PST Week 9: Waterfall, Ngoma time, Tests, 4th Practicum visit, and Homestay Celebration

This week was our last full week of training before we swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers!! Time has gone by really fast. It was hard to pay attention in sessions this week because we are tired  of classes and all we can think about is getting to site haha

Waterfall 7/28:

We went to the cascata for Brianna's birthday. It was beautiful and relaxing. We had our mini picnic at the bottom of the waterfall to just talk and relax.

Ngoma time 7/31:

We finally had our 2nd Ngoma time since it kept being canceled. 2 girls wrote a song about our malaria pill, 'Blame it on the Larium', and it was really good. 3 other persons sang songs. Our language professors did a skit impersonating us during language lessons. It was hilarious because everything was so true. Then at the end, Edmund and I decided last minute to do our self defense skit so we quickly reviewed it since we haven't practiced it for weeks and wasn't planning to do it.

Tests 8/1:

We had our final LPI and Round Robin tests this week. For LPI, I wasn't too nervous before starting but once the recorder was on and he asked me the first question, I started to have a bad feeling about it because my first response was "Desculpa, pode repetir?" [Sorry, can you repeat?] I had to ask that several times throughout the conversation. I was also asked how my martial arts is different from other martial arts in which I responded with "Desculpa, eu não quero falar sobre artes marciais porque eu não sei muito vocabulário por artes marciais" [Sorry, I don't want to talk about martial arts because I don't know a lot of vocabulary for martial arts] I left the oral test with a bad feeling but I ended up doing better than I thought! Yay!! I passed :) I'm at intermediate high level for Portuguese now. So happy!

For our Round Robin test, we have to blindy pick 1 scenario and 2-3 questions to do for each sections. I think I got lucky because all the number I picked ended up being pretty easy.

4th Practicum visit 8/2: 

We talked to Irmã Maria José about the organization and learned so much about their history and programs. Afterward, we worked together to write a report and prepare a speech about the organization.

Homestay Celebration 8/3:

We had a Festa das Familia party to thank our home stay families and our practicum organizations. Julia and I gave our speech about our practicum.. in Portuguese! It was hard even though we had the paper in front of us. Only a few days left with my host family.. I am going to cry on Tuesday when I leave my host family. I know it already :( 

The maes started cooking at 5:30am to prepare for lunch

There were a lot of dancing afterward :)

I'm going to miss her so much!

Other highlights/things I've learned:

-We made flower hair clip out of our capulana scraps for swearing in ceremony :)

- I got more information about my house!! I am so excited. and so happy to have electricity! I didn't expect to have such a big house all to myself either. I found out that there's 2 water pumps near my house: 3 min and 5min walk. I'll have to see how long I can keep up getting my own water before I hire someone to get water for me.. haha