I'm Here! (In Mocambique, that is)

Well here are the promised pics from London....

this first one is when we were landing right on the outskirts of the city. I loved seeing the homes all squished up against each other, it reminded me of when we were in Germany last summer. It was so nice to see green London after so many months of either white or brown Provo!

Then we hopped on the tube and headed down the Picardilly Line to the walking tour of London and here are our pics!


Walking through Hyde Park...

This was so touristy, I just had to do it...

I am in love with the buildings in London, they all really were this beautiful!

Me in front of Westminster Abby.

Big Ben!



Me will all the essentials of London tourism (minus the London Bridge) behind me. What a beautiful city!



Waiting for the tube in Heathrow Aiport..
and got in just fine. We flew right down the middle of the continent, but it was completely dark the whole time so I didn't see much. After our 6 hour layover in the SA airport and some much needed rest we got on our 1 hour flight into Maputo. The mission van was there to pick us up and took us out to ADPP which is the non-profit we are working for. Everyone is really nice and happy to have us there, and we are all excied!
The girls in the mission van on our way to ADPP

All five of us girls are together in the same room, it is made to sleep 9 people, so its roomy for just us girls. The coumpound is well, its kinda like camping. The showers are 5 in one room, comunial....hmm.. and the toilets do not flush, you have to bring a bucket of water in with you to the bathroom and pour it down the toilet after. We also cannot leave our tolet paper in the bathroom, each of us has our own rolls that stay in our rooms with us.

After we figured all that out we got a tour of the property, which is huge! While we were walking through a field going to the house where we will have our clothes washed and our meals made for us the director turned around and asked if we had brought flashlights with us. All of us responded yes. She said "oh good because since its been hot this year we have lots of snakes in the fields." Then one girl asked "well, how big are they?" She replied "oh some are small, others are quite large, but all of them are poisonous so make sure to be careful, we don't want any more bites this year" any more? okay...welcome to Africa.


Me at the entrance to the domitories and one of the 5 different schools.

Today we got up after a very odd night of all of us walking up around 3 am thinking it was time to get up oops...jet lag! Then we went and met of our respective bosses, I will be teaching at the high school as an English teacher, yay! I am excited to
start on Friday, tomorrow is a federal holiday, we will be celebrating by going to the beach:)Coming into the middle of the city was interesting too. We came in this afternoon to buy our bus tickets for our trip to the safari and to go to Swaziland, and use the internet. We rode in the back of some andom guys truck, which was much better than riding the cramped vans that should seat 8 which relly have 30 people inside...haha reminds me of the kombi's in mexico city!

So far things are good, and time is up, so until next time!!

London is my new "favourite"

So this will be quick, because I'm paying an arm and a leg to use the internet for ten minutes, and this is eaiser than emailing everyone to let you know I have made it through the first half of my trip okay.

We got into London this morning around 9 am and after a little mishap and a very angry british lady yelling at me at customs we were on the tube going to Picadilly Circus, which is near all the super touristy sites to see. We saw big ben, the london bridge, westminster abby, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the british parlament, and lots of other cool things. We ate lunch at an authentic italian place, and I loved our waitress, mainly because she was itailian and kept saying things like "yes, you want more water yes bella?" she was great. Then we walked around the city some more and then made the trek via the tube back to heathrow, where I am sitting writing this.

Our flight is delayed to South Africa two hours later than it was scheduled for, so I figured I would get on and write a little about my adventures today. I LOVED London, and there was so much more I wanted to do and see. I will for sure have to come back here to England again, I love the way the people here talk, they are all friendly (except the customs agent...she is oficially mean), the food is good, and every where you look there is some old gorgeous building, it is super. Plus hearing all the different words like "posh" instead of cool, "lift" instead of elevator, etc. is fun too.

Well, I am going to go try and find a cheap dinner some where in this airport, which I think is impossible. BTW, Heathrow is huge, and when I say huge I mean gigantic! But it is all really nice, new, and it has amazing stores to window shop. Needless to say I'm not too bummed about our delay, it just gives me an excuse to go explore some more. I will hopefully post pictures later when I am not being charged 2 dollars for 10 minutes of internet time. HA! Now you all know how fast I can type and think. More to come, hopefully next time from Mozambique!

1 backpack. 1 suitcase. 4 flights. Tomorrow I leave!

Yes, it's true. I am leaving tomorrow for my internship! So here is the update:

Monday: Called and made my dentist and doctors appointments before leaving. Still didn't have my passport and I got a call from the BYU international internship coordinator basically asking me what is the last possible day they could get my visa and passport back to me. I didn't take that as a good sign. Also, I turned in my senior research thesis on..(drum roll please) "The Impact of the American Revolution and United States Political Documents on the Inconfidencia Mineira." Believe me, it was almost thirty pages of pure excitement and joy, as all scholarly writing is.

Tuesday: Studied and took my Portuguese Literature final, which felt soo good to get out of the way because it was my last final!! Then I went home and started packing up my stuff. I came to the conclusion that I have WAY too much stuff, and that will be remedied when I get back from Mozambique. Packing for Mozambique was hard simply because usually its humid and hot, but when we go on safari it is supposed to be very very cold, so I had to pack for both kinds of weather....And also there was still no sign of our visas and passports.

Wednesday: Went and got my last immunization from the doctor, it was for Hepatitis A and in celebration of getting my last immunization the nurse gave me what I swear was a "saved by the bell" edition band-aid. It was awesome! Then I went and packed some more, and finally went to get my passport from the Kennedy Center at BYU, after what literally was a miracle, they arrived at the internship coordinators house at midnight Tuesday night. Little miracles after many prayers!

Thursday: Packing, cleaning and more packing. I was trying to get everything done and with the help of my kind parents I was able to steal away and get a dress for graduation an hour before it started! I went to the graduation for all of BYU and sat with two good friends who were also graduating, Camila (Tobias, not Nagata) and Oli. It was so nice to sit with friends and not complete strangers! Then I went home, changed out of my nice clothes and scrubbed the shower. Oh cleaning checks, how I loathe you! We finally finished moving my sister and I out and packing up our stuff and our suitcases, my sister is leaving for Spring/summer to Germany...Hill you should get a blog too!! We got out of there around 1a.m. and to our hotel in salt lake around two, we were tired to say the least!

Friday: I got up at 5:30 am. Yes, that was 3 and a half hours of sleep, and got ready for my graduation for my specific college. We left for Provo around 6:30 and I got there just in time for the procession into the ceremony.I got my picture with the chair of the portuguese dept. and it was a good feeling to walk across that stage! The speakers were good, and it was a really nice program, I just wish there weren't so many people in my college. I think there were around 1,500 people graduating...needless to say it took a while to read all those names! After taking pictures with family and friends we went home, and I forgot a change of clothes, so I wore my dress until my mom kindly bought me a new outfit and shoes so I wouldn't die from blisters and uncomfortableness. I paid bills, answered emails, made last minute work changes, joked around with my family, went shopping, and did other fun things...it was a good and busy day.

Saturday: Hm...today I said goodbye to my parents, they drove with Hilary back to California this morning, she is flying out of San Francsico International so they hit the road today. I will miss not being able to call them at the drop of a pin when I have a cooking question for my mom, or a computer question for my dad, or if I just have a few spare minutes and want to chat. They are the best and I am so thankful for their support and for them letting me go on this trip, thank you! So, after I said goodbye I went shopping with my sister in law, Kimberlee and Tisha my sister. I got the last bit of the random things I need for my trip, and we also went to lunch together. Then I came down to Provo and did random things as always with Camila and went to dinner with her, I am surrounded by good friends and family and I am so grateful for that :)

So tomorrow brings my BIG trip to a start. I leave Utah around noon, and fly into the massive and confusing airport that is Dallas/Ft. Worth. After a little layover I will fly for 10-11 hours to Heathrow airport in London, and then 12 hours later I'll take another long flight to South Africa, and then finally I will fly to Maputo, Mozambique. All this traveling is going to take me 2 days, I wont get to Mozambique until Tuesday and I leave tomorrow, which is Sunday. I have my trusty iPod, and two books one is Mothers of the Prophets and the other is Twilight which I have heard good and bad things about. I'll let you know what I think.

Anyway, that was my week. It was long, the nights were late, I did have a lot to do, and I was stressed for the better part of it, but it was also a great week. I had some memorable milestones like graduating from college! I am excited to leave tomorrow and I know that it will be a wonderful experince. Next time you read anything on here it will be from me typing away in a little internet cafe somewhere in Mozambique, I will try and get some pictures up too, but no promises yet! Stay tuned...

Hmmm....cade meu passaporte?? Alguem tem visto meu passaporte?

For some reason everytime I need a visa to visit a country it seems that the passport never comes back until days before my trip. Example, leaving for my internship in Brazil my passport came back from the Brazilian embassy two days before I was supposed to fly to Brazil. TWO days before, I was the only one that didn't have there's and Ron, Mimi, and Tim were all sweating bullets thinking it wasn't going to get back in time....I was so happy when it arrived at church headquarters and Mimi handed me my passport and brazilian visa, it was like Christmas!

Now that I'm going to Mozambique I needed to send in my passport to the consulate through BYU to get a visa for my internship. I turned it in....and it's still not back. I am leaving a week from tomorrow, and last I heard all of our passports are sitting in the embassy in Washington D.C. Strangly enough, I'm not too worried about it. Maybe I'm to chill about this whole not having my passport and me leaving next Sunday thing, but I seriously believe it will get here in time. I just know it will....but cross your fingers for me just in case!

So this week is going to be officially CRAZY because there is so much to do before I leave! I will thankfully be done with Finals on Monday, so that leaves my Tuesday and Wednesday to pack up my stuff and put it in storage, go to the dentist, get my other immunizations, pack my luggage for Mozambique, and do little insignifigant yet important things like update my iPod before leaving. I am for sure one of those people that needs their iPod chalked full of good music for traveling. I still remember being salvaged from boredom on the road between Rio and Sao Paulo by Daniel Beddingfield's Girlfriend and Craig David's You don't miss the water (till the well runs dry) and during the long bus rides during my internship John Mayer's album Continuum was my best friend. Of course my Brian Regan comedy kept me company for the quiet hours of driving through the Alps of Austria last summer, also Juanes and Julieta Venegas played throughout my 30 hour road trip through Mexico last june. Sting's Fields of Gold is a classic in my travling repertoire, I can listen to that over and over while I am half sleeping half awake on the plane. The iPod needs a serious overhaul of new music for my time I will be spending on the plane and in Africa. Thank you Apple, you keep me sane! Any music sugesstions? I am open to any and all, as long as there good...and Tisha, if you reccomend Herb Halpert and the Tiajuana Brass I will no longer consider you my sister hahaha...no seriously.

So yeah, thus far no passport, and lots of things to do. I can already tell this week will be one of late nights and exaustion...but strangely enough I'm looking forward to it:)

Little Adventures

I am gone in 2 weeks, or 14 days. Either way you look at it, it's the same amount of time. I finally found out a little bit more about where we are going to be teaching, but I still don't know what I will be teaching. I am going to be teaching in a high school, which is a crazy concept to me. Not because I feel unprepared or incapable, I feel like I will be able to offer a lot of knowledge actually. I just think it is interesting that I am going to have my very own class of high school students for 6 weeks in Africa. If someone would have told me that a year ago I would have laughed at them. I hadn't planned on ever going to Africa anytime soon, but when the offer came up it felt right, I guess it still seems a little sureal.

The idea of having a classroom full of kids is somewhat mind boggling for me. I guess that is because I never planned on being a teacher, yet I keep being given oppertunities to teach. My internship for the church was based on teaching, mostly every calling I have been given thus far has been teaching, I going to be teaching during this internship in the Spring, I will be taking a class over Summer on teaching foreign languages, and I will be student faculty for the Portuguese department at BYU starting next year teaching Portuguese 101 and 102. I never considered myself a stellar teacher, yet I keep finding myself in these situations where I am teaching. I guess it is good practice and I have learned SO much already through the experinces I have been given. I love teaching, I just never saw myself as a teacher before.

I also have been contemplating what to do while in London. As my trip is getting closer I have been looking for things to do during my 12 hour layover in the city. So far some suggestions have been:

1.Westminster Abby
2.The British Museum
3.See a musical
4.Go shopping at Harrods
5.Watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

I just want to have fun and go explore London a bit. I say carpe diem and that I would probably regret it if I just stayed in the airport the whole time. So if anyone has any other London ideas let me know!

I am really excited to go, and I know that this trip is going to be a great experince for me. It can't get here soon enough. I love traveling, I like the feeling of being in the airports, that feeling you get when your waiting for a flight to some place far away, its like a little adventure for me. I like the unknown of what will happen, and I am looking forward to the getting there part almost as much as the internship itself.

Mefloquine=Trippy Dreams

As many of you probably know when traveling abroad in certain parts of the world you have to take medicine for malaria. When I was in Brazil I didn't take it even though I was supposed to, because I didn't think I would get sick with it, and never heard of anyone who did where I was staying. But Mozambique is a different story, I guess. From what I was told during our meeting last Monday LOTS of people get sick with Malaria while in Mozambique, and also Dengue Fever. Personally, I don't enjoy the idea of getting either of these diseases so I will be taking my Malaria pills starting next week, because they need to be started 6-10 days prior to leaving.

So my choices are Doxycycline which you take once a day, or Mefloquine which you take once every week. The once a week one sounded perfect for me, since I forget to take medicine pretty easily. Then I heard about the side effects and did some serious reconsidering. The first medicine makes you queasy and you sunburn easily, and the second has some crazy side effects. The CDC website said that disturbing and vivid dreams as well as hallucinations are common side effects of Mefloquine. So I did some research and read through some peoples experinces while on this medicine, and the dreams were CRAZY!

Some people talked about getting followed by rabid lizards (can lizards get rabies?) others said they watched people on Mefloquine get up at night and chase non-existant tarantulas around their tents with shoes while screaming. Still others said they remember hearing angry dogs growling at them during the night only to wake up from a nap during the middle of the day. There were countless more of people accidentally killing loved ones, dreams in crazy colors, people being chased by zombies, and so forth. Then I found out that the medicine can stay in your system for a few weeks after you stop taking it, so that would mean I would be up at night having psycho dreams while in school during summer term. I would hate to have that happen, I think I would go crazy.

After reading that I decided to go with Doxycycline, I have taken it before when I went to Brazil (that was when I first got there, before I decided I didn't need to take it) and I would much rather prefer a little sunburn and feeling queasy now and again over crazy dreams where I am dying, or even worse hallucinating during the day. Just imagine me doing something like that in front of my class, chasing a non existant spider or something hahaha....funny, but at the same time not funny. Who's to say that I wouldn't have these side effects, but I don't want to take the risk of getting Mefloquine, arriving in Africa, having crazy dreams, and have no way of getting a different medicine. No thanks, I'll just bring my sunblock with me.

The count is now down to 19 days. I still have to do finals, Pack up my stuff and move it into storage, basically move out I guess, find housing for fall semester, get my malaria meds, finish grading a mountain of papers and tests for work (I'm a teaching assistant for a history professor), graduate, and then fly out two days later. I'm at that point where I have so much to do I don't know where to start, but there is also that part of me whispering "you'll get everything done, you always do" and it's true. This time last year I was finishing up 26 credit hours. Yes, twenty six credit hours. I had 14 credits of regular classes at BYU plus 12 credits of independent study. My old roomie Becca can attest to that, those were late nights, I wrote a total of 40-50 pages of work on her laptop for the independent study classes while studying for finals in the normal classes and I did get everything done. So this semester should be a breeze, I just need to keep it in perspective! Anyway I guess what I'm saying is the clock seems to be ticking faster, and I am working slower, hopefully I'll pick up the pace soon:) Wish me luck!

What are we doing in Mozambique?

Today for those of you who don't know is an exciting day for members of the LDS church, also known as "the Mormons". We have General Conference, which is a set of 5 meetings spread out over today and tomorrow. In these meetings we hear guidance, counsel, and direction from leaders that come from many different countries, cultures, and customs. All these different speakers focus on how we can better our lives, live a life that is happier, focus on our families, service, Christ, and becomeing the best people we can be. I look forward to these meetings because I always walk away from them feeling edified, uplifted, and encouraged to become better and do better.

During the break between these two meetings I was watching the Church's World Report, that gives updates and news about how people are being helped and taught the message of the restored gospel throughout the world. Since I am going to Mozambique, I became intersted when they showed a story about the LDS church teaming up with the American Red Cross in Africa to help erradiate Measles. This got me thinking, what is it that our church is doing right now in Mozambique? Well after a few minutes of reasearch I found a few answers.

The church is working to erradicate Measles, they also are donating wheelchairs to disabled people who cannot afford to buy a wheelchair. Also clean drinking water is a problem, and the church has been helping to get clean, affordable water to those in Mozambique. Doctors that are affiliated with the church also go to Mozambique to help give vision treatment. In addition to this the members of the church in Maputo, Mozambique also have a strong desire to help each other, from the words of a missionary who served in the Maputo Mozambique Mission, we can see the help that is being given and recieved among the members of the church. The church does this to simply help those that cannot help themselves, because that is what Christ would do if he were here. I am so blessed to be a part of this church, and it makes me happy to see people not only in Mozambique but throughout the world recieve help and assistance from the church, both those who are members of our faith and those who are not.

I am so grateful to be going and adding to this service by having the oppertunity to work through BYU, a school that is owned and run by the LDS church, as an intern for a non-governmental organization. I am looking forward to all the experinces that will be happening in my life in a little over three weeks from now. I am constantly grateful for BYU trusting us to go as ambassadors of sorts not only of the Portuguese Department and the University, but also as examples of the church and our beliefs. This is not new to me, I remember this responsibility very well while I was working for the Church Humanitarian and Employment department, and I am excited to get out there and increase BYU's and the church's visability and presence in Africa. I know I won't be making any profound difference, but I am glad to have the chance to at least make one, however small it may be:)