My presentation this evening was a smashing success (my opinion)!
Really, it wasn't bad. I think I've got the hang of this Portuguese language thing- as long as I have a paper in front of me to read the pre-planned words off of that is. I'm actually surprisingly good at writing in Portuguese, it's the act of speaking and understanding that stumps me.
The students laughed at my jokes and I was able to put my goofy personality on display. At the end there was a question and answer segment and of course all they asked was how old I was and if I was single. It was funny. I was surprised though because two students did come up to me afterwards to see if they could read some of my writing; too bad I left the book I published at home along with my article and all of the drafts of my fiction pieces. So I guess I'll have to write some new things.
Also, as a result of my presentation, my project leader asked if I would be interested in forming a drama/theatare group. OF COURSE!!!!!! That's exactly what I wanted to do in the first place. I just wish my Portuguese were oh let's say 100 times better so that I could be more effective. I could get by at first I suppose by writing my lessons and reading them and getting the students who speak English well to help me translate the other student's questions.
I'm so excited. It looks like there will be lights, cameras and social-action in Mozambique after all!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Bring on the bugs!
RED ALERT:
It's gigantic hairy spider season!
Really!!
They congregate in our outdoor bathroom hut. Everytime I have to go to the bathroom (usually at night) I see them. Tarantulas, and giant stick-like spiders. It's horrifying. I just don't know what to say. I seriously have bathroom-a-phobia. I'm probably going to get a bladder infection because now, I won't even go to the bathroom after dark. My only saving grace is if I am in town or at the beach and I can use one of the nice bathrooms at a restaurant.
Not only are there spiders but there are enormous flying cockroaches/waterbugs whatever you want to call them, they are there and they fly at you.
To further complicate matters, I have a huge hornets nest outside of my window and everyday there are hornets in my room. Only my room. I hate it. I absolutely abhor this situation. I loathe...with a capitol L! I can't get a moments peace from the bugs. I keep coaxing my poor neighbor to kill my hornets with a broom. I do this in exchange for 30 minute English lessons. Yes, my desperation has gotten to this point.
Today, we had an assembly as we do every Friday morning. It was horrible. The assembly is in a large hut and hornets were flying in through the open windows. There were like ten hornets dancing in front of my face. It took every inch of restraint in my body not to scream or twitch. I did twitch though. The students were singing the Mozambican national anthem (which is the longest anthem, I am convinced in the world...)and I was twitching and batting away bees.
I just don't know...
Anyhow, I am almost finished with my first full week at work. Our week-day is Monday through Saturday.
Things have gotten better. In many ways I feel as though they want to micro-manage our days and that is just not going to happen. I substitute taught for one of the teachers yesterday. I taught an English class where we learned about domestic vs. wild animals. I taught the students "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" and they really got into it and I encouraged them to use the same song with their young students that they will be teaching as a way to introduce domestic farm animals.
It looks like I may, if I'm lucky get my own English class next week.
I have a presentation to give about myself tonight in Portuguese. I'm so nervous to speak in Portuguese about myself for 30 minutes. I keep confusing my verb tenses and my conjugation is skewed. I've got the basic vocabulary but everything else is tragic.
Well I've got to go, it's lunch time. Fish heads and rice today. More later.
It's gigantic hairy spider season!
Really!!
They congregate in our outdoor bathroom hut. Everytime I have to go to the bathroom (usually at night) I see them. Tarantulas, and giant stick-like spiders. It's horrifying. I just don't know what to say. I seriously have bathroom-a-phobia. I'm probably going to get a bladder infection because now, I won't even go to the bathroom after dark. My only saving grace is if I am in town or at the beach and I can use one of the nice bathrooms at a restaurant.
Not only are there spiders but there are enormous flying cockroaches/waterbugs whatever you want to call them, they are there and they fly at you.
To further complicate matters, I have a huge hornets nest outside of my window and everyday there are hornets in my room. Only my room. I hate it. I absolutely abhor this situation. I loathe...with a capitol L! I can't get a moments peace from the bugs. I keep coaxing my poor neighbor to kill my hornets with a broom. I do this in exchange for 30 minute English lessons. Yes, my desperation has gotten to this point.
Today, we had an assembly as we do every Friday morning. It was horrible. The assembly is in a large hut and hornets were flying in through the open windows. There were like ten hornets dancing in front of my face. It took every inch of restraint in my body not to scream or twitch. I did twitch though. The students were singing the Mozambican national anthem (which is the longest anthem, I am convinced in the world...)and I was twitching and batting away bees.
I just don't know...
Anyhow, I am almost finished with my first full week at work. Our week-day is Monday through Saturday.
Things have gotten better. In many ways I feel as though they want to micro-manage our days and that is just not going to happen. I substitute taught for one of the teachers yesterday. I taught an English class where we learned about domestic vs. wild animals. I taught the students "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" and they really got into it and I encouraged them to use the same song with their young students that they will be teaching as a way to introduce domestic farm animals.
It looks like I may, if I'm lucky get my own English class next week.
I have a presentation to give about myself tonight in Portuguese. I'm so nervous to speak in Portuguese about myself for 30 minutes. I keep confusing my verb tenses and my conjugation is skewed. I've got the basic vocabulary but everything else is tragic.
Well I've got to go, it's lunch time. Fish heads and rice today. More later.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Melting
It is so hot in the teacher's office where I am resigned to spend my entire day. I spent my morning preparing a 30 minute presentation about myself and my educational background that I am to present to the staff and other teachers on Friday evening.
I am somewhat disappointed. They really don't have anything for me to do here right now. I'm just at a desk studying my Portuguese/English dictionary and flash cards. The school runs very well and all of the students are in class with their teachers. Tracy and I have absolutely nothing to do and we're not allowed to go anywhere. I was supposed to have a meeting a few hours ago, but the person never appeared, or maybe according to Mozambican time, just hasn't shown up yet.
Two more hours and my shift is up. Hopefully tomorrow will be (I'd say more productive, but let's just call it what it is) productive.
I am somewhat disappointed. They really don't have anything for me to do here right now. I'm just at a desk studying my Portuguese/English dictionary and flash cards. The school runs very well and all of the students are in class with their teachers. Tracy and I have absolutely nothing to do and we're not allowed to go anywhere. I was supposed to have a meeting a few hours ago, but the person never appeared, or maybe according to Mozambican time, just hasn't shown up yet.
Two more hours and my shift is up. Hopefully tomorrow will be (I'd say more productive, but let's just call it what it is) productive.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
I think I'm gonna like it here!
I LOVE INHAMBANE!
I arrived in Inhambane on Thursday and it is one of the most beautiful places. I've been fortunate to have seen a lot of beautiful places in this world, and I know this is completely subjective, but Inhambane is truly very magical.
I'm right on the Indian Ocean. The weather is obviously warm but not humid (which I am grateful too - let's keep that ocean breeze a commin'). The malaria risk is very low. The landscape is breathtaking. I need to figure out a way to upload my pictures. There are the most amazing plants which are the most astonishing vivd colors. So many glorious shades of green. I'll see pine trees, next to flowering cactus plants, next to exotic waxy leaved plants, it seems so random.
The beach is soooooooooooooooooo amazing! The water is warm, and clear. Everything is so clean and nice. There are tourists on the beach strip but it's not overdone, the natural beauty is completely preserved. Most of the tourists come from South Africa.
In Inhambane, we have access to excellent night life and wonderful restaurants as a result of the tourism. Today, we went to the beach and I had lemon sugar crepes for breakfast with guava juice and for lunch, curried sweet potato and shrimp in a coconut sauce. So cheap and so fresh.
Yeah, yeah, that's great but what about your project???
Well I haven't started working yet. I begin tomorrow, so up until now this has been a vacation and I've soaked in every second.
I went to ADPP on Saturday to tour the facility and meet the staff. Everyone seems nice. The teacher training college is beautiful. The facility is brand new and was only built in 2006. The student's dorm rooms are immaculate and the bathrooms pristine. Much better conditions than I had on the Mountain in Massachusetts.
One of the students even took me on a tour of Inhambane City, which is small and charming. He was very patient with my Portuguese, I hope all the students are this patient. Many of the people here actually speak English to my disappointment because they want to practice and once they hear my accent they try to speak to me in English. And it is great practice for them, but I need to practice my Portuguese so they are speaking to me in broken English and I'm speaking to them in broken Portuguese and somehow we communicate.
Let's see, my living conditions.
I live in a four bedroom house with one other Development Instructor, my lovely friend Tracy. I'm so glad we were placed together because we both trained on the mountain in Massachusetts, we get along really well and have a lot in common, such as spontaneously breaking out into songs from Broadway musicals.
Our house is simple but nice. I have my own room obviously with a bed, dresser and desk. We have a kitchen and a living room and a porch with chairs. We've got a crazy cat named freaky who is the loudest cat i've ever heard. She screams all day long, but she's cute so we keep her around. Only drawback, no running water and bathrooms outside. I've already seen my first tarantula in our outhouse. We have a hole in the ground with two posts for the feet and you just stand there and let it rip!
We have another hut that is our shower hut. You have to retrieve water from the well, pour it into the bucket and ladle yourself clean. It's not bad actually and it's easy. I shower about three times a day (it's so hot) and I've already gotten used to it. The best is showering outside late at night. There is nothing like the sky over Inhambane. There are so many stars here on a moon free night.
We have a really sweet cleaning lady and cook named Jaqueline who does our laundry everyday, keeps us with a steady supply of pure water, cooks our dinners and cleans our house. It was weird at first to have someone clean and do things for me, but she's very insistent and Tracy and I have no clue how to prepare food here or how to effectively hand wash our clothes (I take care of the small things like bras and underwear) so it really is all for the best and she gets paid really well.
Speaking of preparing food. I went to the market to buy Mangos yesterday and it took me almost thirty minutes to cut into my mango. I was cutting and slicing. In the end it looked like a drunken tic tac toe board. I started prying the pieces apart with my pocket knife. I'm surprised I didn't lose a finger.
The fruit here is sooooooooooooooo good. We have papaya and mango and guava and banannas and much more as well as vegetables of all kinds. The land is very fertile.
Then there are the gifts from the sea.
Ok, I'm sure this is long and I've got so much to say, but i've got to wrap it up. Before I go however, I would like to tell of my harrowing journey from Maputo to Inhambane.
Sergio, another Development Instructor and I, were told to be ready for a cab to pick us up at the gates in Maputo at 430 am. We didn't get any sleep the night before because there was no point. We got ready, and were on the porch by 415am waiting. Somehow we managed to lock ourselves out of the house but we figured it didn't matter because we'd be catching a taxi soon. So we waited and waited. Mosquitos were eating us alive, bats swirling overhead, frogs singing in the tall grass. We see the sun rise and we see people emerge from their respective homes. The stupid taxi didn't arrive until 7am. We were so mad. Sergio missed his bus and couldn't go so I had to go with the taxi driver alone because I still had time to catch mine. Mind you I don't speak Portuguese well and the driver didn't speak English well either. I told him to take me to the bus station, but he took me to the chapa station. I of course didn't know this at the time. If you remember, chapa's are the cargo vans converted into sardine cans full of people and are in terrible working condition. So we get out of the taxi in the busy chapa station and right away two men come up to the driver who was carrying my huge 70 plus pound suitcase and began to pull it away from him. I join my driver and grab on and we're all pulling and tugging. I couldn't believe they were trying to rob me. I was so angry. I started screaming at them in English which caused more chaos. I'm not sure what happened next but the two men who where trying to steal my bag started fighting with each other. My driver began to run with my bag on his head and I followed. He passed my bag to another man who carried it on his head and loaded it somehow into a crowded chapa. I thanked my driver and got on the chapa. It was full. There were like eleven people plus bags and livestock and crates. I had to sit in the seat on the hump of the wheel so my knees were to my chin. I had to balance my 30 plus pounds of carry on luggage in my lap. Behind me was a crate of fish that smelled so bad. I was so upset, I was ready to kill someone. We would drive and stop and let more people on. I could't believe it. People were on top of each other. Some were standing and crouching with their butts in peoples faces. It was horrible. Everytime we stopped, children and women selling things would come to the windows, open them from the outside and cram goods in my face while sweaty arms reached over me to pay. It was hellish.
I didn't go to the bathroom, eat or drink all day.
All I could do was sleep and stare out of the window.
Eventually though, as we got farther away from the city, my view became more and more beautiful. By the time I was in Inhambane, ten hours later, I was calm and excited. I was also extremely hungry and thirsty and tired and in need of a shower and in need of a bed. But everything, clearly worked out in the end!
I arrived in Inhambane on Thursday and it is one of the most beautiful places. I've been fortunate to have seen a lot of beautiful places in this world, and I know this is completely subjective, but Inhambane is truly very magical.
I'm right on the Indian Ocean. The weather is obviously warm but not humid (which I am grateful too - let's keep that ocean breeze a commin'). The malaria risk is very low. The landscape is breathtaking. I need to figure out a way to upload my pictures. There are the most amazing plants which are the most astonishing vivd colors. So many glorious shades of green. I'll see pine trees, next to flowering cactus plants, next to exotic waxy leaved plants, it seems so random.
The beach is soooooooooooooooooo amazing! The water is warm, and clear. Everything is so clean and nice. There are tourists on the beach strip but it's not overdone, the natural beauty is completely preserved. Most of the tourists come from South Africa.
In Inhambane, we have access to excellent night life and wonderful restaurants as a result of the tourism. Today, we went to the beach and I had lemon sugar crepes for breakfast with guava juice and for lunch, curried sweet potato and shrimp in a coconut sauce. So cheap and so fresh.
Yeah, yeah, that's great but what about your project???
Well I haven't started working yet. I begin tomorrow, so up until now this has been a vacation and I've soaked in every second.
I went to ADPP on Saturday to tour the facility and meet the staff. Everyone seems nice. The teacher training college is beautiful. The facility is brand new and was only built in 2006. The student's dorm rooms are immaculate and the bathrooms pristine. Much better conditions than I had on the Mountain in Massachusetts.
One of the students even took me on a tour of Inhambane City, which is small and charming. He was very patient with my Portuguese, I hope all the students are this patient. Many of the people here actually speak English to my disappointment because they want to practice and once they hear my accent they try to speak to me in English. And it is great practice for them, but I need to practice my Portuguese so they are speaking to me in broken English and I'm speaking to them in broken Portuguese and somehow we communicate.
Let's see, my living conditions.
I live in a four bedroom house with one other Development Instructor, my lovely friend Tracy. I'm so glad we were placed together because we both trained on the mountain in Massachusetts, we get along really well and have a lot in common, such as spontaneously breaking out into songs from Broadway musicals.
Our house is simple but nice. I have my own room obviously with a bed, dresser and desk. We have a kitchen and a living room and a porch with chairs. We've got a crazy cat named freaky who is the loudest cat i've ever heard. She screams all day long, but she's cute so we keep her around. Only drawback, no running water and bathrooms outside. I've already seen my first tarantula in our outhouse. We have a hole in the ground with two posts for the feet and you just stand there and let it rip!
We have another hut that is our shower hut. You have to retrieve water from the well, pour it into the bucket and ladle yourself clean. It's not bad actually and it's easy. I shower about three times a day (it's so hot) and I've already gotten used to it. The best is showering outside late at night. There is nothing like the sky over Inhambane. There are so many stars here on a moon free night.
We have a really sweet cleaning lady and cook named Jaqueline who does our laundry everyday, keeps us with a steady supply of pure water, cooks our dinners and cleans our house. It was weird at first to have someone clean and do things for me, but she's very insistent and Tracy and I have no clue how to prepare food here or how to effectively hand wash our clothes (I take care of the small things like bras and underwear) so it really is all for the best and she gets paid really well.
Speaking of preparing food. I went to the market to buy Mangos yesterday and it took me almost thirty minutes to cut into my mango. I was cutting and slicing. In the end it looked like a drunken tic tac toe board. I started prying the pieces apart with my pocket knife. I'm surprised I didn't lose a finger.
The fruit here is sooooooooooooooo good. We have papaya and mango and guava and banannas and much more as well as vegetables of all kinds. The land is very fertile.
Then there are the gifts from the sea.
Ok, I'm sure this is long and I've got so much to say, but i've got to wrap it up. Before I go however, I would like to tell of my harrowing journey from Maputo to Inhambane.
Sergio, another Development Instructor and I, were told to be ready for a cab to pick us up at the gates in Maputo at 430 am. We didn't get any sleep the night before because there was no point. We got ready, and were on the porch by 415am waiting. Somehow we managed to lock ourselves out of the house but we figured it didn't matter because we'd be catching a taxi soon. So we waited and waited. Mosquitos were eating us alive, bats swirling overhead, frogs singing in the tall grass. We see the sun rise and we see people emerge from their respective homes. The stupid taxi didn't arrive until 7am. We were so mad. Sergio missed his bus and couldn't go so I had to go with the taxi driver alone because I still had time to catch mine. Mind you I don't speak Portuguese well and the driver didn't speak English well either. I told him to take me to the bus station, but he took me to the chapa station. I of course didn't know this at the time. If you remember, chapa's are the cargo vans converted into sardine cans full of people and are in terrible working condition. So we get out of the taxi in the busy chapa station and right away two men come up to the driver who was carrying my huge 70 plus pound suitcase and began to pull it away from him. I join my driver and grab on and we're all pulling and tugging. I couldn't believe they were trying to rob me. I was so angry. I started screaming at them in English which caused more chaos. I'm not sure what happened next but the two men who where trying to steal my bag started fighting with each other. My driver began to run with my bag on his head and I followed. He passed my bag to another man who carried it on his head and loaded it somehow into a crowded chapa. I thanked my driver and got on the chapa. It was full. There were like eleven people plus bags and livestock and crates. I had to sit in the seat on the hump of the wheel so my knees were to my chin. I had to balance my 30 plus pounds of carry on luggage in my lap. Behind me was a crate of fish that smelled so bad. I was so upset, I was ready to kill someone. We would drive and stop and let more people on. I could't believe it. People were on top of each other. Some were standing and crouching with their butts in peoples faces. It was horrible. Everytime we stopped, children and women selling things would come to the windows, open them from the outside and cram goods in my face while sweaty arms reached over me to pay. It was hellish.
I didn't go to the bathroom, eat or drink all day.
All I could do was sleep and stare out of the window.
Eventually though, as we got farther away from the city, my view became more and more beautiful. By the time I was in Inhambane, ten hours later, I was calm and excited. I was also extremely hungry and thirsty and tired and in need of a shower and in need of a bed. But everything, clearly worked out in the end!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Muito Quente
I am in Mozambique now. We arrived yesterday morning after a long, long, long journey.
My travels began on Sunday, Feb 17th at 6:30 am, when I left my friend Krista´s Manhattan apartment dragging almost 90 pounds of luggage onto the subway. I met Makiko at JFK airport, where we waited for our slightly delayed flight and flew to D Washington, DC. In Washington D.C., after a six hour layover, we met Tamika and flew 16 hours to Johannesburg. The flight was sooooooooo long and I was already tired and exhausted. Somehow, I managed to sprain my foot in New York, on the Lower East Side, after a night of drinking and farewells. I'm still walking with a limp. None of us were seated next to each other. I spent 16 hous squashed against the window, next to a large ex-marine who karate chopped me while he was asleep. I did however, get to watch two movies that I had missed while living on the mountain, ATTONEMENT and DARJEELING UNLIMITED, both very good!
South Africa was fantastic once we finally landed. Ok, so the airport, that is. We had a 10 hour wait before our bus ride to Maputo. We met up with Rodrigo and Sergio here and took shifts watching each others bags so that we could explore the airport and its periphery in groups. IICD instilled the fear of God in us when talking about Johannesburg. All we heard on the mountain was "Now be careful, it's the most dangerous city in the world!", " Development Instructors have been robbed of all of their possessions in Johannesburg, be careful and don't leave the airport".
After sitting on a plane for hours and hours and waiting for hours, I wasn't about to do it again in a stuffy airport, so I left and everything was fine. The city is beautiful and warm. It was so familiar, very western. There were times I forgot I was in South Africa until I'd look out the taxi window and see a palm tree or a baobob dotting the median in the highway. We did almost get run down in the middle of the street, because they drive on the left side of the street, very confusing to curious Americans.
Anyhow, after exploring and eating, we were off. We took a bus from Johannesburg to Maputo. This was truly the worst ride of my life. The moment we entered the double decked bus, the humidity weighed down upon us. We were the last people to enter the bus (late due to our exploring) and we couldn´t sit together. I was stuck sitting next to a European backpacker who smelled like he hadn´t showered in months. This guy had the longest legs ever and took up 3/4´s of the seat. It was agony. The ride began at 10pm, so it was dark and I was straining to make out the shadows of mountains and rivers but I couldn't see anything concrete. The bus also didn't stop. Not once! We did stop around 5am at the Mozambican border only to learn that it was closed until 6am. So we sat and we simmered and we festered and this was how I caught my first Mozambican sunrise. It was beautiful . An hour later at six we were herded off the bus in the most disorganized fashion possible. Um, what happened to lines, and order? We were pushed through customs in a stream of people, paid our visa taxes and before we could get back on the bus had to wait for an hour outside in the blazing heat as the customs people went through our bags one by one. Once this was over, we were back on the bus for two more hours. When we reached Maputo, we jumped off, grabbed a pick-up truck cab, rode in the back hatch with our luggage and saw the city for the first time.
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and it´s enormous. There are areas that are extremely wealthy and beautiful and there are areas of extreme poverty. We had a thirty minute ride. Nobody fell out of the truck and we arrived at ADPP Mozambique unharmed.
~( GOT TO GO, AM RUNNING OUT OF TIME AT THE INTERNET CAFE- MORE LATER)
My travels began on Sunday, Feb 17th at 6:30 am, when I left my friend Krista´s Manhattan apartment dragging almost 90 pounds of luggage onto the subway. I met Makiko at JFK airport, where we waited for our slightly delayed flight and flew to D Washington, DC. In Washington D.C., after a six hour layover, we met Tamika and flew 16 hours to Johannesburg. The flight was sooooooooo long and I was already tired and exhausted. Somehow, I managed to sprain my foot in New York, on the Lower East Side, after a night of drinking and farewells. I'm still walking with a limp. None of us were seated next to each other. I spent 16 hous squashed against the window, next to a large ex-marine who karate chopped me while he was asleep. I did however, get to watch two movies that I had missed while living on the mountain, ATTONEMENT and DARJEELING UNLIMITED, both very good!
South Africa was fantastic once we finally landed. Ok, so the airport, that is. We had a 10 hour wait before our bus ride to Maputo. We met up with Rodrigo and Sergio here and took shifts watching each others bags so that we could explore the airport and its periphery in groups. IICD instilled the fear of God in us when talking about Johannesburg. All we heard on the mountain was "Now be careful, it's the most dangerous city in the world!", " Development Instructors have been robbed of all of their possessions in Johannesburg, be careful and don't leave the airport".
After sitting on a plane for hours and hours and waiting for hours, I wasn't about to do it again in a stuffy airport, so I left and everything was fine. The city is beautiful and warm. It was so familiar, very western. There were times I forgot I was in South Africa until I'd look out the taxi window and see a palm tree or a baobob dotting the median in the highway. We did almost get run down in the middle of the street, because they drive on the left side of the street, very confusing to curious Americans.
Anyhow, after exploring and eating, we were off. We took a bus from Johannesburg to Maputo. This was truly the worst ride of my life. The moment we entered the double decked bus, the humidity weighed down upon us. We were the last people to enter the bus (late due to our exploring) and we couldn´t sit together. I was stuck sitting next to a European backpacker who smelled like he hadn´t showered in months. This guy had the longest legs ever and took up 3/4´s of the seat. It was agony. The ride began at 10pm, so it was dark and I was straining to make out the shadows of mountains and rivers but I couldn't see anything concrete. The bus also didn't stop. Not once! We did stop around 5am at the Mozambican border only to learn that it was closed until 6am. So we sat and we simmered and we festered and this was how I caught my first Mozambican sunrise. It was beautiful . An hour later at six we were herded off the bus in the most disorganized fashion possible. Um, what happened to lines, and order? We were pushed through customs in a stream of people, paid our visa taxes and before we could get back on the bus had to wait for an hour outside in the blazing heat as the customs people went through our bags one by one. Once this was over, we were back on the bus for two more hours. When we reached Maputo, we jumped off, grabbed a pick-up truck cab, rode in the back hatch with our luggage and saw the city for the first time.
Maputo is the capital of Mozambique and it´s enormous. There are areas that are extremely wealthy and beautiful and there are areas of extreme poverty. We had a thirty minute ride. Nobody fell out of the truck and we arrived at ADPP Mozambique unharmed.
~( GOT TO GO, AM RUNNING OUT OF TIME AT THE INTERNET CAFE- MORE LATER)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
I'm Published!
An article that I wrote about my experiences working at an orphanage in Ghana has been published in About Time magazine this month.
I've got three whole pages and two pictures.
;0)
www.abouttimemag.com
I've got three whole pages and two pictures.
;0)
www.abouttimemag.com
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Silver Spring
Reporting live from the Panera Bread in Silver Spring Maryland. I'm off the mountain. My training is over. I'm in Maryland for the next few days before I go to New York and then take off.
Here are some pictures from our going away party last Friday. Also pictures of my hair. Last night, I took some scissors from my mom's sewing kit and hacked my hair off.
No comment!
Friday, February 1, 2008
I've finally received my exact placement. I'm of to Inhambane, Mozambique.
I'm excited.
It's the area in Mozambique I wanted to go to. I'll be right on the beach and I'll be able to work on theatre projects with the kiddies.
Yay!
Tonight is our going away party. Tamika and I are also leaving the mountain tonight afterwards. I can't believe this chapter is closing. Our training is over and we will soon be leaving. It's been a long seven months of training, studying, meeting new friends, fundraising, and walking Berkshire hiking trails with black bears.
I'm uploading some pics:
- greylock, the little grey monster (i'll miss that little guy!)
- my new mozambican hairstyle (compliments of tara)
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