Update from May

May 15^th, 2012

It’s now been almost two months since the last update. I don’t think there is much point in trying to summarize all that time. Instead, I’ll recount individually some more notable chunks of time.

End of 1^st Trimester:

 I showed up in Chiúre halfway through the first trimester. You would think that would mean I’d missed a lot, but it turns out that until the March 3^rd “levantamento” school was only semi-in-session. Or something like that. No finalized class rosters. Teachers and students showed up very sporadically. Yet, in theory, curriculum was being covered. My physics turmas had had one class each when I started teaching six weeks into the trimester.

Given no direction and with no sense of organization, I hit the ground running assuming I had catching up to do. Lesson One in navigating this world: a strong sense of urgency will rarely get you anywhere. I would have been better off settling in, feeling out my students a little more, not worrying about finishing off the first trimester material, and saving myself the clusterfuck and confusion of putting everything together on the fly.

In the end, I administered one unit test, or “ACS” grade, and a final exam to all of my math classes. My physics classes turned in one big problem set, took one ACS, and sat for the final. The school weights final exams 70-30 against the rest of the trimester evaluations. Seems like a rough system for high school kids.

The finals I gave were written with my fellow Mozambican teachers who insisted on giving textbook equivalent problems. Result: about a 50% passing rate. And that’s after curving all the final exam grades so that the average was a passing 10/20. Ouch.

Trimester Break:

I spent a couple days in a little gas station restaurant stealing electricity, grading about four-hundred final exams, and entering all the information into Excel sheets. Banging that out quick gave me some leeway to travel. I took off on April 10^th, direction south, to visit Joanna in the mountains of Manica Province (see original site re-placement: Guro). Check out a map to see the distance from Chiúre to Chimoio/Catandica. Then edit your estimated travel time to account for long stretches where the national “highway” is a one-lane dirt road. Two long days of travel, including a stop off at a friend’s house in Alto Molocue, Zambezia Province, many hours on a terrifyingly fast moving bus (see: overland travel anxiety related to car accident trauma), a hitched ride that happened to have a Peace Corps girl in it, and lots of fruit, sodas, and egg sandwiches purchased through the bus window, and I arrived in Chimoio. A pretty pleasant place to be by Mozambican city standards.

Joanna and I went out for beers with some Peace Corps friends living in the city (and some others passing through) and crashed for the night in one of their houses. We hitched up to Catandica the next afternoon; open back truck to the turn off, a two hour wait, then a minivan north into the mountains. Joanna lives in a comfy house that’s part of a World Bank-built school compound at the foot of the Serra Choa mountain range (a known smuggling route back and forth between Mozambique and Zimbabwe). We spent some very restful days lolling about, cooking goat chili, and eating lots of avocados, and one beautiful day hiking way up into the mountains, picnicking on a cool, breezy ridgeline, climbing around in a collapsing old stone Portuguese estate house, and enjoying some stunning views (see photos).

I hurdled back up north on a sixteen-hour bus journey to Nampula city just in time for the north regional Peace Corps “re-connect” conference for our training class. We gorged on hotel buffet and sat around talking about our sites and what we’ve been up to. Thirteen days after dipping out, I made it back to Chiúre to a dog so excited that he pissed uncontrollably upon our entering the yard.

2^nd Trimester Beginnings:

We had been told that the first week back from school is a total toss and that there was no point in showing up. We live down the path from school and were in town anyway so we made our scheduled appearances for week one. I was lucky to have five students in any of my classes. I walked into a few totally empty classrooms. I decided to use the week to do some math review with both my math and my physics students. Turns out most of them don’t know how to add, subtract, multiply or divide negatives. All of them agreed that 0.60 is greater than 0.6. Final exam scores explained. I’m supposed to be teaching physics that requires an understanding of trigonometry. The math curriculum calls for systems of equations this trimester. Unfortunately, my sense of urgency on arrival kept me from doing mid-trimester diagnostic tests.

There are a few obvious faults in the system (more than a few, but I’ll try to hold myself back). First of all, the math curriculum and physics curriculum were clearly planned entirely independent of each other. The material covered in the 11^th grade physics curriculum requires math that 11^th grade students haven’t seen yet. Not to mention that the curriculum itself equates to a basic version of what I was doing my freshman year of college (as an engineering student). Keep in mind, most of these kids don’t understand the decimal system or how to subtract a negative. Secondly, upon review of the “pautas” (official grade books), it turns out that all of the other teachers just give all of their students passing grades. That means students who can’t say “Hello my name is Derek” in English make it to 12^th grade (5^th year) English, students who can’t solve the equation x-1=0 make it to 12^th grade physics and math, and some students even graduate high school essentially illiterate. Once they are in 11^th and 12^th grade it’s hard to know what direction to go with them. I can fail them (someone who can’t multiply shouldn’t pass 11^th grade math) for the sake of the integrity of the system, but they’ll just be forced to scrape together the money to retake the grade until they get a teacher who passes them. They aren’t going to eventually understand trigonometry just because they retake 11^th grade three times if no one ever takes them back to basic math. That’s not going to happen with teachers trained to teach curriculum. And even as an outsider with a critical eye to the systematic issues, I’m apt to teach the curriculum for the sake of the couple students in every class who get what’s going on and actually have some outside chance of doing something with their education.

Anyway, enough with ranting about the education system here. I could probably write you a book about it. The first week back we had no students. That first Wednesday was also “Chiúre Day,” celebrating the 25^th Anniversary of our town. Yay. Bicycle races. Foot races. Dance groups. A marching band. Fun stuff. The second week of the trimester included May Day on Tuesday (obviously a day off in a country run by a socialist party) and we basically still had no students all week. Week-three school finally started back up for real. Since then, we’ve been chilling around town doing the standard. Killing rats. Fermenting smashed corn meal. Trying to save our neighbor’s chickens from our dog. Playing basketball (I’m actually a pretty good player here). Eric and I are both playing for some of our turmas in the inter-turma soccer tournament going on at school (after subbing in for the second half with my team down 1-3, we came back to win 7-3 – I’ve been deemed a good luck charm). Our papaya trees are overflowing with fruit that are a couple weeks from being ripe. This Saturday we are throwing a huge party for my upcoming 24^th birthday. Will have Peace Corps friends camping all over the yard. Plan is to slaughter ten chickens, buy a few cases of beer, and bbq all day with Americans, local teachers, and neighborhood friends. 

Inside the classroom; Eric's photo from inside a 12th grade class that we both teach:

Picnic in the Serra Choa with Joanna:

Daybreak on the national highway in Chiure:

Life in the Far North

Eric in our kitchen roasting peanuts in a coconut shell.

Cow the cao in our backyard.

I’ve been off of the radar for quite some time now. The last minute site change sent me to the land of no running water, no electricity, and especially no internet. I’m lucky to keep my cellphone charged; bike rides into town to sit at a barracka drinking Fanta while stealing electricity keep me on the cell network. Internet today is courtesy of our friends living at a teacher training institute in Pemba, the provincial capital of Cabo Delgado.

Hard to know where to start here… a month into life here and a lot starts, stops, continues, and changes.

Chiure, Cabo Delgado is a small town about four hours north of Nampula City (the nearest place resembling a city) and a couple hours southwest of Pemba (provincial capital, beach town on one of the world’s largest naturally protected harbors). Eric (Peace Corps English teacher who I trained with) and I live in a little thatch-roofed house about 6 km outside of town by the old secondary school, Escola Secundaria de Chiure. Our quintal (pronounced keen-tahl), enclosed yard, is protected by a tall bamboo fence and our 3-4 month old puppy Cow (cao means dog in Portuguese, yay for plays on words). Five papaya trees (fruit is almost ready!), a few banana trees, piri-piri (hot pepper) plants, lemon grass, peanut plants, green beans, and a few other vegetable plants give our yard some good character, not to mention the thatch/bamboo gazebo our predecessor built (woven rope bed allows for sleeping outside in the gazebo on hot nights). The inside of the house provides plenty of space for food storage, book storage, and beds, but we spend essentially no time in there. The overhanging thatch roof creates a covered wrap-around porch which we’ve furnished with various chairs, tables, and homemade bamboo shelves. No need to waste time in the dark (no electricity, remember), spider filled (found a few in there bigger than my outstretched hand), rat filled (they live in the thatch of the roof) interior of our house when we got a comfy outdoor lounge overlooking our picturesque yard. Bathroom comes in the form of a hole in the ground protected by a thatch roof and thatch walls. Showers come in the form of sun-heated water in a bucket scooped over our heads; quite refreshing in the tropical heat.

Getting to town is an enjoyable 20-30 minute bike ride down winding dirt paths that are probably something like you imagine Africa to look like if you’ve never been here. Scattered fields of corn and beans interspersed with shady cashew trees and thatch huts float by as you cruise past women in brightly printed fabrics carrying large pots on their heads. Barefoot kids playing in the yards expectantly yell “salaama” (good day, good evening, good night in Makua, the local language) and then erupt in laughter when you finally crane your head around to throw a “salaama” back as you ride on.

Riding into town every few days keeps us furnished with the all the eating basics. Rice, bread, pasta, potatoes, onions, coconuts, sometimes tomatoes, freshly slaughtered goats, and often fish and squid trucked in from Pemba (we gotta trek all the way to Pemba ourselves if we want to buy $8 jars of peanut butter). We generally fast most of the day and then spend our entire evening cooking and binge eating. Our cooking skills squatting over a one-burner charcoal stove can be impressive. Among other great dishes, we’ve enjoyed grilled squid, fried calamari, garlic bread, stewed goat, freshly killed and superbly grilled chicken, and various curried things. Rice or xima (flour boiled until it becomes a flavorless white fluff with the consistency of mashed potatoes – satisfyingly filling when you haven’t eaten all day) are staples. Lately I’ve been making oats and... drumroll… I picked up another Peace Corps person’s extra french press, so coffee! Sweet, sweet coffee.

I can’t have the Peace Corps check this out and think that all I do is read on my porch and stew goat. School does keep me pretty busy. I teach four turmas (classrooms) of 11^th grade math, one turma of 11^th grade physics, and one turma of 12^th grade physics. They each meet three times per week. That adds up to 18 classroom-hours and nine lesson plans per week. Given that I showed up six-weeks into the school year (car accidents throw you off - wrists are strong enough to do pull-ups and handstands already!), I figured I would be given at least a crash course orientation upon arrival. My minimal expectations of organization were a fantasy. I was handed a schedule without a word of direction (I figured out classroom locations on my way to class). I took it upon myself to find the former teachers of the classes I was picking up to figure out where we stood in the curriculum, a curriculum, I should add, that I am still trying to get a copy of. Our school is dilapidated. The roof is caving in on many classrooms. There is no electricity or running water. There are no bathrooms (aside from shells of what must have been bathrooms before the Portuguese left in 1975 – not usable). There is absolutely no sense of cohesion or organization. Many teachers don’t show up consistently. The kids are moved forward a grade-level in disciplines in which they had no teacher the previous year. Yet the national curriculum seems to ambitiously push math and the sciences. I am currently finishing a unit on thermodynamics with my 12^th graders and a unit on kinematics with my 11^th graders (I did a lot of this stuff early in my university engineering education). Try teaching a kid basic equations of motion, not to mention accelerated and varied motion, when he doesn’t understand the algebra that goes into a linear equation. Trigonometry for wave-propagation? Laughable. You find your peace with your role in that system in various ways. I like to think that just by showing up consistently, being clearly engaged in the material, helping kids with school work outside of class, and bringing an element of creativity to the classroom, if nothing else, shows kids that education, learning, knowledge is something more than rote note taking. They may learn zero material from me, but hopefully exposure to something new and different at least piques their general curiosity. Or hey, at least I’m learning something from it. Teaching math and physics in Portuguese to a tattered classroom of sixty students sitting on the floor is a trip. Kids regularly knocking on our quintal gate asking for one-on-one help with class material keeps you engaged (even when the one-on-one session exposes a lack of any grasp of any the material covered up to that point). Anyway, I’m rambling…

Teaching here is the madness that you would imagine it would be. Fun stuff though. A great challenge and a hell of a way to improve your language skills. The unplugged lifestyle, spending a few hours every evening huddling around the charcoal and then feasting by candlelight, provides a satisfying rhythm that maintains a sense of structure in a disorganized and slow-paced world. A lot of reading gets done. A lot of sitting around the yard chatting with neighbors goes down. The dog gets lots of attention. Students periodically swing by the house. And when we feel up for it, the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean are only a couple hours away.

Hearing the rats scratching around the house late at night gets normal pretty quick. You just kill the giant spiders with a shoe when you find them in the house. This lifestyle in general starts to feel normal pretty quick. Then occasionally you tell a story like this one… Our neighbor and friend Elias raises chickens. About forty of them wander around the neighborhood before returning to roost inside of his mud house with him every night. Last week, he caught this feral cat (that had been licking our dirty dishes late at night) picking off one of his chickens. He rounded up his friends’ hunting dogs (they use them to hunt game a few hours north of here), ran down the cat, and had the dogs kill it. When we came out to see what the commotion was about, we found Elias and some neighborhood friends standing over the cat’s mangled body. Elias whacked the carcass with his katana (machete) a few times for good measure then, finally satisfied, buried it. Those chickens are Elias’s livelihood. His mutilation of the feline corpse is far from the crux of this story. About half-an-hour after the burial, another neighbor dug the poor shit up, cooked it and ate it… and you just kind of chuckle at living in this world for a two years.

Switching It Up

After a fun thirty hours of travel, I arrived in Maputo to find out from our Country Director that the school in Guro backed out. Some complicated logistics followed.

I'm now moving to Chiure, Cabo Delgado Province. That's way up north. Thatch roof house with no electricity or running water (pictured above). Not a lot of time to write at the moment. Will be in a very rural location. Not easily in touch. Mailing address updated on the main page.

What better way to resume the Cantilevered Spirit Quest...

...than with a guru. Guro (pronounced goo-r00, like guru), Manica Province, Mozambique that is.

My bones are mostly healed. I fly back to Mozambique on Monday. To avoid putting me back around the corner from the accident site, Peace Corps agreed to find me a new place to live. I'm moving up into the mountains in the central region of the country. Guro is a small town about three hours north of Chimoio, the provincial capital of Manica. I'll be the first Peace Corps person the town has ever hosted. I'm getting a new little concrete house with no electricity or running water. I'll be teaching physics, grade-level to be determined.

While leaving behind a comfy bed, a well stocked fridge, home cooking, and family is always sad, I'm ready to get back to Mozambique. Life has kind of been on pause here. I'm looking forward getting back into Portuguese, giving physics lessons to classrooms of seventy kids, seeing friends, and working to turn the blank slate of a concrete shell of a house into my personalized bungalow in rural Africa. It's avocado season. I have some close friends living in the region. And... there are massive stone spires everywhere begging to be climbed. Not sure I have the gear for it, but those things look tempting (see photos below).

My new mailing address:

Derek Roberts, PCV

Corpo da Paz

C.P. 331

Chimoio, Mozambique

Reset

Hello from the Northern Hemisphere. I thought I was getting to skip winter this year but happenstance has me home in DC for most of January and February. The break in my right wrist, held in place by my neon pink cast, is a couple weeks from being fully healed. The left wrist is in a removable brace; I can move it around but it is still extremely stiff from surgery (permanent metal plate and eight bolts). I am regaining mobility in my left elbow, scars are closing up, and the shaved patch on my head is slowly growing back. And I'm off the sickening post-exposure drugs I had to take for a month. The orthopedist thinks I should be in good enough shape to go back to Mozambique in late February.

I flew from Johannesburg back to Maputo on January 3rd to give a police statement in Macia and clear my valuables out of old house. The Macia police chief showed us the wrecked car in the lot behind the station and grinned at me as I turned away, saying in Portuguese, "Man, I can't believe you lived." Thanks, Chief. Very professional.

I got to see a few friends in Maputo on the night of the 4th then flew out business class back to DC on the 5th. Since then, I've been home decompressing, seeing a few friends, and rehabing my wrists, elbow, and shoulder. Overall, doing pretty well. Enjoying good food and a luxurious house. A bit strange being popped out of Peace Corps world back to a home I didn't expect to see for a couple years. Assuming the orthopedist and counselor clear me, I should be back on a plane to southern Africa in less than a month. Will surely be another strange transition back in, but I am definitely looking forward to it. I will be assigned to a new site (to be away from the scene of the accident) that is yet to be determined.

For now, I am drinking tea and building cool shit out of legos. Oh yeah, and hanging around with our newly adopted cat, Sofie, aka Ziggy Cheese Sauce. I can be reached on my old American cellphone for the time being.

Tea and Legos

Super Secret Island Fortress

Super Secret Island Fortress Attack Boat (those are working gears!)

Ziggy Cheese Sauce

I wrote a post on December 15th (five days before the accident) that I never had a chance to publish about life at my site in Macia. While it is no longer relevant (I am moving), I thought I would give you guys a little picture of what life there was and would have been. A few photos from my last days in Namaacha and Directors Conference in Bilene are also attached.

December 15th, 2011:

After a couple days in Maputo to “swear-in” at the ambassador’s house and enjoy a final night out as a training group, we scattered to our regional directors conferences. I, along with the fifteen other kids sticking around the southern region, piled into Peace Corps trucks and cruised up the EN1 (Estrada Nacional 1; Mozambique’s main highway) to Bilene. Our little hotel was literally on the beach of the calm turquoise lagoon that divides the town from the deserted spit of sand dunes protecting the inner-body of water from the waves of the Indian Ocean.

The goal of the conference was basically to meet our school directors and get us all on the same page. An 8 am to 5 pm schedule was easily condensed into half day sessions that left the afternoon, evening, and night open for seafood lunches, lagoon swims, slackline sessions on the white sand, dinner feasts (it should be noted here that we had been subsisting on bread, fried stuff, and fried stuff up to this point), and final nights reminiscing about training. We rented a boat and cruised out to the Indian Ocean one afternoon; deserted beaches and the force of a rough sea gave me some Northern California nostalgia. Pool (as in the game with balls and sticks) and cold beers filled the later hours.

Bilene is about 35 km from where I am now setting up my home. Assuming some kind soul picks up the mulunga (‘white person’ in Changana) standing on the side of the road, that trip should take less than 45 minutes. Whether it’s to hang out in a sandy yard with Portuguese expats playing pool or to cantilevered-spirit-quest (read that as a verb, please) by a campfire on the dunes by the ocean, I plan to make my way out there frequently.

Anyway, we wrapped up the conference on Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning my boxes and my body were dropped off at the house I will call home for the next two years. Note: I have not lived in one house for more than eight months since high school. A life of seemingly constant transition will finally see some stability in Mozambique?

As far as Peace Corps standards go, I live in absolute luxury. My school’s teacher housing was built two years ago; I have electricity, running water, and a fridge. Compare that to some of the kids up north living in thatch houses with no energy or running water. To be honest, I had really been looking forward to the simplicity of occupying my days with fetching water, lighting charcoal, and sleeping and rising with the sun for the next couple of years (I really mean that seriously). Alas, my life will not be the idealized picture of the escapist mind. On the upside, not occupying my time building fires to heat my bath water means that I will have time to do lots of other cool stuff. A nice house is nice, but two-year old military-base style housing feels a bit sterile next to the “cane” houses across the street. I’m planning to spend the next few weeks putting time into adding character to the place.

I have the slackline tied up between a porch column and a fence post; the kids next door are already hopping the fence into my yard to do their best Filipe Petit impressions. I dug up the backyard this evening in preparation for the “machamba” that should produce some tasty food for me over the next few years (planned: papaya trees, tomatoes, pumpkin, hot peppers, squash, TBD). I commissioned a carpenter in town to build me some benches (only $5 each!) for the fire pit that I plan to dig tomorrow in the backyard. I am scheming to use a Peace Corps map making resource (they give us a massive software file, MozSoft, before we finish training) to paint a giant world map on my living room wall. Though apparently the school might not be ok with me painting maps on my walls…

So aside from having to walk 45 minutes along the highway to get into town and living in characterless housing (did the Chinese build this place? They did pay to repave the highway here…) things are moving along nicely. Once work starts I will be a five minute walk through a field to class. The trek to town should keep me in shape. Living on the highway means 30 second waits to hitch rides all over the country. The beach is close. Macia has most everything you could expect to buy in Mozambique. My school is fresh and new. And I got the next five weeks to putts about building a badass garden, digging a fire pit (and then roasting freshly slaughtered chicken over it), playing with my inherited dog Bee-Bop , perfecting my line walking abilities (I can walk backwards now!), going to beach, and probably reading a bunch.

Saturday (as in December 17^th; I lag between writing and posting these) will be enjoyed at the beach meeting other Peace Corps people from around Gaza Province. Sunday will be spent at the home of my new “host family” (the head of secretaries at my school is taking me in, as she did with the last PCV here) presumably feasting.

For all of you wondering why your tax dollars are funding this, let me tell you that I am going to give some damn inspiring physics lessons come school year!

Slacklining on the Lagoon in Bilene

Untouched Indian Ocean Coastline

Little Sis Ciara

Cousin Neto and Sister Arlete

Momma Celeste and Sister Ciara

Trouble in Paradise

I had saved a few posts on MS Word that I was hoping to put up last week. Unfortunately, plans get sidetracked. Seriously sidetracked. I spent Tuesday at the beach with four other PCV's. Our hitched ride back to my town sped and eventually flipped over off the road. All but two passengers (out of ten) were thrown from the van. I was fortunate to have a seatbelt on. I would provide a lot more detail, but I'm currently typing with both hands in casts.

I came-to to find myself covered in blood in an empty car off the road with my crooked left wrist throbbing in pain. Some bystanders helped me out and threw me in the back of a pickup to take off to the Macia hospital (basically a little house). I struggled to put the pieces together in a brain scrambled by concussion, pain, and adrenaline, and confusion. They gave me a pain shot and stabilized my wrist. Eventually thr other PCV's showed up. Two passed away. Two living: One with a severe concussion - very confused and scared; and one more (luckily doing well enough to be on the phone with PC. Hours later, ambulances showed up. We sped down to Maputo (about two hours), spent a night there, and then were evac'ed to Pretoria, SA on Wednesday by plane. I went into a long surgery on Thursday. Permanent plates on the left wrist. Bone graft on left elbow. Staples all over left arm (I think my elbow went through the window next to me) including closing up where my entire elbow joint was exposed. Bone set on right wrist. Stitches in head. Christmas in the hospital. Released yesterday to a nice guesthouse in Pretoria. Nice to be out but friend is helping bath me... haha. Hanging in. Lots of big question. Would like to provide detail but typing is very slow. Doing ok. My phone is down. I can be contacted at The Rose Guesthouse in Brooklyn, South Africa. Hope everyone's holidays have been better. All the best wishes.

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.