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.  Our permanent site in Lomahasha near the Mozambique border will be our home for the next two years.

You can Google Lomahasha 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 Lomahasha 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 in Lomahasha, 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.  Lomahasha is 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.