Saturday, October 24, 2009

Updated Address!

Alrighty, guys, so apparently I messed up the mailing address. Here is the updated version:

Ethan Pickering, PCV
Corpo da Paz / U.S. Peace Corps
Avenida do Zimbabwe, 345
Maputo,Mozambique
CP 4398

Honestly, I'm not really sure what all the numbers mean, but that's the address I've been given. Feel free to send me love in the forms of letters, Big Red Gum, and/or dental floss. I'm always looking forward to any of those. Oh yeah, and perhaps a few rolls of hemp string so I can keep my hands occupied in my downtime with something other than washing my clothes by hand (which is getting painful due to major blisters in a few choice places).

I'm still having fun, and am definitely getting the hang of the whole Portuguese thing. I've somehow managed to escape having to kill a goat, which my host dad was telling everyone I would be doing. Am still counting my blessings for that. Killing a chicken was one thing... A goat is a much bigger and bloodier creature (I would imagine).

More to follow, but I'll try to take some pictures in the upcoming week to post onto Picasa. I promise I'll forward those to you when I can!

Muito amor desde Moçambique!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Finally a chance to update

Hey everyone!

The first 2 weeks have been pretty damn eventful, I must say. In that time, I've learned Portuguese, survived explosive Mozambican Mud Butt (in the same category as Montezuma's Revenge and Delhi Belly), killed/plucked/hacked up/cooked a chicken (and word on the street is that my host father is going to surprise me with a goat to kill tomorrow), re-learned how to do my laundry, and I've had my hate for gossip revived in small groups.

I'm still getting used to it all (like bucket showers rather than having running water), but my life has been made a little easier by having a cell phone with *sketchy* internet access. My host family is pretty sweet, with a few minor exceptions. My host parents are both really friendly and annoyingly helpful, and my host brother barely speaks Portuguese, since he grew up in Swaziland, so there's a lot of English flying around when he's not back in Swaziland.

I'm living in a small border town (not of the same class as Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez) on the southern border of Mozambique and am re-living my travel experiences of living in small towns. That is to say, there are two computers with working internet in the whole damned place, and I perpetually have to fight the other 68 people in my Peace Corps group for internet time. Needless to say, my posts for the next two months might be sparse.

Oh yeah, and somebody please, for the love of god, send me a box with thousands of frisbees. I've never seen such mayhem as when 18 billion elementary school children get out of class and see Americans throwing frisbees around. Utter mayhem. I've never been perceived to be so cool as I was to these Mozambican 10-year-olds while I held control of the disc.

That's all for now, as details are too many to mention. If you feel the need to call me, I'd love it. My phone number here is +258-82-294-8183. That should get my phone directly. If not, those of you in the States might try dialing +011 first. And please don't be offended if I don't call you. It costs about 40 cents a minute to call outside Mozambique, and considering I get less than US$20 per week as a living allowance...you do the math.

Much love to all!

~Pick