First week in Xai-Xai

We have arrived in Xai-Xai!
We were dropped off on Saturday after a long ride from Namaacha. After a handshake from the PC director responsible for delivering us to site we were on our own. The campus we will be working at is very nice and our house is great. We are living in a 1 story apartment block with other professors. Our apartment is very nice, we have running water and lots of potential. Emily and I are looking forward to decorating it and making it feel like home. We are especially excited because we have a second room that we can turn into a guest bedroom. Right now the net effect of Emily and my efforts on the spare bedroom has been a negative as all we have accomplished so far is to get a bed frame jammed into the door so that it is stuck and will not enter or exit the doorway without us removing the door! Once we get the bedframe into the room and the door put back onto the frame we will be in business though. So pack your bags and purchase your tickets! We have room for guests. As if visiting Emily and Jesse in Mozambique is not a big enough draw, there is a beautiful beach that is a 20 minute drive from where we are living.

Emily and I plan on exploring the beach this coming weekend and many other weekends to come. The volunteers we are replacing happened to be around on Saturday when we were dropped off. Justin and Mike have just finished up their two years of service at the teacher training institute. You can tell that they impacted this community in a great way just by meeting their friends and colleagues that we were introduced to on Saturday evening. We hope to continue the good work that Mike and Justin have done for the past two years. We are very lucky to have had the opportunity to talk to Justin and Mike about what to expect and develop a better idea about our job and what is required of us. Mike and Justin went out of their way to welcome us to our new home and make us feel at ease and comfortable. We are appreciative and must remember to reciprocate the hospitality in two years with the volunteers that replace us. That is a long way off though and right now we have our work cut out for us. Some how we have to furnish our house and improve drastically in Portuguese in less than one month. Our responsibilities at school start shortly after the new year and it appears that we are going to be extremely busy! It is tough to imagine the hard work ahead because our days so far in Xai Xai have been pretty relaxed. We will be ready and excited to start work in January though. So far our days have been spent exploring town and buying major things for the house. Two major purchases have been an electric stove and a standing fan. One thing about PC salary - we can't live as we may have been accustomed in the US, but it is very livable. We are able to purchase everything we need and if we budget well enough we may be able to afford some paint for the walls. The adventure in purchasing household items here in Xai-Xai is getting them home in the crowded mini-buses which are the public transport here. I wish we had a picture of Emily and I smashed into a seat with two standing fans between our legs and surrounded by people. Words canºt really describe it except that it is pretty funny. Emily and I like to cook and we have been cooking at our house every night with another volunteer named Lindsay who is working for a nearby organization and living very close to us. Lindsay also goes on the adventures into town with us. The next big project for Emily and I is getting a queen size mattress home with us. Wish us luck.