é a malária, não é? (It's malaria, isn't it)

April 25, 2014 (yesterday) was World Malaria Day.  So I figured I should write a blog post about malaria, this won't be overly exciting, but I'm trying to write a blog more often and this is an important issue here.  So a lot of you reading this probably have never had to think much about malaria in your daily lives.  You probably don’t know someone personally who has died from malaria or even someone who has had malaria.  I’ll admit it, before coming to Mozambique, I knew malaria was a big problem in a lot of the world, and killed a lot of people but I never really had to worry about it living in the United States, since it was considered eliminated in the US in 1951.  

But since joining the Peace Corps and moving to Mozambique it has been something I have had to deal with.  I had to start taking malaria prophylaxis (malaria meds to help prevent getting it), had to start sleeping under mosquito nets, and started using mosquito repellent more frequently and not just because the mosquitos are annoying, but because they can get me sick.  I have also had to deal with the consistent occurrences of the question, “Is it malaria?” or “Oh you had malaria” when I tell someone I am or was sick recently.  Here malaria is so common, most people think any combination of the symptoms or anytime someone is sick, it means they have malaria.  Toward the beginning of my class at the IFP, we played a game “I’ve never” where I or someone read a statement and if you had never done that you stepped into the circle.  It was a get to know you activity as well as practicing some English.  I read the phrase, “I’ve never had Malaria” and I think only one of my students stepped into the middle of the circle along with me.  I saw the look on some of their faces at the fact that I’d never had malaria, they were very surprised.  Then last week I did a whole lesson on malaria.  We listened to a TedTalk by Sonia Shah about malaria and discussed some of her points.  Part way through one of my students raised his hand and said, “Trainer, I remember you said you never had malaria, do you not have mosquitos in the United States?”  I explained that we had mosquitos but malaria was not a problem for us anymore, it used to be a problem but it was eliminated, like many other countries. Some of them knew this already, but others were again very surprised that before coming to Mozambique I didn't sleep under a mosquito net, or that I didn't have to worry about malaria.  

Malaria is curable and preventable and yet a huge problem in a lot of the world.  Why?  People know about malaria and how to prevent it, but many people feel that it is just a part of life and they don't need to do much to prevent it, because everyone gets it and over time they start to develop some immunity to it, so it isn't as bad.  But the majority of people dying from malaria are children under 5 who have not developed this immunity.  And by not taking precautions against it, the rest of the population is adding to the prevelence of these deaths.  How so, you might ask?  Well Malaria is spread from person to person through mosquito bites.  So if a 35 year old man who has had malaria multiple times in his life and has developed some immunity to it, gets malaria again but it doesn't really affect him much and then a mosquito bites him and then bites his 3 month old granddaughter, this is how she can get malaria and since she is so young and doesn't have any sort of immunity to it, it could kill her.  I'm not saying that everyone thinks that they shouldn't take precautions because malaria is just a part of life, and most people I've met here in Mozambique don't feel this way, but it is a common thought throughout the world that is affected by it.  

Mosquito nets are a huge prevention tool, yet many people do not use them.  Even when the local hospitals hand them out or sell them for very cheap often people use them for other things.  For example, in a nearby town, where some of my students are from (and told me about this problem), people often use mosquito nets as fishing nets.  A large population of this town makes their living selling fish they catch, and not only that, they get their own food this way.  So when given this nice big net or when they buy one, that is supposed to help them prevent malaria, they decided to start using it to fish and get more product and food for their families.  It is common to see mosquito nets here and in other countries used for a variety of different things, other than malaria prevention.  So how do you convince a population that it is more important to protect themselves from malaria, than to improve their fishing abilities, thus making more money and having more food.  I'm not entirely sure.  But I hope someone figures that out someday and malaria can be completely eradicated.  It's so strange to me that we have this illness that we know where it comes from, how to cure it and how to prevent it and yet in 2012, an estimated 627,000 people died of malaria (CDC.com).  Again, I don't know how to fix this, but hopefully someday malaria will not be an issue anywhere.

                So now for a little education and facts for you. 

• About 91% of malaria-related deaths in 2010 occurred in Africa.  The majority of these deaths were children under 5.
• Malaria is spread from person to person by mosquito bites.  (A mosquito bites an infected person  and gets infected with the parasite, then bites another person and transmits the parasite)
• Malaria is spread by some species of female Anopheles mosquito, and these usually bite between the hours of 9pm and 5am
•  Approximately 1,500-2,000 cases of malaria are reported every year in the US, almost all in recent travelers.  Reported malaria cases reached a 40-year high of 1,925 in 2011. (cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html)
• Of the species of Anopheles mosquitoes found in the US, the three species that were responsible for malaria transmission prior to elimination are still prevalent; thus there is a constant risk that malaria could be reintroduced in the US (cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html)
• Malaria is preventable and sleeping under an insecticide-treated mosquito net every night is one of the best ways to protect yourself and others from malaria. (I recently heard an interesting statistic… If 80% of a community slept under a mosquito net every night, malaria could be eliminated from that community.)
• Malaria is curable.   Medicine is often taken 2 times a day for 3 days but it depends on the weight and age of the person. 
• As of 2013, 111 countries are free from malaria
  

Good Morning Teacher

It's official... I am an awful blogger.  I didn't realize that my last post was in February, sorry about that everyone.   In my defense, I am in Mozambique where internet is not always easily available to me and my life as become very “normal” at least to me, but that is still no excuse because I know there are a lot of people (or maybe only a few) who want to know what I’ve been up to for the past few months. So what have I been up to through the months of February and March since my last post.  Well a lot, but also not a whole lot.  So we had interviews to get into the IFP during February. Because I'm to lazy to write a lot about this you should go to my roommates blog and read all about her take on it.  I pretty much agree with everything she says, and she is much better at keeping up with her blog :)!   Let me just say that it was frustrating, interesting, eye-opening, and comical all at once.

Now for what I've been doing with alll my time.  Teaching, thats about it right now.  I am teaching one class at the IFP (my original job) and since I didn't have much to do there I went to the secondary school to see if they needed English teachers, which they did, and I am teachering two turmas (classes) of 11th grade English.  It is nice to get both the experience at the IFP and the experience of a secondary school teacher... because let me tell you they are completely different from each other and very different from what I am used to teaching in the states.

                I’ll start with the secondary school.  Each class has 84 students on the class list, but I’d say only about 70 show up on a regular basis, sometimes more, sometimes less.  I have each class 3 times a week, two douplas (two 45min. classes back to back) and one single class period.  The only material I have is a chalk board and chalk and if I have access to big paper to write on I can use that.  The students only have notebooks and pens and do not have text books or work books to use.  Several of the students end up sitting on the floor during my class because there are not enough desks for everyone.  It is very difficult to plan lessons for classes that are that big and its even harder to have good classroom management with that many students and when many of them could care less about learning English.  Especially when they know that no matter what I give them for a grade, it will probably be changed to passing.  Even if they get a high grade, it will probably be changed to a lower but still passing grade.  The grading scale is from 0 to 20 and anything over a 10 is considered passing and a good grade.  For some reason here they don’t think that many students or any in some cases, should get over a 14 and below a 8 or 9 no matter how much work they did or didn’t do throughout the trimester.  I have several students who did not pass my classes and some with some very good scores, so we will see what happens with that when I turn those grades in.   

On the other hand my IFP students are great! (not saying that the secondary students aren’t, but it’s just very different.)  I have 33 students in my class, most really seem to care about learning and trying and are always full of qustions.  I still only have chalk and a chalk board in the classroom, but with only 33 students it is easier for me to bring in supplies for them like colored pencils and what not.  We also have a smartboard here that I can use, so that is fun for some classes.  Grades are still an issue because most people have the same mentality and my grades may get changed at the end of the semester but I hope not.  The students work hard to earn those grades and I just don’t understand the mentality of cheating here and changing grades, but it is what it is.

So I have been in Mozambique for over 6 months (now getting closer to 7) and my roommate Sam and I were sitting around making a list of all the things that we haven’t done in over 6 months…. So here it is.

In the last 6 months I haven’t….

1. Been in a building over 3 stories high (ok the hotels in Nampula and Maputo… maybe)
2. Climbed a flight of stairs in a building (again see above… that’s still been over 4 months)
3. Been in an elevator
4. Eaten or seen bacon
5. Had easy access to reliable wi-fi
6. Seen a dog on a leash (but I’ve seen several goats on leashes)
7. Driven a car
8. Gone a day without hearing or speaking another language
9. Been to a shopping mall
10.  Eaten at a fast food restaurant
11. Had delivery food
12.  Lived within a mile of a store
13.  Not had to bring my own toilet paper into a bathroom
14. Used a public restroom that wasn’t a dump flush or a pit
15.  Had air conditioning in my home
16. Spent a night where I didn’t need to sleep under a mosquito net
17.  Gone a week without having take malaria meds
18. Been to a movie theatre
19.  Not had to filter my water
20.  Mowed a lawn or seen a lawn mower
21.  Used a washer and dryer
22. Lived with a supermarket within 50K
23. Taken public transport that didn’t have a goat, chicken, or several crying babies on it (usually two or more of these)
24. Been able to buy things at a store or market after 8pm
25. Not had to wear sunscreen
26. Not had awful tanlines (especially on my feet… what up Teva Tan)
27. Not had hundreds of roommates that were of the insect persuasion (yes we call all the cockroaches and other insects our roommates now)
28. Had a closet
29. Had a legit system (shelves, dressors, ect) to store things
30. Seen a skateboard
31.  Seen a soccer net (most of the goals here are just empty goal posts or nothing at all)
32.  Worn Flip flops on a daily basis because they are not an acceptable form of footwear to wear around town. They are house shoes…
33. watched Netflix
34. Been in classroom with a white board, maps and things on the wall, and other materials (not just chalkboard and chalk)
35. Paid with a credit card or debit card
36.  Paid with American money
37.  Had a voicemail
38.  Spoken on the phone without having to worry about running out of credit
39. Been in the same room as my family
40. Been in the US
41. Seen snow
42. Had a normal bowl movement
43.  Gone a day without talking about foods I miss, poop, or sex (usually at least 2 of these things are brought up in conversations by every PCV)
44. Gone a day without seeing a baby on a motorcycle
45. Used a doorknob to open a door.
46. had ice in a drink
47. Eaten chicken that wasn’t killed that day
48. Gone a day without being called “white person” in some language or another
49. Shown my knees in town
50. Used a Microwave
51. Gone a day without multiple mysterious bug bites on my body
52. Been somewhere with a fire department
53. Had soda out of a plastic bottle
54. Had a beer at home
55. Used an actual oven
56. Used a dishwasher
57. Taken a taxi
58. Owned a chair that wasn’t plastic
59. Straightened my hair
60. Gone a day without seeing people carrying things on their heads
61. Entered a classroom without students standing and saying good morning teacher or good afternoon teacher
62. Been inside a target
63. Been inside a coffee shop
64. Eaten a hamburger
65. Used tortillas that I didn’t make

That’s right Mom, I went to church…

Yep, that’s right, many of you who know me well may not believe this because I haven’t actually been to church in probably over 12 years. But you heard me correctly, I did in fact attend not just one full service here, but half of another, all on the same Sunday.  Many of you, might still be in shock and wondering why I went to church, so let me address this.  There are a few reasons why I decided to go to church last Sunday.  The first reason was it’s a great way to meet people in the surrounding bairros (villages).  It has been about a week and people are coming up to me and my roommate saying that they saw us in church and some just wanted to introduce themselves, others just yell my name as I walk down the street or passed their houses.  I guess that´s better then them just yelling Akunya (White people).  The second reason I went, it was a cultural experience I figured I should have while I can.  When else am I going to get to experience a Catholic Church service in Africa?  It was also a good chance to listen to Portuguese and the local language Makua.  There is never a bad time to practice either of those.  And finally the third and probably the main reason is because we met these two guys who thought we should go to church with them.  Ok mom (and everyone) relax, it’s not what you are probably thinking… they are helping us get this secondary project started and thought we should go to church and be introduced to the community and see what they think of this project and if they think they would need/want it.  The guys think, as do we, that the church might be able to help us and we may even be able to use some of their land to build something on.
Now what is this secondary project, I’m sure you are wondering now.  Well none of it is for sure yet, but our idea is some sort of community center in one of the local bairros near where we live.  There is still a lot to work out, but our hope is to have a library with a literacy program for kids and hopefully adults, a sports/activity club for the kids in this bairro, and maybe more.  This is something both my roommate and myself as well as the two guys, seem very passionate about getting started.  There is still a lot to work out and it’s pretty ambitious, but the community seemed pretty interested in this, and we got the support of what seems to be some influential members of the community, so that is the first step.  I will keep you posted on the progress of this project, but for now it’s still just an idea that we are working with and have a lot to work out.
Now I guess it’s time to share a little bit about my experience at church.  The first service started at 7:30am and was mostly the young people in the bairro.  This whole service was given in Portuguese so I was able to understand a lot of it.  The men sat on the right side of the church and the women sat on the left side.  When people entered the church they knelt at the doors and seemed to say a small prayer or something then stood up and found a seat on one of the wooden benches in the church.  The service seemed pretty typical of other churches I have been to.  There was singing only instead of an organ or piano the only instrument that accompanied the voices was a drum.  I’m pretty sure I’m in love with live singing here...ok at least acapella group singing, each time a group of people sing I seem to get chills, it’s amazing that I don’t even need to know what they are saying for that to happen.  There was a lot of standing and reciting things and sitting down again.  There was even a collection plate that at one point was set in the center and while people were singing and clapping, some people stood up and walked to the center of the church and placed a few Mets into it. Then at the end of the service, it was time for us to go to the front and introduce ourselves and explain about what we had in mind.  This went over pretty well, especially in the first service with all the kids.  The second service, which was mostly the adults, had some questions about us, but they seemed pretty receptive of us and the community center as well.  But then again, I don’t know much of what was being said because the whole second service and presentation was in Makua by one of the guys that we’d met.  A lot of the local people in the Bairro don’t speak much or any Portuguese so they wouldn’t have understood us if we had spoken and it’s always better to have someone from the community who wants the project to speak.
Overall my 1st church experience here in Mozambique was very good (very similiar to every other church I´ve been to, other than the language) and now a lot of people recognize us and know who we are and what we are doing there, instead of just knowing us as the weird Akunya who walk through the bairro a lot.

Ferrias (Holidays)

Ok folks I´m back!  I know I´ve been kind of slacking this year so far with my blog but I´m here now to update you on all of our happenings, in a very condensed version.  I spent Christmas with some other volunteers, we hiked to a waterfall on Christmas morning and then ate some delicous food cooked by some of my new friends and then we exchanged some stocking stuffers.  Overall, it was very good Christmas, as much so that it could be, being my first one not with family.  Then for New Years, Sam and I headed to Lake Niassa (or I guess more comonly known as Lake Malawi), this is the 3rd largest lake in Africa and is on the border between Mozambique and Malawi.  The other Niassa PCVs were heading to a lodge (not quite complete) that is owned by 3 Swedes and a Frenchman.  They are working on creating a toursit getaway but for now, while it isn´t ready for actual paying customers, they let us stay there with them for basically just the cost of food for the time we are there.

We were lucky enough to meet one of the Swedes and his Portuguese girlfriend and another Portuguese friend on our Christmas travels and were able to arrange a ride all the way to the lake. So rather than endure cramped public transport to Lichinga by chapa which could take 8+ hrs depending on the chapa we rode in an air conditioned car with some new friends to Lichinga and then straight to the lake, to get to Lichinga it only took us about 6 hrs and then another hr to the lake.  So overall it was a very easy trip, minus the road being awful because 1) they aren´t paved and 2) it is rainy season.

So after about a 45 minute boat ride we made it to the lodge.  It was beautiful and very isolated.  It is about 10km from Meponda a near by village and about 2km from the Malawian border.  They have built a bar on the beach, 3 huts (which have roofs and curtain walls, which is where I slept), a kitchen with coal stove and a back dorm house.  They are working on getting a few other things built but that is all there is now.  It was amazing to wake up and see the water each morning.  Instead of describing it more, I figured I´d just put some pictures to show you.  We spent a few days before New Years and then a bunch of there friends came and other volunteers stayed their to bring in the new year!

The Lake

See that hut behind the guys... that´s where I slept

Me and the Rooms celebrating New Years!!!  

My bed 

The lodge

Another beach near where we stayed!

Natal-ification

I never thought that I would say this… but I kind of miss snow!  Ok not really but it does not seem like Christmas time when it is 100 degrees out and rainy and not -10 and snowy.  So I’m not sure I really miss snow or if it is just that I love Christmas time and it sure doesn’t feel like the holiday season as much as my roommate and I try to make it.   Believe me we have tried very very hard to make it seem like the holiday season.  We have been listening to Christmas music since getting to site and watching all the standard Christmas movies (I’ve watched Love Actually only twice this year though… so maybe that’s part of my problem).  Since that wasn’t working we decided that we should decorate, but we don’t have any of the usual Christmas decorations (left my lights in the states and there aren’t many Christmas trees here in Cuamba).  So what were we supposed to do!   Well when dealing with limited resources, you do the best you can… so luckily Sam had chalk, and we decided to draw a Christmas tree on our wall with it!  And when doing something like drawing on the wall… the old adage stands… GO BIG OR GO HOME!  So we gave ourselves a pretty large Christmas tree for the year…. Now the only thing it is missing is lights, I considered attaching candles to it, but decided that was probably more of a fire hazard than lights on a tree. So I didn’t risk it. 

Every kids dream... drawing on walls!

The finished project... feels like christmas!

The next step to our Christmas-ification was cookies!  We made homemade sugar cookies but couldn’t find any powdered sugar so we didn’t have frosting but we found sprinkles at one of the stores in town so we decorated with those.  And of course neither of us had cookie cutters but that was easy to replace with just a knife, although some of our shapes need a little imagination to figure out exactly what they were, but we had your typical, mitten, stocking, santa hat, snowmen, and more.  I even cut out the words HO HO HO.  The cookies turned out pretty well.

Some of our beautiful cookies!

Our final step was cooking a Christmas dinner for our site mates, but only Rich could come and being in Mozambique makes it a little harder to make traditional Christmas dinner foods like ham, so we made our new tradition or Christmas Chicken fajitas, including homemade tortillas.  For desert we made homemade cinnamon rolls which also turned out well but also would have been better with a little powdered sugar frosting.  To make it more Christmas-y we made hot apple cider… which was delicious!  Some of you might know… I love apple things (taste and smell) so this was AMAZING, by far the best thing so far!  Between that and our cinnamon rolls our house smelled delicious and even though it was a weird combination of foods, it was delicious!  And we finished out the night watching Home Alone… such a classic Christmas movie.

Who knew I was such a baker....

Christmas Chicken Fajitas!

To top off the holiday cheer, today while we were at the market, we stopped to look at capulanas and look what I found... 

Now if this doesn't add to my christmas cheer, I don't know what will!  Now I have an awesome Christmas Capulana to wear and to remember my first Christmas in Cuamba! 


Feliz Natal (Merry Christmas) Everyone!

Home (for the next 2 years)

After taking my first in-country flight from Maputo to Nampula, we were taken to the most chique hotel that we’ve stayed in thus far for our supervisors conference.  Here our school sent a representative to get information about PC and to meet each other.  After a few days of this (including once again, a large quantity of great food) we were taken to our sites.  Most people where either driven by PC cars or PC rented out chapas to drive them and all of their stuff to their new homes…. But not us, we got to take the train from Nampula to Cuamba.  Now this wouldn’t have been a big deal in most circumstances but keep mind that each of us had the trunk that PC gave us, a box, our two year bag, and then about 3 other bags/suitcases each.  We also had bought a little toaster oven/stove thing in Nampula to take with us before we knew we were going by comboio (train).  So yes, if you did the math that is about 13 bags/boxes/suitcases that needed to be on the train with us.
In case you are wondering how we got all this on the train, well we took the trunks, boxes, and 2 year bags to the train the night before so they could be put on the next morning and then at 5am we left our hotel with our other 3 bags (each) and the stove and headed to the station with a PC staff member and our school representative.  The day before we had forgotten that we had the stove so there were some issues with this and we ended up having to leave it in Nampula and the PC sent it on the train a few days later.  But everything else worked out and we got on the train.  Now they have recently redone these comboios (trains) and we were put in the Executivo class by PC and this new car was climate controlled (ie air conditioned).  So for the next 11ish hours we were pretty comfortable.  The trip was beautiful but sitting in a train that makes a lot of stops for 11 hours is a very long time, but well worth it because we are now at site!
Finally we arrived in Cuamba, and like any other travel junction it was crazy.  Everyone getting off the train and making sure they get all their stuff ( don´t worry folks, I´m pretty sure we won the most stuff award).  Luckily we have some great site mates (a health volunteer and another education volunteer) and they met us at the train station with a IFP car to take all of our stuff to the IFP.  The IFP is a whopping 7k outside the actual city of cuamba, so once we made that trip (by car it was fine, since then Iºve had the joys of walking it several times) and unloaded our stuff into our new home... we headed across the yard to Rich´s house to enjoy the dinner they had gotten for us and the cake Colin had made!  That was great not to have to worry about food after traveling all day!  Then we headed back home to set up our trusty mosquito nets and unpack a little.
We´ve been at site now for about a week and a half, I´ve survived my first sickness here in cuamba... some sort of stomach bug, Ive learned to always have lots of TP, bread, and other necessities on stock so if both you and your roommate are sick for multiple days and have no energy to make the 7k trip into town you will have enough supplies, we came dangerously close to being out of several things.
Sam and I have made the trip to town about 12 times (there is 1 and back is 2...ect) and have gotten a balea (a ride) about half of those times... pretty good luck so far.  But today we finally bought bikes!  I have to say biking cuts a whole lot of time off the hour walk that it is but it also cuts the chances of us getting a ride.  I think it is worth it, plus it gives me an excuse to get some exercise (and by excuse I mean a reason to do it).   So far I really like it here, minus that it is really really hot!  I am in basically a constant state of sweat, accept for when it rains, which gives us a little break from the heat, but makes it that much harder to get to town.  Cuamba is surrounded by mountains, although I´m pretty sure they are to far away to get to to explore, but Iºm sure in the next 2 years Sam and I will check that fact out!  School doesnºt start for another few months so I have lots of time to plan and explore.  I think this is long enough, so until next time (which I will try to make it more often from now on)

End of Training

A lot happened in the last few weeks of training, we had more language, more tech, model school, the provincial elections, thanksgiving, our host family celebrations and then swearing in!  Lingua (language) and tech were pretty much the same as every other week so I’ll just tell you about escola modela (model school) and all the celebrations we had.
Model school was week 7/8 of training.  We were each assigned a grade and class to teach and then we planned lessons, each English teacher taught 4 or 5 lessons and there were 2 or 3 teachers per class, and then we had to write, administer, and grade a test at the end of all of it.  I was assigned to teach otava (8th grade) and so the other 8th grade teachers and I planned a unit about School subjects and daily routines.
Our students volunteered to come to school for a week during their summer vacation and all they got was a week of English, Math, Physics, and Biology lessons, a notebook, a pen, cookies every day, juice after the test, and a certificate saying that they participated. I’m not sure how many students in the US would give up some of their summer vacation for this… I probably wouldn’t have when I was 12.  Since our students were volunteers, we had a range of ages…  I’m pretty sure we had a legitimate 5 year old and her 6 year old sister in my class, along with about 20 other students ranging from 9-15 probably.  At the end of our class the majority of our students passed and did pretty well on our test.  Overall it was a good week of practice and it felt good to get back into teaching and it was good to see what worked with these students and what didn’t.  Although, I will be teaching a different age and hopefully my students will have a little more English than my students in model school, but at least I’m prepared now if they don’t.
During the week of model school, Mozambique had its provincial elections.  There has been lots of talk about these and about possible violence during them.  Luckily nothing happened near me and there really was not a whole lot throughout Mozambique during the day of the elections or after they announced the winners, but don’t worry my dear readers, Peace Corps took every precaution and had us basically on lockdown and we weren’t supposed to leave our houses and had a bag packed, just in case we had to leave quickly.  Luckily, none of that was really necessary.
After model school, it was time for Thanksgiving.  All of Moz 21 helped cook different dishes and then we had one big feast at the PC Office in Namaacha.  I was in the group that made green bean casserole, and let me just say, cooking in Mozambique takes a long long time.  As a standard, many of the different dishes including the 5 turkeys were about a half hour late.  But it was all delicious.  We had some of the best turkey I have ever had, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn bread, pecan and pumpkin pie, ice cream, and probably more, but that’s all I can remember now.  Let me just say that after eating Mozambican food for the last 8 weeks, it was good to have some American food and it made it feel a lot more like Thanksgiving.  We all stuffed ourselves in true American-Thanksgiving fashion (probably more so) and many people got a little sick after all the food.
Two days later we had our host family celebrations.  They Maes (host moms) really pulled out all the stops for this meal.  They started cooking super early in the morning and made a lot of great food!  I participated in some traditional dancing that I had been learning throughout training and we performed with some Mozambican women at the beginning of the ceremony.  Then all the families were recognized and received a certificate, and then we all ate lots of food.
Finally we packed up all of our stuff and sent it off to Maputo, and we followed it a day later to swear in as official Peace Corps Volunteers.  Every year the group gets capulanas (basically big things of fabric, used for everything here: carrying a baby, blankets, cleaning, a towel, decorations, and clothes) and has them made into clothes for the swear-in ceremony.  I had a dress made out of it, and we also got ties made for the ambassador as well as our country director.  The swear-in ceremony was held at the U.S. Ambassadors house and we had to take an oath, similar to the one that soldiers take, with a few exceptions.  After Swearing-in we were official Peace Corps Volunteers and would be heading out to different parts of the country the next day.  We were put up in a nice hotel in Maputo and had most of the day to eat good food!  Then the next morning those of us going up to the Northern provinces and the central ones were picked up to go to the airport and get our respective flights either to Nampula or Manica where we would be having a few days of conferences and then heading out to our sites for the next two years!

So that is what you missed in the last few weeks of my PST experience!  Now for the exciting stuff... VOLUNTEER LIFE!