Transition

A food deprived man happily digs in on Thanksgiving.

Sporting some new gear at the host family party.

Hiking outside Namaacha.

Currently sitting in the Peace Corps Mozambique Headquarters in Maputo. Today is a big admin day before we swear-in tomorrow and transfer to our sites later this week. Peace Corps Office = Fast Internet. Thought I would take the opportunity to put up a few photos.

Not a ton to report at the moment. Been busy packing up my life in Namaacha and prepping to go to site. While we are all a little sad to say our goodbyes and spread out around the country, everyone is ready to cook their own food and have some more personal space; eating deep fried everything for every meal and worrying about what time you have to be home gets tiresome when you are used to more independence (although I was lucky to have a lax family with the latter).

I scored "mid-Advanced" on the final Portuguese language interview. I gave five seperate 45-minute classes on math and physics in the language; am feeling comfortable speaking. Now I just have to learn some Changana (local language - a dialect of Tsonga - spoken around southern Mozambique) so that I can avoid getting ripped off at the market in my town.

This afternoon we are trucking back up to Namaacha to chill with our families for one last night before leaving the breezy mountains on the Swazi border. Tomorrow morning we come back to Maputo, "swear-in" at the U.S. Embassy, and then enjoy an afternoon and night to wander around the city; likely some 'despedida' festivities for our training group. Friday we all ship off to regional supervisors conferences.

The southern regional meeting (I live in the south) will be in the beach town of Bilene right down the road from my site (see photo in my "Site Placement" post). We will be chilling on the beach and having meetings with our school directors. By Monday, I'll be in Macia setting up my house on a completely deserted school grounds. No students (and likely no other teachers) on campus until late-January. Peace Corps restricts our travel for the first three months at site to make sure we are getting to know our towns. The idea makes sense, but when your entire community is basically gone on vacation it seems like the rules could be loosened up a little.

With no school in session and limited travel, I'll likely spend the next 6-8 weeks setting up my house, starting a garden, building a fire pit in my backyard, reading a ton, regaining my physical health (all day classes, a terrible diet, and lots of beer take their toll...), getting really good at walking back and forth on a thin rope, decorating my house (I'm thinking some cheese wheel and geometric drawings on my walls using charcoal as my paintbrush), getting to know the dog that was left for me (Bee-Bop is his name, I am told), finding a bike, wandering around my town, and hopefully chilling on the beach a bit. I will likely meet up with other PCV's for Christmas and New Years at a beach somewhere.

I'll be sure to update everyone when I get to site and start finding my way around.