A Brief Overview

After a day and a half in Maputo, we were let out of quarantine. We drove out to Namaacha, which is a village on the Mozambican-Swazi border (it’s also our training site). For the duration of my time in Namaacha, I am living with a host family. And they are fantastic. My mother takes great care of me, since currently I am essentially a child, and has made amazing food (not as well as you, real mom!). My father is a math teacher, and is currently the best adult for me to converse with. Everyone has been very patient with my Portuguese, but my father speaks at least some English, so it’s nice to be able to ask in English if my Portuguese fails (which it frequently does). Then I have to siblings: a 5 year old brother and 10 year old sister; we also have a 6 year old cousin living with us. My brother is an absolute ball of energy. He never seems to stop going, and is nearly always having a good time, no matter what he’s doing. My cousin is very quiet, and sometimes a little somber, but he’s very cool. I try to eek a few phrases out of him every day. My sister is the best, though. She’s in that perfect age where she is old enough to help me learn things in Portuguese, but not so old that I am embarrassed with my level of knowledge.

Portuguese is tough, although I can see so much improvement in my abilities already, after living submersed for less than a week, and after only 3 days of immersion class. But it’s frustrating too. I want to be able to have a real conversation with my host parents, and I want to understand more than everyone third word (at best) that anybody speaks to me. My knowledge and my comfort in speaking is coming quickly, now I just need to have the patience for them to fully develop.

In an attempt to keep these at a readable length, I’ll stop for now. There are so many things that I could talk about, so many things I’m still processing. But I will leave you with one more means of contact: I have a phone number now! To call me from the States, my number is 011+258+82 354 8394. I also have another number, but can’t use it until after training. I will post that once it becomes relevant. Feel free to call/text me if you want to (just beware the time change; 6 hours ahead of the east coast, 9 ahead of the west coast).

This is just outside my house. A beautiful sunrise shot towards Swaziland.