffside of coffee bay and it was tiring, exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time. But the reason why we went on this death hike, knowing very well that these could be the last steps we ever take, was because the hike would be ending with us getting to go cliff jumping! It was about a 10m jump into the ocean and it was by far the coolest thing I had ever done! I mean the scenery was absolutely breath taking and the hike there was so scary that it almost made the jump seem like the safest thing we did! Anyway I would go back there in a heartbeat especially if it also meant reuniting with the 2010 Coffee Bay Pub Crawl Crew! Our slogan was “Like we’ve been friends forever” cuz we forged this out of this world bond over 2 days with 3 other travelers and it was so much fun!

Next we travelled to Plettenberg Bay, where we spent new years eve, but we rang the new year in with a serious jump off the Bloukrans Bridge! A lot of jumping this trip! We went to Storm’s River to bungee jump off the highest jump bridge in the world! It was 218m to the rocky river under us and it was AMAZING! They took our group of about 15 across a walk way to the middle of the bridge where they have their entire business set up between the bridge where the cars go by and an arch underneath. It was also quite possibly the best party I have ever been to in my entire life! There was party music blasting and all the people who work there had the most amazing personalities that just made you feel comfortable and pumped you up for what was to come. I should also preface this story by telling you that there is a bar where pre/post jumpers, fam and friends can hang out and watch live video jump footage. So right before leaving to go across the bridge I stopped in the bar for fun and I walked in just in time to see this chick refuse to jump. She was like in tears and kept trying to back up and not jump and then finally the workers just kinda pushed her off the ledge… terrifying for her, HILARIOUS for everyone else watching in the bar cuz everyones screaming JUMP! JUMP! So then I run outside to tell the others about the crier and they all come in to watch some other jumps and we noticed that there are good jumps and bad jumps. A good jump was dependent on whether they actually took a leaping jump off the ledge or just kinda fell or got pushed off, and if they had good form. So they take you one by one and strap you into all the necessary gear and up til this point all we’re talking and thinking about is our form and how we’re gonna jump. This was key cuz it took our minds completely off what was going to happen after that form perfect jump off the platform. My turn finally came up and they bound my legs and attached all the cords and then no joke the next few steps all happened within 20seconds… they helped me to the ledge, said look and wave hello to the camera, so I gave em a big esther smile, and then they yell 5,4,3,2,1 (but not like 5mississippi,4mississippi… more like in nanoseconds) and at 1 I bend my legs a lil and then jump up and out, arms straight out superman style and in my head I’m thinking ‘OH YEAH that was a gooooood one’ and then it hits you… the music starts to fade and you’re diving head first into nothing and your stomach drops and so I started rowing my arms backward and out loud saying “OH MY GOD! WHAT DID I JUST DO! HOLY COW! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! OH MAN! WAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! THIS IS FRIGGGIN AWESOME! WOOOOOOOOOO!” and as you get to the end of your bungee you stare down at the river and trees but it’s silent except the babbling of the river and some birds chirping and it’s so peaceful and then it springs you back up and I thought it would be a lot more jarring but it was a smooth ride up and a couple times you’re completely upright and staring out past the bridge to the river mouth where it meets the ocean and it was seriously the coolest feeling and sight ever! I hear you freefall for about 7seconds and then bounce up and down for about another minute or two and then they bring you back up. The whole process from when it’s your turn to when you get back up on the bridge I think is about 5 minutes but they are the most exhilarating 5 minutes EVER!

After the jump we went to Jeffery’s Bay and relaxed, ate at a real Mexican place, had the best mint chocolate chip ice cream, shopped and even had a real South African Braai, which is just their version of a bbq. We then headed back up to Joburg but stopped for dinner in Blomfomkstein, which is where J.R.R Tolkein was born! I mean who knew he was South African and now not only does the scenery of LOTR make a lot more sense, but also S.Africans are hobbits. I mean really, LOTR just makes so much more sense now… I can’t get into it, but man! Haha so we couldn’t agree on a place to eat because some people, AHEM mike and kelly, didn’t want mcdonalds, and we didn’t really see anything else, but there was a mall there so we decided to food court it so everyone could choose their own cuisine. Well there was also a movie theatre there and I just about peed my pants cuz I was so excited to see a movie theatre so I spent the next hour trying to convince everyone that we had time for a movie, and being the super persuasive person that I am, got everyone on board and we saw Due Date! The next morning we finally made it to joburg and we couldn’t get a bus out that day so we stayed one last night in South Africa, but I got to cook everyone Migum’s famous chicken, spinach and tomato cream sauce pasta! It was so yummmm!

Anyway so that’s the South Africa trip! Sorry it was long, but it was an eventful trip and I even cut out half of it! a few other notable things from the trip: I got to skype with my family a few times which was awesome! I love South African gas stations! I had about 20 chicken, steak, mushroom, spinach and feta pies during my trip… they are delicious. And even though we were only there for about 10 days we even got to have pies from the place where they supposedly have the BEST pies in all of South Africa. I was hooked = ]

traveled panda

So somehow I made a name for myself here in Mozambique as the ultimate party planner and here’s the story of how that came to be. It all started when vonnie and I were going out to visit our friend michelle on Ilha. Normally we can find a ride that’s going all the way onto the island, but this time they dropped us off right before the bridge going across, which meant we had to take a chapa across the bridge. Normally this would have been annoying, but it all changed when we stepped into the pimpest chapa in Mozambique! It looked like any other chapa from the outside, but this was no ordinary chapa. When we got in, my jaw dropped at the sight of the wine colored plush velour couch seats! I was as giddy as a PCV getting their first care package, and when we sat down every muscle in my body relaxed as I melted into the seat. The chapa also had a raised roof and surround sound speakers that were blasting JAMS! When we reached our destination, what I really wanted to ask was how much would the driver sell the chapa to me for, but I settled for his phone number cuz we had the brilliant idea to throw a party on ilha and hire him to be our private party chapa! We were looking for any and all excuses to throw a party and realized that our good friend Brian would be turning into a grandpa in December and also that our ex-roomie Dillon was going to be leaving so we decided to convince all our friends to come up for a ‘Happy Birthday Brian and Farewell Dillon’ party! Over the last year we had been introduced to a great little backpackers on Ilha called Ruby’s that is the coolest place and because of how many people we were going to have, I decided to just rent the entire place out for that weekend! Anyway so the big weekend was fast approaching and I had made just about all plans and reservations except one… the chapa. I had called the driver about a 100 times in the few weeks before the big weekend and I don’t know if his number changed or whatever, but he never answered… needless to say I was crushed and almost, almost cancelled the entire party! I mean the whole thing was planned around the party chapa and not being able to book it was a bad omen in my mind… but with a lot of reassuring, I continued with the planning. Finally the highly anticipated weekend had arrived and friends from all over began trickling into Nampula. We spent only a day in monapo before leaving for ilha as our house is not quite equipped to cater to 15 guests! The trip out to ilha ended up working out better than ever cuz brian sat in the front cab of the open back truck while the rest of us planned out just how we were going to Roast him for his birthday! The rest of the weekend on ilha was great! They have a fully stocked kitchen there so we cooked and ate some really good food, including brian’s favorite, homemade lasagna, and had some wild nights on Ruby’s gorgeous rooftop! In true Dillon fashion, there was lots of straight bottle drinking and raging dance parties to really give her a good send-off! Oh dill… I miss you so much already… The roast for brian’s birthday was HILARIOUS, and I was hoping to be able to put up some of what we said on here, but it’s been a while now and I don’t remember… but there was a lot of talk about his pickiness with food, his sweating, and his love for floppy disks = ] After ilha everyone needed a little r&r so we sailed to chocas, a beautiful beach across the water, and kicked it at the very deserted white sand blue water beaches of carushca. We rented out a giant bungalow and played games, listened to music and read in hammocks and of course floated in the very salty Indian ocean. There’s no kitchen there so we, especially me, didn’t have to worry about who was cooking what meal! Everyone loved it so much that we even ended up staying another day so that everyone would be fully recuperated! It was hands down one of the greatest most E.P.I.C. (another special shout out E.sther and P.ete I.ncredible C.ompanions for life!) weekends of my life and it will definitely be talked about for years to come! I may even be able to get more people to come visit up north! Yeah you heard me you lazy southern moz slackers that never come up north!

Ultimate planner panda

So I invited myself to Gorongosa to spend Thanksgiving with the Mills’. Jordan’s parents were going to be visiting so I wanted to meet them and I def wasn’t about to spend it alone in Monapo, so I made the long journey down! Sidenote: I feel that I may need to clarify. When I say brian and jordan, I mean the mills’, the married couple that has oh so graciously taken me in = ] they’re pretty awe… I mean ok… (I know they, along with their friends and family members, read my blog and I don’t want anyone’s head getting bigger… Oregonians…) anyway so on the journey down I had been talking to brian and he said their power had been out, but we just thought it was from the weather and we kinda just assumed/hoped it would be back before the big day arrived. Jordan’s poor parents got the real moz experience sans energy which means no fans and romantic candle lit dinners! Luckily the weather was pretty overcast and not blazing hot, but still November in Africa is still summer… come Wednesday evening, the electricity still isn’t back so we cook an entire fiesta night dinner on two charcoal grills! Mexican rice, chips, salsa, queso dip, beans and dude it was friggin awesome! But if we thought that took long and it was a lot of work, we were in for a surprise! By Thursday morning we had just accepted the fact that the electricity would not be coming on and at 7am we started cooking! Peeling potatoes, boiling pumpkin, rolling out biscuit and pie dough, and most importantly, getting the charcoal grills going! We bought a giant bag of charcoal and a few extra pots to make a dutch oven and to cook in, and the boys went to go pick up the turkey… the very alive turkey! I guess you’re supposed to feed it alcohol so that it’s not so crazy when you kill it, but apparently our turkey wasn’t so thirsty cuz it wouldn’t drink the wine, although personally I think the turkey just has good taste and knows really bad Mozambican wine when it sees it, so the killing process was a little more hectic, but tikha, the mills’ ‘very excited over a giant bird‘ dog, didn’t help either. After the kill, that left 4 guys covered in splatters of the turkey’s blood, and tikha ripping out most of the turkey’s feathers, colin and espanhol tackled the rest of the defeathering and degutting of the turkey… it was not a pretty site. Well once the turkey was clean, since our dutch oven wouldn’t be big enough to cook the entire bird, we cut it into parts and marinated it and set it aside to get grilled. 13 hours, a lot of beer, and half a sack of charcoal later, it was pitch black dark with the romantic candlelit votive, and we ended up with regular and pumpkin biscuits, garlic mashed potatoes, a green bean and bacon casserole, stuffing, fruit salad, pumpkin and apple pie, turkey and gravy, all cooked on just 2 little charcoal grills! We stuffed our faces that night and I got to have delicious pumpkin pie for the next 4 meals! It was probably one of the most hard core peace corps experiences I have had, but it was a friggin blast and it definitely made me realize how thankful I am to be here and to have had the pleasure of sharing these experiences with some of the most amazing people I have ever met! I will also never be complaining about cooking another thanksgiving dinner where there are ovens, sinks and stoves, but I’m also very thankful for all the stores that sell pre-packaged thanksgiving meals! Oh glorious ralph’s thanksgiving box… how I miss thee = ]

Also a special shout out to my new best friend, pete! He’s the cyclist doing the ‘against malaria’ cycle I talked about last time and anyway he had made it into Malawi, but for some odd reason ahem alex ahem, came back to visit and spent thanksgiving with us in moz! Anyway one thing led to another and we became best friends forever and because that wasn’t enough he’s also my second best friend as well. Really sorry to all those out there who wanted those position, but he’s just really awesome and he has a british accent! I mean how can you beat that? Haha MISS YOU PETE! COME BACKKKKKKKK! Are you in Rwanda now?

Stuffed panda

So after giving out last tests of the year and turning grades in, we travelled to Rio Savane in the central region of Moz to celebrate Halloween and more importantly Vonnie and Dov’s birthdays! While it was unbelievably fun it was also a logistical nightmare as our original group of 5 turned into 17! Everyone and their mom (literally, as dov’s mom and step dad were visiting) wanted to join in on the fun that was DoVon-a-pallooza and I guess I don’t blame them cuz let’s face it we’re awesome! So after once again making it to Gorongosa in one day, (1000km in less than 24 hours? Impressive, we know) we ate dinner that Brian, he’s the vonnie of the mills duo, prepared! He made really delicious corn bread from scratch! I don’t think I can even do that! We were beat so it was food and showers then bed for us cuz we would need to get up early the next day to finish our journey to Rio Savane. We made pretty good time cuz we got some great rides and did a little last minute food shopping in Beira before finally making it to our destination. We had to boat across a narrow river to get to a small peninsula with the ocean on one side and river on the other. It was absolutely beautiful and the facilities were pretty great too. we were piled into a bungalow that had a bathroom and kitchen, but the one thing that no one who had been there before nor the owners whom I made reservations with bothered to tell me was that they don’t have running electricity and they only turn their generator on from 6pm to 9pm… charging phones, ipods, speakers were a nightmare and sleeping sans fans was not fun as we’ve now fully entered into the HOT summer season. But nonetheless it was great to be with everyone and it was great to be able to celebrate DoVon in true Halloween glory. Von was dressed as an MC Hammer “Can’t Touch This” back up dancer, and I found a ‘dracula’ made for Halloween cape at the market and so went as a vampire. We enjoyed lots of good food thanks to Dov’s mom and mike even taught us how to ‘dougie.’ Actually that’s a lie as we still have no idea what the ‘dougie’ is, but we pretended to have learned. We made it back, tired but in one piece, then had a week of “preparing grades.” Basically we read grades as another teacher wrote them down on the master grade grid, which is just archaic but how it’s done here. This weekend we went to Ilha again to party with Michelle one last time cuz she has finished her service and is leaving… so we hit up all her favorite places to eat her favorite foods and say bye to all her friends and also relax poolside one last time. She had become one of our closest friends here and since she lived so close to us we saw her more often these past few months so we’re really really really sad to be losing her… BYEEEEEE MOOOOCHHHEEELLLLLAAAAAAA!!!! SEEEE YOUUU IN A YEAR!!!! we’ll definitely be seeing more of her since she’s most likely be in SD when we get back~ Also goodbye to all the other Moz13ers! The last of them will be trickling out til the first weekend of December… EAT LOTS AND LOTS OF GOOD FOOD FOR US AND TAKE LOTSA HOT SHOWERS!!

For the next two weeks we will be proctoring national exams for 10th and 12th grade students, which basically means staring into space for 5 hours a day. We’ll probably have to grade some too eventually, but they haven’t asked yet…

Well that’s about it for now but let me fill you in on a few trips coming up!! Both von and megan are abandoning me for thanksgiving cuz they’re going down to the Moz15 training, so I’m gonna make another trip down to gorongosa so spend thanksgiving with the Mills and to meet jordan’s parents!! And then I’m gonna see Dave Bae and a few other 13ers on their last weekend before leaving moz as well and also hang out with Dave’s Korean friends that live in Chimoio! I guess there are a group of Korean Ahjussi’s that have a weave/wig factory and dave hung out with them a few times and got fed samgyupsal and kimchi! HELLLLLLO!!!! Clearly I must meet them and get in on some of that action! The only thing that would make that more amazing would be some ggettnip and soju! Mmmmmmmmm… haha and then back home for some more national exam proctoring and then we’re going to Ilha to celebrate Brian’s birthday and dillon’s departure… that’s right, our third roomie is leaving us… she had already done a little over a year in Mauritania before they got pulled out and she joined our crew, but she’s put in her second year and feels that it’s her time to go back to civilization as well, so she’ll be leaving us mid December… pretty much everyone we love in the north is leaving us and we are not very happy about it! CUSTODIO! IF YOU DON’T SEND US SOME AWESOME 15ers YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM US!!! We have definitely gotten SHAFTED these last few months… after ilha I’ll be heading down south to meet colin and mike’s families and then to Maputo to meet Von’s mom and cousin!!! I’m so so so excited! This also means I get to go to Namaacha to see my host family as well! I’ve already called and told them that I’m coming down and my Mae and brother Eduardo are soooo excited! As am I! It’ll be such a refreshing change to be able to communicate in more proficient Portuguese! And then me, von, mike, Kelly and maybe a few others will be travelling to South Africa to hit up a few malls, eat some mcdonalds and take some real showers for a few days! So I’ll try to update once more before all the travelling begins, but if I don’t update for a while just know that I’ll update soon with AWESOME adventure stories! Miss everyone so so so much and HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON!

Eat lotsa yummy holiday food for me!!!

est

So teacher’s day was interesting to say the least. It was kinda like harry potter movies 5 and 6. You wait soooooo long for them and the build up is sooooooooo hyped, and then the day finally comes and it’s just like WAHHHHH WAHHHHHHHHH… so our school has been talking about the big teacher’s day celebration since 1st trimester. How much we had to pay, what we wanted the shirts to look like, where we wanted to go, what we wanted to eat, can you bring family yaddhi friggin yaddha. So its been talked about for so long and at great length during every one of our teachers meetings so it was pretty hyped up and we had to pay 1000mts ($30) which is a lot for us and for our fellow colleagues with these grand promises of how amazing it was going to be. Well the big day comes around and we were told to be at our school by 7am. We got there at 7am sharp and there’s only one other teacher there. Finally by 8am most teachers are there and now we’re supposed to go to the Teacher’s Union office for a short ceremony. The walk there was about 5 min and then another 10minutes for the short ceremony. Then we had to wait around til 9am to walk to the praca for the town ceremony. Well we get there and we have to wait til the administrator gets there and that doesn’t happen til about 9:45. Finally the ceremony ends and it is HOT and we finally pile into our chapas that will take us to the beach. Mind you until yesterday we thought that today was the main event and all eating/drinking was going to take place today… not so much. We so we’re on our way and all the teachers minus maybe 4 of us, have started drinking… beers, gin, whisky, pretty much whatever they could get there hands on before leaving and conveniently the chapa picked us up in front of the town liquor store. It was like being with a bunch of teenagers who were let loose and drinking for the first time in their lives except they can take it down like WOAH. So it’s rowdy and they said we (von and i) had to come up with our chapa’s team name so von came up with team “SAY WHHAAAAAAT?” and we taught it to them just saying it with sooo much attitude and it just stuck... So that every 4 minutes someone would scream ‘1, 2, 3’ and everyone would yell out “SAYYY WHAAAAAAAAAAA?” about 5 times in a row and then wait another 5min and do it allllll over again. It was also yelled every time we passed a car, or the other chapa. We were also stopping every 30 minutes to restock their quickly diminishing booze supply. Anyway we FINALLY make it to the beach and that was a disaster and a half cuz no one knew where exactly we were supposed to go, but we finally make it to our destination and everyone runs out to the beach. Oh yeah also Mozambicans don’t really understand the concept of swimwear. So out of everyone who went, there were like 5 girls and 30 boys. Well almost all the men just wore their whitey tighty undies. It was funny cuz even the one teacher who I was like ‘oh he has some legit board shorts’ took em off as soon as we got there and jumped in with just his undies. All of this might have been more enjoyable or at least tolerable had we been drunk, but alas… it was mostly painful. So we swam a little too and bumped the volleyball around a lil before it busted its gut and died, and then we stuffed ourselves silly with our packed lunches of fried rice, grilled chicken, salad and fries before taking one last dip, drying off then comin back. It was a really really really long day and I was completely drained and all I wanted was to get home and sleep, but mind you this was a Tuesday and we had to get ready for school the next day… awesome. So that was teacher’s day celebration #1. The second came on Saturday. The notice about the event said it would start at 7pm at the ‘club,’ which basically looks like a middle school gym, but another teacher tells us not to show til 8pm cuz it would probably start late. So we get there around 8 and of course it hasn’t started so we go to the bar next door to grab a few beers. 9pm rolls around and we make our way back to the club and still not showing signs of life… so we wait around inside and finally at 9:30 they call our names one by one and the event begins! So our director and one other pedagogical director don’t show up and so the MC for the night says a few words then introduces the other two ped directors and also the administrator who then says a few words and then it’s time to eat! By the time we get our food and they wash our hands it’s 11pm and we get pretty much the same packed dinner of fried rice, grilled chicken, salad and fries, but this time we also have to eat sans utensil haha. There’s also no table and we’re balancing our tray on our knees, beer in one hand and trying to pull chicken off the bone with the other… it was super awkward and just the set up of the event was like a middle school dance in the gym. When we’re done eating they clean up and then it’s time to dance. Seriously though world’s worst DJ in the history of DJing… Mozambicans I feel will generally dance to anything and even they were complaining that it wasn’t good dance music. And he starts with slow dance songs and of course everyone wants to see the foreigners up dancing so everyone tries to get us to go up and we’re like woah woah no thank you, but after a while we couldn’t refuse any longer and danced… also awkward. Finally some better dance music comes on and we boogie and I tried to request von’s new favorite song ‘Amazing’ by Inna, but they didn’t have it… it’s like this super hyped club song that Mozambicans LOVE so it was pretty much a crime that this DJ didn’t have it… that pretty much put us all in a spiral of disappointment and set the mood for the rest of the night. However the night was redeemed for vonnie when she was introduced to the love of her life. His name is ‘ray’ and he is a year old and he was the chubbiest happiest cutest little baby ever! Haha he’s the son of one of the teachers we like more and so megan and I lost von to baby ‘ray’ for the rest of the night. Anyway I was already tired before the party even started, so by the end of it at like 1:30am, I was BEAT. I think I woulda had more fun if I just wasn’t so friggin tired! Oh yeah also, each person was supposed to get 10 beers, and I mean really who drinks 10 beers at a formal teacher function with family, so between the three of us we had 6 and brought 14 beers back home with us. We’re set for the next month I’d say! So this week is trimester finals, and then next week is our LAST WEEK OF SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!! We just have to get a grades in and then we’re DONE! DONE DONE DONE!!! Well almost… we may have to proctor some national exams but other than that we’re done!!! Also von’s birthday is coming up so I gotta get on getting her the bestest birthday present ever! Slightly limiting here in moz but I’m working on it. Also her birthday is on Halloween so we’re gonna have an awesome costume party so we’ve been on the prowl for some gems to get dressed up in, however I don’t think anything will beat my chun-li outfit from last year! okok i think that’s about it from me today, but more to come soon! miss everyone so much!

e-money

Another post after only 2 weeks! I know I know I’m pretty awesome. I’ve recently taken up telling slash reminding everyone just how awesome I am and I’ve found it surprisingly therapeutic! I’m not exactly sure why but yeah ok moving on… just after writing my last blog, PC put on an English Theater competition for the northern region. Basically volunteers who wanted could create groups at their schools or in their communities to prepare a 15minute skit on subjects like HIV/AIDS prevention, corruption in schools and communities, gender equality etc. Von and I decided that we didn’t actually want to have groups this year, but the competition was taking place in Carapira, dillon’s site which is only 10min away from us, so we decided to help run the event. We were assistants to the almighty coordinator Imani and co-coordinator Gina, and made posters, signed certificates, and pretty much flawlessly ran the reception table as we gave out name tags, water, meal vouchers and information on the event. There were 12 participating groups and the whole event was pretty long, but it was really fun! The winning group was SO good, oh man but they deserved it cuz we heard that they, on their own, wanted to practice almost every day! Most other volunteers had to force their kids to meet even once a week and it showed… Haha I also offered extra credit to my students if they attended the event and a makeup test grade if they wrote an essay about it, and I had 12 kids show up and they ALL wrote an essay!!! AND no one cheated! It was great!!! Some of them left much to be desired, but man some of them were so great! I mean lotsa vocab and grammatical mistakes, but still they answered the questions so well!! I was so proud! I had been stressing alllll year long how important it is to think for themselves and to not cheat and it finally paid off on the years very last writing assignment… figures they would need an entire year to learn a lesson… But yeah it was so much fun and great to see other volunteers and their hard work and then as a reward we took a little trip to Nacala. That’s the beach where von and I took all those jumping pictures on the beach! Haha so yeah we went back with a few other people and stayed at the cutest lil backpackers that has a bunch of bungalows for couples and then one dorm that has 6 beds. We occupied 4 of the beds and then there were 2 other South African dudes staying there for work. So we walked down to their private-esque beach and went snorkeling, played scrabble (I won of course!) and ate delish burgers and bacon egg sandwiches! BACON!!!!! YUUUMMMMMMM!!!! It was a super great relaxing weekend and on the return trip I got to explain the ins and outs of Amazing Race to Diana and Michelle, and man do I love that show! I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY EXPLICITLY REJECT PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS! I honestly think they should do an “Amazing Race: RPCV” season! Oh man seriously! Will someone help me pitch that to CBS?

Last weekend we went out to Ilha again which has become our ‘guilty pleasure escape from Mozambique weekend getaway’ spot and well Michelle, the PCV that lives in Ilha is leaving in like 3 weeks so we’re trying to get all the Michelle time we can! Anyway we went to go eat dinner at this local bar where the owner LOVES michelle and always hooks her up with delish food. Anyway the place was packed and we were sitting right by a window that had mosquito netting on it. Well while we were eating, there were all these little kids on the other side of the window whispering ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘give me food,’ just the usual dinner chatter, and von noticed one kid had his thumb and index finger poked through two little holes, but didn’t think much of it and we continued eating. Well right at the end of our meal we were talking and getting ready to leave and out of nowhere michelle feels something hit her arm. She also didn’t think much of it but then a lady at another table screams ‘your phone!’ Well the littler kid had apparently been working on those two holes all night and kept making them bigger and eventually made one big hole, stuck his arm through and grabbed michelle’s phone right off the table and went running! We’re all freaking out, but all the patrons at the bar get up and go outside and one guy just goes off sprinting to where the kid went! I had just gotten a phone call from Brian so I walk outside too to talk to him and I’m giving him the play by play and I feel like an eye-witness reporter telling him what’s happening during a break in and vonnie and one other woman are the only two people left inside the bar and everyone else is standing outside. Well like 3 minutes later michelle and Andrew start walking back towards the bar surrounded by the other patrons and other little kids and I go back inside and that one guy got michelle’s phone back!! It was CRAZY! The biggest 5minute thrill! Michelle was so bummed that she wouldn’t have a phone for her last 3 weeks, but man it was like the greatest send-off she could have gotten with a bar full of drunk Mozambicans all coming to her aid to help get her phone back! It was really really great. We’re usually always complaining about how passive many Mozambicans can be sometimes when it comes to helping ‘foreigners,’ but maybe it’s cuz they know michelle and feel like she is a part of their family and they needed to protect her, but it was just super awesome to see that kind of support from the community! And then we ended the weekend with the most amazing lunch ever everrrrr! It was hands down the best meal I had eaten in Mozambique and it woulda been good for anywhere! It was the basil tuna steak, which was basically a giant slab of tuna that was marinated in olive oil, basil and garlic and then we asked them to just lightly, very very lightly sear it so that it would be like rare rare and it was PERFECT! The tuna first off was so fresh and the marinade was delish and it was cooked to perfection where the majority was still red and it came with fries and a small salad and OMG it was soooooo gooooood! It was the perfect sushi replacement for the time being and it only costed $8.50!!!

Ok so I think I’m gonna end it there for now because I have a good two part story about Teacher’s Day coming up after this weekend!

Love,

Panda

I realize that I’m hitting a few mile markers in my life. I have officially lived a quarter of a century, as von loved to remind me every hour on the hour of my birthday, and Moz 14 has officially been in Mozambique for 1 whole year! I can’t believe it was already a year ago that I had the most amazing send-off party at scott and nicole’s and then I was sitting in my room at my host family’s house in namaacha thinking ‘what the heck have I gotten myself into?’ but here I am a year later, still alive and well! So anyway I just wanted to take a few moments to reflect on just how unbelievably blessed I am. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity to be a PCV in an unbelievably beautiful country like Mozambique. Really really blessed to have the most amazing friends back home and to be surrounded by great new friends here in Mozambique, where in tough times you can seem all alone. Also, I have the best roomie in the history of PC, and maybe in life =). And last but not least, I am seriously blessed to have such a supportive family that loves me day in and day out and is genuinely proud of me! Life here seems to be amplified somehow where the highs reach new heights and the lows go into the deepest abyss, and when I wrote my last entry I was probably at the lowest I’ve ever felt. But it’s a good thing it came right before my birthday cuz nothing short of one of the greatest birthday months ever could have pulled me out of that funk. Ok ok enough with the mushy babble!

SEPTEMBER WAS AMAZING!

Yeah we had the rocky start due to the rioting in Mozambique, which I know many of you had read about and were worried, but they were mainly confined to the major cities and mainly just Maputo at that. Most PCVs live in smaller towns so we didn’t even hear much about it, but for safety reasons we were all put on house arrest and everyone was kept safe, just a little stir crazy. But the house arrest was lifted just in time for the birthday weekend so we made our way out to Ilha de Mozambique! It was a girls night out on the island and it was soooo much fun! We ate lotsa good food, meat lasagna being one of them mmmmmm, and went to the beach, went on an Ilha pub crawl, and spent a lazy Sunday pool side! We even had a sunset yoga session with Michelle, at her friend’s beach house that looks like it came straight out of a crate and barrel catalogue, on their rooftop terrace and right as the session began we saw a whale! It was great cuz that morning we were going to go whale watching, but it was too windy so we canceled, but we got to see one anyway!! It was seriously one of the most picturesque snapshots that’ll I’ll always remember! And then on my actual birthday we were off to Nampula city, which is usually my least favorite place in the world, but Von had a dr’s appointment so we went in to at least get a good meal and turns out her appointment got pushed back so PC put her up at Hotel Millenio so for lunch we had Cajo’s delicious burgers and for dinner we had pizza, chicken tikka masala and naan!!! And we got to take hot showers and sleep in an air-conditioned room! What more could I have possibly asked for?? It was pretty great and then the next day we headed to Dillon’s site and she cooked up a Peruvian dish, Lomo Saltado(?), which was UNREAL, and for dessert, RED VELVET CAKE with homemade cream cheese frosting!!! Oh man oh man it was friggin so delish!!

The following weekend we went to Ribaue to visit Scott and Greg. Their site is about 6 hours southwest of us and we got to take the train there! I’ve realized that I haven’t been writing in much detail of the things we do here, so I’ve decided to pick one thing Mozambican in each blog and write as much detail as I can about the experience! So the train is this entry’s highlight and boy was it something. First off you can only buy train tickets one day in advance and starting at like 4pm. So our friend got there at like 4:15 and there were only 2 tickets in the 2nd class cabin, ~$3, available and the rest were 3rd class, ~$1.5, also there’s no first class so why not just call it 1st and 2nd class? Anyway so then we get to the train station the next morning at 4am, but the line to get on the train was already outrageous, cuz you don’t get an assigned seat so it’s first come first serve, but it’s completely chaotic to the point where if you’re not paying attention and the line starts moving in front of you, another person has the right to cut you in line… makes sense yeah? I saw this happen at least 6 times and everyone else just laughs. Well then we board the train and it leaves right at 5am, which is unheard of here, and since we weren’t there early enough to get seats, we waited til the dining cart opened and quickly snagged a table. We had yummy egg sandwiches, fried egg on a roll with ketchup and mayo, and played games and talked til we arrived in Ribaue. The scenery was beautiful and looking out the window doesn’t make you dizzy cuz the train only goes about 25mph haha. So this technically could be an hour trip with an Amtrak train, but alas it took us about 4 hours! After getting off the train we then had to get on an open back truck to get to their site about 15minutes away. As soon as we got there it was a non stop party with about 15 PCVs there and scott made us AMAZING coconut banana pancakes, like seriously restaurant quality fluffy delicious pancakes, and chilli with sweet potatoes for dinner. We started early with the Agua do Papa, which translates to ‘water of the fathers’ but it’s bubble gum flavored sugar cane alcohol gloriousness =). The next day, after not enough sleep, it was back home on the train, but this time it was not the most pleasant experience cuz the train was jam packed and we were basically standing in the aisles of the dining cart dying of heat and dehydration, but it was a really really good time and I’m glad I got to experience the Mozambican train system and see more sites!

This past weekend we traveled to Gorongosa once again to surprise Jordan on her birthday! I ended up ruining the surprise cuz I accidentally texted her something that I meant to text her husband brian, but she was just as excited! We actually made it allllllll the way down to Gorongosa in 1 day!!!! Which is a HUGE HUGE deal for us cuz we didn’t think it could be done, but we just got some really awesome hitchhikes and booked it there! There ended up being like 30 people coming and going that entire weekend, mainly PCVs but there were also some friends and then 2 cyclist doing a 8000km cycle up east Africa for a foundation called Against Malaria! Tom and Pete were super cool and they got super lucky to meet all the Moz PCVs during their trip through Moz cuz clearly we’re a good time! Haha GOOD LUCK BOYS!! So it was lotsa good times swimming, playing games, dancing, drinking 30 cases of beer and tipo tinto ‘ star of the orient rhum’, and lots and lotsa really really good food! Donna and luis whipped up a Mexican feast of chilaquiles and homemade salsa, Alice made us chicken and dumplings, we let Jordan cook one breakfast only cuz I was super selfish and wanted her bagels, Kendra made meat sauce spaghetti and choc chip cookies, Alexandra made mini lemon cupcakes with lemon coconut buttercream frosting, and I took the reigns on the rest of the weekend cooking a sausage carril(sauce) with rice, chicken peanut noodles, tuna egg salad sandwiches, sausage homestyle fries, and a vanilla birthday cake for Jordan with vanilla buttercream frosting! Nicole I woulda made you so so proud!

So now we're back in monapo and i even had a birthday package waiting for me from Migum and Bambo (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!), and we're trying really hard not to travel until the end of the school year, but we have about 1 more month of classes left and then we have about 2 months off to travel and recoup and not see students yelling "HELLLLLO TEACHHHHAAAA!" I'm really going to try harder to blog more often so keep checking!

Also a big big shoutout to the new MOZ15 group that just got in yesterday! Esp PAT!!!! YAYYY you're finally here!! can't wait to see you!!! We're all so pumped to meet yall and to have to fresh blood in our PCMOZ family!

ok folks that's it for me today!

miss everyone so much!!

panda

So I was too busy eating, drinking and sleeping to post from spain, but go to facebook to see the three photo albums we put up with pictures from Barcelona and San Sebastian. I mean it’s basically food porn for the hungry soul, which in our case we’re all always hungry, but if these pictures don’t convince you that spain is awesome, I don’t know if we can be friends… = ) my return trip was interesting to say the least and we’ll just leave it at it having been a very very long, tiring and upsetting journey… but I made it back in one piece, with no luggage missing, and was reunited with von, which is really all that matters! Other than being back with von though nothing else has really gone according to plan. School has started up again and von was busy with the last stage of science fair, which was phenomenal, and we got to experience nampula in a whole new light where we got to hang out with friends we haven’t seen in a while and eat good food and take hot showers! Oh yeah that was another thing about spain… I think I averaged 2.5 showers while I was there! Days 1-5 I was taking like 3 showers a day, then I eased up a little in the middle, but towards the end when I realized I wouldn’t be able to take hot showers for a while again I was back to 3 showers a day~ haha it was amazing! seriously though, do not EVER take a hot running water shower for granted… NEVER! EVER! So then some more evil things happened when we were trying to come home from nampula and then we got some more bad news about one of our conferences getting cancelled… yeah sorry to sound so whiney but it’s just been a total bummer these past few weeks. and service has sucked so I haven’t really been able to talk to my family and I finally got through and talked to my dad for a little bit but the connection wasn’t great and I couldn’t hear him that well and my mom wasn’t even there so I didn’t get to talk to him… WAH WAH WAH. Dang I’m sorry haha ok but there’s more bad news! Haha so we’ve finally crossed into a very very special month, SEPTEMBER, and you know what that means, BIRTHDAY MONTH! Haha ps happy birthday nick and donna!! I love and miss yall so much! Hope yall had amazing amazing days! well so there are tons of volunteers with September birthdays as well so we had travel plans basically every weekend for different birthday celebrations but we already hit our first road block not being able to travel this weekend due to ‘complications.’ So we’re trying to make the most of it at home, but hopefully we’ll be able to travel by next weekend cuz that’s the important one! 25!!! HOLY COW! Quarter of a century! Insanity… but yeah we were gonna head to the beach for the weekend to celebrate my oldness so keep your fingers crossed cuz if that doesn’t happen either I’ll be really truly sad and depressed and will require mass amounts of booze to drown my sorrows! So yeah I probably shouldn’t have written this blog right now seeing as I’m the bluest I’ve every been in life, but wanted to get something on the blogosphere so yall would know that I was atleast still alive! Miss everyone so much it hurts!

E

Long time no update and I am soooooo very sorry! School has been busy with testing and then we were on break so von and I took a little vacay to visit people in other parts of Mozambique! Some highlights from our trip…

- 1 - we went to gorongosa to visit the mills who are the loves of my PC life, and while there, one of the days we went on a hike to see a waterfall and basically hiked and waded through rocky streams and while I was channeling my inner ‘bear’ from man vs wild, I’ve never felt so bad@$$ in my life! It was so cool! And the waterfall was beautiful! When we got to the spot, there were basically 3 different small waterfalls all falling into one pool~ we couldn’t take cameras cuz we were waist deep in water, but man it was gorgeous and just such a fun little adventure!

- 2 - The two LONG LONG LONG bus trips we were on could not be more opposite… the first was from nampula to quelimane. We got on the bus at 4 am and it looks like a normal greyhound bus but instead of 2 seats/aisle/2seats, there are 2, aisle, and then 3 seats! The seats are tiny and they just jam you in there! Luckily we got tickets the day before so we had seats but then there are people jammed into the isles too so then you have people pretty much sitting on you through the trip. and of course there’s no air conditioning and the windows that are level with you don’t open and only the windows up top do and that air doesn’t come down… so til about 8am we were ok cuz it wasn’t that hot, but once that sun started getting hotter we were baking inside that bus! Ughhhh it was TORTURE! And it made stops everywhere! To let people off, to let people on, stops for bathrooms, stops to buy random produce on the side of the road… So that was a nice little 13ish hour bus ride to Quelimane. Our bus ride back on the other hand was on a luxury bus called the TCO from Beira to Nampula. This thing was AMAZING! there was air conditioning, snacks, a bathroom and minimal stops! We were on that bus for about 17 hours but it was totally worth it. on the other bus this same trip woulda taken about 30 hours so you get the idea!

- 3 - also the phone/internet has been down for the past month or so… the story that I got is that a boat was pulling an anchor and tripped over fiber optic lines that were under the ocean and took out all tele-communication for pretty much the entire country for a month… my family was PISSSSSSSSED that they hadn’t heard from me or could get through to me when they knew I was on a trip… yikes! I’m still apologizing to them about that! But during this time of no communication, my sister sold my vespa (BYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE ROAR-EE!!!! I’LL LOVE AND MISS YOU FOREVER!!!!), my nephew turned 5 (he’s so big! And I made him the most amazing pop-up card which I believe has also whirl winded into us starting our own pop-up card business), my dad got a new job (YAY ABBA! I’m SO PROUD OF YOU!!!), and all Barcelona trip plans have been finalized! More on that later!!

So now we’re back at site and coming off travel highs and trying to get back into the swing of school… it’s difficult… vacation was so fun to just be around lots of people that we love again! The first couple days back and vonnie was at school I had no idea what to do with myself… I would twirl my thumbs and sit waiting for her to come back home! Anyway last weekend we were finally able to go into the city and check our mail and oh was it a glorious day! Von and I both got 3 packages each!!! We were barely able to bring it all back home with us, but we got an awesome boleia(free ride/hitch hike) back home so it was cake! Mir sent me a bunch of stuff that I really needed like a nalgene cover, lovingly dubbed the space suit, a bike seat cover cuz rumors had it you couldn’t walk for a week if you just rode ours… yikes, and other amazing stuff like 3 boxes of girl scout cookies!!!! I also got a package from nicole, scott and brandye!!! It was AMAZING! they sent all sorts of spices and baking necessities (which are gonna be key once we get our toaster oven!), and goodies like chex-mix (already gone), marshmallows (half gone with a few cups of hot chocolate), and yummy candy galore! And then I finally finally got christe’s package from back in February! We were starting to think it was lost forever, but it made it here and I think I gobbled down the box of candy while I was looking through the rest of the box! Reece’s eggs! MMMMMMM! Thank you thank you thank you so much guys! Nothing could have given us a better pick me up after being back at school!

However, I am sad and elated to announce that our favorite care package item did not come from one of my boxes, but from a package from von’s mom! I know we’ve talked LOTS about peter pettigrew, our rat, and how much turmoil it has put us through as we have lost many a good American/Korean/local food items to him… just recently he chewed through two packages of gim (Korean seaweed paper) that my mom sent me and I cried… it was really sad… anyway right before leaving on our trip we also attempted to get a cat to help us get rid of the darn thing, but it ended up biting vonnie and running away 30 min after we got him… riggings we’ll miss you… it also resulted in vonnie needed two more rabies shots! Eeeeeee… so after all that vonnie’s mom sent us some mouse-traps to help us get peter! Well so that night we put a few out in the usual spots he likes to hang out in. we didn’t really think much of it cuz we didn’t know exactly how well they would work. Anyway so the next morning vonnie woke up first, she always does, and comes flying into my room screaming at me to wake up! I knew immediately that it had to be something about peter! I all but tear down my mosquito net to try to get to it, but when I got to the spot where she said it was all I saw were blurs… as most of you know, some better than others, I am NOT a morning person… anyway so I stepped back, rubbed my eyes for a solid 2 minutes til they were clear and then looked again and sure enough there was what looked like a furball and two little legs caught in the glue of the trap behind one of our water bins. His front legs were still free and he was still alive but tired from trying to free himself… the pictures make it look pretty sad, but if you knew how much food and sleep we have lost since living in this house because of him you wouldn’t be sad for it… so yeah now we don’t have a rat! I’m sure there will be more in the future, but for now there’s not and we can use all our shelves like normal people and leave food on it and not worry about it disappearing! (vonnie just read this portion and yelled “WHAT A WIN FOR US!”) and yes folks victory is ours!

Miss everyone so much and keep the packages/letters/emails a coming! Oh and there’s a really classic candid picture of me on the mills’ blog (http://themillsinmoz.wordpress.com/) and dude I’m famous! People all around the world (of peace corps…) know about this amazing ‘traveling panda’! I’m so cool~ haha ok not really but oh and vonnie’s blog is www.vonniecontreras.blogspot.com check em out!

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

panda

so i don’t know how much i’ve actually written about yvonne (vonnie) contreras, but she’s a friggin baller. we’re not exactly sure how they found out about us, we’re almost certain they pulled some houdini magic slash interrogated our families and friends to find out exactly what we were like and decided that we would be the perfect match for each other! i’m pretty sure we’re the best housemate pair-up in the history of PC mozambique if not the world! so why do i say that?? because we are the exact opposite and exactly the same all at the same time and in perfect situations! haha cuz we like a lot of the same music (except that she likes country… she keeps saying she’s going to convert me, but i seriously seriously doubt that… and she just listens to it at night on her ipod before bed… thank goodness ^.^) we love watching tv and movies(we’ve watched FNL, weeds, how i met your mother, greys, glee, always sunny, and about 100 movies already), we love love love eating and love all sorts of candy(but even with candy if there’s a bag of an assorted mix, we usually like the opposite things and that also worst out perfectly!), and we are non-stop gamers! last i counted we had 22 different games that we play on a fairly consistent basis, and that’s not even including all the different card games we could be playing. so those are just a few of the ways that we’re similar, but the really awesome thing is how we’re complete opposites. the biggest one is that she likes to clean, and anyone who knows me knows how much i hate it. i hate hate hate doing dishes especially, and i don’t know that she actually likes it, cuz i don’t believe her when she says she does, but she doesn’t like to cook, or more that she doesn’t know really how, so i cook and am slowly teaching her how to, but she’s a master potato peeler and vegetable dicer btw, and she in turn cleans! it’s seriously one of the most glorious trade-off compromises to be made in life ever. so yeah von’s from california as well, central cali, and went to SD state, and she came to teach biology, but is only teaching one class of that… haha figures, but yeah she’s teaching 4 classes of physics and 2 more of english! the poor thing has to do three different subject lessons plans, and 10 actual lesson plans per week… YIKES! but she’s a trooper and she’s super “popular.” she pins it on having a big family, but we’re sticking to popularity. i think she gets more txt messages from the us than moz, and i think she’s gotten at least 8 packages just during the 3 months that we’ve been living together (not counting the 2months in training). and we’re not talking letters or little mailers, we’re talking big mamma jamma boxes every time packed with all sorts of goodies from food and candy to school supplies to more games! like i wrote last time, i’ve gotten 3, one of which i packed for myself… and i would be extraordinarily jealous except that i get to partake it all of its gloriousness cuz von’s super generous and she loves me = ]. oh also we’ve learned that she likes all things korean. i’ll cook random korean things and make really really korean things like cucumber kimchi and she LOVES it! haha it’s bizarre but hey i’m not complaining! she also mastered playing gong-gi in 2 days and i’m currently teaching her how to read and write korean and then hopefully teach her basic conversational korean and then we can totally talk about other ppl right in their faces in korean! haha jk, but not really cuz that would be super cool!!! ok that's about it, but as you can see, she's amazing and we're super excited to be living together! ok until next time~ byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

panda

it all started with the incident of the missing tomatoes. we had gone to the market earlier that day, but when we got back from class there were only 3 of the 5 tomatoes on the shelf. i of course jumped to the conclusion that vonnie lost/ate them but being the highly non-confrontation person that i am let it go and didn’t say anything. then a couple of days later we walked into the house and i screamed when i saw a giant tail scurry off the counter and out of view. von was behind me and didn’t see it and decided that I was lying and tripping on malaria meds. i didn’t like being called a liar, but secretly i hoped she was right. then we started finding our missing produce all over the house. it was really gross finding half eaten tomatoes, onions and bulbs of garlic rotting away behind the counters and between the cement blocks and then von finally saw it scurry across the shelves one night. yeah not good… anyway so no major damage had been done and we just started putting our produce in the fridge and then it happened… I mean it musta been really really really hungry cuz it decided that coming into my room was a good idea. one night i got woken up by a gnawing noise in the corner of my room where there’s a desk and i have a large plastic storage bin. the storage bin is pretty hefty so i thought even if it was gnawing at it there was no way it would chew its way in and i was really tired so i decided to ignore it and go back to sleep. i thought HAH as long as it’s not getting into it and it can’t actually get to me(hopefully it doesn’t try to chew through my mosquito net… shudder) so the next morning i checked the outside of the bin and it was unscathed so i ignored it thinking the stupid rat couldn’t outsmart my bin. that night i heard it again so i sat in my bed and shined a flashlight and threw flipflops in that direction hoping to scare it off. it just so happened to start raining then as well so von woke up to put the buckets out to collect (she’s obsessed with it…) so she saw me with my flashlight in one hand and a flipflop in the other and a.thought i was crazy, and b.ignored me cuz collecting water is wayyyyyyy more important. when she came back from putting the buckets out she turned the light to my room on for me and went to bed. i was getting tired too so i threw my last flipflop at the bin in defeat when the rat came running out and went under my bed. i of course screamed and pulled the mosquito net back over me and tucked it under the mattress and put my ear plugs in and closed my eyes – i mean out of sight out of mind right? well after what i imagine was a couple hours later, the gnawing noise was coming from the bin again and there’s a chair between my bed and the bin. so I got outta bed and stood on the chair and was trying to peer down into the crack between the bin and the wall but i didn’t see anything… it was seriously starting to piss me off but i wasn’t about to start a rat hunt at 3am so i got back into bed and barely made it to the next morning waking up to every noise, one of which i thought sounded vaguely like foil… but when i got up to check the bin, again it was totally unscathed, and then i remembered the foil noise… there was only one thing in my room that had foil on it and it was this toothbrush disinfecting cover thing i got, but that particular item was INSIDE the bin. i honestly didn’t think there was a chance in hell, but when i pulled at the lid one of the corners wasn’t completely latched on and when i finally took the lid off sure enough there was the toothbrush cover thing and the plastic and foil wrapper ripped to shreds… gross… i rummaged through the rest of the bin to see if it got to anything else and it basically tore into everything at least once… hole in my toothpaste, holes in the bags of wet wipes that’ll probably dry out now, and holes in other random plastic bags… stupid rat… anyway so i cleaned out the bin and rearranged it so that it would shut completely and all our valuable foods are in the refrigerator. so it’s pretty much over, but since then he’s still gotten to a bag of powdered sugar, some kinda fruit we think is probably some sorta guava but too scared to try, and rice. ok i should go now cuz we don’t have energy at this moment cuz we’re having issues with the electricity company so it’s hot and i need to save my computer energy, but i’ll be writing about school and a special ode to vonnie soon = ]

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

so our internet place which was supposed to be oh so conveniently right across the street from our house, decided to stop working/opening because one of the bigger storms broke something or another… yeahhhh... we don’t really know what the deal was and they couldn't tell us when it would get fixed so we've just been waiting around twirling our thumbs~ So anyway school started five weeks ago and well ill wrote more about that in my real blog... i promise i'll have one up before yall know it! love, me

hey yall here’s the post that got lost so enjoy, but i also just got to my new house! it’s actually really cute and dillon’s house wasn’t ready so she’s staying with us for the first week, which in mozambican time means a month… hahaha we got to our house around 11:30 by limo service aka private chapa and then we were so hungry that we just kinda plopped our stuff down and walked out to find a place to eat. we found a bar across the street that’s super cute and ordered lunch, but it took 2 hours for the food to come out! so then we ate and walked back and decided to check out the internet place and they have 3 computers with internet and AIR CONDITIONING! oh it’s going to be glorious! Ok so I took a few pictures so I’ll put em up on facebook and I’ll definitely put up more once we get settled and clean the place up. Ok we’re dying of tiredness so enough for now but EEEEEEEEEEEE we’re HERE!!!!

we’re not even gonna do any cleaning or organizing tonite, we’re just going to make the beds kinda and then watch pulpfiction and ELF to kick off our holiday movie marathon! we’re gonna watch a christmas movie everyday til christmas! okok now i’m really done! love, me!

OHHHHHHHHHHH MANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

it’s week 9/10 already and we have our site placements!!!!!

i’m moving to monapo, nampula!!!! it’s in northern mozambique and one hour from the beach and not just any beach, but ilha da mozambique!!!

oh man oh man oh man!! and i’m going to be living with this chick vonnie, who’s friggin sweeeeeet, and dillon’s only gonna be living 10 min away from us!!!! not to mention the other 6-7 awesome volunteers who’re gonna live within a 3-5 hour radius around us! oh man oh man oh man~ and vonnie loves playing games as much as i do and man it’s seriously going to be amazing!

as my sister has been saying… “i’m not convinced you’re in the peace corps and/or living in africa.”

it’s been a pretty incredible past couple of weeks as well. i’m sorry i haven’t been able to update more often, but the only place where we get reliable internet was down for the past two weeks! boooooooooooo i know… wow i feel like i’ve forgotten how to type… it’s actually really difficult. site visits were friggin amazing!!!! i visited tete with two other health volunteers and it was quite the trip. we got to ride on an airplane instead of a day long chapa ride, and eat airplane food (and i never thought i’d ever be looking forward to airplane food so much!) tete city was dry and dusty and desert like, but we stayed with friends of the volunteers there and it was friggin sweeeeeet. the family is from brazil and the dad works for a pretty big company and they have this amazing house with AIR CONDITIONING and the most unreal shower i’ve ever seen! it literally looked like a u.f.o!! and then they also made one of the most amazing dinners everrr! we started the night with caipirhinhas and then we had brazillian bbq’d steak, pork and chicken that’s been roasting over this fire pit and amazing garlic bread and uhhhhhhhhh it was delicious. the next day we left for zobue and man is it beautiful! it’s right on the border of malawi and surrounded by mountains. angie had to go to school during the day to grade exams, but i just walked around and hung out with the neighborhood kids. it was crazy how i was only there for 4 days and i had absolutely fallen in love with the kids there even though i could barely communicate with them! anyway then it was back to namaacha and model school started. oh model school… what to say about model school. it was an experience to say the least, but it was really fun. basically the kids at the secondary school are on break here, but they come in for an additional two weeks to learn from us. it’s set up to be very very similar to what our experiences will be like in our real schools, and that both scares and excites the crap out of me. i only had 20 kids max in my classes and it was already hard to manage sometimes. i’m apparently going to be teaching to class sizes of 90ish or more and with kids not having enough desks! YIKES! but at the same time i had so much fun teaching. i just need to get creative with how i present really really boring grammar points and find activities in which everyone can participate. so 2 years of teaching here i come!! oh and thanksgiving came a day early for us cuz we’re in mozambique and we can do whatever we want, but it was a great day. we found out where we were gong to be placed and then we had a glorious thanksgiving dinner! turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans and the most glorious dessert spread everrrr including my pineapple upside-down cake which was really really yummy! it was unreal to see the types of dishes ppl cranked out with the limited resources! oh and my cake… it turned out really well this time yay, but i forgot to tell you about the first time i attempted to bake this thing… i cooked a korean feast for my family on my brother’s birthday. i made bulgogi, chicken with gochujang and a fake cucumber kimchi and rice. it was really good considering the circumstances and like my friends said, never thought i’d be cooking a korean feast in mozambique and they never dreamed they’d be eating one! oh side note about the meal… i finally did the deed! i bought three chickens from my neighbor and she brought them over, and by brought them over i mean still alive and flapping around violently! so i invited tim and colin over and we each killed one and wow was it an experience. i won’t go into details but i’m glad i did it cuz now i know how it’s done and especially here in mozambique because you don’t know how fresh frozen chicken is, it’s safest to eat a fresh killed chicken so now when we get to site i’ll be able to do it. but yeah so i also tried to bake the cake and the caramel on the bottom totally burned and when it came out of the pan looked like someone had poured motor oil or tar on top of the cake. fortunately the cake part still tasted really good and burnt or not the rest of the cake also got eaten! my friends are troopers and know the key to my heart by eating all my food and telling me it was good even if it wasn’t~ and then for my brother’s birthday i had brought with me a small 2g flash mp3 player that i was gonna use incase i needed a battery operated mp3 player, but now that i know that i will have pretty regular access to power i don’t really need it and he loves music and i had already burned him a few cds and so i loaded it up with a bunch of rap and hip hop and oh man his face when he saw what it was?!?!?! it was priceless~ i’m really going to miss him!

man trying to fit 5 weeks into one blog is really challenging… esp since so much has happened… oh so pretty much all of our free time has been devoted to playing games! i’ve never played so many games in my life and i love games, but we’ve been playing cards(spades, hearts, pinachle, skipbo, uno, p&a yeah pretty much everything), liar’s dice, settlers, catchphrase, telephone pictionary (which is one of the funniest things i’ve ever encountered), ping pang pong and really the list goes on and on!! it’s been a really fun time just getting to know everyone here and i’m really sad to have to leave training and all the awesome friends i made here, but at the same time i am sooooooo excited to go to site and start what i really came here to do! swearing in ceremony is on tuesday and then we leave for nampula on wednesday so this will definitely be my last update from namaacha! oh yeah word on the street is that there’s an internet place right across the street from my new place so hopefully i’ll be updating more regularly and maybe even be able to skype too! i leave yall with my new address just in time for the upcoming holiday season!

PCV Esther Gweon

Corpo do Paz

Avenida rua dos Continuadores no 24a

C.P 526

Nampula, Mozambique

but if you are going to send me stuff some rules to remember… packages get lost, and by lost i mean stolen, all the time, so on the packing list/insurance thing you never want to write what you really put in the package or the real price. so for example if you’re sending me movies and candy, you can write teaching aids and spices and dumb down the price to like less than 5 dollars each… also they say it helps when you write religious remarks all over the package! no joke! for example write “jesus saves” and “god loves you” all over the package and they usually leave it alone. hahaha it’s funny just even writing about that. it’s even funnier when you see the packages arrive here and some parents over do it, but they made it here right?? ok that should do it - i love and miss everyone so much!!

HERE I GO!!!

Panda

so i had this great blog written and ready to go, but the computer is not cooperating and won't read my flash so i can't upload it now, but i still wanted to blog one last time from namaacha!! today we had our swearing in ceremony at the us ambassador’s house and it was really great. we're finally really volunteers and not just trainees!! yayyyyyyy!!! anyway so tomorrow i'll be leaving for nampula where we'll have a 2 day conference meeting with out supervisors and whatnot and then off to my new house in monapo!! more details to come on that whole thing soon i promise, but i love and miss everyone so much and there's gonna be an internet cafe just across the street from my house so i'll be updating WAYYYYY more once i'm settled in!!

love,

me ^_^

ps. my new address just in time for the holidays!!!

you know what to do!! = ]

Esther Gweon, PCV

Corpo da Paz

Ave Rua dos Continuadores no 24a

CP 526

Nampula, Mozambique

a few pointers, never write the real price of anything you're sending and never write what you're really sending cuz then they will get stolen... boo... so if you send dvd's for example, you can say they are 'teaching aids' or if you send candy you can say 'spices'! oh and i guess if you write religious sayings on the outside of the box they have a better chance of making it! haha i know how funny right?? so "Jesus saves" or "i love God" or something...

kk gotta go but seriously send me stuff! haha!

So rainy season definitely started and it sucks. I think I’ve been spoiled by the perfect California weather, so it’s super hard to adjust to cold, rainy, muddy, gloomy, windy weather. Ok that part is actually not that bad because I have an awesome rain jacket, rain boots and an umbrella, so the part that really gets me is when I’m sleeping, or not sleeping. As you may have seen in my pictures, I have a tin roof and a giant tree that hangs over that roof. Well when it rains, I pretty much hear every single raindrop and it wouldn’t be all that bad if they were normal small raindrops that fall softly on the roof and make light pitter patter, but no they are monster golf ball sized drops that thud against the tin and they are loud! And then when the rain gathers on the tree and falls on my roof it’s like a land mind blowing up and it wakes me up and scares the crap out of me because I was probably dreaming about the landmines here and getting limbs blown off... So when it’s raining I’ve had to start putting ear plugs in just to get some peace and quiet during the night. And anyone who’s ever lived with me knows that I am the heaviest sleeper in the world. There’s a reason why nick calls me the hibernating panda bear because I can sleep through California earthquakes, new york city trash collectors and sirens!! So you know if I’m complaining that I can’t sleep because of how loud it is, it really is loud. But I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon enough seeing as that I’m just now starting to tune out the lil wayne blasting at 5am and the roosters and dogs barking at all insane hours.

So we finally got our site visit arrangements, and I’m heading up north to zobue, tete! It’s a city that’s up in the mountains of tete and right on the border of Malawi. It’s supposed to be absolutely gorgeous and you’re supposed to be able to see all sorts of cool things in the “sky night.” My friend Dillon and pretty much everyone here is slowly starting to lose their English skills… yikes! The other day I was trying to tell Miray something and wow I just could not get the words out and I think in the end I made up my own word! I think I’m getting so used to making up my own words in Portuguese that I’m just doing the same now for English! Oh and speaking of the “sky night,” I’m sorry but we definitely don’t sleep under the same sky! I know that people always say that even when you’re far away you’re all sleeping under the same sky, but dude my sky is wayyyyyyy better than your sky!! When it’s a clear night here, which is rare these days with all the rain clouds, but when it’s clear, the stars are friggin ridiculous! There are so many and they’re so bright that I feel like I’m standing in a simulation room starting at a fake poster or something. And if it’s that beautiful here I can’t imagine just how beautiful it’s going to be in tete! I wish I could take pictures of just how amazing it is, but it’s the one thing that won’t capture on my camera!

I leave u with one last story about my brother Eduardo. I was doing my laundry the other day and after arguing with him for about 15 minutes that he wasn’t allowed to help me cuz I needed to learn how to do laundry on my own, he settled on just sitting next to me so we could conversar. Well let me back up and tell you a little about the Mozambican culture of “dating.” Mozambique is very accepting of polygamy, and many men have multiple wives and girlfriends and it’s completely legit. We hear of men with multiple wives and guys with several girlfriends and everyone is “seemingly” happy. Well during my laundry sesh, which sucked by the way thanks for asking, I asked Eduardo why he didn’t have a girlfriend and he said because he was still a child and because he wanted to focus on studying and become a teacher first before finding a girlfriend! He’s 19 by the way and a good lookin kid cuz our neighbor totally wants to jump his bones! I almost want to believe in santa clause and the easter bunny again! He then proceeded to laugh and tell me that none of my clothes were clean…

With lots of love,

Esther

Ps. Today during our exams, it was like christmas because about 40 letters and packages arrived for everyone and shocking none of them were for me… ahem ahem hint hint!!!!!!!! Here’s my address again just incase you missed it the last time = ]

Esther Gweon, PCV

c/o U. S. Peace Corps Mozambique

AVENIDA ZIMBABWE 345

MAPUTO

MOZAMBIQUE

so i’ve figured out the key to african women’s cooking! it’s having hands like leather! my mae’s got the toughest hands known to man kind! and not like calluses, but she could probably stop a bullet with them!! she doesn’t need pot holders, peelers, or cutting boards (i’m sorry miray, you would never survive here, nor would they ever let you in with any of your cutting boards! i’m pretty sure they’re illegal here because i’ve yet to see them being sold anywhere. they probably confiscate them at customs along with land mines! cutting boards are mozambican enemy numero uno! so don’t bring any! but ps will you send me some?? the thin plastic ones from bbb would be awesome~). anyway yeah my mae’s got this giant knife that’s as dull as a butter knife and yet she can cut a tomato perfectly with it. it’s ludicrous! i mean she dices tomatoes and onions into perfect little cubes in her hands! take that hubert keller!! if my mae was on top chef doing the prep work relay race she would woop everyone’s butt at dicing vegetables!! and the no potholders thing drives me crazy!! last week she was boiling water in a kettle, and mind you none of the pots, pans, kettles have oxo heat proof silicon handles, everything is metal, and pouring out the water, she was trying to put the kettle back on the stove, but it lost balance and fell to the floor. i’m all like trying to use my shirt to pick up the kettle, but she just grabs the dang thing and puts it back on the stove with her bare hands!!!! IT WAS BOILING SECONDS AGO!!! even using my shirt sometimes it feels like its going to melt the skin right off my bones and she does it with her bare hands! it’s crazy!

anyway a month has now gone by since we’ve been here which is the craziest feeling ever! honestly being able to survive here makes me think i could do anything! ok so that’s a bit of a reach but u get the idea~ but i feel like i haven’t really written about what i’ve actually been doing here… for the most part we’re in “class” from 7:30 to about 4-5. so i get up at 6am every morning! and it doesn’t hurt! haha i never thought this day would come, but yeah i’m in bed these days by like 10pm! i mean it helps that there’s absolutely nothing to do here, and that we have 7pm curfews, but still its just so not me! anyway so yeah classes consist of portuguese, how to teach, and cross culture training. so yeah that’s the day-to-day stuff, and my portuguese is really coming along, to the point where i can argue in portuguese! haha confrontation seems to follow me around everywhere i go! man i love it! haha im jk i really don’t but yeah i’m excited that i’ll soon be able to tell off the random mozambican men that make fun of my rainboots in portuguese! this past week we also had two days of agriculture training! it was actually the most interesting training we’ve gotten here! i’m totally a gardening expert now! i can’t wait to get to my site and make a garden! it’s unreal how easy it is, and how much they can actually do! a small ¼ acre of permanent agriculture gardening can feed a whole mozambican family! i mean it’s friggin mind blowing! this system can seriously solve the worlds hunger issues and maybe even world peace at the same time! i’ll write about it more next time maybe once i make my own permagarden at site but yeah more americans need to garden more. it could save this planet!

yesterday was halloween, oh americans and our holidays, and we of course also celebrated! we got permission to throw a mini halloween party that was actually really fun! we invited all of our host siblings just so that they could kinda see what halloween is like, and we had jack-o-lanterns and candy and music and games and it was pretty great. and the costumes! i’ve seen some of the best in my life and we’re in friggin mozambique! i mean even me! i’m so not into the whole halloween thing and yall know i just don’t try that hard, and i still didn’t this time, but the costume pretty much found me! my friend ann found this sweet traditional chinese shirt at the market here and so i wore that and went as chun li from street fighter! i mean i looked legit! the hair was the hardest part but i think i got it just right. i’ll put up pics soon! it was so much fun and then we got our curfew extended to midnight so we all went to this sweet bar and had a few brewskis and danced and it was a good break away from our new hard to get used to mozambican lifestyle.

k i think that’s about it~ next weekend we go on site visits so i prob won’t update for a few weeks but you’ll get to hear all about what my future site here may be like! miss everyone so much!!

panda

ps. oh candace... you ask me that as if i could change that at will... don't u know that i'm like the worst writer on this planet? it's just not my style i'm sorry... but for you i suppose i could make an effort!

pps. also putting pictures up on here takes WAYYYYYY too much time, so i've decided to make albums on my facebook page instead! it was so much quicker so please view there, but for some reason you can't find me or the album let me know!

so i’ve pretty much determined that all things in liquid form are better (even meals… sigh). i’m really trying hard to embrace non liquids but it’s just really hard… i mean water! water is so good! i’m not really talking about water specifically here but water is the base for it all so yes i love and miss water so much. drinking as much water as i want, running water to wash my hands with, running water to shower with, water is great. don’t take your water for granted! ok so anyway i’ll start with conditioner. i purchased solid conditioner from lush and it’s just ridiculously hard to use. and i don’t even know if its good cuz the couple times i’v used it i don’t think it really worked out. it’s hard when you’re standing stark naked in your outhouse shivering from the cold and keeping an eye out for uninvited guests (frogs, cockroaches, spiders, mosquitoes) in your bathing area, to get some in your hand and try to get it into a lather. so i said to myself ‘yeah dude i’m in africa i can rough it and not use conditioner… that lasted about a week because when i didn’t use conditioner my hair wasn’t soft and got tangled and it was dirtier quicker! i was feeling like i needed to wash my hair everyday! that’s just not possible! i mean i don’t even do that when i do have running water showers! so yeah i caved and bought wayyyy overpriced conditioner and it is seriously a universe of a difference… oh conditioner how i love thee. my hair is silky smooth again and lasts for like 3 days~ the less time i have to spend in my bathroom the better! the next is liquid soap. hand and body. bar soaps SUCK. SUCK SUCK SUCK. and i use it up so quickly! and again the whole lathering thing… so hard when there’s not running water over it. trying to balance soap and the water cup and still trying to get everything to lather? yeah totally awesome. the other totally annoying thing about bar soap and not having a real bathroom is that you have to let the soaps dry before you can store them again… which is easier said than done… yeah when we went to maputo to buy phones we were in a department store and using the bathroom and washing your hands with running water? GLORIOUS!!! i went to my friend donna’s the other day for lunch(who made us awesome mexican food with tortillas from scratch) and she bought liquid soap so i got to wash my hands twice with her pouring water on both my hands!!! oh the simple things in life~ next? laundry detergent… blue liquid fresh scented tide in the orange containers. why oh why do you not live in mozambique? i brought a few ‘sink packs’ and i washed my undies in that, but everything else? you guessed it – bar soap. they do have powder laundry detergent here, but my family said that it’s too harsh for clothing so to use bar soap instead, but i think i may have to switch to the powder even if it ruins my clothes cuz my ‘clean’ clothes just don’t smell or feel clean. as this is my ode to liquids, i won’t mention the washer and dryer, but you get the point… so yeah all my laundered clothes are stiff with soap still left in it because getting all the soap out of it would just require so much clean water and it’s just not practical… so yeah i’m trying to not think about how nice clothes feel when they come out of the dryer… the warm soft fresh smelling awesomeness of freshly laundered clothes… yeah maybe just one last moment of silence for the death of my clothes………………..

ps. My family will tell you, but quite contrary to my ranting in this entry, I’m actually super happy and absolutely loving it here!! Every single one of my family members has mentioned that I sound surprisingly upbeat so don’t worry!! Haha

pps. As I said earlier I did buy a phone so call me if you can afford it!! Skype is pretty cheap and there’s also a website called www.nobelcom.com that sells really cheap phone cards! So call me anytime!!! The country code here is 258, and my number is 822.948.194!!!

ppps. The elections are this coming Wednesday here in Moz, and the cell service has been really horrible, where we don’t have any kind of service for like entire days, so if you call in the next week and you don’t get through “it’s not you it’s me!” haha

love,

panda

as promised more pictures~

all the moms greeting us as we arrive to namaacha

i couldnt turn the picture over but this is my room... not a great picture sorry ill try to get more but yeah u get the idea~ = ]

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

greetingsh americanosh from namaacha(best said with a newyakuh accent), mozambique! i’ve now been away from home for 3 weeksh and in namaacha for 2 weeksh! so far it hash been an unreal experiensh. let me introdush you to my family firsht! i live with minha mae (my mom) essineta, and my brother (technically he’sh my mae’sh step grandshon, but i just call him my brother ash to uncomplicate my already very complicated mind) eduardo. they’re both super chill, laid back and are unbelievably warm and welcoming. portuguesh has been going great. luckily my spanish really ish helping a lot and after jusht 2 weeksh already feel like i can form sentenshesh fairly well, but i still have a long way to go before i can be stranded in a small village all by myshelf! ash you have probably notished i’ve mishpelled a lot of wordsh by adding ‘sh.’ that ish becaush here in mozambique when the ‘s’ ish in the middle or end of a word and not between vowelsh, you say it with a ‘sh.’ it’sh pretty aweshome. speaking of aweshome, i have the besht language group everrrr! it’sh made up of our professor, nelson, and then my fellow trainees, camille, tim, allison, amanda, timotheo(we had two tim’sh so we had to change one of their namesh, but he lovesh it! he’sh also my soulmate here~(sorry colin ur just the p2) cuz tim was the other madagascan that got relocated here and his phone number is one digit off from mine, AND his birthday is the day before mine! crazy freaky coincidencesh plush we’re both aweshome!) and me! we pretty much spend half our lessonsh laughing becaush our teacher is the MAN, someone will do something ridiculous, or in my case, the most ridiculoush thingsh happen to me. (yeah ok quick side story… i’ve had a kid come up to me and point a plastic gun to my head and shoot, a man selling stuff in maputo come up to me and make fun of me being asian first, and then make fun of my rain boots, which are aweshome by the way thanksh migum = ], and then call me ridiculoush asian obshcenities, and then try to sell me stuff, ash my friendsh were dying laughing, and then some random middleshchool girl came up from behind me to hug me and tell me she loved me… but it was all made better when a random kid that’s like 3yo charged towards me, but then just stops right at my legs and then held my hand and passeared the rest of the way with me. it was pretty aweshome~) we alsho already have the most amazing side group project in the worksh so be on the lookout for that! besides language we alsho have a lot of group seshionsh where we learn more about the culture here, teaching skillsh, and about HIV/AIDSh. the food has been pretty great! i really wash expecting to have to do a lot of adjushting, but i mainly eat eggs, bread, rice, chicken, potatoes and this amazing cucumber, tomato, and onion salad. i’ve had a few specialty dishesh here and there with local produce, but yeah it’sh been great! oh and i know you’re thinking wow that’sh a lot of carbsh, and yeah it really ish, but i alsho walk what feelsh like 5 milesh a day. they LOVE LOVE LOVE to passear here, which basically means to wonder. so even for some of our language classesh, we’ll passear down to the mercado(market) and talk to the vendorsh and just convershar(converse) along the way! what elsh can i tell yall about… ohhhh… ohhhh… the rooshtersh… oh the rooshtersh… well a. they are EVERYWHERE… and when i say everywhere i really mean everywhere… im pretty sure there are more rooshtersh here than mozambicansh! and i was lead to believe my entire life that they only cry at sunrise, but no… no no no… they cry at 6pm, 3am, 8pm, midnight, 11am, anytime they see fit! they’re going during class, while im trying to sleep, when we’re eating, when im on the phone… ALL THE TIME! and we have a hen – she’s mad cool, and when we got her i named her donna becaushe she’sh mad chill but crazy popular and bringsh all the rooshtersh in the hood to our yard hahahaha. love and missh you donnaroooo! man i could go on and on with all the storiesh but i don’t want thish to get too long so i’ll save some for my next entry! i can’t believe i’ve only been here 2 whole weeksh! feelsh like i’ve been here a lifetime already! i leave you with picturesh from the firsht two weeksh here with more to come!

with lotsh and lotsh of love,

panda

(ps i promise this will be the only entry with the “sh’s,” and don’t forget to shush your local shusher! SHUSH THE SHUSHER!!!!!)

all packed up... well kinda...

the beautiful sunset view from our hotel in maputo~

real real safe~ one of the modes of transportation fron maputo to namaacha!

my house~

ok so there are a lot more pictures but it's taking too long to upload so i need to find a better way to do this! but love you and more stories soon!!

as i re-read my last post and began writing this one, i realized again just how terrible a writer i am. i’m thinking maybe i should just post a link from this page to another volunteer’s page… eh whatever you’re stuck with me!

so anyway… I’M IN AFRICA! IN AFRICA!!!!!!!!!

yep that’s right folks, after 2 years i’m finally here! although… i don’t even know if i can technically say i’m in africa when i’m staying at a waterfront hotel in the capital city with a pool and air conditioning!

i guess the story is that there’s a hotel here that the peace corps always uses, that’s well… not as great according to the past volunteers and staff, but that hotel somehow lost or overbooked the reservation of 70ish rooms, so they had to put us up in a much much much nicer hotel! but hey i mean i’m not complaining and it’s definitely a nice way to get over the jetlag and injections. i’m now up to 5 shots, but i have no idea what i’ve gotten… they just kinda shoot you up with whatever it is they think you need, then you’re on your merry way! i also just popped my very first malaria pill so i’ll let you know how that goes! not gonna lie still pretty psyched about those side effects!

so orientation today was pretty standard- safety precautions and procedures, medical issues and instructions, meeting our training staff and portuguese teachers, oh and we got our training info. our schedule for the next 10 weeks is insanely busy! from learning portuguese to how to be a teacher to living with a host family… i’m getting tired just thinking about it (or maybe that’s just the jetlag), but man am i excited! so we leave tomorrow for training in namaacha so i may not be able to post til training’s over, but i’m sure i’ll have much better stories to tell at that point!

love and miss everyone so much!

panda

so i meant to blog much sooner, but shocking i procrastinated til the very last minute... and i mean the very last minute! i'm already in philly for staging and it's been so much fun meeting the whole team, or at least like 20 out of 65 of em, finding out a little more information, but still not much, and finally knowing that after 2 years it wasn't all a dream and i'm really really going! so as my family has so kindly pointed out, i've been pretty vague on the details of my departure so here it is.

i got to philly monday night, staging today, and we leave at 3am for JFK on buses! it's gonna be just like college on academy buses! they're accounting for bus breakdowns and tire trouble, but really it's only going to take us like 2 hours max to get there so then we're gonna be at jfk from 5am til 11:30am when our flight leaves for johannesburg. then after 15 hours we'll arrive in jburg and wait another 4-5 hours for our flight to maputo, mozambique! we got our government passports and government debit cards and it's pretty awesome!! we'll be in maputo for 3 days getting situated in the country, meeting our in country staff and getting shots! lots and lots of shots! oh and malaria pills!!! everyone knows how excited i am about those! haha ok side note on the malaria pills... apparently when you take em everyone reacts differently to them, but some people have really vivid dreams, hallucinate and get delirious! i mean i thought waking up from anesthesia when i got my wisdom teeth pulled was gonna be the closest i'd get to drugs, but this could be it yall! trippin on malaria pills wooooo! haha

ok anyway then after our 3 days in maputo, we go down to namaacha, which is a 2 hour bus ride from Maputo, to meet our host families! we'll live with them for the next 3 months as we go through training to learn the language, culture and teaching skills specific to each field. i hear we pretty much have no access to the outside world during these 3 months, but i'll try to let everyone know i'm alive!

also pc gave us a letter to send to family and friends explaining how to contact and send us mail and CARE PACKAGES for the first three months so here it is!

_________________________________________________________

Dear Families & Friends,

Greetings from the Mozambique Desk in Washington, D.C. It is with great pleasure that we welcome your family member to the 2009 Mozambique training program. During the past year we have received many questions from Volunteers and family members regarding travel plans, sending money, relaying messages and mail, etc. As we are unable to involve ourselves in the personal arrangements of Volunteers, we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance by providing specific examples of situations and how we suggest you handle them.

1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique) The mail service in Mozambique is not as efficient as the U.S. Postal Service; thus, it is important to be patient. It can take two to four weeks for mail coming from Maputo to arrive in the United States via the Mozambican postal system. From a Volunteer's site, mail might take 1-2 months to reach the United States. Sometimes mail is hand carried to the United States by a traveler and mailed through the U.S. postal system. This leg of the trip can take another several weeks as it is also dependent on the frequency of travelers to the U.S.

We suggest that in your first letters, you ask your Volunteer family member to give an estimate of how long it takes to receive your letters and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows he/she has missed one. Postcards should be sent in envelopes--otherwise they may be found on the wall of the local post office!

Volunteers often enjoy telling their “war” stories when they write home. Letters might describe recent illnesses, lack of good food, isolation, etc. While the subject matter is good reading material, it is often misinterpreted on the home front. There is a Peace Corps medical officer at the Peace Corps office in Maputo. In the event of a serious illness, the Volunteer is sent to Maputo and is cared for by our medical staff. If the Volunteer requires medical care that is not available in Mozambique he/she will be medically evacuated to Pretoria, South Africa, or the United States. Fortunately, these are rare circumstances.

If for some reason your normal communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member for an abnormal amount of time, you may want to contact the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Washington at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that we can inform the Peace Corps office in Maputo. Tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency and the Duty Officer will return your call.

2. Telephone Calls. The telephone system in Mozambique is relatively good and service in and out of Maputo to the United States is mostly reliable. In the interior of the country, where most of the Volunteers are located, phones are fewer in number and of decreased reliability. Volunteers do not have residential phones; however, they have the opportunity to make and receive international calls through public phones or personal cell phones that can be purchased locally. They will be able to inform you of the actual telephone numbers once they arrive at their permanent sites in the country.

The Mozambique Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Maputo through phone calls and email. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail or personal phone calls.

3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to the high incidence of theft and heavy customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. We do not recommend, however, that costly items be sent through the mail. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may always use the following address to send letters and/or packages to your family members: Esther Gweon, PCV Corpo da Paz/U. S. Peace Corps C.P. 4398 Maputo Mozambique It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Maputo.

If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to Esther Gweon, PCV c/o U. S. Peace Corps Mozambique Avenida Zimbabwe 345 Maputo Mozambique (The phone number for the Peace Corps office in Mozambique is 258-21-49-9082, as DHL will need this information).

For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com. Other courier services may operate in Maputo; DHL is only one possibility. Shop around to find the best prices and service options.

We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mozambique. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the Mozambique Desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2331 or 2332, or locally, 202-692-2331 or 202-692-2332.

Sincerely,

Fernando Moyle, Country Desk Officer

Mozambique Country Desk Peace Corps___________________________________________________i'll be getting a new address once i get to my permanent site in december, but til then send me lotsa letters and goodies! (but maybe no more caramel apple pops! haha i'm covered! thanks donna and nicole!!!)anyway it's almost already 1am now so i gotta go repack my bags, shower and be on my way so a big thanks again to everyone who came out to celebrate with me in ny and in la, and for all the emails/phone calls/msgs and the many many awesome presents! i'll be sure to take as many pictures as i possibly can and upload them for everyone to see! love and miss everyone so much already and seriously come visit if you can! lotsa lotsa love, panda