Tamuire, Thousand Island, and Thansgiving

Happy late Thanksgiving! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and is enjoying a relaxing weekend. We had a blast celebrating Thanksgiving here. All the trainees put together a potluck and the food was OUTSTANDING. I may have felt more full than I have ever felt in my life. Some highlights of the dinner plate: a fabulous bruschetta appetizer that I think unfortunately didn’t even make it to the dinner (we may or may not have eaten the majority of it at the bar before the potluck), some really great salads with thousand island dressing, mashed potatoes soaked in gazpacho, and an ungodly number of desserts that all tasted even better with the chocolate peanut butter frosting that Michelle and I brought. Oh, and there was turkey, too… which I heard was pretty good, although I can’t attest to it myself.

We just finished up model school, and are glad to be done. After site placement last week, model school just wasn’t taken too seriously… lots of us had our subjects switched, and so teaching biology lessons this week just didn’t seem that useful. I tried teaching one English class, and that was quite the experience. I think we have adopted the theory of “when in doubt, just turn it into a song.” Regardless, the 2 weeks are over and although the last week was kind of silly, I do feel more confident in front of the classroom than I did before. I did get to teach the reproductive system to about ten 16 year old boys, and I survived, so that says something!

The beach weekend was so much fun. Both mornings we got down to the beach by about 7:30 and the water felt wonderful. I haven’t yet posted pictures, but I am “tagged” in some on facebook, so please check those out! Hopefully next week in Maputo I will have fast enough internet to get some pictures up. We ate good food and just spent the weekend relaxing. It was much needed.

Not too much more news on details on my site… I probably won’t know too much until I get there, unfortunately. My site is called Tamuire, Tete… if anyone has any luck finding any information on the internet, feel free to let me know! I have yet to find it on a map or mentioned anywhere, so any information would be much appreciated. We leave Namaacha next week for Maputo for swearing in, and then on Saturday we will fly to Chimoio, Manica for the “Supervisor’s Conference” for a couple days. After that, we get dropped off at site. I will probably be one of the last to be dropped off, so I might not get there until that Friday (2 weeks from now). My site is only 65 K from Tete City, which I have heard is pretty awesome. Specifically, I heard there are 3 pizzarias, which is good enough for me! Of course, I am anxious to share more information when I know it!

In other news, I think we are all ready to get out of our homestays. Since site placement, the host families seem to have forgotten us a little bit. It is an interesting balance of still treating us like we are 5 years old but then forgetting that we exist and still do need to eat lunch every day. I still think I had a great host family experience, but I am ready to move onto my own house. Tonight a bunch of us are going to the biggest restaurant in Namaacha, so that should be fun. I am trying to take advantage of every social opportunity possible before I am off alone to the bush. I really think I will get the best of both worlds with the truly rural experience while still being close enough to the city to get away every couple weeks. Looking forward to lots of reading, hopefully getting a guitar, and cooking some good food.

Well, since it is officially Christmas season, I will have to pick a Christmas tune for the song of the post. I’m going to pick The Chipmunks “Christmas, Don’t be Late” because Simon’s laugh just gets me every time (fast forward to about 1:30 in). I hope you all are getting in the holiday spirit—we are trying to get in it over here! Miss you all, more information coming soon!