the LOST post

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

YAY I'M NOT A TRAINEE ANYMORE!!!

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!