winter is my new favorite season

Good news! We arrived in Mozambique safe and sound. After a 15 hour plane ride, then a 5 hour layover in the Johannesburg airport, we were met in Maputo by PC (Peace Corps) Staff. They literally piled all of our luggage into a small cage trailer that followed behind a truck and us trainees climbed into chapas (vans) and headed to Kaya Kwanga, our home for the next 3 days.

Kaya Kwanga is a beautiful resort. Everyone that went to Costa Rica, remember our resort in La Fortuna? All the little hutsand gorgeous pool? That's pretty much how Kaya Kwanga is. They have cages filled with pigeons, chickens, parakeets, and parrots. Dogs and cats have free range of the place. Vanessa you would love it! Unfortunately, Mozambicans do not respect pets so the domestic animals that we treasure in the US are treated very poorly here. The best part is Mozambique is entering winter and it's so nice and sunny out every day! Even at night, all you need is a light sweater or jacket and you're set. Hence, winter is quickly becoming my new favorite season. The bad part about Kaya Kwanga is that it's in a very dangerous part of Maputo so we are not allowed to leave the premises. Obviously, Maputo has all the dangers of any large city, both in developed and developing nations. But not being allowed to leave the resort has not been a problem because they keep us so busy!

We have meetings all day that range from meeting the US Ambassador to Moz to setting up our 18 liter water filtration kits. We have met a TON of people from the PC Moz staff. Most were born-and-bred in Moz and a few are from the US. The PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) is basically our general practitioner while we are here so we had interviews to discuss our medical history. I got vaccines for: rabies, yellow fever, Hepatits A, typhoid, and meningitis. I am also on malaria prophylaxis pills. Yesterday I was pretty sick but the rehydration salts and Immodium have helped tremendously and I am feeling much better already. Some advice, if you plan on traveling to a third world country, just get used to the fact that you WILL get sick. It's not a matter of "if," but "when." That's a PC motto :-)

To say a word about the food....it has been pretty delicious, honestly. The restaurant is set up buffet-style at every meal. We receive breakfast, am snack, lunch, pm snack, and dinner. I am never hungry. It's a lot of rice, potatoes, salad, and chicken. Today we had these amazing, huge prawns! SO delicious! But, we are at a nice resort in the capital city, so I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can because I won't always be eating such fine cuisine.

Today, Saturday, was our last day at Kaya Kwanga. Time to stop living this life of luxury and see what Moz is really like. Tomorrow we leave for Namaacha, a large village that borders Swaziland and is about an hour and a half from Maputo. I will be there for 10 weeks doing my Pre-Service Training (PST) and living with a host family the entire time. I am already imagining what some of my experiences will be like. Apparently, we will be using pit latrines, taking bucket baths outside, and learn how to kill a chicken. I am not looking forward to any of the above. Especially the outside bucket baths. Namaacha is in the mountains and it gets pretty cold there during the winter. Or so they say. So standing outside naked, at 6am, in 40 or 30 degree weather, and bathing myself with a bucket of water does not appeal to me. Or maybe it will be a terrific new experience. We'll see.

Hopefully I will be able to update soon (rumor is there's an internet cafe in Namaacha) and let you all know if the baths are as bad as I think they will be!

Boa noite!