Security Issues

Today I went to a meeting that was two hours long. That was a REALLY long time for me to sit and listen to people talk. I don't know why, but it really was! Anyway we had Landes, many of you know Landes, who is BYU's security analyist that talks to all of the groups going abroad from BYU about safety and travel concerns sepcific to the country they are going to. This was the third time I have heard the security talk from him, so it wasn't anything too new. I did get some useful information such as...

When we are in Swaziland, a small country between Mozambique and South Africa, they have problems with robberies and car jackings during the day in very large crowded areas, and it is usually a group of robbers against one person, hahaha....well, it's not funny but for some reason it just makes me laugh because people come back with these tragic stories of being robbed and when they tell the whole story they usually had wandered away from the group they were with, they weren't paying attention to what is going on around them, and they weren't keeping track of their things. One girl was waiting in line somewhere and a man came up behind her, slashed her backpack open with a sharp knife and stole everything out of it while it was on her back. These are stupid mistakes I'm not worried about because I already learned what not to do while I was in Sao Paulo, if I can manage to not get robbed, kidnapped, mugged, etc. in a city of 30 million I think I can handle Maputo which is only 2 million in population.

Also the place where we are living is in Machava, a suburb of sorts right outside downtown Maputo. Apparently sometimes the electricity doesnt work in this neighborhood and at the compund itself, and that gives a chance for people to get past the electric fence and into the compund where we will be living. Landes was like, "but don't worry because they have armed guards and attack dogs that are there as well." Um....this will defenetly be the first time I am locked inside my house with guard dogs and people guarding where I am living with guns. Crazy, but needed I guess. My apartment in Curitiba was downtown, really nice, and there was no need of even a doorman because people just didn't try anything there. In Sao Paulo we lived in a high rise apartment building with two sets of gates and a doorman, but no guns and no attack dogs. I just hope they dont ever get confused as to who lives there and who doesn't, but seeing as how were probably the only white people that will be there I dont think that will be too easy to confuse hahaha....

I am SUPER excited for our trip to the wildlife reserve Kruger National Park , we will be there in tents camping out for 2 nights, and we will be doing a safari at night and also in the morning and I am SO stoked, really words cannot describe it. I have always been kinda obsessed with animals ever since I was a little kid and the idea of seeing lions out in their natural habitat is so cool. There are so many different animals that are there, I am just so excited to be going and seeing them all, I already know I will take a million pictures!

And on a shallow very girly note I went crazy shopping for swimsuits, the count is at 4 right now. HA! I figured variety is a good thing, and so I got a few. Anyway, that is my shallow moment, I also signed up to do some document translation while I in Mozambique for the non-profit we will be working for. I was the only one in the group who has experinence in that already. Last Spring I was only taking 2 classes and foud some time to go up to Salt Lake and work as a volunteer at a micro credit organization called Ascend Alliance, that has their headquarters in SLC and their secondary headquarters in Beira, Mozambique. So I would be their translator when the CEO needed to call over to Beira and also during their weekly teleconferences. Also I had to translate documents from English to Portuguese and vice versa, it was good experince, and they also had be editing some manuals that had been previously translated from Spanish to English. So I think I would have fun doing translation stuff again, and since I will be doing a lot of that for my masters more practice can't hurt. This paragraph is SO random...I guess I am random.

Anyway the official countdown is at 26 days. I am getting ready to go and more excited everyday. I got my text books today, and I just need to get everything figured out for my summer class schedule and then I will be ready! Good thing I still have over 20 days to really get ready. So here is my random blog update, and as a final note, don't be worried about the security stuff, they always tell it worse than it really is in those meetings to freak everyone out into behaving themselves while out of the country. I have never had and serious problems while out of the country and I don't intend to on this trip!

Today, Tomorrow, Forever and Never

Today what did I do?
-Hmm....in regards to my internship, talked to some people who have done this internship in the past. Apparently, it is AWESOME from what they say. Not all of us will be teaching English like I originally thought. They also need teachers in history (since that is my other major I could very well get put in that job), AIDS prevention, computer literacy, polytechnics, and English as well. We will be living about a five minutes by car from the beach, and we only teach for about an hour a day. So that means we will have to go to class, all of us are taking Literature of Mozambique and also Culture of Mozambique while we are there, and the rest of the time is free time, teach, and the rest of the time people go out and chill on the beach, shop, eat out, etc... Needless to say this will be nice if it really is like that, but somehow I think it might be a little more challenging, I will let you know!

Tomorrow what am I doing?
-Good question. I have practice for my play that we are putting on for the Humanities department theater festival next week. It is a Brazilian play from the Northeast called "Morte e Vida Severina". Then buying food for our Easter dinner that we are having at my apt. on Sunday. Also going with a good friend to see "Be kind rewind" I am a fan of Jack Black and it looks funny! I will miss doing random things like cooking for friends and family and going to see movies at the dollar theater while I am in Africa, BUT I am super stoked to make new friends, experience new things, and learn how to cook new foods...yay for new things!

I will forever....
-Try to make the best of the situation I am in. I learned that when you are someplace new everything is foreign and you feel like a fish out of water. I learned going to Europe this past summer that sometimes your flights don't always land on time, and that patience is always a good thing to keep even in stressful situations. I could have gotten mad coming back from Curitiba to the United States at the fact my flight left two hours late and that my luggage broke....but instead I chatted with some Argentines about the church welfare system and my internship and translated for an American mom with 3 small kids that didn't speak Portuguese at the airport. I could have gotten stressed when Camila and I got stuck in the air port in Campo Grande for six hours, but I used that time to learn to play chess.... I plan on making the most of my time in Mozambique and try to not let the little things stress me out:)

I will never...
-Be close minded. Everyone has reasons for being the way they are and doing the things they do. I know that things are going to be different when I get to Mozambique, but I want to learn from those differences and not do the typical ethnocentric thing of "well in America we..." or "we would NEVER do that at home" that bugs me more than anything, I enjoy visiting other cultures and seeing the best and worst of their society. That way I learn and gain perspective on life, what I have, and what I can do as an individual to help out those around me. I know I can't help out everyone in life, but if I can give service to a few that is enough for me as long as it makes a difference, however small it might be.

So there you go. Today, tomorrow, forever, and never.

OoOoh that hurts!

The official count down is at 39 days. I am in the process of registering with the US State Department and the US consulate in Maputo at the moment. I had to do this when I went on Study abroad to Sao Paulo and again for my internship in Curitiba so it's nothing too new. Mainly the security administrator for BYU asks us to do this so if we get hurt, killed, kidnapped, etc. while abroad they know who to get a hold of, and so the US is aware of the fact that we are abroad. It sounds worse than it really is, I am not worried at all about going abroad, but to be honest anytime they make you sign your life away it is a bit disquieting.

Also the title of my blog comes from one of this things I hate most in life. Needles. I doubt there are people out there in the world who actually enjoy getting shots or having their blood drawn, and if there are, they are weird. No argument, they are just weird. Since I have gotten a lot of immunizations in the past for my other travels abroad I thought perhaps I could escape shots this time around, but it looks like I was wrong. According to the centers for disease control I am missing a few shots that I will need to get within the next week, but it isn't nearly as bad as it was when I went to Brazil the first time. That time I think it was about 3 shots in each arm. As I am writing this it makes me wonder why it is that the nurses always say, "just a little prick" or "okay, your going to feel a little pinch now" when they know full well it hurts more than "just a little pinch". Lies, lies, lies...hehehe.

And as a final note my summer situation has finally been resolved. I will get back into Salt Lake on Friday night the 20th of June, and I will enjoy a weekend off from school before I start back on Monday with summer term. I was hoping to take summer term off and just chill out, but since I have been offered a teaching position at BYU in the fall for the Portuguese dept. I have to take a teaching techniques class during the summer. In Spanish. Yes, in Spanish. hahaha...go figure. They don't offer it in Portuguese during the summer, but since I understand Spanish enough they stuck me in that class, we'll see how that goes! I'll also be finishing up some left over credits I need to do in order to officially graduate with my BA in Portuguese. So I will be in school, as always...maybe someday I will finish! The only exciting thing about staying for summer is that Camila and I will be roomies again, yay! Camila, da pra fazer bagunca de novo hehehe....viva o FLSR!

Visa Pictures and a Miracle

Here it is, the sweet photo...

Well, one of them anyway. They also had to get an official "no teeth showing" picture as well, but I thought you'd get the idea with this one! Putting the other picture on here would require a scanner and I am just too lazy to go find one simply for a blog.

My pre departure classes have been stressing me out ever since they began, both were driving me nuts, I usually do not complain about work load in school, because I know its supposed to be challenging, but this was TOO much.

So I had a dilemma, I need to take these classes as pre-departure requisites given by the Kennedy Center but I just simply couldn't find time to do the work for them. Just when I thought that I was going to die from taking these (i.e. Monday) I was seriously considering staying home because this was just too much work. Then I found that file from my previous internship yesterday and that gave me a boost of confidence, but today a miracle happened, well...it was a miracle to me.

I went to my linguistics for non-native english speakers class not having done the 3 chapters of reading, the six sets of questions, the 1 page paper, and the interview with a previous intern knowing full well this was going to hurt my grade. I was shocked to find that the teacher after talking to a few students in the class had decided to change the class from a graded 4.0 scale (giving us A's B's C's etc. depending on our work in the class) to a P/F class (we pass or fail). This means I only have to prepare one lesson plan during the block and present it during class and show up for the lectures. I no longer have to read, tutor, write papers, do journal entries, etc. for this class, I just have to show up.

Then Aaron Rose, the student internship coordinator for the Kennedy Center, showed up to the linguistics class and informed the Mozambique students that we no longer have to take the 2 hour pre-departure class on Mondays, the other one credit class that was driving me nuts. I went straight home today and withdrew from the class! I am SO much more relieved and I actually feel better than I have for a LONG time now. Prayers really are answered when you least expect it, and usually the outcome is better that you could possibly imagine. Today, needless to say turned out to be a great day!

A Look Back in Time

Here I am, a little over a year later looking at my blog from the time I spent in Brazil on my internship. Currently I am getting ready to embark on a new internship to another Portuguese speaking country. I have been looking through this blog and remembering how stressful and hard these months were for me. The newness of the culture, being far away from friends and family, and sometimes feeling as though I was not helping at all, that my service was not making a difference made the internship hard for me.

But then I was looking through my computer, sorting out documents and putting them into folders and I ran across this. Once I returned from my internship I had to go up to Salt Lake to Church Headquarters for a de-briefing of what we did on our internship. We had a power-point, our excel spreadsheets of the people we had taught and trained, and this document that I turned in to Rob and Mimi, the head directors that work directly under the presiding bishopric of the church. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was exactly what I needed to read today, it helped me remember that even though things can be hard, it is through those trials that we grown the most. Therefore, I am excited for this great growth opportunity that has been given to me, and I hope to make the best of the six weeks I will have in Mozambique.

here it is, my pick up for today:

My experince with the ERS internship.

Being an intern for Employment Resource Services has given me opportunities both spiritual and secular that I would not have found otherwise. Living in another country in a new culture helped me learn more about the world we all live in as well as myself.

I loved the opportunity I had to travel and teach while in Brazil, I got to see places I otherwise would have never gone to, meet people that I built friendships with, and create lasting memories. Teaching for me was a great learning experience of how to use teamwork both with my companion, as well as with the job seekers.

My reliance on the Holy Ghost and Heavenly Father grew daily as I sought to find ways to help those we were teaching and to find the words they needed to hear. I am so glad that this is a church based program, because I saw the difference that basis gave to both members of our church and those of other faiths. They came away from the workshop with a new outlook on their abilities and talents as well as the love Heavenly Father has for each one of them.

It was incredible to watch the self-esteem of those we were teaching grow over the course of 3 days, and how they came to truly believe in themselves. I enjoyed seeing the difference the workshop made in people, how they cleaned up their appearance, cut their hair, shaved, and wore their best to the interviews. You could tell that they did this out of respect to themselves, that they had regained a self respect that had been lost while being unemployed; they felt like they held a place in society again.

If anyone wanted to do something to serve others while gaining more experience and learn about their own abilities, I would recommend doing this internship. It literally changed my life and perspective on countless things. I could write them out for hours, but instead I will say this. I know that the service I gave while in Brazil made a difference in the lives of over 150 people and their families; and I am both humbled and grateful for the opportunity I had to go do this work for a semester. I know that this service is small in comparison with the problems and challenges of the whole world, but I now realize the blessings I have been given in my life, and how I can use them to help others both on a large or small scale.

Thank you to the employment services department of the church and for all the good that you are doing across the globe. I truly now have a, “welfare heart” as Mimi wanted us to gain back in September. I truly believe that this is the most meaningful thing I have done in my life thus far and I thank you for this opportunity.

"One Foggy Day, In Londontown..."-Frank Sinatra

I booked my flight reservations today at the BYU travel office, I am excited to go, but dreading all the work I have to do in preparation! The best part of this multiple day trip to Mozambique is my lay-over. Yes you heard me right, I am excited for my lay-over.

That is because it is in London! I will have about 12 hours on my hands in the beautiful city of London, the UK is a new place for me, I didn't have the chance to visit it while I was in Europe last summer, So I am excited about going and seeing some "touristy" sites while I await my flight to South Africa. Any suggestions on what to go see/visit/do while I am there?

The itinerary itself is CRAZY to say the least, I will be leaving about two days after my commencement, on April 27th....I will finally get to Mozambique two days later on the 29th. I am taking any and all suggestions on what I should do while stuck on a plane or in an airport for those days, someone already suggested sudoku, and another person suggested books....I personally want to bring a coloring book just to keep the person next to me guessing if I am sane or not. I think it would be great to see a 22 year old coloring a Disney coloring book, don't you?

My pre-departure classes have also begun, one for linguistics and ESL/EFL, and another for the internship itself. Both classes are asking a lot of work, so these next few weeks are going to be intense! Well anyway, there's the update on my trip to Africa!