So Mozambicans do not celebrate Halloween, but we did! We had a party last night with just volunteers and we all dressed up. Dressing up in costumes was very tricky because we had limited clothes and materials, but people were creative and did a pretty good job. Two friends and I were thing 1, thing 2, and the Cat in the Hat and we were finalists in the costume contest! We get stared at on the streets a lot for being foreigners and just looking out of place in general, but last night with silly outfits on and blue wigs made out of plastic bags on our heads, people literally pointed and laughed…just something you get used to.
Last weekend we did a day hike on Sunday and climbed a little mountain nearby where the borders of Swaziland, Mozambique, and South Africa all meet. About 30 volunteers went and it was so much fun. The view from the top was great and we had our lunch up there. It’s nice to be able to get out of the town once and a while and spend more time with the other volunteers.
We learned a lot about site placements in the last few weeks from a couple of the volunteers who are visiting. They basically informed us about the advantages and disadvantages of each place and gave us a better idea of where we could be living for the next two years. Site placement announcements take place November 18th and I’m literally counting down the days.
We’ve also learned a lot about corruption and cheating in schools, which is a big problem here. Apparently the majority of kids here cheat….a lot and the teachers don’t really control it. The teachers also sometimes take bribes from students for better grades and there are a lot of students who will fail a class and then have their grade changed by the school director for whatever reason so that they pass. As a result some of the volunteers said that they have had students in 8 or 9th grade who can barely read and write, if at all. It sounds like we will be faced with some big obstacles once we get into teaching. We can also be placed at a variety of schools. Some of the sites are at public schools, catholic schools, mission schools, primer ciclo(8th, 9th, 10th grade) and some are secundo ciclo (11th and 12thgrade) so who knows where I will end up!
We had a cooking day this week with our language groups where we got to cook “American food” or basically show our host moms the type of thing that we would make for ourselves. My group made grilled cheese with tomatoes and onions in it and gazpacho, which was delicious! The host moms all tried our food too and I think they liked it, but they were weirded out by the idea of cold soup and thought it was a funny concept. The food here is good, but it’s a lot of rice all the time so moving to my own place where I can cook for myself in about a month will be nice.
Miss you all, send me e-mails!
2 comments:
MICHELLE! yay for celebrating halloween even when they dont. That is absolutely hilarious. I am glad you are making your own American fun over there. And that hike sounds absolutely amazing. I am going to email you all the gossip asap. So be on the look out ;) LOVE YOU! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
YOU HAVE CHEESEEEE??????? or is it just laughing cow? cuz thats all we have. And strangely enough, we get our site announcements before you I think.... I get mine the 15th im pretty sure. Jealous you had a little america for halloween, we were on demystification (site visit weekend). Also jealous that you have mountains. I really wanna try and make it out your way sometime in the next 2 yrs. Sounds like your doing awesome. Say hi to nathan for me and solve all of Mozambiques corruption issues! Mish u meesh!
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