A cheerful and frosted hello to everyone.

You may be reading this thinking to yourself, frosted, no way. Surely she must be using her extreme wit and excellent comedic timing to put a smile on my face. Oh no. If only I was. The past, say, twenty hours have been cold cold cold. It certainly doesn't help that I have only my Chacos to keep my toes toasty warm, but in general my entire body has been cold. So there you go. It's like a little slice of Michigan. But on to more positive things from the week.

This week was Mozambican Election Week Extravaganza!!! Which, for me, means that Wednesday people were up very early to see me running, and that my little siblings didn't have school. And one thing I learned on Wednesday, which was Election Day, is that 13 year olds the world over like to listen to bad rap music way too loud on bad speakers. In my little sister Samia's case, it is poor quality Portuguese rap music from the family TV. At seven in the morning. Which was enjoyable, until I had to sit next to the TV for my morning Riccoffy (Thank you Nestle for that freshly percolated “taste”). Just another learning experience. Election week also meant that I got to see a little slice of how elections take place here in Mozambique. Which is as follows:

People go to election stations and they receive a regular sized piece of printer paper. This is their ballot, and for the presidential ballot there are three pictures (color and nicely sized and detailed) of the three candidates, with their party logo, and their names. Just mark and X next to the best looking man, or party logo, or the person you find most qualified and fold the paper. Deposit said paper in, what seemed to me, an unsecured plastic box (but that may be different as I'm only going by what I saw on the nightly news). Then, for counting, one person takes out the ballot, says the name of the elected candidate, hands it to another person to display to the room, and then sets it in a pile on the floor. So that, I think, is why results won't be out until next week.

So that was that. And officials from the UN came to ensure a fair election, and so far the country has been calm, so here's to hoping I'll be staying for the next two years. If not, get ready mom and dad because back we'll come.

Election Week meant one more thing for me: PERMACULTURE! What is that, you may be asking. Well, let me tell you. When you cross permanent and agriculture you get the beauty of the Permaculture garden. Which is a beautiful thing, when it isn't put together over two days in the rain and fifty degree weather. But the Peace Corps very nicely shipped in a Permaculture expert for us and we got a two day workshop on how, essentially, to put together very efficient gardens for ourselves and our communities when we get to site. I learned about plant spacing, companion plants (maize and pumpkin, which will make next year's thanksgiving awesome), and controlling water. I'm excited to have my own garden, but it's also a lot about educating people on how to gain food security with the greatest efficiency and lowest energy output. It was great, and kept all of us PCT's in an old colonial compound for two days which, we found, is heavily guarded by about 15 mean sounding dogs from 9:00 pm on.

So now I'm off to watch my first movie on my fun little netbook, technology permiting. Well, it's going to be The Tudors, actually. And if anyone can figure out how I'm going to keep up with The Office, 30 Rock, and Top Chef please let me know.

So I take my leave with this wise, Mozambican proverb:
Each animal with their own fur.