Site Placement - Macia, Gaza Province

If your picture of Peace Corps service includes living in a stick shack without running water or electricity in a dry dusty field in rural Africa, you have a generally accurate image... most of the time. We received our official site placements on Wednesday - I'll be living in Macia, Gaza Province; running water, electricity, and a 30km ride down the road to Praia Beline (the lagoon picture above).

I'll be teaching high school math and possibly physics at a relatively new school. I'll have a small but new house which I'll be sharing with a Mozambican teacher from my school. Should make for great Portuguese practice. Apparently his family lives in Xai-Xai (the provincial capital of Gaza Province - about 2 hours away) which means he'll be gone a lot of the time. The PCV moving out of that site says he's a good guy. I'll have a fenced in yard (keeps the goats away from the garden!) and a dog to inherit. More details to come when I move there on December 9th.

Gaza is the first province north from Maputo Province (the southernmost province in Mozambique). I'll be two hours up the EN1 (Mozambique's main highway) from Maputo City. Will likely have a lot of other Peace Corps people stopping through my house on their trips to the capital. Being in Macia also means being well connected to the better highway systems that are concentrated around the southern half of the country. Hopefully I'll get some good traveling in. Apparently the 30km trip to the beach is doable on a bike if you bring a tent to camp out for the night and ride back in the morning. Main downside is being far down in one corner of the country. Keeping in touch with friends scattered around the north and central regions will be tough.

For now, we're all closing out training here in Namaacha. Two weeks of "model school" teaching starting Monday and then a week to wrap things up here and in Maputo before heading to site. I'll get details up on the house, school, neighbors, town when I get there (no word yet on what internet access will be like). Portuguese is tightening up. Learning to play the Ukulele . Getting ready to go to site.