Week 3 of training done!

Hi all! Week three of training is done, and at this point I think we are all really looking forward to the end of it. My self and a few of my American friends have escaped into Maputo again for the day. It is not that I am not having a good time here. I am really glad that I am doing this. The thing is training is really tough. I am trying to get used to all the cultural differences (very difficult), and I am living with a family, which would be difficult even in the US, and finally the language is really a tough barrier at this point. Every minute of every day I have to be up and alert and trying to understand what is being said around me or why people are acting in certain ways, or trying to make lesson plans for my english teacher training. It is a lot. Next Saturday we get to leave for site visits and we are all really looking forward to it. I am not sure where I am going, but they send all of us out to stay with current volunteers for 5 days. We get to see what there site is like, hang out with them, go into their classrooms to see what it is like to teach. It should be really great!
My birthday this past week was great. Thank you for all the emails and even phone calls! I am sorry if I have not written back yet. I usually only get in to use the internet for an hour so I can´t always write as much as I want. On top of writing emails I like to try and figure out what is going on in the world. I am very cut off from any sort of news. The news I see is in Portuguese and usually about Africa. Anyways, for my birthday some of the other trainees made me a birthday cake and they all made cards for me. It was really nice. Everyone tried really hard to make sure I had a great day. Then my family threw me a birthday party. They made a ton of food and had me invite over a few of my friends. They gave me this funny little plastic bear with a rose that is in a plastic case... I am not allowed to take it out. It was really thoughtul of them and they put a lot of time and effort into it. I was blown away.
I didn´t bring my camera to post pictures into the city. I am nervous about bringing valuables into Maputo so the pictures are going to have to wait. I will see if I can post them from Namaacha. I have discovered internet there, although I have had difficulty posting any blog entries from there. The computers are much slower and do not always work.
So, I am going to go check the news, but thanks for all the comments and letters and emails. I really have appreciated it. It feels really good to hear from people and it makes me feel less far away from home. Being away and in this situation has kind of been an emotional roller coaster for all of us. We have really good days and kind of bad days. Any uplifting emails always help!
I miss everyone and I will try to post pictures soon. Take care and send any news my way!