I have officially entered the real land of Peace Corps...meaning, I've completed training and am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer now.
We had our swear in ceremony and had to repeat an official oath at the US embassy last week. Since then we've been pushed in to the deep end and scattered about throughout Mozambique.
It was a little sad leaving Namaacha and saying goodbye to my host family. They walked with me to the mercado where the chapa's were picking us up. My host mom and Sonia were so sad and when I got on the chapa and looked out the window I could see my mom crying. It's so strange to think I could never have imagined when I first arrived that I would become so close to them and really feel like they are family and actually be sad to leave them. I also think about what it must be like for them since they seem so upset and sad that I'm going. Sonia kept telling me she was going to cry and wasn't eating because she said she had no appetite. I don't blame them, their lives just go back to normal, cleaning everyday, every meal taking hours to prepare, and a huge source of income they were getting from the Peace Corps is now gone. I'm really going to be excited to visit them in a year at mid-service!
I had a supervisor conference in Nampula on Thursday. Me and the rest of the PCVs living in the North flew in to Nampula on Wednesday and were pleasently surprised by our hotel accomidations. Running HOT water, air conditioning (although the unit in my room didn't work), good food, and comfortable beds! I met my bosses and counterparts and we all went to meetings to inform our organizations on what we did during training and go over possible problems we may run into while working together. I really like the people I'll be working with, they all seem really nice and excited to work on the projects I'm interested in. My counterpart lives in the same district as me and seems to be eager to listen to my ideas and help me integrate in to my community as much as possible. He speaks really good english so he said if I ever don't understand anything to be sure and tell him so he can clarify but that he would try to talk mostly in Portuguese in order to help me learn. The day after the conference, the five new PCVs that will be working for FGH and our bosses drove up to Quelimane to stay in another hotel-more of a bed and breakfast-where we have the weekend to rest and make purchases for our houses, then on Monday we are having work meetings to introduce ourselves to everyone and the organization. They are driving us to our sites on Wednesday. I'm really excited to get there and see my house! Most other volunteers have arrived at their houses already and it's cool to hear what their houses are like. I am greatful that my house is mostly set up and ready to go since I'm replacing a volunteer because a handful of Volunteers are kind of in limbo because their homes aren't ready-they are either still needing repairs or trying to sort out payment issues.
Quelimane is the capital of my province, Zambezia, and there is definitly a lot of poverty here. It's sad to see so many people walking around with no shoes and begging for money for food.
It's nice being in such a big city where they have a wide selection of goods and such, but I'm really happy that I'll be going to a smaller community where I'll be able to get to know everyone.
Us new PCVs can only leave our sites for either Christmas or New Years so we are planning a little get together over New Years at one of the Moz 13ers house. It will be fun to get together and talk about how our first week or two at site went. Not sure yet what I'll do for Christmas then. I'm thinking I'll either do a day trip to Quelimane to have lunch with friends or maybe once I get to my site I'll get an invite to spend the holiday with a neighbor. Either way, I downloaded plenty of Christmas music on to my ipod and have a mini Christmas tree coming my way-so I'll be celebrating one way or another :)
I'm already thinking ahead trying to plan for visitors and just want people to keep in mind the World Cup in South Africa is June and July 2010 so everything is going to be WAAAAY more expensive around that time-and probably at least a month or two before and after also. Just something to keep in mind! I will free, glorious wifi internet access for the next couple days, so I'll try to post another update soon!
We had our swear in ceremony and had to repeat an official oath at the US embassy last week. Since then we've been pushed in to the deep end and scattered about throughout Mozambique.
It was a little sad leaving Namaacha and saying goodbye to my host family. They walked with me to the mercado where the chapa's were picking us up. My host mom and Sonia were so sad and when I got on the chapa and looked out the window I could see my mom crying. It's so strange to think I could never have imagined when I first arrived that I would become so close to them and really feel like they are family and actually be sad to leave them. I also think about what it must be like for them since they seem so upset and sad that I'm going. Sonia kept telling me she was going to cry and wasn't eating because she said she had no appetite. I don't blame them, their lives just go back to normal, cleaning everyday, every meal taking hours to prepare, and a huge source of income they were getting from the Peace Corps is now gone. I'm really going to be excited to visit them in a year at mid-service!
I had a supervisor conference in Nampula on Thursday. Me and the rest of the PCVs living in the North flew in to Nampula on Wednesday and were pleasently surprised by our hotel accomidations. Running HOT water, air conditioning (although the unit in my room didn't work), good food, and comfortable beds! I met my bosses and counterparts and we all went to meetings to inform our organizations on what we did during training and go over possible problems we may run into while working together. I really like the people I'll be working with, they all seem really nice and excited to work on the projects I'm interested in. My counterpart lives in the same district as me and seems to be eager to listen to my ideas and help me integrate in to my community as much as possible. He speaks really good english so he said if I ever don't understand anything to be sure and tell him so he can clarify but that he would try to talk mostly in Portuguese in order to help me learn. The day after the conference, the five new PCVs that will be working for FGH and our bosses drove up to Quelimane to stay in another hotel-more of a bed and breakfast-where we have the weekend to rest and make purchases for our houses, then on Monday we are having work meetings to introduce ourselves to everyone and the organization. They are driving us to our sites on Wednesday. I'm really excited to get there and see my house! Most other volunteers have arrived at their houses already and it's cool to hear what their houses are like. I am greatful that my house is mostly set up and ready to go since I'm replacing a volunteer because a handful of Volunteers are kind of in limbo because their homes aren't ready-they are either still needing repairs or trying to sort out payment issues.
Quelimane is the capital of my province, Zambezia, and there is definitly a lot of poverty here. It's sad to see so many people walking around with no shoes and begging for money for food.
It's nice being in such a big city where they have a wide selection of goods and such, but I'm really happy that I'll be going to a smaller community where I'll be able to get to know everyone.
Us new PCVs can only leave our sites for either Christmas or New Years so we are planning a little get together over New Years at one of the Moz 13ers house. It will be fun to get together and talk about how our first week or two at site went. Not sure yet what I'll do for Christmas then. I'm thinking I'll either do a day trip to Quelimane to have lunch with friends or maybe once I get to my site I'll get an invite to spend the holiday with a neighbor. Either way, I downloaded plenty of Christmas music on to my ipod and have a mini Christmas tree coming my way-so I'll be celebrating one way or another :)
I'm already thinking ahead trying to plan for visitors and just want people to keep in mind the World Cup in South Africa is June and July 2010 so everything is going to be WAAAAY more expensive around that time-and probably at least a month or two before and after also. Just something to keep in mind! I will free, glorious wifi internet access for the next couple days, so I'll try to post another update soon!
