We all left Maputo three hours before we were supposed to be in Namaacha, our training site. I was saying goodbye to running water, electricity, and possible cement housing. As we approached Namaacha, it was noticeably different from the city. The vast country sides of green trees and straw yellow colored fields. It turns into nothing but mountains, beautiful rolling mountains that just go on into Swaziland. Then we hit the small town of Namaacha, I can walk the main road from one end of town to the other in about 45 minutes. There are no street lights and people drive however they wish, including whatever side of the road they want to. We drove into the Instituto de Fomacao de Professores, IFP, which is the teacher training school here. It’s the newest and nicest school in Namaacha, so it had the best area for us to meet our host families. We made it about an hour earlier than expected so we went to the gymnasium, which is outdoors and waited. Here in Mozambique if they say that something is supposed to happen at 11:00 and people make it by 11:50 they are on time. A couple PCT, started playing basketball with the locals that were playing when we arrived. After anxiously waiting for our host families, we were told the time was finally here. We could hear the faint sound of singing getting louder and louder, the rhythmic clapping that brought us all to our feet and join in. The families entered the gymnasium single filed, the sound almost becomes overwhelming, awakening the African soul in each of us. The families could not have seemed any more exited, each holding a small piece of paper with our names on it, staring into the faces of 71 strangers from America that would be reliant on them everyday for the next 10 weeks. Then we were told to go find our families, it was a frantic, craziness the looked like a group of teenage girls trying to find Justin Bieber, in a crowd. I was able to find my mother, Celeste, a shorter lady, that only comes up to about my shoulders, strong built frame as the ladies here do all the work. We greet each other with the traditional two cheek kiss, just without the kiss, so just cheeks touching. Of course at this time, I don’t know a word of Portuguese and they aren’t supposed to speak anything but Portuguese to us. We were told that they will take our bags from us and we must let them. My backpack is close to two feet long and weighs about 30 lbs. My little irmão, or brother, Junior, then met up with us and of course took my bag, almost toppling over backwards when he put it on. He is only 11 years old so my bag was almost touching the ground when it was on his shoulders.

After our 15 min walk in the hot African sun, we arrived at our house, my new home for training. It is a small home, made of cinder blocks about 5 inches thick, then covered in a thin layer of cement to smooth things out. It has a tin roof, metal bars on the windows and on the door. There are two attachments to the house that look like they are still under construction, as many of the homes look like a constant work in progress, progress that takes years of course. The windows on these attachments don’t actually have glass windows in them yet, they are just the concrete framing of the window. On the left side of the house is a small room, the casa de banho, or bathroom. It has a black sheet with white/gray print of plants on it in the doorway, the sheet is stained and weathered. Inside on the left sits the bottom part of a toilet and no toilet seat, there is no running water in the house so there is no need for the tank part of the toilet. To the right of the toilet is the bathing area, with nothing more than a small cement divider, about the size of a road curb, separating the two. There is a small window on the back wall, about two feet wide by a foot and half high. Next to the doorway, in the bathing area there is an even smaller window higher up, about a foot and half by a foot, and just below that is a small shelf to hold your soap and shampoo when you bathe. On the floor of the bathing area sits a yellow five gallon bucket that has pieces broken off, a smaller, square, yellow bucket that the top has been cut off, both of these hold water for “flushing” the toilet.

Along the right side of the house is a larger attachment, about two thirds the size of the finished part of the house. Most of it is covered by a tin roof that attaches to what are slightly larger than two by fours that run along the the top of the cinder blocks. This area has yet to be finished with cement and smoothed out. There is a nice large window opposite the open doorway, it is about six feet by two and half feet. It over looks a home just down hill, but beyond the house, mango and pine trees, is a beautiful view of the mountains. When it’s nice out we bring the plastic table and chairs to this area and eat. I love on nice days just looking out the window and watching the clouds float past the small patch of trees at the top of the mountains. Along the right side of the addition there is a step up to what would be the dish cleaning area. There are two windows, both are about three feet by two and half feet, one on the same side as the doorway and the other along the right side. There is a high wooden table sitting in the corner, one window is directly in front of it and the other just behind and to the side. Next to the table sits a group of large water jugs, probably about 7 or 8 gallons each. The women fill up the jugs either at a shared water tap during the rainy season or go down to the “stream.”

Going through the broken, brown, wooden front door on the main part of the house I arrived in the living room/dining room. The front door had no functioning locks, there is a rectangle hole where it appears one lock used to be and is now stuffed with a black piece of cloth that prevents air, bugs, and small creatures from easily crawling through. Directly across from the front door is a window that is always covered with curtains, so I never had the opportunity to see what was out there. There is a couch and two chairs, all in worn down, dark brown leather with a lot of holes. To the right there is a small wooden TV stand, that appears to look like it will fall apart, with a TV, about 24 inches, on top and a DVD player on a small shelf below. The shelf looks like it was added on at a later time, with it only being half inch square, wooden rods tacked on with nails to the legs of the stand. Between the TV stand and the one of the chairs is a door that leads to the bedroom that mama Celeste and Junior share, I never went into their room. Just to the left of the door is a three tier stand where the dishes and produce is kept. In the back left corner is where the plastic table is usually kept. Below the table sits pots and pans, on top is the electric stove that only has two small burners along with a plastic tray that has oil, vinegar, salt, sugar and a thermos on it. I was shown to my bedroom along the left side of the house. The room has a full sized bed that feels like nothing but metal springs and no padding, is centered on the wall opposite my door. There is a window on the left wall, facing the front yard, and is only about three feet by three feet. To the left of my bed is a small dark brown, wooden nightstand that has one leg a little shorter than the rest, so every time I try to open the drawer that does not fit correctly, the table teeters back and forth. On the right side along the same wall as my door is a metal pole to hang my clothes on even though I don’t have any hangers, I just laid my clothes over it. I had to hang my mosquito net from the 2.5×4 inch wooden beam that runs along the top of my room.

After unpacking and setting up my room I had to take a bath to get ready for lunch. I was lucky and mama Celeste didn’t bathe me or demonstrate how to take a bath herself. Yes, that is right, there are many mamas here that will either give a demonstration or bathe their new family members. After my bucket bath, I got redressed and went outside to the addition to eat lunch. We had rice with cabbage and what I believe was unrecognizable parts of chicken. I can’t say that I was excited about the food and I would consider myself to be an amateur foodie so this was disappointing. I was given a Portuguese survival cheat sheet to help me out the first weekend and then there was a Portuguese-English dictionary in my black box that PC left for me at my house. Using these, I was able to have some minimal conversations with my host family.

After sitting around for a little bit mama Celeste said that we were going to go visit one of the neighbors where another PCT was staying. There is a large mango tree in front of my neighbor’s house, which the kids were standing under trying to get a break from the heat. As the mothers were talking to each other and the other PCT was trying to get their room set up, so I was left standing around with a bunch of little kids just staring at me. One of them started kicking a rock around so I joined in but we realized that the rock was just too small. There was a mango, about the size of a baseball, on one of the lower branches of the tree, and one of the kids took a broom stick to knock it down. Soon as the mango hit the dirt it was game on! For the next 15 minutes it was us kicking around a mango and playing keep away. Most of the kids were about 10 years old, so luckily I win in the size category and with my extra couple years on them I have a few more tricks than they do. I successfully surprised all the Mozambicans, kids and mamas. They were quite excited that I knew how to play futebol. After the mango got beat up quite a bit it was game over. Mama Celeste, Junior, my neighbor PCT and I went to the local internet cafe where my neighbor’s mom works. The internet works on and off there and cost 1 Mtc a minute, so around 35 minutes for 1 USD. Mama Celeste sent Junior and I out to buy something but I had no idea what. I followed Junior wherever we were supposed to go. As we walked down the main road I saw a couple other PCTs walking around with their families, of course this is always easy to notice since most PCTs are white, we usually stick out in a crowd. Junior and I walked past the mercado (market), and entered one of the stores along the strip of about ten shops along the main road. Walking into the small shop, it smelled great and there was a small glass counter to the right. There is only one thing they sell at this shop and it is great! We bought two loafs of pão (bread). The bakery sells many different types of pão but all of them are amazing! I could eat a loaf of pão with every meal. Some of the PCVs that have come to help out with training have said the pão in Namaacha is some of the best in the country. A loaf of pão costs about 5 Mtc or about 0.14 USD, so it is common to have pão with every meal. On our way back home we took a stroll through the mercado. It’s an open area with a high tin roof, wooden booths set up in rows, about 10 rows in there, then shops surround the perimeter. At the wooden booths people mainly sell produce or clothing. The surrounding shops mainly sell beverages, but some of them sell other items like peanut butter, jam, soap, bleach (which is used heavily by us PCTs until our stomachs get used to things), and toilet paper (not something the locals really use). We arrived back at home and it was time for bed. I was exhausted from the eventful day and ready to have some time to myself. I just got ready for bed and just let it all sink in, the excitement, the anxiety, the first time of feeling lonely in a strange new place. All things I knew to expect yet they felt so unexpected once I was here.