SCHOOL’S OUT FOR SUMMER!!!

So after giving out last tests of the year and turning grades in, we travelled to Rio Savane in the central region of Moz to celebrate Halloween and more importantly Vonnie and Dov’s birthdays! While it was unbelievably fun it was also a logistical nightmare as our original group of 5 turned into 17! Everyone and their mom (literally, as dov’s mom and step dad were visiting) wanted to join in on the fun that was DoVon-a-pallooza and I guess I don’t blame them cuz let’s face it we’re awesome! So after once again making it to Gorongosa in one day, (1000km in less than 24 hours? Impressive, we know) we ate dinner that Brian, he’s the vonnie of the mills duo, prepared! He made really delicious corn bread from scratch! I don’t think I can even do that! We were beat so it was food and showers then bed for us cuz we would need to get up early the next day to finish our journey to Rio Savane. We made pretty good time cuz we got some great rides and did a little last minute food shopping in Beira before finally making it to our destination. We had to boat across a narrow river to get to a small peninsula with the ocean on one side and river on the other. It was absolutely beautiful and the facilities were pretty great too. we were piled into a bungalow that had a bathroom and kitchen, but the one thing that no one who had been there before nor the owners whom I made reservations with bothered to tell me was that they don’t have running electricity and they only turn their generator on from 6pm to 9pm… charging phones, ipods, speakers were a nightmare and sleeping sans fans was not fun as we’ve now fully entered into the HOT summer season. But nonetheless it was great to be with everyone and it was great to be able to celebrate DoVon in true Halloween glory. Von was dressed as an MC Hammer “Can’t Touch This” back up dancer, and I found a ‘dracula’ made for Halloween cape at the market and so went as a vampire. We enjoyed lots of good food thanks to Dov’s mom and mike even taught us how to ‘dougie.’ Actually that’s a lie as we still have no idea what the ‘dougie’ is, but we pretended to have learned. We made it back, tired but in one piece, then had a week of “preparing grades.” Basically we read grades as another teacher wrote them down on the master grade grid, which is just archaic but how it’s done here. This weekend we went to Ilha again to party with Michelle one last time cuz she has finished her service and is leaving… so we hit up all her favorite places to eat her favorite foods and say bye to all her friends and also relax poolside one last time. She had become one of our closest friends here and since she lived so close to us we saw her more often these past few months so we’re really really really sad to be losing her… BYEEEEEE MOOOOCHHHEEELLLLLAAAAAAA!!!! SEEEE YOUUU IN A YEAR!!!! we’ll definitely be seeing more of her since she’s most likely be in SD when we get back~ Also goodbye to all the other Moz13ers! The last of them will be trickling out til the first weekend of December… EAT LOTS AND LOTS OF GOOD FOOD FOR US AND TAKE LOTSA HOT SHOWERS!!
For the next two weeks we will be proctoring national exams for 10th and 12th grade students, which basically means staring into space for 5 hours a day. We’ll probably have to grade some too eventually, but they haven’t asked yet…
Well that’s about it for now but let me fill you in on a few trips coming up!! Both von and megan are abandoning me for thanksgiving cuz they’re going down to the Moz15 training, so I’m gonna make another trip down to gorongosa so spend thanksgiving with the Mills and to meet jordan’s parents!! And then I’m gonna see Dave Bae and a few other 13ers on their last weekend before leaving moz as well and also hang out with Dave’s Korean friends that live in Chimoio! I guess there are a group of Korean Ahjussi’s that have a weave/wig factory and dave hung out with them a few times and got fed samgyupsal and kimchi! HELLLLLLO!!!! Clearly I must meet them and get in on some of that action! The only thing that would make that more amazing would be some ggettnip and soju! Mmmmmmmmm… haha and then back home for some more national exam proctoring and then we’re going to Ilha to celebrate Brian’s birthday and dillon’s departure… that’s right, our third roomie is leaving us… she had already done a little over a year in Mauritania before they got pulled out and she joined our crew, but she’s put in her second year and feels that it’s her time to go back to civilization as well, so she’ll be leaving us mid December… pretty much everyone we love in the north is leaving us and we are not very happy about it! CUSTODIO! IF YOU DON’T SEND US SOME AWESOME 15ers YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM US!!! We have definitely gotten SHAFTED these last few months… after ilha I’ll be heading down south to meet colin and mike’s families and then to Maputo to meet Von’s mom and cousin!!! I’m so so so excited! This also means I get to go to Namaacha to see my host family as well! I’ve already called and told them that I’m coming down and my Mae and brother Eduardo are soooo excited! As am I! It’ll be such a refreshing change to be able to communicate in more proficient Portuguese! And then me, von, mike, Kelly and maybe a few others will be travelling to South Africa to hit up a few malls, eat some mcdonalds and take some real showers for a few days! So I’ll try to update once more before all the travelling begins, but if I don’t update for a while just know that I’ll update soon with AWESOME adventure stories! Miss everyone so so so much and HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON!
Eat lotsa yummy holiday food for me!!!

est

1, 2, 3 “SAAAYY WHAAAAAAT?” 1, 2, 3 “SAAYYY WHAAAAAT?”

So teacher’s day was interesting to say the least. It was kinda like harry potter movies 5 and 6. You wait soooooo long for them and the build up is sooooooooo hyped, and then the day finally comes and it’s just like WAHHHHH WAHHHHHHHHH… so our school has been talking about the big teacher’s day celebration since 1st trimester. How much we had to pay, what we wanted the shirts to look like, where we wanted to go, what we wanted to eat, can you bring family yaddhi friggin yaddha. So its been talked about for so long and at great length during every one of our teachers meetings so it was pretty hyped up and we had to pay 1000mts ($30) which is a lot for us and for our fellow colleagues with these grand promises of how amazing it was going to be. Well the big day comes around and we were told to be at our school by 7am. We got there at 7am sharp and there’s only one other teacher there. Finally by 8am most teachers are there and now we’re supposed to go to the Teacher’s Union office for a short ceremony. The walk there was about 5 min and then another 10minutes for the short ceremony. Then we had to wait around til 9am to walk to the praca for the town ceremony. Well we get there and we have to wait til the administrator gets there and that doesn’t happen til about 9:45. Finally the ceremony ends and it is HOT and we finally pile into our chapas that will take us to the beach. Mind you until yesterday we thought that today was the main event and all eating/drinking was going to take place today… not so much. We so we’re on our way and all the teachers minus maybe 4 of us, have started drinking… beers, gin, whisky, pretty much whatever they could get there hands on before leaving and conveniently the chapa picked us up in front of the town liquor store. It was like being with a bunch of teenagers who were let loose and drinking for the first time in their lives except they can take it down like WOAH. So it’s rowdy and they said we (von and i) had to come up with our chapa’s team name so von came up with team “SAY WHHAAAAAAT?” and we taught it to them just saying it with sooo much attitude and it just stuck... So that every 4 minutes someone would scream ‘1, 2, 3’ and everyone would yell out “SAYYY WHAAAAAAAAAAA?” about 5 times in a row and then wait another 5min and do it allllll over again. It was also yelled every time we passed a car, or the other chapa. We were also stopping every 30 minutes to restock their quickly diminishing booze supply. Anyway we FINALLY make it to the beach and that was a disaster and a half cuz no one knew where exactly we were supposed to go, but we finally make it to our destination and everyone runs out to the beach. Oh yeah also Mozambicans don’t really understand the concept of swimwear. So out of everyone who went, there were like 5 girls and 30 boys. Well almost all the men just wore their whitey tighty undies. It was funny cuz even the one teacher who I was like ‘oh he has some legit board shorts’ took em off as soon as we got there and jumped in with just his undies. All of this might have been more enjoyable or at least tolerable had we been drunk, but alas… it was mostly painful. So we swam a little too and bumped the volleyball around a lil before it busted its gut and died, and then we stuffed ourselves silly with our packed lunches of fried rice, grilled chicken, salad and fries before taking one last dip, drying off then comin back. It was a really really really long day and I was completely drained and all I wanted was to get home and sleep, but mind you this was a Tuesday and we had to get ready for school the next day… awesome. So that was teacher’s day celebration #1. The second came on Saturday. The notice about the event said it would start at 7pm at the ‘club,’ which basically looks like a middle school gym, but another teacher tells us not to show til 8pm cuz it would probably start late. So we get there around 8 and of course it hasn’t started so we go to the bar next door to grab a few beers. 9pm rolls around and we make our way back to the club and still not showing signs of life… so we wait around inside and finally at 9:30 they call our names one by one and the event begins! So our director and one other pedagogical director don’t show up and so the MC for the night says a few words then introduces the other two ped directors and also the administrator who then says a few words and then it’s time to eat! By the time we get our food and they wash our hands it’s 11pm and we get pretty much the same packed dinner of fried rice, grilled chicken, salad and fries, but this time we also have to eat sans utensil haha. There’s also no table and we’re balancing our tray on our knees, beer in one hand and trying to pull chicken off the bone with the other… it was super awkward and just the set up of the event was like a middle school dance in the gym. When we’re done eating they clean up and then it’s time to dance. Seriously though world’s worst DJ in the history of DJing… Mozambicans I feel will generally dance to anything and even they were complaining that it wasn’t good dance music. And he starts with slow dance songs and of course everyone wants to see the foreigners up dancing so everyone tries to get us to go up and we’re like woah woah no thank you, but after a while we couldn’t refuse any longer and danced… also awkward. Finally some better dance music comes on and we boogie and I tried to request von’s new favorite song ‘Amazing’ by Inna, but they didn’t have it… it’s like this super hyped club song that Mozambicans LOVE so it was pretty much a crime that this DJ didn’t have it… that pretty much put us all in a spiral of disappointment and set the mood for the rest of the night. However the night was redeemed for vonnie when she was introduced to the love of her life. His name is ‘ray’ and he is a year old and he was the chubbiest happiest cutest little baby ever! Haha he’s the son of one of the teachers we like more and so megan and I lost von to baby ‘ray’ for the rest of the night. Anyway I was already tired before the party even started, so by the end of it at like 1:30am, I was BEAT. I think I woulda had more fun if I just wasn’t so friggin tired! Oh yeah also, each person was supposed to get 10 beers, and I mean really who drinks 10 beers at a formal teacher function with family, so between the three of us we had 6 and brought 14 beers back home with us. We’re set for the next month I’d say! So this week is trimester finals, and then next week is our LAST WEEK OF SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!! We just have to get a grades in and then we’re DONE! DONE DONE DONE!!! Well almost… we may have to proctor some national exams but other than that we’re done!!! Also von’s birthday is coming up so I gotta get on getting her the bestest birthday present ever! Slightly limiting here in moz but I’m working on it. Also her birthday is on Halloween so we’re gonna have an awesome costume party so we’ve been on the prowl for some gems to get dressed up in, however I don’t think anything will beat my chun-li outfit from last year! okok i think that’s about it from me today, but more to come soon! miss everyone so much!

e-money

english theater and community love

Another post after only 2 weeks! I know I know I’m pretty awesome. I’ve recently taken up telling slash reminding everyone just how awesome I am and I’ve found it surprisingly therapeutic! I’m not exactly sure why but yeah ok moving on… just after writing my last blog, PC put on an English Theater competition for the northern region. Basically volunteers who wanted could create groups at their schools or in their communities to prepare a 15minute skit on subjects like HIV/AIDS prevention, corruption in schools and communities, gender equality etc. Von and I decided that we didn’t actually want to have groups this year, but the competition was taking place in Carapira, dillon’s site which is only 10min away from us, so we decided to help run the event. We were assistants to the almighty coordinator Imani and co-coordinator Gina, and made posters, signed certificates, and pretty much flawlessly ran the reception table as we gave out name tags, water, meal vouchers and information on the event. There were 12 participating groups and the whole event was pretty long, but it was really fun! The winning group was SO good, oh man but they deserved it cuz we heard that they, on their own, wanted to practice almost every day! Most other volunteers had to force their kids to meet even once a week and it showed… Haha I also offered extra credit to my students if they attended the event and a makeup test grade if they wrote an essay about it, and I had 12 kids show up and they ALL wrote an essay!!! AND no one cheated! It was great!!! Some of them left much to be desired, but man some of them were so great! I mean lotsa vocab and grammatical mistakes, but still they answered the questions so well!! I was so proud! I had been stressing alllll year long how important it is to think for themselves and to not cheat and it finally paid off on the years very last writing assignment… figures they would need an entire year to learn a lesson… But yeah it was so much fun and great to see other volunteers and their hard work and then as a reward we took a little trip to Nacala. That’s the beach where von and I took all those jumping pictures on the beach! Haha so yeah we went back with a few other people and stayed at the cutest lil backpackers that has a bunch of bungalows for couples and then one dorm that has 6 beds. We occupied 4 of the beds and then there were 2 other South African dudes staying there for work. So we walked down to their private-esque beach and went snorkeling, played scrabble (I won of course!) and ate delish burgers and bacon egg sandwiches! BACON!!!!! YUUUMMMMMMM!!!! It was a super great relaxing weekend and on the return trip I got to explain the ins and outs of Amazing Race to Diana and Michelle, and man do I love that show! I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY EXPLICITLY REJECT PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS! I honestly think they should do an “Amazing Race: RPCV” season! Oh man seriously! Will someone help me pitch that to CBS?
Last weekend we went out to Ilha again which has become our ‘guilty pleasure escape from Mozambique weekend getaway’ spot and well Michelle, the PCV that lives in Ilha is leaving in like 3 weeks so we’re trying to get all the Michelle time we can! Anyway we went to go eat dinner at this local bar where the owner LOVES michelle and always hooks her up with delish food. Anyway the place was packed and we were sitting right by a window that had mosquito netting on it. Well while we were eating, there were all these little kids on the other side of the window whispering ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘give me food,’ just the usual dinner chatter, and von noticed one kid had his thumb and index finger poked through two little holes, but didn’t think much of it and we continued eating. Well right at the end of our meal we were talking and getting ready to leave and out of nowhere michelle feels something hit her arm. She also didn’t think much of it but then a lady at another table screams ‘your phone!’ Well the littler kid had apparently been working on those two holes all night and kept making them bigger and eventually made one big hole, stuck his arm through and grabbed michelle’s phone right off the table and went running! We’re all freaking out, but all the patrons at the bar get up and go outside and one guy just goes off sprinting to where the kid went! I had just gotten a phone call from Brian so I walk outside too to talk to him and I’m giving him the play by play and I feel like an eye-witness reporter telling him what’s happening during a break in and vonnie and one other woman are the only two people left inside the bar and everyone else is standing outside. Well like 3 minutes later michelle and Andrew start walking back towards the bar surrounded by the other patrons and other little kids and I go back inside and that one guy got michelle’s phone back!! It was CRAZY! The biggest 5minute thrill! Michelle was so bummed that she wouldn’t have a phone for her last 3 weeks, but man it was like the greatest send-off she could have gotten with a bar full of drunk Mozambicans all coming to her aid to help get her phone back! It was really really great. We’re usually always complaining about how passive many Mozambicans can be sometimes when it comes to helping ‘foreigners,’ but maybe it’s cuz they know michelle and feel like she is a part of their family and they needed to protect her, but it was just super awesome to see that kind of support from the community! And then we ended the weekend with the most amazing lunch ever everrrrr! It was hands down the best meal I had eaten in Mozambique and it woulda been good for anywhere! It was the basil tuna steak, which was basically a giant slab of tuna that was marinated in olive oil, basil and garlic and then we asked them to just lightly, very very lightly sear it so that it would be like rare rare and it was PERFECT! The tuna first off was so fresh and the marinade was delish and it was cooked to perfection where the majority was still red and it came with fries and a small salad and OMG it was soooooo gooooood! It was the perfect sushi replacement for the time being and it only costed $8.50!!!
Ok so I think I’m gonna end it there for now because I have a good two part story about Teacher’s Day coming up after this weekend!

Love,
Panda

as the great month of september comes to an end…

I realize that I’m hitting a few mile markers in my life. I have officially lived a quarter of a century, as von loved to remind me every hour on the hour of my birthday, and Moz 14 has officially been in Mozambique for 1 whole year! I can’t believe it was already a year ago that I had the most amazing send-off party at scott and nicole’s and then I was sitting in my room at my host family’s house in namaacha thinking ‘what the heck have I gotten myself into?’ but here I am a year later, still alive and well! So anyway I just wanted to take a few moments to reflect on just how unbelievably blessed I am. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity to be a PCV in an unbelievably beautiful country like Mozambique. Really really blessed to have the most amazing friends back home and to be surrounded by great new friends here in Mozambique, where in tough times you can seem all alone. Also, I have the best roomie in the history of PC, and maybe in life =). And last but not least, I am seriously blessed to have such a supportive family that loves me day in and day out and is genuinely proud of me! Life here seems to be amplified somehow where the highs reach new heights and the lows go into the deepest abyss, and when I wrote my last entry I was probably at the lowest I’ve ever felt. But it’s a good thing it came right before my birthday cuz nothing short of one of the greatest birthday months ever could have pulled me out of that funk. Ok ok enough with the mushy babble!
SEPTEMBER WAS AMAZING!
Yeah we had the rocky start due to the rioting in Mozambique, which I know many of you had read about and were worried, but they were mainly confined to the major cities and mainly just Maputo at that. Most PCVs live in smaller towns so we didn’t even hear much about it, but for safety reasons we were all put on house arrest and everyone was kept safe, just a little stir crazy. But the house arrest was lifted just in time for the birthday weekend so we made our way out to Ilha de Mozambique! It was a girls night out on the island and it was soooo much fun! We ate lotsa good food, meat lasagna being one of them mmmmmm, and went to the beach, went on an Ilha pub crawl, and spent a lazy Sunday pool side! We even had a sunset yoga session with Michelle, at her friend’s beach house that looks like it came straight out of a crate and barrel catalogue, on their rooftop terrace and right as the session began we saw a whale! It was great cuz that morning we were going to go whale watching, but it was too windy so we canceled, but we got to see one anyway!! It was seriously one of the most picturesque snapshots that’ll I’ll always remember! And then on my actual birthday we were off to Nampula city, which is usually my least favorite place in the world, but Von had a dr’s appointment so we went in to at least get a good meal and turns out her appointment got pushed back so PC put her up at Hotel Millenio so for lunch we had Cajo’s delicious burgers and for dinner we had pizza, chicken tikka masala and naan!!! And we got to take hot showers and sleep in an air-conditioned room! What more could I have possibly asked for?? It was pretty great and then the next day we headed to Dillon’s site and she cooked up a Peruvian dish, Lomo Saltado(?), which was UNREAL, and for dessert, RED VELVET CAKE with homemade cream cheese frosting!!! Oh man oh man it was friggin so delish!!
The following weekend we went to Ribaue to visit Scott and Greg. Their site is about 6 hours southwest of us and we got to take the train there! I’ve realized that I haven’t been writing in much detail of the things we do here, so I’ve decided to pick one thing Mozambican in each blog and write as much detail as I can about the experience! So the train is this entry’s highlight and boy was it something. First off you can only buy train tickets one day in advance and starting at like 4pm. So our friend got there at like 4:15 and there were only 2 tickets in the 2nd class cabin, ~$3, available and the rest were 3rd class, ~$1.5, also there’s no first class so why not just call it 1st and 2nd class? Anyway so then we get to the train station the next morning at 4am, but the line to get on the train was already outrageous, cuz you don’t get an assigned seat so it’s first come first serve, but it’s completely chaotic to the point where if you’re not paying attention and the line starts moving in front of you, another person has the right to cut you in line… makes sense yeah? I saw this happen at least 6 times and everyone else just laughs. Well then we board the train and it leaves right at 5am, which is unheard of here, and since we weren’t there early enough to get seats, we waited til the dining cart opened and quickly snagged a table. We had yummy egg sandwiches, fried egg on a roll with ketchup and mayo, and played games and talked til we arrived in Ribaue. The scenery was beautiful and looking out the window doesn’t make you dizzy cuz the train only goes about 25mph haha. So this technically could be an hour trip with an Amtrak train, but alas it took us about 4 hours! After getting off the train we then had to get on an open back truck to get to their site about 15minutes away. As soon as we got there it was a non stop party with about 15 PCVs there and scott made us AMAZING coconut banana pancakes, like seriously restaurant quality fluffy delicious pancakes, and chilli with sweet potatoes for dinner. We started early with the Agua do Papa, which translates to ‘water of the fathers’ but it’s bubble gum flavored sugar cane alcohol gloriousness =). The next day, after not enough sleep, it was back home on the train, but this time it was not the most pleasant experience cuz the train was jam packed and we were basically standing in the aisles of the dining cart dying of heat and dehydration, but it was a really really good time and I’m glad I got to experience the Mozambican train system and see more sites!
This past weekend we traveled to Gorongosa once again to surprise Jordan on her birthday! I ended up ruining the surprise cuz I accidentally texted her something that I meant to text her husband brian, but she was just as excited! We actually made it allllllll the way down to Gorongosa in 1 day!!!! Which is a HUGE HUGE deal for us cuz we didn’t think it could be done, but we just got some really awesome hitchhikes and booked it there! There ended up being like 30 people coming and going that entire weekend, mainly PCVs but there were also some friends and then 2 cyclist doing a 8000km cycle up east Africa for a foundation called Against Malaria! Tom and Pete were super cool and they got super lucky to meet all the Moz PCVs during their trip through Moz cuz clearly we’re a good time! Haha GOOD LUCK BOYS!! So it was lotsa good times swimming, playing games, dancing, drinking 30 cases of beer and tipo tinto ‘ star of the orient rhum’, and lots and lotsa really really good food! Donna and luis whipped up a Mexican feast of chilaquiles and homemade salsa, Alice made us chicken and dumplings, we let Jordan cook one breakfast only cuz I was super selfish and wanted her bagels, Kendra made meat sauce spaghetti and choc chip cookies, Alexandra made mini lemon cupcakes with lemon coconut buttercream frosting, and I took the reigns on the rest of the weekend cooking a sausage carril(sauce) with rice, chicken peanut noodles, tuna egg salad sandwiches, sausage homestyle fries, and a vanilla birthday cake for Jordan with vanilla buttercream frosting! Nicole I woulda made you so so proud!
So now we're back in monapo and i even had a birthday package waiting for me from Migum and Bambo (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!), and we're trying really hard not to travel until the end of the school year, but we have about 1 more month of classes left and then we have about 2 months off to travel and recoup and not see students yelling "HELLLLLO TEACHHHHAAAA!" I'm really going to try harder to blog more often so keep checking!
Also a big big shoutout to the new MOZ15 group that just got in yesterday! Esp PAT!!!! YAYYY you're finally here!! can't wait to see you!!! We're all so pumped to meet yall and to have to fresh blood in our PCMOZ family!
ok folks that's it for me today!
miss everyone so much!!

panda

yes i WOULD like some cheese with my whine

So I was too busy eating, drinking and sleeping to post from spain, but go to facebook to see the three photo albums we put up with pictures from Barcelona and San Sebastian. I mean it’s basically food porn for the hungry soul, which in our case we’re all always hungry, but if these pictures don’t convince you that spain is awesome, I don’t know if we can be friends… = ) my return trip was interesting to say the least and we’ll just leave it at it having been a very very long, tiring and upsetting journey… but I made it back in one piece, with no luggage missing, and was reunited with von, which is really all that matters! Other than being back with von though nothing else has really gone according to plan. School has started up again and von was busy with the last stage of science fair, which was phenomenal, and we got to experience nampula in a whole new light where we got to hang out with friends we haven’t seen in a while and eat good food and take hot showers! Oh yeah that was another thing about spain… I think I averaged 2.5 showers while I was there! Days 1-5 I was taking like 3 showers a day, then I eased up a little in the middle, but towards the end when I realized I wouldn’t be able to take hot showers for a while again I was back to 3 showers a day~ haha it was amazing! seriously though, do not EVER take a hot running water shower for granted… NEVER! EVER! So then some more evil things happened when we were trying to come home from nampula and then we got some more bad news about one of our conferences getting cancelled… yeah sorry to sound so whiney but it’s just been a total bummer these past few weeks. and service has sucked so I haven’t really been able to talk to my family and I finally got through and talked to my dad for a little bit but the connection wasn’t great and I couldn’t hear him that well and my mom wasn’t even there so I didn’t get to talk to him… WAH WAH WAH. Dang I’m sorry haha ok but there’s more bad news! Haha so we’ve finally crossed into a very very special month, SEPTEMBER, and you know what that means, BIRTHDAY MONTH! Haha ps happy birthday nick and donna!! I love and miss yall so much! Hope yall had amazing amazing days! well so there are tons of volunteers with September birthdays as well so we had travel plans basically every weekend for different birthday celebrations but we already hit our first road block not being able to travel this weekend due to ‘complications.’ So we’re trying to make the most of it at home, but hopefully we’ll be able to travel by next weekend cuz that’s the important one! 25!!! HOLY COW! Quarter of a century! Insanity… but yeah we were gonna head to the beach for the weekend to celebrate my oldness so keep your fingers crossed cuz if that doesn’t happen either I’ll be really truly sad and depressed and will require mass amounts of booze to drown my sorrows! So yeah I probably shouldn’t have written this blog right now seeing as I’m the bluest I’ve every been in life, but wanted to get something on the blogosphere so yall would know that I was atleast still alive! Miss everyone so much it hurts!

E

“shopping” in Mozambique

***note from the blogger: haha i wrote this like a week ago but didn't have internet to be able to post it so here it is! but now i'm in barcelona and it's AWESOME! i'll blog about it soon! enjoy!!***

so pretty much every time von and I go to the market to buy food, I’ll say ‘oh we’re going shopping,’ or ‘yeah when we went shopping,’ and von always corrects me to tell me that we didn’t go shopping, but more like “made purchases.” Anyway so when we went down south during our travels we visited our friend colin. Well colin was unfortunate in that he got robbed last December, Christmas eve to be exact… it really sucked for him as pretty much alllllll his stuff including clothes and other valuables got stolen. We have been fortunate to not have had any thieving issues, other than peter and his 3 other rat friends stealing our food, and let’s all hope and pray that it stays that way. (knocking on wood for von) well since his break in he’s had to go clothes shopping in his local market and has gotten really really good at it. he even showed us the ropes when we visited, and he took us to his market and we hit up all his favorite ‘stores.’ Well the markets here are basically just a lot of wooden stalls next to each other like a ghetto flea market and they either sell food, bike parts or clothes. The clothes that they sell are pretty much bags and bags of goodwill stuff that doesn’t pass the bar of US sales so I think they come here. Well so there are A LOT of clothes from summer camps, gyms, retreats and most are hideous but once in a while you’ll find that gem, that diamond in the rough and you bargain it down to about a dollar or two. Well colin tends to get anything ‘american’ and i even got to see one of his purchases which was a tank with the American flag and a bald eagle soaring across it… it was great! Haha well so von and I kinda just laughed it off and never really felt the necessity to seek out clothing, but the other day we went into our market looking for something and finally decided to give this clothes shopping a go. We went into the pits of our market, parts we never even knew existed, goin through back alleys and circling around the same stall 4 or 5 times cuz they all look the same, but in the midst of this craziness, this traveling panda found her perfect panda shirt! I have been wanting a panda shirt for a very very long time and I tried ridiculously hard to get the Johnny cupcake panda eating cupcake shirt, but by the time I tried it was already sold out and discontinued cuz it was a special edition shirt. Anyway so here we are wandering through our market and I turn the corner and see this perfect shirt out of the corner of my eye. It’s a lime green wwf shirt with their panda logo on it! it’s AMAZING!!! and he wanted like 2.50 for it but I got it down to 1.50… I got this bargaining thing down to a T! anyway so it’s awesome and now von and I have the shopping bug and are probably goin to continue to scour the markets for cool new stuff and develop secret codes with vendors for when they get new shipments in hahahahaha.

So the past 3 weeks have been end of trimester test weeks and testing always gets my moral down down down in the pits… I know I’m not the best english teacher in the world, but these kids make me feel like I’m a complete failure when they still to this day can’t conjugate the verb ‘to be’ in the present tense, or they don’t trust their own ability and cheat to get a few extra points, but end up getting a zero cuz I catch em… sucks… anyway enough about that cuz it’s depressing…

on to more exciting news…. Drum roll please darrrrrrurrrrrrurrrrrrrrrrrr~
I’m leaving for spain in 2 days!!!!
The day I never thought would come has FINALLY arrived!! Mir and I have been planning this trip for about 2-3months now and I have been waiting to go to spain since high school so it’s a pretty exciting day for me! We’re going to be in Barcelona for about 8 days and San Sebastian for 4! i’m first off super excited for my first and last meal of the trip to be McDonald’s at the jburg airport, mmmm cheeseburgers, chicken mcnuggets, crispy fries, fountain diet coke and sweet and sour sauce…. Mmmmmm….. and then for all the other amazing Spanish food I’ll be partaking in, mmmmm sangria, tapas, wine, meat, beer, arzak, sangria, sangria, meat…. Mmmmm, and last but definitely the MOST IMPORTANT, I GET TO SEE MY SISTER!!!!!!!!! For the most part I’m pretty used to spending long periods of time away from my family, but this is a whole different ball game! Granted my parents call me WAY more often than they ever have in their entire lives, the family is the bestest and I miss them tons so even though I just get to see miray it’s gonna be awesome!

Also congrats to vonnie who is now a godmother to little baby kellen!! He’s shoooo cute!!! And congrats to von’s cousin! 3 boys eeepah good luck!!!

Aiight I think that’s it for now, but I’ll be posting pictures and an update from spain soon!! love and miss everyone!!

Panda


the glorious new panda shirt!

WELCOME MOZ 15ers!!! I feel your pain…

So the new group of MOZ 15ers are starting to get their invitations to Mozambique, including my friend Pat, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, and i remember how daunting packing felt, and then reading a few of the volunteers’ suggestions on what to bring that really helped, so here are mine and vonnie’s two cents on what you can probably leave behind and what you should absolutely, definitely bring!! First, here are two websites that I didn’t find until just a few weeks before leaving, but there are A LOT of companies that will let you sign up for their pro-deal for being a PC volunteer, which means discounts on a bunch of their stuff. Money is tight so take advantage, but get started now cuz it just takes a long long time to get approved and then shipping and whatnot so…

http://www.peacecorpswiki.org/Volunteer_discounts

http://coconuth8r.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/freebies-and-discounts-for-pc-volunteers/

you should also sign up for the bed bath and beyond mailing list and start getting coupons, and ask all your family and friends to donate theirs to you cuz you’ll save a TON of money with all those 20%off coupons! Also a lot of drug and office supply stores will be starting their back to school sales so hit those up! Also grab a Sunday paper here and there for coupons and sale notices.

Things I brought or got sent that I absolutely could not live without…

- Laptop, camera, hard drive (pre-loaded with all your favorite movies, e-books, music, tv shows, and if you can afford it, bring an extra one to steal stuff from other volunteers!) ipod (if you bring an ipod touch or iphone, load it up with multi player games cuz a round of scrabble, monopoly or trivial pursuit can get you through even the most ‘exciting’ sessions, and there are a LOT of really ‘exciting’ sessions!), and flash drives – just cuz you’re in the PC doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of ALL luxuries… trust me it’s hard enough as is without some music/movie/tv escape. (oh and don’t forget all the cords and chargers you need!
- REI chamois towels – they are super thin and pack small and dry ultra quickly!
- USB plug in speakers – recharging batteries is a HASSLE and a half, and most of you will bring laptops so you can just have em plugged in. I did bring a small battery powered speaker as well for travel, but I gave it away and don’t miss em!
- Lonely planet Mozambique
- Sharp knives and a peeler! Whether you like to cook or not, you’ll need a knife, and I bought the Henckels 4pc pairing knife set from BedBathBeyond for 20 bucks and they are GLORIOUS! Also you’ll prob be eating a lot of potatoes and having a good peeler will save your thumbs from carpel tunnel.
- Printed pictures – during training they’re great to show to your host fam, and then once you get to site you can use them to decorate your room! Printing pictures is kinda pricey and hard to find a place to do it outside of the bigger cities.
- Any and all on-the-go drink mix packets! Crystal light, propel, Gatorade, lipton – bring as many as you can! Also if you are a tea drinker, bring your favorite teas cuz the only one you can get here is ‘five roses’ Ceylon tea which is… ok… but gets old quick when you drink it with almost every meal during training cuz you don’t want to drink sodas with every meal… haha
- Duct tape and clear fishing line – can be used to fix or make anything!
- School supplies that I love – good quality pens (that you like using cuz you can get the sucky bic pens here too), scotch tape, markers, crayons, colored pencils, colored chalk (I also use this small plastic case thing to carry chalk cuz if you just put it in your bag or pocket it will rub off white on everything!) also I got self laminating sheets and dry erase markers sent and I laminated a poster size sheet to write tests and texts on and it’s AWESOME and you don’t waste lots of poster paper or get cramps in your arms from writing on the black board.
- TONS of ziplock bags in all the different sizes! Snack, sandwich, 3oz, gallon – I packed a lot of clothes and supplies in the larger ziplock bags and then when I got here I used those bags for other things!
- Spices that are easy to use – taco, garlic powder, course ground black pepper (pepper is really hard to find here!) parm cheese, Italian, pasta sauce, HOT SAUCE and anything that’s just add water!
- Warm clothes, sweat shirt, sweatpants! It is ridiculously HOT most of the time, but during the ‘winter’ here it does get pretty cold at night and your house will have NO insulation which means cold when you sleep… not fun! And a couple of days it gets really really cold and rainy during training! But also beware that you’ll be doing your own laundry a lot of the time, so don’t bring anything that you wouldn’t wanna have to handwash!
- My rain boots! (along with other rain gear like a waterproof jacket, rain pants and small umbrella) I got the cheapy ones from target that I would have never worn in the states, but they hands down were a lifesaver during training! They were warm and the mud in namaacha is OUT OF CONTROL! All your long pants will forever get ruined from it and if you wear flip flops, the mud tends to swallow them whole! Also the mud gets under your toenails and eww your feet just get gross looking… so yeah I know a lot of people don’t use them and don’t find them useful, but I loved em and I left them with my host family in namaacha cuz nowhere else in Mozambique will you ever need them!
- GAMES! We played games during every break, at the end of the day, on weekends! They were a great way to get to know other ppl in a “in-your-face-I’m-better-than-you” kinda way~ haha but really you’ll be invited to every gathering cuz they’ll wanna play your games! I brought cards(of course), uno, travel settlers (seriously the best game ever), and catchprase. Some other suggestions: skip-bo, phase 10, lotsa dice, travel scrabble, travel anything = )
- Nalgenes! You can do two different sizes or a widemouth and a skinny. But one thing that von had that I got super jealous of was her nalgene cover! It’s just a neoprene cover meant to keep it cold/hot (which is awesome if you have a fridge) but more than that, your nalgene will sweat when going from cold to warm and if it’s in your bag it’ll just get water on everything and ruin papers, books, electronics! No good!!
- Febreze – sometimes you’ll be short on water and can’t do laundry or you forgot to wash something, and you’re just sick and tired of smelling your stinky self? Cover it up with some febreeze!
- A good quality 220v extension cord! Very few volunteers live sans electricity here and most of you will have electronics, so if you can get your hands on one there you should def bring it! I had my mom send me one cuz you’ll either end up paying a lot of money for an OK one or get a cheap one that’ll melt after 15min of use… not fun.
- Some other misc things – don’t bring orbits or anyother stick style gum. They melt and stick together… instead bring mints and chiclet style gum like eclipse. Swiss army knife and flashlight – definite musts! The fake q-tips here SUCK so if you’re a q-tipper, bring real q-tips! Lysol or wet wipes come in handy since running water and soap is hard to come by so they can clean up minor messes. Good toothpaste, deodorant,
- If you’ve read my blog, or anyone’s for that matter, you’ll know that rats getting into your stuff is pretty common. Von’s mom sent us sticky glue filled rat traps and they work like MAGIC. They’re small and light and we’ve already caught 4!

Things I still don’t have that would be awesome…
- for english teachers, you should def bring a simple grammar book cuz if you’re like me, even though we speak it, teaching it is different and who knew there was a name for every grammar tense!
- For science teachers, von came as a bio teacher and is now teaching bio, physics, and english, and she really wished she had brought basic text books. Even though they’re heavy I think it’s a good idea to bring at least one and then you can always trade with other volunteers once you know for sure what you’ll be teaching! The science courses here are bio, chem, physics and math and there’s a good amount of bio and chem books already floating around, so it might be better to bring a physics and/or math book. If you’re dead set on teaching a particular subject, unfortunately chances are you won’t be teaching it so just keep an open mind and be prepared to be flexible, and to teach english!! Haha
- Thermarest! If you’re planning on traveling at all while you’re here, which you absolutely should, you’ll want a small but comfy sleeping bag type thing cuz cement/mud floors are cool but super uncomfortable! We’ve used some of our friends’ thermarest and they are AWESOME! You should try to find the space to fit one it! A travel pillow and blanket are also key~!

Things you don’t really need to bring….
- a million day supply of meds… just bring the truly basics, (pepto, advil, vitamins) and REALLY, REALLY, REALLY only a 10 week supply, cuz once you become a PCV they provide a pretty good spread of meds. And even in training if you get seriously sick, the doctors will take care of ya, they won’t leave ya hanging!
- If you’re not crazy sensitive to the sun, you really don’t need to bring a hefty supply of sunblock. During training you’re honestly not outside that much and namaacha’s pretty overcast and chilly and you’re more covered up anyway.
- Lotion… I brought this GIANT bottle of it and haven’t touched it and once you swear in this too is provided for… I’d say bring a thing of Vaseline instead cuz if you wear sandals a lot your feet may dry out and crack so Vaseline would be better than just lotion.
- Bug stuff – you’ll be sleeping with a mosq net and namaacha just didn’t really have that many mosquitoes.
- I really really really wanted to buy a UV water purifier cuz they just seemed really cool, but I’m glad I didn’t bring one cuz they’re pricey and you’re pretty set with the filters they give you.

Host family GIFTS
- This was a tricky one for almost all volunteers and since you don’t know who your host family will be, you kinda have to buy stuff for all ages and types of people. I don’t know why but I just assumed I would have a house full of little kids so I brought like hair and makeup stuff for little girls and hot-wheels cars for boys and I didn’t have any kids in my family… so those ended up being prizes during model school and given away to neighbors, but I also brought a set of pairing knives (the same ones I brought for myself) to give to my host mom, and luckily I just had one super awesome host brother who was 17 and I had brought a $10 usb 2gig mp3 player from target that I loaded up with his favorite music and gave to him on his birthday which passed during training! They were both huge hits! Von says American candy is good like skittles but avoid ‘hot’ candy… why that was an option to begin with I’ll never know… (she’s looking over my shoulder and demands that I write that hot tamales, red hots, and any type of Mexican candy that is coated in chile are strictly prohibited… thanks von) but she does say that different plant seeds were a huge hit and her family planted them the next day! Also I know a lot of people brought jerseys, t-shirts and hats of their favorite sports teams from back from and host fams ate that up! Really they will like anything that comes from you so don’t stress is too much cuz it’s the thought that counts! Oh one last thing, you could bring a picture frame, then during one of your trips to Maputo get a picture of you and your host fam printed and then give them that framed picture! I think a lot of people do that too!

Ok so there it is. It’s kinda monstrous I’m sorry, but really don’t panic, take a deep breath and get packin! Definitely give yourself an extra packing day than what you’re planning to allow some wiggle room for procrastination and panic attacks! It will take a long time and lotsa brain power so gear up! Also you can start buying stuff and just keep all receipts and don’t take tags off and if you find something for a better price or realize you really won’t be needing it just return it!
Von and I are available for personal shopping consults so email us (esther.gweon@gmail.com , voncontreras@gmail.com) with any and all questions! This was just stuff that we really loved or didn’t so if you want more input on the packing list they send you we can do that as well~

BO-RING!

So my sister seems to think all I do is travel and have fun, and let’s face it, it’s hard not to when you’re me! Haha no but really I write a blog once a month and I don’t wanna write about the boring day to day stuff so I wait for something big and fun to happen so it just seems like all we do is have fun! Anyway so thanks to miray this blog will be all about the day-to-day stuff! Well for starters I wake up at 6am every morning like clockwork these days to pee. I don’t know why but 6am rolls around and I just can’t hold it any longer and I have to leave the comfort of my bed and stumble through our yard to pee… no fun! I can usually fall back asleep pretty easily, but then at 6:50am-ish the elementary kids sing the national anthem and it’s so loud and off pitch that it sounds like they’re inside the house! so I usually wake up for that and then try to go back to sleep… usually about 7:30am is when our 9th graders start coming by the house to ask for any number of things from water, tutoring, breakfast, games, or just our company, and force me to get out of bed once again. When I finally make it to the door the kids are usually all in an uproar cuz I’m still sleeping… most everyone here starts there day at like 5am so they don’t understand how we could possibly sleep in until 8AM!!! I mean I can’t remember the last time I got to sleep in undisturbed til like 10am! DOUBLE DIGITS I MISS YOU! So then with kids coming and going and trying to wake up, I’ll eat breakfast and make sure I’m ready for my classes. We try to have all our lesson plans done at least the night before, so I may look over my notes just to make sure I don’t need to take any other extra props in or anything. This second trimester von and I decided to have some fun with our 11th graders and have music Fridays! So far we’ve done ‘california waiting – kings of leon’ ‘forever – chris brown’ ‘mo money mo problems - biggie’ ‘don’t stop believin – journey’ and ‘no air – jordin & chris.’ We usually start the class with some kind of review of a simple grammar point that may be in the song. Then we do vocabulary from the lyrics and then we write the lyrics up on the board with blanks for the vocab and then play the song for them to listen to the lyrics and fill in the blanks. Usually after the 2nd time through I’ll pause and actually go over the lyrics and kinda try to explain what the song is about. And then I’ll play the song until class is over and it pretty much just turns into a crazy dance fest! It’s really fun and the kids enjoy it because they get to listen to music and learn lyrics! This week we’re doing ‘waving flag – k’naan’ for a little Africa pride and then next week we’re doing the ‘cha cha slide’!!!! haha we’re takin it back old school and teaching them some sweeet dance moves! We already did it once at Dillon’s school and it was really fun so hopefully our kids will get a kick out of it too! Although… she only had 25ish kids in her class and we’ll have like 70 so… we’ll see! With 9th grade I’ve had to begin each class with conjugating the verb ‘to be’ in the present or past tense. Even if they don’t learn anything else in my class, I WILL ENGRAVE the conjugation of ‘to be’ in their brains by the end of the year! Oh last weekend von was really sick and so I had to fill in for her at her science fair meeting. It was only the second meeting so I had to give them notes on scientific method. The lesson part actually wasn’t terrible. I remember it pretty well and von’s notes were great so I made it through the lecture part and then von wanted me to split them into groups and have to talk about potential topic ideas and walk around to talk to each of them and that’s when it got a little hairy… these kids would talk a mile a minute cuz they’re excited about their topic and I would just look at them and smile and say ‘oh that sounds like a really interesting idea! you should definitely come by the house this week to tell it to teacher Yvonne and she can help you form it into an experiment.’ I still don’t know what half the topics were about let alone if they were even remotely feasible as science fair experiments! I never once in my life participated in science fair! I’ve never even made one of those volcano things! Ooh it started getting kinda chilly at night here so we’ve had to start heating up water to take our bucket baths and some nights I go to bed in sweats and a sweatshirt! It’s awesome! Oh we totally made an awesome new Mozambican friend! We’re integrating!! About a month ago I started tutoring one of our fellow teachers in English. Ana Paula is a 22 year old, super stylish, French teacher. She’s new this year as well and she’s just really awesome. At first I thought she was super shy and timid, and I guess she is kinda, but once I started talking to her more and getting to know her, we’ve realized she’s super funny and way way way ahead of pop culture! We find out what music is popular from her~ haha it’s great. So last week we had her over for dinner and made a Mexican feast of chips and salsa, beef taquitos, and Mexican rice. I recently learned how to make Mexican rice from scratch through von’s mom and I’m pretty pumped to have it in my repertoire! On the weekends we try to do at least one home improvement project and this weekend we made a photo collage hangy art piece thing and painted a few ‘chalkboards’ in the house. they’re pretty exciting and they also cover up all the places where the wall peeled off from duct tape, ahem erin and nia ahem. But yeah our house is definitely shaping up and while I’m sad that we’ll only be here for 19 more months, I’m pretty excited for whoever replaces us! Hope they like green and chalkboards! OH OH OH I also found out last week that Pat O got her invitation to PC Mozambique! SO exciting! Congrats and I can’t wait to see you!!! I’m working on a packing list for ya so hang tight! Ok so I got kinda side tracked on the day-to-day life thing, but I’m too tired to write more so I’ll try to write more next time! Love and miss everyone! e money out

Ding dong the witch... and by the witch i mean rat... IS DEAD!!!

Long time no update and I am soooooo very sorry! School has been busy with testing and then we were on break so von and I took a little vacay to visit people in other parts of Mozambique! Some highlights from our trip…

- 1 - we went to gorongosa to visit the mills who are the loves of my PC life, and while there, one of the days we went on a hike to see a waterfall and basically hiked and waded through rocky streams and while I was channeling my inner ‘bear’ from man vs wild, I’ve never felt so bad@$$ in my life! It was so cool! And the waterfall was beautiful! When we got to the spot, there were basically 3 different small waterfalls all falling into one pool~ we couldn’t take cameras cuz we were waist deep in water, but man it was gorgeous and just such a fun little adventure!

- 2 - The two LONG LONG LONG bus trips we were on could not be more opposite… the first was from nampula to quelimane. We got on the bus at 4 am and it looks like a normal greyhound bus but instead of 2 seats/aisle/2seats, there are 2, aisle, and then 3 seats! The seats are tiny and they just jam you in there! Luckily we got tickets the day before so we had seats but then there are people jammed into the isles too so then you have people pretty much sitting on you through the trip. and of course there’s no air conditioning and the windows that are level with you don’t open and only the windows up top do and that air doesn’t come down… so til about 8am we were ok cuz it wasn’t that hot, but once that sun started getting hotter we were baking inside that bus! Ughhhh it was TORTURE! And it made stops everywhere! To let people off, to let people on, stops for bathrooms, stops to buy random produce on the side of the road… So that was a nice little 13ish hour bus ride to Quelimane. Our bus ride back on the other hand was on a luxury bus called the TCO from Beira to Nampula. This thing was AMAZING! there was air conditioning, snacks, a bathroom and minimal stops! We were on that bus for about 17 hours but it was totally worth it. on the other bus this same trip woulda taken about 30 hours so you get the idea!

- 3 - also the phone/internet has been down for the past month or so… the story that I got is that a boat was pulling an anchor and tripped over fiber optic lines that were under the ocean and took out all tele-communication for pretty much the entire country for a month… my family was PISSSSSSSSED that they hadn’t heard from me or could get through to me when they knew I was on a trip… yikes! I’m still apologizing to them about that! But during this time of no communication, my sister sold my vespa (BYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE ROAR-EE!!!! I’LL LOVE AND MISS YOU FOREVER!!!!), my nephew turned 5 (he’s so big! And I made him the most amazing pop-up card which I believe has also whirl winded into us starting our own pop-up card business), my dad got a new job (YAY ABBA! I’m SO PROUD OF YOU!!!), and all Barcelona trip plans have been finalized! More on that later!!

So now we’re back at site and coming off travel highs and trying to get back into the swing of school… it’s difficult… vacation was so fun to just be around lots of people that we love again! The first couple days back and vonnie was at school I had no idea what to do with myself… I would twirl my thumbs and sit waiting for her to come back home! Anyway last weekend we were finally able to go into the city and check our mail and oh was it a glorious day! Von and I both got 3 packages each!!! We were barely able to bring it all back home with us, but we got an awesome boleia(free ride/hitch hike) back home so it was cake! Mir sent me a bunch of stuff that I really needed like a nalgene cover, lovingly dubbed the space suit, a bike seat cover cuz rumors had it you couldn’t walk for a week if you just rode ours… yikes, and other amazing stuff like 3 boxes of girl scout cookies!!!! I also got a package from nicole, scott and brandye!!! It was AMAZING! they sent all sorts of spices and baking necessities (which are gonna be key once we get our toaster oven!), and goodies like chex-mix (already gone), marshmallows (half gone with a few cups of hot chocolate), and yummy candy galore! And then I finally finally got christe’s package from back in February! We were starting to think it was lost forever, but it made it here and I think I gobbled down the box of candy while I was looking through the rest of the box! Reece’s eggs! MMMMMMM! Thank you thank you thank you so much guys! Nothing could have given us a better pick me up after being back at school!

However, I am sad and elated to announce that our favorite care package item did not come from one of my boxes, but from a package from von’s mom! I know we’ve talked LOTS about peter pettigrew, our rat, and how much turmoil it has put us through as we have lost many a good American/Korean/local food items to him… just recently he chewed through two packages of gim (Korean seaweed paper) that my mom sent me and I cried… it was really sad… anyway right before leaving on our trip we also attempted to get a cat to help us get rid of the darn thing, but it ended up biting vonnie and running away 30 min after we got him… riggings we’ll miss you… it also resulted in vonnie needed two more rabies shots! Eeeeeee… so after all that vonnie’s mom sent us some mouse-traps to help us get peter! Well so that night we put a few out in the usual spots he likes to hang out in. we didn’t really think much of it cuz we didn’t know exactly how well they would work. Anyway so the next morning vonnie woke up first, she always does, and comes flying into my room screaming at me to wake up! I knew immediately that it had to be something about peter! I all but tear down my mosquito net to try to get to it, but when I got to the spot where she said it was all I saw were blurs… as most of you know, some better than others, I am NOT a morning person… anyway so I stepped back, rubbed my eyes for a solid 2 minutes til they were clear and then looked again and sure enough there was what looked like a furball and two little legs caught in the glue of the trap behind one of our water bins. His front legs were still free and he was still alive but tired from trying to free himself… the pictures make it look pretty sad, but if you knew how much food and sleep we have lost since living in this house because of him you wouldn’t be sad for it… so yeah now we don’t have a rat! I’m sure there will be more in the future, but for now there’s not and we can use all our shelves like normal people and leave food on it and not worry about it disappearing! (vonnie just read this portion and yelled “WHAT A WIN FOR US!”) and yes folks victory is ours!

Miss everyone so much and keep the packages/letters/emails a coming! Oh and there’s a really classic candid picture of me on the mills’ blog (http://themillsinmoz.wordpress.com/) and dude I’m famous! People all around the world (of peace corps…) know about this amazing ‘traveling panda’! I’m so cool~ haha ok not really but oh and vonnie’s blog is www.vonniecontreras.blogspot.com check em out!

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
panda

farewell to our 6 blissful days of PC in-service training… miss you already~

so ist was pretty much the most glorious thing that could have ever happened to us after 6 months of being away from home and in africa. we got a ride there pretty easily and 2 hours later we had arrived at the pc office. there were a few other ppl there, but they were pretty much invisible cuz there were much more pressing things waiting for me – 3 glorious packages! 2 from my sisters and 1 gigantic one from my parents! that last blog worked like magic on them apparently cuz these were so overflowing with goodies that i almost felt like I had enough to share with everyone else who would be in town! i mean obviously that didn’t happen, ok well i shared a 2 packages of oreos, some m&m’s, sweethearts and fundip cuz i’m a super nice generous person. My sisters sent me an array of goodies from ranch dressing, velveeta cheese, tuna and hamburger helper, cheese-its and SPAM!!!! Now I can make some legit dad’s meal and i’m gonna attempt making some cabbage kimchi bokkeumbab! mmmmmm!! yeah von and I were drooling and ooohing and aaaahing as i pulled out each and every item! haha it was great. migs sent a photo calendar with pics of the fam which was awesome and mir sent 6 dvds with the rest of FNL, vampire diaries, life unexpected, burn notice, chuck, himym, and some other misc things. 4 days after being back home we’ve already watched 4 of those 6 dvds… yikes! we don’t know how to pace ourselves!! anyway, after opening those two we decided that we didn’t wanna carry everything to the hotel so we didn’t open my parents package and waited til they brought it to the hotel. so we’re carrying giant boxes and bags to the hotel and we’re sweating bullets and we take the long way around to the hotel cuz we have no idea where it is, but we finally walk into the lobby and it’s a frozen tundra of awesomeness. right towards the end of checking in, a gaggle of hot messes aka central folk walk in the door!!! i had pretty much been losing sleep over the anticipation of getting to see brian and Jordan, the members of the original lang group (the tims and camilla), kendra, alex and the pretty girl aka rebecca haha. so when they walked in it didn’t matter that everyone was sweaty and gross, von and i pretty much tackled them to the floor in excitement! And then the eating began… we started with that lunch at the lebanese place and just never stopped! every single day breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided at the hotel buffet style and it was an amazing mix of mediterranian/indian/moz/american food and i still feel full just thinking about it. all of us pretty much stuffed ourselves silly every meal just cuz we could and we wanted to store it all away til the next big conference! the ac in the rooms were unreal and then there are the showers… i was ecstatic with what we had, but it wasn’t until the second to last night that i realized that we had the worst shower ever… the water pretty much trickled out and even that was amazing so when i showered one last time in one of the other rooms i was blown away! the water pretty much jetted out and almost hurt… almost but not quite since i was too busy enjoying the water pressure doing all the work of cleaning me and not me scrubbing my skin off! haha so yeah it was pretty much amazing and i haven’t even gotten to the partying! lets just say that room 108 (our room, shocker) had seen better days! it was just a lot of fun to chill out and play games with everyone with some liquid refreshments. so anyway now we’re back and it was a rough week with tests, grading and just getting back into the swing of things, and now we have more tests but 2 more weeks and then we get to go to gorongosa to visit the mills’!!!! we are so friggin pumped to see them that we will even brave the massive amounts of traveling we’ll have to do to get there~ oh yeah btw the interenet place… down again… so that’s why i haven’t been able to reply to all the emails quicker! but you should all be getting replies soon! miss everyone so much! byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

ps. we finally got an empregada (maid) and she started today and she’ll be coming once and week to do laundry and clean our latrine and she’s wonderful and not having to do our own laundry is wonderful and walking into a clean bathroom is wonderful and it’s really just truly wonderful~ wonderful wonderful wonderful!

who i'll be living with for the next two years (not including the bat and rat)

so i don’t know how much i’ve actually written about yvonne (vonnie) contreras, but she’s a friggin baller. we’re not exactly sure how they found out about us, we’re almost certain they pulled some houdini magic slash interrogated our families and friends to find out exactly what we were like and decided that we would be the perfect match for each other! i’m pretty sure we’re the best housemate pair-up in the history of PC mozambique if not the world! so why do i say that?? because we are the exact opposite and exactly the same all at the same time and in perfect situations! haha cuz we like a lot of the same music (except that she likes country… she keeps saying she’s going to convert me, but i seriously seriously doubt that… and she just listens to it at night on her ipod before bed… thank goodness ^.^) we love watching tv and movies(we’ve watched FNL, weeds, how i met your mother, greys, glee, always sunny, and about 100 movies already), we love love love eating and love all sorts of candy(but even with candy if there’s a bag of an assorted mix, we usually like the opposite things and that also worst out perfectly!), and we are non-stop gamers! last i counted we had 22 different games that we play on a fairly consistent basis, and that’s not even including all the different card games we could be playing. so those are just a few of the ways that we’re similar, but the really awesome thing is how we’re complete opposites. the biggest one is that she likes to clean, and anyone who knows me knows how much i hate it. i hate hate hate doing dishes especially, and i don’t know that she actually likes it, cuz i don’t believe her when she says she does, but she doesn’t like to cook, or more that she doesn’t know really how, so i cook and am slowly teaching her how to, but she’s a master potato peeler and vegetable dicer btw, and she in turn cleans! it’s seriously one of the most glorious trade-off compromises to be made in life ever. so yeah von’s from california as well, central cali, and went to SD state, and she came to teach biology, but is only teaching one class of that… haha figures, but yeah she’s teaching 4 classes of physics and 2 more of english! the poor thing has to do three different subject lessons plans, and 10 actual lesson plans per week… YIKES! but she’s a trooper and she’s super “popular.” she pins it on having a big family, but we’re sticking to popularity. i think she gets more txt messages from the us than moz, and i think she’s gotten at least 8 packages just during the 3 months that we’ve been living together (not counting the 2months in training). and we’re not talking letters or little mailers, we’re talking big mamma jamma boxes every time packed with all sorts of goodies from food and candy to school supplies to more games! like i wrote last time, i’ve gotten 3, one of which i packed for myself… and i would be extraordinarily jealous except that i get to partake it all of its gloriousness cuz von’s super generous and she loves me = ]. oh also we’ve learned that she likes all things korean. i’ll cook random korean things and make really really korean things like cucumber kimchi and she LOVES it! haha it’s bizarre but hey i’m not complaining! she also mastered playing gong-gi in 2 days and i’m currently teaching her how to read and write korean and then hopefully teach her basic conversational korean and then we can totally talk about other ppl right in their faces in korean! haha jk, but not really cuz that would be super cool!!! ok that's about it, but as you can see, she's amazing and we're super excited to be living together! ok until next time~ byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

panda

we had bats, then moved onto rats, now all we need is a cat!

it all started with the incident of the missing tomatoes. we had gone to the market earlier that day, but when we got back from class there were only 3 of the 5 tomatoes on the shelf. i of course jumped to the conclusion that vonnie lost/ate them but being the highly non-confrontation person that i am let it go and didn’t say anything. then a couple of days later we walked into the house and i screamed when i saw a giant tail scurry off the counter and out of view. von was behind me and didn’t see it and decided that I was lying and tripping on malaria meds. i didn’t like being called a liar, but secretly i hoped she was right. then we started finding our missing produce all over the house. it was really gross finding half eaten tomatoes, onions and bulbs of garlic rotting away behind the counters and between the cement blocks and then von finally saw it scurry across the shelves one night. yeah not good… anyway so no major damage had been done and we just started putting our produce in the fridge and then it happened… I mean it musta been really really really hungry cuz it decided that coming into my room was a good idea. one night i got woken up by a gnawing noise in the corner of my room where there’s a desk and i have a large plastic storage bin. the storage bin is pretty hefty so i thought even if it was gnawing at it there was no way it would chew its way in and i was really tired so i decided to ignore it and go back to sleep. i thought HAH as long as it’s not getting into it and it can’t actually get to me(hopefully it doesn’t try to chew through my mosquito net… shudder) so the next morning i checked the outside of the bin and it was unscathed so i ignored it thinking the stupid rat couldn’t outsmart my bin. that night i heard it again so i sat in my bed and shined a flashlight and threw flipflops in that direction hoping to scare it off. it just so happened to start raining then as well so von woke up to put the buckets out to collect (she’s obsessed with it…) so she saw me with my flashlight in one hand and a flipflop in the other and a.thought i was crazy, and b.ignored me cuz collecting water is wayyyyyyy more important. when she came back from putting the buckets out she turned the light to my room on for me and went to bed. i was getting tired too so i threw my last flipflop at the bin in defeat when the rat came running out and went under my bed. i of course screamed and pulled the mosquito net back over me and tucked it under the mattress and put my ear plugs in and closed my eyes – i mean out of sight out of mind right? well after what i imagine was a couple hours later, the gnawing noise was coming from the bin again and there’s a chair between my bed and the bin. so I got outta bed and stood on the chair and was trying to peer down into the crack between the bin and the wall but i didn’t see anything… it was seriously starting to piss me off but i wasn’t about to start a rat hunt at 3am so i got back into bed and barely made it to the next morning waking up to every noise, one of which i thought sounded vaguely like foil… but when i got up to check the bin, again it was totally unscathed, and then i remembered the foil noise… there was only one thing in my room that had foil on it and it was this toothbrush disinfecting cover thing i got, but that particular item was INSIDE the bin. i honestly didn’t think there was a chance in hell, but when i pulled at the lid one of the corners wasn’t completely latched on and when i finally took the lid off sure enough there was the toothbrush cover thing and the plastic and foil wrapper ripped to shreds… gross… i rummaged through the rest of the bin to see if it got to anything else and it basically tore into everything at least once… hole in my toothpaste, holes in the bags of wet wipes that’ll probably dry out now, and holes in other random plastic bags… stupid rat… anyway so i cleaned out the bin and rearranged it so that it would shut completely and all our valuable foods are in the refrigerator. so it’s pretty much over, but since then he’s still gotten to a bag of powdered sugar, some kinda fruit we think is probably some sorta guava but too scared to try, and rice. ok i should go now cuz we don’t have energy at this moment cuz we’re having issues with the electricity company so it’s hot and i need to save my computer energy, but i’ll be writing about school and a special ode to vonnie soon = ]

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

traveling panda back in action

i have oh so much to write about, but i think i’ll start with what i’ve appreciated the most since i’ve last written… packages! haha they have been glorious! it’s funny cuz the very first package i received was the one box i had packed for myself before i left the us so i knew exactly what was in it, but opening it up was still like christmas! i mean it was just stuff like school and kitchen supplies that i couldn’t fit in my luggage, but man getting a bag of halls watermelon flavored vitamin c drops was like getting a bag of caramel apple pops! i mean that’s how excited i was… oh so sad… the second time i got packages was when i got a christmas package from my sisters and a package from my parents. i learned a valuable lesson on why i shouldn’t judge a package by its shape and size! my parents had sent me a fairly large box of korean goodies, complete with different kroean food like gochugaroo(korean chili flakes), chocolate filled pepero, and gongi(korean game kinda like jacks)!!! thanks umma and abba! the second package was from my sisters and well it was… small… it was only a soft envelope mailer and when i saw it my heart sank a little… i was like really miray and migum? realllllly? this is it?? but then i opened it and i no joke ate those words and i did it happily cuz it was the greatest package everrrrrrr~ it had 2 recorded dvds, a flashdrive, a deck of cards and a couple of cards. the 2 recorded dvd’s had 6 glorious episodes of friday night lights and the season finale of top chef! i mean really as if we needed any more ‘hotness’ in our lives hoooo it was amazing~ but hang on that’s just the beginning! the flashdrive had 2 home videos of the fam, 10 episodes of the new season of how i met your mother, up and 14 episodes of GLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~! unfortunately we weren’t able to watch any of it til just recently cuz i needed internet to authorize my computer to watch it cuz they were all itunes purchases and as you now know the internet didn’t work for a while, but as soon as we got internet we watched everything in pretty much one weekend! we declared yesterday glee day cuz we saw all 14 episodes in one day! and seriously it was unreal! SO GOOOOD! we can’t wait for more! ahhhhh tv’s so goood! oh and they sent a deck of scrabble slam! cards which is a super fun game! and then of course there were homemade cards from my bambo, his christmas tree by the way was amazing! so thank you thank you thank you! i love it all and can’t wait for more! ok now a few quick words about school… it’s well… school… haha well i teach 4 classes of 9th grade and there’s about 95-110 kids in each of those classes… it’s tough getting through to those kids just cuz theres so many of em, but when atleast one or two get it I feel accomplished! we also ended up taking over for a sister who teaches at the school cuz she’s been sick, so vonnie took her 11th graders, and i took her 12th graders, and man you would think that after 6-7 years of english they’d be fairly good, but… yeah… it was a rude awakening… but the sister is back now and i think she’s taking back the 12th graders, but we still have to split up the 11th grade classes, so i’m taking one of the classes, and vonnie’s taking two, but i don’t feel bad for her cuz she gave me the delinquent class and kept the two good ones for herself haha but at least now we get to lesson plan together so it’ll cut down on the work a bunch! ok well i think that’s about it for now, i have many more stories to tell you like the one about the rat being in my room, so another blog’ll be up soon I promise! oh and i got the mac facebook photo uploader thing so hopefully that works well and i can put pictures up easily! kk love and miss everyone! byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

p.s. can you believe it’s been 5 months??

YAYYYY INTERNET!!!

so our internet place which was supposed to be oh so conveniently right across the street from our house, decided to stop working/opening because one of the bigger storms broke something or another… yeahhhh... we don’t really know what the deal was and they couldn't tell us when it would get fixed so we've just been waiting around twirling our thumbs~ So anyway school started five weeks ago and well ill wrote more about that in my real blog... i promise i'll have one up before yall know it! love, me

it’s already 2010? oh rats… i mean bats…

happy new year everyone!!!!
so i could write about how awesome i’m doing here in mozambique, but what fun would it be if i bragged about going to a beautiful beach for new years or having a weeds marathon with home made chips and salsa? right? so instead i will write about every peace corps volunteer’s favorite discussion topic, POOP! i know i’m not usually one for talking about bowel movements openly, but we don’t have much else to talk about here so when we say gossip it usually involves who’s having what kinda latrina issues. so where to start, cuz these are also not just any pooping stories, no no those happen even stateside, so all three of ours involve a common unwelcome guest… a bat… yep you heard right, vonnie, d illon and i have all shared many a laughs and tears over the next three stories i’m about to tell you… i will refrain from telling you which story happened to which person but i’ll tell them to you in chronological order. so since we’ve arrived to our wonderful house in monapo, we’ve been having awful stomach issues. we’re not sure if it was from the brown water we drank for the first week or the stress from cleaning and making our house our home, or some sick cosmic joke to make us use our latrina more than we would ever care to, but what can you do? when you gotta go, you just gotta go! so to begin our first story i should first tell you about our house and latrina. since it was our first week in our new house, we locked up pretty good when going to bed and it did not help our first victim to do so. there are two heavy duty locks and also a slide and latch lock and then we also have a grated gate with two padlocks. so it’s a lot of work to get out of the house and you have to go out of the house in order to walk to our outdoor latrina… the latrina’s about 15 yards away but the walk there is a treacherous one, and it’s a sandy death trap even when you can see where you’re walking, so in the dark… yeah not so much fun. anyway so on one fateful evening our first victim felt the pangs in her stomach and started her journey to the latrina. there was a struggle at the door because the locks are upside down and instead of turning the key away from the opening to unlock, you have to turn it toward the opening… and then the rusty slide and latch handle is really hard to jig open… and then the sprint toward the latrina tripping through tall grass and quick sand holes… lets just say she didn’t quite make it before it officially started. but then she finally got to the latrina and she’s squatting over the hole and all seems right in the world when she hears something fluttering and trying to get out of the hole! she freaks out and moves out of the way to find a theoretically poop covered bat fly out of the hole and fly around her head and dive about trying to get out of the latrina as it finally finds its way out the door and free into the night sky. thinking it couldn’t possibly get any worse and just wanting to finish and go back to bed she squats over the hole to finish up when she feels something crawling over her foot. when she pointed her flashlight toward her foot, a giant cockroach was trying to crawl its way back into the hole… oh yeah she was done. ever since then and a couple more times of carelessly walking into the latrina and having bats frantically flutter around our heads has made us more conscientious about checking the bathroom before walking in. that’s where the second victim’s story begins. it was already dark but not terribly late in the night so she set off for the latrina with the tp in one hand and flashlight in the other. she didn’t think it was late enough for the bats to have already seek refuge in the dark latrina so she just walked in, but she ducked and jumped back when there was not just one but 3 bats flying around. she threw a couple of rocks to try to scare em out but there was one pesky little bat still left in there and just flew from one corner to the other. our second victim didn’t quite have to go just then, maybe the bats scared it away, so she went back into the house hoping that when she returned the bat would have left. when the urge returned she went back to the bathroom and banged on the door to find the bat still fluttering around. she threw a few more rocks in but it wouldn’t leave and now after 30min she really really had to go. she walked back toward the house and announced that she could no longer hold it and that she would be digging a hole in the back yard to do her business. she walked to the back of the other side of the house and found an empty coconut shell and began digging. after finishing she covered it back with the dirt and put a rock and the coconut shell back on top of the mound as a warning. it now looks like the final resting place of turk the turtle. our last victim’s story doesn’t actually involve poop or the latrina, but the bat does strike again. we were watching it’s always sunny in philly in the living room and sitting on the floor on a friend’s sleeping bag when suddenly a bat swooped in and started flying around and diving into us, its bearings confused by the light. we all crouched down lower screaming and trying to get out of the way when she yelled oh my gosh i’m gonna pee. we all think that it’s just an expression when she darts up and sprints out the door leaving a wet spot behind. she was literally so scared/excited that she peed herself… we eventually got the bat out of the house, but i don’t think we’ll ever get these stories/images out of our minds and i hope they stay with yall for a good long time too. feel free to print it out and read it every time you’re on the john to remind yourself just how lucky you are, your indoor room with a ceramic throne completely bat free, or tack it up on your cubicle or office wall to brighten up your mood when you’re having a bad day or forward it to anyone else who may be having a bad day!

oh and a belated shout out to my favorite married couple (other than my parents of course), brian and jordan mills! can’t friggin wait to see yall, so brush up on your gaming skills and we’ll be in gorongosa sooner than you think! (hi jordan and brian’s parents! thanks for reading and i’ll try to get them to update their blog more often too!!)

ok 2010! here we go!!!

love,
panda

ps. after writing this blog, but before i got a chance to post it, the bat struck again! we found it swimming in one of our buckets and then after it was done swimming, it was hibernating on a rock… and then it freaked out and flew into our house, but we think it may be dying cuz it couldn’t fully fly, so then it hopped around here and there and then we finally got it outside again… crazy bats!

pps. we also just found out that the bats can crawl under the door crack and another one got in and started flying around and then in went in vonnie's room and camped out on the ceiling so we started throwing bottle caps and beans at it to try to get it out but it wouldn’t budge… it finally flew out of her room and back into the main room and then it crawled under the door into the back room and now its just chilling out back there…. wonder when it’ll go away….

will someone please research bats for us and let us know what keeps them out of the house and latrina? cuz something tells me garlic won’t work…