O Meu Cachorro - Piri-Piri

So I got a dog, not sure if I mentioned this before, but I did I bought a puppy and named her Piri-Piri, which is what they call hot peppers here. She is about 4 months – I am not too sure on her exact age and she is a cute little mut of some sort. I gave her a bath the first night and she did pretty well it turned out to be a neighborhood endeavor and it was funny to see people’s faces when I took out a towel to dry her off they couldn’t believe that I would use a towel on a dog! Haha She is in major teething phase and so likes to bite and chew whatever she can get her choppers on, which is usually my arms – I did get her a rabies shot last week, which is good. She sleeps outside and has become a good guard dog for our yard, but because she has matar-ed (killed) a few of the neighbors baby chicks and one of their chickens I have had to keep her tied up during the day when I am not around to keep an eye on her. She loves to play and I just don’t think she knows that her teeth are really sharp and will do damage to whatever they bite…

Dia tres em Guija

So over the past three days I have been getting all settled into my new home. When I arrived I needed to purchase a bed frame and a mattress since my site is new. Purchasing the bed was funny because it wouldn’t all fit in the chapa so we had to strap it on the top of this mini bus and drive it to the house that I am staying in for a few weeks. Yea so I am staying with a volunteer that arrived last year and lives in my same town for the first few weeks because my house is not ready – she’s very nice and has been super helpful with getting settled in. So my house is not ready yet because Peace Corps has certain requirements for our houses before we can move in to ensure that we will be safe, such as bars and screens on the windows, good locks on the doors, etc. My house needs those things plus a new metal panel on the roof because I guess it leaks and a fresh coat of paint. There are also a ton of weeds in the yard so while I am waiting for those other things to get fixed I’ll be enxada-ing (hoe-ing) the yard and preparing for my own machamba (garden). My house is super cut on a very quaint quintal (yard) I have a ton of fruit trees – a papaya, banana, lemon, grape and a few mangoes, I think there might even be an avocado! I met a few of my neighbors yesterday and also went to my school and met most of the teachers – supposedly there are 34 of them for a school with more than 1000 students who come either in the morning, afternoon or evening. I am worried because there are so many names to remember and my brain is already hurting from trying to remember words in Portuguese, but oh well I’ll figure it out after some time. I am really excited because there are 4 other English teachers besides me and they all seem very nice (well the three I met yesterday are all very nice. The staff for the most part seems very young a number of the teachers have just recently finished university and this is their first time teaching. Okay so before I cut this entry off I have to tell about the baby crocodile I saw strapped to the back of this guys bike today while he was riding through town. Supposedly he caught it in the river that runs on the edge of my town (they seem to be spotted quite often - last week a guy’s arm was bit off by one!) and he was on his way to take it to the police station! Yea so that’s it for now.

Ciao Namaacha

This week is my last week of training. Friday I will be leaving my homestay family and heading to Guija in Gaza Province where I will be living for the next two years. It’s a bit crazy how fast these past 9 weeks of training have gone! It feels like I just left San Diego and now I am leaving what has become my new home here in Mozambique for what will become my next new home. I don’t know much about my new town, but will over the next few months and will be sure to pass along that information to all of you ASAP. Oh and I will continue to use the same address as of right now because I am only a 3 hour drive from Maputo, will let you all know if that changes. Obrigada!

Comemos Pizza

Okay so this past Tuesday we had pizza for lunch (we always, always, always eat lunch at our homestays, which gets old after eating the same stuff for the past 9 weeks) while we visited the Peace Corps office in Maputo. The staff picked up 35 medium-large-ish pizzas for the 70 of us and they were literally devoured in less than 15 minutes as though we were wild animals who hadn’t eaten for days. I ate four pieces of pizza and was still hungry after I was finished. I think my stomach is going through withdrawals from not having Mexican food (i.e. chesse) on a regular basis, I also think that has had something to do with the fact that my jeans aren’t exactly fitting like they used to…

Voce sabe nada

So my 3-year-old sister Junha is the cutest little dumpling that I have come to love and hate quite equally. Love because she has a smile that would melt you from the inside out and hate because temper tantrums by 3-year-olds five plus times a day are never pretty, but none-the-less I know I will miss her. Anyways the other day I was asked to give her a bath, which I have done before, but never in a bucket about the size of a small bathroom size wastebasket. (Sidenote: Junha hates taking baths and I sometimes am able to get her to take a bath by singing Beyonce’s Single Ladies and when we sing “put your hands up” I pull her shirt off to get her prepped for the bath) On top of the size of the bucket of water I had to bathe her in front of all 6 of the men who work at my homestay family’s house making bricks (they have a brick making business and a chapa business – don’t think I mentioned that before oh and chapa is the word for Toyota-van-taxis, the main type of transport here). Okay back to my story…so we were outside and I was trying to give Junha a bath and she was cold and insisted on trying to sit inside the bucket, which just wasn’t working because it was too small and each time she insisted on sitting down she would get dirty because we were using a bucket that had probably rolled around in the dirt before they decided to use it to bathe Junha – don’t ask me why. Yea so after she was all squeaky clean I picked her up and rushed her inside to dry her off and get her dressed. While jumping on her mom’s bed, I was trying to help her pick out her clothes. I began by asking her what color underwear she wanted and she told me “preto” (black) I pointed to one of the two black pairs hanging on the bed post and she told me “nao” (no) for both of the black pairs – eventually I figured out that she wanted “rosa” – the pick pair, but because she is 3 she doesn’t know her colors very well. After that we moved to to picking out her outfit…she wanted to wear a “saia” (skirt), but they were all dirty. Because I couldn’t pull out a skirt for her to wear, Junha decided to jump on the bed and chant “voce sabe nada, voce sabe nada…” (you know nothing, you know nothing…). I ironic thing is I understood everything. Basically the moral of the story is my Portuguese is slightly better than that of a 3-year-old Mozambican. Whoo-hoo!!! Parabens (Congratulations)!

Perigo Minas!

Minas de terra or as you would say in English - landmines are something that many Mozambicans and those who visit and live in Mozambique have to be aware of. The civil war that torn apart Mozambique for nearly 2 decades ended in 1992, but since then many of the minefields and unexploded ordinances have shifted due to such things as floods, cyclones, earthquakes, etc. De-mining efforts are taking place in Mozambique and have been for a number of years since the end of the war, but it has been such outside factors that have greatly contributed to the slowing of this effort. When you come visit me the following are some local indicators of potential dangerous areas: painted stones in red and white, red posts with signs attached to them that read: “Perigo Minas!”, animal carcasses or remains, piles of rocks or sticks, etc…

minha vida e a musical

I have always wanted to live in a musical and moving to Namaacha with my Mozambican homestay family has made that dream a reality. In between (and sometimes during) daily tasks of cooking, cleaning, bathing, eating, taking tea, ginastica (aka: yoga and abdominals), and attempting to learn Portuguese I, along with my four homestay sisters dance to the beat of Beyonce, Rhinana and local Mozambican musicians. My homestay mother, being the primary school teacher that she is has tirelessly made sure that I learn all of the Portuguese songs for young children…uma banana, duas bananas, tres bananas…the Portuguese version of where is pinky along with head, shoulders, knees and toes! With the stress of learning a new language I have graciously welcomed these daily dance parties.