INVITATION!

The wait is over! I can’t believe the moment we have been waiting for since August FINALLY came. Chris and I received our invitation on Wednesday evening. We have been invited to serve in Mozambique leaving on September 28th as teachers in English (me) and Math (Chris). It took a day or so to get over the initial shock of the country. We both had ideas about where we would be going and researched a lot of places, but Mozambique was never really on our radar.
Based on the materials the PC sent and the research we have done in the last couple of days, here is what we know: We will be learning/speaking Portuguese (we can go to Brazil, sweet!), there are BEAUTIFUL beaches and resorts on these beaches, temps can range from 40-95F degrees depending on time of year and region (we are happy it’s not Mali which can get up to 130F!), there was a civil war that ended in 1994 and the country is now peaceful and growing economically at a very fast rate, and most PCVs seem to live in towns with a decent population (20-30 thousand) and in decent houses with a few rooms, cement floors, possibly electricity and running water. I was happy to learn that Mozambique has one of the lowest “early termination” rates. That means that most volunteers stay the entire 2 years and do not leave early on their own accord. We have checked out some facebook sites and blogs of Mozambican volunteers and it seems that most are quite happy. We also saw a few married couples that are currently serving. One actually has a toaster oven in their house! I could live with that!! We also learned that the PC program is relatively new as it started in 1998 due to the civil war. It is kind of exciting to be a part of a newer program and in a country that has just started to rebuild itself in the last 20 years. It feels like we are truly going to a place that is full of promise and hope. After letting everything sink in, we realized we were very happy with our placement. We officially accepted our invitation on Friday and will be giving my resignation letter to work on Tuesday. I plan to work until July 1st and Chris will work until mid-July. We are trying to squeeze in our preparations while still working, but it will be full-speed ahead once we have the 3 months to get our shit together without the distraction of work. So now there is a whole new set of things to do like figuring out how to pack our house, move our cats, get a power or attorney, figure out how money will work in country, pack, learn Portuguese, etc., etc. We are so excited/scared/anxious/happy/nervous and so on that sometimes it can be hard to contain the mix of emotions. But over all, we have very positive feelings about this and cannot wait to start the new adventure. As you can imagine, all of our conversations have turned into something about our new Mozambican life. It’s been so great to finally have a country to focus on when discussing our hopes, fears and expectations.