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!