Muli bwanji! (Hello! From Tete!)

I am writing to you from my new home in Tete. It's a little bit surreal. I don't really know where to even start so I think a chronological sequence might be best for comprehension's sake. I'm a little all over the place at the moment.

Saturday morning, we woke up ridiculously early for our 5 a.m. departure -- which was hard since we stayed up super late the night before, it being out last night together and all. Peace Corps rented a chapa to take me and Sasha to our sites and we were the first to leave.

Here we are with all our bags. Lisa woke up super early to say goodbye to us, which was sweet of her.

And the we were off! It's about a six hour drive from Chimoio to Tete city, and I slept much of that way. We are lucky because Tete is the energy capital of Mozambique and there's a lot of business in this part of the country -- so the vast majority of our journey was on the nicest road in Mozambique.

My first reaction to Tete was the following: "I'm sorry, but did I forget to leave Texas?" It's hot, it's relatively dry, and it looks EXACTLY like Texas Hill Country. I kid you not. There were portions of road where the only distinguishing factor between Texas and Tete was the fact that Texas has no Boab trees. I have included the following photo as evidence.

Texas or Tete? Hard to tell, innit?

Now on to the important stuff. I arrived in Mavudzi-Ponte and my stuff was unloaded. The chapa driver promptly left to drop off Szasha and, well... I was at site. Alone. Weird feeling.

I live in a professors complex next door to the school, so my commute to work is about 30 yards. There are several long concrete buildings, each divided into a few "houses", and each house has two bedrooms and a living area. I am living with a really nice Mozambican teacher named Redi who seems really awesome. She teaches English too, so we'll be working together a lot.

My bedroom is small but has potential for quaintness. The first thing I did was kill about 30 spiders big-as-yo-face. The whole house is empty right now, so I will have to get to work on decorating. The school director said that we're getting a table soon, so that will be nice. I need somewhere to work.

I dont have running water but the well is really close to the complex and so far, all the kids are so excited that I'm here that theyve been taking turns to go fetch water for me. They have also offered to wash my dishes, clean the floor, etc. Sweet. Funny factoid: One of the girls that came over today was wearing this T-Shirt and (I kid you not) it says: "Wenn Mama und Papa "NEIN" sagen, frage ich Oma und Opa!" which is German for "When mom and dad say no, I ask Grandma and Grandpa!"

Yesterday was a thoroughly exhausting day. One of my biggest fears was being placed at a site alone (without another volunteer) and as much as I'm looking forward to integrating and teaching, I've also been dreading it. It didn't help that yesterday was sweltering and humid, so last night I was lying awake in a pool of my own sweat, unable to sleep and left with nothing but my increasingly irrationally negative thoughts ("Why the heck am I here!?"). I eventually gave up on lying in bed, doused myself with cold water from my minifridge (best purchase so far!) and dozed off sitting up directly in front of my fan while watching the Legend of Korra.

This morning, things are already looking brighter. I ate corn flakes for breakfast, which was possibly the most exciting thing to happen to me this week, and chugged cold water from my new fridge. It was a great morning routine.

Peace Corps tells us that we need to make an effort to go out and meet people, and they make a HUGE point of "Don't hide out in your house." which is exactly what I am so very tempted to do. We took the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator during training and I scored very strongly as a introvert, so going around and meeting people is hard for me as well as incredibly stressful and tiring. I made a deal with myself that I would only hide out in my house until 8 a.m., at which point I took the esteira (bamboo mat) and put it out on my front porch and started to write in my journal. It's a step. And lo and behold! Some crianças (kids) almost immediately came over and sat with me. Then they started accumulating and soon there were a crowd of people! I've already forgotten all of their names, but its a start. I could tell they were talking about me in local dialect, but I didn't really mind all that much. I was just happy I met some people. That's one goal accomplished.

After about an hour and a half, I had nothing left to write and the crianças got distracted so I came back inside am contiuing to hide out. Just a little. Then I'll make lunch, and maybe venture outside again.

I am going to try and take some pictures at some point this week so you guys can see where I live. In the mean time, I really appreciate e-mails and phone calls. Hint, hint. I realize calling is expensive, but even e-mails are awesome. You have no idea how exciting it is to see an e-mail from a friendly face in your inbox are when you are sitting there, wondering just what you got yourself into for two years.