Swear-In (December 3rd 2010)

Today, is the official END of pre service training!!  I’m sitting in my empty room trying to figure out how I’m going to fit all this crap into my backpack since peace corps picked up my boxes and bags a few days ago….and right now, its not looking too good lol!  Plus, in standard Namaacha fashion, its pouring down rain.  Fabulous.  So between the rain on my tin roof and whatever is blasting on “music box” (the Moz version of MTV) it feels like a relatively normal morning…

We’ve (my friends and I) taken to “planning” every minute of the day since we’ve been in PST.  And I include the air quotes for Planning because it never goes the way we plan.  Mozambicans run on what I know as island time, and they don’t really concern themselves with plans.  So when we plan, its basically just for the comfort of having a plan that we can then diverge from….Anywaysss, here’s the plan for today….

Finish typing this blog post.  Give Mama Joana her host gifts (a Louisville hat and a nice knife).  Explain to Mama Joana that this knife – unlike any of the knifes here in Moz - is very sharp and that Menina (my 4 year old sister) can NOT play with this one.  Meet Michelle, Hannah and Jenn in our neighborhood.  Walk to the bakery and each buy a loaf of bread and some bagias (fried bean curds – a local favorite street food… tastes a little like a McDonalds chicken nugget) for lunch.  Get picked up by the peace corps land rovers and delivered to a bus stop.  Take a 2 hour bus ride from Namaacha to Maputo.  Check into the (what sounds like) an incredible 5 star hotel…. its our end of training “treat” from our training staff.  Shower (with running water!!!!).  Get dressed in our new capulana dresses (tunics for the guys).  Go to the US ambassadors house for the Swear-In ceremony!!  After that, who knows…celebrate the end of training?  Celebrate our last night together?  Celebrate Michelle’s 23^rd Birthday?!?!

What really happened……

So, I made it about half way… well not even halfway… through the plan before it got inevitably messed up.  Apparently Mama Joana decided that she needed to accompany me all the way to the bus stop (as did Michelle and Hannah’s families).  So we walked all the way with our families trailing behind us, helping carry our bags.  It was pretty much a parade without throwing beads or candy.  And we picked up other volunteers (plus families) as we walked.  By the time we (our entire entourage) reached the bus stop, we were quite the spectacle.  

We finally made it to the hotel around 12-ish… And I was SO ready for that shower, Then (because, why would things go according to plan?!) our rooms weren’t ready.  So there were 70 Americans with our huge bags suck in the lobby of this hotel.  We waited and waited…  at which point I realized that I clearly wasn’t going to get to wash my hair.  Then, we did what any reasonable PC people would do, and took over the women’s bathroom on the first floor.  People were shaving their legs and trying to tame (dirty) hair.  It was a scene, but we managed to pull it together and made it to swear in – which was a lovely ceremony…. followed by an excessive amount of finger food…..