So we are finally getting to visit our permanent site!  So much has happened over the last few weeks, that it is shocking to think it has only been 5 weeks.  We have met hundreds of new people, started learning a new language, were adopted, renamed, and grown up in to Swazi teenagers and given cell phones all within a few days.  We have met many of the volunteers who came last year, and several that started over two years ago.  <edit> Sadly I can’t say exactly where I’m at as it is a violation of policy to give away that information.  Call me and ask me instead.</edit>

You can Google the town and see that it is around 15,000 people.  It isn’t the largest city, but it is far larger than the several hundred person village we are in now.  Since we are close to the border we will be able to negotiate with the Peace Corps staff about a daily visa to get us into Mozambique without counting as a vacation day for us.  One of the more interesting notes about the town is that a large percentage of the population speaks Portuguese, so we will be learning a second language during our stay.   

What we will be doing during our service  is still to be determined but the volunteers there before us seem to have been involved in a few strong projects, including a new library, a sewing circle, and teaching computer & english classes.  Pretty sweet!

Hopefully we will have more time and opportunity to write letters, journal, and even email.  The training schedule has been absolute non-stop with the exception of this last weekend when we went to the “Cadillac of backpackers” and hiked around the Mlilwane game reserve for 5 hours.  We saw dozens of zebras eating grass, some type of white-furred monkey , several types of antelopes, a mother and baby hippo, and a crocodile.  And this is NOT A ZOO.  This is similar to the Saghuaro national monuments in Tucson.  A huge chunk of land set aside to protect the land and animals in it from us.  We are only an hour or so by khumbi (minivan/bus) to the Hlane game reserve which has lions, elephants, rhinos, and giraffes.  I will be able to post some pictures soon I hope.

\|Sawubona!

Sakhatsi(time) is definitely flying by faster than a sidududu(motorcycle) on the highway. Although it has been less than a month from when we left, it definitely feels like it was an entire lifetime ago that we were in the US.
We met with some doctors from the Baylor clinic today and had another 8 hour training day. We are in classes 6 days a week, and we had our first day off last Sunday. We have been told be some of the current volunteers that pre-service training is far harder than actually being a Peace Corps volunteer. I don’t think the training is difficult, but time in between classes is cherished by all.

We are all in relatively good spirits, we did have the first trainee leave on Sunday, so there was a small rain cloud over training earlier this week. With the discovery of emafatties(fat cakes) the world is new again! Imagine something that tastes like beer-batered onion rings on the outside, and a cross between donuts and pizza dough on the inside. Super deep fried and super bad for you. One of the trainees’ Make(mom.. pronounced Mah-gay) makes them every day to fatten her up since she is too skinny. The trainee then sell the extras for 1 Rand.

Speaking of money… South African Rand is also widely used here. When I was looking online before I got here, I found that it was NOT in use here. The Rand and the Swazi Emalengani are exactly the same value, to make trade much easier between here and SA. The value of the Rand to the dollar is closing on 8 to 1, so purchasing power here on some goods is exceptional. I can buy a 2 pound avocado for about $.50 US. And that is a SMALL avocado. One of the prizes for last weeks cook-off was easily a 3 or 4 pound beast of an avocado.

The food is generally pretty good, and there is a lot of MSG. We have a lengthy prep time for all food, since any veggies that are raw must soak in bleach water for 15 minutes. Our drinking water must be boiled for no less than 3 minutes, filtered, and then have bleach added. The shortcut to bleaching is leave your water out for 6 sun-filled hours in a clear container and let the sun’s UV rays kill everything. We still have to filter and bleach, but it is a small time saver.

Right now as I write this post, I’m sitting in our rondeval(round house) in the village of Embasheni. It likely doesn’t show up on Google Earth. The town I will post this at is Piggs Peak on the northmost border with SA. That *might* show up on Google Earth, as it has a 2 story office building, a post office, a park, and 2 grocery stores. The internet cafe isn’t great as I alluded to a few weeks ago, but I will take what I can get. We won’t be able to activate our phones for a few more weeks due to policy, so until then it is a 15 Rand ride into town on a khumbi. The khumbis are vans that operate somewhere between a bus and a taxi. They are privately owned and operated, don’t follow a schedule, stop where they want to, drive as fast as they want to, but they follow a designated route. Beware of marriage proposals and drunks in the khumbi. Everyone but the driver today had a beer in hand.

Neither Krista or myself have been as good about journaling as we intended, but we also thought we wouldn’t be placed together for the first few weeks. We have been together the whole time, and are even in the same language class together. I enjoy not being separated at night, but we are trying to not be around each other all the time during classes, so we are able to establish identities away from being each others spouse. Speaking of spouses there are 4 married couples in the group, and we are the youngest. It’s a great group of people, the average age is 27 or so. I haven’t been around this many brilliant minds in one place before, and that is a real treat. I thought for sure that I had already met all the people in the world that think like I do, so it is nice to be around great people.

The roosters are starting their late night carousing now, which means it is time for me to go to sleep. Bye!