The first few weeks

Hey!! I'm finally using the internet from Namaacha! I might be getting on a little more frequently now. So it's been going pretty good so far. The family I'm staying with is great, a lot of people in one house: Mama Anita, an Aunt, sister Clara (31), brothers Samito (22), Zinho (20), and Jaque (17), and Clara's son Zeca (10), and me. The house has one main room that is divided into a dining room and a living room by a curtain. There are 4 rooms that come off the main one, the kitchen, my room, and then the two bedrooms that everyone else sleeps in. The food has been good, and I haven't been sick so far, but a lot of the other PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) have been, so I'm sure I will be soon too. My house has electricity, and they have a TV too. There is no running water, and I have a latrine hole in the backyard that also serves as the shower house. Which means that when 8 people all wake up and want to shower at the same time, and then all get home at want to shower again at the same time, it can be difficult to use the bathroom when needed. Which hasn't been a big problem yet, it just makes me nervous for when I inevitably get sick...

Training overall has been unimpressive. It is not well organized so we spend a lot of time waiting around. We also have 5 different people come to talk about the same thing, and since they don't hear the other presentations there is a lot of repitition. Language training is the best part, but it's still not intensive, and most people don't like it very much. But I like my family, and I practice talking with them, and I like the people in my language group and we have fun talking about random things in Portuguese. But I would definitely not call training intensive and full of important information. Namaacha is really pretty, which is good because we spend a lot of time walking all over to go to our classes, which are not organized near each other.

My brothers here are really in to watching Smackdown (wresting). Portuguese is coming along all right, still have a long way to go but I like talking to my family a lot. I have pictures of thanksgiving and halloween that I told them I'll have to explain to them in a few weeks cuz what I said last week made them think Americans were a little wierd. There are elections coming up here soon, so hopefully all will go smoothly with that and we won't get evacuated. I have a cell phone now, if you want the number ask Emily or my parents. Well, that's all for now!