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