Teaching as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mozambique

These stories began as letters home to family and friends and have become wonderfully descriptive of the Peace Corps experience. Anonymous posting has been requested while the author is in Africa. September - Part II All is well as we move into week 3. I was a little sick from food poisoning but other than that, perfect health! The only bad thing about my family is my sister Neda. I thought I would be able to deal with her for the next 8 weeks but I have already found I am getting short with her. She is the sister with cerebral palsy and down syndrome. She loves me, so if I am home I have to be near her. She constantly is touching me, my hair, and it is just too overwhelming at times. The only alone time I do get is when I got to bed at night. And after a long day of learning Portuguese the last thing I want to do is entertain her. But I am taking it in stride and learning how much patience I actually have. Otherwise, besides chicken foot soup, and this concoction of potatoes, mayonnaise, and fish, the food they cook is amazing! Matapa is my favorite dish, it has coconut milk, matapa leafs – ground up and it looks like pesto - butter and some other things and it is sooo good. Though to cook here, it takes all day. I don't think I have described my house yet, it is a concrete building with a tin roof. It has one large room with a dinning room, living room, and a small kitchen area. Then there are three bedrooms. I have my own room, and the rest of the family splits up in the other two rooms. But we do our main cooking in a different building on the property and we have an outdoor outhouse too. I wish I could upload pictures to show you everything, but the internet is way too slow. It takes about 5 mins to send or receive one email. and most of the time facebook doesn't even work. I actually love the bucket baths. I just miss washing my hands and actually getting all the dirt off with soap and running water. I also really miss cheese. I doubt I will be able to find any. Language is going really slow. We have been told we really don't learn anything after the first 3 weeks until we go to site. So I have no idea how I am actually going to teach in Portuguese! Yesterday was another holiday. We've already had 3 holidays while just being here for 2ish weeks. The first was day of peace – their independence day. The second was professor day - no school for anyone. And yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the first presidents death. He died in a 'accident' on the border of South Africa. No one knows for sure what happened. But we all were able to cross the border and watch the ceremony. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on even when they spoke in English but it was awesome to finally see the President of Mozambique and we also saw the President of SA. They flew into the stadium on helicopters. That was probably the most exciting thing. haha. The other volunteers are great. I don't really have an issue getting along with anyone. And we are slowly getting to know each other. It just is not great we will all finally be good friends by the end of the two weeks and most we will not see again. Mozambique is huge! Though I have heard we are the luckiest volunteers in the Peace Corps. Mozambique is where every volunteer wants to be. We get the best living arrangements, have the best staff, etc.