Team Peace Mozambique: September 2009

Departure day is rapidly approaching and we are getting very excited! Here's the plan:

We leave for Philadelphia next Monday the 28th in the morning where we will stay for two nights to meet up with all the other volunteers and turn in paperwork. Then all 60? of us fly from JFK airport to Johannesburg (15 hours!), followed by another short flight to the Mozambiquan capitol of Maputo. In Maputo we'll be staying in style at the second fanciest 4star joint in town where we will be confined to the hotel premises for 4 days, doing orientation, crash Portuguese and health interviews. You mean we HAVE to hang out at the sweet pool all day? Well, ok, if we must!

Then on Sunday Oct 4th we move in with our homestay family for our 10 weeks of training. We'll be staying in the town of Namaacha on the border with Swaziland. Our mornings will be full of Portuguese and our afternoons will vary from technical training (science ed for me, teacher ed for Luc) to safety to cultural issues and more! Towards the end of our 10 weeks we'll find out our placement for the next two years!

In the mean time we're enjoying our families and friends as much as possible. We had a blast at our last Dodger game for quite awhile, winning in the 13th inning!

We had a wonderful going-away party last night with lots of food that we most likely won't have in Moz (ham, thai chicken, fresh salad, asparagus). We got to share our plans with everyone at the awesome Mozambique info table they set up with maps and books (since really who knew where this country was anyway?) :)

We are in the process of packing, which I enjoy a little too much and Luc not as much! Some fun projects include: making a photo album to share with our future Mozambiquan friends, getting a book of crossword puzzles since we love them so, trying to figure out just how can it really get in tropical latitudes (do i really need a fleece?), purchasing a new camera since our old one died in India, and getting fun teaching supplies like colored chalk and markers.

Here are a few photos of our wonderful farewell party for you to enjoy! Stay tuned for our final post before we leave on a jetplane!