namaaaaaaaacha

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!!