Correspondence Match Program + Mailing Address + Staging Details

Correspondence Match Program

One of the programs that volunteers can choose to partake in is the correspondence match program. What it basically is is a pen-pal program where volunteers chronicle their experiences with an educator back in the states, who can talk about it with their class, the kids can write back and ask questions, etc. It's a really neat program and when I heard about it I was eager to join it. In the brochure, it said they can match you with an educator, or you can choose one -- and if you have one that you would like to correspond with, then go with them.

I'm really excited about this, because the educator I chose to partner with is none other than my own third grade teacher from Virginia, Mrs. Swartz. I was in her class 18 years ago, and now I will be sharing my experience in Mozambique with her current class. I'm really looking forward to it! You can actually partner with more than one teacher, so I might do that as well. We'll see how it goes!

Mailing Address

I finally have my mailing address! If you want to send me letters or care packages, you can reach me at


Helen Shaw
Corpo da Paz/U. S. Peace Corps
C.P. 4398
Maputo,
MOZAMBIQUE

Staging Details

We got a bunch of e-mails just now about all the stuff coming up in these last few months before departure. So many things to do! I'm so glad I found the Facebook group for my training class. They seem really awesome already and it's so nice to be able to talk about these things with people who are in the exact same boat I am.

It looks like staging will be in Philadelphia on the 25th, and then on the 26th we will be flown to Johannesburg, South Africa, and then on to Maputo, Mozambique! I'm so excited. If I can, I think I am going to fly out to Philly a few days early, rent a car and drive down to Virginia so I can see one of my oldest friends there before I go. It would be nice to see her before I leave the country for two years.

It's looking more and more likely that I probably won't leave Africa once I get there, unless a magical flying money man drops a thousand dollars for a plane ticket to Europe on my house. I'm looking forward to traveling around Mozambique and the surrounding areas (Lake Niassa, Botswana, Madagascar, etc...) but I already know that I am going to get incredibly homesick, especially around the holidays. Well, I suppose I'll just have to channel that frustration into something productive! No point in being pessimistic about the matter!

Chug chug chugging along

It hasn't actually been that long since I got my invitation, but it feels like forever. I think about my upcoming departure all the time. I've been shopping a lot, preparing things, thinking about what to take, what not to take, studying up on my Portuguese...

I'm slowly wading through all the paperwork. I think I have the passport and visa issues sorted out. I don't have work on Monday, so I am going to call my bank/insurance carrier and schedule my car to go into storage mode, let them know I'm going to be in Africa, etc. I am also setting up things like a power of attorney, trying to figure out absentee ballot information, and generally preparing to be gone for two years. It's a complicated process. I'm just glad I don't have any debt to worry about.

One thing that I'm excited about is learning the local dialect, whatever that may be. From what I learned from my research, most Mozambicans speak some form of a Bantu language -- which is great, because I did some research on a related language of Kenya, Kimeru, during Linguistic Field Methods senior year and from what I could gleam from the vocab lists of some of Moz's langauges, there are a lot of cognates. I hope I can a) learn the local dialect where I am and b) do some linguistic research on it. I am not taking a lot of books with me, but I am taking my fieldwork guide as well as my syntax and phonetics books. And of course, a Portuguese-English dictionary and my pocket grammar reference for Portuguese.

I've found the MOZ19 group on Facebook, so I've been talking quite a bit with people who I will be serving with as well as people already over there, and I can tell I am going to like these people. I also happened upon a few of them on Reddit, so... that's cool too. I have found my brethren.

My biggest project right now: Downloading lots of TV shows and movies to my computer so I can take them with me. I hear there's a thirst for new media, so I am doing my best with my not-so-large hard drive to take as much as possible. I am sure that when I've been there for a while, I will be begging the new volunteers to bring my my favorites (Season 2 of Legend of Korra, for example..)

Well, that's it for now. As soon as Monday rolls around I will continue my onslaught of preparations -- including begging my dentist to do my pre-service dental exam pro-bono, since I don't really have a great deal of moolah at the moment. We'll see. If he does, I will give him a shout-out in my blog.

IT'S OFFICIAL! MOZAMBIQUE!

I got my invitation package in the mail today -- so exciting, and yet so overwhelming!

BUT FIRST. Let's take a moment to say THANK GOODNESS I GOT MOZAMBIQUE. I can't properly express how happy I am about that. With all the challenges that PCVs face that I get to look forward to, at least the language barrier won't be as big a problem for me because I already speak Portuguese! I knew one of my languages would come in handy! This way, I have a way to communicate from the get-go and I can focus my attentions on getting BETTER at Portuguese and picking up whatever tribal language is spoken in my villlage. I am just so ecstatic. I had actually started learning French on Duolingo because I was so worried I'd be put in a French-speaking country. (Side note: Duolingo is great. Try it.) On that note: Thanks to all my great Portuguese teachers in the past, especially Suzana! Obrigada, vôce vai ser maravilhado com meu Português quando eu volto em 2014!

But as exciting as all this is, it's a lot to take in. Now I have so much to do. Get supplies. Get a new passport. Get a Mozambican visa. Property insurance. Figure out what to do with my car. (Sell it? Leave it at my parents place?) Call my bank. Find a home for my beautiful, well-mannered, lovely pet rats (any takers?). Cancel the health insurance I JUST signed up for. Figure out how to take as much as I'll need, but not too much, and fit it all into 2 bags whose combined L+W+H are no more than 107 inches.

My to do list has just gotten exponentially longer.

BUT I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT IT!