November 14,2012

Today was the day we found out where we will be spending the next two years of our lives. It was a HUB day so we were all together as a family. The country director, Carl, passed back personality test results and the people in charge, thankfully, cut down on some of the scheduled activities because they knew we wouldn’t be able to concentrate. 

Finally, we all walked outside to an open area where Peace Corps had drawn a map of Mozambique on the ground. We were all handed an envelope and were forced to wait until everyone had theirs before we could open ours. After that, we went to go stand next to where our province is. I found out that I am going to… Cabo Delgado! I was pretty excited because this whole time, especially after site visits, I’ve felt drawn to the north. I think it was because I had been in the south for so long and wanted to see another part of the country. It was also my one request I wrote down on the survey Peace Corps asked us to fill out and I really appreciated that they respected my wishes. 

Getting excited to open our envelopes!

The new Cabo Delgado volunteers! From left to right: Anna, Eryn, Marin, Elizabeth, Vikram, me, Will, Rafael. 

I will be teaching biology in a small rural site called Mariri and living with another volunteer, Elizabeth (Liz), who will be teaching chemistry. We are the first volunteers at the site so there wasn’t much information for us. All we know is that there is no electricity and it will be a bit difficult to get food. We’re both pretty excited about the site though because it’s very rural and we hope that means it will be easier to integrate into our sites.

I was more nervous than I realized after I found out where my new home will be. Peace Corps fed us cake and soda as a celebration but my head was reeling and I was a bit jittery. The physical map on the group was a pretty good indication of how far apart we will be from one another and I believe I made a lot of great friends during the past few weeks that I want to keep. Most of us went to Javier’s after our celebration just to let off steam and come to grips with our new reality. An eventful day, to say the least, but I am still really looking forward to what the future holds for me. Cabo Delgado, here I come :)