PST week 4

The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly….

Today’s blog post is going to be in the form of the good, the bad and the ugly…Let’s start off on a happy note, shall we??

My favorite “good” of this week was definitely the PC Halloween party we had last night at Casa Grande…. Which is this ridiculously large house/compound that Peace Corp owns for the Training Manager.  There is a giant pavilion out back by a pool, which is where we had our party.  Costume highlights include a 6-person cow and butcher, the cat in the hat (with thing 1 and thing 2), dueling chapas, and the recycle fairy.  I was a world cup USA fan.  All costumes were impressive given the lack of resources – excluding the fake Namaachan shop-rite. Plus, it was some much needed Laurentina-Preta (a local beer) after a particularly tense diversity session we had that afternoon.

Runner Up:  A tie…… the wonderful American breakfest we made yesterday for our families. Complete with French toast, scrambled eggs, and fruit salad. Seriously, amazing. AND the Glee-inspired rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody that some other PCTs performed at this weeks ngoma time.

The Bad…. Well. No one really likes this one, so I’ll keep it short.  This week’s bad is the mail (or lack of) in Mozambique.  Despite the Peace Corps driver checking the our PO box twice a week, there is no mail to be found.  Our training manager said that usually by week 2 (which was ohhhh 3 weeks ago) she is like Santa Clause with bags and bags of letters and boxes.  So something is wrong and no one knows what it is! Don’t they know that I want my sweatpants and hot tamales?!

Runner Up: The Mozambican government for increasing the cost of our visas by ten-fold.  Basically, this results in us crossing the border into Swaziland once a month to renew our tourist visa.  Apparently PCmoz doesn’t have the $240,000 USD just laying around in the budget for that…..

The Ugly: I’m going to have to say the weather this week in Namaacha.  Tuesday is was particularly hot…close to 107 degrees.  So hot that you literally sweat through any clothes you’re wearing…So hot that you have to take a cold bath at lunch… So hot that you need to lay on the tile floor of you’re house.  Then, as we’re sitting in a Classroom Management session at the local secondary school, it starts to get cool. Then cold. Then it starts raining. Then, hail. Yes. It hailed. People FREAKED OUT.  The weather here is more unpredictable than Louisville  (I didn’t know that was possible).  It ping pongs between extreme heat, extreme cold, and crazy crazy rain.

Ok I can’t think of a good “runner up” …. My feet? Hahahaha! Butttt reallyyy

Peace out. Love yall!