Warning: Reliable Internet = Monstrously Long Post (with pictures!)

Aaah, finally I am able to coherently put my thoughts together while sitting at home under my warm blanket, happily spooning spoonful after spoonful of Black Cat peanut butter into my mouth, instead of hurriedly typing out random thoughts that happen to occur to me at the internet café as fifteen other internet-hungry volunteers stare me down. I can also finally upload some pictures, which I have been getting many requests for. So let's start:

Part 1: Pictures from Namaacha

This is the living room in my house in Namaacha. Our house is small but cosy -- apart from this room, there is a bedroom for Mamá and Papá and the girls, Páscoa and Aida, and a second bedroom for the boys, Adriano and Sergio. I also have a bedroom that I assume they use when they are not hosting Peace Corps volunteers in the house. We also have a nice quintal, or yard, where we spend most of our time when its not raining. At night and during inclement weather, everyone just kind of hangs out in this living room and watches Brasilian telenovelas on TV.

My family. From the left: My brother, Adriano. 12. He loves to sing, and on Saturdays when I don't have school sometimes we sing along to his favorite music in the world -- Celine Dion. Nothing like belting out "My Heart Will Go On" as you wash the floors. He also loves dancing, and he dances everywhere he goes, even if he's just heading to the bathroom.
Next, my host mom. She's really motherly and very sweet, always worrying about me and wanting to make sure I have everything I need. Once I tried to walk out of the house with muddy shoes and she said "Mana Helena, you can NOT walk out with muddy shoes. All the other moms are going to think I don't like you because I let your shoes get so dirty!" So we washed the shoes.
In the front is Páscoa, my four year old sister. She's really goofy and all the neighborhood kids like to play with her. I showed her my photo album with pictures of my whole family and all my friends and she went through it with me, person by person, several times. "Who is this? What does he like? Where is she from? Is that you?" She's a very curious little one. Her favorite thing in the world is when I swing her around by the arms.
Finally on the far right is Aida. She's about eleven years old and I have SO much respect for her. She gets good grades in school, which is impressive considering the amount of chores she does. Aida wakes up before me every day, works all day, and goes to bed much later than I do. She's a beast. And I've never seen her in a bad mood. Aida is the one who has been teaching me a lot about how to do things like washing  clothes and cleaning the floor the Mozambican way, and I kind of look forward to cleaning time on Sundays so I can hang out with her.

This is my room. Peace Corps has certain housing requirements for all volunteers -- it gives us peace of mind because it means each trainee is required to have their own room with a lock. As much as I am loving the Mozambican culture, my ltitle sister and her friends are insanely curious about what's all in my bag, and it's good to know that when I'm not home there will be no prying hands inside my luggage. Also, note the mosquito net. This room is malaria-free!

I love this photograph of my host mom, or Mozam-mommie as we call them here. My mom is pretty great. Papá works in South Africa and he's only at home for a few days a month, so Mamá is left to run things and she does so very well. She sells everyday items like cell phone credit, bread, candles, and cigarettes to neighbors who don't want to make the hike into Namaacha to buy them there. Somehow she manages to keep everything neat and tidy, even when the kids are at school all day and there's so much mud everywhere that you're not sure where your feet end and the dirt begins. Also she's a fantastic cook -- she makes really great feijão (beans) and also cacana (something like arugula in peanut and coconut sauce). I eat a ton, but she still wants me to eat more and fatten me up. (It might be working. Darn.)

Here's Páscoa wearing my glasses. She did an impression of me when she put them on. Páscoa was kind of my ticket into integrating with my host family. Adults are harder to connect with, because they are usually set in their ways. They see you doing something crazy like hanging your shirt the other way around or showering only once per day and they think "That's just weird." My four year old sister doesn't care that I like to use toilet paper or don't care that my shoes are muddy, all she knows is that I make funny faces at her when no one else is looking and that I'm always willing to learn a new clapping game.

This is Gaivota, one of our two cats. This cat LOVES me and I love it right back. When I get home and sit down, in a matter of seconds I have this purring furball on my lap. It does get a little awkward in the mornings when I  go to take my bath -- I disrobe and slowly turn and inevitably, he's there, sitting creepily still and watching. I remind myself that he's just a cat, but it still feels weird. My host mom has alluded to the fact that she might be willing to part with this cat when I leave Namaacha. If my site is in the southern region... I may very well bring that subject up again. This cat is the best cat I have ever met. I want to take him with me.

There's always a lot going on at my house. Some of our ducks recently had ducklings and they are very explorative little dudes. The ducks love it when we do dishes because they know that food bits will inevitably fall and our food tastes way better than the maize we  give them to eat. The ducklings are growing so fast -- each day I can visibly see that they are bigger than the day before. It's kind of fun seeing them grow up in front of me.

This is me being a dork.

Namaacha isn't known for a whole lot, but there are some really pretty waterfalls nearby, about an hour hike outside of town. I went there on one of the first weekends with these friends of mine. On the left is Veronica, who is very charismatic and always makes me laugh. In the middle is Mafe, who lives near me here in Namaacha, and on the right is Lisa, who lived in Sweden at the same time as me, though we never met. 

'Me in front of the waterfalls in Namaacha -- sunburn in progress.

As part of our training we're supposed to learn how to  live the Mozambican way. In this picture my mom is showing me how to use the little bench with a really sharp scrapey thing on it (called a relador) to scrape coconut out. Coconut is used in a lot of Mozambican dishes, but scraping them out is hard work!

In the spririt of cultural exchange, after preparing Mozambican food we showed our Mozam-mommies how to make some quintissential American food. We thought, due to their affinity for carbs and mushed things, they would really like mashed potatoes, so we made that along with some chicken and vegetables. The chicken turned out to be somewhat of a disaster (We decided the official name should be "Salty Chicken") but the mashed potatoes were SO GOOD. Here are some people in my language group, Yuri, Alexandra and Szasha, helping to prepare the food. I am kind of useless when it comes to cooking compared to these people so I volunteered myself for picture taking and the occasional taste test.

My Portuguese teacher, Meque, kills a chicken for us to grill. Killing a chicken is kind of a badge of honor, but I haven't done it yet and I don't think I will be able to. If you dont know how to do it properly (which I don't) blood squirts everywhere and the chicken siezes for some time after you decapitate it. After helping my mom kill one at home, I was pretty convinced that I'm just going to be vegetarian. I can get my protein from beans.

My Mozam-mommie and I have bonding time. My host mom found out my real parents speak Portuguese fluently, so she talked to them on the phone for a bit. Since then she has told me about thirty times that if (when) my parents come to visit Mozambique I am expected to take them to Namaacha and have dinner at the house. She offered to kill many chickens so you know she's serious.

Two of my classmates in my portuguese class. Our class is the biggest, with six students. Its also the best, because we're just the coolest. Honestly, though, there are about seventy volunteers and I don't dislike a single one of them. I have never met such a big group of people that are so consistently awesome. What a great bunch.

Part Two: VIsit to Sussundenga

 As I alluded to previously, I just spent about a week outside of Namaacha and it was super refreshing. Training is pretty grueling, so to have the Peace Corps say "Here's a plane ticket, go to central Mozambique and hang out with some cool people for a while -- oh, and here's some money" is pretty cool. It wasn't all play, as we did have some assignments to do and questions to answer, but I'm not going to lie -- it was a lot of play.

I was one of the lucky ones who got to go to a site far enough away to merit a plane ticket. Mozambique is pretty big, and a direct flight from Maputo to Chimoio is about two hours. Chimoio is the fifth largest city in Mozambique and is the capital of the central province of Manica, which borders Zimbabwe. Chimoio is pretty flat but the horizon is filled by mountains that mark the Mozambique-Zimbabwe border. Our final destination, Sussundenga, is just 45 minutes drive southwest of Chimoio, just past Mount Zembe, which looks like a profile of a face from pretty much every angle.

Sussundenga

Jamie's House

 As Sussundenga is a very small place, there's not all that much to do there, which was totally fine with me and Sam. We had a blast getting to know Jamie's friends and hanging out. Jamie has some very close Mozambican friends that are really personable and we got to know them over the course of the few days that we were there. Many hours were spent lounging on the bamboo mat on the front porch playing cards (I have been taught Canasta and am now addicted). Sam started a rock collection, which fascinated the local kids, who started showing daily with offerings of pretty rocks they had found for Sam.

Mount Zembe

 As Sussundenga is a very small place, there's not all that much to do there, which was totally fine with me and Sam. We had a blast getting to know Jamie's friends and hanging out. Jamie has some very close Mozambican friends that are really personable and we got to know them over the course of the few days that we were there. Many hours were spent lounging on the bamboo mat on the front porch playing cards (I have been taught Canasta and am now addicted). Sam started a rock collection, which fascinated the local kids, who started showing daily with offerings of pretty rocks they had found for Sam.

Hangin' out, playing games, waiting for the hottest part of the day to pass.

Manu Sam (a.k.a. Samanu) bonds with the local crianças (Kids).

 We decided to make chocolate chip cookies together for the Mozambicans to try -- they were less thrilled than us ("It's good, I guess, but it's just... very different from Mozambican cookies...") and they were somewhat mortified when we started eating half-baked cookies and *GASP* unbaked cookie batter. It was worth it, though, because it tasted like home and we discovered that yes, you CAN fry a chocolate chip cookie in a non-stick pan.

Making cookies.

We used charcoal from the stove to draw a mural on Jamie's walkway. Note the glorious rendition of Mount Zembe at the top. Also, lovely portrait of me and Sam, a sailboat, a white cat, a dinosaur, a pumpkin, and the watching of birds. Clearly I should quit linguistics and be an artist for a living.

 All in all, we had a fantastic time in Sussundenga. I really liked the central area of Mozambique. The weather was like an oven, reaching 30 celcius by 9 a.m., but it was a refreshing change from the super-glue like mud and rain that is a permanent fixture in Namaacha during the wet season. Plus I got to hang out with Jamie and Sam, who are really fun to be around. There was much jovial laughter as well as fofoca (idle gossip).

Me, Jamie and Sam. Jamie, being a super awesome site host, gave Sam and I both a capulana, traditional Mozambican cloth that is used for everything from wearing to showering to baby-carrying to picnicking.

Sam and I show off our stylish capulanas. Mine has Africa on it. I can't decide if I want to leave it like that or have it made into something else. You can buy the capulana here and then take it to someone and have them make it into clothing, apholstry, luggage, etc. I was thinking of making a pillow or a bean bag-type thing with Africa on it. We'll see.

 Well, that's all I've got for now -- I'm so glad I was finally able to upload some pictures and put together some thought-out sentences about life here. All I had to do to get this wifi was buy coffee, which I am ALWAYS a fan of, so I think this worked out nicely for everyone involved.

In less than one week, I find out where I am going to be for the next two years of my life!