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